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In many parts of India, parents have a menstruation ceremony to announce a girl's fertility. But the practice is not exactly period-positive.
In many parts of India, parents have a menstruation ceremony to announce a girl’s fertility. But the practice is not exactly period-positive.
I was 13 when I got my first period. Since talking about periods is blasphemy, my mother never prepared me for it. When ‘it’ finally happened, I was shocked and curious. But instead of answering my questions, I was told that there will be a menstruation ceremony to celebrate the ‘milestone’.
Before I could understand what was happening to me, my parents started inviting relatives and friends to a menstruation ceremony. The interesting thing about the menstruation ceremony was that nobody used the words ‘period’ or ‘menstruation’. Instead, people had a code word: Everybody said I was now ‘mature’.
I was decorated from head to toe with ornaments like a bride. Men and women would bless me and I had to look happy throughout the ceremony.
This might sound like a period-positive party but I felt ashamed. I was also confused because of the contradictory messages given by my parents and the society. On one hand, my mother would talk about pads and menstrual blood in hushed tones but on the other hand, my fertility was celebrated publicly. I had to hide pads and period stains but my extended family and friends had to know that I had started menstruating. While my puberty was celebrated, I was forbidden from touching any idols of Gods and Goddesses or entering the puja room.
Nobody asked me if I wanted to be a part of the event but they told me that I was now a ‘grown up’. Is my menstruation cycle a private thing? Or is it a public thing?
It is only now that I realize that the foundation of the ceremony was patriarchal. The event was not to celebrate periods but to tell the world that I can ‘produce’ babies. It was also a signal that my parents, my relatives and the society had a right over my body and its processes. I was ‘mature’ but the decisions about the milestones in my life and whether or not I should be celebrating them were still taken by my parents.
Society wanted me to believe that my worth as a woman is dependent on motherhood and it was preparing me for the role of the mother. I also realized that society was not exactly disgusted with the idea of me having periods (the celebration was the proof of this).
The stigma around menstruation is, in fact, a strategy to shame women. Society is okay with men urinating in open but only when it comes to menstrual blood does society starts worrying about ‘hygiene’.
The ceremony made me feel powerless and I developed a menstruation phobia. Thinking about it still gives me nightmares but thanks to numerous period-positive campaigns on social media and feminist literature, I’m trying to look at menstruation without fear and shame.
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UP Boards Topper Prachi Nigam was trolled on social media for her facial hair; our obsession with appearance is harsh on young minds.
Prachi Nigam’s photo has been doing the rounds on social media for the right reasons. Well, scratch that- I wish the above statement were true. This 15-year-old girl should ideally be revelling in her spectacular achievement of scoring a whopping 98.05% and topping her tenth-grade boards. But oddly enough, along with her marks, it’s something else that garners more attention – her facial hair.
While the trolls are driving themselves giddy by mocking this girl who hasn’t even completed her school yet, the ones who are taking her side are going one step ahead – they are sharing her photoshopped pictures, sans the facial hair, looking nothing less than a celebrity with captions saying – “Prachi Nigam, ten years later”.
Doctors have already diagnosed her with PCOD in their comments, based on photographic evidence. While we have names for people shamed for their weight – body shaming, for their skin colour- racism, for their age- age shaming, for being a female- sexism, this category of shaming where one faces criticism for their appearance has no name. With that, it also has zero shame attached to it.
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