How will you stop taboos on periods in the society?
Answers
Explanation:
A few years ago, our theatre troupe, Aatish, had gone to the Central Himalayan region of Uttarakhand, in the Almora region, with our plays on resisting menstrual taboos and pre- and post-natal care for women. Before we booked our tickets, there was a big debate in our team on whether the men in our troupe should go along with us. Would it make it awkward for the women in the audience to interact with us if there were men on the stage too? Would they even come to watch?
We finally decided that patriarchal rules were set up by men and at times implemented by women. So both men and women needed to be part of the discussion. If a man wondered about why his menstruating daughter is not sleeping in a hut outside, he needed to know that it was her right to be as safe and comfortable as the rest of her family. If medicines or nutritious food had to be bought for pregnant or lactating mothers, men needed to know why it was crucial to budget for it.
When we went up on stage on performance day, some of our apprehensions and nervousness still remained. With our usual enthusiasm, glitches and improvisation, we concluded our plays and waited with bated breath for the audience’s response. The turnout had been promising. But we still bit our nails fretting: would the audience find it worthwhile to come for our upcoming performances in the area or would they reject our choice of subject and actors for discussing what many consider “women’s issues”, or, “ladies problems”?
After a kind applause, an old woman got up to say, “All right, we need to maintain hygiene during menstruation. But living here in the mountains, we face water scarcity. Can something be done about that?” Another man her age shared how his pregnant daughter-in-law was forced to carry water as her spouse worked in the city and the father-in-law was too old to do it himself. We encountered more openness in talking about women’s health here than we sometimes find in urban settings.