The fairer sex in India
We recently had a Town-hall at our company. Each dept told about what was their plans were to improve our workplace. Like the food dept talked about setting up a snack bar, transport was coming up with a new tool, etc.
One of the speakers was a lady from the facilities dept. I guess she was in her late 40’s / 50’s. She talking about setting up a sanitary pad vending machine in the ladies toilet. The first word she said when she spoke about this was SORRY. She said sorry I have to bring it up(something like that, not the exact words) and continued on about the machine plan.
This is definitely not an issue to be sorry about. You may question if this machine is needed, but there is nothing to be sorry about. I am not picking this lady out but i a am trying to make a larger issue. Most women feel ashamed in India to talk about women’s problem in public.
Go to a medical shop in India and ask for sanitary pads more often than not he will wrap it up in paper or give it in a black plastic. Women in villages still don't use these. I am reminded of the story of Arunachalam Muruganantham who developed the low cost sanitary pad maker in India. He decided to solve his wife’s problem by building a low cost sanitary pad for her. One of his hurdles was that his wife thought he was insane.
The first step to coming up with a solution to any problem is to agree there is a problem. And the problem here is that, “Women think it’s not ok to discuss this freely”. In my professional career I have worked with several people of the opposite gender. I have even lead teams where sizable portion of the team was females. Quiet a few of them periodically take leaves or leave early. But no women in my life who has left early for the day from work has said I am leaving early coz it’s that time of the month. The excuse is always something else.
How will you know that you are not supposed to take a u-turn here unless there is a big clear board/road-sign? Same is the case here. Unless women enlighten us men about their problem we rational, liberal men will never get it. Discussing openly will ease your problems to quiet an extend. There will still be men (and women) who will still take the u-turn even after seeing the no u-turn sign. The only thing that works for these people is strict policing.
Start by being open about these stuff. Discuss freely with people of all gender men, women, lgbt and kids. Society will be a better place that way. Education is key to changing attitudes to menstruation and in order to do this we need to engage not just the women but our men and boys.
