28 November 2013, 12:10 PM IST
Its winter now in Sherwood Forest and my hippie cool goes into deep freeze as the days get forbiddingly dark and cold. Paeans to nudity are forgotten as I bundle the family into seven layers of woollies each. And the very thought of skinny dipping makes me shudder, much like some of you, but not, sadly, from a need for decorum.
This morning I am cosying up to a cup of cocoa while flicking through the tales of human perfidy that flood my newsfeed. There are Tejpals, Talwars and other terrors. But a different set of Tees are on my mind today. I'm thinking taboos, towels and tension. My women readers have cottoned on already and liberal and assertive though they are, they are cringing inwardly, thinking, should we even go there? Yes, yes we should. It's time. It's time to breach that last barrier. It's that time of the month. Cold, wet and squelchy outside…and in.
My male readers, in the meantime, are switching off in droves. Ugh, not an article about "women's troubles", they mutter. But wait. We're in this together, right? You've been ever so good. I've told you off for leching, lying, wanking and lording it over us. You've not only laughed with me, you've come back for more. You've been absolute dears. We've exchanged (views on) every other bodily fluid. And now there will be blood.
T is also for toilet. World Toilet Day came and went without much more than a few scatological jokes cracked in its honour. Yet it wasn't just about poo, it highlighted another evil, deep-rooted in society and heart breaking in the damage it does. "One in three women worldwide," said the Toilet People, "risk shame, disease, harassment and even attack because they have nowhere safe to change and clean themselves when menstruating. In many countries girls have no option but to stay home."
This followed a news item from Nepal that had already made me see…er… red: "Hindu leaders ban menstruating women from school". Female teachers and students stayed away from their classes during their periods afraid that refusing would lead to reprisals including the expulsion of whole families from the village. Sound familiar? In many Indian towns and villages, menstruating women aren't allowed to cook, serve food or enter places of worship for fear of "contamination". Usually segregated, they are made to sleep apart from the family, in places as filthy as cowsheds, at a time when hygiene is most important for their reproductive and even general health. These strictures affect schoolgirls worst of all. Most schools in our country have filthy toilets, and in the villages, often none at all. Concentrating on lessons is nearly impossible for a young girl getting to grips with this new and difficult bodily process, when she has nowhere to change or dispose of sanitary napkins or towels. As society does all it can to make it impossible for them to continue their education, 23% of them end up leaving school for a menial job or an arranged marriage.
And that's when it stops being a "women's issue" (if it ever was). When women are denied education because they are menstruating, in other words just being women, the whole world suffers with them, whether they realise it or not, because educated women are healthier, have smaller families, earn more; positively impacting on development. So prosperity or moneeee, that word even the most ignorant bigot understands, bypasses them because they won't treat vulnerable little girls just blossoming into womanhood with a bit of consideration, a touch of dignity, a smidgeon of sympathy when they are doing the most natural thing in the world – bleeding - so the human race can carry on.
Upper class girls may be spared some of the physical privations but they still have to act like they are harbouring a dirty secret. They believe it IS a dirty secret because of the euphemisms, the enforced silence and the "must shield the menfolk" mantra that surrounds it. Call it Omerta, you wouldn't be far wrong.
But why is this subject taboo? Why can't I casually drop it into conversations even though I can discuss disease (and this is not a disease), even the most gruesome amongst them, in great detail? Why does that not scandalise when the very mention of an everyday, natural, completely harmless (to you) process shock and horrify?
Even in the liberal West, this subject remains off-limits. You might mention it to a close female friend when explaining your mood or the extra trips to the loo that day, but that too would have to be accompanied by some coy beating about the bush (not a double entendre, not today, Mate). Hannah Betts in The Telegraph says it doesn't matter where in the world you live, "Menstruation constitutes the great, shared silence at the heart of female existence". She goes on to say, "I've been bleeding for 30-plus years, with a variety of ever-evolving symptoms from passing out via great tranches of pain to glassy, lobotomised exhaustion. Yet I am not supposed to talk about it. It's a vast part of my life, and the lives of those around me that society expects to go entirely unspoken."
Not much has changed since the Bible pronounced, "if her issue be blood, she shall be put apart seven days: and whosoever toucheth her shall be unclean. And everything that she lieth upon shall be unclean….." Yada, yada, yada. And it has this to say as well, "If a man shall lie with a woman having her sickness, both of them shall be cut off from their people". Oh well done - menstruation is a "sickness" and contact with it, worthy of banishment! It doesn't stop there, Miranda Farage in her book "The Vulva" (men bought this one by the bushel, I bet), states, "As bleeding is a sign of injury, our ancestors may have viewed cyclical bleeding – without dying – as a supernatural event", rendering the process incomprehensible and frightening. Contact with menstruating women had all sorts of strange effects including milk and bacon going rancid, the latter was discussed in the British Medical Journal as late as 1878. It seems too old, too ingrained and too widespread a mind-set to change but bacon I can handle. Well, actually I can't right now, it might go rancid. And why am I reminding you that it's that time for me? Because you feel uncomfortable every time I do it and I'd like you to examine why.
It's like a red rag to a bull (terrible pun but you know you deserve it). The minute I say the word you bring out that great big broom of yours (no pun there!) and sweep it under the carpet. Or you squirm in embarrassment as if I'd suggested a spot of incest. The most ignorant will tell us it's about health; that the bleeding might be catching. The more sophisticated have convinced themselves it's about propriety and privacy because women are so easily embarrassed. If they don't blush and swoon at the mere mention of menses, can they really be women? What it is, is misogyny (practised by both men and women). It's about punishing women for being women, who, just like people of different sexual orientations and colour, are a threat because they are different.
That was the wet, and now the wild. It's all part of the same myth about menstruating women being "unclean", "dangerous" and terribly, horribly mad. Of course PMT, PMS and even PMDD (Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder) are real and very debilitating. But it is rarely so out of control that a PMSing woman can be said to be dangerous or mad. In its most severe form it is believed to afflict only 8% of women. And despite the stories swapped at watering holes around the world, it seldom leads to violent attacks. Right now I'm not feeling great (yup, am waving that red rag in your face again) and my tolerance of chicanery of any kind is less than usual. But that is universal when a person is in discomfort. As Pulitzer Prize winning writer Maureen Dowd says, these stereotypical signs of PMS are just as common in men, "Women are affected by lunar tides only once a month but men have raging hormones every day, as we noticed when Dick Cheney rampaged around the globe like Godzilla." I can think of as many catty, bitchy and worse, mad, bad and dangerous men as there are women.
Probably more, after all, who starts wars? But let's be charitable, let's just say it's not the preserve of any particular gender and in its overt form, it is rarely caused by premenstrual tension.
At this time of the month, I can get awfully blue, I might shout more than usual but I am rarely ever moved to murder (don't try me though). But if I am, it will have more to do with all the rottenness in the world than my menstrual cycle. So, let's go easy on the scary apocryphal stories, eh? The misinformation is a double whammy for young women. As Farage observes, "Girls across cultures are horrified, frightened, confused and embarrassed by menarche." They have been told so little about it that many children think they are dying when it happens the first time, even those who have had a sketchy talk are shocked. If on top of this they are treated like diseased, unstable pariahs, it really is a bit much, to put it mildly (see, I can be mild at these times). Let's NOT give the women in our lives a wide berth when they are uncomfortable and unhappy, they'd much rather have a hug and a few chores done for them than be pussyfooted around as if they were The Hulk in a pretty frock.
I've said this before but it bears repeating; changing the world must start at home. Talk to your growing girl about it, all of you, menfolk included. Hold her when she's in pain, clean up after her if she's in shock and always, always tell her how normal it is, but never make light of her discomfort either.
Tell her, "We'll look after everything else, so you can just skip to the loo, my darling."
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