Menstrual is a creative video that highlights the discrimination of menstruation that girls face at home and at work
Menstrual is a creative video that highlights the discrimination of menstruation that girls face at home and at work
We are in 2022 but the stigma of menstruation still runs deep. Shame and secrecy surround conversations about periods—a normal biological process for half of the world’s population that lives with the idea that talking about it is indecent.
Bangalore based BundiA hybrid social enterprise, claimed to be the first prevalence data report on menstrual discrimination in the country, in its effort to raise awareness about practices that restrict and hinder menstruating people from participating in activities of daily living. is based on experience.
During the two years after the pandemic, the BOND volunteers reached out to nearly 2,000 respondents – 65% of them between the ages of 16 and 25 and the remainder under 40 – to find out what would happen to them at home, school, or school when bleeding. And how offices change. 75% reported that they had faced some form of menstrual discrimination from the time they reached puberty.
Respondents, mostly from Delhi, Maharashtra and the north-eastern states, highlighted that their families, school teachers and office colleagues were often not guilty of enabling menstrual discrimination. Based on the data, the team released a video this Sunday menstruation will be menstruation, For a nuanced understanding of the complexity of the myths surrounding menstruation in India, the lasting mental and physical health effects period shame.
Menstruation Will Be Menstrual, YouTube Video Movie Poster by Drop | photo credit: Soma Basu
Bharathi Kannan, founder of Bund, says that the negative way menstruation is portrayed inspires an ongoing need to supplement the education of young girls and boys. The six-minute short film advances a more modest acceptance of menstruation by speaking about menstruation in a more factual manner.
It tends to attribute fatigue, pain, cramps and blood to hormonal changes rather than being shrouded in myths. The message is direct and reminds us how as a society we fail to understand a natural body process and allow menstruating women to enter kitchens, worship rooms and temples or participate in social gatherings and in some cases. I even stop touching each other.
The film mentions that menstruation is a challenging experience which is not limited to cisgender women only. Transmasculine and non-binary individuals also menstruate and have different relationships with their menstrual experience. But society calls everyone dirty, impure, impure and irreplaceable.
BOND has also developed a legal literacy toolkit of menstrual rights, based on what is already enshrined within the Constitution of India and other legislative instruments. It has also published an info-comic which helps an adolescent to understand the changes taking place in the body.
“We need menstrual equality to progress as individuals,” says Bharti, who designed and led the #StopPeriodPenalty campaign. “What are your rights as a citizen when you are discriminated against because you are menstruating, which we want to understand,” she adds.
(The movie is streaming on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puiPSjNR4ds)