"My country's problem with menstruation" (Anisha Bhavnani)

[Exhibit A]

Excerpt:

"In my friend's family, when women have their period, they don't enter the kitchen. They're not allowed to cook. I know a family who doesn't allow their maid to enter their house when it's her time of the month. Recently, my aunt wanted me to attend a neighbor's pooja -- a type of Hindu prayer ritual -- but the instant I told her I had my period, she asked me not to come. She told me that it's disrespectful. I was shocked.

"I hate this belief. I hate that women mindlessly follow it and men advocate it. Women are considered sick, impure and even untouchable when they're having their period. So, God obviously hates me when I'm on my period because I can't hang out with him in a temple. Food hates me, too, because I can't enter the kitchen to spread butter on bread. I guess some people also hate me, because I can't enter their house.

"Women of India: The next time someone asks you not to go to temple or cook pasta when your red friend is visiting, ask them to take a hike. Ask them why they believe in such archaic customs."

Complete article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/06/living/india-menstruation-irpt/index.html

[BlueJazz]

1. You women take that period stuff quite well though. If it were we men that had to put up with it..

....there'd be moaning and pissing and we'd be like a pack of rabid hogs every month.

I got to hand it to yea...you don't complain much ...

[Exhibit A]

2. Menstruating is not for wimps!

I once had a weird conversation with my father about it. I had said something to the effect that I felt sorry for men for having to shave every day, and he said he preferred that to "that stuff," waving one hand toward a package of feminine hygiene products in my shopping cart. I would honestly rather bleed for one week a month than have to shave every day. I've never minded my periods too much, really, but I'm just about to that age where I'm ready for them to stop any time now.

[elleng]

3. Similar rules in Orthodox Judiasm:

Chapter 15 of Leviticus serves as the basis for the Jewish menstrual laws. The Hebrew term used for menstruation in Leviticus 15:19, 20, 24, and 33 is niddatah, which has as its root ndh, a word meaning “separation,” usually as a result of impurity. It is connected to the root ndd, meaning “to make distant.” This primary meaning of the root was extended in the biblical corpus to include concepts of sin and impurity. The Aramaic Bible translations (Onkelos [second century c.e.], Pseudo-Jonathan and Neofiti) translate these verses with the root rhq, “in her separation/distance,” some adding “of her impurity.” Both roots reflect the physical separation of women during menstruation (or abnormal uterine bleeding or the seven or fourteen days immediately postpartum) from physical contact or from certain activities in which they would normally engage at other times. In other parts of the Bible, the term niddah was transferred to include abominable acts, objects (Ezekiel 7:19–20) or status, especially sexual sins (Leviticus 20:21) and idolatry. The use of the term niddah to describe the impurity of the land due to sin is found in Lamentations 1:8 and Ezra 9:11 and as an antonym of holiness in 2 Chronicles 29:5. These usages of the term may have influenced subsequent reactions to the state of menstruation. The term niddah was transformed into a metaphorical expression for sin and impurity in general. These meanings added to the original sense of distancing or separation, creating a new semantic range which influenced the legal and emotional understanding of niddah over the course of generations.

http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/female-purity-niddah

[Exhibit A]

6. Very similar.

I've always wondered how the cooking gets done in a household when the wife is menstruating and can't do it. Even if there are other women of childbearing age in the house, women who live together may begin to menstruate in synch, so they'd all be prohibited from doing it. Maybe that's why multigenerational households have been so common around the world -- they need at least one woman who can cook while the other(s) is(are) menstruating.

[SheilaT]

4. What I find especially offensive about such practices is

that to maintain them all the women have to be willing to let everyone know exactly when they are having their period. At the risk of sounding like a prude, it's really not anyone's business when that is happening.

[Exhibit A]

5. Yes.

Another example of women's bodies being "public property" instead of their own private concern.

[Ilsa]

7. I was watching a recent movie about

a Jewish family that had gone to a Jewish summer camp in upstate New York. When the teenage daughter got her first period there, it was announced with congratulations over the public address speakers. Of course she was embarassed.

[shenmue]

8. Good Lord

I would have slapped people.

[PassingFair]

9. My daughter did a student exchange in India...

On her first full day there her host sister took her around to some local
points of interest.

She was asked if she was on her period, and she told the host sister that
she wasn't.

However, half way through the day, she started....she didn't want have to
go home so she didn't tell anyone.

Later she texted me that she had only been in India for one day and had
accidentally desecrated a temple!

She was better off than another girl who was sent to live in a more rural area...
she was made to sit on a plastic chair when she was on her period.