The Bloody Sanctity

I enter temples during menstruation! Oh My God! Finally I have gathered courage to say it openly. And they ask, why were the women silent so long who are now coming out with their #metoo stories?

When your each step of courage is judged as a rebellion, when you are considered unprofessional for questioning the power centres, when majority of people around you believe in “silence is the best strategy”, when you following the age old traditions is way too easier and convenient for everyone around you, it takes time for the courage to reach your bones and compel you to bear it no more.

Where is the connection between temple entry during menstruation and “me too” movement?

When we as women are collectively fighting at different levels for temple entry, I wonder, are we the new untouchables who need emancipation? A woman belonging to any caste is untouchable in certain matters. Any woman of a menstruation age could not perform Pooja at my home when I was a young girl. Either the men in the house or my grandmother or we kids had to do that in the order suggested here. As time passed, men got busy, grandma became too old and we were no more just kids, so the time demanded some change in the values, customs and traditions of our home. Women of menstruation age started doing Pooja but only when they were not menstruating.

The stigma attached to menstruation was introduced to me as a child through stories. When I first got my periods, I was hiding myself from the men in the house. I was told that they will become dogs in their next life if they saw me during those days of my first periods. Of course, I was horrified. I really loved my grandfather, father and brother and didn’t want them to be dogs in their next life. So I obeyed. The seclusion was still unbearable to a small girl. Though I could not voice it,I knew something was terribly wrong in the whole arrangement. After introduction to all this shame attached to the periods, there was a ceremony to announce my periods to the close relatives. I enjoyed the gifts and new dresses I received but nothing else. I just wished to disappear or run away from everything. The strange ways of elders confused the child about whether to hide the shame or celebrate it.

By the time I started preparing for civil services, I had developed a strong sense of right and wrong for myself. Of course, even then I was not allowed to touch the temple at home during menstruation but I didn’t care. But when we visited our kuldevi temple in Rajasthan and when my periods were not a secret to my family members who were with me, i had to finally face the issue and decide my course of action. I decided to enter the temple and do the Pooja. It was the first time I had visited our kuldevi and I rationalised that it is the mother goddess and she will understand and would definitely love meeting her daughter in any form whatsoever than worrying about non issues like periods. My family, including all women were disturbed to the core. Their belief about women during menstruation being impure was so strong that they tried to dissuade me, saying I will fail civil services examinations if I entered the temple during menstruation. I entered and yes..I cleared the exams the same year.

Changing the mindset of people including women in every home is a bigger challenge than temple entry in Sabarimala or shani shinganapur, though both are equally important in our fight for equality. Why differentiate between a woman before menstruation age, during menstruation age and after menstruation age? Why not just see her as a whole, complete human being?

Why should a society as a whole worry about a woman’s periods? It’s a woman’s personal business. But woman’s business has never been just a woman’s business. Women have been honour or shame for men and families. Women have been properties of men for centuries. It’s high time we demand our individuality, free ourselves from the clutches of narrow mindedness of laws, traditions and people. Our identity as human beings is the most important identity. We need to make our men understand that we are independent. Please do not attach your ego and honour to us. We are more than your daughters, sisters, wives and mothers. We are human beings demanding equal rights. Equal rights at home and equal rights in social and political space. We own our bodies and we are proud of it. We need freedom to deny a religion if it does not respect what we are.

The same society which had section 497 in IPC till recently, thinks of women as men’s property. That society is the reminiscent of the society which thought of women as permanent children who did not know what was right or wrong for them.  Only a man could take legal action for adultery and even then his wife was treated as a victim who was lured into it because it was presumed that the wife could not understand the repercussions of her actions. Here husband was considered to be the owner of the body of his wife. The violation was treated as the violation of the private property of the man. A wife could not take the same legal course under section 497 against her cheating husband and the another woman involved. Yes..because the another woman, being a woman was incapable of understanding the repercussions of her actions and the husband, being a man was an independent entity. He was of course not the property of his wife. Thankfully Supreme Court of India has done away with such discriminatory section of the IPC.

Laws can be changed and judgements can be pronounced very quickly. They work like beacons to keep us in right directions. But it takes a long time to change the minds of people. When centuries have taught you to treat women as your properties, your possessions, your honour, your ego, you tend to forget their individuality at home and at workplace. You have never learnt to think of women as separate from and more than their vaginas. You feel entitled to their bodies every time they are around you. You tend to associate her success and her failure with her gender.It is no wonder, men feel entitled to the bodies of women. We as a society have never taught our children to keep the respect for bodies of women in their mind before, during and after the intercourse. We talk of sex in hushed voices. Sex is a taboo subject. Sex is treated as a ritual for procreation.

Our religion and culture has taught us to treat a woman as a goddess and a mother. We have no education in how to treat a woman as a companion, as a colleague and as a separate individual. Consequently, women are disrespected in everyday life. They are violated and raped and are largely equally unsafe at homes and in public places. The degree of mental and physical violation at workplace may change for every woman based on her financial status, her rank in the hierarchy, her outspokenness and her ability to create some damage and based on the level of real education of her family members in her personal life but every woman has to fight for her equal rights every moment. It is a breathtakingly tiring struggle. But it’s a struggle worth living and dying for. It concerns our identity. It concerns our self respect. We, all women and also men who believe in justice, who believe in the free spirit of every person, who believe in the dignity of individual as the highest value, need to stand with every courageous voice who says me too.

The modern times when a new glass ceiling is being broken everyday, more and more women are entering the workplace, we need to reevaluate our value systems. We need to create women friendly environment. As an IPS officer, I have done horse riding during menstruation. I did not mention my menstruation while doing so lest I should be perceived as unprofessional. If I can overcome the physical and mental barriers relating to my menstruation, why can’t the society overcome the mental barriers it has created for us in our path towards equality. When it comes to our contribution to our country, our organisations, our companies, we deliver. We take our jobs seriously. But We have to work more to get equal appreciation. We have to remain serious to be taken seriously. Only getting work done is not enough. We have to put on a face which means business. We do not crack jokes with our juniors just to sound professional.There are many such subtle challenges we face everyday everywhere.

We are there in every home but we are still not respected. We are the second sex. We are also in the loved ones of the people who discriminate, who violate, who Rape but we have not been able to stop it because we do not speak up. We do not raise our voices.

Probably We will never go to Sabarimala temple in our lifetimes but we need the right to enter nevertheless because we assert our right as equal human beings. Probably We would have never needed a section like 497 to prosecute our dear husbands for adultery but we need the equal right to prosecute nevertheless because we assert our right as equal human beings. And Probably many of us would never say me too but we need a positive atmosphere of trust to say so when needed nevertheless because we assert our right as equal human beings.

Shobha Bhutada IPS
21st October,2018.
Patan.

P.S
. - While writing the above blog I thought finally I had gathered courage to say some uneasy things but that was not true. It took me almost 10 days after penning this down to finally publish this. When the fight for equality of women will be discussed in India in future, I do not want to be counted in the silent spectators, and so here it is..