Modern-day menstruation — a study of myths and manipulations

As an individual and a part of society we are surrounded by different values, beliefs, norms, regulations, restrictions etc. Sometimes these belief systems and restrictions are so harsh on us that we start to feel disgusted and ashamed of our own self, majorly due to our body.

The same is seen with a girl when she goes through her first period. In most of the cases girls don’t understand what has happened to them when they get their first period. Many think it to be some life threatening disease, later they understand that it is not that severe. But eventually by bleeding every month it becomes evident for a woman how society makes a simple biological phenomenon a severe one.

All these experiences make the one going through them numb from inside. The numbness is not due to the bodily fluid. But it is more due to the various cultural aspects that start to circulate around the girl going through her period. Suddenly it starts to become clear for a girl why her mother isolates herself from her normal everyday routine for five days every month. The deeper the understanding the darker the world starts to feel.

Menstruation has always been subject to taboo in society. People avoided talking about it. What worsens it even more is the different myths and a black plastic wrapper surrounding it. Society fails to understand that though the girl has matured physically into a woman but mentally she is still a girl, trying to understand why she is being treated like a social outcast.

In circumstances like this problem is definitely not associated with the girl who has started to bleed, but the problem lies in the society itself, that makes a normal biological phenomenon in a girl’s life a shameful issue. But with the changing times the perspective towards menstruation is changing. In order to understand this change of perspective we will have to delve deeper into the culturally rooted ideologies that have been blindly followed for years