“We don’t talk about it at all !” The taboo of menstruation in rural Maharashtra

Priyanka, 13 and a chirpy adolescent girl studying in a government school in a village called ‘Rohini Gaun’ 25 kms from Wardha in Maharashtra blushes and says, "We don’t talk about it at all!". That is how deep seated the taboo around menstruation is in rural India and our society as a whole, where mothers do not discuss it with their daughters or even among themselves. It is something to be 'hidden' from each other and the men folk of the household as if it never happened!  Priyanka gushes and says, "I got my menses when I turned thirteen few months ago and till that very time, I had no information about what menstrual cycle is." She says her mother told her nothing to prepare her for the change in her physiology and her life in general. "Menstruation onset turned my life upside down in more ways than one," Priyanka says regretfully, as if she felt she had been better off before it began.

In rural India as a whole, menstruation is a taboo writ with stigma not permitting discussion or even information seeking. Because of the shame and superstitions associated with this monthly biological occurrence, these women are impacted by poor menstrual hygiene. On an average a woman has 3000 days of menstruation in her lifetime, which begins from 8-16 years and ends in her late forties or early fifties, with very real and practical needs like material for absorption of menstrual blood, facilities for proper disposal of used materials with privacy and dignity.

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