Recently twitter saw an
ugly spat between actrtess Ameesha Patel and actor Kushal tondon . recalling what happened would not be pleasant, but still for
the sake of readers, let's run through what happened. The duo had separately
gone to watch a movie in a theater hall in Juhu when Tandon found that Ameesha
was not standing up for the national anthem and was fiddling with her phone.
Tandon approached her (not figuring who she was in the dark) and asked her to respect the national anthem. The rest is history with Ameesha getting back with abusive statements on Twitter, calling him 'asshole' and 'jackass' and explaining her 'girly problem at that time of the month'
ameesha patel
I waited for the film to start so
I cud address my GirLY problem in the bathroom. Didn't know that kushal wud
make it a national issue
Men like him who have forced a
woman 2 speak about her intimate girly problems are jerks .. He is a shame to
society
Diyar Ameesha patel
A gold medalist in economics, a
known actress , a person who can do those raunchy, double meaning item songs
and yet you have to call the “Menstruation” a “Girly Problem”.
Let me tell you a little history. the first commercial sanitary towel, introduced in 1896 by
Johnson & Johnson, failed to sell, not because there wasn’t demand for the
product but because advertising for sanitary products was thought improper and
so no one even knew they existed.
Various
campaigns are going on, advocacy is at its peak in the world to call a
period simply a period not some girly
problem, red friend, that time of the month, an aunt visiting . Do you even
realize that this naming is bercause of shaming. Shame of accepting that you are
menstruating.
Hey Ameesha,
why don’t you bring out a biology book and read about it. And by educated ,
elite women like you failing to call it by its name you are pushing back the
whole movement of breaking taboos around periods.
It’s ironic
that so much embarrassment, awkwardness, and shame surround a natural bodily function experienced by half the population at some point in their
lives.
The negative
consequences of ‘the menstrual taboo’ are felt not just by individuals but by
communities and economies as a whole. Over half of girls in East Africa miss
important schooling during menstruation because they can’t access pads or the
information they need about their own bodies and a recent study in Bangladesh
found that 73 per cent of female factory workers were missing 6 days of work a
month during menstruation.
And yes its
not the problem of our culture to be specific. When you call it “Girly Problem”
, you add the embarrassment to the long list of cultural-specific
“sequestration rituals, around menstruating women. In Italy, women aren’t meant
to make pasta sauce if they’re at that time of the month. In Nepal, women have
to sleep in a cattle shed overnight and they aren’t allowed to cook when
they’re on their period, so for four days a month the man will take over the
cooking. “Until very recently in the UK people believed that dough wouldn’t
rise if a woman tried to make bread while menstruating.
Breaking the
taboo around menstruation is much more than speaking out. Its biological, its
normal and it is associated with Menstrual hygiene it is an opportunity for the
global community to say to disadvantaged girls and young women, ‘You Matter.
Period.
So next time
do not use the world “Girly Problem”……..Period.
With Love
