Discussing menstruation has always been a difficult topic with children. Society stops you from talking about it in the open. This menstruation talk taboo is something which is very common in society. Even writing about it as I’m doing is considered to be embarrassing. Many societies consider menstruation to be unclean or embarrassing, inhibiting even the talk of it in public or private.
What can’t be understood is why people make such a fuss about the issue. It is a biological occurence that women don’t have any control over. Why is it considered to be weird if one asks why it happens or what happens?
If a girl gets food poisoning or cancer, the only talk is that about the disease but if you are on your “period”, it is usually not spoken so openly about.
Why? What is the big deal in asking your daughter, sister, wife or friend, if they are in pain or if they are feeling okay? For example, a girl enters the phase where she discovers something different in her body, asks her dad about it but the dad simply blushes and tells her to go talk to her mother about it.
It isn’t even a scientific taboo; it is just a social taboo. In certain societies the women of the family are not allowed to enter their kitchen during those days.
Not only that but few religions don’t permit women to worship or go to temples as they are considered ‘impure’. If women stopped having such cycles, future generations would not exist. Girls are told not to talk about their normal bodily functions with men. This taboo should be stopped due to the fact that it is a natural phenomenon, which happens to every girl.
- Reader is a pupil of a Dubai school
