The inconvenient truth of sanitary pad disposal

It is not a very rare sight to witness something like this – you walk on the roads and you spot several used sanitary napkins scattered all around. The immediate reaction we tend to have is one of disgust and anger. On the other hand, this anger extends to embarrassment when we are accompanied by a male partner.

The problem of properly disposing sanitary napkins has always been present because of the taboos and the myths attached to women’s menstrual cycles.  I remember when I initially started menstruating; I used to flush the pad down the commode because the thought of taking out my used sanitary napkins from the washroom in front of the male members of my house was quite a shameful affair, one I didn’t fancy going through. It was only after my mother forbade me from doing so that I stopped flushing it down and as a matter of fact, I purposely decided to mentally shut myself out from the fact that my uncouth behaviour adversely affected the drainage system.

What followed next was that I was asked by my mother to properly wrap the used napkins in a black plastic bag, tie it up tightly and then discard them in the trash bin near the flat we lived in. This practice continued for several years until I was in college till one fine day when the trash bin was removed by the local municipal body. The reason, I later found out, was that the stray dogs used to dig into the trash, pull out the used sanitary napkins among other garbage items and resultantly scatter the entire area with debris.

Nowadays, discarding my sanitary napkins is much easier a task as all I am required to do when I am on my monthly cycle is to wake up early and give it to the garbage collector who comes to our house every morning. At least now I know that my used pads will not be the cause of a stench in public spaces or be the cause of embarrassment for someone else on the road.

Our lives are not restricted to our homes as our workplaces are very important since we spend a significant amount of time there. Many offices do not keep any emergency sanitary napkins or immediate pain relief medicines for their female employees. My ten-year old office which I joined a few months ago does not even have a trash bin inside the bathroom for women to dispose their sanitary napkins into. I am currently the only female employee left in the organisation and only I know how I manage those four days of the month. Every time I change my pad, I go out of the office to discard it at the local dustbin nearby.

Realising that if I alone am facing so many problems, I dread to imagine how others are dealing with it. While conversing with the lady in my beauty parlour upon the topic of menstruation, I realised that we are all collectively trapped in this cycle of shame, taboo and myth when it comes to periods. She discards her used sanitary napkins by throwing it out of the window into the local drain. “We have a small bin in our parlour bathroom, but I don’t throw my used pads there. It is very embarrassing because there are other male members also using the same washroom, “she confessed to me. My attempt on trying to educate her was futile because she is also engulfed in the same level of shame just like I was, thirteen years ago.

It is not that I don’t have the courage to go and speak to my boss and fight for my right, funny as it may sound, for my right to have a dustbin inside the washroom.  It might sound too petty even, but my seemingly ‘small’ right will mean the proper disposal of sanitary napkins without affecting the health of a female employee and ensuring her hygiene. My right also stands for not affecting the environment and not polluting surrounding areas. Last and most certainly not the least, my right stands for respecting every woman, her body and most importantly, her menstrual cycle.

The blog was first published here:- The inconvenient truth of sanitary pad disposal

Picture courtesy- www.menstrupedia.com

A silent hope…

I remember the day when this political party came to power; I heaved a sigh of great relief not because of the similarities in our political ideologies but because like the others, even I desired to witness some change or ‘poriborton’ in the real sense.

However as the days passed, I gradually realized what this poriborton was, and how and why people of the other states actually get a reason to make fun of us. Be it the buffoonery, mudslinging and all the other idiosyncrasies of our politicians, the dismal job prospects or talk about the lack of security given to women, we are always the butt of jokes.

I am writing this not out of sheer frustration looking at the state of affairs, I am writing it because I am sad and I seriously wish my city really stood for the name ‘City of Joy’.   

I have been born and brought up in Calcutta and yes this is the place where I have actually transformed from a young girl to a woman. So this place has not only given shape to my body, but also to my beliefs.

As a student, I have never felt my city to be this unsafe as it is today, yes of course there has always been some weird uncle ogling at me, or a brat trying to elbow me in a crowded bus or someone pinching my bottom. But I guess all of us have been ingrained in such a way to believe that these unwanted freebies will always be there because you are a 'GIRL'.
Being a girl, I am always expected to stay prim and proper, and for e.g. even if my bra strap gets visible or if I am wearing something body hugging, then some guy can get aroused which actually makes this otherwise godly person to behave in this wild way.  I know, I am digressing from the subject, but is it possible to separate the two,-safety of women and the dominance of the prevalent patriarchy in our society? 

Hope the level of  harassment could have been restricted to the above mentioned bars. As with every passing day, various new forms of perversion are being invented, applied and experimented on women. 

Today morning, my parents had a very serious discussion with me about their concern that I am returning home late (which is 10 PM) every day because of my office. I couldn't understand why all of a sudden this curfew was being set for me that I need to leave office by 6:30 PM.  I got agitated, lest realizing the reason for their berserk behaviour. It’s only when I glanced at today’s paper that things fell into place.  

Today I feel crippled in my city, because I can’t do things which my heart desires for, I can’t wear clothes which I want to wear, because there will be someone salivating mere looking at my breasts, I can’t write or speak freely, because I can be termed as a Maoist. I can’t use the social networking sites or share or tag my friends there, because there is someone for whom tracking my social activity is more grave an issue than tracking or trying to curb the crime on women.

Yes I am sad, in my own city, the city where I was born 26 years back, the city where I have spent the best days of my life, the city which has moulded me and is responsible for who I am today.

Dear Calcutta, we are all waiting to breathe that fresh bout of air if not today, but tomorrow for sure. 

MALE or FE-MALE

Words like patriarchy and feminism always stirs up some weird emotions inside me which automatically activates my fighting cells. (if there are any)

My morning today started with a very healthy discussion with a friend of mine on these issues. What overwhelmed me in this conversation was his sensitiveness towards this subject, him acknowledging the stinginess of all ‘our’ mindset which is so hell bent on patriarchy and him even admonishing me for accepting all the injustices around us so easily.  It was a discussion which I wanted to continue, but time was the major constraint so we decided to carry on the conversation some other day.

The second half of this discussion with some other person happened some time later. It was just after lunch and me savoring the delicious mushroom and sausage curry, I overheard a conversation which irritated me to great extent.

I was near the wash basin, when the person next in line who is our office boy Mr. X came to wash his Tiffin box. This person has recently tied the knot and it is not even 15 days that he is a married man.  Every day he had been complaining of only one thing- “My wife can’t even cook properly; she is either sleeping or watching TV all day long”.  Mr. X was cleaning his Tiffin Box when the next guy in the queue comments in Hindi “Have you lost it, why are you cleaning your Tiffin box- have you forgotten that now you are a married man and you have wife at home?”

Failing to curb my annoyance over hearing such a statement, I ask him to repeat again. He gladly grins and tries to modify his statement “You are getting me all wrong, what I meant was why you wasting your time washing your Tiffin box, when your wife as she is a house wife can do it. In this way, the others in the queue won’t have to wait so much for their turn”.

I smiled and pitied his up-bringing and ignorance level and after some fracas decided to give up.

As I found, the deeper I dug, the murkier it got. I just told him one thing that today I understood why derogatorily the area from where you hail is referred as ‘cow belt’.  He was least bothered with the discussion and in fact again started reiterating the fact that what else a housewife is supposed to do.

So today, I actually had an interaction with two different types of ‘Male’, one who wants to merge two different identities, by adding two extra alphabets to himself- FE-MALE, while the other can be rightfully termed as a chauvinist as he wants to prioritize himself by retaining just the word ‘MALE’.