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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Oscars 2019: The Indian sanitary pad makers going to LA

7 replies

OtepotiLilliane42 · 24/02/2019 02:11

This article caught my eye on BBC News online, and I thought it worth posting on Mumsnet as an addition to all the interesting articles on periods that have been on here recently. It's about women working together in practical ways, and how actions can change attitudes towards menstruation for the better.

Though it does make me despair that attitudes still have to be changed in the 21st century, but at least from the evidence in this item change is possible with lots of hard work from - again - women.

Sneh was 15 when she started menstruating. The first time she bled, she had no idea what was happening to her.

"I was very scared. I thought I was sick with something very serious and began crying," she told me when I visited her home in Kathikhera village not far from Delhi earlier this week.

"I didn't have the courage to tell my mother so I confided in my aunt. She said: 'You're a grown woman now, don't cry, it's normal.' It was her who told my mother."

Sneh, now 22, has travelled a long way from that point. She works in a small factory in her village that makes sanitary pads and is the protagonist of Period. End of Sentence., a documentary that has been nominated for an Oscar. She will be attending Sunday's ceremony in Los Angeles.

www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-47307335

OP posts:
Illyria47 · 24/02/2019 03:24

I read the thread Transgender woman thanks nothing but hormones etc' before going onto this rather marvellous story. It is uplifting because once again women have had the courage to work against the prevailing cultural attitudes and achieve something which benefit all the women in their community. I commend the father who is proud of his daughter for the work she is doing and would like to smack hard the husband who makes his wife do all the house work before she goes to work making the sanitary pads and wishes her to stop. It is also depressing because the means by which babies are born, the whole reproductive cycle including menstruation is not celebrated. Why should women be shunned or made to live in the animal sheds when they bleed?
The contrast between the two stories could not be greater. One is about a rather self-absorbed person, the other about the real difficulties women and girls still face in this world.

ALittleBitofVitriol · 24/02/2019 07:38

Thanks for posting this!

Lettera · 24/02/2019 09:32

Women are just bloody wonderful, aren't they? Thanks for posting, Otepot. Will watch this on Netflix.

CallMeWoman · 24/02/2019 10:50

Amazing, I'll definitely look this up.

Illyria47 · 25/02/2019 04:12

This documentary has won an Oscar. For best short documentary. So glad for those women. Huge congratulations to them.

OtepotiLilliane42 · 25/02/2019 04:28

Well done! Congratulations to everybody involved. And Yah Boo Sucks to the judge who refused to vote for the film because the subject was too icky. I know that's being childish but so was the judge's response to the mundane reality of menstruation.

m.dailyhunt.in/news/india/english/ed+times-epaper-edtimes/periods+are+icky+oscar+judge+who+refused+to+vote+for+indian+film+based+on+menstruation-newsid-109613581

OP posts:
Illyria47 · 25/02/2019 06:23

If the Judge who thinks menstruation is icky is married and has a daughter I feel sorry for the females in his life.
Men, if it doesn't affect them, it's not important. I would love to know his name, I would be sending a scorching -mail to him and any other men who feel the same.

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