Even Today, Menstruation Shrouded In Shame, Secrecy
July 23, 2018 at 1:35 p.m.
By Max [email protected]
A recent example occurred in western Nepal, where women are banished from their homes every month during their menstrual period. The women are considered polluted, even toxic, and an oppressive regime has evolved around this natural bodily function.
The women must sleep in huts for an entire week, and are not allowed to cook. They often sit by themselves and wait for family members to feed them. The huts are as tiny as a closet, with walls made of mud or rock.
Earlier this year one woman died from smoke inhalation as she tried to keep warm by a small fire in the bitter Himalayan winter. At least one woman or girl dies each year in these huts, either from exposure, smoke inhalation or attacks by animals.
This banishment of women is called chhaupadi, from the Himalayan word that means someone who bears an impurity, and it has been going on for hundreds of years. Fortunately, the government and advocates for women are trying to end this bizarre practice. It may be difficult, however, because many people in western Nepal have been taught that any contact with menstruating women will bring bad luck. The isolation practice is thought to protect the purity of the community.
Although the strange custom in Nepal is uncommon, menstruation has long been a taboo and the topic often misunderstood. The belief that menstrual blood is toxic persisted well into the 20th century. Menstruation has been used as an excuse to exclude women from different types of institutions. Earlier that century menstruating women were not allowed to enter churches around the world, wineries in Germany or opium laboratories in Vietnam.
Even today women may be reluctant to discuss the natural body function of menstruation. The process occurs once a month, when the lining of the uterus, acting on signals from estrogen and progesterone hormones, thickens with spongy, blood-filled nutrients. If the woman has had sex and an egg and a sperm join, this uterine lining (endometrium) will be used to sustain the developing embryo. If fertilization doesn’t take place, the egg travels down the fallopian tube, through the uterus, past the cervix and out the vagina. Approximately 12 days later, when the levels of estrogen and progesterone have dropped and the uterus has gotten the message that no pregnancy has occurred, the uterine lining — blood and mucus — simply flows out. Each period consists of 4 to 6 tablespoons of blood.
Menstruation is limited to higher female primates, some species of bats and the elephant shrew. In humans, it occurs once a month for about 40 years.
According to Karen Houppert in her book “The Curse,” "Before the age of scientific knowledge, myths provided explanations for why young girls and women bled from their vaginas on a monthly basis." Though these stories portrayed menstruation as a powerful process, ancient people also perceived it as a marker of women's inferiority and that vaginal bleeding was the sacred remains of an unborn child. Thus it was condemned as evil and dangerous.
Even today, advertisers and manufacturers tiptoe around the actual words, vaginal bleeding or menstruation. Commercial menstrual products are commonly referred to as feminine “protection”; but this begs the question, protection against what?
A journey through the coded history of sanitary protection makes for a fascinating crash course in American sexuality — and its repression. Shame and secrecy are the primary message. Disposable pads owe their origin to nurses who first thought of holding the flow of blood with available wood pulp bandages used in hospitals. These bandages were made by Kimberly Clark for American soldiers. Nurses in France during World War I used them as menstrual pads because of their absorbency and cost. Manufacturers of bandages borrowed the idea and produced pads made from handy products inexpensive enough to be disposable.
The first of the disposable pads was in the form of cotton, wool or similar fibrous material covered with an absorbent liner. The liner ends were extended front and back to fit through loops in a special girdle or belt worn beneath undergarments. Kotex, first called Cellucotton and Cellu-naps, was marketed around 1920. The pads weren't accepted until about 1926, when Montgomery Ward advertised the product in its catalogue.
Although available, disposable pads were often too expensive for many women to afford. It took several years for such pads to become commonplace.
Elissa Stein, in her book “Flow,” comments how menstruation remains a complex event, and that strangely, doctors and scientists have yet to fully understand it or what exactly it does.
Max Sherman is a medical writer and pharmacist retired from the medical device industry. He has taught college courses on regulatory and compliance issues at Ivy Tech, Grace College and Butler University. Sherman has an unquenchable thirst for knowledge on all levels. Eclectic Science, the title of his column, will touch on famed doctors and scientists, human senses, aging, various diseases, and little-known facts about many species, including their contributions to scientific research. He can be reached by email at [email protected].
A recent example occurred in western Nepal, where women are banished from their homes every month during their menstrual period. The women are considered polluted, even toxic, and an oppressive regime has evolved around this natural bodily function.
The women must sleep in huts for an entire week, and are not allowed to cook. They often sit by themselves and wait for family members to feed them. The huts are as tiny as a closet, with walls made of mud or rock.
Earlier this year one woman died from smoke inhalation as she tried to keep warm by a small fire in the bitter Himalayan winter. At least one woman or girl dies each year in these huts, either from exposure, smoke inhalation or attacks by animals.
This banishment of women is called chhaupadi, from the Himalayan word that means someone who bears an impurity, and it has been going on for hundreds of years. Fortunately, the government and advocates for women are trying to end this bizarre practice. It may be difficult, however, because many people in western Nepal have been taught that any contact with menstruating women will bring bad luck. The isolation practice is thought to protect the purity of the community.
Although the strange custom in Nepal is uncommon, menstruation has long been a taboo and the topic often misunderstood. The belief that menstrual blood is toxic persisted well into the 20th century. Menstruation has been used as an excuse to exclude women from different types of institutions. Earlier that century menstruating women were not allowed to enter churches around the world, wineries in Germany or opium laboratories in Vietnam.
Even today women may be reluctant to discuss the natural body function of menstruation. The process occurs once a month, when the lining of the uterus, acting on signals from estrogen and progesterone hormones, thickens with spongy, blood-filled nutrients. If the woman has had sex and an egg and a sperm join, this uterine lining (endometrium) will be used to sustain the developing embryo. If fertilization doesn’t take place, the egg travels down the fallopian tube, through the uterus, past the cervix and out the vagina. Approximately 12 days later, when the levels of estrogen and progesterone have dropped and the uterus has gotten the message that no pregnancy has occurred, the uterine lining — blood and mucus — simply flows out. Each period consists of 4 to 6 tablespoons of blood.
Menstruation is limited to higher female primates, some species of bats and the elephant shrew. In humans, it occurs once a month for about 40 years.
According to Karen Houppert in her book “The Curse,” "Before the age of scientific knowledge, myths provided explanations for why young girls and women bled from their vaginas on a monthly basis." Though these stories portrayed menstruation as a powerful process, ancient people also perceived it as a marker of women's inferiority and that vaginal bleeding was the sacred remains of an unborn child. Thus it was condemned as evil and dangerous.
Even today, advertisers and manufacturers tiptoe around the actual words, vaginal bleeding or menstruation. Commercial menstrual products are commonly referred to as feminine “protection”; but this begs the question, protection against what?
A journey through the coded history of sanitary protection makes for a fascinating crash course in American sexuality — and its repression. Shame and secrecy are the primary message. Disposable pads owe their origin to nurses who first thought of holding the flow of blood with available wood pulp bandages used in hospitals. These bandages were made by Kimberly Clark for American soldiers. Nurses in France during World War I used them as menstrual pads because of their absorbency and cost. Manufacturers of bandages borrowed the idea and produced pads made from handy products inexpensive enough to be disposable.
The first of the disposable pads was in the form of cotton, wool or similar fibrous material covered with an absorbent liner. The liner ends were extended front and back to fit through loops in a special girdle or belt worn beneath undergarments. Kotex, first called Cellucotton and Cellu-naps, was marketed around 1920. The pads weren't accepted until about 1926, when Montgomery Ward advertised the product in its catalogue.
Although available, disposable pads were often too expensive for many women to afford. It took several years for such pads to become commonplace.
Elissa Stein, in her book “Flow,” comments how menstruation remains a complex event, and that strangely, doctors and scientists have yet to fully understand it or what exactly it does.
Max Sherman is a medical writer and pharmacist retired from the medical device industry. He has taught college courses on regulatory and compliance issues at Ivy Tech, Grace College and Butler University. Sherman has an unquenchable thirst for knowledge on all levels. Eclectic Science, the title of his column, will touch on famed doctors and scientists, human senses, aging, various diseases, and little-known facts about many species, including their contributions to scientific research. He can be reached by email at [email protected].
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