The Menstrual Etiquette in LR Nagar: A Sociological learning or

deconstructing taboos
Menstruation is a globally shared experience among all women, unfortunately, it is also a
globally stigmatized issue. Different cultures all over the world have developed harmful ideas
and beliefs about menstruation. Shame aside, according to the India National Family Health
Survey, more than 40% of women between the ages of 15 and 24 in India have no access to
sanitary products.

This essay aims at relating the findings of a baseline survey conducted on my

Centre for Social Action is a student driven organisation that was established in 1999 in
Christ (Deemed to be University), and has been working towards promoting the value of
Social Responsibility amongst the student community. The association is strongly engaged in
addressing issues related to child rights, socio-economic development of women, youths and
farmers, livelihood, community mobilization and environment and climate change issues.

The topic for my project under CSA was menstrual hygiene. The project has started last
semester, it aimed at educating adolescent girls on menstruation. However, this semester, the
Association thought that it should be continued to benefit more people, i.e., women and men
from that area.

My service-learning project area was Vridhhi, Lakshmaiah Rao Nagar (LR Nagar). I could
notice that LR Nagar is a very religious area with prominent Christian, Hindu and Muslim
population. The houses of the area are very small and the streets are very narrow, and have
lots of animals such as dogs, cats, goats, chickens and cows living in harmony.

time I used to go there for the continuation of my field work, I would see women mostly
engaged in cooking, washing clothes or taking care of each other’s hair and male were either
involved in the construction of buildings or doing metal work. Nonetheless, I could also see
children in uniforms going or coming back from school and others, just playing in the streets.
BASELINE SURVEY AND INFERENCES FROM THE BASELINE SURVEY

In order to start educating the population of LR Nagar on the topic of menstrual hygiene, me
and my group firstly had to discuss on the questions to include in the base-line door to door
survey. Since there are around 200 households in that area, we thought that that we should at
least cover 100 houses to get a significant representation of the population.

The questionnaire included the following questions: Do you know what menstruation is,
have you ever been taught at school about menstruation, are you aware of hygiene issues
related to menstruation, how often do you change sanitary napkins, how often do you take
bath during your periods, social issues you face during your menstruation and other questions
that we thought would help us in comprehending the stance of our respondents on a sensitive
topic such as menstruation.

In the first week of our survey, I personally thought that menstruation was something that
was whispered about or talked behind closed doors in that area and that our respondents
would hesitate to interact with us in dept.

However, in the first week itself, I noticed that our women respondents were very open to
talk about it with us. This was mainly because some of them already had been taught about
menstrual hygiene by CSA Volunteers in the previous semester. We managed to conduct our
survey in 100 households, each giving us different perspectives on menstruation.

The inferences from the workshop are:

1. For the majority of female respondents, the first source of information about
menstruation was their mothers. However, they only taught them about menstruation
and hygienic practices when they got their periods, instead of much before the age of
 menarche. A minority of our respondents comprising of girls, women and men
affirmed to be taught about menstruation at school. Overall, adolescent girls and
women are aware of menstrual sanitation, but there is a lack of understanding in the
science behind menstruation.

2. Nonetheless, the male figures of the households wherein we conducted the survey
were not aware of menstruation and its implications on women’s health because
women feel hesitant to talk about it with them. Some women that we interviewed
informed us that their husbands were very understandable, however, when we tried to
interview them, they would feel uncomfortable.

3. The majority of the women are consumers of sanitary napkins, and though earlier they
used to adhere to cloth pads, they have become more familiar and embracing sanitary
pads. From what I could understand, although sanitary napkins are not affordable to
these women, the price factor does not pose any problem for them because sanitary
napkins became their necessity.

4. Tampons and menstrual cups were a foreign concept for the women. We have come
across statements such as that both harm the hymen of a women and that are
uncomfortable and painful.

5. Women, men and adolescents affirmed that menstruation should not be taught at
school or house to the male figures.

6. Most of the practices and rituals followed in the past by the women have significantly
reduced to about less than half of what they used to follow back then. Nowadays, they
just follow the practice of not having bath in the first 3 days of the commencement of
their menstrual cycle and not entering in a temple or the pooja room at their homes.

7. The majority of the women dispose their sanitary napkins either in a stream or in the
toilet.
 8. Stigmatisation of menstruation was very high. I had come across statements such as
"If men sees period, he will become blind", "women are not supposed to take bath
during periods because they might get cold or any other disease”, “boys can only
know about menstruation after marriage". Some girls told us that they find it difficult
to talk to their fathers about menstruation because feel ashamed, so whenever they are
on their periods, they inform them that they are having headache, stomach pain and
other kind of diseases.

WORKSHOP AND INFERENCES FROM WORKSHOP

After achieving the maximum number of households for the survey, I and my group thought
that there was still a long way to go toward education around menstrual hygiene. Cultural
taboos, social stigma and some religious norms were amongst the main factors creating poor
health for women and girls in LR Nagar. On behalf of the women, men and adolescents that
we have been interviewing, we decided to conduct workshops on menstrual health for the
following weeks of our service learning.

The topics selected to address our population were: Alternatives to sanitary pads and proper
ways to dispose used sanitary pads, the science behind menstruation, dietary habits during
menstrual cycle, menopause and most importantly, taboos pertaining in menstruation and
ways parents can discuss menstruation with their children, as we believe that awareness
should begin at home.

Prior to the commencement of our workshop, we have invited around 30 households for both
male and women workshops, however, a few actually came for it.

Our first workshop was conducted for women, the main inferences from the workshop are:

 The women were not aware of the science behind menstruation nor menopause. Most
of them saw both just as a natural thing that every woman faces.
 Majority of women did not consider visiting a doctor to address problems that occur
during menstruation or menopause

Fortunately, two days after the workshop, we got to know that one of the women bought
menstrual cups from Amazon.
The workshop for men was conducted by the male members of our group. According to
them, as we all expected, men did not have basic knowledge on the topic of menstruation in
general.

The carnival for adolescents was conducted in College Campus. We decided to make
colourful charts and drawings to address the topic for the adolescents. Though none of them
posed questions related to the topics that we’ve portrayed in the charts, they were all well
behaved and listened to us.

CHALLENGES
The first challenge I and my group faced in LR Nagar, was language barrier. Though at a
glimpse, one could describe the community area as diverse, the language spoken by our
respondents were only Tamil and Kannada, and to some extent a little bit of Hindi.

Another challenge were the street dogs. I personally had an encounter with a street dog that
was chasing me, and for a moment, I would be bitten by him if a local person for that area did
not rescued me.

My group and I came across the idea of setting up a stall on campus for the women from LR
Nagar to sell their sanitary products. This small-scale business would empower them in the
future. However, while introducing the idea to our supervisor, we then understood that we
should have done first a financial scheme on how to go about it, and since we did not plan it
accordingly, we would not be able to sustain their business later on.

With regards to the plan of setting up a business for the women of that area, our major
drawback was that it was difficult to approach companies to invest in the goods made by the
women. The companies were very reluctant in buying the LR agar women made sanitary
products because they believed that any product coming from a slum area such as LR Nagar,
would eventually fail to meet their requirements on efficiency and quality of the product.

CONCLUSION: SOCIOLOGICAL LEARNING

In this survey, I found that most of female partipants shared the same negative views on
menstruation. Because of these, many of them have experienced

Many female particpants interpret menstruation in consonance with their personal

As a Sociology student, I was aware of the stigmatisation of periods, but through the
interactions I had with these girls and women, I’ve learnt that the view of menstruation as
something not only unspeakable but also threatening can interfere with the lives of people
with periods in significant ways. “When I was young, I used to sleep on a separate room
outside my house whenever I get my period. Today, I can’t impose that on my daughters
because of lack of space in the house, but she’s not allowed to enter in the Pooja room.” Said
one respondent.
I’ve also got to know about the existence of a knowledge - ignorance paradox about
menstruation and its implications. Ignorance in these cases, might be, perhaps, something that
is socially constructed and negotiated. Nonetheless, another sociological learning that I got is
that societal structures play a pivotal role in the formation of an individual’s beliefs and
behaviour. This further leads a person to get ashamed or resistant of committing acts outside
the accepted social framework.

Overall, through this service learning in LR Nagar, I’ve come to the conclusion that hygiene
during menstruation is not completely satisfactory in the community of LR Nagar. I believe
that there is still a need to educate the adolescent girls and women about the science behind
menstruation and healthy and hygienic practices during menstruation and to prevent the
reproductive tract infections. It is also important to educate them prior to the attaining of
menstruation, as the majority of mothers informed us that the discussion of menstruation only
occurred when their daughters started menarche.