Check out two radically different perspectives - One by The Mad Momma and one from Lavs.
I am amazed to hear about the fanfare that follows the arrival of a girl’s first period in some communities. Simply because I don’t know of anyone who’s “fertility” has been celebrated this way.
My earliest memories regarding chums is either the sad jokes we cracked when “period” got a new meaning and we made fun of teachers who referred to a class as a period or the embarrassment when close guy friends asked us to explain the sanitary napkin ads and “what is it used for??”
At our place, starting your menstrual cycle meant just that. Another indication of growth, of moving to adulthood. Since I have an older sister, I was pretty much in the know of what was to come. There was no fuss, it just happened one day and that was that. Business as usual.
Even though in my family, none of the religious customs are followed in terms of isolation or not cooking or staying out of the temple…I have pretty much suffered at the hands of others who wanted to push their opinions on us. When I was 10, we visited Puri and went to the Jaggannath temple. Among other things that those awful priests ate our brain about, they also asked if I had started menstruating. I think my mom was more shocked than me…and he proceeded to tell her that he could do a “pooja” to ensure they come quickly, of course at the cost of some eleven thousand rupees. My mom just told him that I was still young and it will happen when it has to happen, and we were fine without his help. At another stage, we were also asked if any of us women were chumming as in that case, we were better off staying out of the temple. We wouldn’t be allowed.
A friend told me that when she was in school, which was a convent, one of the nuns made the sign of the cross every time she passed a girl who was chumming…
Most interesting experiences took place when I used to take sex education classes for teenagers and guess what, more often than not the boys were more sensible about it than girls.
Looking at opinions, it seems to me either its like a disease, where you need to keep your trap shut and make sure no one even gets to know what’s going on, or you celebrate its arrival and scream it out to the whole world…isn’t it bizzare?
The menstrual cycle is related to one’s ability to perform reproduction, so yes, it is related to fertility. The “cleansing” as we call it, is not because it is “impure”, but simply because unless fertilization happens, at the end of the cycle, its a waste and the body has no need of it. Hence, if one was to get pregnant, it is this material that forms a “bed” for the embryo and provides nutrition to it. If not, out it goes. And that is about it.
But myths feed on what is perpetuated and in no time you find people telling you that it is believed that pickles will go bad if you touch them, religious spaces will be violated if you enter, and that you need to eat in separate utensils and not cook…
Whatever the reasons might have been for it in the older times, they are not valid now. Some women need to rest because it is draining for them, and some just breeze through it…There is nothing more to it.
I always found it strange that a lot of people thought it embarassing to go ask for sanitary towels at chemist stores. As if its a loaded gun or dope you’re asking for! That applies to condoms as well…but that’s another story…
What is with the hush-hush mentality? While I don’t think I need to announce to the world that I am chumming at any given point of time, I definitely don’t think its something I actively need to hide. And really, if you decide to eat in separate utensils and steer clear of the kitchen/temple, you aren’t doing a great job of hiding it any way.
It is just a natural phenomenon that leads to reproduction and it should be treated as normal. It is ok if some feel embarrassed to talk about it, just like young boys might, regarding nightfall. But crowding the phenomenon with religious practices which just perpetuate more subjugation of women is a complete NO.
A teenager, in one of my classes shared with me that in their community, all sanitary towels had to be collected and at the end of the cycle, taken to an open ground and burnt. Yes, burnt, as they carry evil and could serve as fodder to people practicing black magic…To think that this is just one more way of discriminating against females is no exaggeration. Because that is exactly what it leads to. Girls growing up, believing that they’re “dirty” and that its like a curse to have a period. It teaches them to be ashamed of something that nature has given them.
Really, we should have evolved long ago.
Posted in Causes to Champion, I think..., Viva la Femme
first get married and ask ur wife 
periods get in sync with the others.
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All I can say is, I’m thankful that some of us are fortunate enough to grow up in sensible, mentally educated home. 
