Girls studying in Government School are challenging the taboos and myths around periods!

“I had my first periods on Sunday; I wasn’t feeling really good in spite of the fact that Sunday has always been my favorite day! My sister was the first one who told me that I am having periods. I was so scared and confused; the thoughts of having periods every week were haunting me. Even now when my periods are delayed I get scared. It is always so uncomfortable”

On the occasion of International Menstruation Hygiene Day 2019, we got this wonderful opportunity to engage with 100+ girls from Government School, Dwarka. Whenever there is discussion on periods in my experience, it is mostly directed towards either supply of free/discounted pads to girls/women, sustainable disposal of pads or new alternatives of pads easily neglecting the fact that the simple conversation as to ‘what periods are?’ is still a miss in India be in rural or urban communities!

The primary objective of engaging with adolescent girls on this day was to build an understanding on ‘what periods are?’, importance of hygiene during periods, taboos and myths around menstruation in order to empower them to challenge the shame and stigma around it. The session began with an inquiry as to why we have gathered here today – the answers were quite interesting – to talk about puberty, adolescence, physical changes, learning a new skill or may be attraction? When I shared the topic and objective behind the session, there was an instant murmuring, shy smiles and some of them started looking at each other except in the front where I was standing! This is not unusual thing to happen as it indicates the discomfort and shame around periods in our society which is evident even at the beginning of adolescence. 

The participants were then invited to write ‘their experience of having periods for the first time’. It was quite interesting to see that there was pin drop silence with only faint voices of pen and ruffling of papers being audible. The heaviness of 100+ experiences of first periods weighed on me as they had mentioned how they actually felt during the first time which was not pleasant even for one person. They were scared, uncomfortable, upset and full of confusion as to what is happening to them suddenly- most of them had cried, screamed, hid from their parents, didn’t go to school and were worried that they have caught some unknown disease that might be fatal. The important aspect was they still don’t feel okay with it!

One of the most interesting parts of this activity was when I was collecting back the sheets- few of the girls handed me folded sheets which indicated the importance and dire need to have these conversations. 

On asking how they felt after writing this was a catch –

‘I feel really good. This is like unburdening because no one has ever asked me.’

‘I am so surprised and had never thought someone would ask me to write about periods as even my mom acts weird while giving me pad’

‘I am so glad that we got this thing written, it was indeed a painful experience. I still feel scared when I don’t get periods’

‘I am so amazed that all of us could write it. I could write because we are all girls and I didn’t feel ashamed for the first time about my periods’

Based on the above discussion, we detailed out what periods are? Why a girl in puberty gets periods and how it is important? The conversation on periods started from physical to emotional to societal aspect of it building an understanding that all girls during adolescence gets periods, there is nothing wrong in you and in fact it is important to have them for your proper growth as reproductive being; emphasizing that it is perfectly okay to feel scared, weird or confused about them; it is also normal to talk about it because periods are not an hindrance to you as a person. 

Following this, we did a mind map on ‘the things girls are told not to do while being on periods’. The answers included- don’t worship during periods, don’t go to temple, not attend festivities/puja, don’t enter kitchen or cook food, don’t touch pickles, don’t engage in physical activities and whole lot of things that we are not supposed to eat during menstruation. This discussion left us with only luke warm water and milk that could be consumed during periods. Because of this weird revelation, everyone started laughing with screams like 'wah we can't have anything just because we are having periods that sounds so stupid'

We then divulged into whether these are true or have any logic behind them? With our discussion, every point became null and void leading to the basic fact that periods is a physical change that happens to girls and all these myths/taboos arises because we never discuss about periods openly and blindly follow what is told to us!

In order to gather their understanding on periods, the participants were invited to discuss or perform a role play on the given situation to the respective groups. 

Through the role play, the first group challenged the most common and strictly followed taboo that girls shouldn’t pray or indulge in pooja while being on periods. 

In the second play, the participants created a play where they challenged the myth that girls shouldn’t engage in physical activities during menstruation. In this, the participants actually shared how their sports teacher (Male) talk about what periods are and how they shouldn’t stop girls from playing sports even if they are having periods.

The third play was my favorite and I would remember this for long time. We were running out of time, the girls in the third group were reluctant so one of the girls stood out and said that she would perform all by herself. It was enthralling and enticing to see her confidence where she played numerous characters while weaving the story that challenges the taboo that period talk shouldn’t happen between boys and girls. In this play, the boy offers support to the girl who gets periods in public transport.  This openness around one of the most tabooed topic of periods within 2 hours of conversation was an experience in itself. The girls were bubbling with questions and ideas how to share their thoughts on periods by the end of the session. 

The joy, calmness and comfort replaced the fear, discomfort and confusion the girls were experiencing before the session which just made me happy and opened the doors for more such conversations.     

Engaging on 'Gender based violence' with the boys of Government School

‘Didi, I understand what is violence and it’s wrong! Now tell me what I can do if I ever see something like this happening in front of me?’

The session on ‘Gender based violence’ with the second set of the participants began with the game of ‘Wolf and sheep’ ; interestingly even before instructions were given, the boys in the circle literally pounced on the person inside exactly behaving as wolf – this basically set the tone of the workshop.

We engaged with the boys to gather their understanding of violence in broader sense. Following this, certain statements were read out and they were asked whether they think this act comes under violence. They agreed that verbal abuse as in using cuss words, molesting and raping girls, beating wife comes under violence but when they rejected out rightly that if husband forces his wife to have sex- that doesn’t come under violence.

‘She is his wife, they are married so why there is a need?’

‘If he doesn’t engage in sex, then she might have sex with someone else?’

‘She might be having affair that’s why she doesn’t want to have sex with her husband’

‘If he can’t have sex with wife, where would he go?’

All these answers indicated their inner fears, insecurity and toxic masculinity – so addressing this became inevitable. When we said that there must be law against marital rape, and people are working towards it, one of the participants said loudly, “This is insane. Such laws shouldn’t be enforced; it’s so unfair towards boys.”

This is when once again we realized the importance of our work at Sahas, when a 13 years old think this way, has this sort of mindsets what kind of man he would become? This ignorance if addressed now can actually support him in challenging these stereotypes and debunking toxic masculinity. 

Another statement was that girls take privilege of these laws and can get innocent people in jail! I was wondering how these messages are integrated in their young minds- only one way to deal with it was to show them the real picture. Sharing the narratives to explain what gender discrimination does to girls, “As compared to boys, girls get very less chances to go out and study. But when girls go out, boys molest them, harass them and tried to touch them inappropriately. They get scared, sometimes they don’t even understand how to tackle the situation so they choose to ignore all this and never tell their parents. Because if they tell their parents, either they will be locked in their homes with the fear that something can happen to them or with an accusation that they must have done something to attract the attention of boys. They won’t be allowed to study, then maybe they would be married off and boom they lose every chance to make their dream come true!”

The boys were silent, almost surprised and pained that what action they consider small might ruin a girl’s life.

Following this discussion, gender based violence, various forms and laws against violence were explained. It was interesting to see many boys asking as to what they can do to prevent such incidence which definitely was a happy surprise for us. We at Sahas have always been told that it’s great that you are working with adolescents and children, this information is much needed that’s all but they can’t really challenge gender based violence. The non-availability of information to the people is the biggest challenge in our country. Unfortunately many a time’s people who have information don’t know how to actually curb the distress or violence. We are actually resolving this gap between information and action needed by demonstrating live examples of challenging the violence.  We engage with adolescents by imparting the information that is needed during their age group to address various changes that are happening in their lives and around them, plus empowering them to take actions in the situations and we are building gender sensitive mindsets in these adolescents so that they are well informed and better citizens.

The interesting aspect of safe space that we have co-created with adolescents is that without being scared or ashamed, they are coming forward asking questions, discussing their stories, asking for suggestions and building a connect with us as trusted adults.

‘But how do I speak to my sister. She is very shy and will never open up on these issues.’

This was one of the most interesting queries which is also a step towards building better society not just for ourselves for others as well. 

“When we came to speak to all of you, we were 2 stranger girls. You didn’t know us; we build conversations slowly and bonded with every workshop. Now see how far have we come, you ask any sort of questions with us. If you can talk to strangers then what is stopping you from speaking to your own sister.”

With these two interventions, the whole objective of engaging with adolescent boys has taken a different turn. The boys hear so many things, they think on the same lines, they experiment and abide to toxic masculinity and peer pressure which results in not understanding consent, engaging in gender based violence and exerting the superiority of their gender – so now that they have understood how wrong is this, they can challenge the narrative and build better society where people get to do what they wish for irrespective of their gender, color, caste or creed! Huge dream, Vast vision but small steps towards the goal, I am very happy that I am able to contribute to this dream of world free of gender based violence.

From mocking 'rape' to understanding how grave is rape to challenging Gender based violence!

‘If a boy is just following the girl and doing nothing else, then how is that violence’

It was for the first time that we conducted a session on gender based violence with the adolescent boys as against the session on ‘child sexual abuse’. Right from the beginning of our gender, sexuality and reproductive health program, the boys were using abusive words with each other as if that is part of their language, hit each other during normal conversations, were very proud of the fact that they are boys and above everything they were casually laughing or mocking at the words ‘rape’ ‘molestation’ ‘harassing girls’ ‘gay or hizras’ and others. All these observations and a behavior pattern that was evident in how the boys were conducting themselves led to the decision of creating a session on ‘gender based violence’. 

This was a crucial as well as huge leap even for us in terms of facilitation and program design as we used to follow the process of reflections post every session and include the changes in the next session in the coming interventions. However the gravity of situation and an opportunity to engage participants in a way to inculcate sensitivity towards gender issues, we decided to bring the change in program right away.

The session began with the game of ‘wolf and sheep’ which set the tone for the upcoming conversation. The activity of ‘Judgment circle’ was very intensive, scary as well as reflective. The things we say to others very casually, without paying any heed based on our assumptions and ignorance, what happens when these things are told to you. The helplessness, the feeling of hurtful words makes you uncomfortable can actually build an understanding that ‘think before you say because words cut deeper than knife’

Few of the things participants heard during the activity – abuses, taunts based on color, body weight, mocking laughter and others. In order to process these cathartic feelings the circle was opened for all the participants-

‘I felt really horrible hearing this, I guess the tag behind me was that of hizra’

‘They talked about me eating lot of food, calling me names – it must be fat boy or girl’

‘Someone said that I won’t be able to do anything because now I am married, I have to sit at home and bear kids. I felt helpless’

‘I was delighted because someone praised me that I am a good boy because I help my mother in household chores’

‘I heard lot of bad things – like I am useless, so many abuses: because I drink alcohol.’

The boy that had tag of ‘rape victim’ was beyond upset and was almost on the verge of tears. ‘This is so unfair, why would people say things like that. Can I just go out for a walk, it’s suffocating’

‘I heard abuses rest was okay. People anyways taunt me for my weight. What can I do but to hear those things?’

The impact of this activity was visible on their faces, they appeared exhausted and drained.

Post this very heavy exercise, we read out certain statements that were actually said by the participants in the previous sessions and enquired whether they come under violence or not? Surprisingly most of them agreed that these statements come under violence and they looked very grim about it. Following the explanation on Gender based violence, lot of questions came up-

‘So verbal abusing, using cuss words is violence?’

‘How would we know that girls don’t want to have sex?’

‘If the boy doesn’t want to have sex, can he also say NO?’

‘’Having sex before marriage is okay?”

‘’If a boy engages in sex with a girl and then marries someone else, does that also comes under violence?”

‘If someone’s father forces the girl to do sex with others, is that also violence’

‘If a 20 year old girl has sex with 14 years old, what does that mean?’

This discussion was then marked with a very tough and important question – ‘then why do people rape girls?’ 

While talking about molestation, sex trafficking, street harassment and rape, a boy quickly said that if this is the scenario then girls must learn self-defense. Again this was a great opportunity to engage on the fact that why we always prepare would be/supposed victims to be ready to defend the attack, why not attack the mindset or the possible predator? I guess if we engage intensively on gender mindsets and norms, then there won’t be this need to learn to defend- this tendency also reflects gendered mindset!

Another important conversation that cropped was about husband engaging in sex with their wife whether they give consent or not – the quick answer was that she is his wife, they should have sex why is there need to say yes or no in that? Here bringing out the contradiction that we just established that forcing yourself on girls is rape, then how is it okay to force oneself on wife is okay? How is 13 year old thinking that it’s okay for husbands to do anything with their wife as if they are mere property who has no say in the decisions of her life? It was difficult yet important to make them understand that just like boys girls married, not married or with any status has right and say in their lives and associated decisions. This actually surprised them.

Post this conversation; the participants shared incidences of gender based violence from their communities-

‘There is a red light area near my community; very young girls are seen wearing very small clothes’

‘There is a colony near school from where boys and girls are constantly disappearing’

‘There was a new borne girl who was found in the bushes near by’

‘I have heard people giving certain medicines and then they do sex’

They talked about trafficking, domestic violence, molestation and forced sex work, it was very scary to hear them talk about witnessing such grave offenses.

The session culminated by sharing of various laws against the offenders of CSA, domestic violence, rape, stalking, physical and verbal abuse and others.

The day ended on a bright note, when one of the teachers appreciated us – ‘what you girls are doing is the actual work, you are making them better individuals, responsible citizen, it is so much better than just education. The way you addressed everyone about child sexual abuse in the assembly, I wish you could take up more issues and talk to all the students once in a while. Such conversations are much needed.’