Menstruation and COVID-19: A Dirty Secret

Menstruation in India has long been considered a secret, too dirty to talk about, a taboo and a sin. Menstruating women were perceived as sinful and unchaste, barred from places of worship, and in some cultures from the kitchen and the house too. In some ways, we have come a long way from whispering about ‘whisper choice’ to promoting the use of cups, which are more environmentally friendly and cost-effective. Yet, out of 336 million menstruating women in India, only 121 million make use of proper sanitary napkins. [1] We have major milestones to achieve in India to ensure that women enjoy a full spectrum of menstrual health and sexual health rights. Work needs to be done not only in  rural areas, where access to these is more challenging,  but also in the urban areas.  While the pandemic visibly resulted in the loss of millions of jobs and livelihoods, another silent story unfolded — the reduced access to menstrual healthcare for millions. While on one hand women were unable to buy sanitary products because of erratic or no supplies, on the other hand, many faced added pressures because all family members were confined at home.

In this article, I focus on how young women negotiated their menstruation, especially cases where they had to keep their menstruation a secret from their families. The findings of my research reveal that women from relatively urban areas face less stigma than women from rural areas. I interviewed four women from varied cultures, and have collated their experiences during the lockdown.

Samadrita Goswami, a 22-year-old postgraduate student from Kolkata, has been a vocal advocate of de-stigmatising menstruation. She’d make sure that the shopkeeper did not wrap the napkin in a black polythene. “It’s natural, nothing to hide.” So while she didn’t face any stigma about her periods during the pandemic, she faced other challenges. This has been a rough time for as she and her family contracted COVID-19 and lost two members to the virus. Samadrita had to make a choice and shift to menstrual cups from sanitary napkins. The decision was based on financial circumstances rather than comfort. She said, “Menstrual cups meant a one-time investment. I have been sustaining myself and my education through the money I earn from tuitions and part-time content creation work. I lost both during the pandemic. With my savings, I did not want to buy napkins every month, and neither was I healthy enough to go out on my own.”

Gayatri Aich, a 21-year-old undergraduate student in Kolkata, also prefers using a menstrual cup. She lives with her father, and faces no stigma about her periods in social or private spaces. She is vocal about her periods, advocates actively for the sexual rights of women and writes for Bleedco, an organization working on menstrual health issues and awareness. She believes that “It is our duty to talk about menstruation in uncomfortable spaces. That is the only way to normalize it and make it acceptable as the natural process it is. It is also important to make people aware of proper menstrual hygiene and how to deal with infections.”

Wajida [2] is a 21-year-old undergraduate student from Aligarh Muslim University. She is a Non-Residential Indian whose parents live in the United Arab Emirates, while she usually lives in the hostel. During the lockdown, she was forced to evacuate the hostel. Since then she has been living with her relatives in a small town in Bihar. In a cluster family of eleven members, hiding her menstruation has been a cumbersome task for her. During the month of Ramadan, Muslims wake up before dawn to eat food, before they fast for the day till sunset. The obligation of fasting is relaxed for women during their menses. However, Wajida revealed that she still had to wake up at 3 AM and eat with the family, and pretend she was fasting. Making her menstruation obvious to the male members was not permissible.

Wajida prefers using sanitary napkins, and said that the most challenging aspect is disposing used napkins. She is not allowed to throw them in the common dustbin of the washroom, lest the men may question it. She has to go to the  secret dustbin hidden outside the house. Even crossing the threshold of the house to dispose of napkins is a challenge because she has to escape the attention of male members who are highly insensitive. Usually, the maid or an older woman is sent to buy pads from the local store; men are spared from that responsibility even though they do all the outdoor chores. During the lockdown, it became a challenge to buy napkins in the absence of the maid, so she had to make do with rags and cloth till a female member could purchase napkins in bulk. The stigma around menstruation in her family, led to another humiliating experience. She shared, “I was sitting on the bed with my cousins, it was the second day of my menstruation and I realized I had a leakage. I suddenly rose to check and there it was, a red blot on the bed sheet. I did not know what to do, I was startled by it. My cousin saw it and freaked out, the male cousins were asked to suddenly leave and we changed the bedsheets. A leakage in my household is considered to be the epitome of carelessness, an unforgivable offense.”

Similarly, a conversation with an 18-year-old Sahiba from a rural district of Madhya Pradesh helped me understand her experience in the pandemic. In her household, it is taboo to speak about menstruation even with female members. Sahiba occasionally uses sanitary napkins but returns to using cloth/rags when napkins are unavailable. When asked about who purchased napkins for her, she answered that her father has never brought one, not even for her mother, who has always used cloth. Thus, she relied on the mercy of her neighbors or women who sell pads from door to door. During the pandemic, it became impossible to seek help from others or even afford a packet every month. “I could see my family struggle financially, the last thing I wanted was (to ask them for) money to buy pads,” she says.

Hence, Sahiba resorted to using cloth every month. Though Sahiba knows that the cloth must be sundried, this is not an option for her. So they find a corner of the house that men do not have access to; usually they dry it indoors. She shared that once there was a cotton harvest at her place. Unable to find a decent room for her washed cloth, she dried it over the cotton crop. When she used it later it resulted in an infection. It was extremely difficult for her to even speak about her infection to her mother or other female members of the family. When the situation worsened, she had to seek help and did so in a secretive manner.

Women from less privileged socio-economic backgrounds rarely receive basic sex education, not even about menstrual hygiene. Cases like Sahiba’s show that young women are largely unaware of various alternatives to sanitary napkins or cloth. Despite the existing policies like Rashtriya Kishor Swasthya Karyakram (2014) and School Health Programme, women face social barriers that make access difficult. The policies and campaigns focus on sanitary napkins and reusable pads that cost INR6 as Freedays sold by ASHA (Accredited Social Health Activists). The state policies need to be considerate of the cultural barriers and focus on alternatives for menstrual health and hygiene, as menstrual cups are far more sustainable than organic or reusable pads. Different living experiences of women affect their menstrual health in varied ways. Culture, economics, and religion play major roles in opening or closing windows to exposure and awareness, and setting or changing the narrative for a household. The crisis of the pandemic only heightened the issues of women, and the less privileged suffered more.

The government’s policies are drafted from a gender neutral approach, which resulted in the absence of menstrual hygiene products from the list of essential items released in March 2020 at the time of the lockdown. Thus, a more sensitive and gender inclusive approach is needed to tackle the issues of the general public. Even the ASHA and Aanganwadi workers who were at the frontline during the onset of the lockdown, were treated with physical and verbal abuse. It is imperative to launch various campaigns and programmes that can benefit women from various sections of society. As much as the urban workspaces need sensitization towards women’s menses, the underdeveloped areas need more effective awareness programmes and free supplies.

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[1] National Family Health Survey 2015-2016
[2] Name changed