A Harvard School Graduate, former drummer with M.I.A, recently created a furore on the Internet when she posted about her decision to have run the London Marathon without a tampon. Kiran Gandhi wrote about the April race that she chose to run with menstrual blood streaming down her legs to raise awareness about periods and the plight of her less fortunate sisters who do not have access to female hygiene products. Gandhi received some support from her peers at the race but here is something about the whole incident that makes us wonder if this was just another gimmick or born of genuine intent. And if so, to what end?
Of late there have been several campaigns (mostly viral and some as in the curious case of the sanitary pads that popped up in some college campuses in our country) that purport to raise awareness about menstruation. Twinkle Khanna in fact wrote a thought-provoking and light-hearted piece about our feudal and puritanical mind set about menstruation – the most natural of all bodily functions we are designed to perform.
The taboos around menstruation were superbly dealt with in a short-lived ad campaign directed by the supremely talented Shimit Amin (Chak de! India). It fetched him the top honours at the Cannes ad film festival, and drove home the point that there is absolutely no connection between a menstruating girl touching the pickle and the same going bad.
Raising awareness about social taboos comes with a certain responsibility. Especially something that is so deeply ingrained across cultures, over centuries. While Gandhi has shown courage in running the marathon in pink tights and spreading stains between her legs, she may have done a bigger disservice to the sisterhood who she claims to have done this for.
A recently published book by one of the country’s best known endurance runner details the travails of a woman who has had to run along the unforgiving Indian highways in the North (not the pristine first-world universe of propah London) with menstrual blood streaming down her legs. Sumedha Mahajan in Miles to Go Before I Sleep, speaks of the anguish she felt when forced to clean herself up and get into her sanitary pads along the highway in broad daylight, without much of a cover and a crew of TV channel and other runners following her. She writes of how she realized the plight of her sisters who do not have access to sanitation in large parts of our country and hoped her story would contribute in a small way in order to raise awareness about the issue. More than the shame (which Gandhi seems keen to tackle) and the taboo, Sumedha says it is the thought of the unhygienic conditions in our smaller cities and fringe settlements in the metros that women have to deal with that bothered her.
So here’s the deal.
You don’t need to run with blood stains between your legs to tell the world that women do not have access to hygiene products. You ‘chose’ to run without a tampon Ms Gandhi, because you have the privilege to do so and not be chastised for the dare. Your act made for startling photo ops and some internet debate, but that’s where it ends. If you had really thought this through, you would realise that running without a tampon seems to say that it is okay to do so. We are damn sure that’s not what we would want women to do. It is unsafe, unhygienic and extremely ill-advised especially in cultures and societies where women do not even have access to clean running water to cleanse themselves. In other words, Your ‘target audience’.
So do us a favour, remember to wear your tampon the next time. Trust me, there is no shame in doing so.
Image courtesy: Kiran Gandhi, Blog
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