Recently, I was reading the comments on a post which urged women to ditch the extremely hazardous chemically loaded sanitary napkins which have become a major headache for civic agencies managing waste. Some women think that sustainable menstruation is for entitled women and not the common folk!
Sanitary napkins have become an essential necessity for women all over the world. They aren’t like disposable plastic cups, plates and spoons which can be quickly replaced by other eco-friendly options. Every menstruating woman needs a pad of some sort to manage her period.
It’s unfortunate that as a society, our notions of convenience has trashed the world to such
scary proportions in such a small amount of time that we need to backtrack to sustainable ways of living very quickly to save our world.
Fortunately, there are great new solutions to manage menstruation without trashing our planet and this is what we are suggesting.
We don’t need to get back to our grandmothers' methods.
It’s sad to see many people think that these great products like the menstrual cup, period
panties, new age cloth pads, Labia pads are used by entitled women and asking other women to switch from sanitary pads to these products reeks of entitlement!!
As I was pondering over this, I came to a conclusion that it’s quite the opposite. Yes, these
sustainable products are a little more pricey than sanitary pads but these are all one time
investments against the recurring cost of buying pads and tampons for thirty years. A cup which costs 700 rupees lasts for eight years. How can it be compared to a recurring cost of more than 2000 rupees a year?
In fact, women who use sanitary pads are the ones who are reeking of entitlement!!
How??
When you throw away a used, bloodied, stinking sanitary pad in your trash,
● You expect your civic agency to pick it up,
● You expect a municipal worker who has no gloves, no mask, no benefits to pick
up your pad while sorting the unsegregated waste.
● You expect a manual scavenger to get down a filthy, disgusting manhole to pull
out scores of sanitary napkins which have been conveniently flushed down the
toilet because you are embarrassed to look for a dustbin while holding on to your
soiled napkin.
● You are contributing to tons of unhygienic leachate which seeps into the ground
polluting the ground and the water bodies nearby.
● You are responsible for the toxic smoke generated by incinerators which burn
your sanitary napkins! So who’s showing entitlement? Not the cup users for sure.
Yes, you may be doing all this without bad intent but you’re still doing it. Right?
ironically the women who are propagating the cup and other sustainable menstrual products for environmental reasons and health benefits of other women are called entitled!
Menstruation is one of the most natural occurrences in a female’s body! Where’s the shame if you teach your daughter to wash her cloth pad?? Why should we be embarrassed to sun-dry a pad? For Earth’s sake, which century are we living in? Is our convenience everything? Can’t we spare an extra five minutes to wash a cloth pad? Yes, women are working, women are independent, they aren’t sitting at home like our mothers and grandmothers, but thousands of women who are doing all this and much much more are successfully using cups and cloth pads and if they can do it why can’t other women do it?
Instead of calling these selfless women who are working tirelessly to save our planet ENTITLED, please be part of the change and help the cause.
We can all start with using the cup ourselves. If each of us donates one cup to a woman whom we think cannot afford one, we can reduce the sense of entitlement even more.
All women cannot switch to cups overnight! It’s unreasonable to expect it but every drop counts!
I’m not talking water here! I’m talking blood...
Yes, young girls should not be inserting cups if their culture doesn’t permit them! But there are period panties, cloth pads, and other great products.
Moreover, these innocent looking sanitary napkins contain so many chemicals which are proven to be extremely harmful to women’s health in so many ways.
So please spare us the ENTITLED tag because we are actually doing something for the planet and we are entitled to some support from all women folk entitled or not!