#5 Period Leaves, Public Education and Cheesy Books
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That Which Shall Not Be Named
- Diti
Wrapped in a newspaper, nestled in black plastic bags, lest someone gets a look at them, they make their way from the medical store to our homes. A hushed conversation is followed by a change of hands, all the while praying that no one asks us why we are carrying our bags to the washroom. Sneaking around in our own homes, keeping our eyes and bodies averted, to avoid causing even the slightest discomfort to anyone else. Ashamed of our own bodies and reluctant to acknowledge our menstrual cycles, this is the reality that most women in India still live in.
It took an admonishment from my grandmother, for leaving a stray packet of pads out on my bed, for me to realise just how deeply ingrained this shame is. There was a time when sanitary napkins were a far off dream. Menstrual cups and tampons did not exist and instead, a dirty cloth was washed and reused. Unfortunately, for many in this country, the situation remains the same. Alarming statistics show us that up to 82% of women in India still do not have access to sanitary napkins. An even greater number of women and young girls today live without adequate information and awareness needed to deal with their periods.
The latter, though easily avoidable, is largely due to our reluctance to speak about menstruation. While advertisements show unrealistically cheerful women wearing white while bleeding and skipping through fields, the much needed conversation still happens in whispers (pun intended). According to a survey done by UNICEF Menstrual Hygiene Management, about 66% of Indian girls do not know anything about periods before their first menstruation. With practically no information given to them in schools or at home, having their periods becomes one of the reasons for them to drop out of school. Even if they do not, the same survey shows that 28% of girls do not attend classes on the days of their periods, due to lack of suitable products and the fear of being period-shamed. Where talking about a natural phenomenon is taboo, proper hygiene, medical care and bursting old myths are a long way off.
Recently, Zomato’s announcement of their period leave policy for women was met with praise in India and internationally. But it also sparked debate. The loudest voices, unsurprisingly, belonged to men, who never have and never will experience what women have to face for 4 to 7 days every month for a huge chunk of their lives. Yes, Zomato’s move was a positive step towards destigmatising menstruation-related problems in the workplace, but once again it was a man, Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal, who attempted to ‘mansplain’ the perils of abusing period leaves to his female employees.
Now before you say, “Diti, be thankful that he is at least giving women the option of taking a leave’ know that the emphasis on ‘at least’ is as important as the emphasis on ‘really’ in his announcement. I, nor any female employee of Zomato, am not obliged to feel gratitude towards the company so deep that we stop questioning them altogether. According to the announcement, female employees cannot access the leave if cramps/pain/discomfort stop them from attending work. They get to access it only when they prove to HR that they really need the leave. Who gets to decide the criteria of this decision and how does HR compare the experiences of different women? Not to mention, these leaves, in addition to sick leaves will be different for women in different states depending upon their respective laws. A uniform law, like the Menstrual Benefit Bill 2017, across the country, is still missing and so companies like Zomato get lauded when they give such ‘privileges’ to their female employees.
One voice of protest belonged to Barkha Dutt whose contempt with the idea of period leaves stems from the fact that she covered the Kargil war while on her periods and if her discomfort can be dealt with mild painkillers other women can also power through instead of strengthening ‘biological determinism’. This again proves how unaware we are about experiences of different women because Dutt’s comment discounts women struggling with disorders like endometriosis and PCOS which render Tylenol and Meftal pretty much useless. While it is appreciable that Dutt endured pain to cover the war, why must other women be forced to work through it? The implementation of a period leave policy increasing the likelihood of women being discriminated against at the hiring stage is flawed because other countries where such laws have existed for far longer have proven otherwise. Productivity is only increased when employees are given health benefits and time off. As for women misusing the leaves, all I can say is that women must be given the right to judge their own pain rather than being judged by ignorant men.
Having said all this, I admit that talking about period leaves is in itself a privileged position to take when disturbing cases like the ‘wombless women’ of Maharashtra who underwent hysterectomies in order to avoid missing work during their periods exist. Women have to juggle their day-to-day lives not only with the physical problems that come along with periods but also the societal taboos and restrictions. Just like my grandmother’s reaction to the packet of sanitary pads, most women face similar reactions from their family members, friends and colleagues, male and female alike.
A phenomenon as natural and normal as menstruation should not be brushed under the carpet as it has been for years. Sanitary products should not be treated like nuclear codes that have to be kept secret and women must not feel like they are committing a crime. Steps to increase the accessibility to sanitary products and knowledge must be taken. Open dialogue and discussion, with girls and boys, can bring about a change. Zomato’s period leave policy, scrapping the luxury tax on sanitary products, maternity leave, etc., are big steps but women across the country deserve to be treated with respect and live comfortably both in their public and private lives. Since I, unfortunately, cannot magically make this happen, I started out small by letting the packet of sanitary napkins in my room stay out in the open, despite my grandmother’s raised eyebrows.
Lack of period leave is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to problems faced by women in the workplace. (Wage gap, sexual harassment, discrimination… I can go on.)
Barkha Dutt’s comments on the period leave policy have sparked several counterpoints and opinion pieces including a heartfelt letter to her. Read: Huffington Post
A man on men debating whether Zomato’s move was called for. Read: Scroll
One out of five women in India have PCOS and yet our understanding of the hormonal disorder is lacking. Read: Feminism In India
The 2018 documentary Period. End of Sentence. won the Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject). Give it a watch.
Post the Oscar win, the documentary was also met with a few critics about the white lens through which it was made. Read: Vice
Back To School (Read: Scam)
- Sneha
The year’s 2014, month March. You wake up at 5 in the morning hoping to get in some revision done before your Geography boards paper. You have now spent over 12 years of your life in the education system and this is among your last few papers and then you will officially be out of the schooling system forever. But not before you curse the education system 50 times. That’s what most of us spent most of our school life doing. Endlessly complaining about our vast syllabus, being forced to study subjects that we know we will not pursue, cramming information in our brain that we probably won’t need (my buddy Pythagoras agrees), our needlessly heavy bags and the list goes on. The Indian education system is hated widely and deeply and for all the right reasons. This is just the case for the well-fed private schools that (I’m assuming) most of us studied at. The government schools are at a whole other level, far below.
Also known as public schools, these are institutions that are largely funded and managed by the state government. Not to be mixed up with the likes of fancy schools that have “Public” in their names, these schools are quite the opposite in nature. Around 65% of all school-going children in India attend government schools but the quality of education imparted to them is sub-par at best. Quite representative of our country’s other policy problems. We have a lot of schools in our country. You will find one in pretty much every village, within walking distances from students’ homes. But out of these, close to 1 lakh schools operate with a single teacher handling all subjects for all the classes. Now in primary schools, the idea is still bearable but can you imagine the same teacher teaching organic chemistry and World War 1. Not to forget the fact that all batches usually share the same classroom at the same time because there is only one teacher. And these teachers are not always well trained, further worsening the problem, that is if they show up at all. This is very evident when you look at the learning outcomes of the students. In a study conducted on children between the ages of 14 and 18, it was found that 25% of them could not read basic texts in their own language. More than half of them struggled with simple division problems and a large chunk of them lack basic reading and arithmetic skills despite being in the school for 8 years. That’s 8 years in an institution where you lost more than you learnt. And too many students end up dropping out.
The government tried to fix this. I remember back in school when the Right to Education Act was introduced. Obviously none of us knew what it meant, but we understood and celebrated one point; all students were to be promoted to the next year till 8th standard. To many students in my school, it didn’t make much difference because our families never expected us to fail (classic desi parenting style - no pressure at all), but to others, this meant they didn’t have to fret about exams and could have a minimum education till 8th no matter what. Great move right? Except that it had some unintended effects. We now had fresh batches of students in 9th standard who could not compete with their peers and dropped out soon enough. The Delhi government is now rethinking this policy.
The curriculum is another very debated aspect of our education system. Most of our education is tested on our ability to remember things. Because of course when faced with a real-life challenge, our ability to by-heart the problem is going to be more helpful than knowing how to solve it. I will not cite a source on this because all the proof I need to back this up is my 10th standard Geometry final paper where I had pretty much gulped down my entire textbook so I could vomit it out as it is on the exam which I otherwise would have failed. Needless to say, I forgot everything the day my exams got over (Allow me to brag here, I scored 72 in Maths, an achievement I am truly proud of.) There are many more problems with our curriculum but solving them would barely help if the system itself needs fixing. While private schools often tweak the curriculum to better fit the needs, the same is not always followed in the government schools. Here I’ve only just started scratching the surface of what’s wrong with our education system, I could not possibly list all of it in a thousand words.
The majority of Indian children study in government schools. Most of whom do so out of compulsion as they are unable to afford private schools which is where parents would send their kids if they could. Ultimately, all of this results in batch after batch of children that cannot compete with their private school counterparts and end up in futures that may be far below their potential.
Like everything else, there are ways to fix this too. The 2020 Education Policy is an attempt at this. Increased funding for education, strengthening teacher training, reducing the focus on syllabus completion and giving more attention to reading and math skills, changing our testing and examination patterns etc. But this network of schools is so huge that implementing even the tiniest change is the biggest challenge. Which also may be a reason why it took the government 30 years to come up with a new education policy when many provisions from the previous one are still not implemented! Education also happens to be under the purview of both the state and central governments and each state has its own different requirements and contexts to their schools which further complicates things. Also, if you educate young people and teach them how to think, who will our overlords use as footsoldiers for political rallies?
I remember reading somewhere: if children could vote, politicians would ensure there are better schools.
Additional links:
What if we shut down 5 lakh government schools, and club them together?
On why Indian children are unlucky and why we should introduce more private schools and reduce dependence on government schools. Read: IndiaUncut 1. IndiaUncut 2
Finland’s education system is said to be the best in the world. Find out why
Cheese for the Lockdown Soul
- Diti
There exists a literary equivalent to eating ice cream straight from the tub, ignoring the blatant romanticisation while watching Pretty Woman and blasting the Mamma Mia! or K3G soundtrack. It is reading novels that do little more than give you unreal expectations about love and life. Some days curling up with a particularly cheesy book is the only cure for a horrible day.
This year has been a disaster in every way, except it has left me with ample time to tackle my TBR pile (to-be-read, for those who do not spend every spare moment scrolling through bookstagram posts) that regularly threatens to smother me under its weight. Staying indoors has given me the chance to reach for books that I had always been hesitant about. (I am 75% through Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina and I could not be prouder of myself.) But 2020 has also taken a toll on my mental health and general ability to take any more bad news. So after making my way through several classics, must-reads and new releases there reached a point where my brain could not take any more literature that was good for it.
Just like one reaches for a vada pav at the end of a week of controlling the urge to eat junk food, I picked the softest book I could think of: Red, White and Royal Blue (RWARB) by Casey McQuiston. There was a period of time when every reader of contemporary fiction was reading it and I can see why. There is a certain pleasure in reading escapist fiction beyond the obvious gooeyness involved. And this book takes escapism to a whole other level.
In the times of Donald Trump and white supremacy in America, McQuiston imagines an alternate universe where America elected its first female President in the 2016 elections. Democrat Ellen Claremont lives in the White House with her husband and two half-Mexican children from her previous marriage. Now, if this part of the premise doesn’t seem like a complete dream, wait for the rest. The novel follows her son, 21-year old Alex Claremont-Diaz who finds out he is bisexual during her reelection campaign. He comes to this realisation by, drumroll, falling in love with Prince Henry, fourth in the line to the throne of England and very gay.
At this point, if you’re laughing at the completely outrageous plot I won’t blame you. RWARB has everything: LGBTQ+ representation in galore, political intrigue, fake friendship/dating and characters that feel like they have walked straight out of a ‘woke’ American’s dream. I devoured the novel in three sittings and I refuse to call it a guilty pleasure. The book may be unrealistic on every front but it has a lot of heart and the world really needs a little more of that. It is a fairy-tale not only because it features a prince as the romantic interest but also because it creates a world that is miles away from reality. Having said that, this cheese-fest of a novel gave me joy, Marie Kondo-style, and I recommend all readers to pick up something as far fetched as this every once in a while even if it does not feature on any best book lists.
Somethings to watch out for this week from India and around the globe:
North Korea’s allrounder God (at least he believes so) Kim Jong-un has started delegating responsibilities to his sister Kim Yo-jong to “relieve stress.” Read: BBC
Ahead of 2020 Presidential elections, America’s Orange Man is still popular despite his handling of the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter protests. Here’s why Read: Vox
Trump is such a gleefully polarizing figure — so contemptible to those he offends, so heroic to those he defends — that minds were made up on him before he ever stepped into the Oval Office. Moreover, Trump is a limited figure: He doesn’t switch strategies, adopt new tones, adapt to new circumstances. Where past presidents made concerted efforts to shift course as their presidencies evolved, pursuing unexpected policies to win over skeptics and new messages to quiet critics, Trump is just Trump. He’s reliably, inalterably, himself. Your view of the man is your view of the presidency, and that’s the way he wants it.
3. Closer home, we can soon expect a reserved forest in the middle of Mumbai. Even though it is for political reasons, we don’t mind. Read: Indian Express
4. You have already heard of our GDP numbers falling drastically. What does it mean? Recession. Find out Read: Indian Express
5. Swiggy’s delivery staff went on a strike, an apt display of how little priority is given to workers rights by companies. Read: Newslaundry
The aggregators have introduced innovative services that have undeniably improved for consumers the experience of availing these services…However, this has taken place in an unregulated environment where the workers are entirely at the mercy of the companies. For instance, the aggregators can and do frequently make changes to how they compensate their workers, often to their disadvantage. One such revision was done by Swiggy in early August, leading to protests by its workers in Chennai and, subsequently, other cities. The workers claimed that their remuneration was altered in such a way that their average earning rate was reduced to a third — work that once earned them Rs 100 now brought just Rs 33. And this was the second such revision in 2020.
2020 really is testing how much grief we can handle. Chadwick Boseman and our ex-President Pranab Mukherjee passed away this week.
Check out this photo series on Mukherjee’s legacy Hindustan Times.
That’s all for this week.
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Until next week
Love & Rajma Chawal,
Diti & Sneha
