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It may not be the primary argument, but the age bar at Sabarimala has often been justified as an attempt to keep out ‘impure’ menstruating women.

Bengaluru: The protests surrounding the Supreme Court decision to allow women of menstruating age into the Sabarimala Temple are said to be rooted in the reigning deity’s vow of celibacy. But several protesters have routinely cited menstruation itself as a reason to keep women of a certain age out.

Prayar Gopalakrishnan, the former president of Travancore Devaswom Board, which manages the Sabarimala Temple, had said in 2016, that they would invent machines to check the “purity” of women devotees.

Arguments in favour of the Sabarimala Temple restrictions invariably tie these two lines of reasoning together: That women would be a “distraction” to male devotees and that menstruating women will defile the premises. Several devotees refute the second argument, but many others hold it up regularly.

Cast out

The taboo around menstruation is not new. In several Hindu households, menstruation is considered unhygienic, and women during their period are not allowed to enter a kitchen or a temple.

In Islam as well, women aren’t allowed to enter places of worship and the Quran instructs people to keep their distance from menstruating women.

Also read: At the heart of Sabarimala Temple’s bar on women lies a story of unrequited love

Some churches ask women to avoid receiving communion, a ritual to show devotion, because menstruation is believed to make them “impure”.

Some schools of Buddhism ban menstruating women from entering temples as well.

Times are changing, but in some conservative households in India, women are actually allocated a different room to stay for the duration of their period, and forced to wash everything they wear and all their bedding afterwards.

Some people also warn the touch of menstruating women can “infect” or “spoil” plants or flowers and some spices, as well as pickle.

Menstruation in writing

Today, there are several reasons we can offer in hindsight for why menstruation is so stigmatised, but they would all be guesses as there simply isn’t enough documentation.

Instances of menstruation and its interpretations are mostly absent in writings and poetry, possibly because most writers, historians, and poets have been men. There have been cave paintings depicting menstruating women, especially in Africa, where menstruation is revered in certain tribal communities.

There have been stories with references to menstruation dating back to the Greek and Egyptian times, especially with the flavour of exposing men to the realities of the female body. But several of these stories tend to have been whitewashed, like the story of Hypatia’s menstrual cloths becoming handkerchiefs in later versions.

In several forms of writing, as the average cycle of a menstrual period is coincidentally similar to that of the moon, women have been associated with witchcraft and supernatural powers. Our own Vedas are quite silent about menstruation, though they are said to include no diktat against menstruation.

In fact, we don’t even know today how much an average woman bled through history. The average amount of menstrual fluid now for women is three tablespoons per cycle, but we can’t tell if it was higher or lower before us.

We don’t know what women used for protection far back in history, although we theorise that they mostly used rags or sticks wrapped in cloths or cotton. After all, it is just over a century ago that commercial sanitary products even became available, and the tampon is less than 100 years old.

One of the common reasons offered for the discriminatory behaviour is that the taboo originally came about as a justification to allow women rest and time away from domestic duties.

Also read: I’m no revolutionary, says 32-year-old Kerala teacher as she readies for Sabarimala trip

Another is hygiene: When women had no access to sanitary napkins or tampons or menstrual cups, they used cloth, which would often have to be washed quickly and be unsanitary. The second reason seems to be the most repeated.

All blood’s the same

However, uncleanness has no scientific basis. Even if it did at some point, it does not anymore. Blood is the same everywhere, although menstrual fluids also do contain tissues and uterine lining.

The use of sanitary hygiene products have made life a lot simpler for menstruating women, who regularly play sports, go to work, party, and just go about their daily lives.

Today, any kind of taboo on menstruation does not make sense. While women do suffer discomfort, prompting debates on monthly leave policies and dependence on painkillers, the questions of hygiene, impurity, and the like are to be thrown out of a window.

Suppression of talk about menstruation, lack of education, and embarrassment about it are issues to be addressed. Temple restrictions exist through customs that are singularly irrelevant in 2018, and as an inclusive society, it is imperative to do away with the taboo surrounding menstruation.

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