I must have been 10-11 years old. I remember coming back home one day, crying my eyes out. School was particularly different that day. I had felt it the moment I woke up. While, I could feel that something is happening to me, I could not really put a finger on it. It was a white uniform day. I took the physical education class in the first half and by the time we hit the recess, I had begun to feel the cramps. And then I began to bleed.

When the students started sniggering, I realized something was wrong. I had stained my skirt and the class teacher sent me to the washroom to clean up.  My periods had started & I was quite befuddled since I had no clue of what was happening.  I was the butt of my classmate’s jokes, with someone going to the extreme of telling me, how I would now be operated upon, since this was a serious medical condition. Reaching home with swollen eyes, Ma gave me the much needed solace with a sanitary pad along with a quick lesson on how to wear it.  But she missed telling me how to deal with this new phase in my life. All of it was addressed through an all encompassing statement that pronounced me tobe a big girl. What the menstruation cycle was, its significance or implications were all left for me to figure on my own or through divine providence. I was elated to be considered a grown up but a lot of questions went unanswered.

Over the course of time, I learnt the nuances of menstruation but my questions were still unanswered. Many restrictions were suddenly imposed which I could never have fathomed before the onset of my menstrual cycle. Unwritten rules of restricted foods, movement and conversations were new to me. My carefree world would walk into hushed conversations without much explanation on why I couldn’t pray or eat pickle. It made me feel the need to hide the fact that I was menstruating. Speaking with boys about it was out of question.

While I blended in with this norm of my changing world, a lack of open conversation or adequate answers to my questions may have repressed my emotions, but it led me to counter most of what my family expected of me. A rebel, especially through the hormonal havoc that adolescence played, made me get into ugly arguments with the family frequently. Shutting myself to healthy conversations and conclusions to differences were drawn by the tantrums I threw.

It’s only now that I am learning to channelize my emotions and voicing my thoughts without the fear of being judged.  I am learning the need to engage in a healthy conversation without fear or shame, especially about a natural process such as periods. I hope more women can address this deep rooted fear and stop the shame associated with the cycle especially when we nurture the next generation into healthy adults.  It’s time we spoke. #LetsTalkPeriod

Kritika Sreedharan is a public health professional and an eccentric by temperament by her own assessment. A ferocious reader and a sporadic writer, Kritika is passionate about women issues and sexual and reproductive rights in India.

You too can break the silence around menstruation #LetsTalkPeriod. Purchase 1 menstrual cup & we will gift 1 on your behalf to a marginalized women, that takes care of her menstrual needs for 8-10 years. Or you can simply support the initiative through www.desiredwings.com/period

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The next day is like any other. The girl in the bus still gets those looks, women still think twice about taking a cab at night, the washer man’s son gets preference over the daughter in the family, choices are skewed in favour of men and sometimes women themselves are biased against their own kind.

So what does the day change if at all? Is it just a day for brands to come up with eye-catching ads to outdo each other? Is it a day when all of us women feel great about ourselves or is it that we celebrate it simply because that is what everyone is doing? It is important to look deep within ourselves and find out why we want to celebrate womanhood on one day? Shouldn’t it be celebrated every single day of the year?

This year, on International Women’s day, multiple initiatives were kicked off, most of which made it  to headlines. Hillary Clinton took to twitter to talk about women’s empowerment, google released a video titled #onedayIwill, women took to the streets to ask for gender parity, brands like Titan released special ads.

Clinton tweeted, ‘Advancing the status of women and girls makes economies grow and nations more secure. It’s the right—and smart—thing to do. #IWD2016 –H’. She also referred to First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt holding the first women-only press conference at the White House.

Google took the opportunity to release a video which featured not only the aspirations of women captured in the phrase, “One day I will” but also Malala Yusufzai poignantly saying, “One day we will see every girl in school”. A touching tribute to womanhood, the video presented as a Google Doodle, became the talking point for the day.

Several brands took to different media to express their positioning on Women’s day, Titan being one them. Titan Raga’s #breakthebias advertisement about workplace bias set minds thinking.

Some enterprising men also participated in the public discourse around women’s rights. While it is great to have people commemorate a day through a variety of initiatives and remember for that one day that we were born equal, it goes without saying that this can only be a starting point to usher in a change.

But when will this change occur? Haven’t we waited long enough? Here are some statistics to make you wonder about the dismal state of affairs. The World Economic Forum predicted in 2015 that gender gap won’t close till 2133. Now that’s a long wait!

So what can be done to change the status quo or simply to urge the needle to move in the right direction?The first prerequisite for any kind of change, is a change in our own mental attitude. While it may sound cliched to repeat words that have been spoken through generations, any change on the outside will be ineffective till the mind decides to change.

Let’s get rid of hidden biases that we all harbour, respect ourselves more than ever and take a step to change attitudes including our own. Let’s take forward the healthy thoughts and actions we come up with every year on women’s day.

The post Women’s Day is over. But is it just about a day? appeared first on Woman Endangered.