How is it that many men are repulsed by the thought of buying pads for their mothers, sisters, and wives?
How are we still condoning the practice of not allowing women participate in certain religious activities?
Who taught you to regard menstrual blood as filthy blood?
Who taught you to regard women as unclean during their periods?
For you who don’t want to associate with a woman during her period, how sure are you that you’ve been able to adhere to your flawed commandment fully? Do you know that there are many women who go through their menstrual period without your suspecting anything? You even go ahead and eat the food they prepared with their “unclean” hands.
In thinking that menstrual blood is filthy, have you been been told that your judgement is flawed?
Let’s learn some important basics here.
-Menstural blood is not filthy or waste blood. If it were, how would you explain the drop in blood count of a woman when she’s on her period?
-Menstural blood is really no different from normal blood. It is similar to normal blood with both having a pH of 7.2
-Where normal blood is made up of plasma, proteins, electrolytes, white blood cells and red blood cells, menstrual blood has in addition mixing, old cellular tissues from the uterus and of course vaginal and cervical secretions.
Do you now realize how mistaken you have been all along in thinking that menstural blood is filthy and makes a woman unclean?
We have placed the talk on menstruation in a huge bubble so much so that it’s difficult to have an open and free conversation on this a very natural and normal occurrence. How pathetic!
Isn’t it sad how in various parts of nation there are still alarming cases of school dropouts because of the inability of many girls to catch up with their colleagues because they missed school during their periods. The reluctance to deal with the many issues surrounding menstruation is sickening. We’re not dealing with this bloody business enough!
If we were, school heads and teachers would think about holding special supplementary classes for the female student who couldn’t catch up. This extra tuition is a sure way of keeping the girl child knows school.
If we were, parents would be sensitising their children on the topic of menstruation. Your daughter would know that menstruation is nothing to be ashamed of. She’d not panic when she sees her first menstruation(MENARCHE). She’d not be embarrassed if she stained or soiled herself. She’d rather gather courage to find the nearest lavatory to sort herself out.
If you talked with your daughter, you’d disabuse her mind of being a mess just because of her period.
Parents, if you talked with your sons, you’d be raising them to know that it’s bad manners to laugh at a colleague because she stained herself.
You’d be raising boys who’d feel no shyness in carrying a pad or two for the unsuspecting girl who had her period show up without any warning.
If we took menstrual health and menstrual hygiene seriously in our schools and communities, there’s be free pads for the girl who can’t afford to buy a pack and have to resort to using old cloths as a substitute.
If we took menstrual health seriously, we’d learn that there are various charges a woman goes through during her periods. We’d learn that changes vary from Akosua to Ama. We’d also learn that where Adwoa might be able to do her normal everyday activities, Yaa would need to do things at her own pace.
As a teacher, you’d know to give Yaa a break! You won’t call her lazy because her painful period was making her quite slow. You’d learn that that’s her way of dealing with her bloody business.
I’ve always wondered why there aren’t restrooms in our schools and workplaces solely for resting the abdomen and the back to ease the discomfort that comes with pains associated with cramps. At work, is it too much to ask for leave for the lady suffering from either dysmenorrhea or menorrhagia. Some cramps are extremely painful you know?
Why don’t you go the extra mile of providing basic necessities like hot water bottles to help in easing the discomfort?
Make no mistake in thinking that the changes we go through as women and the need to restore our enemies mean we are incapable. We are as capable as the next man. How would you feel if your blood level dropped every month? We need all the energy we can get.
As we are women and are also of reproductive age, WE WILL MENSTRUATE!
Our pads will get filled with blood, so we’ll need to dispose them off in order to fix fresh ones. Where some haveild flow, others flow heavily. Where Afia will change once or twice a day because she flows lightly, Abena will change up to 6 times before the day ends. Changing your pad is like a batton race. You don’t stop till the last drop of blood flows out.
It’s sad when you are in a long queue at a trotro station and can feel your pad rapidly filling up yet can’t find any place of convenience to change your pad. You start to contemplate how you’d survive the ordeal of being in traffic without soiling yourself and the seat. You now have to position yourself by uncomfortably adjusting your buttocks to avoid soiling yourself.
Think about the sister who can’t readily park to access a hygienic free lavatory to change her pad before continuing her journey?
We need neat and safe lavatories at various stations to avoid this kind of inconvenience. Lavatories must be available, accessible, and safe.
You’re doing your students, workers, and clients a disservice if you do not provide enough waste baskets I’m the ladies’ loo. It’s bad hygiene to ask us to wrap up our used pads and keep them in our bags to send home at the end of a long day for disposal. It makes you a bad boss or colleague to even consider that.
It is wrong to use the excuse of your janitors being men and as such shouldn’t be made to collect our pads. It very wrong to base your assertion on myths and superstitions that someone with an ulterior motive will use our pads for “occultic” acts.
Why don’t you rather teach your janitors to learn new ways of disposing our bloody waste so that “occultists” can’t get their hands on them. Get your waste management company to come for all your waste at the end of the day. It sorts it out.
Now that I’ve mentioned waste management companies, I’m appalled by the Central regional manager of Zoomlion, Mr. Samuel Edu’s comments that women shouldn’t add our pads to general waste because our pads pose health risks to their workers.
As the leading waste management companyin Ghana, we do not only assume but also expect that Zoomlion takes all the necessary precautions in ensuring theur safety. Are workers not provided with any protective clothing for collecting waste from homes, offices, and industries?
Instead of blaming our pads for health risks, how about Zoomlion solve whatever problem it is from their end? Instead of collecting almost every rubbish into one truck, why not rather use new methods of going round with more than one truck for specific waste?
Why not ask us to sort out waste out into domestic, plastic, and almighty bloody waste! And when you come around, collect them as we have sorted them out.
Zoomlion, you can do better. Look at the health risks of your workers you talk about from thare angles too:
– Some of them wear slippers to collect rubbish.
-Others don’t wear the heavy gloves they are given to collect rubbish. I’ve seen a number collecting plastic waste from stations with their bare hands.
– You’d find some of your workers using these same hands to drink pure water without washing them properly.
Here, you have a few causes for the health risks.
Don’t lay your problems at the door of our BLOODY BUSINESS.
We’re too busy for this.
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By: Abena Mante/citinewsroom.com/Ghana