“What would men be without women? Scarce, sir...mighty scarce.”
Mark Twain
I have women on my mind. Ever since I saw the headlines on Monday — “Maharashtra temple ‘purifies’ idol after woman offers puja.”(The Hindu, November 30, 2015) — I wonder about the thought process of the people involved. Surely god is not so feeble that he cannot handle the presence of women. Surely not based on all that we have been taught or learnt ourselves.
So, women are on my mind. More importantly, their biology is. And why it seems to scare so many. We are aware of the functions, yet like to pretend that they don’t exist. At the same time, we are in awe of the woman worshipped as a goddess in a temple where men and women ritually observe her periods: Chengannur, Kamakhya. But when that woman is real — a family member for instance, or someone we know — the rules change. Now we ask if she’s ‘clean’, bar her from certain parts of the house and from ceremonies; ask her if she has taken a bath (is she ‘pure’?) before letting her near a newborn. It’s like the whole world knows when it’s her time of the month. But that doesn’t mean that we give her privacy or dignity.
You see every period is another wasted opportunity; you could have had a dynasty by now. Why be a woman if you can’t/won’t/do not/ cannot/choose not to have children? The wonderful Anne Sexton even has a poem on the theme: ‘Menstruation at Forty’, where she is, “ thinking of a son./The womb is not a clock/nor a bell tolling/but in the eleventh month of its life/I feel the November/of the body as well as of the calendar. ” Even while the concept of biological age is changing, the yearning for a child at what might well be past the ‘right age’ fills the poem.
Doireann Ní Ghríofa speaks of the time at a vintage boutique when while she’s trying out a red winter coat, she draws, “ a slow breath as a cramp curls again/where blood stirs and melts. In glass,/I am wrapped in the weight of old red:/red pinched into girl cheeks/and smeared from torn knees/lipstick blotted on tissue/bitten lips, a rough kiss/all the red bled into pads and rags/the weight of red, the wait for red, that we share. ”(‘While Bleeding’).
Women are united by a common experience that almost all of them, have, go or suffer through, deal with, even ignore. Is this one too many poems about something icky and dark and so … fundamental?
Don’t get me wrong. I believe certain things are meant to be private. Not to be hidden, but not to be talked about like it’s a topic. For instance, I don’t understand the point of running a marathon, pasting napkins to trees, or posting a certain picture on a photo-share site. All these are examples of how women have tried to end period-shaming. But I am not so sure if in your face is the way to go. Awareness is, but not shock. Somehow the latter serves to strengthen a narrow-minded resolve. But certain notions need to be banished, and immediately at that.
“Bleeding isn’t optional for most of us,” says writer Eileen Wilks. How we respond to it is. A woman in a temple isn’t impure and doesn’t make a temple impure. She follows her faith, just like countless people do all over the world daily. The problem is that a person — man or woman — decides to intervene on god’s behalf, to decide what is right or wrong, what can and cannot be dealt with. A woman has the power to create, and destroy, love and loathe, be strong, and vulnerable. Annie Finch speaks of the woman in ‘Changing Woman’: “ If we change as she is changing/if she changes as we change/(If she changes, I am changing)/Who is changing, as I bend/down to what the sky has sent us? (Is she changing, or the same?) ”
Woman is. Powerful, limitless and timeless. Can we just let her be?
