Radha Paudel is bundled up in warm clothes. She’s speaking to us over Zoom from Nepal, where winter can see temperatures drop to sub-zero figures. But there is a cheery smile on her face as she says, “Let me start my story.”
Radha was born in a rural village in Nepal in 1973. When she was about 7 years old, she saw blood on her mother’s leg and was terrified. She thought her mother had gotten injured and would bleed to death within a minute. But when she asked her mother what had happened, she received an answer that traumatized her forever.
“Oh, it’s menstrual blood. It is sinful. It is a curse from god. And when you grow up, you will also get it”.
Radha began to see the world differently. Her child’s innocence was lost.
She began to notice the ways in which men abused women. She reasoned that it must be because women are sinners. Since they menstruate, they are low and powerless people. That is why the men scold and abuse them senselessly.
She also observed the hundreds of restrictions her mother and older sisters would observe every time they were menstruating. Their mobility and participation were the most strictly restricted. They could not go to the kitchen if they were hungry or thirsty. They could not participate in religious activities. They could not talk of the pain they were in. They were shamed and belittled.
This is the fate of thousands of menstruators across Nepal. A 2018 study by Prabisha Amatya et al. found that 72% of adolescent girls were forced to live in poorly constructed menstrual huts (Chhau Goth), where they were in danger from life-threatening infections, animal bites, and physical or sexual abuse.
Radha felt more and more suffocated in her home as she grew old.
And at the tender age of 9 years old, she attempted suicide.
“My first attempt failed. But my mind and heart were thinking constantly. How could I die? How could I? What’s the proper way to commit suicide? Why did my attempt fail? How could I die? And then be reborn as a boy?”
When Radha turned 14-years-old, the dreaded day arrived. She had gotten her first period.
At that point, she decided to run away from her home for a week, because she would rather be on the streets than follow the cruel and unfair restrictions she had seen her mother and sisters follow.
“I’ve been a little bit crazy since childhood.” Radha laughs.
The following year saw a turning point in her life.
Radha visited a nursing complex and immersed herself in studying the anatomy and physiology of the female reproductive system. She learnt the ‘essence’ of menstruation.
“I knew menstrual blood was clean blood. It was pure blood. I knew, then, that it was because of this blood, that this universe is moving forward, continuing the time of the homosapiens, and that – that moment, it took a long time, but that moment, I realized, this is not the mistake of my parents. They were socialized in that way. They never went to school, they were poor, they were living in a rural village. So, whatever they knew, they simply taught us.”
When Radha returned home for the summer, she drew a picture of the uterus and explained what she had learnt to her family.
What happened next was not only astonishing, but truly amazing.
Not only did her family receive this new knowledge well and abolish the menstrual restrictions in their home, but they fully supported Radha in her dream to advocate for what she would come to call ‘dignified menstruation’.
“I had a passion. I had an anger.”, Radha tells us.
On her journey to become a worthy advocate for dignified menstruation, she faced many obstacles. She was excluded from many social events because of her outspoken advocacy. In the workplace, her co-workers denounced her activism as ‘unimportant nonsense’.
But Radha didn’t give up, not once.
She quit her job. She traveled the country and worked with all sorts of people, from different religions, ethnicities, and economic classes.
She was shocked to discover that even in the capital city of Nepal, Kathmandu, the rich and educated classes were observing severe menstrual restrictions. Everywhere she went, she saw that menstruators were shamed and stigmatized for a natural and vital bodily function.
Radha realized the fight wasn’t about menstrual hygiene.
It was about menstrual dignity.
“Earlier, I’d been working on menstrual hygiene, and realized, if I kept saying hygiene hygiene hygiene, I’m imparting the knowledge that menstrual blood is dirty. And indirectly, emotionally, I’m not empowering! We need to empower the people. And then again, the journey of my struggles – it was all about dignity! I wanted to live as an equal human being!”
An essential facet of Radha’s conceptualization of dignified menstruation is the deconstruction of gender.
She challenges the prevalent notions of gender exclusivity by stating that we need to think of people as menstruators and non-menstruators.
“If we say menstruators and non-menstruators, the inclusiveness is fast forwarded! Because if we say menstruators and non-menstruators, we can immediately think whether the person is menstruating or can give birth or can get menopause or any related cancer diseases. From that consideration, the treatment, the investigation, everything is quickly handled.”
Radha went on to theorize this new way of looking at period poverty.
She divided the impact of menstrual discrimination into two categories – systemic and symptomatic. She continued her research and traveled to different countries, delivering lectures at universities, and conducting training sessions on dignified menstruation.
Radha describes her training process. It isn’t the stereotypical method of lecturing or sermonizing. It is entirely dependent on the participant(s) and consists only of a song and an interview.
Radha describes how she and her colleagues train religious people, such as faith healers and religious leaders. First, she asks them to explain their logic and frustration. After that, she discusses human rights and the concept of dignified menstruation with them.
Finally, she offers them a choice.
“Hey guys, you choose whatever you like! If you like to live as a dignified person, it’s your choice. If you like to live in an undignified way, that is also your choice. I don’t mind.”
Naturally, no one wishes to live an undignified life.
This is how Radha creates champions for her cause. This is how she has created a space for her cause.
All with zero funding.
Her work is entirely carried out with the help of volunteers and friends. Radha says that nowadays, she is in a new kind of fervor. She works sixteen hours a day and even when she sleeps, she dreams of ways to further her cause and help as many people as she can.
“How can I contribute? How can I generate legacies across my country, across the globe, across peoples?”
When asked about what keeps her motivated, Radha beams. Very good question, she says.
When she was a child, the discriminatory experiences she underwent traumatized her forever. Now, at almost 50 years old, she delivers talks and conducts her training sessions all over the globe, in countries like America, Germany, Austria, and more.
When she speaks to young women and men, she asks them the same question:
What did you feel when you first learnt what menstruation is?
Most of them have the same answer.
They were young, maybe six years old, and they felt disgusted, confused, and scared.
“This is where the unequal power construction starts,” says Radha. “We don’t talk about the dignified menstruation, or facts about menstruation, and that creates the unequal power construction and reinforces the patriarchy. This is how the male members - the father, husband, boyfriend, partner, brothers abuse the females in their lives. And then girls don't have the capacity to say no. They just accept that, OK, this is my fate. I was born as a girl so this is how it is.”
Radha says this isn’t a Nepali issue. This is a global issue.
The United Nations defines violence against women as “any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual, or mental harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life."
Menstrual discrimination involves all the above forms of violence, and more.
“If we count the rights, more than dozens of rights are violated at once.” Radha tells us. “And these things happen not only for five days, but occur throughout the life cycle because it has such a significant role in the construction of the unequal power relation and the patriarchy.”
With such a worthy cause, one wherein the lives of millions of menstruators hang precariously in the balance, you would think there would be a momentous effort to build international solidarity.
Tragically, that is not the case.
Radha says that for an organization like hers, it is very difficult to attain funding or solidarity from international NGOs, specifically those from the Global North.
Publicly, they preach that they ‘need leaders from the global South’, but they hesitate to actually extend their hand because they don’t trust the leadership of a person like Radha.
They go so far as to discredit her ideas by claiming they are creating confusion amongst the government and media.
To them, Radha has this to say:
“I'm the survivor. I'm from a poor country. I’m from the Global South. I represent everything. My English is not good. I'm not good at computers but I can communicate my ideas. But because I’m not adding any money, I don’t come from the Global North, I don’t speak fancy English, it is very challenging for them to accept my leadership. But the world is not uniform, it is full of diverse people. And many, many girls, many men really have been struggling, like me and they're looking for a leader.”
The Global South Coalition for Dignified Menstruation was, thus, started in 2019.
Their mission, as stated on their website, is to ‘dismantle institutional, structural, interpersonal, and social oppressive systems in place affecting menstruation, individuals who menstruate, and their ability to access basic inalienable human rights, critical resources to lead happy, and healthy lives, and obtain dignity.’
Furthermore, the organization strives to unite individuals and organizations who share their vision of reclaiming dignity for each menstruating individual, and aim to transform the menstruation movement to center dignity.
Currently, they have more than 77 organizations all around the globe and the number is only increasing.
Radha’s team of volunteers continue to tirelessly advocate for the cause of dignity in menstruation.
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