If Priyam Redican’s poem on menstruation stigma doesn’t move you, nothing will

The stigma of menstruation has been haunting women since centuries. Especially in the developing countries where the ideas of cleanliness go hand in hand with caste, class and gender based oppression menstruating becomes a shameful taboo. Add superstition to it and you have the perfect demon.

While there have been constant criticisms and campaigns in the media to change the mentality, their impact on the public outlook has been minimal.

YouTube slam poet Priya Redican, who often uses poetry to criticize the society’s failings, has something to tell you.

What the menstruation stigma teaches us

Through her moving poem “Marigold” she narrates how our attitudes towards women change once they hit puberty. The menstruation stigma strikes. A few drops of blood and we make women realize that “parity is not in the cleanliness of the heart/ but somewhere lower closer to her private parts.”

This poem is a part of Menstruation Diaries, “a video series where people speak about their experiences relating to menstruation, and how it affects their lives, and society as a whole”, the result of a collaboration between Airplane Poetry Movement and Menstrupedia.