I’m a woman and I BLEED every damn month!!!
And there is absolutely NOTHING TO BE ASHAMED of it. To those who protest against the Sabarimala verdict, I have few questions.
1. Are you calling your mother/sister/spouse/ any fellow women to be IMPURE coz they menstruate?!
2. Aren’t you a human being who has come out of the so-called “impure” vagina?!
(PS: Dare not to talk about the c-sec as an argument here)
3. Where were you all when the scam around “Aravana” which is made in extremely unhygienic setting, despite the crores of income generated in the name of devotion?! Oh, that might be not IMPURE according to you, right?
4. How can it be a non-discriminatory age restriction, when men of the same age are allowed to enter the temple?
5. If you are penalising the period blood equivalent to the excretory body fluids, please remember that so is the sweat or sperms in the exact same logic. So men don’t secrete body fluids?
Please understand that the bigotry around this issue is highly politicized and don’t fall for the trap of people who wants to DESTROY the peace or religious harmony prevalent in God’s Own Country. Be it Ayyappan or Jesus Christ or Allah or Buddha or anything that you believe in, you need to think beyond the religious system to understand what’s fundamentally wrong in the patriarchal narrative of “PURITY”. At the end of the day what we need to preach is “EQUALITY” because everyone has to be treated equally irrespective of their socio-political or gender or economic background.
Remember the time when the lower caste people were denied entry to the temple or women were coerced into practices like Sati or women were not allowed to cover their breasts, lots of people fought against the religious system to reform the society.
Just like racism, gender discrimination creates a lot of disparity in society and in this context it’s even more complicated as the verdict got attached to the religious sentiments as well. I get so irritated while listening to some elite class raising their opinions on a superficial level without really understanding the core social issues. Hence, Don’t say things like “ I’m not interested in politics and I just want to stay out of this drama”. As a citizen of India, I feel so disappointed to see how people don’t think for themselves and fall for the traps of highly biased political views or stay out of everything.
You gotta understand it’s your PRIVILEGE of gender, caste, creed, financial status which helps you to be NEUTRAL. You have to step out of all these privileges to be politically aware of any situation and voice opinions rightly. That’s how we can become a responsible citizen!
I have seen a lot of pseudo-liberals who have the opinion on everything by simply sitting in the comfort of A/C rooms or binge-watching Netflix series or reading thousands of books without really introspecting ourselves and the world around us. Let’s understand social issues beyond the perceptions and opinions by reasoning them well. We need to enable difficult and healthy conversations to dismantle social injustice in our society.
There is absolutely nothing wrong in expressing your DISSENT, it shows WHO YOU ARE and make other people understand what your value system is!!!
Spoiler Alert:
To those who scream out saying that people who support Sabarimala verdict to be terrorists/ atheists/ feminazi etc, I have a detailed blog coming up soon to dismantle the misconceptions around #FEMINISM. I’m gonna hurt the sentiments and ego of male chauvinists so badly! Wait for it misogynists 😀
Nidhiya V Raj 