I was 12 when I had my first period. A small young girl, looking forward to her parents-teacher meeting, had entered her menarche, knowing nothing about it at all. My mother was not very happy with the news and scolded me as if I had committed a crime. She told me how to use a sanitary napkin and that I would have to sleep in a separate room for 3 days now. I nodded my head, with tears rolling down my eyes, thinking that I had let my mother down and this was something that happened because of some fault of mine. I spent the entire three days thinking about my mother, not even knowing what I was going through. 

After a year, I understood that this was something that would happen to me every month till menopause and that it was okay to have it so young too. But the only question I kept asking was that if it was so normal and happened to every girl, why did we not talk about it at home or in schools? Perhaps, if my mother had told me the reason for having periods or my teachers had held classes for us to discuss it along with the experiences that we underwent, periods would not have been such a nightmare. Educating girls, at all levels, about menarche, menstruation, menopause, how to use sanitary napkins, the normalcy of having them every month, and issues that could be a part of one’s periods can make the life of girls so much easier. 

Many girls drop out of school because they feel ashamed of their periods or ‘mahina’ and feel that if they bleed in school, everyone around them, especially boys, would make fun of them. In some areas of India, talking about periods is still taboo and women are isolated as soon as they get one. They are not allowed to leave the house and are restricted to a room, making them miss their schools and hence, studies. This takes them two steps back and hence they feel that instead of leaving classes every month and lagging behind in the syllabus, just stay at home and learn household chores. Along with this, the non-availability of toilet facilities prevents the girls from going to the schools. Lack of access to safe economical hygienic sanitary products leads to a public health crisis among females and hence affects their overall development and growth. Period poverty is prevalent among half of the Indian population, due to lack of access to sanitary products and its further stigmatization and cultural stereotyping. 

Recently, National Education Policy, 2020 was announced with many revolutionary changes in the prevailing education system of India. However, there was no mention of menstruation-related issues or period education in the entire document, which shows that the priorities of the government do not include this important aspect of education. Talking about periods and the issues related to it are normal and its education should be made compulsory at school level. Leave should be granted to girls on their periods and efforts should be made to help them revise what they missed during those days. Tax on sanitary products should be removed by the government in order to tackle the issue of period poverty and these products should be provided free of cost to girls and women of low-income groups. Proper and correct information should be provided to girls at all levels and efforts should be made to reduce menstrual inequalities by setting up workshops and having friendly talks in rural and urban settings. Women empowerment can actually happen when we are able to deal with and reduce these aspects of inequalities among females that are generally overlooked at societal and governmental levels.