Last year, I was at a Balinese temple, dripping with sweat and wandering past crumbling mossy porticos trying to find the entrance. It announced itself with a loud red sign: “MENSTRUATING WOMEN NOT ALLOWED.”
I cringed – those signs were a sudden, stark reminder of the many times I’d seen similar signs while growing up in India, barring women from attending temples and places of worship. I didn’t have my period so I walked through, but as I did, I wondered whether I would have adhered to the directive if I had indeed been menstruating.
When I lived in India, I’d started blithely ignoring these signs. But while the temple in Bali was a Hindu one (and thus my birth religion), it was also within a culture which was not mine. Two forces warred inside me: the rational/feminist side that refuses to believe my body is impure when it’s engaging in a natural function, and the culturally responsive part of me which tries to be respectful of local customs and traditions when I visit other countries.
Intersectionality is a word that is often joked about as a “woke” construct, but for many of us, these intersectional dilemmas are part of the fabric of life. What to respect, what to ignore, the war between my birth culture, my gender and the different dictates that were placed on me in Indian society because I am female; these are all things I often wrestle with.
Two forces warred inside me: the rational/feminist side that refuses to believe my body is impure, and the culturally respectful part of me
Starting your period is a difficult time for most adolescents: there’s pain, learning to manage messiness and perhaps a dawning awareness of what it means to be entering the ranks of women. For many South Asian adolescents, including past-me, it also has other undertones.
In South Asian cultures, menstruation is seen as a time of being , and there are many restrictions placed on women when they are menstruating. Concepts of purity sit at the heart of these restrictions. Some of these restrictions involve being barred from certain places while menstruating. Most temples, for instance, and usually with large warning signs posted outside, such as the one I saw in Bali.
I rarely visited temples while I lived in India and haven’t set foot in one for more than 17 years. I’d decided relatively early in life that religion was not something that aligned with my worldview, and my family were mostly accepting of this. Attitudes around women’s bodies were one of the primary reasons I chose to eschew religion. However, religion is embedded into Indian culture, and regular prayer rituals are common.
Attitudes around women’s bodies were one of the primary reasons I chose to eschew religion… I recalled whispered questions about whether the women present had their period
On the handful of occasions I did attend these rituals (sometimes under duress), I recalled whispered questions about whether the women present had their period, and the sense of burning shame that arose when you had to admit that indeed you did.
Looking back, I saw that there was such fear and repulsion about menstruation that even speaking about it evoked a sense of shame. We used euphemisms for the very word itself: we never had our period, we had our “chums”. Similarly, I was taught that the term for my genitals was my “shame-shame”. I’m now somewhat zealous about using anatomically correct language, including carefully differentiating the vulva from the vagina.
This speaks to the way we approached sexuality in India when I was growing up, with sexual activity largely seen as ‘impure’ and a matter of shame. There was no state-sponsored sex education, and the education provided within my own family consisted of the provision of a book about periods and a one-line conversation with my mother. “Do you know about sex?” “Yes,” I said, burning with shame and horror.
I realised how quickly I’d moved on from some of the difficulties I’d experienced as a young woman growing up in a culture which seemed so terrified of my body
Luckily (and unusually), I had an excellent schoolteacher who talked to us openly about sex, puberty, periods and the joy of masturbation. This was almost unheard of, and I trace my sex-positive and unabashed stance entirely to those afternoons spent listening to her.
Once back in Melbourne, I found it difficult to shake the memory of that sign. This said something to me – that there was something I needed to process. I realised how quickly I’d moved on from some of the difficulties I’d experienced as a young woman growing up in a culture that seemed so terrified of my body.
I feel like I’ve reclaimed my body and learnt to be at peace with it, and even proud of what it can do
Reclamation is an important concept for me, and to a large extent I feel like I’ve reclaimed my body and learnt to be at peace with it, and even proud of what it can do. However, I realised that perhaps there is even more work to be done. As I usually do, I’ve turned to books and the words of other South Asian women who write so poignantly about the female experience in these cultures as a way to explore some of the fervour within me.
More importantly, I now understand that even as an adult, and even as a working psychologist, making peace with our sexual selves isn’t as simple as “moving on”. It might be a lifetime’s work to explore how my upbringing has formed and shaped me, and to give voice to that angry adolescent inside, reminding her that our bodies – and all that they do – are the stuff of wonder and pride.
Dr Ahona Guha is a clinical and forensic psychologist and author from Melbourne. Her first book, , is out now.
