Women who are obsessed with the " Gender Watch " notes, with their motivational and environmental implications, will be sharing their gender-related current affairs observations from short stories. This week's destination, Nepal . Nepalese women have to go through a month of deportation, because their bleeding body is considered unclean and can incur misfortune. Let's take a closer look at how the tradition of the name of Patty has vilified women and the stigma of the universal menstrual cycle. (Recommended to you: Why is the Korean tampons twice times more expensive?) Health cotton to hide well, menstruation is "that" stigma culture

Every month for a week, they have to leave their homes, exile themselves, and survive in the wild, because their menstrual blood is a nightmare for everyone.

Location in Nepal, in accordance with the Hindu tradition of Patty (Chhaupadi), it is believed that women with menstrual cramps incur unfortunate misfortunes. As a result of the menstrual period, Nepalese women were expelled from the village, banished to temporary shelters.

Image source:Poulomi Basu

Temporary shelters do not take refuge, mostly semi open space, cold and narrow, at any time to beware of snakes or animals near the ground. Nepalese woman shivering body trembling endure abdominal pain, even a cold to avoid the warm is not extravagant. They can only rely on dry food to live, they can not bathe, bad environment, there is no one willing to touch their hands.

Image source:Poulomi Basu

In December, a 15-year-old Nepalese girl died in exile in a shelter, she was burning for warmth, but choked to death by smoke, and one months ago, another 21-Year-old girl died for the same reason, they were not the only cases of death to Patty's tradition, their news only a day's life.

A 16-Year-old girl in an interview with the Guardian said, "Every month menstrual cramps, I will be sent to the rubble heap, the top of the messy floor of straw, mud, feces, flying insects in the air." I do not want to live like this, but our God refuses to answer. 」

Menstrual blood, marked by adulthood and fertility, is their eternal curse, their families are unwilling to speak to them, and their bodies are considered unclean and dirty. People are convinced that "if you stop the Hindu tradition, the farming will wither, the animals will die, and the snakes will fall from the sky." 」

The ban on patty: people fear them and hate them.

Although the exile of women to Patty's tradition was ruled by Nepalese law in 2005, in remote villages this remains a daily conviction. The traditional fear of Patty is not only women's menstrual period, but also the birth of a newborn mother. The mother must take the newborn and stay away from home, this group of women is called "untouchables."

People are afraid of them and they hate them. Towards Patty. They are not allowed to talk to each other; they shall not take water or bathe, lest they pollute the pure water, and shall not touch the agricultural and the dairy products so as to avoid the misfortune of the harvest.

A girl recalls her first experience with Patty, saying that she was cold, looking at her own sister throwing dry food from afar to himself, then turned away, she also asked himself, I bleed the body is not really dirty?

To Patty's consolidation of the existing Hindu cultural context, so that girls and women can not escape reincarnation, suspicion and disgust their bodies, the body and mind are equally frustrated, their existence value is shrunk very small, others are easy, anyway thousand wrong million wrong is a woman's fault.

Photographer Poulomi Basu walked into Nepal's face patty scene, looking at the culture of the incubation of sadness, guilt, pain, the original remote towns and prosperous cities have the same rooted dislike of women culture, malicious in the name of culture, spread growth, generation accumulation, her album named A Ritual of Exile. (Recommended thinking:"the sick" of all people, there are signs of disgust )

Image source:Poulomi Basu

"Yes, it's because of my menstrual bleeding that bad things happen." "The girl Maya told basu," that if I stayed at home my father would be sick and our whole family would be sick. " "But I'm afraid of strangers and vipers, and the boys who threaten me," she added. 」

Image source:Poulomi Basu

"There's only one room in our house that can't be isolated, so I took my child away." "tanka, a 25-year-old child, was forced to take his daughter to exile.

Image source:Poulomi Basu

"I think my situation is good, my family left me clothes and food," Lakshmi, 14, said, "They're not bad for me, they just tell me to get away from the house." 」

Image source:Poulomi Basu

Image source:Poulomi Basu

Image source:Poulomi Basu

Image source:Poulomi Basu

Basu said that his next step is to improve the situation through education to put women's plight into textbooks, which is gender violence, but also women face the real situation. We are too used to living in a world designed for men, and girls are also the history of Nepal. (Recommended reading: reform India with the menstrual encyclopedia!) The most gentle TED speech: "Menstruation is not a disease, not a curse")

Universal Taboo: The power and fear of menstrual blood

Not only Nepal, almost every social culture has some form of menstrual taboo.

Asia, do not enter the temple to pray when menstruation comes; Bolivia in South America, menstruation is a language taboo and is also considered a source of disease; Japan's few women as sushi chefs, allegedly due to menstrual effects of taste, but also to the female body temperature too high; the Koran speaks of women's physical impurity, "stay away from them until they are clean again during menstruation." 」

Why do people fear menstrual blood? In the book "Civilization and Discontent", Freud mentioned that menstrual taboo is directly from the deepest fear of men: vagina as a symbol of cutting and castration of the code, menstrual taboo is due to the vaginal threat of castration anxiety, menstrual blood as a "female-specific" "vagina" row of relics, is regarded as a double base.

The stigma of menstruation is buried in the context of religion and culture, the extremists drive the other courtyard, discipline the woman, the minor delimit the border, and the woman's moving range and behavior. Subconscious fear, so that many regions of women do not have the right health supplies, causing genital infection.

I suddenly think of their first menstruation, helpless, is the next table female classmate gently handed a tampon, she said, "that is menstruation, every month to report once, put this sticky underwear, you are not the same." "Like exchanging secrets," whispered to me, "I came." "(Recommended reading: cotton strips of the power of the prehistoric! Fu talk about menstruation, give China a sex education class )

Menstrual let us identify each other's identity, menstrual blood has its negative power, it symbolizes the nature of women's cycle, it opens the various choices of women's identity, the incubation of life from here began as a rich starting point. Let's name it, menstruation does not have to be the unspeakable "that", I bleed the body, let me feel that I can, let me feel proud.

India and Nepal are innovating from the educational side educating the next generation of girls and boys; Taiwan's Moon Cup is about to be lifted, giving women more menstrual care may be, I would like to next menstrual cramps, no region, we can celebrate the body cycle of awakening and resurrection, see the strength is so, a little bit from our body grow out. (Recommended to you: the body of the confession: I cherish your smell, mark and appearance )