Today, I would like to reflect my view on the real sufferings of girls and women in India in context with the Padman movie and the brilliant work the movie did.
We all know that a mother is considered to be the most sacred and pious person on earth, a wife is the most lovable and affectionate woman for her husband, a daughter is the best gifts for the parents and a sister is what a brother always wishes for.
Not only that, A woman contributes to the society in every aspect. Be it social, political, commercial or household work; a woman stands on the top at every assigned job. Be it delivering a political speech or managing a company as the CEO, be it a social movement or be it managing the house, be it earning for the family or be it feeding the children; it’s a woman who succeeds to accomplish every possible task.
On one side where today we acknowledge that a woman is no way inferior to man, there exists another patriarchal society where women are still dominated. A woman somewhere is still beaten up every day by her drunk husband, somewhere she is being made an object of sex, in many other places she is still kept restricted within set boundaries and not allowed to follow her passion, her dreams, her life goals and often not granted the rights that a normal citizen is entitled to.
A Brief about PADMAN
Padman movie directed by R.Balki, consisting of cast Akshay Kumar and Sonam Kapoor is the big hit in B-town.
The movie stands appropriately in every aspect highlighting the stigma attached to women in small villages where they are scared as hell to even talk about the natural phenomenon that occurs inside every woman’s body.
The movie portrays the ill-treatment meted out to women in those 5 days when they are not allowed to stay in their own rooms and are isolated in some other place which is specially made for women. Also, they are not allowed to stay in contact with their husbands considering it impure.
The lack of education
Although, today India has grown to a different level in terms of development and better lifestyle there are a number of aspects on which the country still lacks.
The major one according to me is “lack of education”.
People in small villages consider the menstrual cycle to be an unhygienic and impure phenomenon. They think it’s something wrong and absurd that happens to a woman’s body.
All this is because they do not know the actual reason why a woman suffers from periods. Due to lack of knowledge, these people strengthen their orthodox beliefs and resort to measures such as isolating the victim.
The lack of successful campaigns
Villagers strengthen their orthodox beliefs and fail to understand the practical reason behind any such phenomenon.
Today there are a lot of NGO’s which have come up with campaigns to help women in villages and also urge them not to use unhygienic clothes instead use a pad. But be it the cost issue or the stigma attached to women to go and ask for sanitary napkins in a medical shop, the women are still reluctant to use it.
The real sufferings of women
Women due to society paradigm of the menstrual cycle being impure are reluctant to go out of their houses on the course of these 5 days and also are ashamed for asking for a sanitary napkin, but this is where the real impurity lies.
Instead of using napkins these women end up using dirty clothes over and over again which causes fertility issues. This practice is responsible for a significant proportion of illness and infection associated with female reproductive health. Rags that are unclean, cause urinary and vaginal infection and very often serious infections are left untreated.
I stand frozen with shock to know that many women also end up using ash, plastic, and even sand as sanitary pads.
The remaining are ashamed of changing their pads as they do not find an appropriate place to dispose it off.
Sufferings aggravated by patriarchal society
Adding fuel to fire is the male dominating society in India. Even if a woman would want to resort to hygienic measures the fear of being accused by the society would make her stay quiet and continue suffering each time.
Knowing the fact that it’s only a woman who can still be alive after bleeding for 5 continuous days, how can she be ever weak or inferior to male dominance. It’s the wrong mindset and orthodox thinking of the society which still has not lost its way in the long run, making women in India suffer the hardships.
The fear of being beaten up by her husband on demanding for a necessary change and also adding up on monthly expenses makes the victim suffer.
The positive impact of the Padman movie
I as a viewer and also being a girl truly realize the suffering the girls and women in villages face as highlighted in the movie.
For me, Padman movie succeeds in spreading an appropriate message to the society and hopefully a lot many women would now adopt better measures to deal with the same. It also succeeded in abolishing the stigma attached to women while they were afraid of talking about it.
If a leading star is not afraid of acting in a movie casted worldwide why are women afraid or even ashamed of talking about the natural phenomenon which sustains life on earth.
The Padman movie has come with an unbelievable impact that the government is now ready to distribute free sanitary napkins to school going girls. Here is a tweet containing the message.
अक्षय कुमार अभिनीत फिल्म पैडमैन से मिले सन्देश को ध्यान में रखते हुए साउथ एमसीडी ने स्कूलों में पढ़ने वाली सभी छात्राओं को मुफ्त में सैनेटरी नेपकिन उपलब्ध कराने का फैसला किया.. @ReporterRavish https://t.co/bWMC1d8HmM
— आज तक (@aajtak) February 27, 2018
SVF which is Eastern India’s largest production house; collaborated with the state government to create awareness about menstrual health among girls. They organized an event on February 22, a special show of Akshay Kumar and Radhika Apte at SVF Cinemas in Purulia for the Kanyashree girls.
And there are many other campaigns which are now being run as the positive result of Padman movie.
Over to you
It’s never easy to be a woman. She has the power to sustain life on earth, it’s her sufferings which makes our planet earth worth a place to live. It makes me feel contented when movies like Padman come up and help break the existing social stigma. I personally loved the Padman movie and if you haven’t watched it yet then I urge you to watch it.
Also, please share your view about the movie in the comments below.
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