prasad1
Active member
This topic has been discussed many times. Men generally are either ignorant or too superstitious to challenge this taboo and suppression of women.
Most of the women who never had a voice, did not voice their concern.
Modern men and younger women are challenging this practice including our own Champions like JJji and Renukaji.
Modern day wriers say:
Diptarka Hait, MIT Class of 2016.
Patriarchial hogwash. It is simply a superstition without any rational basis that falls in the ranks of bullshit like Astrology, Vastu etc etc. Sorry if you wanted some confirmation for your biases but I will offer you none-it is just hogwash from a patriarchal society of days past. After all, touching something is not necessarily "contaminating" with blood even in the days before sanitary pads.
Tejasvita Apte:
I have seen far too much of Brahminical idiocy (in my own family too) to actually buy this argument.
I might have bought the argument that it is for OUR OWN good, had I not seen other things completely inconsistent with this thought.
Fact of the matter is, menstruation is considered 'dirty / impure'. We are told that the blood that comes out is impure where as no such thing as 'impure' blood exists.
When asked why, we are told it stinks while again, it doesn't stink. It's blood. Smells just like blood. It is the sanitary pad on which the blood gets dried and decomposed that stinks. Just like any man's blood would if you let it get decomposed for 4-5 hours.
Menstruating women are required to use different utensils to eat food in. They also cannot touch pickles, milk sweets, or other food offered to god (prasad). Again, because they are considered impure.
She is not permitted to enter temples, or go near god, or light a lamp. If you have a pooja (Hindu ritual) at home and if you see some women standing outside the room feeling left out, you can guess that it's because they are menstruating.
If the only concern is the woman's health, why do we have so much of hogwash surrounding that thought?
In fact, if the intention is to really give her some rest, let her meditate, be near god, do things she wants to do!
The point therefore is, more than the woman's health it is the superstitious notion that women are impure so they shouldn't do things due to which the so called 'purity' of the things important to others will be challenged. Like God and food.
So, I refuse to buy this argument and I also refuse to believe in those shastras (if any; I am still in search of the ones which have written dictates like these!) which attempt to rule any aspect of my personal life.
Muktipada Behera:
Sri Ramakrishna allowed women to practice religion, rituals during that time. Even Sarada maa asked women to go to temple. Ramakrishna mission does not deny entry into temples during that time. It comes due to superstition. There are created by Orthodox priests.
Ashaucha(अशौच) has two meanings – unclean and impure. ‘Unclean’ is related to physical objects; ‘impure’ is related to mind. It includes outer cleanliness of body as well as inner purity of mind.
It is easy to distinguish unclean which is outer, but not so easy to know impure which is inner. Religious people have a tendency to apply ‘impure’ terminology for outside objects. They demarcate some random objects as impure and few objects as pure. Cleanliness is overlooked due to too much attention to purity on objects. This is the origin of religious fanaticism.
Probably this is reason most of the religious places, rivers are unclean, still considered pure.
Copy from the book published by Ramakrishna Mission
Holy mother Sarada devi relaxed in many cases the rule prohibiting religious observance, worship etc during days of mourning after death, the menstrual period of a women and such other periods of ritualistic impurity.
Most of the women who never had a voice, did not voice their concern.
Modern men and younger women are challenging this practice including our own Champions like JJji and Renukaji.
Modern day wriers say:
Diptarka Hait, MIT Class of 2016.
Patriarchial hogwash. It is simply a superstition without any rational basis that falls in the ranks of bullshit like Astrology, Vastu etc etc. Sorry if you wanted some confirmation for your biases but I will offer you none-it is just hogwash from a patriarchal society of days past. After all, touching something is not necessarily "contaminating" with blood even in the days before sanitary pads.
Tejasvita Apte:
I have seen far too much of Brahminical idiocy (in my own family too) to actually buy this argument.
I might have bought the argument that it is for OUR OWN good, had I not seen other things completely inconsistent with this thought.
Fact of the matter is, menstruation is considered 'dirty / impure'. We are told that the blood that comes out is impure where as no such thing as 'impure' blood exists.
When asked why, we are told it stinks while again, it doesn't stink. It's blood. Smells just like blood. It is the sanitary pad on which the blood gets dried and decomposed that stinks. Just like any man's blood would if you let it get decomposed for 4-5 hours.
Menstruating women are required to use different utensils to eat food in. They also cannot touch pickles, milk sweets, or other food offered to god (prasad). Again, because they are considered impure.
She is not permitted to enter temples, or go near god, or light a lamp. If you have a pooja (Hindu ritual) at home and if you see some women standing outside the room feeling left out, you can guess that it's because they are menstruating.
If the only concern is the woman's health, why do we have so much of hogwash surrounding that thought?
In fact, if the intention is to really give her some rest, let her meditate, be near god, do things she wants to do!
The point therefore is, more than the woman's health it is the superstitious notion that women are impure so they shouldn't do things due to which the so called 'purity' of the things important to others will be challenged. Like God and food.
So, I refuse to buy this argument and I also refuse to believe in those shastras (if any; I am still in search of the ones which have written dictates like these!) which attempt to rule any aspect of my personal life.
Muktipada Behera:
Sri Ramakrishna allowed women to practice religion, rituals during that time. Even Sarada maa asked women to go to temple. Ramakrishna mission does not deny entry into temples during that time. It comes due to superstition. There are created by Orthodox priests.
Ashaucha(अशौच) has two meanings – unclean and impure. ‘Unclean’ is related to physical objects; ‘impure’ is related to mind. It includes outer cleanliness of body as well as inner purity of mind.
It is easy to distinguish unclean which is outer, but not so easy to know impure which is inner. Religious people have a tendency to apply ‘impure’ terminology for outside objects. They demarcate some random objects as impure and few objects as pure. Cleanliness is overlooked due to too much attention to purity on objects. This is the origin of religious fanaticism.
Probably this is reason most of the religious places, rivers are unclean, still considered pure.
Copy from the book published by Ramakrishna Mission
Holy mother Sarada devi relaxed in many cases the rule prohibiting religious observance, worship etc during days of mourning after death, the menstrual period of a women and such other periods of ritualistic impurity.
