Ahamed, F. (Ed.). (2022). Period Matters: Menstruation in South Asia. New Delhi: Macmillan
Published online: 22 May 2023
On the cover of Farah Ahamed’s new book about menstrual experiences in South Asia, blood-soaked white lotuses float across the page. Inside, Sarah Naqvi’s exquisite red embroidery decorates pads and tampons with red thread and pearls. Another page, and artist Rupi Kaur’s now iconic series of menstrual images are rendered in full. Carry on, and you will see a graffiti work featuring a girl surfing blood-red waves and Shahzia Sikander’s impossibly gorgeous miniature painting of daily life as a young woman. Next, Anish Kapoor’s gushing portraits of menstrual blood appear both frightening and familiar. Then, the words of a young girl after a menstrual education workshop: “Why should I feel shame and un-secure!” And finally, rendered in stunning images, dancer Amna Mawaz Khan smiles serenely as she dances the menstrual dance “Raqs-e-Mahvaari,” red staining her hands and the floor beneath her, a projection of a supersized full moon keeping her company minute by minute.
The experience of reading Period Matters: Menstruation in South Asia is hopefully somewhat conveyed by the paragraph above. Short, often intensely visual and poetic sections, followed by scholarly documentation and journalism, interspersed with lived experience, artworks, and short stories. By the time you’ve turned the last page, you’ve entered more than 30 menstrual worlds that happen to revolve around South Asia. Some of these stories are brutal, others poetic, many terrifying, more celebratory. Overall, there is no single conclusion or voice—editor Ahamed has wisely decided to embrace diversity by not insisting on a specific view of menstruation. Her solid introduction communicates her own experiences with menstrual education, policy, and culture but does not offer any final word as to how people should think about menstruation in South Asia. Rather, the chapters communicate a series of experiences as varied as the region they inhabit, involving a multiplicity of religions, languages, genders, ages, and experiences.
The book strongly demonstrates the need to examine menstruation in both global and region-specific ways. In her introduction, Ahamed notes that advertising campaigns for U.S. brands caused confusion:
I was scared of horses. I didn’t have a bike, I wasn’t blonde and I had no idea what the blue ink blotting the pad was about. I thought it was some kind of magic potion which girls in other countries took to help them with their sporting activities (4).
With Period Matters, Ahamed provides alternative narratives for people like her younger self, with a specific regional and cultural background that was seldom considered by large brands or advertisers. This is important, because the menstrual inequity in South Asia has unique dimensions worth examining and that are changing quickly.
Furthermore, the book demonstrates how much of recent menstrual activism and news have come out of the South Asian region. The pioneering Menstrual Rights Bill that was tabled in the Indian Parliament is included in full, alongside Radha Paudel’s pioneering work to make menstrual dignity acknowledged as a human right and suggestions for how period leave could be introduced in schools and at work. New biodegradable products are detailed, in addition to educational strategies such as comic books and community workshops. NGO work is also represented, including ongoing efforts to change menstrual health in Buddhist nunneries, in Balochistan, among homeless populations, during natural disasters, and in Pakistan prisons. Accounts of lived experience help underline the need for change and understanding and include essays by trans people, writers, and poets. The book is purposefully, yet effortlessly, intersectional in this way.
In summary, the book gives readers a broad and exciting overview of menstrual politics in South Asia today. The editor is not seeking “to condense the plurality” of menstruation with this book but rather to show “the variances and commonalities of the experience” across the region (9). Period Matters succeeds in this aim and is vital reading for anyone working in the menstrual research, activist, or policy space.
Camilla Mørk Røstvik
Associate Professor in History, University of Agder, Kristiansand, Norway
camilla.m.rostvik@uia.no
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