What is a Disease and What Isn’t

By Stuti Rawat

“History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce”, said Karl Marx. 

What isolation or quarantine feels like when people don’t treat you well is something that every woman must have experienced at some or the other point of time in her life.

The restrictions that are imposed on one when the person has COVID 19 are pretty much similar to those that were imposed on women in the past during their menstruation and are still put on women in some households. 

The drill is very much the same: you are meant to be away from people, you can’t be at public places, you have to eat your food all alone, no one dares to touch you, you have to wash your own clothes and utensils, you can’t touch your closet and what not.

The only difference is that when a person is tested positive for COVID 19 the person is suffering from a disease which is communicable and can harm the masses if we don’t take proper precautions and follow the proper isolation norms. 

But can you even imagine that a person cannot stay in isolation for even 14 days and a woman had to face isolation for a period of 3 days every 28 days? She was ill treated, considered impure, was treated like an untouchable, no one wanted to see her face, was made to sleep on the floor, was made to wear specific clothes, and there was no one she could hold and tell 'listen am not feeling great'. 

Comparing and analyzing the two situations we should understand that a person requires isolation when the person has contracted some disease, but we need to understand that menstruation is not a disease, it is a biological process that every woman experiences. It is unbelievable that menstruation remains a taboo topic. It is important for people to understand that a woman already goes through a lot of hardships that her own body puts forth while she is menstruating and we shouldn’t mentally burden her with all these restrictions. Instead of ill treating them when they menstruate we should make an attempt to make them feel more comfortable. 

I hope that at least after having seen and in some cases having experienced what isolation feels like, we should make an attempt to bring about an affirmative change in the society and make menstruation a normal and acceptable topic of discussion.