The notion of purity
The focus on female bodily functions has never been more critical or as intense than it is now. In her essay, ‘Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture’, American anthropologist Sherry B. Ortner argues that a woman’s secondary status to man stems from the fact that the female physiology with its procreative functions is seen as closer to nature. “In many cultures it interrupts a woman’s routine, putting her in a stigmatised state involving various restrictions on her activities and social contacts,” she writes. So when Union Minister Smriti Irani questioned whether a woman would carry a “napkin seeped with menstrual blood into a friend’s house,” she was reinforcing ideas of purity that took root in society thousands of years ago. The Book of Leviticus in the Old Testament talks about purity and desecration in this context: “When a woman has a discharge consisting of blood from her body, for seven days she will be unclean due to menstruation, and anyone who touches her will be unclean until evening.” And when U.S. President Donald Trump said in 2015 that journalist Megyn Kelly had “blood coming out of her wherever” after she questioned his misogyny, he was reinforcing a stereotype that women everywhere are now challenging.
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