An Issue of Blood: The Practice of Secluding Women During Menstruation and Post-Pardum

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Rebekah Wightman and Dr. Valerie Hudson, Political Science

Menstruation is a taboo subject in even the most familiar cultures. Talking menstruation in general is often full of uncomfortable giggles and whispers, but in other not so familiar cultures, menstruation is handled very differently. Seclusion typically means that menstruating women or those who have just given birth must not engage in public activities for the duration of their menses or post-pardum period. For some societies, menstrual huts are created as a place for women to reside outside the village during menstruation. Typically, the women are not allowed to leave the menstrual hut during this period of time and strict punishments result if they do. Understanding what customs various cultures institute and why they institute them regarding menstruation served as the basis for this research.

I worked on this project in conjunction with the Womanstats Project. All of the research I compiled was added to the Womanstats database, an online database available at womanstats.org. This database works to document all customs relating to women and children throughout the world that do or do not comply with the United Nation’s Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). Though the research on this subject is far from finished, my work on this variable did bring the database from 15% to 50% complete. In the last year, I increased the known information on this subject 35%. The database has been in existence since 2001. I feel that I made tremendous progress on this issue despite the need for further research.

Beginning the research was by the far the most difficult part. It seemed to take an endless amount of time to get the ball rolling on my research. My first technique was to write several professors working in gender studies programs throughout the world. However, after sending out around a hundred emails and receiving no response, I realized I would need to take a different path. The library was my next stop, but I found that there were very few books written on this subject and those that were, contained ancient customs rather than current. I then used the on-line research databases like JSTOR, Lexis Nexis, and SSCI; these also proved rather fruitless. Occasionally, I would find one or two articles, but the information was usually too broad to be useable. Customs were discussed but very rarely attached to one nation or group. At this point in my research, I was feeling rather defeated. I had no idea how difficult it would be to locate this information.

I think that one of the most important lessons I learned from this research project was humility. In the beginning, I was very prideful in my approach to the research as demonstrated by the very closed research techniques described in the preceding paragraph. It finally occurred to me that perhaps I should consult the other researchers on the Womanstats Project. Additionally, I began writing former anthropology teachers here at Brigham Young University that I had taken classes from previously. With the help of these individuals, my research was finally on its way. I used several of the leads given by my fellow researchers to find similar sources. I found that looking at all the end notes and citations of journal and newspaper articles was extremely helpful. Additionally, discussing my research with this group helped me learn a new vocabulary to audition for my internet searches. This also brought in an immense amount of literature for me to read and code.

My final step in the research process was to contact various NGOs in areas that I still lacked information for. This was a hit and miss process, but I was delighted with how many organizations were willing to provide literature that I could use in my research. One NGO in particular, SHE (Sustainable Health Enterprises) sent three articles loaded with cited sources that provided much of the information I documented on the African nations. This is particularly helpful because Africa has so many countries, and it was very difficult to find information on them. With all of this help, I uncovered at least some information regarding the menstruation practices in every inhabited continent!

In Nepal, when a girl has menses for the first time she is locked in a room by herself for days usually between 5-10 (BBC 2005). In Tanzania, the little girls usually stay home during their periods because there is not adequate sanitation at school. Most of the girls have to use rags because they cannot afford sanitary supplies. If the girls do go to school they live in fear of being mocked and tormented by their classmates if they are found out. As a result, the majority of girls stay home and out of sight for 3-4 days a month (Sommer 2009, 1-2). In Papua New Guinea, women are secluded during menstruation into huts that they must stay in until their time has finished (Menstruation Contributors 2000). In Bolivia, the Mataco people seclude their girls upon first menses. From the beginning of their seclusion, they must work to make a kind of rope used by the village people; they are not allowed to stop making this rope the whole time of their seclusion, when they finish their menses the work is examined, and the girl is married off based upon what she accomplished while in seclusion (Janssen 2010). Finally, here in the United States several Native American tribes have similar customs. The Yurok Indian women in California must stay secluded for 10 days during and after their menses. During this time, the women cannot cook for others or eat with others even from their own household (Buckley 1982). These are just some of the instances that my research uncovered. The database has the full report, but this small sampling should indicate how pervasive this custom is among many cultures, some even existing among us here in the United States.

The goal of this research from its inception was to report on the customs and practices of various countries throughout the world regarding the seclusion of women during menstruation and post-pardum. It is not clear that there is one answer for why these practices have developed in so many societies. Most of the participants in these traditions could not give a good reason for them except that it is what has been done and so it continues to be done. However, as the aims of BYU iterate that “we enter to learn and go forth to serve,” this research has demonstrated to me that the more we can learn about ourselves and others, the more opportunities we will have to serve them and be served by them. In this way, perhaps research projects like this can provide an avenue of understanding that will facilitate greater collaboration among peoples in the future.

Reference

  • Buckley, Thomas. 1982. Menstruation and the power of Yurok women: Methods in cultural reconstruction. American Ethnologist vol.9, no.1: 48.
  • Janssen, Diederik F. 2002. Growing up Sexually. World Reference Atlas. Vol. 1. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Interim Report. Available from: http://www2.huberlin.de/sexology/GESUND/ARCHIV/GUS/SOUTHAMERICAOLD.HTM.
  • Menstruation Contributors. 2000. Slapping our daughters. Accessed on: January 1, 2010. Available from: http://www.menstruation.com.au/contributors/slap.html.
  • Sharma, Shushil. 2005. Women hail menstruation ruling. BBC News. September 15.
  • Sommer, Marni. 2009. Where the education system and women’s bodies collide: The social and health impacts of girls experiences of menstruation and schooling in Tanzania. Journal of Adolescence March: 1-9.