Following a statement from a chief of a well-known Indian temple saying he would only permit women to come into the sacred shrine if a menstruation-detecting machine is invented. The "sexist statement" made women furious and launched the #HappyToBleed campaign on Facebook.
"A time will come when people will ask if all women should be disallowed from entering the temple throughout the year," Prayar Gopalakrishnan said. "These days there are machines that can scan bodies and check for weapons. There will be a day when a machine is invented to scan if it is the 'right time' for a woman to enter the temple. When that machine is invented, we will talk about letting women inside."
In India, menstruation is a taboo. The Telegraph wrote "People have since assumed it was due to impurity, but it was actually a tradition designed to allow women to rest when they had cramps and were in pain."
In response to the remark of the Sabarimala temple's head, 20-year-old Nikita Azad initially launched the #HappyToBleed petition, which quickly gained popularity in social networking sites. Indian women started sharing selfies holding signs with the hashtag #HappyToBleed.
"Women are denied entry to the temple because of the belief that menstruation makes them impure," she wrote. "We have started #HappyToBleed as a form of resistance against patriarchal beliefs about menstruation, and chauvinist notions that consider women the property of men or society." As for Azad as well as the other girls who posted, there is no such thing as "right time" and women should be permitted to enter "wherever they want to and whenever they want to."
BBC reports that several Hindu temples conspicuously display notices that women during menstruation are prohibited to enter. However, Sabarimala does not allow women in their entire reproductive age. In their website, it clearly implies "women between the 10-50 age group are not allowed to enter Sabarimala... such women who try to enter Sabarimala will be prevented by (the) authorities" from doing so."
In an interview with BBC, Ms. Azad announced "More than 100 women have posted their photographs on Facebook holding banners and placards, with catchy slogans, and many more have shared these photos on their timelines... It may be painful, but it's perfectly normal to bleed and it does not make me impure."
