Untouchability

Menstruation is a physiological process often imbued with powerful cultural and religious symbols. For men, it is a mysterious and sometimes frightening phenomenon—the shedding of blood without visible injury. For women, it has been a double-edged sword. Far too often, it has been used in misogynist ideologies as evidence of the defiling and ungodly nature of the female body, leading many societies to subject menstruating women to taboos that limit their autonomy and agency. However, not all societies have interpreted menstruation in the same way: in some cultures it has been perceived as relatively unimportant, subject to neither stigma nor taboo; in others, menstruation has been a sign of the magical power of the female body, in all its mysterious fecundity. Indeed many societies exhibit profound ambivalence where menstruation is concerned, imbuing it with both positive and negative meanings, making it difficult to arrive at a single interpretation of menstrual taboos.