Written by Sowmya Gopi
Period. End of Sentence. is an Oscar-winning documentary that takes us through the lives of women in rural India, where they struggle with periods still being taboo and it often ends up being the end of a girl’s education.
Being part of part of urban India, I still cannot fully say the stigma around menstruation is something we’re fully done with. We still hide the sanitary pads in covers when we buy them from stores, still refer to it as a “girl problem”, and still shy away from even mentioning the word before men. If we, “the educated lot”, face this struggle, what will eventuate for the uneducated ones? This is exactly what’s portrayed in this short film.
In the beginning of the film, we are taken to a Northern rural town in India, where we see girls, women and a few men being asked what menstruation or a period is, to which many women shy away from and men refer to it as some illness. Most women don’t even know what a pad or sanitary napkin is for and this lack of information is the root cause of many health issues women are facing. With periods still being a topic no one openly discusses, women are said to be “impure” during this time. They are made to eat, sleep, and stay in a separate room, and in a way, they are treated as an untouchable until she becomes “pure” again. They aren’t allowed inside temples or any places of worship while on their menstrual cycle. We also see women who left their education because they had no proper access to any sanitary products during their schooling days. Amidst these women, we also find some struggling to reach their dreams and fighting society and their patriarchal views.
Among the men, they are too shy, proud, or unaware of what menstruation is. There exists a man named Arunachalam Muruganantham, a social entrepreneur who has been working towards breaking the taboo surrounding menstrual hygiene for years. This man also has a film about his life story and work called Padman, featuring Akshay Kumar. We see the man himself featuring in this documentary, educating women on how to make low-cost and quality driven sanitary napkins. He received many calls after the film won an Oscar, from women who not only started using sanitary pads but also educated and motivated others to do the same. Addressing the win he said in an interview, “I am very happy. We never expected an Oscar. The subject (menstrual hygiene) has reached a global audience. Not just in India, but, women in Kenya, Uganda, or Bangladesh can learn about menstrual hygiene through the documentary.” As the film progresses we see women of a small village near Delhi, lead a quiet revolution as they fight against the deeply rooted stigma of menstruation. With a sanitary pad vending machine installed in the village, many women learn to manufacture and market their own pads, empowering their community, learning to be independent, and once and for all trying to put an end to the health issues and girls dropping their education due to lack of access to pads for generations.
Today, one can’t even imagine not having access to basic sanitary products. What these women struggled through and came out of, stronger than ever and it is really commendable. The film in company of tenacious women, united in shame, joy, love and period shows us that, when aspirations are unfazed by reality, yet are grounded in it, the only way is onward and upward.
Now streaming on Netflix, this film has won the best short documentary award at the 2019 Oscars. In the winning speech, the director went on to say that she couldn’t believe a film on menstruation has won an Oscar. The director Rayka Zehtabchi and Melissa Berton called out inequality in her Oscar speech as well when she accepted the award with the words “I’m not crying because I’m on my period or anything” and ended the speech on a high note, with a sentence that empowered women all over “Period end of sentence not an end to a girl’s education”.
