I just read an Express Tribune Edit’s Instagram post/news/survey disclosing Padman’s screening ban in Pakistan and wanted us to comment. Though there were mixed reviews, but I was glad to notice that people inclined more towards its ban support.
As far as I am concerned instead of just commenting as a pro-ban Padman, I actually wanted to discuss my reasoning for it, along with this over-the-top #PadmanChallange. To me it just seemed a bit too much, or rather a bit off-limits.
Why?
Before I dive into this topic, let’s first get this straight that I am all in For-Women-Hygiene. Our health and hygiene is of utmost importance…no IFS and BUTS! We should never be scared and ashamed of discussing all our physical/innate changes. Because when it comes to the knowledge and awareness…the more the better!
But, being a purely feminine girl, I found it quite upsetting seeing men grinning while holding and posing with a pad, like a prop. Quite frankly it was disturbing to watch Akshay Kumar's promotional video in a red T-shirt portraying ‘those-days’.
I am finding myself struggling with the choice of words here, but would just say that all the advertisement and promotional tactics to make this supposedly ‘taboo’ topic a-bit-more-public were just not right.
It’s a girl’s most intimate natural ‘thing’, so…
Why we need men to be publicly spreading awareness about us to us?
Why we always need men to standup for us?
Why we need men to acknowledge our natural body?
Why we always look up to men to break a taboo for us?
Aren't we women just enough for ourselves?
I acknowledge and applause the efforts of real-life Indian Pad-Man, but by confining that promotional-awareness-campaign of #padmancahllange to only females, would had been much better. They could have gone to under deprived areas and have portrayed the truly needy women happily holding them.
To me, witnessing male celebrities holding and promoting a pad was just like watching an Always commercial staring Varun Dhavan or any other male model sharing the screen with his female sibling. WT*?
Call me a racist, a feminist, a conservative, or someone promoting gender-bias…I’ll take it all. Because the truth is our God Almighty has made us different. He is the One who wants this segregation. It’s by Nature. It’s in Quran!
I am glad that, unlike Padmavat, at least now our Pakistani Censor Board took the courage and stopped the showcasing of this purely female topic. Again I am not at all against promoting/encouraging awareness, instead every female has the right to be fully educated about why, how, and when periods happen.
Truly saying, the intended female and male audience for Padman will be very unlikely to come out of their comfort zones to watch it collectively, anyway. So why this fuss?
Plus promoting gender-specific issues is a very slippery slop subject. If today we are tagging/challenging men to publicly display our pads and discuss our menstruation, then are we ready for an all-inclusive future discussions on…oh my god there’s so much…?*
Can we let men get hold of our ‘bra or no-bra’ discussion?*
Or are we okay to see men holding and posing with a female undergarment pretending to spread awareness about our physical-support-system?*
Is Mr. Grey the future of Padman?*
*<I am sorry…I might be stretching it too far…I know my imagination is going crazy…but this is exactly what I fear about!>
So what should be done?
As a compensation for banning Padman and to keep the naysayers quite, Pakistan government should increase federal and financial support for women health and wellbeing programs.
Problems cannot be resolved by having male celebrities posing with a pad for #padmanchallenge. Instead it’ll be much better having a needy female face happily proclaiming that she also #GOTIT .
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