Fuck Yeah, Gender Studies!

As the article notes, “88% of women in India resort to using ashes, newspapers, dried leaves and even husk sand during their periods, according to a report by market research group AC Nielsen called Sanitatary Protection: Every Woman’s Health Right. As a result of these unhygienic practices, more than 70% of the women suffer from reproductive tract infections, increasing the risk of contracting associated cancers.”

So one man, after discovering his wife had to choose between using old rags and being able to buy milk for her family, took to inventing a low-cost sanitary towel—and sharing the manufacturing process with rural women’s groups to enable them to make money.

The entire system operates on a woman-to-woman basis. Women making the towels spread awareness of the product locally, eventually helping others make the shift to this more hygienic method of control.

“I am trying to create a second white revolution,” says Muruganantham. Setting up 100,000 units, he says, will generate employment for one million women. “No one is bothered about uneducated and illiterate people. Through this model, they can live with dignity.”

I also love this bit:

With no women willing to discuss Muruganantham’s handmade sanitary towels in any depth, he decided to test them himself. Collecting goat’s blood from a butcher shop and treating it chemically to prevent coagulation, he wore a bladder-and-tube contraption and women’s underwear for a week. His homemade uterus would release a small dose of blood whenever pressed.

Click through to read the whole thing.