The Disruptor Spearheading the International Dignified Menstruation Movement. Member Spotlight: Radha Paudel
“I am doing this work for the sake of the people,” Radha Paudel says, her voice passionate. “I come from the same background as the people I help.” Her face is in a small box on the Zoom call in front of me, but I can’t help feeling her presence through the screen. The award-winning author, nurse, and activist is the creator of the Dignified Menstruation Movement, a theory crucial to the future of gender equality and peacebuilding.
“Home is the factory of violence.”
Radha opens up to me about her difficult childhood in Nepal. It started from birth, as since Radha’s family had wanted a boy so badly, she wasn’t even given a birth certificate. The family was very poor—Radha’s father was a milk seller, her mother was often ill, and Radha had six other siblings.
Radha acutely remembers the conflict which menstruation created in her family. When her mother was menstruating, she wasn’t allowed to cook and struggled to find menstrual products. Menstruation was a taboo which no one talked about, but which exacerbated gender disparity in the community. This affected Radha so much that she ran away from home when she first started menstruating—one of several attempts to escape the overwhelming shame surrounding menstruation.
“I wasn’t happy within the four walls of an operating room.”
Radha had planned on having a career in forestry to earn money for herself and her family. However, when, unannounced to her, Radha’s father enrolled her in nursing school, she found herself falling in love with the profession. Radha started working as a nurse anesthetist for emergency surgery.
It was while getting her nursing degree that Radha first learned about the important and life-giving nature of menstruation. She went on to get her PhD in Menstrual Discrimination and its Impact on Health, Education and Empowerment from Tribhuvan University in Nepal. But in the hospitals, Radha witnessed the widespread medical mishandling of women’s health and gender-based violence. This inspired her to volunteer as a nurse in disaster relief across Nepal.
“In every disaster, there are menstruators.”
Through Facebook, Radha raised money for her volunteer work. She drove a truck filled with supplies to disaster zones; sometimes she had to take the night bus (where she would often be the only woman). Radha explains how she used her nurse title as a shield. She describes how she and anyone she was traveling with would be stopped at the edge of conflict zones: “I would tell them, ‘I’m a nurse, let me go through by myself.’” And she would. In the midst of floods, earthquakes, and political uprisings, Radha educated women and girls about menstruation and provided menstrual products along with relief supplies.
During the Nepalese civil war, Radha managed to negotiate with the Maoist insurgents. Late one night—guided only by a cryptic map—Radha met at a secret location to discuss the terms regarding supplies and provisions. Radha succeeded in getting crucial resources through to civilians. Her problems with the insurgents, however, were far from over. As she writes in her memoir Jumla: A Nurse’s Story, Radha—while working as a nurse in the Jumla district—was subjected to a violent attack, during which many of her friends lost their lives. Radha managed to survive by escaping her room and taking refuge with a friend.
“It starts with menstrual discrimination and ends with inequality, patriarchy, and sexual and gender violence.”
Radha’s personal experiences have shaped the way she views the connection between peacebuilding and dignified menstruation. The United Nation’s description of gender equality does not take menstruation into account. To Radha, peacebuilding is too often focused on weapons, while all around the globe—even in areas of supposed peace—women’s bodies are being weaponized. If policies first addressed dignified menstruation and the elimination of systematic shame and silence, gender equality may finally be achieved. Only then, Radha explains, can peace stand a chance.
For example, when there is famine in a village, that famine is used as an excuse for the boys to be fed more than the girls. If there were greater awareness and institutionalized support for menstruators, this underlying discrimination may work to be eliminated. That way, when there is a famine, sexism will not rear its head so fiercely.
“Dignified menstruation is not only about dignity. It is a composite indicator of equality, freedom, non-discrimination, and dignity.”
It is Radha’s dream that the UN will endorse December 8th as International Dignified Menstruation Day. This December, the Global South Coalition for Dignified Menstruation is hosting the 7th annual Learning Conference in Nepal. Radha’s foundation also recently oversaw the publication of Claiming Dignified Menstruation: An Essential Guide for Lesbian, Bisexual and Queer Womxn. This guide seeks to raise awareness about the struggles facing queer people who menstruate, including transgender men.
Radha currently leads trainings to implement dignified menstruation in both personal and professional environments. She tells me about her teaching method: Radha lets people vent their frustration, anger, and confusion, listening and taking detailed notes. When they are done telling their stories, Radha quizzes them about opportunities in their lives to normalize menstruation. Radha owes this side of her work in part to MBBI’s peer-to-peer dialogue sessions, where she has learned to be a better educator.
Radha’s story is not an easy one to tell. She has lived hardships which unfortunately, are not as uncommon as you might think. Radha has studied dignified menstruation for over 30 years, yet she has rarely lived it. Instead, she has experienced discrimination and mental health struggles as the world lags behind her important cause.
I felt a sense of urgency when I spoke to Radha, not only to raise awareness about dignified menstruation, but also to make concrete changes in the way our world thinks about menstrual discrimination as an underlying cause of injustice and inequality. I hope that by sharing Radha’s story, more people in MBBI and beyond may take up the call to action.
Article by Elsie Aleck, MBBI Writer