Girls Talk – OF SANITARY NAPKINS AND DEEP ECOLOGY

[For the benefit of those who just landed here, Girls Talk is a weekly meme among my female blogging friends. We agree on a single topic and write or say something about it, sort of woman’s take on certain things in life. You know women when given venue have a lot to say about everything, right? Our theme for this week is the color purple.]

With all seriousness this GT thing really requires a lot out of me. I roamed around the house for about an hour looking for my entry today and of all the pretty purplish things I got hold of, I ended up with this purple-wrapped sanitary napkin, nonetheless, I can’t be absent with Girl's Talk this week. I need to post one. Yes, it's just a sanitary napkin but I was thinking of putting more substance to this, oh gee, it’s already a substance absorber, what am I talking about? I mean putting more weight to than just a Whisper post.

And what does this purple Deep Ecology book doing here? Well, it’s the only purple thing I can find around here with the so-called substance I was talking about and I’ll try to crack the relationship between the two.

Deep Ecology, living as if nature mattered is a book authored by Bill Devall and George Sessions; it tackles about the philosophical, psychological and sociological roots of today’s environmental movements. It examines the human-centered expectations behind the current approaches to dealing with nature; it further explores the possibilities of human’s expanded consciousness and our direct involvement with our surroundings and presents clever positions on the increasing domination of human on nature.

In other words, this book tells us more than just tearing its page to wrap our used sanitary pads and throw it in the garbage bin. It tells us about cultivating profound ecological consciousness that will somehow direct us to a harmonious balance of women existence, the community and the environment, it tells about developing an insight that anything is connected to everything else in this world and largely tells us about cultivating a deep sense of environmental conscience.

Why? Because women and it's menstrual period should grow environmental morals as they have a sizeable share to environmental degradation and moreso to protection.

Here’s the rub, did you know that it takes 500 to 800 years for disposable sanitary napkins to decompose? Hey, I can see your eyeballs popping out from here, you don’t believe it, don’t you. I can’t believe it either but that’s what scientists say and just how much of women’s ecological duty is of concern here? Ok, let’s do a little mathematical analysis just to show a point, I’m no good at this, but I’m cultivating conscience you know, so I should try.

I’ll try to calculate how many pads a woman (that’s me) can consume in her(my) entire reproductive years. Let’s say, I started using disposable sanitary napkin when I was thirteen, I’m now 38, therefore I’ve put up 25 years supporting this industry. I consume 15 pads/month multiply that with 12 months you have a product of 180 pads and, my God I’m afraid to tap my calculator to multiply this with the number of years I have been using sanitary pads.

If and when my menopausal period will hit me at 60, Oh Jesus, I refuse to see the result, I’m feigning my mathematical ability just failed but I’m definite my sense of guilt has just been activated, those bloody trash whatever they’re made of, said to pose another threat to women’s health, this would be another story, would outlive me by incalculable number of generations ahead. Incredible!

I’m a woman who celebrates my femininity, so even as while our society, our culture look at this as ritually unclean or however they made desolate stories out of this natural wonder, I find that there’s power in it, a power to mimic nature, in the same manner that only women can have the power to reverse this overwhelming influx of sanitary brands in the shelves these days.

There’s no other way but to go back to basic, go back to 'pasador'.

The ‘catcha’ can be a perfect vintage pad alternative. We may have laughed at our lola talking about cloth pads in the heyday, but the innate wisdom of it is far entrenched than the leisurely advertised sanitary pad culture of today. I think I should start coming up with my own line of classic catcha menstrual pad, how does that sound? 

I can smell a budding woman entrepreneur coming  up with environment-friendly pads right here! Siya nawa! Pasador, Inc. it is!

Posted in Books, Feminist Musings, Women and Environment