01 ▼ "Did you bring sanitary napkins?" "Yes!!"
Last month, Yimeijun brushed a help note, which is very memorable.
The reason is that a girl on the train had a premonition that her period was coming, but she forgot to bring a sanitary towel;
The carriage she was in was almost all male. There were no sanitary napkins to buy on the train, and the stewards had no way out;
In desperation, she asked for help on the Internet, hoping that the female passengers nearby could brush the news for help.
Unexpectedly, this post attracted the attention of tens of thousands of people, several of whom happened to be on the same train.
Those female netizens said they could help in the message area, From the screen, I can feel their gratitude for helping.
Their messages were praised by tens of thousands of netizens in the front row, so that callers could see them.
There is also a message in the front row, telling the voice of many female netizens:
I want to pass it to you.
At that moment, I felt that the friendship between women from all over the world was connected by a sanitary towel.
There is also a classic question about sanitary napkins online:
If a girl who has just quarreled with you and whom you don't like borrows sanitary napkins from you, will you lend them to her?
All the answers Yi Meijun saw were: meeting.
Almost all women will sympathize with the pain and inconvenience women endure during menstruation, and this empathy can transcend all gratitude and resentment:
When you borrow sanitary napkins from me, I can immediately understand what you are encountering. No matter who you are or what I think of you, the problem you are encountering must be solved first.
So I can understand why this month, after a female passenger encountered the same dilemma, she suggested selling sanitary napkins on the train online, which won the firm support of so many women.
I thought the trend of this matter would be:
The railway bureau saw the demand of so many people, and included sanitary napkins in the allowed sales scope. The merchants found that there was a market, and they actively talked with the railway bureau about cooperation.
But the truth is that many people who do not use sanitary napkins come out to "understand the truth":
Some say that this is the demand of a small number of groups;
Some people say: Pretty, don't know to use toilet paper instead?
Some girls do not carry sanitary napkins, which is equivalent to "no brain".
Some said that they would make a fuss on the Internet for such trifles.
Some people mean something similar: today they dare to ask for sanitary napkins, tomorrow they dare to ask for the whole earth.
There are also some "generalists" who say that such a request is to let the society pay for their "late cancer of laziness"; Women are required to carry sanitary napkins with them for 365 days.
Under the words "Little Fairy" on the left and "Big Baby" on the right, this once normal thing quarreled for five consecutive days on hot search.
02 ▼ You can not ask questions, but can you stop covering others' mouths?
Is that proposal so unattractive?
Let's take a look at the truth of the matter from the controversial proposal:
This girl almost couldn't borrow sanitary napkins because her menstruation was ahead of schedule. She also learned that many girls had this situation, so she gave some advice to the relevant departments;
This perfectly normal suggestion, however, has triggered a debate that makes people feel inexplicable.
Among the opposition voices, many said that the high-speed railway has the right not to sell;
Of course, the high-speed railway can choose not to sell, but is it neither the seller nor the irrelevant person of the buyer, nor is it necessary to cover others' mouths?
At the beginning, the high-speed railway had no toilets, no boxed lunch, no charging, and no movies. If you lost your ticket in the middle of the journey, you must apply for it in full Now, all these situations have changed;
These advances are not brought by those who silently endure, nor by those who cover their mouths, but by those who put forward demands.
It is not because everyone is silent that society can move forward. On the contrary, society progresses in the process of everyone raising and solving problems, so this is not only the right but also the obligation of every citizen.
Many other people said that this was to force the sale of sanitary napkins on the high-speed railway, but I think these people did not distinguish the meaning of the word "mandatory".
First of all, is there any demand for selling sanitary napkins on the high-speed railway?
Not only that, but also the demand is not low.
On any day, about 1/5~1/4 of women are in menstruation, and women in menstruation need to use 2-3 sanitary napkins every day;
On Kunming Railway, the sales volume of sanitary napkins reached 12045 bags, far higher than the sales volume of American coffee, beer, bubble water and other drinks.
In online voting, more than 80% of people support selling sanitary napkins on high-speed railway;
Secondly, is it abnormal to forget to bring sanitary napkins?
It is normal, just as many people may need paper towels at any time, but often forget to carry them with them.
Finally, is the reason for selling sanitary napkins on the high-speed railway justified?
Many women's menstruation will be delayed from a few days to half a month. If they come to menstruation unexpectedly in such a confined space as the train, most women will feel embarrassed and uncomfortable at the thought of it;
Especially for those girls who are too shy to borrow sanitary napkins from others or cannot borrow sanitary napkins, once they experience it, it will be a shadow for decades;
This kind of accident can be avoided by adding two bags of sanitary napkins beside the toy model on the train shelf. Why not?
Since there are legitimate reasons and demands, once this proposal is put forward, of course, many people will stand up and argue, which in some people's eyes constitutes "coercion" and "female boxing".
03 ▼ Sanitary towel, what's shameful?
Why does the high-speed railway not sell sanitary napkins for a long time?
This is actually related to a word mentioned more frequently in recent years: Menstrual shame.
When the passenger called 12306 to make suggestions, he got the reply that sanitary napkins belong to personal products, so they are not included in the sales scope.
In fact, there is a problem with this answer. Sanitary napkins belong to private goods. Are boxed meals, fruits, etc. public goods?
What they really want to express is that sanitary napkin is a kind of product that needs to be covered.
We are familiar with this meaning.
At the school meeting, girls always looked like exchanging information when borrowing sanitary napkins. They first asked in a low voice, then furtively pulled out the sanitary napkins and hid them in their sleeves. They also looked around vigilantly for fear of encountering another pair of thoughtful eyes.
When you buy sanitary napkins in the supermarket, the salesperson will find you a black plastic bag from a transparent plastic bag by tacit consent;
"Teacher, I have a stomachache" is the secret sign of the female student and the PE teacher;
Throughout the country, people will use more obscure words to call sanitary napkins;
Big aunts, regular holidays, relatives, bad things, bad luck, more commonly, "I came there".
Women have been ashamed of menstruation for more than hundreds of years. Xu Shen, a linguist of the Eastern Han Dynasty, said in Shuowenjiezi that "women are dirty", that is, women during menstruation are dirty and unclean;
According to the Bible, a menstruating woman will spend 7 days in impurity. Those who touch her will become unclean, and the place where she lay will become dirty;
Even if modern medicine has long told us that menstruation is only a normal physiological phenomenon for women, which provides a physiological basis for breeding new life, it is as normal as nosebleed;
However, in modern society, it is still a widespread phenomenon that people become pale and shy about women's menstruation.
In today's India, Nepal and other places, the public still regards menstruation as a "disease and filthy thing". After menstruation, girls cannot enter the temple or eat with others.
Even in some schools, girls are not allowed to leave the classroom in order to "keep the campus clean".
Rational people will conclude: Menstrual shame is constantly destroying girls' self-confidence and women's identification with their gender;
However, the imprisonment of thousands of years cannot be broken overnight. It has become a psychological inertia of women. It is a part of the collective subconscious, just like wrapping feet was accepted by ancient Chinese women;
This can explain why women have endured so much inconvenience, and few people have suggested selling sanitary napkins on trains.
In the collective silence, sanitary napkins are more and more regarded as an embarrassing and shameful private product.
In this sense, it is undoubtedly a great progress of social civilization to openly suggest selling sanitary napkins on high-speed railway.
Behind the courage of a single girl, we see that more and more women are facing up to and desensitizing their menstrual shame problems. In other words, more and more women are no longer ashamed of their menstruation as they used to be.
04 ▼ Who is continuing "menstrual shame"?
The problem is that some social environments are trying to perpetuate women's menstrual shame.
In this protracted debate, we can see the attitude of many people towards women's menstruation. They regard it as an unimportant matter, an off the table matter, or even a "broken thing".
The taboo degree of some TV dramas on menstruation and sanitary napkins is even more outrageous.
In a recent TV play featuring women, In the original line, the word "sanitary napkin" was replaced with "makeup remover" ；
There is a scene in Taiwan's TV drama "Want to see you" where the female leader said, "Today is the first day."
The man played by Xu Guanghan asked downstairs, "The first day you came there?"
After being introduced into the mainland, the lines of the male leader were cut off.
There is also an Indian film about a man who, because of his love for his wife, wipes his lower body with a dishcloth that is too dirty for cleaning bicycles when menstruation comes, and starts selling self-made sanitary napkins, changing the situation that 90% of Indian women cannot use sanitary napkins;
The film is called "The Sanitary Napkin Man". After it was introduced into China, its name became "Indian Partner", and the sanitary napkin held by the man on the poster also became a paper document.
Another more common phenomenon is that if women no longer feel shame about menstruation, some people will feel shame for women.
Has this always been the case?
Not at all.
At the beginning of the founding of New China, women who went to work with the slogan of "women can hold up half the sky" can take a leave of absence without deducting their wages during the period of their first aunt, which is called "regular leave".
The state also stipulates that factories with more than 100 female workers must have a "sanitary room" equipped with sterilized sanitary belts, straw paper, and small towels for washing.
However, the "regular holiday" has been gradually canceled in the later sentence "you don't want to be special".
Women are required not to be special, so the world's standards exclude women's needs——
The room temperature standard for American offices is based on the body temperature of a 140 kg adult male.
The dummies used for vehicle safety test are men who are 1.77 meters tall and weigh 70 kg, so women are more likely to be injured in traffic accidents, especially the cervical vertebrae.
The average height of Chinese women is 155.8cm, while the smallest size protective clothing is 164cm. Women doctors and nurses often drag the floor when wearing it.
The normal physiological needs of women have become cold knowledge. Finally, sanitary napkins have become a "niche product".
Although, in the discussion on whether to sell sanitary napkins on the high-speed railway, the majority still respect and support;
But Yi Meijun wrote this article, not to make a fuss, but to hope that the extreme, indifferent and humiliating remarks of a small number of people do not become the mainstream, and that "menstruation" does not really become a niche word.
Two years ago, 28000 female doctors and nurses were sent to the front line in Wuhan, where the epidemic was most serious. When they arrived, they found that their sanitary napkins were not enough - people forgot that they would have menstruation. Some people actively assisted, and some people said, "Life can't be saved, and they still care about your crotch."
This year, in Scotland "Women should not be punished financially because of the natural laws of their bodies" For reasons, when we announced the free provision of physiological supplies for women, we were still in a red mood over whether sanitary napkins could be sold on the high-speed railway.
If we don't speak up and point out these facts, our "private", "secret" and "embarrassing" sufferings will not be known to anyone, nor can we obtain reasonable support and change.
Oxford University held a general education course with the theme that admitting their special needs does not mean they are weak.
I hope all female friends will ignore sophistry, shout loudly, fight bravely and accept themselves without hiding.
Because a better and better society needs us to do so.