In rural India, a man named Arunachalam Muruganantham developed affordable sanitary napkins for women in need. Noted documentary filmmaker Amit Virmani managed to capture Muruganantham's success on film.
The Women’s Center will hold a screening of the documentary Menstrual Man in the Baker Center Theatre on Wednesday from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. The event is co-sponsored by the Multicultural Center, the Center for International Studies, the Period Project, the Campus Involvement Center and the LGBT Center.
Menstrual Man tells the story of Muruganantham, a man who found a way of developing affordable sanitary napkins for women living in rural India. While many in his community disowned him, including his wife, and accused him of being perverted, he continued with his efforts to help women in need. Amit Virmani, a Singapore resident who also directed the film Cowboys in Paradise, directed Menstrual Man. The Menstrual Man screening is a part of OU’s Race, Gender and Culture Film Series.
“It’s kind of heralded as being the sanitary napkin revolution of India,” said M. Geneva Murray, director of the Women’s Center. “His wife left him, his mother left him, they thought he was a pervert and crazy, but he thought at his heart that this was the important thing to do.”
Murray said the topic of menstruation is tackled in the film in a way that is not normally addressed in culture.
“It’s a story of economics, of business, of innovation, of entrepreneurship, of public health, of eradicating stigma regarding menstruation,” Murray said. “And really thinking about the impact (of) something that I think most people don’t really think about here in the U.S.”
Winsome Chunnu-Brayda, strategic director for diversity and inclusion and multicultural programs and initiatives at the multicultural center, believes students can widen their perspectives by observing rural Indian culture through the film.
“What I think our students can take away from it is ... looking at how people persevere amid abject poverty,” Chunnu said. “There are different aspects of India that are talked about as well. It would give them a glimpse into that culture.”
In addition, Chunnu-Brayda said students interested in studying abroad could be inspired to help the communities they visit.
“If they want to go on some sort of educational trip around the world, during that process they could have a service component,” she said. “If they choose to travel abroad, they can use it as a way of opening their own learning and their minds and giving something back as a part of service learning.”
Matthew Hall, assistant director of health promotion for sexual assault and misconduct prevention, believes the inaccessibility of feminine hygiene products is also a problem in the United States.
“We know that the vast majority of states in the United States tax tampons and pads as luxury items,” Hall said. “Think about the extra money that women are spending over the course of their lifetime on the products that they need.”
Virmani mentioned in the Director’s Statement of the film’s website that Muruganantham said to him that he was “only an illiterate man.”
“Yes,” Virmani responded in the statement. “An illiterate man who’s made us all a little more humble, and a whole lot more inspired.”
