Male rage must be better channelised

Let us try to not get into the specifics of whether sanitary napkins were being sold or distributed at Bangladesh's largest annual book fair - the Ekushey Boi Mela.

- NOORA SHAMSI BAHAR

Let's not even point fingers at the event management company or the Bangla Academy for allowing, and later, stopping the stalls to do so. The unsettling fact that surpassed these issues is that a group of men had a problem with the public display of such "private" product - sanitary napkins.

In this context, I couldn't help but look back at a chapter titled "The Curse" from a superhero series named Swamp Thing, published by DC Comics. In this chapter, we are presented with a white female protagonist named Phoebe who is haunted by the spirits of menstruating women from the fictitious Native American "Pennamaquot" tribe. Those women were ostracised and quarantined in "the red lodge" that once stood in the plot of land, now occupied by Phoebe and her husband, Roy.

Phoebe's rage is fuelled by the condescending way her misogynistic husband-an epitome of toxic or hyper masculinity, treats her. Phoebe is also infuriated by the stifling patriarchy that is too ingrained in the system and sometimes propagated by women themselves women who have internalised patriarchy. For example, at the supermarket, Phoebe buys a large box of sanitary napkins that the checkout lady hides in a brown bag "as if to protect other groceries." This evidences the latter's role in the patriarchal tool of making menstruation and menstruation products taboo.