Maybe menstruation was never a bad thing. Maybe menstruating women were only advised rest. Maybe they were requested to limit social, religious, and other engagements only to keep them from getting further drained. Maybe underlying these practices were respect, consideration, and affection. Maybe isolation, confinement, or restriction were never an intent. Maybe these ideas and practices got twisted over time as ideas and practices often do. Maybe that is how menstruation came to represent what it did—impurity and shame. Maybe that is why these mistaken structures must now be dismantled. Period.

(c) Mickey Kumra