Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) sessions in middle school are always filled with curiosity, giggles and uneasy attention. But when these sessions are at a boys’ school, they reveal something much deeper.
This article must be understood in the wider context of the current Indian education system. Most schools in India (and definitely those that are government run) do not encourage open discussions related to the human anatomy or sexual and reproductive health. Most teachers don’t have a stake in how or what students are being taught, leading to chapters that are read out loud but never really understood.
So when Deblina facilitates structured 45min SRHR sessions in Government run Chelidanga High School and Shantinagar Vidyamandir in Asansol, West Bengal, on topics that have never been touched upon –identifying different parts of a human body, hormonal changes during puberty, gender and sexuality, menstrual and reproductive health– students find themselves in a vortex of awkwardness, embarrassment and uneasiness. Escaping it all through giggles, hiding behind school bags and avoiding the gaze of the facilitator.
At one of these schools, Deblina was even told not to talk about hormonal changes during puberty or natural sexual urges. “Don’t mention nightfall [nocturnal emission or wet dreams, is the involuntary release of semen during sleep] please”. It took considerable explaining by Deblina for school authorities to understand that if boys were not told that hormonal changes and their feelings are a natural part of growing up, they will continue to think there is something abnormal in them or worse still, look for (incorrect) information on the internet.
Let’s take menstrual health for example. Of the 180 adolescent boys variously from classes 7 through 9, none were aware of the natural monthly cycle that girls and women go through.
When Deblina took the same sessions with girls, they were aware of menstruation but associated it with shame. Why? Because menstrual pads were always handed in hush hush tones for the dirty blood that came out every month. And God forbid if they stained their uniforms, the ridicule and taunts they’re subjected to is brutal.
By not speaking about natural bodily processes and urges, the message that adolescent children receive is that it’s something to be ashamed of. The adolescent need to be vulnerable, curious and intimate is warped into a sense of confusion and embarrassment.
This pervasive sentiment of shame, ridicule and embarrassment then become developmentally rooted and if not normalised and addressed appropriately, turn into the equivalent adult emotions of indifference, insensitivity, dismissive behaviour and domination.
Boys then learn to weaponise this shame and embarrassment, leading to an entire generation of women and girls facing traumatic menstrual stigma.
Liz Kelly’s theory of the ‘continuum of gender based violence’ crucially recognises that the sexist and gender discriminatory values one grows up with at home and in schools, form the basis for future male entitlement.
Patriarchal violence and misogyny is a process rooted in the everyday, in social interactions that are discriminatory and promote gender stereotypes. Sexual violences like rape therefore cannot be seen as isolated incidents, but as deeply rooted in the childhood environments one grows up in.
The continuum of gender violence begins with children getting introduced to sexist values at home and school, which they then internalise. Which is why working with children in their developmental years through SRHR sessions of the kind Deblina conducts is so crucial for young boys and girls to explore gender roles and restrictive masculinity.
Normalising curiosity and conversation around the body and sexuality is the best way to support healthy development through adolescence into adulthood.