The format of this week’s readings and the film is much more personal and less “academic,” yet it does not make the intended message unclear. The pathos in them creates a stronger sense of a problem because you can have a visual example of a real individual’s experience. As a result, it’s not perceived as something theoretical or complicated or rare, but as an existing issue that affects people. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced medical oppression and I am new to this whole discussion; as an immigrant, I also have a distorted view of the US medical system (as the highest standard one), so it was surprising to learn that there is so much discrimination and general negligence existing within it. I cannot wrap it around my head because it sounds bizarre and pointless to deny [proper] medical care to anyone at all. The job of medical professionals is to take care of human bodies, that all function the same way on a basic level, so why would any features of these bodies matter at all? 

It wasn’t as surprising to see the stigma surrounding periods in the film “Period: End of Sentence”, because I was somewhat exposed to it in my younger years. The treatment of periods in India reminded me of Jewish culture as well, which I learned about from my stepdad. A lot of his religious relatives have a separate room in their house for the wives to sleep in when they’re on their period. To explain this, I’ll quote an article “Jewish Women Open Up About Getting Their Periods” by Aimee Rubensteen that I found on the web:

The Torah states that a woman becomes ritually impure (teme’ah) when she has her period, and it’s interpreted from the Torah verses that a woman can’t have sex with her husband during this time. When her period ends, she regains her spiritually pure status (taharah) by immersing in a ritual bath (mikvah).

The period poverty and stigma is very common in the world and directly deals with patriarchy as well, which is addressed in the film. One of the interviewed women said, “When there’s patriarchy, it takes time to talk about something related to women.” Similarly, in a world where other kinds of oppression exist, it takes time to talk about the oppressed groups’ obstacles. In both of the readings, we see how racism and transphobia prevent individuals from being treated as humans in medical institutions, and apparently, it has not seen an improvement. Though it is not apparent, the film connects with the readings by showing how much social systems affect personal health of people, which also reminds me of “Personal Is Political” slogan.