Ship of Fools: The Menstrual Man

Thread: The Menstrual Man Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :

A new blog posting, and a news report. I think this is one of the most inspiring stories I have read for a long time.

(Fix spelling in title)

[ 05. March 2014, 19:45: Message edited by: Firenze ]

Posted by tessaB (# 8533) on :

Breaking down the barriers around talking about women's health is huge. An amazing man!

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :

A mensch among menschim.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

Here's some more detail.

Wikipedia on Arunachalam Muruganantham

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

And more.
BBC version with lots more detail

This is a brilliant guy.

He reminds me of this inventor, whose work I found while looking for an Osokool evaporation "fridge" once made in Kent. Not so taboo breaking, but another developer determined to make something available to the poor. (He's kept closer hold on the manufacture, though.)

The inventor of a clay "fridge"

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
A mensch among menschim.

After reading Penny's links, I must upgrade my opinion to "truly christlike."

quote:
He created a "uterus" from a football bladder by punching a couple of holes in it, and filling it with goat's blood. A former classmate, a butcher, would ring his bicycle bell outside the house whenever he was going to kill a goat. Muruganantham would collect the blood and mix in an additive he got from another friend at a blood bank to prevent it clotting too quickly - but it didn't stop the smell.

Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :

I think its great, and interesting to hear about Jugaad

Posted by Horseman Bree (# 5290) on :

Despite having changed the lives of a significant fraction of the women in the world for the better, he has a couple of neat comments hidden in the interview.

He still has an old jeep, so he can get into the farther-out places. And the family has a better apartment. But he is not keen on "money and stuff" "You get a better apartment, with an extra bedroom...then you die" Bit fatalistic, but valid. He is too busy doing things to fuss with stuff.

And, being "uneducated" allows him to keep on learning new things. This probably should be written in places where church people and clergy can see it, esp. those who haven't worked out that GLBTs are real people.

Plus, we forget so easily how living in an interconnected society has managed to get rid of so much superstition and fear (except among certain politicians and their stooges). I doubt there are many men reading here who don't know the purpose of pads and tampons, even if they don't actually do much with them. Being stoned as a magician for that knowledge is certainly not on our horizon!

Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :

He most definitely was not in it for the money! His lack of education helped, I think, because he had no idea that a) this was something so unacceptable to talk about and b) this was not a challenge that needed addressing.

By going in blind, he could make a difference. And yes, I find it a difficult topic to discuss, never mind explore like he did, and I have been married for 25 years. So I feel for him in a far more closed society.

Posted by Panda (# 2951) on :

If it's getting more girls into education, then that's wonderful. And that's probably not an effect he even imagined.

"...only then did he realise that periods were monthy..." Yup, that's a closed society.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

My mother found out when she married that my dad had no idea, either. He had a mother and two sisters who had dried their washed towels in a cupboard beside the fire, and he never knew.

This was in Brighton, between the wars.

Society was so closed, back then, that my mother was not told about things by her mother, and thought something awful had happened when she started.

Which makes it very odd that the one story I know about what her father did in WW1 concerned a lad who had seen an advertisement for sanitary towels somewhere, and thinking they sounded just what was needed in the trenches, ordered some. Grandad was regarded as a sort of uncle figure as he was older, and the lad went to him in deep embarrassment (presumably his fellows had enlightened him), and Grandad (hospital orderly, mind) took them, and found his way through woods down to the local river, where he threw them away.

I never asked Mum who had told her this story. I have wondered at a society which could not find an alternative use for them in the circumstances.

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