I've seen educated folks doing this as well, so, sadly yes. It is true. Most women follow it because their mothers/sisters have been doing it. Since it is so common, people tend to accept these superstitions more easily.
If as stated in this article in these regions during menstruation:
1) The woman uses dirt, sand, ash and rags which are never sterilized but just reused month after month.
2) 70% of all pregnancy related medical issues can be tied back to this lack of hygene
Then its not unreasonable to say that the women are unclean in this period and should not have contact with the village water supply... its actually good sense.
> ... its actually good sense.
Just as surgeons learned to sterilize themselves and their equipment once they had a scientific understanding of infection, we now have lots of scientific understanding of human menstruation and cleanliness. We should therefor look upon those that insist that women be treated as "unclean" and kept away from the village water supply and temple the same way we'd view a surgeon that insisted that there was no need to wash up before operating.
traditionally it was the pig rolls around in its own feces, and smells bad, and folks seem to get sick from its meat...
the menstruation situation, its bloody, it smells bad, and the women seem to be in pain when they have it... maybe we should not have them handling or washing their clothing and rags in the communal drinking water does not seem like an irrational conclusion.
It seems pretty rational to me...
You also failed to explain why only women are "unclean" in this scenario, since men and animals are also covered in dirt and germs when they bathe. Wouldn't all people and animals be "unclean" then? Seems like the "pretty rational" behavior of keeping women out of the water fails to account for "unclean" men and animals as well.
Please explain.
I really doubt that they'd let a guy bleeding out everywhere do much of anything either. On a fundamental level, blood has a strong association with injury and sickness for what I think should be obvious reasons.
Certainly, these are crazy and superstitious, but given the realities of the times they come from, many of them were a net benefit to their rural society (or have minimal impact) - which is how they've survived to this day.
We have better knowledge now, and we should embrace it, but someone isn't necessarily stupid for following these rules.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_statistics#Rape_statistic...
Hey don't you see any reason for a victim of rape to not report her/his aggression? Once you find one or two, think about how they may influence the results in the US and in India. Does the comparison hold?
You can play blind if you want, don't try to convince others. Your statistics cannot be used for international comparisons.
And unreported rapes will be higher in India - much higher - than Botswana (92.9), Panama (28.3), Jamaica (24.4), Belize (6.7) because?
"Your statistics cannot be used for international comparisons." Glad I was able to bask in your unabashed superiority, testos. Btw, they are not 'my' statistics, which show that Canada has several degrees higher rape incidents that go 'unreported, or which are not recorded' than USA. That data point was left in the comment just for your argument.
It's good to quantify things but you need to understand the limitations of the figures.