NZ Herald
  • Home
  • Latest news
  • Herald NOW
  • Video
  • New Zealand
  • Sport
  • World
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Viva
  • Weather

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • New Zealand
    • All New Zealand
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Open Justice
    • Scam Update
  • Herald NOW
  • On The Up
  • World
    • All World
    • Australia
    • Asia
    • UK
    • United States
    • Middle East
    • Europe
    • Pacific
  • Business
    • All Business
    • MarketsSharesCurrencyCommoditiesStock TakesCrypto
    • Markets with Madison
    • Media Insider
    • Business analysis
    • Personal financeKiwiSaverInterest ratesTaxInvestment
    • EconomyInflationGDPOfficial cash rateEmployment
    • Small business
    • Business reportsMood of the BoardroomProject AucklandSustainable business and financeCapital markets reportAgribusiness reportInfrastructure reportDynamic business
    • Deloitte Top 200 Awards
    • CompaniesAged CareAgribusinessAirlinesBanking and financeConstructionEnergyFreight and logisticsHealthcareManufacturingMedia and MarketingRetailTelecommunicationsTourism
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Editorials
    • Business analysis
    • Premium opinion
    • Letters to the editor
  • Politics
  • Sport
    • All Sport
    • OlympicsParalympics
    • RugbySuper RugbyNPCAll BlacksBlack FernsRugby sevensSchool rugby
    • CricketBlack CapsWhite Ferns
    • Racing
    • NetballSilver Ferns
    • LeagueWarriorsNRL
    • FootballWellington PhoenixAuckland FCAll WhitesFootball FernsEnglish Premier League
    • GolfNZ Open
    • MotorsportFormula 1
    • Boxing
    • UFC
    • BasketballNBABreakersTall BlacksTall Ferns
    • Tennis
    • Cycling
    • Athletics
    • SailingAmerica's CupSailGP
    • Rowing
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Viva - Food, fashion & beauty
    • Society Insider
    • Royals
    • Sex & relationships
    • Food & drinkRecipesRecipe collectionsRestaurant reviewsRestaurant bookings
    • Health & wellbeing
    • Fashion & beauty
    • Pets & animals
    • The Selection - Shop the trendsShop fashionShop beautyShop entertainmentShop giftsShop home & living
    • Milford's Investing Place
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • TV
    • MoviesMovie reviews
    • MusicMusic reviews
    • BooksBook reviews
    • Culture
    • ReviewsBook reviewsMovie reviewsMusic reviewsRestaurant reviews
  • Travel
    • All Travel
    • News
    • New ZealandNorthlandAucklandWellingtonCanterburyOtago / QueenstownNelson-TasmanBest NZ beaches
    • International travelAustraliaPacific IslandsEuropeUKUSAAfricaAsia
    • Rail holidays
    • Cruise holidays
    • Ski holidays
    • Luxury travel
    • Adventure travel
  • Kāhu Māori news
  • Environment
    • All Environment
    • Our Green Future
  • Talanoa Pacific news
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Property Insider
    • Interest rates tracker
    • Residential property listings
    • Commercial property listings
  • Health
  • Technology
    • All Technology
    • AI
    • Social media
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
    • Opinion
    • Audio & podcasts
  • Weather forecasts
    • All Weather forecasts
    • Kaitaia
    • Whangārei
    • Dargaville
    • Auckland
    • Thames
    • Tauranga
    • Hamilton
    • Whakatāne
    • Rotorua
    • Tokoroa
    • Te Kuiti
    • Taumaranui
    • Taupō
    • Gisborne
    • New Plymouth
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Dannevirke
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Levin
    • Paraparaumu
    • Masterton
    • Wellington
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Blenheim
    • Westport
    • Reefton
    • Kaikōura
    • Greymouth
    • Hokitika
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
    • Wānaka
    • Oamaru
    • Queenstown
    • Dunedin
    • Gore
    • Invercargill
  • Meet the journalists
  • Promotions & competitions
  • OneRoof property listings
  • Driven car news

Puzzles & Quizzes

  • Puzzles
    • All Puzzles
    • Sudoku
    • Code Cracker
    • Crosswords
    • Cryptic crossword
    • Wordsearch
  • Quizzes
    • All Quizzes
    • Morning quiz
    • Afternoon quiz
    • Sports quiz

Regions

  • Northland
    • All Northland
    • Far North
    • Kaitaia
    • Kerikeri
    • Kaikohe
    • Bay of Islands
    • Whangarei
    • Dargaville
    • Kaipara
    • Mangawhai
  • Auckland
  • Waikato
    • All Waikato
    • Hamilton
    • Coromandel & Hauraki
    • Matamata & Piako
    • Cambridge
    • Te Awamutu
    • Tokoroa & South Waikato
    • Taupō & Tūrangi
  • Bay of Plenty
    • All Bay of Plenty
    • Katikati
    • Tauranga
    • Mount Maunganui
    • Pāpāmoa
    • Te Puke
    • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Hawke's Bay
    • All Hawke's Bay
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Havelock North
    • Central Hawke's Bay
    • Wairoa
  • Taranaki
    • All Taranaki
    • Stratford
    • New Plymouth
    • Hāwera
  • Manawatū - Whanganui
    • All Manawatū - Whanganui
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Manawatū
    • Tararua
    • Horowhenua
  • Wellington
    • All Wellington
    • Kapiti
    • Wairarapa
    • Upper Hutt
    • Lower Hutt
  • Nelson & Tasman
    • All Nelson & Tasman
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Tasman
  • Marlborough
  • West Coast
  • Canterbury
    • All Canterbury
    • Kaikōura
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
  • Otago
    • All Otago
    • Oamaru
    • Dunedin
    • Balclutha
    • Alexandra
    • Queenstown
    • Wanaka
  • Southland
    • All Southland
    • Invercargill
    • Gore
    • Stewart Island
  • Gisborne

Media

  • Video
    • All Video
    • NZ news video
    • Herald NOW
    • Business news video
    • Politics news video
    • Sport video
    • World news video
    • Lifestyle video
    • Entertainment video
    • Travel video
    • Markets with Madison
    • Kea Kids news
  • Podcasts
    • All Podcasts
    • The Front Page
    • On the Tiles
    • Ask me Anything
    • The Little Things
  • Cartoons
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Lifestyle

Step right up, Mr Tough Guy, and try enduring menstrual cramps

By Suhasini Raj
New York Times·
5 Sep, 2022 10:59 PM5 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

    Reminder, this is a Premium article and requires a subscription to read.

A man at a mall in Kochi, India, using a period cramps simulator. Photo / Cup of Life via The New York Times

A man at a mall in Kochi, India, using a period cramps simulator. Photo / Cup of Life via The New York Times

A campaign in India aims to end the shame and silence around monthly periods and to introduce better hygiene products.

Faheem Rahman clutched his stomach tight and winced in pain. When after a couple of minutes he could not bear it any more, he shrieked, throwing his head back.

Rahman, a 26-year-old restaurateur in the southern Indian state of Kerala, did not fully grasp what he was signing up for when he agreed to have the wires clamped below his navel. But now he knows, at least a little, the pain that his mother and sisters deal with every month when they have their periods.

"It was a horrible experience," Rahman said. "I could not concentrate on anything around me for as long as the cramps lasted."

The simulation was part of a new campaign that aims to tackle long-standing taboos around menstruation in India and raise awareness of more effective hygiene products that can better protect women's health.

Keep up with the latest in lifestyle and entertainment

Get the latest lifestyle & entertainment headlines straight to your inbox.
Please email me competitions, offers and other updates. You can stop these at any time.
By signing up for this newsletter, you agree to NZME’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

In many Indian families, women, young and old, are barred from the kitchen while menstruating or in some communities shunted to "menstruation huts" with leaky roofs and no toilets. At a temple in Kerala, tradition bars all women of childbearing age from entering, which led to an intervention by the country's highest court and violent pushback from right-wing groups.

Such stigmas have left Indians, particularly men, less educated about menstruation.

And in a country with one of the world's largest populations of young people, over half of women and girls ages 15 to 24 were still using cloth for protection during their periods, potentially exposing them to infections, a 2015-16 government report found.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

The campaign in the Ernakulam district of Kerala, called the Cup of Life, encourages women to use menstrual cups instead of cloth or sanitary napkins. The small devices, made of latex rubber or silicone, are cost-effective and reusable, solving the disposal problem that other products create.

An art installation at a festival held in Kochi intended to demystify menstruation, featuring a menstrual cup. Photo / Cup of Life via The New York Times
An art installation at a festival held in Kochi intended to demystify menstruation, featuring a menstrual cup. Photo / Cup of Life via The New York Times

Its organisers also hope the campaign will help to start a conversation. About how menstruation does not make a woman "dirty." About how there is no need to feel shame about the monthly cramps and hide them from family members. And — speaking of shame — about how virginity is a damaging social construct.

Discover more

Opinion

Kate Wells: Lydia Ko and how women are using their periods as a tool

06 May 05:00 PM
World

New Scottish law makes period products free for all

17 Aug 04:04 AM
Lifestyle

Opinion: Let's be honest about periods – we owe it to our daughters

29 Mar 09:59 PM
World

'Period pain leave' may stigmatise women, warn feminists

18 May 12:54 AM

Dr. Akhil Manuel, an official with the doctors' association in the coastal city of Kochi, said he had come up with the idea of promoting menstrual cups a couple of years ago as hygienic and environmentally friendly. But just pointing out the advantages of them wasn't enough, he said.

"You also have to break social taboos," he said, "how to normalise social conversations around virginity and menstruation in a conservative society like ours so that girls are not considered 'untouchables' when they are menstruating."

In a joint effort by the Indian Medical Association and the local member of Parliament, 1,000 men and women were trained to spread the word on menstrual cups. A group of women, ranging from the very young to the old, spread out on metro trains across Ernakulam to talk to people about menstruation.

To take the conversation to men, Sandra Sunny, an aspiring lawyer in Kochi, designed the #feelthepain concept for the campaign. She said a doctor friend had suggested using physiotherapy tools to simulate the cramps in men. An electric current passes through the simulator, which initially feels like a vibration. As the intensity is increased on the machine, the intensity of the "cramps" does, too.

"I had seen many videos on YouTube where the same method was used on men abroad," she said. "I thought to myself, why can't we do it here also?"

As the campaign spread from fancy malls to colleges, videos on social media showed men crying out in pain while strapped to the simulator. Women laughed.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Employees at a Kochi hotel trying the simulator at a Cup of Life event. Photo / Cup of life via The New York Times
Employees at a Kochi hotel trying the simulator at a Cup of Life event. Photo / Cup of life via The New York Times

To increase awareness, Sunny also helped set up an art installation, with a take on Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam, in which one hand is holding a menstrual cup.

On a single day this week, 100,000 of the cups were distributed free in Ernakulam. In a district with 900,000 to 1.2 million menstruating-age females, it is a start, Manuel said.

The campaign intends to do follow-up work over the next four months to ensure the success of the cups. In addition to helping prevent infections, the cups are more environmentally friendly than sanitary napkins, with a life cycle of up to 10 years.

Manuel said he saw promise when a young man grabbed some cups to take home, calling it the "best gift he could give his mother."

Rahman, the restaurateur, said he was a changed man after his single bout with the simulator.

"I have so much more respect for my mother, for my sisters," he said. "It's hard for them; that much I know."

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.


Written by: Suhasini Raj
© 2022 THE NEW YORK TIMES

Save

    Share this article

    Reminder, this is a Premium article and requires a subscription to read.

Latest from Lifestyle

Premium
Lifestyle

Advice: My best friend ghosted me, and I’m devastated. Help!

15 Jun 12:00 AM
Royals

How Prince Louis charmed the crowds at Trooping the Colour

14 Jun 09:38 PM
Premium
Lifestyle

Auckland ICU doctor's book exposes NZ health system crisis from the inside

14 Jun 08:00 PM

BV or thrush? Know the difference

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Recommended for you
Fox keeps impressive streak but falls further back at US Open
Golf

Fox keeps impressive streak but falls further back at US Open

15 Jun 12:08 AM
Rescuers search for two people after boat capsizes near Pātea
New Zealand

Rescuers search for two people after boat capsizes near Pātea

14 Jun 11:38 PM
Why Auckland City v Bayern Munich could be the greatest underdogs battle in our sporting history
Sport

Why Auckland City v Bayern Munich could be the greatest underdogs battle in our sporting history

14 Jun 11:21 PM
One reportedly dead as Iran launches more missiles, Israel targets Tehran
World

One reportedly dead as Iran launches more missiles, Israel targets Tehran

14 Jun 11:11 PM
‘Sink it, for all I care’: Mother calls for crane's removal after son’s fatal fall
New Zealand

‘Sink it, for all I care’: Mother calls for crane's removal after son’s fatal fall

14 Jun 11:00 PM

Latest from Lifestyle

Premium
Advice: My best friend ghosted me, and I’m devastated. Help!

Advice: My best friend ghosted me, and I’m devastated. Help!

15 Jun 12:00 AM

New York Times: "I have reached out to her many times, but she hasn't responded."

How Prince Louis charmed the crowds at Trooping the Colour

How Prince Louis charmed the crowds at Trooping the Colour

14 Jun 09:38 PM
Premium
Auckland ICU doctor's book exposes NZ health system crisis from the inside

Auckland ICU doctor's book exposes NZ health system crisis from the inside

14 Jun 08:00 PM
Juicy pork roast recipe with walnut crust and sweet-spicy stuffing

Juicy pork roast recipe with walnut crust and sweet-spicy stuffing

14 Jun 03:00 AM
It was just a stopover – 18 months later, they call it home
sponsored

It was just a stopover – 18 months later, they call it home

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • NZ Herald e-editions
  • Daily puzzles & quizzes
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
All Access. All in one subscription. From $2 per week
Subscribe now

All Access Weekly

From $2 per week
Pay just
$15.75
$2
per week ongoing
Subscribe now
BEST VALUE

All Access Annual

Pay just
$449
$49
per year ongoing
Subscribe now
Learn more
30
TOP
search by queryly Advanced Search