Bleeding in Public? Rethinking Narratives of Menstrual Management from Delhi’s Slums

Abstract

McCarthy and Lahiri-Dutt illuminate the menstrual experiences of women living in informal settlements in India. Beginning with a critique of menstrual hygiene management (MHM) and water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) framings of women’s menstrual practices, they argue that these approaches ignore important spatial, social, and moral meanings attached to menstruating bodies in informal settlements. To substantiate their argument, McCarthy and Lahiri-Dutt take the reader into the jhuggīs and the lives of individual women who have migrated for work to the New Okhla Industrial Development Authority (NOIDA) area in Delhi, India. The authors show how, despite the congested and cramped conditions, women traverse the structural deficits of informal living to reconfigure notions of privacy and to navigate changing gender relations.