“Women are less likely to secure favorable outcomes for them in household decision making process. Socio-economic development is not possible without participation and empowerment of rural downtrodden women.”
-Dr. Amartya Sen, Noble Laureate in Economics
Women’s role in economic development, in most countries of the world, cannot be eliminated. Although women constitute almost half of the total population of the world, their social, economic and political status is lower than that of men and they are considered as second sex. This attitude has constrained their mobility. This becomes more evident in the case of rural women who are generally unaware of the developments going around in the world. Thus rural women need to be empowered in medical terms too. United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), the term women’s empowerment means acquiring knowledge and understanding of gender relations and ways in which these relations may be changed; developing a sense of self-worth, a belief in one’s ability to secure desired changes and the right to control one’s life; gaining the ability to generate choices and exercise bargaining power; and developing the ability to organize and influence the direction of
Menstruation is called by different terms colloquially as ' mahine se horta' (monthly occurrence), chhutti se hona (resting period), pair chale (bleeding), time aana (periodicity) and mc (menstrual period) amongst the somewhat educated ones, although most of the girls were not aware of what 'mc' stood for. Most of the terms are in direct reference to the phenomenon. Oomman (2008) in her study conducted in rural areas of Bikaner district in Rajasthan reports that there are very precise terms for problems associated with kapda (menstruation) like pear chale (continuous bleeding); kapda dard (menstrual pain); kapda zyada pade (heavy menstruation). In Maharashtra it is locally called masik pali, in Gujarat as masik and MC for somewhere else.( Kothari