Abstract
This paper aims to overcome a culture of silence and shame that persists not only within traditional communities but among development professionals, by showing how traditional cultural views and practices that are derogatory towards menstruation are not only a violation of human rights that perpetuates women subordination but also a serious development problem, that needs to be
addressed. These traditional cultural views, norms and practices reinforce negative perceptions about the female body that maintain patriarchal subordination of women and girls. They cause embarrassment, shame and low self-esteem among girls who transition into womanhood, affecting not only their school attendance but their academic performance and their social interactions within the school and at home –where in many cases they are confined into segregated spaces during their menstruation. This article focus on three aspects of menstruation as a development problem and as a women rights problem: 1) it will first review the implications of derogatory notions of menstruation on female subordination and on gender identities and why it reproduces patriarchal stereotypes, facilitating the construction of gender as a hierarchy based on sexual and biological differences; 2) it will review the negative effects of menstruation on girl’s education, early marriage and lower female productivity from the perspective of human capital, and 3) it will review how limitations imposed on girls and women in a context of poverty and marginality leads to improper menstruation hygiene management (MHM), which cause serious reproductive health problems that not only affect women reproductive rights but also creates some large public health issues. After our conclusions, we present some recommendations to overcome this problem.