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An Indian Inventor Disrupts The Period Industry

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Re: An Indian Inventor Disrupts The Period Industry

#51

Post by mekoka »

solutionyogi wrote: post #14
shabda wrote: post #12

Not sure if someone noticed but the women workers are wearing the cloth-mask so as not to be identified in the photo. Interesting, weird and depressing that its embarrassing to be working building sanitary napkins.

Are you sure about that? I think it's because they can't afford a proper medical mask, they are using a scarf or something similar [Especially keeping the story in mind that this machine is supposed to make napkins for poor women]. As you can see, one woman's back is facing the camera so she doesn't really need to wear a mask unless for cleanliness purpose.

I won't assume anything about the purpose of the mask, but if for cleanliness purpose they should also probably wear gloves.

Re: An Indian Inventor Disrupts The Period Industry

#52

Post by grannyg00se »

jackityquack wrote: post #15

Good story, but a strange guy. Also, he could probably do more good for his country by selling his product. He would actually disrupt the industry, instead of creating yet another charity project. The way to fight poverty isn't to give poor people poor solution. The way to think about it is that you need to level the playing field, so even Indians would laugh at making their own napkins. If you told a white American…

"You need to find a way for farmers to compete in the real world, not coddle them. Microfinance them or something. Maybe teach them to partner with a company with the"

Actually, forcing third world farmers to compete internationally on the global market is what bankrupts them and pushes them into financial slavery. They do just fine without industrialized machines otherwise.

Re: An Indian Inventor Disrupts The Period Industry

#53

Post by jackityquack »

grannyg00se wrote: post #52
jackityquack wrote: post #15

Good story, but a strange guy. Also, he could probably do more good for his country by selling his product. He would actually disrupt the industry, instead of creating yet another charity project. The way to fight poverty isn't to give poor people poor solution. The way to think about it is that you need to level the playing field, so even Indians would laugh at making their own napkins. If you told a white American…

"You need to find a way for farmers to compete in the real world, not coddle them. Microfinance them or something. Maybe teach them to partner with a company with the" Actually, forcing third world farmers to compete internationally on the global market is what bankrupts them and pushes them into financial slavery. They do just fine without industrialized machines otherwise.

So the only way for farmers to survive is to subsidize them? The only way is to spend government money to prop them up? If what you say is true, then other solutions need to be explored. Like I said, maybe partnerships or something so they can compete. It's not economically viable otherwise. It's a waste of capital. It's like funding the music industry because their business doesn't work. Music industry, agricultural industry are both industries. They do compete one way or the other. I have a feeling we're way too far apart on this issue to bother though.

Re: An Indian Inventor Disrupts The Period Industry

#54

Post by onemoreact »

solutionyogi wrote: post #50
slurgfest wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the point is to make money, then he should sell the napkins just below the price of the competitors, keeping a healthy margin for himself. Of course, this defeats the stated purpose of encouraging usage by poor Indian women, but if the point is to make money...

Nope, the point is not to make money. Let's start from the scratch. The goal is this: Create affordable sanitary napkins for women in India. To achieve this goal, he worked hard to master the first step i.e. to be able to manufacture the napkins at low cost. Great. Now there are two approaches: 1. Sell machines to different NGOs so that they can create their own napkins. As I mentioned it requires hefty investment of…

A centralized factory is going to need to pay for shipping across India which would increase cost. Rather than dealing with such issues himself he can get people to create franchises and supply the first machine and then sell them more after things start to scale. The end result is to create a domestic industry which will then continue to drive costs down and promote adoption though advertising etc.

PS: If there is a viable market, I suspect some of those groups will start to grow and you may end up with the type of large company you want him to build.

Re: An Indian Inventor Disrupts The Period Industry

#55

Post by urbanjunkie »

microarchitect wrote: post #11
urbanjunkie wrote: post #8

This is both inspiring and depressing. Female medical students not wishing to talk to a man about menstruation. The fatalistic, egotistical and selfish attitude epitomised by women being unconcerned about losing their uterus. And of course, if you don't care about your own uterus, you're unlikely to care about litter, the environment, or pretty much anything. (ps, as someone who has spent a lot of time in India and w…

The fatalistic, egotistical and selfish attitude epitomised by women I wouldn't be so quick to judge. If you're a woman in India and a strange man asks you to try something weird that could potentially harm your body, I think you have every right to be suspicious of that person. this fatalistic selfishness isn't a gender based issue. It is, however, one of the corrosive elements of Indian culture that worries me I ag…

Paraphrased from final paragraph of the article.

"According to Sumathi Dharmalingam, a housewife who runs a napkin-making business based around the machine, rural women [snipped] have a devil-may-care attitude about their health. "When I caution them that they might have to have their uterus removed because of reproductive infections, they just say, 'So what? How long are we going to live anyway?'

She's basically asking these women to use napkins instead of "dirty rags, newspapers, dried leaves, or even ashes".

I'm looking at it through the lens of someone born in India, who has lived in India, whose parents still live in India, but who no longer does. It's certainly possible that I'm displaying some of the reverse-racism and cultural arrogance I've seen in other NRI / PIOs when discussing India.

Re: An Indian Inventor Disrupts The Period Industry

#56

Post by hkarthik »

urbanjunkie wrote: post #8

This is both inspiring and depressing. Female medical students not wishing to talk to a man about menstruation. The fatalistic, egotistical and selfish attitude epitomised by women being unconcerned about losing their uterus. And of course, if you don't care about your own uterus, you're unlikely to care about litter, the environment, or pretty much anything. (ps, as someone who has spent a lot of time in India and w…

But menstruation itself is a very big taboo in most parts of India. It's a subject only discussed among women for many reasons.

In many traditional Indian families, the women are not allowed to many daily household tasks while menstruating. This includes cooking, cleaning, performing religious rituals, etc. In many cases they aren't allowed to enter certain parts of the home at all.

To me, that belief system has to change, and it is a gender based issue.

I grew with Indian parents and now I have two daughters. The thought of them growing up with these taboos and feelings about their own bodies is something I'm strongly against.

Re: An Indian Inventor Disrupts The Period Industry

#57

Post by urbanjunkie »

hkarthik wrote: post #56
urbanjunkie wrote: post #8

This is both inspiring and depressing. Female medical students not wishing to talk to a man about menstruation. The fatalistic, egotistical and selfish attitude epitomised by women being unconcerned about losing their uterus. And of course, if you don't care about your own uterus, you're unlikely to care about litter, the environment, or pretty much anything. (ps, as someone who has spent a lot of time in India and w…

But menstruation itself is a very big taboo in most parts of India. It's a subject only discussed among women for many reasons. In many traditional Indian families, the women are not allowed to many daily household tasks while menstruating. This includes cooking, cleaning, performing religious rituals, etc. In many cases they aren't allowed to enter certain parts of the home at all. To me, that belief system has to c…

I do understand that, but these are female medical students.

Re: An Indian Inventor Disrupts The Period Industry

#58

Post by aidenn0 »

jackityquack wrote: post #53
grannyg00se wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"You need to find a way for farmers to compete in the real world, not coddle them. Microfinance them or something. Maybe teach them to partner with a company with the" Actually, forcing third world farmers to compete internationally on the global market is what bankrupts them and pushes them into financial slavery. They do just fine without industrialized machines otherwise.

So the only way for farmers to survive is to subsidize them? The only way is to spend government money to prop them up? If what you say is true, then other solutions need to be explored. Like I said, maybe partnerships or something so they can compete. It's not economically viable otherwise. It's a waste of capital. It's like funding the music industry because their business doesn't work. Music industry, agricultural…

Unsubsidized farmers competing with subsidized farmers are likely to lose. If you can't stop subsidizing foreign farmers, then the Nash equilibrium is to subsidize your farmers too.

Re: An Indian Inventor Disrupts The Period Industry

#59

Post by rhizome »

hkarthik wrote: post #56
urbanjunkie wrote: post #8

This is both inspiring and depressing. Female medical students not wishing to talk to a man about menstruation. The fatalistic, egotistical and selfish attitude epitomised by women being unconcerned about losing their uterus. And of course, if you don't care about your own uterus, you're unlikely to care about litter, the environment, or pretty much anything. (ps, as someone who has spent a lot of time in India and w…

But menstruation itself is a very big taboo in most parts of India. It's a subject only discussed among women for many reasons. In many traditional Indian families, the women are not allowed to many daily household tasks while menstruating. This includes cooking, cleaning, performing religious rituals, etc. In many cases they aren't allowed to enter certain parts of the home at all. To me, that belief system has to c…

It's taboo in the Western world, too.

Re: An Indian Inventor Disrupts The Period Industry

#60

Post by tibbon »

solutionyogi wrote: post #9

What an inspiring story. I grew up in a lower middle class family and I have two sisters. I know that my sisters and mom could not afford to use napkins because paying for the school fees was more important. As the story mentions, my sisters will take time off from school during those days. His price of 12 rupees (25 cents) for 8 napkins is unbelievably cheap. That means a napkin costs 1.5 rupees which is less than a…

What I love about this story is how it shows the strength that can come from diversity of perspective. Quite honestly, as a middle-class male in America, I had personally never considered this problem. I never considered the cost or availability of them. There are some problems that can never be solved by the top earners, because we often don't know there are problems! Of course, this is why we also fail so spectacularly when architecting solutions for hunger, education, sanitation, etc in other countries. We don't really understand the problems, so how can we make solutions?

I'm also stunned at the inventor's wife, since she left him thinking this was just a ruse to meet younger women, but perhaps there's something cultural there that I'm unaware of. If I said I was going to go research these here in the US, I'd be terribly shocked if my girlfriend left me over it.

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