Pg - is there a new comment filtering system?
An article on sanitary napkins, and no immature rag jokes? Is this really HN?
:)
The Indian sanitary pad revolutionary
221–230 of 273 posts
Re: The Indian sanitary pad revolutionary
#222Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not aware of an obsession with menstruation in any major variant of Christianity.
Not to offend anyone but Christianity is basically just a crazy death cult. I've been fighting the ignorance of this religion my entire life.
Try travelling around the world a bit and see for yourself that there's more than to it than the "american brand" of Christianity. European Catholics are more "lightweight" when it comes to their belief and when science and reason contradicts religion they'll take the science/reason way in 9 out of 10 cases. Orthodox Christians in Eastern Europe and Russia have a similar mindset and and they also take things with a grain of humor (even more than a grain sometimes) and are ok even with making fun of their own beliefs :)
If you generalize a bit, you see that things went down hill since the protestants tried to reform Christianity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_Reformation , also, what I call "american brand C." is all a radicalized descendent of protestant reformation), had some mixed good and bad philosophical ideas mixed in with "faith", but mainly managed to take themselves waaaaaaay too seriously!
Mind it, I'm an atheist myself, but C. in not that harmful if not taken too far and it's sometimes good for humor ...now if only people could manage to also take Islam this lightly and look more at its funny sides :)
Re: The Indian sanitary pad revolutionary
#223This is an amazingly inspiring story, I love the entrepreneurial spirit and dedication of Mr Muruganantham. However, there is a bigger story hiding behind this personal triumph. It's clear that people living in impoverished areas are not in a position to buy sanitary products at market rates (being sold at a margin of 4000% or more). But for example many do have access to cheap raw materials. It makes a ton of sense…
Yvon Chouinard of Patagonia identified this a long time ago. His ideal would be that their products are manufactured for the local market (or manufactured locally). However since they also strive to create a sustainable supply chain, and this requires control, it is not currently possible.
I wonder if 'letting go' of the supply chain - regardless of the repercussions - would allow these methods to evolve...
Re: The Indian sanitary pad revolutionary
#224The next time someone complains about how hard startups are, show them this. Until you've walked around with a soccer ball full of goat's blood in your pants, after your wife and mother have abandoned you, you have nothing to complain about.
"Until you've walked around with a soccer ball full of goat's blood in your pants, after your wife and mother have abandoned you, you have nothing to complain about."
Ha, awesome!
Re: The Indian sanitary pad revolutionary
#225Earlier quoted context omitted.
> There are also myths and fears surrounding the use of sanitary pads - that women who use them will go blind, for example, or will never get married. Such myths abound globally, especially in rural environments. Worse myths exist around tampons--that a woman who uses a tampon is no longer a virgin. The implications of this in more rural societies are staggering, as young women can lose marital prospects or even be k…
> Worse myths exist around tampons--that a woman who uses a tampon is no longer a virgin. Lest someone believe this is a belief held only in rural areas, let it be clear that ideas like this are incredibly common in not-so-rural places like in the US. It's usually accompanied by some equally ridiculous beliefs about what virginity is in the first place (protip: it's about having sex for the first time, not about whet…
I have a bit of a problem with the way you're talking about "virginity". Scientifically, it's not a concept at all. In fact "vagina has been penetrated at least once by an object, whether penis or not, and hymen possibly broken" is a more scientifically valid definition of female loss of virginity than yours. So basically, you're wrong, the problem isn't people thinking that using a tampon is loss of virginity; the problem is people thinking that "virginity", however defined, has any particular significance.
Re: The Indian sanitary pad revolutionary
#226Earlier quoted context omitted.
One of the biggest problems with this forum is very narrow minded view of things looking through a limited binoculars of a capitalist culture when everything has to boil down to profit in pure money terms. What this guy is achieving is more than bringing down the price. The job he is creating for these women is providing incalculable benefit to themselves, their families, their children and is adding more to the soci…
"I don't consider the bloody ROI." - Tim Cook [1] 1: http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/tim-cook-soundly-reje...
"When we work on making our devices accessible by the blind," he said, "I don't consider the bloody ROI."
Re: The Indian sanitary pad revolutionary
#227Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thank you, quite right. The ongoing fight by (a slowly shrinking segment of) American society to continue blatant persecution of gay people is one of our most shameful failings. And I agree, the Church (big C) is largely responsible.
> blatant persecution of gay people // There is an active agenda attempting to legally force people to alter their actions to match others beliefs, "persecution" you might call it. Except it's not against those who have sex outside marriage it's against Christians - people who claim to uphold liberty of conscience simply will not allow Christians to express their views on marriage. Marriage, in Christian terms and hi…
It seems to me that, even if there is sufficient New Testament scripture to infer that any types of sex are sinful that the parts about grace, mercy, love, forgiveness, self-control, being kind, "paying to Cesar what is his", not judging one another and not casting the first stone (just to name a few) would be such high priorities that trying to keep any government laws anywhere in line with Christianity wouldn't even be on the radar.
Re: The Indian sanitary pad revolutionary
#228Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Worse myths exist around tampons--that a woman who uses a tampon is no longer a virgin. Lest someone believe this is a belief held only in rural areas, let it be clear that ideas like this are incredibly common in not-so-rural places like in the US. It's usually accompanied by some equally ridiculous beliefs about what virginity is in the first place (protip: it's about having sex for the first time, not about whet…
I have a bit of a problem with the way you're talking about "virginity". Scientifically, it's not a concept at all. In fact "vagina has been penetrated at least once by an object, whether penis or not, and hymen possibly broken" is a more scientifically valid definition of female loss of virginity than yours. So basically, you're wrong, the problem isn't people thinking that using a tampon is loss of virginity; the p…
People that marry as virgins have a much lower chance of divorce[1]. If you think that stable families are a good thing for your society to have, then you have to reject "sex positive" modern culture and value virginity.
Coincidentally, the family structure of the west has rotted since the sexual revolution of the 1960s[2]. Maybe if all those damaged children of divorce had a say in the matter we'd return to traditional morality and shaming of sex outside of marriage. The highest value of society shouldn't be doing whatever feels good regardless of the consequences.
[1] https://twitter.com/Witch_Hammer/status/435979358348378112/p...
[2] http://dalrock.wordpress.com/2011/08/17/u-s-historical-livin...
Re: The Indian sanitary pad revolutionary
#229Earlier quoted context omitted.
These are the same areas that unfortunately still have honor killings. Regardless, cultural judgements are not an absolute truth, and so other ways, no matter how extreme or foreign, can be tolerated. The frontier that can be helped is hygiene and self-sufficiency. If can start a sexual equality revolution in India, build a bazillion of these machines. A 3d printer as it were.
I think you have your facts mixed up. Honor killings are not an Indian ritual by any means and unheard of in even uneducated villages.
Actually, he is right. Khap panchayats in the state of Haryana act as a parallel government and sanction honor killings. Recently in a village in Bengal a similar village body ordered a woman to be gang-raped by her fellow villagers.
Re: The Indian sanitary pad revolutionary
#230Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well and people are making them locally in their villages and colleges instead of buying international, and mostly women at that. I know American cities that are always struggling to keep mom and pop shops alive vs. the big boxes. Meanwhile everyone says Japan's only hope to keep their labor pool growing against their greying population is to start getting women involved. So he pulled off something America and Japan…
> Meanwhile everyone says Japan's only hope to keep their labor pool growing against their greying population is to start getting women involved. I was under the impression that as women join the workforce their fertility plummets. This seems incredibly counterproductive if the problem is a "greying population"?
I heard it was education that correlated negatively with fertility. Although education and careerism go hand in hand, I think the difference is still huge.