so the first time I had my periods I
thought I was going to die it was in
fourth grade I was 10 years old and my
sister who used the toilet right after I
did probably saw some red spots on the
potty and crushed quickly outside and
screamed for my mom mom he was being
blood my face turned red I was so
embarrassed but I had no idea from what
or where or how the blood dripped from
so my mom said she had to see so she
took me to the toilet and said you were
starting your periods or as my aunt
calls it a puncture while she made me
put on a diaper well that’s at least
what wearing a pad for the first time
felt like family members started to
visit bearing gifts and everyone
remarked that I was a grown-up girl now
in fact a woman girls peed blood that
suddenly turned them into women and
didn’t die what I had to keep this a
secret in school and told no one not
even my best friend’s I mean how could I
tell anyone that I was wearing a diaper
and peeing blood right so my seventh
grade male health teacher drew what
looked like both horns on the blackboard
and said this is how periods happened
and all the go and all of the girls then
suddenly were so much more mortified
because even the boys knew now right and
once what happened was when I was in my
initial days when I started my periods
one day I forgot to carry a pad with me
and had to use my yellow and white
handkerchief as one and I also noticed
that girls started to carry pieces of
white chalk in their pockets so that you
know if the red stain their white skirt
and they would chalk their skirts as
well girls started to go to the toilets
and huddle to go to the toilet together
so that the girl with the red stain
skirt wouldn’t stand out Charlie’s
Angels right so we had to make sure to
hide it real good but embarrassment also
followed fright I noticed that more and
more number of girls didn’t just sit out
of sports class
but dropped out of all although all the
sports asked classes altogether because
we’re scared what if it fell and it’s
tinned we didn’t know how to take care
of our bodies like no one really taught
us fast forward
my ninth grade health teacher male again
drew male and female genitals on the
blackboard to talk to us about you know
what it that must not be named in our
Nepali society sex these are the male
and female sex organs he said and all
the boys were all smiles and curious to
learn and the girls just stared at the
floor
research shows that boys are curious way
before girls are about their bodies and
their sexualities and some even begin to
be sexually active as young as 12 years
of age and there we were some of us
girls who thought babies were born born
by cutting open women’s bellies only so
the teacher continued to explain these
are the male and female sex organs these
are the functions of these sex organs
but never really explaining sex babies
are conceived when the sperm and the egg
meet but how on earth do they meet no
one really taught us you know and we can
ask our parents because they thought we
learnt it in school
fast forward to my gender and Women’s
Studies class my freshman year in
college my gender and Women’s Studies
professor dr. Kosta introduced to us a
guest speaker in the class to talk to us
about contraceptives and who showed us
female condoms there is a condom for
women what this is why America must be
great I thought in in the same year I
remember putting my head down staring at
the floor while trying to watch a movie
intended for educational purposes and do
naked bodies rubbed and moaned against
each other I mean stop learning about
sex is one thing but watching it all
together with your classmates is a whole
another set of embarrassment I call that
experience a hundred percent
Jacque because obviously in Nepal we
watch sex or naked bodies alone at
midnight after our parents have fallen
asleep in s TV channel obviously or in
case there’s a sexually explicit content
on TV or even a commercial for sanitary
pads we just rush to change the channels
right and have y’all ever noticed
parents trying to shush their kids
singing song any song getting the
three-month contraceptive injection with
one catchy tune I will never forget but
no not in my Gender Studies class
everything was out there in the open for
us to analyze and read between these
blurred and mixed and dual messages that
women received about the essence of
being a woman and the objectification of
our bodies we analyze this by making
ourselves the subject of an ethnographic
study and share it among us the stories
of our journeys to women hood and this
experience made me realize how women
worldwide are connected in our stories
of struggle but also how important the
to love story sharing was not just
because story sharing releases
oxytocin’s in your head but also because
how it makes you feel and this feels is
very important to convert words into
actions
fast-forward to me as a 23 year old lady
back in Nepal motivated to work for
women’s rights and empowerment I really
believed that we needed to hear those
stories of women struggles so that we
can convert women’s advocacy into
actions actor Cassie as I called it I
started to lead Hamre Benigni the Green
Angels women’s empowerment social
enterprise which is an innovation under
HCI and we have collectively created
employment and self-employment
opportunities for 1,100 women thank you
before placing women in these jobs we
also conduct interviews so that to
ensure that who the women who is placed
in these jobs get to work in a safe
a respectable working environment and
doing these interviews women have
confided in us their stories of
struggles ranging from abusive husbands
not letting their wives to work to
abusive in-laws literally enslaving
their daughters-in-law to work even
during pregnancies to force abortions of
a girl child to molest stations to
partners refusing to use contraceptives
to rape to marital rape and all these
stories had a pattern women lived in
hiding women worked in hiding women
suffered in hiding and what is more
appalling is that women are taught
suffering in silence is a form of our
strength we are taught that we must not
speak in the name of abuse we must learn
to be resilient
and our strength as a mother daughter
wife daughter-in-law grandmother’s lies
in the fact that we learn to be
resilient in the name of abuse if as a
society we have created this construct
about where the strength of women lies
we can deconstruct it to and to redefine
right and to redefine where the strength
of women actually rise and to redefine
what resilience actually means we must
listen to the hidden stories the real
accounts of women’s lives their
struggles and bring them back to the
limelight to do exactly that I initially
sought the platform of the international
movement to end violence against women
and girls called The Vagina Monologues
and started Vida Katmandu the Vagina
Monologues in Nepal I also started
vagina workshop which is inspired from
the movement itself and today I not only
organized the animal productions of The
Vagina Monologues
but also conduct these vagina workshops
for hundreds of girls and women the idea
behind the vagina workshops is to create
a safe informative and innovative space
for women and young girls from diverse
backgrounds to come together and talk
openly and loudly about vagina sex
orgasm gender sexuality and stories
among
about violence and of love to learn from
each other so that together we remove
the taboo surrounding these topics in
our lives women and girls who
participate in the workshops share
intimate stories just like how I did
about my periods to learn from each
other’s experiences although vagina is
kept at the center of our conversations
but we also talk about how the essence
of being a woman does not just rely on
having a vagina our discourses are
surrounding the fact that what it means
to be a woman how gender and sexuality
are fluid and how we all experience it
in different ways so in the workshop I
start by familiarizing women with the
word vagina itself oddly the comfort
lies in the fact that it is a word in
English and not in Nepali but there are
Nepali words for our vaginas like Sioux
Sioux garnet town the place where we pee
from has got a pelagic article cl-cl
roti even traditional Nepali dish and my
favorite do you care to that just that
textbooks call it yoni and in Nepali we
also call it gook Tonga break the world
into two gooped secret or hidden and
Unga body part a secret hidden body part
it is there but Shh it’s a secret it is
also difficult for us to utter the word
vagina or yoni because we are taught
that this is a dirty word it is a dirty
place and we also related it to dirty
things like sex hence don’t touch it
don’t smell it don’t look at it don’t
think about it don’t even think about it
it is completely removed from our
thoughts an entire body part is removed
from our thoughts so how do you talk
about something that has ceased to exist
even in your thoughts this has
definitely led to so much misinformation
that I’ve met so many young girls and
women who still don’t know what how beer
has happened what is orgasm they’ve
never had orgasms in their lives
how babies are born I’ve also learned
from doing the workshops in Nepal lunch
that young boys and girls learned about
their bodies and sexualities through
secret confession pages or through
pornography imagine the type of messages
that young boys and girls receive is
there knowledge about their bodies and
sexualities are through pornography this
has certainly led to so much
misinformation violence and insecurity
especially among the girls so the next
step in the workshop I start by
stablishing the fact that our good Tonga
actually exists because some of us women
took this so seriously that we actually
started to believe that our group tango
should actually be kept Gupta and
silence that we’ve never even looked at
it so once we bring it back to our
consciousness that it actually exists
and literally see that it exists we talk
about it we talk about its capacity its
capacity to expand and contract and
introduce all into this world that and
the beauty of the worship lies in the
fact that diverse women and girls from
diverse backgrounds come together to
talk about their experiences based on
their personal accounts expertise right
so we talked about the little black
curly hair sexting tinder dates how
virginity is a myth the first time we
had our periods the first time we had
our sex why we don’t want to have sex
how sex is possible not just between a
biological male male male to female and
female to female but also with oneself
to know that we are in control of our
own bodies I’ve realized now more than
ever that Eve Ensler was right women
secretly love to talk about their
vaginas you couldn’t stop them once they
get going so thanks to the amazing women
that have had the opportunity to
co-create this experience with for the
best
laughs and also some tears a
gynecologist in Rama Chubb shared with
me a story about your women who used a
quark something like a wine bottle court
as a plug to stop her uterus from
falling down because she didn’t know
what fistula or uterine prolapse was
decades after when it was removed
finally removed the doctor explained
that the entire hospital stank a woman
had to be operated to remove glass
shards from her vagina that were making
cuts inside her vagina because she
thought we could use glass bangles as
vaginal rings of her stories about the
women whose uterus fell while being in
the rice fields got stuck in straws and
pieces of dust and she still managed to
push it back inside her I’ve also heard
stories from women in body community sex
workers in a western region of Nepal
whose lovers brought them gifts but also
were sexually abused I’ve heard from
young girls who have who don’t have the
courage and have the environment to come
out to their parents as gay and have
been living trapped in a body that is
not their own I’ve also met teenagers
young boys and girls in karate village
in New Echota were so curious to learn
about their bodies but I have access to
no information and this has led to
violence and this has led to a number of
child marriages and now the village is
seeing a huge rise in polygamy recently
in the same village a young girl was
raped she was in fourth grade she was 10
years old and today just a couple of
hours ago
I received a message from a young girl a
teenager in London who has been raped
year after year by her own father since
she was 5 years old and she’s so scared
to go to the doctors and don’t know what
to do one of my dearest and smartest
friend who used to work in an NGO was
asked to move us to
leave her job after the boss finding
that she was in a production of Vida
Katmandu The Vagina Monologues the more
we try to push our boundaries the more
our societies tries to shut us down that
is why we have to be loud we astute talk
openly and loudly in open spaces like
these about these taboo topics dear
mothers and fathers and uncles and
auntie’s and friends we have to
normalize conversations surrounding our
bodies and sexualities so that we remove
the taboos the secrecy the violence
surrounding these topics so that we
learn to take back power to control our
own shamed bodies and silent sexualities
we can only be free if we accept
everything that makes us women with or
without a vagina and this acceptance and
knowing that we are in charge of
ourselves and our own bodies and we are
enough in ourselves liberates us this is
[Applause]
dear Millennials if we want to create a
truly inclusive and a sustainable world
we need to start by fixing broken things
rather than creating new ones the more
we violate and fail to treat our bodies
with love we fail to treat our
environment with love we must restart
the interconnectedness among all of us
by sharing these stories these common
lived experiences it brings us all in a
union dear all we have a responsibility
to push the collective consciousness of
our society further by rewiring the most
important sex organ in our bodies our
brains to do that we should start by not
degrading our body part to just a smear
swear word and reclaim it with full
confidence pool as in purpose and T as
in ticklish purposefully ticklish what a
beautiful word it is they say that our
period cycles are in alignment with the
moon cycle and during the period cycle
women are the most powerful and the most
intuitive this power that could be
harnessed through our bodies help us
align and help us transcend to the gods
within to a higher knowledge our 28-day
community members in olden in older days
used to rely on women on their periods
to gain this knowledge gained through
higher transcendence women know that
this is the capacity of our bodies we
are that powerful and our bodies are
that important we should be ostracized
in small huts as Untouchables during our
periods our bodies are the temples that
houses the gods within we have no
restrictions to enter this temple in
fact we are the priestess of these
temple and we need to worship this
temple to worship the mighty goddesses
in all of us
thank you [Applause]
thought I was going to die it was in
fourth grade I was 10 years old and my
sister who used the toilet right after I
did probably saw some red spots on the
potty and crushed quickly outside and
screamed for my mom mom he was being
blood my face turned red I was so
embarrassed but I had no idea from what
or where or how the blood dripped from
so my mom said she had to see so she
took me to the toilet and said you were
starting your periods or as my aunt
calls it a puncture while she made me
put on a diaper well that’s at least
what wearing a pad for the first time
felt like family members started to
visit bearing gifts and everyone
remarked that I was a grown-up girl now
in fact a woman girls peed blood that
suddenly turned them into women and
didn’t die what I had to keep this a
secret in school and told no one not
even my best friend’s I mean how could I
tell anyone that I was wearing a diaper
and peeing blood right so my seventh
grade male health teacher drew what
looked like both horns on the blackboard
and said this is how periods happened
and all the go and all of the girls then
suddenly were so much more mortified
because even the boys knew now right and
once what happened was when I was in my
initial days when I started my periods
one day I forgot to carry a pad with me
and had to use my yellow and white
handkerchief as one and I also noticed
that girls started to carry pieces of
white chalk in their pockets so that you
know if the red stain their white skirt
and they would chalk their skirts as
well girls started to go to the toilets
and huddle to go to the toilet together
so that the girl with the red stain
skirt wouldn’t stand out Charlie’s
Angels right so we had to make sure to
hide it real good but embarrassment also
followed fright I noticed that more and
more number of girls didn’t just sit out
of sports class
but dropped out of all although all the
sports asked classes altogether because
we’re scared what if it fell and it’s
tinned we didn’t know how to take care
of our bodies like no one really taught
us fast forward
my ninth grade health teacher male again
drew male and female genitals on the
blackboard to talk to us about you know
what it that must not be named in our
Nepali society sex these are the male
and female sex organs he said and all
the boys were all smiles and curious to
learn and the girls just stared at the
floor
research shows that boys are curious way
before girls are about their bodies and
their sexualities and some even begin to
be sexually active as young as 12 years
of age and there we were some of us
girls who thought babies were born born
by cutting open women’s bellies only so
the teacher continued to explain these
are the male and female sex organs these
are the functions of these sex organs
but never really explaining sex babies
are conceived when the sperm and the egg
meet but how on earth do they meet no
one really taught us you know and we can
ask our parents because they thought we
learnt it in school
fast forward to my gender and Women’s
Studies class my freshman year in
college my gender and Women’s Studies
professor dr. Kosta introduced to us a
guest speaker in the class to talk to us
about contraceptives and who showed us
female condoms there is a condom for
women what this is why America must be
great I thought in in the same year I
remember putting my head down staring at
the floor while trying to watch a movie
intended for educational purposes and do
naked bodies rubbed and moaned against
each other I mean stop learning about
sex is one thing but watching it all
together with your classmates is a whole
another set of embarrassment I call that
experience a hundred percent
Jacque because obviously in Nepal we
watch sex or naked bodies alone at
midnight after our parents have fallen
asleep in s TV channel obviously or in
case there’s a sexually explicit content
on TV or even a commercial for sanitary
pads we just rush to change the channels
right and have y’all ever noticed
parents trying to shush their kids
singing song any song getting the
three-month contraceptive injection with
one catchy tune I will never forget but
no not in my Gender Studies class
everything was out there in the open for
us to analyze and read between these
blurred and mixed and dual messages that
women received about the essence of
being a woman and the objectification of
our bodies we analyze this by making
ourselves the subject of an ethnographic
study and share it among us the stories
of our journeys to women hood and this
experience made me realize how women
worldwide are connected in our stories
of struggle but also how important the
to love story sharing was not just
because story sharing releases
oxytocin’s in your head but also because
how it makes you feel and this feels is
very important to convert words into
actions
fast-forward to me as a 23 year old lady
back in Nepal motivated to work for
women’s rights and empowerment I really
believed that we needed to hear those
stories of women struggles so that we
can convert women’s advocacy into
actions actor Cassie as I called it I
started to lead Hamre Benigni the Green
Angels women’s empowerment social
enterprise which is an innovation under
HCI and we have collectively created
employment and self-employment
opportunities for 1,100 women thank you
before placing women in these jobs we
also conduct interviews so that to
ensure that who the women who is placed
in these jobs get to work in a safe
a respectable working environment and
doing these interviews women have
confided in us their stories of
struggles ranging from abusive husbands
not letting their wives to work to
abusive in-laws literally enslaving
their daughters-in-law to work even
during pregnancies to force abortions of
a girl child to molest stations to
partners refusing to use contraceptives
to rape to marital rape and all these
stories had a pattern women lived in
hiding women worked in hiding women
suffered in hiding and what is more
appalling is that women are taught
suffering in silence is a form of our
strength we are taught that we must not
speak in the name of abuse we must learn
to be resilient
and our strength as a mother daughter
wife daughter-in-law grandmother’s lies
in the fact that we learn to be
resilient in the name of abuse if as a
society we have created this construct
about where the strength of women lies
we can deconstruct it to and to redefine
right and to redefine where the strength
of women actually rise and to redefine
what resilience actually means we must
listen to the hidden stories the real
accounts of women’s lives their
struggles and bring them back to the
limelight to do exactly that I initially
sought the platform of the international
movement to end violence against women
and girls called The Vagina Monologues
and started Vida Katmandu the Vagina
Monologues in Nepal I also started
vagina workshop which is inspired from
the movement itself and today I not only
organized the animal productions of The
Vagina Monologues
but also conduct these vagina workshops
for hundreds of girls and women the idea
behind the vagina workshops is to create
a safe informative and innovative space
for women and young girls from diverse
backgrounds to come together and talk
openly and loudly about vagina sex
orgasm gender sexuality and stories
among
about violence and of love to learn from
each other so that together we remove
the taboo surrounding these topics in
our lives women and girls who
participate in the workshops share
intimate stories just like how I did
about my periods to learn from each
other’s experiences although vagina is
kept at the center of our conversations
but we also talk about how the essence
of being a woman does not just rely on
having a vagina our discourses are
surrounding the fact that what it means
to be a woman how gender and sexuality
are fluid and how we all experience it
in different ways so in the workshop I
start by familiarizing women with the
word vagina itself oddly the comfort
lies in the fact that it is a word in
English and not in Nepali but there are
Nepali words for our vaginas like Sioux
Sioux garnet town the place where we pee
from has got a pelagic article cl-cl
roti even traditional Nepali dish and my
favorite do you care to that just that
textbooks call it yoni and in Nepali we
also call it gook Tonga break the world
into two gooped secret or hidden and
Unga body part a secret hidden body part
it is there but Shh it’s a secret it is
also difficult for us to utter the word
vagina or yoni because we are taught
that this is a dirty word it is a dirty
place and we also related it to dirty
things like sex hence don’t touch it
don’t smell it don’t look at it don’t
think about it don’t even think about it
it is completely removed from our
thoughts an entire body part is removed
from our thoughts so how do you talk
about something that has ceased to exist
even in your thoughts this has
definitely led to so much misinformation
that I’ve met so many young girls and
women who still don’t know what how beer
has happened what is orgasm they’ve
never had orgasms in their lives
how babies are born I’ve also learned
from doing the workshops in Nepal lunch
that young boys and girls learned about
their bodies and sexualities through
secret confession pages or through
pornography imagine the type of messages
that young boys and girls receive is
there knowledge about their bodies and
sexualities are through pornography this
has certainly led to so much
misinformation violence and insecurity
especially among the girls so the next
step in the workshop I start by
stablishing the fact that our good Tonga
actually exists because some of us women
took this so seriously that we actually
started to believe that our group tango
should actually be kept Gupta and
silence that we’ve never even looked at
it so once we bring it back to our
consciousness that it actually exists
and literally see that it exists we talk
about it we talk about its capacity its
capacity to expand and contract and
introduce all into this world that and
the beauty of the worship lies in the
fact that diverse women and girls from
diverse backgrounds come together to
talk about their experiences based on
their personal accounts expertise right
so we talked about the little black
curly hair sexting tinder dates how
virginity is a myth the first time we
had our periods the first time we had
our sex why we don’t want to have sex
how sex is possible not just between a
biological male male male to female and
female to female but also with oneself
to know that we are in control of our
own bodies I’ve realized now more than
ever that Eve Ensler was right women
secretly love to talk about their
vaginas you couldn’t stop them once they
get going so thanks to the amazing women
that have had the opportunity to
co-create this experience with for the
best
laughs and also some tears a
gynecologist in Rama Chubb shared with
me a story about your women who used a
quark something like a wine bottle court
as a plug to stop her uterus from
falling down because she didn’t know
what fistula or uterine prolapse was
decades after when it was removed
finally removed the doctor explained
that the entire hospital stank a woman
had to be operated to remove glass
shards from her vagina that were making
cuts inside her vagina because she
thought we could use glass bangles as
vaginal rings of her stories about the
women whose uterus fell while being in
the rice fields got stuck in straws and
pieces of dust and she still managed to
push it back inside her I’ve also heard
stories from women in body community sex
workers in a western region of Nepal
whose lovers brought them gifts but also
were sexually abused I’ve heard from
young girls who have who don’t have the
courage and have the environment to come
out to their parents as gay and have
been living trapped in a body that is
not their own I’ve also met teenagers
young boys and girls in karate village
in New Echota were so curious to learn
about their bodies but I have access to
no information and this has led to
violence and this has led to a number of
child marriages and now the village is
seeing a huge rise in polygamy recently
in the same village a young girl was
raped she was in fourth grade she was 10
years old and today just a couple of
hours ago
I received a message from a young girl a
teenager in London who has been raped
year after year by her own father since
she was 5 years old and she’s so scared
to go to the doctors and don’t know what
to do one of my dearest and smartest
friend who used to work in an NGO was
asked to move us to
leave her job after the boss finding
that she was in a production of Vida
Katmandu The Vagina Monologues the more
we try to push our boundaries the more
our societies tries to shut us down that
is why we have to be loud we astute talk
openly and loudly in open spaces like
these about these taboo topics dear
mothers and fathers and uncles and
auntie’s and friends we have to
normalize conversations surrounding our
bodies and sexualities so that we remove
the taboos the secrecy the violence
surrounding these topics so that we
learn to take back power to control our
own shamed bodies and silent sexualities
we can only be free if we accept
everything that makes us women with or
without a vagina and this acceptance and
knowing that we are in charge of
ourselves and our own bodies and we are
enough in ourselves liberates us this is
[Applause]
dear Millennials if we want to create a
truly inclusive and a sustainable world
we need to start by fixing broken things
rather than creating new ones the more
we violate and fail to treat our bodies
with love we fail to treat our
environment with love we must restart
the interconnectedness among all of us
by sharing these stories these common
lived experiences it brings us all in a
union dear all we have a responsibility
to push the collective consciousness of
our society further by rewiring the most
important sex organ in our bodies our
brains to do that we should start by not
degrading our body part to just a smear
swear word and reclaim it with full
confidence pool as in purpose and T as
in ticklish purposefully ticklish what a
beautiful word it is they say that our
period cycles are in alignment with the
moon cycle and during the period cycle
women are the most powerful and the most
intuitive this power that could be
harnessed through our bodies help us
align and help us transcend to the gods
within to a higher knowledge our 28-day
community members in olden in older days
used to rely on women on their periods
to gain this knowledge gained through
higher transcendence women know that
this is the capacity of our bodies we
are that powerful and our bodies are
that important we should be ostracized
in small huts as Untouchables during our
periods our bodies are the temples that
houses the gods within we have no
restrictions to enter this temple in
fact we are the priestess of these
temple and we need to worship this
temple to worship the mighty goddesses
in all of us
thank you [Applause]
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