Menstrual Management
Ethnographic Research
Insights and Recommendation
Innovation opportunities
Concept creation
Idea validation
Brand/ Client: Godrej Consumer Products Ltd
Designed for: Godrej Consumer Products Ltd
Uncovering menstrual hygiene practices in rural India from the lens of socio-cultural and infrastructural aspects to help innovate a solution that leverages the established distribution network of one of the largest FMCG companies in India.
Challenge
More than 70% of Indian women do not use sanitary pads and resort to using unhygienic methods of managing their menstruation period. At the same time, 'Dasra report- Spot On' states that 'If every woman of reproductive age in India started using disposable sanitary napkins, the estimated waste generated would be 58,500 million pads (580,000 tons) per year. A single use disposable pads take 500- 800 years to decompose'.
Recognising this as an opportunity for innovation by one of the leading manufacturing companies in India with strong presence in rural Indian market, the project was aimed at conducting secondary and ethnographic research, derive insights and ideate on possible solutions along with a cross disciplinary team.
User personas and journeys
After several days of fieldwork in the sates of Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, we studied and documented the menstrual beliefs and management practices adopted by most of the women and girls between age 12- 45. years. The main factors that impacted their willingness to discuss and change the practices, taboos and socio-cultural beliefs found were
01
Age Group: Women older than 25 yrs had already spent significant part of their lives practicing the habit of using rags and other home-made solutions. She has become used to the regime, the most effective and economical ways of passing her menstrual period every month and even though faces issue of infections and discomfort, is not open to changing them. Whereas younger girls and women are still experimenting and understanding the process and repercussions of unhygienic practices, hence are open to trying new solutions.
02
Financial dependency and viability: Girls in schools and colleges as well as home makers are financially dependent on breadwinner of the family for their daily requirement. Expenditure on pads are seen as unnecessary as traditionally women have used old throwaway cloth pieces found free of cost at home. Change can happen when the girls and women save their pocket money or succeeds in convincing the financial supporter.
03
Outlook: Irrespective of financial viability, households with strict religious and socio-cultural belief systems rarely allow change in the practice. Often older women act as gatekeepers of the tradition and do not permit any deviance from the practice they had themselves undergone.
04
Rural vs Urban: Accessibility and awareness are highly dependent on the infrastructure of their village/city of residence. Since rural parts of the country has limited access to the Internet or book/ magazines, creating awareness needs a specialised task. Secondly, buying a pad in most villages is not a convenient solution as only one shop might stock a few variety between 2-3 villages.
A day in life of a menstruating school girl
Age group: 12 to 18 yrs
Lives with her family of 8 and resides in a village near to a small town where she goes for her schooling.. She uses old cloth found in the house to deal with menstruation every month
A day in life of a menstruating working woman
WORKING/ COLLEGE WOMAN
Age group: 19 to 26 yrs
Lives and works in the nearest town from her parents village in a girls hostel. She has newly found her financial independence and wants to succeed in life.
A day in life of a menstruating home maker
HOME-MAKER
Age group: 19 to 26 yrs
Lives with her two kids, husband and mother in law. Belongs to an orthodox family residing in a city.
User journeys were mapped at each of the step in respect to the the above stated steps followed.
Awareness: Awareness primarily of the product being used, mostly old cloth comes from mothers, siblings or close friends. Other sources of awareness are from women magazines printed locally addressing women issues, radio and some amount of television advertisements. Secondarily, ‘Asha’ workers, or NGO representatives impart information of good practices and also offer health check ups. Since there is a shame culture associated with menstruation, open conversations are difficult, leading to low awareness at the point of purchase. Women usually point out to a brand or state the color or price point to the shopkeeper keeping conversation about menstruation products to the minimum. Hence any new offering is not explored.
Accessing the pad/ cloth: One of the major reasons of using found cloth is no access to the commercially available pads. One shop among a couple of villages is a common scenario witnessed, making the hurdle of buying a pack every month even bigger. Secondly many girls and women do not possess money to buy pads and are ashamed to go and buy themselves. Dependency for money, shame of buying from a shop and scarcity of shops storing them are the core issues.
Using and Changing: A lot of factors impact usage and changing of cloth or pad for a girl. For example, nuclear family provides for more privacy and she can change and use at her will, where as large joint families with shared toilet are challenging as the activity has to be done in secrecy. But mostly, issues related to size, shape, securing with no chance of leakage form the core of how a product is used. Changing although recommended after every 4 hours, is rarely practiced and mostly used for 6-8 hours, increasing chances of UTI and vaginal infections.
Washing and Drying: Habit of washing and drying cloth for next use is prevalent in West India but less common in North and south. One of the reasons cited for this practice is the belief that if the cloth is thrown out with blood still on it, the women stand a chance to loose her fertility if discovered by a dog. Secondly disposing of used cloth or pad is difficult as there is lack of proper system and it requires them to go out of house in secrecy every time exposing them to dangers of deserted places. Drying again poses the problem of it being discovered by family members, casing shame to the menstruating girl. Hence the habit of drying in dark, unaccessible and unhygienic places is in practice resulting in health issues.
Storing: Once the cycle is over, the washed cloth pieces are bundled and stores in difficult to access places like top of the cupboard, niche in toilet etc, again exposing them to dirt and germs.
Key insights were derived from the user journeys for each user group as illustrated aove
Key Insights
Awareness
Awareness of the product to be used, mostly old cloth primarily comes from mothers, siblings or close friends. Other sources of awareness are from women magazines printed locally addressing women issues, radio and some amount of television advertisements. Secondarily, 'Asha' workers, or NGO representatives impart information of good practices and also offer health check ups.
Since there is a shame culture associated with menstruation, open conversations are difficult, leading to low awareness at the point of purchase. Women usually point out to a brand or state the color or price point to the shopkeeper keeping conversation about menstruation products to the minimum. Hence any new offering is not explored.
Access
One of the major reasons for using found cloth is no access to the commercially available pads. One shop among a couple of villages is a common scenario witnessed, making the hurdle of buying a pack every month even bigger. Secondly many girls and women do not possess money to buy pads and are ashamed to go and buy themselves. Dependency for money, shame of buying from a shop and scarcity of shops storing them are the core issues.
Usage
A lot of factors impact usage and changing of cloth or pad for a girl. For example, nuclear family provides for more privacy and she can change and use at her will, where as large joint families with shared toilet are challenging as the activity has to be done in secrecy. But mostly, issues related to size, shape, securing with no chance of leakage form the core of how a product is used. Changing although recommended after every 4 hours, is rarely practiced and mostly used for 6-8 hours, increasing chances of UTI and vaginal infections.
Maintenance
Habit of washing and drying cloth for next use is prevalent in West India but less common in North and south. One of the reasons cited for this practice is the belief that if the cloth is thrown out with blood still on it, the women stand a chance to loose her fertility if discovered by a dog. Secondly disposing of used cloth or pad is difficult as there is lack of proper system and it requires them to go out of house in secrecy every time exposing them to dangers of deserted places. Drying again poses the problem of it being discovered by family members, casing shame to the menstruating girl. Hence the habit of drying in dark, unaccessible and unhygienic places is in practice resulting in health issues.
Storage
Once the cycle is over, the washed cloth pieces are bundled and stores in difficult-to-access places
like top of the cupboard, niche in toilet etc, again exposing them to dirt and germs.
Evaluating 'Cloth' as a sustainable and affordable solution
Although cloth solution then should be preferable, but due to several factors are currently is detrimental to health and education of young girls.
Physical health: Using cloth kept in unhygienic places dirty and are breeding ground germs. They are mostly used as is and not sanitized. 81% of rural women use unsanitized cloth, also due to the fact that menstruation is considered dirty and hence dirty cloth. These practices result in UTI urinary tract infection and vaginal infection. The cloth used for menstruation each time usually extend from 8 to 10 hours, letting bacteria grow easily, hence contributing to the issue of infections. Lastly, after the cloth is washed, its dried and stored in dark and unhygienic places to avoid being discovered.
Mental health: A menstruating girl is often depressed and ashamed due to the perpetuating culture of associating menstruation with shame, impure and unclean. Moreover due to daily struggle during the period of menstruation of finding a suitable piece of cloth, private place to manage and hiding of her condition from the family members and school, adds to her misery and helplessness.
Education and freedom: Lastly, no privacy at schools to change, shame of getting discovered by peers and teaches and constant worry of staining keeps them out of school for an average of 20% of the year. Many also drop-out.
Hence if cloth as a base material is to be used, it should be a. Anti-bacterial b. Long-lasting c. Easy to wash, use and dry d. Affordable
Validation - User Testing
Two user groups- 13 to 16 years and 17-25 years were approached with prototypes for feedback on their perception and acceptability for the solution 'An antibacterial cloth pad that is washable and re-suable'. The products were designed in set of 4 pieces as per usage requirement in a typical menstrual cycle, with a carry bag to store. Feedback for the product at every touch point was taken for one complete menstrual cycle experienced by them.
Group discussion on prototypes of solution
Washing of the prototype
Drying the prototype
Storing the prototype
Conclusion
After having multiple interactions with girls and women who refused to use commercially available sanitary napkins, in-spite of them being affordable, revealed some unexpected insights about why product innovation in isolation and oblivious to context and eco-systems, have been unable to solve the most pressing and straight forward social problems. Social and cultural beliefs, accentuated by the taboo around menstruation in India had inconspicuously designed and in turn been designed by the daily routines of women and girls, economies of households, retail systems in rural India and in-fact even the architecture of toilets at home and at schools.
The latent opportunity discovered during the project was that though the girls were limited by their immediate physical environment and cultural context, most had access to technology that connected them to the world digitally. Hence, if the problem presented is in the form of an interdependent and interwoven fabric of people, products and the environment; the innovation lies in how they interact with each other in the context.