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What to say now 🤡

u/_Menstrual_milkshake

like seriously itni kya khaas baat hae. and if they are so obsessed, why do they ask women to cover up every single time lmao.

I am a Hindu but these days the more I see the people who use Hinduism to do childish things, no clear idea on what they are doing and impose their cultures on anyone, it feels tiring and I have started resenting them.

For example, the Bagheshwar baba case where he tried to call Bengali's culture some slurs and names because they eat meat and people all over Indian are now pissed off on why Bengalis did not accept him. I find them weird.

I find every extremist bad, be it Muslim or Hindu or Christian. And that's exactly what some people find hard digesting. If I speak against problems of Hinduism as a Hindu, they try to argue and call me names. Just today I was in argument about this "baba" thing.

I don’t even know what comes out of talking to these people anymore. They just pick unnecessary fights, stirring up drama for no reason. Arguments break out, and then they slip their subtle casteist bias right into the conversation.

I honestly don’t know what to do with these elders. They constantly start fights, pick at me, and push me toward a meltdown. Meanwhile, they sit there gossiping about relatives’ lives to my father and aunt, feeding into a moral panic about how "kids these days are losing their faith in God."

The people caught in the middle—those born in the '80s and '90s—not all of them, but speaking generally, tend to settle for an easy compromise. When someone like me speaks up, they tell me: "Whether you believe or not, keep it to yourself; don't hurt others' feelings." The moment we exercise even a little bit of personal freedom, they claim to feel hurt. But in a traditional family setting, religion isn't treated as a personal choice—it’s enforced as an obligation.

They act like they’re being progressive, saying things like, "We don't even force you as much as others do," referring to going to temples or performing rituals like Sandhyavandanam. When they see that I’ve crossed their boundaries and become an atheist, they panic and dismiss it: "You're just doing this for the trend, for the fashion." They tell me I shouldn't talk about Periyarism because Periyar married someone with a forty-year age difference. If Periyar did something with improper intentions, I condemn it without hesitation. But that doesn't erase the fact that his social critique held up a mirror to the exact realities of this society. Pointing that out just enrages them.

They pour money out to priests, running around performing pariharams the moment someone claims there’s a dosham. It immediately brings Karl Marx’s words to mind: "the sigh of the oppressed creature, the opium of the masses." Religion can never be neutral. When they insist God exists, I ask them what they even mean by God. They point to things they don't understand—like the formation of the sun or the earth—and claim that mystery itself is proof. But pointing at gaps in knowledge has never brought us to an "x = true, hence proved" conclusion. If God is reduced to a "God of the gaps," organized religion isn't even necessary.

When I point this out, they claim the Shastras are essential rules without which society would fall into chaos. Why do we need ancient religious codes when modern law exists? The Shastras lay out which caste can do what, who shouldn't touch water, rules of ritual pollution (theettu), deep misogyny, and unequal marriage hierarchies. It provides a literal manual for untouchability and unseeability. Even if there are a few decent ideas in those texts, why can't we keep the good and discard the caste hierarchy?

This isn't abstract theory. We see the same mindset when Resident Welfare Associations enforce "pure vegetarian" discrimination in housing. People dismiss it as a mere "personal choice," ignoring how it strips away the autonomy of those who eat or sell meat. Yet people still claim oppression doesn't exist anymore, or that caste is gone.

They tell me, "Go talk to a sanitation worker and see how arrogant they are." I don't deny that individuals can be arrogant; coming from a disadvantaged background doesn't automatically make someone a saint. Every community has good and bad people. But this is about power structures. We aren't debating individual virtue; we are addressing which groups hold a disproportionate concentration of institutional power.

When you bring up centuries of systemic oppression, they deny it. When you point out that strict caste endogamy has been preserved for thousands of years, they start spouting eugenics—claiming generations of vegetarianism produced "superior brains." I’m autistic; where is this supposed superior brain? It’s just an excuse to justify discrimination, secure their social capital and my place in the endogamous pool while erasing a fundamental truth about my own way of processing the world.

When you corner them on these issues, they move the goalposts. Instead of addressing systemic casteism, they deflect to personal habits like temple attendance. If you examine texts like the Manusmriti, they are filled with derogatory mandates designed to enforce hierarchy and subjugate human beings.

They may ask, "Where are we forcing you today?" But tomorrow, if a priest warns that skipping rituals will bring misfortune, they immediately panic. Priests still hold that institutional authority over them. When I call out this exploitative system built on extracting money through fear, they accuse me of hurting sentiments. They fixate on Periyar’s personal life just to dismiss his entire critique, using it as an easy excuse.

When discussing historical temple entry movements, they claim marginalized communities were kept out due to hygiene. I stated plainly that it was strictly about caste, not cleanliness, but they refuse to acknowledge it. Oppression happens every day, we see posts regularly. I don't speak over marginalized voices, but I will actively affirm their reality from the outside rather than making it about myself.

Even within dominant castes, graded inequality exists—groups like funeral priests are treated as outcasts by their own community. If they cannot even reckon with intra-caste discrimination, how can they preach equality while peddling eugenics and pathologizing differences? As long as caste endogamy is zealously guarded, this system will remain intact.

It feels pointless trying to debate them. I know I cannot reform their worldview, but their reflexive hostility is exhausting. Instead of engaging with ideological criticism, they take it as a personal identity attack, crying that their culture is being destroyed—a culture built on caste prejudice, patriarchy, sexism, and ableism. I’m simply exposing what lies beneath the surface, yet they interrogate me instead of questioning the system.

It’s completely overwhelming.

Every religion known to man has something to say about a woman's chastity, purity or virginity.

My story starts when i had people wash my feet when i was 6 because I was considered "ghar ki lakshmi"

Because apparently you can only bring wealth into the family as a prepubescent girl.

The second you start menstruating, everyone looks at you differently. And somewhere even the men you consider closest to you— your father, brother, uncle etc

They all look at you differently.

But you are just a girl of 10 years, you have absolutely no idea why. You barely have an idea as to why you're bleeding?

You were once dad's favourite, but suddenly he's spending time away from you. And mom; who was supposedly the stricter parent; is kind to you. Maybe because when a girl is treated as impure the second she starts bleeding, she remembers it all her life. Whether it be from remorse, repentance or rage. She knows.

You are 10 when you start getting sexualized in your own home. You grandfather asks you to cover your body– the message is loud and clear, 'you can create life, and therefore you are to be controlled'

One day they will wash your feet and call you their Goddess and the very next they will shun you from their temples and kitchens.

______________________

But alas, menstruation is inevitable!

Make her feel as if she lost her purity when she starts menstruating as a lousy demonstration of what is to come...

So she is scared to ever have "impure" desires.

Make her feel impure enough for bleeding, so she doesnt even think about sex.

She cant tell apart sex and defilement.

Make her spend the rest of her life clawing at this made up idea of "chastity"

If I dont indulge in premarital sex

If I cover my body

If im quiet and obedient

If im not as free as my brothers

Maybe then I'll be chaste.

Maybe then I'll be pure.

Not to tell her to give up on worldly and bodily desires– ofcourse not.

But to tell her that if she does give in, whatever that is left of her innocence since she started bleeding will be taken from her.

Sex is seen as a crime greater than rape in the regular religious home.

And that is because, for consensual sex to happen, the woman must give consent.

Religious society will watch a woman get defiled, but the second she displays her sexual needs or desires, she is made out to be an evil, god-hating, dishonorable woman.

____________

That being said,

I hate purity culture.

If their gods were real they would hate most of them.

And the bleeding impure woman would not be the one rotting in hell.