Bleeding in Public? Rethinking Narratives of Menstrual Management from Delhi's Slums

McCarthy and Lahiri-Dutt illuminate the menstrual experiences of women living in informal settlements in India. Beginning with a critique of menstrual hygiene management (MHM) and water sanitation and hygiene (WASH) framings of women’s menstrual practices, they argue that these approaches ignore important spatial, social, and moral meanings attached to menstruating bodies in informal settlements. To substantiate their argument, McCarthy and Lahiri-Dutt take the reader into the jhuggīs and the lives of individual women who have migrated for work to New Delhi, India’s New Okhla Industrial Development Authority (NOIDA) area. The authors describe the congested and cramped conditions and the ways in which women manage the structural deficits of informal living, reconfigure notions of privacy, and navigate changing gender relations.