Join us for the second installment of the Social Distancing Film Club! We will be watching the award-winning documentary short, Period. End of Sentence. Special guest, Saniya Ghanoui, will also be joining us for a discussion about menstruation poverty and cultural taboos around this natural bodily process. Grab your favorite snack, put on some comfy clothes, and come hang out!
About the film: The documentary short follows a group of local women in Hapur, India, as they learn how to operate a machine that makes low-cost, biodegradable sanitary pads, which they sell to other women at affordable prices. This not only helps to improve feminine hygiene by providing access to basic products but also supports and empowers the women to shed the taboos in India surrounding menstruation – all while contributing to the economic future of their community. The film is inspired from the life of Arunachalam Muruganantham, a social activist from Tamil Nadu, India. Watch the trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KocJP8dG1OA
About Saniya: Saniya Lee Ghanoui is a PhD Candidate in History at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her dissertation is a transnational culture history that examines the development and movement of sex education and its films in the U.S. and Sweden. Her work also explores the history of menstrual education. She is the Senior Producer for the podcast Sexing History and Editor for the blog Notches: (re)marks on the history of sexuality.