The Womb: The Life She Gives and the Shame She Receives

Every person has every right to take up space in every field, every industry, every profession imaginable. But if society wants someone in workplaces, then society must also learn how to treat them like human beings instead of productivity machines expected to function without biology, pain, emotion, exhaustion, or dignity. Because somewhere along the way, for women, the womanhood itself became treated like an inconvenience. And nowhere is that more horrifyingly visible than in the stories emerging from India’s sugar cane fields, where women are reportedly being pushed into hysterectomies, the removal of their wombs, simply so they can continue working long hours without interruption from menstruation, pregnancy, or reproductive health issues.

Think about how dystopian that sounds for a second. Women are not removing organs because they want to. They are removing organs because poverty, exploitation, patriarchy, and brutal labour systems have cornered them into believing their bodies are obstacles to survival. And honestly, the scariest part is how quickly society normalizes this kind of cruelty once poor women are the victims. If office workers in corporate buildings were being pressured into surgically altering their bodies to improve attendance rates, there would be international outrage. Headlines everywhere. Emergency meetings. Public fury. But when rural female labourers suffer, the world suddenly becomes quieter. More analytical. Less emotional. As if poor women are somehow expected to endure suffering professionally. That is the issue. Not women working. Not women being strong. Not women contributing to industries. The issue is a system that wants women’s labour but hates women’s biology. Because periods are still treated like shameful interruptions instead of normal bodily functions. Pregnancy is treated as an inconvenience. Menopause is treated like irrelevance. Female pain is constantly minimized, mocked, or dismissed until women themselves begin apologizing for existing inside female bodies. And patriarchy plays a massive role in this.

Patriarchy has always demanded impossible contradictions from women. Women must work but not complain. Women must sacrifice but remain graceful. Women must endure pain quietly. Women must raise children, maintain homes, support families, contribute economically, and still somehow never allow their humanity to interfere with productivity. Bleeding becomes weakness. Rest becomes laziness. Pain becomes an exaggeration. And if women fail to perform resilience beautifully enough, society punishes them for it. That is exactly why these hysterectomy cases are so deeply disturbing. Because this is not just about surgeries. This is about a culture where the female body is seen as a burden needing management. The uterus becomes the enemy. The period becomes the enemy. Womanhood itself becomes the enemy. Instead of asking why women are forced to work through brutal conditions without proper healthcare, paid leave, sanitation, dignity, or rest, society asks women to alter themselves instead. And this mentality exists far beyond labour fields.

Girls still grow up being taught to hide pads in black plastic bags or wrap them in newspaper like contraband. Even now, in many places, people lower their voices while buying sanitary products as though menstruation is something sinful, dirty, embarrassing, or impure.

Impure.

A completely natural biological function capable of literally creating human life is somehow treated with more shame than male violence ever is. And honestly, that hypocrisy deserves to be called out loudly. I’ve seen women called moody, sensitive, dramatic and unstable simply because women go through biological phases every month. Meanwhile men scream at football matches with beer cans in front of televisions, start fights over sports teams, punch walls over bruised egos, and literally start wars out of greed and power. So emotional. So sensitive. Yet somehow women are still the ones reduced to hormones. It is absurd when you actually think about it. Women are mocked for crying while men destroy entire communities over ego, nationalism, entitlement, power, and rage. But somehow female emotion is still treated as the irrational one.  And that mindset directly feeds systems like these. Because once society starts viewing female biology as weakness, it becomes easier to justify cruelty against women in workplaces. It becomes easier to dismiss pain. Easier to ignore exhaustion. Easier to treat periods like inconveniences instead of health realities. These women in sugar cane fields work brutal hours under exhausting conditions. Many are already economically vulnerable. Many have little access to healthcare. Missing work can mean losing wages their families depend on. Some are fined if they cannot work. Some continue labour through severe pain, pregnancies, or miscarriages because survival leaves them no choice.

So, when surgery is presented as a “solution,” can society honestly pretend that choice exists freely? Desperation is not freedom. A woman should never have to choose between her reproductive organs and her livelihood. No human being should be forced into viewing their own body as the obstacle standing between themselves and survival. And yet, this keeps happening because the world still struggles to see women as fully human outside of what they can produce, tolerate, sacrifice, or endure. There is also something deeply disturbing about how society romanticizes female suffering. People praise hardworking women constantly. Strong women. Resilient women. Self-sacrificing women. But very few stop and ask why women are required to suffer this much in the first place. Why is female pain so normalized? Why are women expected to continue functioning through everything? Through periods, pregnancies, childbirth, postpartum recovery, harassment, emotional labour, domestic labour, workplace discrimination, and exhaustion without ever breaking? At what point do we stop glorifying endurance and start questioning the cruelty demanding it? Because women are human beings before they are workers.

And honestly, this conversation should not scare people away from women working. That is not the point at all. The answer is not forcing women backwards into dependence or confinement.

Women belong everywhere. In offices. In governments. In science. In agriculture. In the media. In construction. In leadership. Everywhere. The real issue is creating environments where women are allowed to exist as women without being punished for it. That means menstrual leave is being taken seriously. That means accessible healthcare. That means proper sanitation. That means safe working conditions. That means maternity protection. That means ending the shame surrounding periods entirely. That means teaching girls they do not need to hide sanitary pads like evidence of a crime. That means teaching boys menstruation is normal instead of taboo. That means recognizing that women’s bodies are not workplace defects. Because the female body is not flawed simply because it bleeds. And the irony in all this is painful. Society glorifies motherhood constantly. Women are praised for fertility, sacrifice, nurturing, and bringing life into the world. Entire cultures worship motherhood symbolically. Yet the moment female biology interrupts labour systems or productivity standards, women suddenly become burdens. The womb is celebrated poetically but punished economically. And that contradiction says everything. This issue also reveals something larger about capitalism itself.

Modern work culture often treats all human bodies as machines expected to operate endlessly without limitation. But women experience an additional layer where natural biological realities become grounds for discrimination, shame, or dismissal. The solution should never be making women less human to fit workplaces. The solution should be making workplaces more humane for humans. Because once a society reaches the point where women feel pressured into removing healthy organs just to remain employable, something has gone catastrophically wrong morally. That is not empowerment. That is not progress. That is not freedom. That is exploitation disguised as practicality. And perhaps the most heartbreaking part of all this is how many women internalize these beliefs themselves. Years of stigma teach women to apologize for pain, conceal discomfort, minimize symptoms, and keep functioning no matter what. Girls grow up hearing periods described as embarrassing. Dirty. Impure. Something to hide from fathers, brothers, classmates, colleagues, and society itself. That shame does not disappear in adulthood. It follows women into schools, workplaces, marriages, hospitals, and labour systems.

So, of-course some women begin believing removing the source of that shame might make life easier. That is what patriarchy does best. It convinces women that adapting themselves to cruelty is easier than demanding the cruelty stop. But women do not need fixing. The system does. Women should work. Women should lead. Women should thrive. Women should have independence and ambition and careers and dreams. But women should also be allowed to bleed, rest, recover, exist, and remain human while doing so. Because menstruation is not a weakness. Pregnancy is not incompetence. Womanhood is not impure. And no society that treats female biology like a workplace malfunction can ever call itself truly progressive.