It's only a few tablespoons a day if you have a typical period. If you're one of the many people who have an abnormally heavy period, then it is, of course, far worse. And I'm betting that given the size of the population, there will be many women dealing with that in India.
Note that he started this to help his wife, but he lost his wife over this due to the stigma. The stigma associated with menstruation was so great that he lost his wife, his mother left, and then his village expelled him. But he kept going to make a difference.
Emily Prager, ca. 1982, "The Man's Exam on Female Troubles," an excerpt:
...Trouble 1. Bleeding: A major trouble. Major. If you're like most men I know, you're pretty cranky if you get a cold. Well, consider if you will, how you would behave if, one week a month, every month, your lower back spasmed, your hips rumbled, and blood gushed from your genital organ. Good.
Now take this test:
(a) Would you want to go into work and do a sales presentation with blood dripping from your penis?
(b) Would you want to join in a touch football or pool game with blood dripping from your penis?
(c) Would you want to go to Crazy Eddie's and look at stereo equipment with blood dripping from your penis?
(d) Would you want to have sex with a girl you're trying to impress with blood dripping from your penis?
(e) Is there any chance that you'd be anything but short tempered, irrational, and depressed with blood dripping from your penis?
If you answered "yes" to any of the above, then you're a transsexual or in need of psychiatric care. If you answered "no," then let me ask you this, jerk: why do you expect any different from women?
Because the current generation should not be deprived. I had to dredge this up from some old usenet group on Google.
What a great story!
@2, 10, and 11: Cups don't work very well at all, in my humble experience--too easy to accidently dislodge. Also as @11 says, there are hygiene issues.
@12 - depends what kind of cup you're using (two kinds don't work for me, but the last one I tried did. More might work than one out of three, but I stopped looking once I found one that worked) but the sanitation issue is also a human issue - access to clean water and sanitary facilities. That benefits everyone, not just menstruating women, and clean water charities like this one are going the distance on that front: http://www.charitywater.org/
What I like is that he is making the machines rather than the product. Creating a cottage industry is much more effective than a single factory would be, but forgoes much of the profit.
@12 Quite possible. I have a friend who can't use them because of the way her vagina is shaped. I personally love them, and it's far more of a problem for me to get the thing out than keep it in.
Cup user: They are less likely to leak, don't smell or feel gross like a tampon or pad, and all you need to do is boil them at the end of your period (in the 1st world countries we wash them daily with soap but it honestly isn't necessary)
I kinda wanna start buying diva cups for the 3rd world now.
@22 I was just thinking this. Maybe there are indeed taboos with inserting such a thing, but something that is hygienic, effective and reusable like a cup would just solve so many problems. Where there's a will there's a way!
@2, 10, and 11: Cups don't work very well at all, in my humble experience--too easy to accidently dislodge. Also as @11 says, there are hygiene issues.
https://www.ted.com/speakers/arunachalam…
Like the first man to set foot on the moon, [I'm] the first man [who] wore a sanitary pad.
I kinda wanna start buying diva cups for the 3rd world now.