Motifs Volume 7 (Special Issue) November 2021, pp. 1-12 DOI: 10.5958/2454-1753.2021.00001.5 IndianJournals.com A product of Diva Enterprises Pvt. Ltd. Motifs 1 Marginalized Culture: Reflecting on Menstrual Discourse as a Social Stigma in West Bengal from the Lens of Gender Theory Suparna Roy M.A., Independent Researcher, Currently Pursuing B.Ed, Central Modern College of Education, Department English, Kolkata, West Bengal, India Email id: literature.academics@gmail.com ABSTRACT Cultural complexities and discourses are accompanied by ‘silences’ to modulate the ‘moral code of conduct’ that apprehends bodies under specific framework of acceptance. The term intersectionality was coined by Kimberle Crenshaw in 1989; in an interview with TIMES quite recently, she said- “...It’s not identity politics on steroids... It’s basically a lens, a prism, for seeing the way in which various forms of inequality often operate together and exacerbate each other” (Crenshaw, 20). Gender then, is that complex operative device which is fixed within a binarized pattern omitting its spectrum. Gender Intersectionalities therefore, becomes that lens which assist the minds to comprehend how ‘a body’ is doubly and multifariously oppressed, so a dalit-Muslim-bisexual-trans-woman experiencing menstruation, presents the layered oppression. The concept of “women” as Butler defines- “Women are the sex which is not “one”. Within…a phallogocentric language, women constitute the unrepresentable…women represent the sex that cannot be thought, a linguistic absence and opacity” (Butler, 13). Menstruation, a biological process turned into a culturally oppressive device that operates and controls bodies identified as ‘woman/female by birth’ and obliterates the intersectional perspectives to the same. Therefore, my paper’s main attempt will be to focus on menstrual marginalization operating in amalgamation with gender-power-dynamics, functioning within the culture of Bengal, based on a few interviews taken. Keywords: Culture, Gender, Menstruation, Sexuality, Women