In many Indian households, when a woman balks, cries too soon, or chooses to remain silent, the explanation is quick and cruel: “It’s her hormones.” The term is used to make fun of them, to silence them, and sometimes even to erase the entire meaning behind their feelings. However, what is rarely asked is what these hormones actually mean – and how women, particularly from caste-oppressed and marginalized communities, suffer when society refuses to understand the connection between biology, emotions and mental health.
The misunderstood body
Hormonal changes – menstruation, pregnancy, menopause and similar conditions PCOS – have a direct impact on mood, energy and emotional regulation. Medical Research has also shown that these fluctuations in estrogen and progesterone can trigger anxiety, depression and fatigue.
But in patriarchal societies like ours, where women’s feelings are mostly seen as irrational, too clingy and too dramatic, the term “hormonal change” becomes more of a weapon against women than a supportive stance. Instead of being treated with care, women are often silenced, ridiculed, or sometimes even accused of being “too emotional.”
Source: FII
This isn’t just ignorance, it’s systemic. While a man’s anger is considered “stress,” a woman’s sadness is seen as “hormones” or “overthinking” or maybe even “overreacting.” The message is clear: women’s feelings have no validity, they are just normal hormonal dysfunctions.
If box molds take care of it
For women from marginalized castes and poor economic backgrounds, the consequences of this misunderstanding are far more serious. Access to gynecological or psychiatric care is already limited – not because they don’t need it, but because caste and class determine who deserves compassion. According to the Asia Society reportPeople from lower castes are 40% more likely to suffer from depression than the national average. Yet, most healthcare providers in India belong to urban, dominant caste backgrounds. Their worldview and often their prejudices shape the way they treat patients.
When a Dalit or Adivasi woman enters a clinic and complains of mood swings fatiguetheir pain is easy to dismiss, with Comments like “You’re thinking too much” or “You just need to rest.” It is rarely examined for hormonal imbalances or psychological problems. For many, going to the hospital is an act of courage – an act that ends in dismissal, sometimes even humiliation.
When women stop believing in their own pain
What makes this crisis even more complex is how deep the neglect penetrates. Many marginalized women have been taught not to take their own hormonal or emotional changes seriously.
Many marginalized women have been taught not to take their own hormonal or emotional changes seriously.
If care was never accessible, it is no longer expected. In homes where generations of women have suffered from menstrual cramps, postpartum exhaustion, etc menopause Without support, the idea of rest or treatment feels alien – even indulgent. Pain becomes routine; Suffering becomes normal.
Source: FII
A domestic worker with severe menstrual cramps can still cook, clean and care for others because she has no other choice. A young Bahujan student struggling with PCOS might think that mood swings mean weakness and not a symptom. “We must not be tired,” shares Sangeeta Bharti, a Dalit PhD student Economic and political weekly newspaper“When we complain, teachers label us as unstable or lazy – never that our bodies are under stress.”
For many, the language of hormones and mental health doesn’t exist in their world – not because they aren’t aware of it, but because no one has ever told them to listen to their bodies. This internalized silence is the invisible legacy of the collaboration of caste and patriarchy. When society keeps telling women that their bodies don’t matter, they eventually start to believe it.
In addition, reports from the Asian society show that caste-oppressed patients have longer waiting times, are treated with less empathy, and are sometimes even denied physical touch by upper-caste doctors. “When I went to the hospital, the nurse refused to touch me. “She told me to put my own hand on the thermometer,” said a Dalit activist writing for Crazy in South Asia in 2025 about how caste affects care.
“When I went to the hospital, the nurse refused to touch me. “She told me to put my own hand on the thermometer,” said a Dalit activist writing for Crazy in South Asia in 2025 about how caste affects care.
The emotional toll of such experiences – on a body already suffering from hormonal imbalance – is immense. Therefore, as a woman, she has to balance her body, her emotions, her housework and the misogyny of the differences in her caste and political system.
The emotional cost of being misunderstood
Lack of awareness about hormonal and mental health leads to isolation. Women internalize the guilt. In families where men refuse to understand, this can often lead to chronic loneliness. And in marginalized families where survival leaves no room for emotional conversation, the pain becomes routine and invisible. This also causes them to stop communicating, opening up to their partners, and entering into a long-term relationship based solely on survival or for the benefit of their children. Sometimes telling men can also take away the need to tell them and make them understand these hormonal changes and emotional imbalance, which in turn leads men to see their partners’ changing behavior as normal.
Source: FII
The silence becomes generational. Daughters watch their mothers overcome the pain and learn to do the same. They grow up without a language to talk about PMSpostpartum depression or menopause – not to mention the right to seek help.
Once the Adivasi activist Soni Sori said“They don’t just deny us land and rights – they deny us peace.”
What needs to change
Telling women to “seek help” is not enough. The help itself must change. The Indian healthcare system needs to integrate gender-sensitive and caste-conscious frameworks for both physical and mental health. This means training doctors and therapists to recognize how hormonal health impacts psychological well-being, recruiting Dalit, Bahujan, Adivasi and queer practitioners who bring empathy and lived experience, making reproductive and mental health care affordable and accessible, safe, unbiased for rural and marginalized communities To create community spaces where women can talk about their hormonal and emotional realities without shame, and to educate men and women too – across caste and class – to understand that hormones do not make women irrational; they make her human.
The intersection of hormones, gender and caste reveals a profound truth: what society doesn’t want to understand, it wants to control.
Once UNICEF observed – “Dalit women face triple discrimination: they are women, they are Dalits and they are Dalit women.”
Once UNICEF observed – “Dalit women face triple discrimination: they are women, they are Dalits and they are Dalit women.” Labeling a woman’s pain as “mood swings” erases her reality. But acknowledging that hormonal changes are real — and that their effects are compounded by caste and poverty — is the first step toward justice.
Source: FII
Women deserve to be believed when they say they are in pain. You deserve care, not dismissal. It’s not the body that’s the problem, it’s prejudices.
M Ushashree holds a degree in Conservation Science from ATREE Bangalore. Aside from protecting the community and wildlife, she tries to use her writing skills to inspire women and marginalized communities, giving them a bigger platform while trying to research and communicate at the same pace.