Can't touch that

One might not have heard of a temple called Shani Shingnapur before a group of women activist decided they wanted to enter the temple. There isn't really a ban on the entry of women in the temple (unlike Sabrimala), the ban/prohibition is for touching or offering oil to the deity. This hardly should be news. There might be 100s of temples where women are prohibited to enter where the idol is or to touch it. So my very first reaction to this was, a big SO WHAT? This is what years and years of conditioning does to you. As a woman/girl, you so often hear these words:"You can't do this", that I have probably become immune to the ones that seem frivolous to me. Yes I'm not a big worshipper.

So what is the big deal here?
Hinduism is really big on idol worship, if you hadn't noticed. An idol to us is a form of God, and hence the need to keep it "pure". Temple which have these bans, cite menstruation as the cause. Women are considered impure during their monthly cycles.

I like to think our ancestors (the ones who were capable of writing Vedas) were super rational and intelligent humans. They probably lived very practical lives for their times and then passed on their learnings to their offsprings and so on. Somewhere in the middle of this chain, the offsprings became too comfortable and stopped wondering & questioning. Customs were to be followed, rituals were to be performed as is. This is what I call as the dumbing down of the generations. ( I am definitely much much dumber than my father, with practically no life skills).
So the smart women of that time paused for a minute and thought, how do we get out of these house chores for a few days. Menstrual bleeding was the perfect break : me time. Not having sanitary pads/tampons also might have helped their cause. Periods were the headache of our modern world. I guess it might have been quite messy to have bleeding women around anywhere. Quite naturally these women would have avoided public places and specially temples which are supposed to be pristine clean. It is possible it became like an unwritten rule: Women don't enter temples during their periods. (I might be wrong there may be a written rule somehwere) The point is, this was a very practical solution for then.
Now, when there is absolutely no way of knowing whether the woman is menstruating, unless you overhear me constantly complaining of cramps, what does the poor priest do? He can't ask every woman in the temple. He has stopped asking questions several generations ago. He can recite shlokas from memory though. The natural thing for this priest is to prohibit women near the idol.
The sad part is, women still believe they are "impure".

The women who are fighting their right to offer oil to Shani Dev, I am quite confident none of them will enter the temple during their periods. You have my support & blessings when you want to fight that fight.

PS: I initially thought maybe temples had the right to entry, but since they aren't private properties they don't. I might be simplifying here, but weren't backward classes refused (are still refused) entry to worship houses because of "impurity".

Few more links, if you're interested in facts.
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/do-you-have-a-constitutional-right-to-prevent-women-entryat-sabarimala-sc-to-devaswom/article8092924.ece

http://www.legalblog.in/2011/10/distinction-between-math-temple-law.html

http://zeenews.india.com/news/india/maharashtras-shani-shingnapur-why-this-temple-is-so-famous-5-things-you-may-not-know_1849331.html

http://indiafacts.org/casteism-misogyny-and-rights-of-hindu-religious-institutions-iv/