Poor Indian women, especially villagers, usually wear saris without any underwear. (They have a petticoat underneath as underwear, but no panties). Amazingly, they can pee standing up when they have to. What they do is walk to a discreet place like behind a tree or around a corner and they lift the sari up a little, lean forward and then urinate. After I was told about this, I saw some women doing it several times. It cleared up a great mystery to me about why we see men peeing in the street all the time but never women. The women are just more careful about who sees them! Anyway, I asked what they do about the fact that they drip after peeing, and they admit that they do not wipe themselves. Even when they have the time and privacy to pee comfortably by lifting up their sari and squatting, they usually do not wipe themselves. They told me that they do drip a little, but most of that is dried quickly in the weather here. Sometimes the drips are absorbed by the sari petticoat which they wash regularly.
Sadly, millions of people in India are still forced to defecate openly, either in the streets or in the fields. If you travel through India, you will see a lot of open defecation, but usually you see men and children doing it. Women must also be discreet about it, so this means that they usually must wake up very early in the morning to get some privacy because it is taboo for them to expose themselves in public. I read that many village women have to defecate before sunrise, and they risk being raped because some men wait in the dark to attack them on their way.
Wealthier Indian Women
Middle class women have it much better. They all have toilets in their homes, work in clean workplaces with good facilities and attend schools with toilet facilities. Moreover, the posh clubs and shopping centers and restaurants of wealthier India have modern, clean toilet facilities everywhere. Wealthier women in India will not be forced to pee in public anymore than a woman in the US would.
Some middle class Indian women wipe with water each time they urinate, but some do not wipe at all. American women will wonder about dripping and feeling wet if they do not wipe or if they wipe with water. I asked a few Indian women about this discomfort, and they did not seem to think it was any big deal. Some didn't even know what I was talking about. I think this is a big cultural difference that I don't really understand. Indian women also told me that in public, they prefer squat toilets since they do not have to sit on the dirty seat. They said that Western style public toilets are usually dirtier because women try to pee hovering over the toilet and make the seat messy.
More here:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?sid=aErNiP_V4RLc&pid=20601109
