Written by Isabella Fallahi, 15, Indiana
Period Poverty. It’s something that greatly effects gender inequality yet goes widely undiscussed throughout the activist community. But perhaps it’s because we as a society aren’t aware of what period poverty is and its affects. To understand this more I interviewed Nadya Okamoto the Founder and Executive Director of PERIOD, and the author of Period Power: A Manifesto for the Menstrual Movement. Right now across the United States 35 states tax menstrual hygiene products as a luxury item and this is simply because they are viewed as “non-essential goods”. And the impacts of this luxury tax are even greater, “Lack of access to menstrual hygiene products is the number one reason girls in developing countries miss and drop out of school. It is also a leading cause of absenteeism in the United States. This can leave people who are in vulnerable situations to use things like socks, cardboard, and grocery bags to manage their periods. It is also extremely difficult from a psychological point of view. Girls’ self-esteem drops dramatically when they hit puberty” said Nadya, but as if that’s not it- while menstruators across the country are going without period products, other products such as Rogaine and Viagra go completely untaxed. Menstruation is a completely biological function, and it isn’t something you can’t ignore or choose to forgo simply because one doesn’t have the right products.
There are currently 25 million women roughly living under the poverty line within the US, and experts have said that the average woman spends around $70 on period products a year, not including heat pads, pain medication, or replacement costs due to clothing mishaps. Assistance programs such as SNAP and WIC in which their main purpose is to provide and prioritize health related assistance (i.e. food stamps) don’t include medical products. This seems odd especially to anyone that knows that the FDA considers them as “medical products”.
Incarcerated menstruators are even more so affected by the trauma associated with period poverty. In 2015 The Correctional Association of New York reported that at one prison menstruating prisoners were required to show their dirty pads as proof they needed extra. And in a 2016 ACLU report stated that a California county inmate Halle said, “Pads are not dispensed as they are supposed to be. We are forced to reuse them, we are forced to beg for what we need, and if an officer is in a bad mood they are allowed to take what we have and say we are hoarding”. Both of these circumstances paint hygiene products as a privilege and not a necessity, which can cause distress among many of these inmates and in a sense dehumanize them.
Nadya’s work is extensive when it comes to ensuring state and federal governments take appropriate action against this, “At the local level, we are working to get period products into school restrooms -- to end period poverty in schools. At the state level, there are still 35 states that have the sales tax on period products as luxury items. At the national level - we are working to demand change for both of the above, as well as push for food stamps to cover period products as necessities and fight for access to period products for all low-income menstruators and incarcerated menstruators”. Yet this isn’t the only mission of the menstrual movement, if you haven't noticed I haven’t just referred to menstruators as women or girls. This is simply because not all women are menstruators, and not all menstruators are women. By stressing this within the menstrual movement you inherently validate the identities of others and lead to true gender equality, not just gender equality between cisgendered women and men.
The fight for menstrual equity has just begun and it’s not over yet until “every menstruator has easy and equitable access to menstrual hygiene products” this is Nadya’s mission, and you can join her too at Period.org. Who would’ve ever thought that’d we would have to fight for a human necessity, yet here we are and we’re not backing down anytime soon.
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