Should my period be my government’s cash cow?
Yesterday I got my period.

Yay me, right? Not pregnant, still fertile, happy days. I walked into a chemist, I bought a two-pack of my preferred tampons, and the slightly-bashful male pharmacist wished me a good evening.
That two-pack (sixteen tampons all up) cost me $6.50*.
I include the asterisk, because in Australia the cost of that two-pack includes the Goods and Services Tax. Yep, the good ol’ GST. That tax that isn’t applicable to basic food and medical supplies. The same one that isn’t applicable to religious services, or precious metals. If you want to purchase farmland, send international mail, or export your goods and services, then the GST doesn’t apply to you.
If you want to buy sanitary products, it’s a different story.
Who wants to do some maths with me?
I’m 26 years of age. A two-pack of tampons costs $6.50 out-of-my-pocket at the all-night chemist closest to my house (as I pleasantly discovered this evening).
If we — conservatively — assume that I purchase one pack of tampons per period, I’m spending $3,464.50 over the course of my menstruating lifetime. But that’s not the point I’m trying to make here, so let’s get down to bloody brass tax here (both puns definitely intended).
I’m 26. My tampons cost me $6.50 per cycle. Ten percent of that is GST, so my government receives $0.65 per period.
The average age of menopause in Australian women is 52. This means I can look forward to another 26 years of menstruating in my future.
10% of $6.50 is $0.65.
$0.65 per period.
One period every 28 days. 13 periods per year.
(13 x $0.65) x 26 years =
$219.70.
I got my period for the first time when I was aged 11… so, if we want to go real crazy and add in the last 15 years’ worth of GST, we get a grand total of $346.45.
Yep. Literally hundreds of dollars.
Let’s set aside the money that I spend on contraceptive devices to keep that period coming. Let’s forget about the earning potential I’ve lost by taking days out of a corporate job to visit doctors, to renew prescriptions, to discuss options. Let’s not count the hours I’ve spent researching what exactly goes on in my body when a pregnancy tries to happen, and what I can do to prevent it. The times that I’ve curled up in bed with a hot water bottle, the times I’ve inexplicably cried at YouTube ads, the times I’ve eaten my weight in potato gems dipped in mayonnaise, the cost of shopping sprees for ibuprofen and new underwear to replace the ones stained with menstrual blood. Forget all of that. We’re talking about serious, quantifiable ramifications here, after all.
I’m giving my government a few hundred dollars over the course of my lifetime, because I have a uterus.
I’d offer you a moment to let that sink in, but there’s more to come. Strap in.
The most readily available statistics — dating back to 2005, thank you ever-efficient ABS — indicate that 42.8% of Australia’s population was of childbearing age, 15–44 years. That number would be considerably higher by now, but it’s the best we’ve got, so we’ll run with it. About 50.5% of Australia’s population identifies as female. So we can, for funsies, estimate that about 21.61% of Australia’s 24.13 million people are menstruating, give or take a few for the men that menstruate (yes, they exist, don’t @ me).
That gives us 5.22 million.
5.22 million people paying $346.45 over the course of their lifetime.
That’s $1,808,730,000.
Nearly two billion buckaroos for the luxury of having a uterus. Are you with me?
It’s disgusting. Not having a uterus, I mean — the $1.8 billion price tag our government puts on having one. Incontinence pads, personal lubricants, condoms to cover the dicks that would otherwise press pause on these periods for a year: no GST, no worries. But if nature takes its course and you happen to bleed out of your private parts? Well, you’d better close your eyes and think of the government revenue stream.
I am going to openly and proud/sad-ly declare my privilege, here. I (for now) can afford the $6.50 a month. I can stuff the coffers of a coalition government that does atrocious things in my name. I can make up the short-fall of morally-questionable religious institutions that have never paid tax. I can fund hospitals and schools and the coalface of Centrelink. For now, I can spare the shrapnel to do all of that. (But I am a freelance writer, so that probably won’t last.)
Here’s what: let’s talk about those that can’t afford it. Not the I-choose-between-not-bleeding-through-my-white-Dotti-skirt-and-buying-my-daily-smashed-avo-on-toast can’t-afford-it crew. The I-choose-between-eating-today-and-buying-a-single-tampon-from-a-vending-machine-before-sleeping-on-a-yoga-mat-in-the-tunnel-outside-Central-station cohort.
Of those 5.22 million people, an estimated 45,813 of them are homeless. Every year, one in 42 women aged 15–44 access a specialist homeless service. The ones that are able to access services are probably lucky enough to not have to find an abandoned newspaper to rip into pad-shaped pieces and fashion their own sanitary products… but what about the ones that have to?
There’s a $1.8 billion pie on the tables of our politicians. How much do you think should come out of the pockets of the homeless?
Guys, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m pissed off. It’s not just my hormones, it’s not just because I feel like my lower abdomen is stabbing me with an Oathkeeper, it’s because this is fucked. I am audibly and visibly enraged by the indignity suffered by my brothers and sisters that don’t have a roof under which they can sleep tonight. I have written a letter to my MP about the frustration that I feel, but it just isn’t enough. What’s a letter when there are people screaming?
So, I’m doing all that I can. I’m asking, politely.
I’m angry, but I’m — if nothing else — polite, like my mother taught me.
Tonight, I have registered as a volunteer with Share The Dignity. If I had more than $6.50, I’d be giving it to them in a heartbeat. In the absence of any available disposable income, I’m giving my time and my heart and my platform. You are witness to it.
And now, it’s in your hands. I’m going to give you the easiest, simplest list that I can of things you can do to fix this.
(1) Write to your MP. Tell them this is fucked. Tell them that — as their constituent — you call on them to fix it. Click on that link, you can find them by electorate and click on a link that will take you straight to your email.
(2) Donate to and volunteer with Share the Dignity. Join their mailing list. Like their Facebook page. They’re on the coalface, doing the work that will fix this shit.
(3) If nothing fucking else, the next time you see a homeless person: smile. Look them in the eyes. Respect them with your acknowledgement. Forget all of that shit you’ve heard about how they’ll probably chase you home and kill you: that’s bullshit. If they ask you for change and you can’t spare them any, do them the decency of saying that and wishing them luck anyway. They might just be asking because they need it to pay their $0.65 to the government — the least you can do is respect them for it.
