Periods, Prisons, and Policies
A small victory occurred for women in Arizona state prisons on the 21st of February. The Arizona Department of Corrections changed their policy and announced they will be providing tampons free of charge to inmates in Arizona prisons, only a week after also announcing that the minimum number of pads given to inmates per month must triple to 36 instead of 12. The department also decided to waive the fee needed for medical appointments when an inmate requires additional hygiene products for medical reasons.
Unfortunately, this policy that improves the health and dignity for the increasing female prisoner population in the state has only taken place due to the negative publicity and protest of how this issue was previously handled.
Less than a month ago, incarcerated women in Arizona were only given twelve free menstrual pads a month, and only allowed to have a maximum of 24 pads in possession at a time. If they wanted more pads or tampons, in which the latter were not provided for free at all, they would have to buy them out of pocket, despite only making about fifteen cents per hour. That would mean working 21 to 27 hours just for a package of necessary hygienic products.
Representative Athena Salman (D-Tempe) proposed a bill to provide free menstrual products for incarcerated women in the state prisons. An all-male House Military, Veterans and Regulatory Affairs Committee heard the bill, which is disappointing but not surprising. Although it passed out of the committee, the chairman of Arizona’s House of Representatives, Rep. T.J. Shope (R-8), blocked the bill, stating that the corrections department should be responsible for handling the issue internally. This unfortunate outcome impeccably represents the consequences of having too many men in political positions as they disregard the plethora of injustices women face in all fields and industries, including and especially prison.
In response to the blocking of the bill, people across the state mailed the chairman tampons and raised awareness with the hashtag campaign #LetItFlow. After many pushed their belief that such products are a necessity that provide basic dignity for women, the Arizona Department of Corrections stated on February 13th that they “appreciate and value the comments and feedback” and will therefore provide sanitary napkins for free and increase the minimum quantity from 12 to 36.
As triumphant as this progress is, the policy revision is too little and too late. One must ask why it took so long for women to receive these products necessary for their health and hygiene. Unfortunately, the reasons lie deep within interwoven, systematic oppressions against women in prison.
Lucinda Joy Peach confronts this unjust complex effectively in her article Is Violence Male? The Law, Gender, and Violence. She argues that men are seen as the only true agents and perpetrators of violence, therefore women are victims under the law. This belief is portrayed everywhere as we are oversaturated with images in the news, media, and common dialogue of female victimhood. The more we are exposed to this label, the more desensitized we become and accept this role of a helpless victim as a universal truth. When the victim is a prisoner, incarcerated for a crime she has committed, there will be even less sympathy or shock than the little that already exists for the general female public. Peach evokes the idea that the law unfairly classifies convicted women as “incapable of exercising reason and responsibility” to the point that they have to constantly convince those in authority that they are stable enough to be their own agents. When these women aren’t seen as autonomous beings, the system can get away with not providing effective protection, including access to necessary health products.
Peach further theorizes the law as “male.” The gender bias of the law labels men as perpetrators in the public sphere while a woman’s role remains in the domestic sphere. This proves to be evident in the Committee that heard the bill, consisting of all men, nearly shutting down a bill proposed by a woman. As the committee’s chairman, Rep. Jay Lawrence, complained about having to hear about periods, he made it clear that a domestic, feminine issue like menstruation should remain in the home. Just as the law is male, the law is violent as well. It catalyzes and holds a monopoly over violence in a plethora of ways. For example, by turning the prison into a capitalist, profit-making complex, it violently mistreats and targets women of lower socioeconomic status. By charging for a box of pads or tampons, they are clearly sending the message that basic human decency is a luxury for the privileged.
If we want better conditions for women in prisons, we must continue making the men of the law uncomfortable. We must make them “hear pads and tampons and the problems and periods,” and modify their image of a pretty pad being tested with clean blue liquid on television into an image of unsanitary conditions, of bloodstained uniforms being unfairly coded for dress code violations, of legitimate agents asking for their basic human decency.
