It is a simple biological fact that half of the population worldwide is affected by menstruation. However, across cultures everywhere, periods are met with stigma, silence, and taboos. These societal constructs prevents governments from addressing something that should be a straightforward issue of privacy and health.
In America, menstruators spend over $2 billion on period products a year. Legislators continue to see the need to safely address menstruation as necessity rather than a luxury, as they continue to deny the numerous health risks that are posed when safe and sanitary menstruation products are made unaffordable and unaccessible. Although the tampon tax is only around 8 cents to the dollar, it is estimated that the average menstruator will use 16,800 tampons or pads in their lifetime. Those 8 cents rack up, and pose an incredibly financial burden onto menstruators everywhere. The inability to afford products leads to looking for cheaper, mostly unsanitary and unsafe alternative, and thus poor menstrual hygiene. Poor menstrual hygiene has been linked to high rates of cervical cancer, infections, and risk of Toxic Shock Syndrome (TSS). Menstruators who are homeless or incarcerated especially face these risks when they can’t afford sanitary products.
Our ability to manage our menstruation safely, hygienically, and with dignity, enables us to enjoy certain human rights, such as the rights to education, health, and sanitation. Human Rights Watch and WASH United recommend that groups that such services ensure that menstruators have:
- Adequate, acceptable, and affordable menstrual management materials
- Access to adequate facilities, sanitation, infrastructure, and supplies to enable women and girls to change and dispose of menstrual materials
- Knowledge of the process of menstruation and of options available for menstrual hygiene management.
By continuing to educate and menstruators and non-menstruators alike about periods and normalizing conversation addressing the issue, we can destigmatize menstruation and help governments everywhere understand how universal and prevalent this health crisis is. With a better understanding of the impacts poor menstrual hygiene can have on our access to basic human rights, hopefully our government will be able to recognize the necessity of affordable menstruation products, and we can take one more step towards equality and repeal the tampon tax nationwide.
