Women's History Month: Menstrual Health
Menstrual healthcare as a stepping stone to gender equality
This women’s history is an ideal time for us to acknowledge the much-needed change that still needs to happen when it comes to women’s health. Menstrual health is still a taboo topic in many places in the world and the silence around it needs to be broken. Change needs to happen and it’s up to both MEN AND WOMEN to educate themselves about this topic and combat the stigma, discrimination, anxiety, and pain surrounding menstruation. Ensuring that the quality of healthcare that women receive is on par with the quality of healthcare men receive is a big stepping stone for true gender equality and improving women’s access to menstrual health care is one part of this.
When people usually think of poor menstrual hygiene, they don’t consider first-world countries as having this problem. Well, they do. In America, 1 in 5 women struggles to acquire period products and use tissues, diapers, and rags instead. Additionally, 25% of teens have missed a class in school due to a lack of access to period products. So, yes, this is not just a third-world problem; this is a global problem. Women from low-income families, transgender women, nonbinary women, and women in prisons disproportionately struggle to purchase sanitary products. More women live in poverty than men, 24.4 women in America itself, and many are forced to give up access to menstrual products in order to purchase more immediate essentials such as food and clothing. Additionally, homeless women often don’t have access to a private place and running water to change their menstrual products and clean themselves up, hindering their access to menstrual hygiene even further. In some prisons, women are not given enough sanitary products during their menstrual cycle and have to purchase overpriced prison pads and tampons on their own (Penn Nursing).
Around the world, menstrual products also face what is known as the pink tax or tampon tax. The pink tax is basically a luxury tax on period products. Though some European countries have removed such taxes, 35 American states still have a pink tax on menstrual hygiene products as labeled on the map above. This tax increases the prices of tampons and pads for the consumers while also implying that menstrual hygiene is a luxury. Medications and groceries don’t face a luxury tax because they are acknowledged as essentials, but tampons and pads aren’t essential? Women don’t get to choose to have a period and menstrual hygiene products are not made just for the rich. Furthermore, menstrual hygiene products can not be purchased with food stamps or covered under many insurances including Medicaid (the federal insurance program for low-income families). Essentially, people don’t consider menstrual health as healthcare and that needs to change. States and countries need to be urged to remove luxury taxes on period products and subsidize the costs of these products as much as possible. Women deserve the right to proper healthcare and that includes being able to care for their reproductive health, mental health, and immune health through the use of period products. Recently, Scotland has even moved to make period products free for women and New Zealand plans to follow. Other countries, especially developed countries, need to follow suit immediately. If we can afford to give billionaires tax cuts, we can give the people who make up 50% of the world’s population (women!) a right to menstrual hygiene.
The situation gets worse, though, in developing countries where women also face social restrictions regarding their periods. Girls in countries in Africa and South Asia often face have religious and cultural stigmas regarding their periods and can be excluded from day-to-day activities when on their periods too (religious activities, forced isolation, etc.). Additionally, familial support can be poor and reproductive education can be left out of school curriculums and family talks. For many girls, the first time they find blood on their underwear, they may even think that they are sick or dying without proper knowledge of the menstrual cycle. Teasing in schools for stained clothing and a lack of female educators for the girls to get help from when on their periods also hinders education for girls in developing countries. Many families also do not have the resources to allow the women in their families to rest when facing period pains or buy medications to alleviate the pain (NCBI). Menstruation is made a traumatizing experience for girls around the world in these ways, both physically and mentally.
Of course, women in developing countries, also face poor hygienic conditions when it comes to menstrual health on top of cultural issues.
The United Nations defines adequate menstrual hygiene as
Basically, women need 4 key resources for menstrual hygiene: a sanitary product to collect blood, privacy when changing products and cleaning themselves, soap and water to clean up with, and a trash can. These 4 resources are missing in many parts of the world. Inaccessibility to sanitary products, both due to cost and location, leads to many girls using old cloths, tissue papers, and cotton pieces to collect blood during menstruation. These products can be very unsanitary, especially when reused without proper cleaning, and in a study of schoolgirls in India, 65.7% of homemade menstrual cloth users reported urogenital infections. In addition to this many schools and places of work in rural areas don’t even have bathrooms or private locations for women to care for their menstrual needs. Boys are often given more freedom in where they can relieve themselves and are even allowed to do so publicly in some places, but women need privacy both for their safety and to handle things like their periods. When there are restrooms present, a lack of soap and tissues, a lack of water, and poor lighting that makes identifying stains difficult can also pose challenges to girls on their period.
This all results in an even more astonishing effect on women’s education. Girls in secondary schools especially, often miss schools when on their periods - which can be as long as a week- and can even be pushed out of school completely if they feel unable to have adequate access to sanitation or privacy or face strong cultural stigma.
In Uganda, 2 out of 3 girls miss school at least once a month when on their period.
In India, 46% of girls have missed schools at least once because of their menstrual cycle.
In Ethiopia, over 50% of girls have missed school while on their period, with those who don’t use commercial menstrual products being 5 times more likely to miss school.
We cannot allow this hindrance to girls’ education as reported by NCBI to be just a statistic, and we need to be proactive in providing girls with adequate resources to manage their menstrual cycles while still going to school, from proper bathrooms to sanitary products and pain medication.
Hillary Clinton famously said, “Women are the largest untapped reservoir of talent”, but that talent will remain untapped if girls are left out of schools and jobs and much more just because of their menstrual cycles. Menstruation is a normal process that should be embraced but the inequality surrounding it needs to end. It doesn’t need to hinder the lives of women if women are supported and provided with the resources to manage their cycle. Menstrual health needs to be taught in all schools (to girls and boys alike so that everyone knows what women go through), menstrual products need to be made accessible, and sanitation needs to be enforced.
Recently, smartphone apps like Clue and Flo have also provided girls with a platform to share their experiences with menstruation and learn more about the process. Additionally, there are some great organizations currently putting in the work to improve women’s access to menstrual healthcare. Helping Women Period is one such organization that collects donations of sanitary pads, tampons, and money, to support girls around the world who struggle to meet their menstrual needs. Other organizations like The Pad Project provide an even wider range of services for women and, “install pad machines, implement reusable cloth pad-making programs, and run menstrual hygiene management (MHM) workshops”. You can donate money to support their services, fundraise, buy their bracelets or merch to donate, and more at the donation site. The United Nations Population Fund also teaches girls how to make reusable pads, distributes reusable menstrual health kits (484,000 kits in 2017), and creates education campaigns about menstrual health in countries around the world and is a great organization to donate to. Even if you cannot donate, you can always continue raising awareness about menstrual health and encouraging lawmakers and other organizations to push for change. Do anything you can because it can change the lives of 3.9 billion women.
Women's History Month: Menstrual Health
Thank you so much for sharing this post! I had not heard about pink tax!! That is crazy that it's still a thing!
It's terrible that so many women do not have access to period products, teens have to miss school & girls are excluded from day-to-day activities. I also think the pink tax is horrible & menstrual hygiene products should be able to be purchased with food stamps or Medicaid.
That's great there are organizations to help with access to menstrual healthcare!