OPINION

May 3, 2021 | The Mercury 13

Periods need to be recognized. Period.

HANA AHMAD

Courtesy

Ten percent of individuals who menstruate in college face a tough choice: do they buy a box of pads or their next meal? Period equity involves the effort to make menstrual products accessible and advocate for reproductive health – and it needs to be more adequately addressed.

The cost of period products is affecting menstruators across age groups. The State of the Period study found that 20% of teens had difficulty affording menstrual products or were unable to buy them at all. A study in BMC Women’s Health found that 1 in 10 menstruators in college face period poverty, and this number rises among first-generation college students. Crawford and Waldman assert that period poverty has been exacerbated by the pandemic and because period products are not covered by food stamps or SNAP benefits, menstruators living in period poverty may have to choose between buying their next meal or buying period products. A research article by Das et. Al found that women using period product alternatives – such as rags or paper towels – faced a heightened risk of urogenital infections. Menstrual products are a matter of personal hygiene and can even affect the hygiene of other people if inadequately managed.

“The physical illnesses and extreme stress that folks who don’t have access to menstrual products, support and resources can experience can take a mental, emotional or social toll on students and affect their academics and livelihood,” said Re’Nesha Weston, former student director of the UTD Wellness Center. “The shame and stigma . . . can have an effect on a student’s ability and willingness to learn about or seek resources.”

The issue of menstrual inequity and the lack of products provided has even been attributed by some legal scholars as a Title IX issue. Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, designed to provide students protection against sex-based discrimination, states that “no person in the United States shall, based on sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” In an article by Johnson et. Al, the authors argued that a denial of education opportunities on the basis of sex arises when schools fail to address menstruators’ needs.

This issue is far from abstract. More than 84% of menstruators in the U.S. have missed class or know someone who has due to a lack of product access according to the State of the Period study. Of 32 menstruating students surveyed at UTD, 17 report having had to miss class because of their period.

The Period Project is an organization at UTD seeking to serve the local community by educating and advocating for menstrual equity. UTD currently does not provide free menstrual products to students in restrooms but notably does provide free toilet paper. At the Period Project, we ask: when toilet paper is not viewed as a luxury, why should tampons be? Periods cannot be controlled or prevented, but they do have to be managed.

“Many of our menstruating Comets do not have access to or consistent hygienic products, which is essential to one’s physical health and mental wellness,” said Jaqueline Price, assistant director for Women’s & Gender Equity Programs at the Galerstein Gender Center. “When we talk about menstrual equity, we start to reflect on important questions like ‘why isn’t this something that is commonly provided in public restrooms?’”

The Period Project is advocating for UTD to provide free menstrual products in the same way it provides toilet paper or paper towels, which are viewed as necessities. One could argue that you can replace paper towels with air drying alternatives or go without them altogether, but there are not safe alternatives to period products.

Over the last semester, the Period Project planned to fundraise and stock the Student Union bathrooms with free menstrual products. Unfortunately, the staff brought up concerns regarding a lack of storage, the possibility of messes and stock being taken too quickly. We ask the UTD administration to help us arrive at possible solutions, such as providing product dispensers in the bathroom for storage and controlling stock portion to provide students with the necessities to do something as simple as sit in a classroom.

If you would like to call attention to the quality education barriers that periods create and urge the UTD administration to begin supplying free period products on campus, sign this petition. It is time that period products stop being treated as a luxury and are instead treated for what they really are: a necessity.

Hana Ahmad is a biology sophomore and advocacy chair for the UTD student organization The Period Project.

Menstrual inequity pressing issue for college students

May 3, 2021 | The Mercury

For the record: professors should record

Making class recordings available should continue post-pandemic

KEERTHI SRILAKSHMIDARAN

Mercury Staff

While virtual classes can be exhausting or unengaging for many, class recordings allow students to re-watch lectures at their convenience rather than feel pressed to scribble down messy notes or attend office hours. Even though classes will be held mostly in-person next semester, we should still have the privilege of viewing lecture recordings.

UTD announced on Feb. 9 that in-person and hybrid classes would no longer be required to have an asynchronous component in fall 2021. But recordings for synchronous classes have an undeniable academic benefit: in case of unexpected absences due to work or family responsibilities, students no longer have to fear falling gravely behind. There is, however, the concern that if attendance is not mandatory for a certain class and is instead simply encouraged by a professor, there will be a drop in attendance if professors post their class recordings online. Or will there?

Margaret Smallwood, a JSOM professor, said that during the pandemic her classes have been offered both synchronously and asynchronously. As part of the asynchronous option, the recordings of her classes have been posted to Microsoft Stream. She said that even though students have the option to not attend live class, most of them do. She thinks this is because many students understand the importance of listening to lectures.

While she has no problem with lecture recordings being available to students, she is concerned that because her teaching style varies between her different sections, just posting a recording of one section may not fit the learning style of another class. However, she also understands the benefits of online recordings especially if students are distracted, tired or not at their best.

If professors are still concerned about accessible recordings impacting attendance, they can enforce mandatory attendance requirements with some leeway for a small number of absences: perhaps two to three per student per semester. Therefore, if a student does happen to miss a class or if a student wants to revisit something a professor said, they have the option to view a recording of the lecture and develop a better comprehension of the material. Professors can also add incentives for their students who come to class, such as giving bonus points on exams or requiring that students answer a question about the lecture to ensure they’ve seen it.

Regardless of the impact on attendance rates, it is not justified for UTD to restrict learning by not posting online recordings. UTD’s mission has always been to support students in their academic

SEE RECORD, PAGE 16

OPINION

CHARLIE CHANG | MERCURY STAFF

A comma’n misunderstanding

Comets should prefer clarity to minimalism

TYLER BURKHARDT

Editor-In-Chief

I’d like to begin by thanking The Mercury’s most dedicated readers, Babe Ruth and President Biden. If you’re wondering why Babe Ruth and Joe Biden are such close devotees of UTD’s student newspaper, read on.

Comma rules: if you’re anything like me, the pesky stipulations were the bane of every high school writing assignment. But as a journalist, I find the biggest offender of them all to be the “rule” which tends to vary: the widely contentious Oxford comma (also known as the serial comma).

For the uninitiated, the Oxford comma is an optional comma placed before the last item in a list, as in the statement “Alice, Benny[,] and Clarise went to school.” Critically, unlike rules governing comma splices, appositive phrases, and coordinating conjunctions, style guides do not have a consensus on the usage of the Oxford comma. For instance, the Chicago Manual of Style recommends its usage, while the Associated Press’s AP Stylebook (the industry standard for journalism) does not use the Oxford comma. Taking after nearly every major newspaper in America, The Mercury also prohibits the usage of the Oxford comma.

While comma rules probably aren’t the first place a well-intentioned Comet looks to enact change, grammatical ambiguities aren’t just the subject of esoteric debates between grammarians. The function of a single semicolon in Article 4, Section 3 of the Constitution could hold the key to the future power