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PERIOD POVERTY AS A PUBLIC HEALTH CRISIS
Free the Period! Free the Period!
What You Need To Know About Menstrual Equity From A Public Health Lens
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by Isabella Lopez Illustration & Design: Veronica Richmond
Scotland recently made headlines for being the first country to make pads and tampons free of cost for everyone. Known as the “Period Products Act,” the bill mandates all government bodies, universities, and educational institutions to have a variety of period products available in their bathrooms.
Mobile apps have also been developed to find the nearest locations where free period products are available. Wth the enactment of this bill, Scotland now leads in providing equitable access to menstrual hygiene products on a national scale. Other leaders in this movement, such as Kenya and New Zealand, have only paved ways to provide access in public schools. In many countries, including the United States, people pay a relatively high cost to access and use these products.
Scotland’s initiative is just one of many around the world fighting to end period poverty. What is period poverty? It is the lack of access to period products due to high costs and lack of available resources.
Millions of people around the world face issues with period poverty, especially menstruators who experience socio-economic poverty, homelessness, pre-existing health conditions, and/or incarceration. Globally, many individuals have difficulty other available community resources. Five hundred million women around the world lack access to menstrual products and hygiene facilities. About seventeen million U.S. citizens experience period poverty and live in impoverished areas. Out of these, a third have not been able to acquire period products in the past year. Many individuals end up choosing between purchasing period products or food and other basic necessities. To show how prevalent it is for the demographic of the majority of this magazine’s readers, 14.2% of college-aged menstruators have experienced period poverty in the past year. With the COVID-19 pandemic, these disparities have widened greatly. Accessibility issues have only been exacerbated, and resources have become more limited. According to a 2020 study conducted by the non-profit Plan International UK, during the first nation-wide lockdown, a third of females between the ages of 14 and 21 struggled to afford or gain access to period products. In the United States, pandemic measures such as quarantine and social distancing have led to a phenomenon called loneliness that refers to individuals experiencing different types of barriers that have prevented equitable access to appropriate health care. In the case of menstrual health and hygiene, these include social factors (such as embarrassment or fear of embarrassment), environmental factors (lack of sanitary facilities or waste management), and cultural factors (taboo stigmas and religious isolation).
Research across the board has shown that there is a direct correlation between accessibility of period products and a woman’s ability to prosper economically. Many menstruators miss school or work because of menstrual cramps and for fear of blood stains seeping through their clothing. Often, school absenteeism leads to poorer grades, which increases the likelihood of withdrawing from school and enlisting in a lower-paying jobs. Women in these situations are often left to face additional healthcare and financial obstacles throughout their lives due to their lower socioeconomic status. Contributing further to the gender wage and education gap, period poverty is a social justice issue that has continuously created limitations for women, within a variety of different contexts. Additionally, women of color (especially BIPOC and Latinx women) are disproportionately affected by this public health problem. The Alliance for Period Supplies has heavily reported on this racial disparity: a quarter of Black and Latinx menstruators find themselves struggling to afford period products. Incarcerated menstruators face even greater challenges. Often, they are denied safe period products and have to deal with harmful health outcomes, as well as humiliation and/or sexual abuse. Many menstruators have been coerced in the past by prison staff for sexual favors in exchange for sanitary wipes and pads. Without these materials, menstruators in prison are forced to use mattress stuffing, ripped bedsheets, socks, or soiled pads, which can lead to reproductive infections and even toxic shock syndrome. It is important to note that period poverty affects individuals across the wide spectrum of gender, not exclusively women. Nonbinary people, trans men, and people of other genders can also experience menstruation. Thus advocating for menstrual equity is not just a women’s rights issue, it is a human’s right issue. It is a fight for the right to health. The Global Menstrual Collective has come up with several proposals to guide employers, organizations, and all types of institutions in reducing period poverty. These include: offering opportunities for individuals to receive access to menstrual healthcare for diagnosis of menstrual cycle disorders, inviting period poverty experts to engage in talks to make periods normalized, promoting access to information about menstruation and hygiene practices, and employing zero tolerance towards offensive jokes about periods. Bottomline, normalizing and accepting menstruation is the key to addressing complications that arise later and to offer helpful resources when needed. At the University of Miami, we already have pads and tampons available in almost every bathroom on campus thanks to campus-wide initiatives taken on by dozens of student leaders. We also have student organizations like GirlUp and PERIOD that host period product drives and donate period products to homeless shelters, non-profit organizations, and prison systems. Recently, a medical student and well-known menstrual equity activist from Ohio State University Medical School named Anusha Singh came to talk to UM students at the first PERIOD meeting of the semester. During the event, she talked about how one can advocate for legislative measures in Florida that advocate for menstrual equity and inclusive policies. As an undergrad student, she was able to successfully lead a group of students to advocate for the repeal of the Ohio Pink Tax and was the former PERIOD chapter leader. When asked to offer her own insight into why everyone should care about period poverty, regardless of whether they menstruate or not, she said the following: “[The] culture needs to change around menstruation so that every person can reach their full humanity regardless of whether or not they menstruate. Equitable access to menstrual products and education is a very intersectional issue; it connects to racial justice, gender justice, economic justice, healthcare justice, and so much more.” When we think of social justice, we think of the different barriers that exist within the social structures that make up the framework of our society and how we collectively can address these barriers. Period poverty is a decades-old, global social injustice that extends throughout economically developed and developing nations. It is a major public health crisis. Yet, it is one of the most underestimated social problems we are experiencing today. There are not enough discussions about period-related issues or menstrual equity. Many students and adults are not fully aware of how intricately connected period injustice is to other forms of injustice, nor even know what period injustice is. Now is the time for communities to gain more awareness about period equity, as well as to confront their own biases or misconceptions about current menstrual health practices. In the words of Anusha Singh, “Access to period products and menstrual health education is a matter of human dignity.”
