Women make up half of the United States population and 70% of Americans in poverty. While food and employment are concerns for all impoverished people, women must also worry about managing their periods. Due to a lack of financial stability and systemic biases, low-income and homeless women often resort to wrapping toilet paper around their underwear and using socks and old rags instead of expensive pads, tampons, or menstrual cups. Due to a lack of clean underwear and water, makeshift methods can cause dangerous and stressful infections.
Women who use public assistance programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as food stamps) cannot use these benefits for menstrual products. It is important to acknowledge how expensive menstrual products can be: for example, a box of 52 Always brand overnight pads costs $13.49 at CVS. A box of this size lasts for about one or two cycles depending on the individual. That’s about $7 per month per woman — a cost that is far too expensive for someone struggling to pay rent or money for food.
36 states in U.S. tax tampons and pads through sales taxes also known as the “tampon tax.” Most states exclude groceries and medications as necessities, but do not extend that break to menstrual supplies. State and local taxes can add more as much as 9% to the sticker price of period products. One must also take into account that, in addition to the high cost of necessary menstrual supplies, women — especially women of color — already experience a wage gap in America.
In recent years, countries like Scotland and Canada have exempted menstrual supplies from taxation nationwide; what is the United States waiting for?
Some lawmakers oppose the cost of providing free supplies. Maine Republican state legislator Richard Pickett voted against a bill that would guarantee access to free tampons, sanitary pads, and menstrual cups for female state prisoners. At the hearing, Pickett commented that granting free access to menstrual products would turn the prison into a “country club.”
Period activists like author Jennifer Weiss-Wolf and U.S. Congresswoman Grace Meng have advocated for a wide range of national bills that guarantee access to affordable menstrual products to women and girls experiencing period poverty. On the state level, New York is the first of several states to make it mandatory for schools, prisons, and homeless shelters to provide menstrual products. However, the mandate remains unfunded, leaving it up to the schools and facilities to bear the full cost of services and products. Change and equality cannot be achieved if decision-makers fail to recognize this as a problem; and, many legislators are not prioritizing the issue because funds are allocated elsewhere.
Granting access to menstrual products is more than just providing them items to be clean; it is the stepping stone to creating an avenue of change and improvement in a woman’s life that can collectively improve society as a whole.
Abolishing the tampon tax will not put an end to period poverty; but, having the remaining 36 states exempt tampons a from sales tax is the start of the United States recognizing menstrual hygiene as a right.
