Imagine, for a second, that you are capable of experiencing menstruation. It’s the middle of the midterm season so you are stressed beyond belief, and the money from your student loan is quickly dwindling. Imagine you are struggling to make ends meet and as a result, you are forced to choose between buying enough food for the month and buying enough menstrual products for the month. Imagine being in the middle of a gender transition and being forced to purchase menstrual products for yourself. Imagine being homeless and on top of that trying to find a way to either purchase menstrual products or conjure up some sub-par version of a pad or tampon with publicly accessible park toilet paper. Now consider how these scenarios might be affected if there were more women in each family unit. What if you live in Nepal, where menstruation is equated with impurity, and women are banished to huts for the duration of their cycle? How would your work, school, and daily life be affected if you were forced to stay home simply because of natural biological processes?
In Canada, menstruation typically starts between the ages of 11 and 14, and persists until menopause, around the age of 50. In fact, it is estimated that a woman will spend upwards of $6,000 over the course of their lifetime on period products. Unfortunately, a report conducted by Plan International also found that women feel their period prevents them from full participation in their social lives and up to 70 percent said they had missed school or work because of their period. Globally, 2.3 billion people live without basic sanitation services and in developing countries, only 27% of people have access to adequate facilities at home for handwashing.
This global social issue is known as period poverty and is defined as the lack of access to sanitary products, menstrual hygiene education, toilets, handwashing facilities, and/or waste management. For countless individuals, particularly impoverished, oppressed, and marginalized groups this reality intersects with a variety of socioeconomic factors such as age, education level, geographic location, societal climate (stereotypes or stigma associated with menstruation and menstrual products), and class. Misinformation, social taboos, and a lack of education for men and women about the natural process of menstruation compound and leave women vulnerable to adverse health effects such as toxic shock syndrome or various infections, unwanted pregnancies, injury, and further oppression.
The Period Promise campaign is an initiative started by United Way in combination with Pacific Blue Cross that recognizes the necessity for policy changes that allow women to access free menstrual products. In some countries such as Denmark and Sweden, subsidized in full or part menstrual products are already in effect and their benefits have been shown to outweigh the cost . Starting in the lower mainland but growing to the whole of British Columbia, the United Way Period Promise team distributes menstrual products to over 60 different partner organizations and aims to end period poverty. In British Columbia, the Access BC campaign for free menstrual products began in 2017 and has since been encouraging individuals to pressure their local candidates in their constituency to consider implementing policy changes that would allow for universal access to menstrual products.
If approved, this policy would bridge the cost barrier that many women face, and ultimately decrease the amount of money funded towards resources for women whose unintentional pregnancy may require more in public funding for abortions, prenatal care, childcare, and hospital visits. Indeed, women who cannot afford menstrual products likely cannot afford to care for a child or go on maternity leave. Moreover, the campaign takeaway is that the financial situation of a person should not significantly impact their access to basic necessities such as menstrual products.
Further steps are required to eliminate period poverty but getting involved with the campaign does not require you to solve any societal issues by yourself. Simply following along on social media and sharing content to raise awareness, grabbing a button from the Northern Women’s Center at UNBC to show your solidarity, or donating to any of the partner organizations are all actions that can be taken to help the cause. Start the conversation about periods and help women receive the dignity associated with free access to menstrual products.
For further information regarding the campaign itself and how to support it, please visit www.periodpromise.ca and www.accessbc.org
