Pretend you’re going about your day, and all of a sudden, your arm starts bleeding. In that moment, the fact that you’re bleeding dictates every behavior. Before you have time to think about getting back to your everyday activities, you have to worry about dressing your wound, changing your red-stained clothes, and dealing with the pain you will have for the next few days.
Realistically, this situation would not be a big deal. A little cut is manageable when you have Band-Aids and Neosporin sitting in your medicine cabinet.
Let’s change the situation a bit. Imagine now that you’re homeless. You don’t have a medicine cabinet, a sink to wash up in, or a washing machine to clean your clothes. Your only option is to find a public restroom or shelter where you can clean up. If you’re lucky you might know someone who will let you use a normal bathroom. Even then, you still have to decide what to do with your bloody clothes. Replacing them involves asking around for spare articles or giving up a few dollars that you can’t afford to spend.
Until you fix these problems that came about as a result of your bleeding, you can’t think about finding your next meal, let alone finding a job to get you back on your feet.
If you had asked me to consider this idea a month ago, I would have said, “sure, that’s rough, but it’s not like homeless people just start bleeding out of nowhere.” Within the past month, though, I was forced to realize an unbelievably sad truth: This is a reality for homeless women. It’s even worse than what we were just imagining, though, because it happens every month and it happens in a way that should be private.
Every woman deserves to feel dignified. Ideally, there would be no economic, social or political obstacles for any woman trying to deal with her period. Yet, shortly after I was asked to consider the reality of homeless women facing this issue, I was hit with a second unbelievably sad truth: Right now, the majority of American states are charging a luxury tax on tampons.
How many more obstacles can we possibly place in the paths of poor American women? If you can empathize with these women, don’t let this moment pass. As Americans, it’s our responsibility to raise awareness of important political issues, and this is one that is a relatively simple fix. We need to remove the tampon tax.
I first heard of the tampon tax through Penn Democrats, which hosted an on-campus awareness event on April 24th called Occupy the Tampons. Vice President Jana Korn and Legislative Director Ari Goldfine organized the event to raise awareness and money to support Distributing Dignity, a charity organization that distributes bras and feminine hygiene products to women in need.
If we ever wish, as a society, to fully embrace the idea of gender equality, we have to address issues like the tampon tax. Feminine hygiene products should never be considered a luxury -- they are a necessity.
