I was walking through the local CVS down the street from my university, buying the normal women's necessities for the “time of the month,” when I started thinking of the hassles of being a woman and what we know as the “menstrual cycle,” aka periods. The average price a woman will pay for feminine products a month (which includes tampons, pads, panty liners, etc.) is between $5-$12. Now, multiply that by twelve. A woman now pays between $60-$144 per year for an unavoidable trait she was born with just for having two x chromosomes. Now that may not seem like a lot, but this is a lifetime trait we’re talking about. The average woman starts her period at about the age of 13 and doesn’t hit menopause until about 55. Now multiply the age difference, which is 42 years by the way, to the cost per year and you are looking at $2,520-$6,048 per woman during her lifetime.

Now, the prices wouldn’t be seen as being so terrible if women were paid more than they were. Women are still paid $0.77 to the man’s $1.00 for the same exact job. This is equivalent to a woman who got straight A’s in college getting paid the same as a man who got straight C’s in college. And this still doesn’t factor in the other necessities that come with being a woman. For good quality undergarments, you’re paying roughly $100 or more, possibly per year depending on your body type and how quickly your body matures. For everyday good quality clothing (which includes bottoms, tops, shoes, coats, etc.) you’re paying somewhere between $500 and $2,000 yearly, and that’s if you catch the sales. Women are taught, through the messages in our media, that their self-worth is through their body, yet we still can’t decide for ourselves how to handle our bodies in the political views via birth control and abortion rights.

Now, I won’t lie, this may just seem like a stupid woman’s rant, but we have to start somewhere. It’s not like we woke up one morning and said “Today, I’m going to start my period.” And it’s not like a pack of cigarettes you picked up in the store and decided you were going to buy and smoke later. This is something we are born with and have to deal with constantly. And this situation is even worse for women who can’t have or do not want to have children, who have terrible menstrual problems, or women who are single mothers that only have daughters. These prices increase rapidly when you change these circumstances. There is so much that goes into being a woman that it’s not fair that we have to pay for something we didn’t choose to do. So, if women aren’t going to be paid the same as men or given equal rights like men, at least make life a little easier in the cost for our bodies. It has rights too.