GEO: Tackling period poverty, period stigma ...more boundary pushing

Did you read the full post, it's pretty clear the poster has been in that situation.

I read that she said she couldn't be criticised because she has been very poor in the past. Having been poor doesn't necessarily mean you have empathy with other poor people. Cleary it doesn't, as she has demonstrated none in her post.

Are you defending her stance that poor teenage girls should quit whinging and tear up a t-shirt? Really?

I agree OP. I think that Maya Forstater put it well on twitter - "period poverty" is an issue that's been made up so people can tick the "women's rights" box while not talking about more difficult issues. It's the "plastic drinking straws" of women's rights.

If you can't afford a couple of quid for tampons, you have issues around general poverty and/ or neglectful and abusive parents that are much wider than the tampon issue. It's those issues that need addressing.

I hadn't thought of the privacy aspect before though - interesting point

The food bank system of getting given 3 days of shitty food is extremely undignified, and I really wish it could be replaced by a supermarket voucher letting people buy things like eggs, milk, bread and other fresh foods not available from foodbanks.

This x several billion.

More dignity. More choice. Less waste.

As someone who experienced “period poverty” growing up, I find these campaigns creepy and gross.

Please tell no one is going to force poorer girls to engage with this campaign in any way, and certainly not meet anyone behind it?🤞

Wouldn't it be better (and more efficient, and more dignified) just to give her the money so she could buy the things she needs, rather than be given things chosen by others ..... I mean we don't talk about "cleaning products" poverty....

I 100% agree, I have worked closely with the welfare system over the years and have seen it eroded. Up until a few years ago you could go and get a crisis loan from the DWP of up to a fortnight's worth of benefit money to go and buy food and other essentials. There were many who took the piss out of that system though, going as far as to report their purse missing to get a crime reference number to get a payment.

The food bank system of getting given 3 days of shitty food is extremely undignified, and I really wish it could be replaced by a supermarket voucher letting people buy things like eggs, milk, bread and other fresh foods not available from foodbanks.

I know people think it would be better to not need to talk to anyone, even another woman

Not even another woman.
I have never heard anybody say that

There seems to be significant regional differences in when people stopped using reusable products.

I think it's something worth mentioning. It's easy to get blinkered about things that we need, because most or no one remembers a time when we got along without them. People forget that you can, or sometimes that there were quite good solutions to do it.

I had a conversation with someone once whose clothes dryer had broken who couldn't afford to replace it right away. An American, she's always used one and she wasn't allowed an outdoor line. I suggested she might put up a line in her basement, and a clothes horse. She just hadn't thought of it because in her experience she had never seen that, though once I said it of course it seemed totally logical.

Commercially produced sanpro is a relatively modern thing. My mother and her contemporaries couldn’t have afforded to buy such things even if they’d existed

How old you are is one of my business but commercial sanitary products have been around since the 1920s. I still vividly remember finding a box of my mother's Tampax when I was about 8 (around 1967) and wondering what it was.

I wasn't aware of any of my friends using rags (and we did talk about "who had started/ what do you use?"). I think the concept of using rags has well and truly gone out of memory. I agree with the poster who said your post was one of the least empathetic thing I've seen on the internet.

And I think there is an interesting connection to this question of shame. I know people think it would be better to not need to talk to anyone, even another woman, because girls are embarrassed. But it's usually through conversations like this that you get over your embarrassment about menstruation. Many girls are embarrassed to buy their products too, at first, but they get over it pretty soon when they need to do it.

Now, being embarrassed by poverty itself is a little more difficult but talking about menstruation won't stop that.

It only needed a quiet word to the school secretary and many girls did this on occasion when caught short

It seems that is generally what happens. There is quiet, unacknowledged support for girls.

A silent female grapevine that is all but invisible to men

Oh, I also think considering reusable products is a good idea, from an environmental POV, for everyone. And no doubt for some from a cost perspective though you need access to running water, and the initial cost is higher.

You can get ready made reusable sanitary napkins, and there are some good patterns to make them on the internet as well, which might be more satisfactory than just rags ripped up.

I'm not sure I think there is really an agenda in this. There are individual weirdos of course but I don't think that is where this is coming from.

I do think the privacy question is real, but I see it as reflecting a kind of shallow thinking that's become quite common. Many people really seem to imagine that ideas like privacy are somehow mainly about shame. So when they see people feeling shame, they tend to think they can fix it by simply forgetting about privacy, or in instances where there really is a problem, if they see something is private they think the underlying issue is shame and miss the real cause.

I also think that there is a tendency to see the embarrassment of teens around bodily functions as more significant than it really is in many cases. It's often something that people grow out of as they mature, it's completely developmentally normal.

None of this is to say that shame is never a problem, but the judgement of people who think like that isn't very helpful in seeing if it is.

I also agree with the idea that some mentioned that there is a significant virtue signalling element to many of these campaigns. Period poverty in general is something that could have been fairly easily addressed through existing channels by simply treating sanitary products like other necessities in programs for those in need, I don't really see any real advantage to most targeted organisations or campaigns. Make sure food banks, for example, carry such products, if that has been a gap in the past.

Also - when I was a student, sanitary products were available in the school for girls who needed them. It only needed a quiet word to the school secretary and many girls did this on occasion when caught short and some more often. Perhaps that isn't universal but I wonder about the idea that this is some newly acknowledged need.

Right, yes. Feminists against free sanpro! Feminists against talking openly about our bodies without shame!

Not one person on this thread is against either of these.

Right, yes. Feminists against free sanpro! Feminists against talking openly about our bodies without shame!

The cognitive dissonance here is alarming.

Is that what you do when you have your period? Or is it just poor teenagers you're expecting to bleed into ripped up rags?

Did you read the full post, it's pretty clear the poster has been in that situation.

Surely even the most poverty struck girl can get hold of some cotton rags, or recycle old t shirts from a charity shop or whatever? It suggests a lack of resourcefulness to require society to supply them for you.

Um. I think that might be the least empathetic thing I've seen on the internet. And I've been on Twitter.

Is that what you do when you have your period? Or is it just poor teenagers you're expecting to bleed into ripped up rags?

We don’t expect school children to provide their own toilet paper so sanpro should be free in the girls loos. Not sure why we need a task force for an obvious solution.

That Bloody Good Period lot are involved in the "taskforce".

www.bloodygoodperiod.com/

From their home page on the website:

"Menstrual supplies are not cheap, but for anyone with a period, they are, of course, an absolute necessity".

Their FAQ section doesn't mention women and girls.

But Men get a mention. They get to keep their word. Female children and women who are not menstruating do not get to be called girls or women though. They are non-menstruators.

What about Men/Non-Menstruators

We also collect other essential items such as toiletries, deodorants, toothbrushes and nappies which are, of course, available for free to anyone who comes to our drop-ins

So women and girls cannot be named and are instead divided up into menstruators and non-menstruators.

And men are men.

Such an inadvertently brilliant example of the erasure of women and the simultaneous unthinking acknowledgement that 'men' always get to keep their own word. No mangled language for them. Because they're men.

Great little snapshot of the patriarchy in action there.

Yes indeed Lang, the virtual signalling is deafening.
I would imagine many women help out the girls if they needed it.
Helping out quietly and without the fanfare.

This is why some dude (who probably has never heard it being discussed) thinks he has thought of a clever idea.

(And I agree: here, the infiltration is by those with an interest in boundary dissolution.)

On the face of it, it's an easy fix isn't it? Farm the work out to lobby groups, chuck taxpayers' money at it. Crow about its success on Twitter. Done.

Yep. The neoliberal answer to everything. Outsource whatever it is without due diligence. Outsourcing is vulnerable to agenda infiltration (as well as disinterested profit). You don't care. You got your Twitter likes and everyone thinks you've done well.

It is just sad that some young girls won't have access to sanpro due to the various reasons of poverty.
I would hope there are many women working in schools who are all too aware of this and would naturally help a girl with her predicament.

Toilet rolls are free to use, use a liberal amount if necessary.
I daresay many already do.

It can be bewildering at a young age.

To whose benefit is it that "poverty" gets broken down into these different areas?

It can be useful in terms of informing policy.

Fuel poverty for example can be a useful measure as it allows both government and energy companies to plan and to create methods of tackling it such as grants for insulation, winter fuel allowances or ways to help people who have got into debt with their supplier.

'Housing' poverty if such a term existed could also serve a useful purpose.

I'm not sure period poverty really falls into this category though. Women who can't afford sanitary protection quite likely can't afford other basic products either and the issues around girls are not necessarily about poverty as such.

I was recently at St James Park, the football stadium in newcastle. In the women’s toilets, they had a sign up about period poverty and free sanpro was there. Also present: a sign on the door saying any males found in the female toilets would have their season tickets revoked/be banned. 👏