DM reporting on a man who has solved 'period poverty'

[hometownglory]

www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-6778849/Man-slammed-Twitter-says-girls-stop-whining-price-tampons.html

I don't have a lot of time to comment sorry, but the article basically outlines how a man has managed to calculate that a woman only needs 7 tampons per period and they should stop whining about how expensive it is.

Lovely chap.

If I still menstruated I would love to use my allotted 7 tampons and spend my whole period sitting on his sofa. Not that it’s my job to change his mind but I suspect that I could.

The twitter reaction to this has to be one of my favourites in a long time. Up there with the bloke who thought women should “just hold their period in until they go to the loo”.

Sweary me too. He'd very quickly have 'sofa poverty'

9 periods per year?

Are we all meant to get Toxic shock?

What’s his next tactic?
Solving period poverty by keeping us all knocked up as much as possible? Or perhaps he’d like us to go back to how my Nan and her 6 sisters had to deal with it (a shared bucket of rags kept in the scullery)?

Well, clearly, there will be less women, because we will all have died from Toxic Shock Syndrome, so there will indeed by less period poverty. It's what I'd call a 'nuclear option'.

How big are these tampons?
I’m assuming it’s a whole pack of cotton wool tightly bound resembling some oversized sausage from the butchers?

Even if you could keep it in for the max recommended time of 8 hours, which I'm assuming most don't, that's a 2 and a bit days of period. I don't think many have 2 day periods.

If 2 day periods, 9 times a year are an option, sign me up.

There was an MP in the 80s who apparently said "if women don't like the cost of sanitary products they can use soap instead". I can remember people at school being outraged at the time but I have not been able to find out who this was. I wanted to know what you were expected to do with the soap

SwearyG unless you are one of the fortunate special women who only get 9 periods a year ( I’m not sure how you qualify for the 3 month period free club, it may be invitation only), I fear your allocation will actually be only 4.84* tampons since you’ll have to spread out your annual allowance over 13 periods given the average cycle is 28 days.

*Disclaimer: please treat those figures with caution, I am NOT a man so I may have done the calculator wrong because I am a woman and therefore shouldn’t really be bothering my pretty little head with number. I’ll be sure to have DH double-check when he wakes up of course

In the meantime, I don’t want to say this man is wrong, because, well, he’s a man so he can’t be, but I think he might have been thinking about many many other very important things at the same time and maybe some woman interrupted him while he was working this out. I’m sure he’ll be along presently to explain it in terms we women can understand.

How does he work out nine periods a year?

Even if your cycle is bang on regular that would work out at 12 - 13 periods per calendar year.

Some men really do hate women.

And there was women working so hard not to bleed over everything. Silly us!

I noticed the 9 periods per year, wonder which calendar he used in his “research”? The one I use has 12 months 🤷‍♀️

Are we all meant to get Toxic shock?

Don’t go giving the TRAs ideas! 😲🤣

I once knew a man that was astonished when I explained to him that, no, we don’t simply have one period when that’s it. No more, for the rest of our lives. This was about 30yrs ago and I actually thought things had changed. No fucking wonder men think they can simply call themselves a woman and hey presto!

When we did sex education at primary school, the boys and girls were separated for the part where we learnt about periods (no idea what the boys talked about) This maybe explains why so many men are so clueless. I remember one boy who assumed it was painful when you were on your period because you had to push and strain to expel 'the bloody shit' from your vagina. He thought periods were a solid mass and it was over and done with as soon as you 'pushed it out'

At my school the boys and girls were separated when learning about periods, which could explain why they’re clueless, doesn’t explain why the don’t want to understand though.

It should be covered in biology, it's on current syllabus and presumably would have been on previous ones too.

Jesus Christ. Male or female, it’s better not to talk about stuff you don’t know anything about on a public forum!

I don’t get periods so happy to give my allotted tampons to someone who needs them

Doesn't surprise me, my teenage DSs were separated into boys and girls and given different sex education talks.

Fortunately I have fully appraised them of the massive gaping holes in those lessons. They also know the door is always open for any more information they need.

In fact the other week I had horrendous stomach and my 14 year old DS came up with a hot water bottle for me. He was the one who pointed out it may well be period pains, in my defence I have a lot going on

It's so shit isn't it? Like others have said, I first thought TSS.

I didn't know about TSS when I first started periods.

We had a sex separated education class about periods and I can't remember it being mentioned there either.

Then I thought about how ignorant some men are when it comes to periods. But why are they ignorant? They don't have to worry about them, but they are not told the facts either.

Then my mind wandered a little further to 'period poverty' and the notes of the meeting that were transcribed here encouraging an interest in women's issues such as PP (I'm sure most of you know what I am talking about).

I noticed the Penny Q&A being bombarded by questions from a certain poster that did not centre Women's rights and then BAM...a period poverty question just to make sure that they looked as though they had some sort of empathy with women.

And then my thoughts came full circle to how important it is to continue discussing women's issues. From TSS risk, to sanitary bins, to the pill, to safe sex segregated spaces and so on.

Looking forward to the 'why do we have to centre women on international women's day' comments tomorrow.

Sorry for the rant, I hope it made some sort of sense!

The menstrual cycle is covered in Biology.

Separating boys and girls for sex ed is not the cause of this.