Period

by Kate Farrell

  HAND SANITIZER:

  I recommend getting the clear, unscented hand sanitizer that comes in pocket-sized bottles without any colored plastic beads in it. Those plastic beads aren’t doing the environment any favors and nobody wants to find little sparkly bits on their sanitary napkin.

  WIPES:

  Forget the branded feminine wipes; get flushable wet toilet wipes instead. Those little feminine wipe packets seldom have enough cleansing liquid in them, and the wipes inside are often tiny, folded things textured like hand wipes. The wipes intended to help people wipe their bottoms cleaner in the bathroom are bigger and softer and much better at cleaning things up. The unscented kind of whatever wipe you get is best, as some people are sensitive or even allergic to scents, especially when used near delicate skin areas.

  PERIOD PAIN RELIEVER:

  Pamprin, Midol, Tylenol, Advil, and their generics are all pretty good for relieving menstrual pain. While one of the formulas intended for menstrual pain relief, like Midol or Pamprin, would probably be the most welcome, any pain reliever would be a blessing.

  Bad Blood

  EMMA STRAUB

  I got my first period the day before my eleventh birthday. I’d been lying about it for months, saying that it had already come, because one of the other girls in my very small middle-school class got her period before I did, and I was jealous. Menstruating seemed so adult, so womanly, that it was downright sexy. But there it was, finally! My mother had an elegant friend who had taken her daughter for tea at the Plaza to celebrate her first period, and so we did that, too. Instead of feeling like Eloise—who was, after all, a child—I felt like a movie star.

  In high school, when other girls began to bleed unexpectedly, they always came to me, knowing that I had a stash of tampons on my person that would last most women several months. Super-plus tampons, super tampons, regular tampons, bulky pads, panty liners, Advil—I had it all. The period I had so desperately wanted had not only arrived, it had arrived with force. The folded-paper instruction manual that came with each enormous box of tampons claimed that a normal menstrual flow was about two ounces of blood per month. I felt like I lost that much in an hour. Every trip to the doctor ended with her telling me that I was terribly anemic, which I knew. How could I not be? The blood was leaving my body at such a high rate that I was surprised there was any left for her to take.

  Once, one of my male friends’ younger sisters came up to me in the lobby of our school. She was a freshman, and I was a senior. “I’ve had a tampon in for two days,” she said. “I forgot about it.” She looked at me for advice, perhaps because I was older and wiser, but also, I presume, because she knew I was some kind of menstrual oracle. I couldn’t imagine leaving a tampon in for more than two hours, let alone two days. My own period was already so bad—the cramps, the bleeding—that I’d gone on the birth control pill to try to beat it into submission.

  It was the end of high school by the time I realized that bleeding every month sucked, and it quickly went from “sucked” to “actually ruining my life.” The birth control pills worked for a while—my cramps improved, but the bleeding was still heavy. Every few months, my college roommate came home with a new box of Tampax slenders, tampons that I could make expand just by looking at them. Meanwhile, I doubled up on pads and supers, and bled through onto my sheets anyway, easily going through one large box of supplies during every period, if not more. I’d had some sporty-ish friends, the kind of people who wanted to play intramural softball or pick-up basketball, or go camping, during that time of the month, and my first thought was always: “How can you do anything that is so far away from a bathroom? How can you be so cavalier?” My period lasted a solid week, if not more, heavy for the first few days, and heavier than most people’s normal periods even on my lightest days. I knew every single bathroom on my college campus intimately.

  As I got older, I’d look at my schedule and cringe when I saw that I was due for my period, knowing how much harder it would make everything I’m supposed to do. (Taking the subway to work for forty minutes? Impossible. I can’t be away from a bathroom for that long.) I’d fill my purse with pills and supplies, wear my oldest, darkest underwear, and hope for the best. The feeling is like boarding an airplane when you know there’s going to be extreme turbulence. The ride is going to be bumpy, but you have no choice but to get on board.

  A couple of years ago, I went off the pill for the first time in over a decade. Though intellectually I understood that the hormones in the pills had been controlling my period, it was nonetheless a shock to see the change. My period went from heavy-but-not-completely-insane to the hallway scene in The Shining. And because I realized how much garbage I was producing every month—all those applicators, all those cardboard boxes, all those little plastic sleeves—I’d switched to a hippie option, the DivaCup, which my friends swore by. One friend told me it was so great, she’d empty it once or twice a day, and that was it! She practically had stars in her eyes. I was sold.

  You know the phrase “my cup runneth over”? Not to be disgusting, but my cup ranneth over every half hour. I was traveling a lot at the time, with the band I work for and doing research for my novel, and sometimes I would be in transit all day long, timing my bathroom-stop requests as far apart as I could, waiting until the last second to board airplanes, running through gas stations because I didn’t want to ruin one of only a few dresses in my suitcase. I sprinted into filthy bathrooms, into Porta-Potties, into places I would usually avoid like the plague. Waiting for a clean spot (ideally, my own bathroom) just wasn’t an option.

  The blood was everywhere. It was on my clothes, on my skin, on the toilet bowl, on the bathroom floor. I couldn’t control it, not with Advil or with expensive pills from my gynecologist that were supposed to stanch my flow. Or rather, the pills worked—they cut the bleeding by a third on the heaviest days—but a third of a monsoon is still a monsoon. I went for dinner at a friend’s house and sat on her beautiful vintage chaise lounge, because she asked me to, because she knew I’d love it, and then did nothing but think about the possibility of ruining it all night long. I left work early, I left parties early, and I canceled plans left and right. On my heaviest days, I had half an hour between visits to the bathroom, if I was lucky. I got no sleep, even with an old towel tucked underneath my body, just in case. Each period lasted more than a week, sometimes two, and left me feeling like I’d been through a war. Even though most people with functional ovaries between the ages of approximately twelve and fifty-one menstruate, most of them don’t have to worry about the shame of having an accident, the weird looks from friends and coworkers when you excuse yourself every thirty minutes, and all that blood.

  People loved to give advice. One friend recommended I try acupuncture, which I’d done before and had helped with other physical ailments. I took herbal remedies, and of course iron, so much iron. The acupuncture was fine, until I bled through my clothes on the table, leaving a small round stain behind, and then drove myself home crying, knowing I wouldn’t make it home fast enough to avoid another accident.

  After a year of this, I finally went to a new doctor. What took me so long, I have no idea. I think I always assumed that this was just my cross to bear, that nothing could be done, that it wasn’t that bad. Never mind that I had never—never—met anyone with periods like mine. Because I’d always been healthy, it truly never occurred to me that there could be any actual problem. It took visits to several specialists, but finally, after months (which, of course, meant more periods) my new doctor (also known as my queen, my goddess, my deliverer from evil) discovered the gigantic colony of fibroids that had been wreaking havoc on my uterus. My doctor explained them to me like this: A normal uterus squeezes itself every month, contracting to rid itself of its lining. She squeezed her fist together, the way you’d squeeze a lemon. When you have a fibroid, a non-cancerous cyst, it can interfere with normal uterine contractions, and so the bleeding can’t regulate itself—the uterus wants to keep s
queezing and squeezing, shedding more and more blood. This summer, I had two surgeries to remove them—one giant monster fibroid and then several little baby-monster fibroids, too many to count, like Gremlins.

  I THINK IT’S A GOOD LESSON ABOUT KNOWING YOUR OWN BODY—IF SOMETHING SEEMS LIKE IT’S FUCKED UP, IT PROBABLY IS.

  The surgeries weren’t bad—I got to go home afterward—and I was pretty much back to normal within a week. I was lucky in this regard—some people have far more invasive surgeries, depending on the position of the fibroid. Friends sent me boxes of snacks and comic books and flowers, and my husband took excellent care of me, sweetly hopeful that the worst was behind us. My only regret is that I waited so long to figure out what was wrong. I think it’s a good lesson about knowing your own body—if something seems like it’s fucked up, it probably is. I don’t think I’ll ever be reluctant to call a doctor again.

  There are, of course, reasons why having your period is a good thing. I would never have gone on those pills that reduce your period to four times a year, because that just seems weird to me. The clockwork regularity of my period is comforting to me—it’s satisfying to know that my body’s doing its thing just fine. Having your period is also a great way to know that you’re not pregnant, which can be very reassuring. For obvious reasons, I’m way, way past the point of seeing any charm whatsoever in my monthly visitor, but I know that it’s a minor inconvenience for most people. I wish that I still felt as excited about that particular part of becoming an adult as I did when I was in junior high school.

  Though it’s still early to tell for sure, my life seems to have improved. I’ve had one fairly normal period. I still know all the best public bathrooms in the city (if you’re in downtown Manhattan, forget the Apple Store, and go to Room & Board—trust me). I still carry enough feminine products to act as a dam in a pinch, though with the DivaCup now able to handle my flow, I need them more just for my own peace of mind. The fibroids will almost certainly grow back, so my reprieve might be short-lived, but I’m happy to take what I can get. It was so bad for so long, I don’t quite believe that the blood is gone forever. Every month, I’ll cross my fingers and hope for the best, and if it gets really debilitating again, I won’t wait another month before going back to the doctor. I’m not going to join any swim teams in the meantime, or hike up Mount Kilimanjaro, but who knows—I might have a whole three weeks of freedom. It’s a start.

  The Politics of Periods

  JENNIFER WEISS-WOLF

  Menstruation is having a moment—surfing the crimson wave of fame, so to speak. Quite a stark contrast to my own teenage years in the 1980s, when periods were mentioned in whispers (the word wasn’t actually spoken on TV until 1985!), tampons kept under wraps, and cramps quietly endured. Going public with the discussion has been downright liberating—a welcome and long-overdue advance.

  NOW THE TIME IS RIPE TO HARNESS ALL THAT MOMENTUM AND GO FULL-BLOWN POLITICAL: PERIODS AS A PUBLIC POLICY AGENDA.

  And just look how far we’ve come. After an explosion of rebellious activism and innovation in 2015, NPR designated it “the Year of the Period.” Cosmopolitan magazine declared we’ve entered the era of “Period Power.” An oversized torpedo-like tampon was featured on the April 29, 2016, cover of Newsweek with the headline “There Will Be Blood. (Get Over It.) Period Stigma Is Hurting the Economy, Schools and the Environment. But the Crimson Tide Is Turning.” And actress Ashley Judd even gave a worldwide shout-out to period activism at the Women’s March in January 2017 by performing the poem “Nasty Woman” by Nina Donovan.

  Given that this particular bodily function has been an essential slice of the human condition forever—and stigmatized, sidelined, or, at best, ignored for just about as long—it is no small thrill that menstruation has become a modern cause célèbre.

  Now the time is ripe to harness all that momentum and go full-blown political: periods as a public policy agenda. It is what I call the fight for menstrual equity. What does that mean? In order to have a fully participatory society, we must have laws and policies that ensure menstrual products are safe and affordable for everyone who needs them. The ability to access these items affects a person’s freedom to work, study, stay healthy, and engage in the world with basic dignity. And if anyone’s access is compromised, whether by poverty or stigma or lack of education and resources, it is in all of our interests to ensure those needs are met.

  As hard as it may be to believe, for millions in America today—those living paycheck to paycheck, or without a paycheck at all, or on the streets, or in government custody—tampons and pads can be an impossible luxury. A year’s supply costs in the range of $70 to $120. This can be an out-of-reach expense for many—possibly even the difference between making rent and putting food on the table. Other reusable alternatives like menstrual cups, cloth pads, and period underwear can be cost-effective over time (more environmentally friendly, too) but require a steep upfront investment.

  WELCOME TO THE FIGHT FOR MENSTRUAL EQUITY.

  There’s some painful bias to these statistics as well, making periods doubly burdensome for those who are poorest. While middle-class families can take advantage of options like bulk discounts or shopping at wholesale retailers to buy a supply of tampons, those who live in poverty end up paying considerably more for the exact same items, whether it is because they’re subject to inflated prices at convenience stores or are only able to expend precious dollars one necessity at a time. For those who are homeless or incarcerated, monthly bleeding is especially brutal. The most commonly reported substitutes when maxi pads aren’t in the budget? Newspaper, brown paper bags, old rags, and socks.

  Access to affordable menstrual products is a necessity for half the population. Yet this reality is given practically zero consideration in the laws by which we live. Think about this: Tampons and pads are ineligible for purchases made with public benefits like food stamps; they’re not made routinely available in shelters or crisis centers, nor are they provided in any uniform way in jails and prisons. In the vast majority of states, menstrual products are not even exempt from sales tax, forcing the customer to pay added cents on the dollar. And while the government regulates the provision of toilet paper and hand soap—requiring these in public restrooms, including in schools and workplaces—we’re on our own when it comes to managing our periods.

  Outraged yet? I hope so! Welcome to the fight for menstrual equity. The good news is that in every single one of these instances, thoughtful policy change can make a difference. Here are some of the new laws that are being advanced across the country.

  THE TAMPON TAX

  The fight to eliminate sales tax on menstrual products—better known as the tampon tax—has caught on around the world. The core argument for scrapping the tax: The products we use to manage our periods qualify as a “necessity of life” and therefore are worthy of a sales tax exemption. Here in the United States, among the items that most states already include in this category are food and medicine—which means that even things like Fruit Roll-Ups, Pop-Tarts, and ChapStick get a tax break.

  If you think it sounds crazy that we even have to make the case that tampons be classified as a necessity or deemed as indispensable as a bag of chips, you’re not alone. Prior to 2015, forty of the fifty states collected taxes on menstrual products; of those other ten states, only five were ahead of the curve and had already begun exempting menstrual products (Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania); the other five (Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire, and Oregon) collect no sales tax at all.

  Since then, thanks to a nationwide petition and campaign, a whopping twenty-four states have introduced legislation to scrap the tampon tax. Even more heartening, lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are getting behind the cause, Democrats and Republicans alike, making menstruation one of the rare, truly bipartisan matters in American politics.

  So far, three states—Florida, Illinois, and New York—have succeeded in passing and implementing new
laws to make menstrual products entirely tax-free. The city of Chicago and District of Columbia passed ordinances to the same effect. And Connecticut removed sales tax revenue from menstrual products from its 2018 statewide budget, effectively eliminating the tax.

  TAMPONS FOR ALL

  Beyond the sales tax, there is an increasingly widespread belief that menstrual products should even be free—or at least made more affordable and accessible—for those who are most in need. In terms of practical relief for families that are struggling and truly unable to meet the monthly expense of these items, a tax savings isn’t going to make enough of a dent. There is more we can do.

  New York City has proudly led the way. In 2016, it unanimously passed three groundbreaking laws that mandate the provision of free tampons and pads for all the city’s public schools, shelters, and jails—the most comprehensive legislation of its kind in the world. Los Angeles followed the Big Apple’s lead in 2017 and passed an ordinance requiring free access to tampons in all county juvenile detention centers; Colorado did so for all of its state prisons. Similar laws are being introduced in many states across the country, from California to Connecticut.

  Capitol Hill is also making waves. Debating periods in the hallowed halls of Congress? That’s a first—and a very big deal! But it is happening. US Senators Cory Booker and Elizabeth Warren demanded free menstrual products for federal prisoners with the introduction of the Dignity for Incarcerated Women Act. And US Representative Grace Meng introduced the Menstrual Equity for All Act of 2017, the first-ever federal menstrual access bill. Among its provisions, the bill would:

  1. Allow individuals to buy menstrual products with money they contribute to pre-tax flexible spending accounts;

  2. Provide a refundable tax credit to low-income individuals for the purchase of menstrual products;