Since the beginning of human life, there has always been one thing pushed aside and considered taboo: women’s periods.
A woman should not have to be secretive about her body and its processes. It is nothing to be ashamed of and is essential to human life. There is nothing on earth that can create a human life form other than a female’s reproductive system, and the only way the life form can be sustained is through a healthy woman. Women have cycles, regular or irregular, but the typical healthy woman has a cycle nonetheless.
This is most likely not news to anyone, and since this is an essential part of a female’s life and mankind, we should treat it as such. The first step in destigmatizing menstruation is to make tampons and sanitary napkins free in public bathrooms. Many women carry their own supplies because no one likes the cheap cardboard tampons. But despite our efforts, we are sometimes caught off guard.
Honestly, being caught with nothing on you is the stuff of nightmares. It normally goes something like this: You’re in the stall having an existential crisis, and then you remember there are supplies right outside the door. Not only are they the awful cardboard kind — I will spare readers all the details — but you have to pay for them. If I have to pay for it, at least give me the good kind.
In addition to having to contemplate what to do while in the stall, you have to dig through your bag with the small hope that you have a quarter or two stashed in there. Of course, you don’t. No one carries change around, so what do you do? You have to do the thing that you did in sixth grade. Yes, I am talking about the toilet paper pad.
Although this can buy you time, all it does is force us to ask why these necessary products aren’t provided. Tampons and pads are as essential as toilet paper and paper towels.
A public place in the U.S. would never ask you for a nickel every time you use their bathroom because it just doesn’t make sense.
We live in a day and age where a female presidential candidate won the popular vote. We have legalized gay marriage throughout the country and marijuana in some states. How is it that I am still expected to just know when my period is coming and have change on me if I don’t?
It’s all very confusing as to why there is still a stigma as if women are expected to keep menstruation a secret. Like, don’t tell anyone, but I am capable of making more humans, and you are welcome in advance.
However, there is one thing most everyone in America and beyond can agree on: Women have beautiful bodies.
Within our beautiful bodies, we also have fully capable brains and fully functioning bodily systems that allow us to walk and talk like normal human beings. There is a certain danger in trivializing a woman’s existence and making it about her appearance. Yes, appreciating beauty is a great thing, but sometimes this can overshadow everything else that should be appreciated.
This includes the ability to make life with our completely normal bodies. Menstrual cycles come along with this, which means female products are in fact necessary to human life. Unless we as a society take a mass vote and determine it is okay for us to free bleed — which just sounds uncomfortable.
As I don’t see the free bleeding option becoming a socially acceptable and comfortable measure just yet, please, corporate America, give us free tampons and lead the way to changing the current secretive nature in how we address Mother Nature.
Myia Hambrick is a 21-year-old mass communication junior from Temple, Georgia.