"Let’s start with affordability. According to the Alliance for Period Supplies, 1 in 4 students in the US do not have access to period products because of their cost. Experts call this 'period poverty.'
Period poverty makes it harder to learn. A recent survey of high school students in St. Louis found that 64% of girls experienced some form of period product insecurity, and 33% of participants said they had missed school because they lacked a period product. Two-thirds of all students surveyed said they had at some point relied on their school for access to menstrual products.
Other studies have found that when women can’t afford pads or tampons, they resort to unsafe or unhygienic practices, like using products for much longer than recommended. Some made do with rags or paper towels, which are not as effective.
No politician should want to be associated with unhygienic rags. And yet some Republicans governors are actively preventing efforts to help kids getting appropriate products. Most recently, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis vetoed funding that would have established a pilot program providing free pads and tampons in the state’s public schools.
These programs don’t only help the neediest students. They make puberty less awkward for all girls. Periods can start at inopportune times — say, in the middle of social studies class, when even the most prepared can be caught without a needed product.
Menstruation is also starting earlier for some kids; some data suggests a rise in the number of girls beginning to menstruate at age 8 or younger, when the transition might catch them by surprise."
~ Lisa Jarvis
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