By Sara Brenneman, Iowa City
Dear ICCSD School Board,
I have been a woman in the school district for 11 years. For six of those I have lacked feminine hygiene products when needed, which feels incredibly unjustified and unfair. I believe it is time for a change. Schools need to supply feminine hygiene products in our bathrooms. Not only is it causing a lack of presence in class, a lot of families in the district can’t afford period products, leaving their kids to struggle at home and school. It would also have a large positive impact on the high percentage of girls who menstruate at a young age.
Too many girls are skipping school during menstruation because they do not have the adequate material provided to them. This can be due to not being able to afford it, or simply relying on the school to help. Amelia Knisely, writer from the Tennessean says that “one out of five women miss school monthly due to their period.” This is due to an issue called “period poverty.” The Journal of Global Health Reports defines this as a lack of access to menstrual products, hygiene facilities, waste management, and education. The same journal has also done studies that show 500 million women lack access to these products and 16.9 million women have had to choose between menstrual products and food.
This is a problem because we as women should not have to pay for what we cannot control. Everyone needs food on their table, the same way we need menstrual products in our bathrooms. Knisely also explains that families can get an EBT card but they cannot use the card on tampons or pads, because they are considered luxury items. At City High, the students do a fundraiser called “Tampon Tuesday.” This gets a large amount of tampons for the bathrooms at the cost of a dollar or making a baked good. This is indeed beneficial for our school, yet it should not be necessary. As a student who menstruates it is frustrating that we have to work so hard just to get basic necessities. We don’t need to do any work or fundraising to get toilet paper or soap provided, and it should be the same deal with feminine hygiene products.
A lot of students can’t afford period products, and a lot of schools, if anything, keep a low supply in the health office. As a student, I can vouch for the shame and embarrassment you feel walking across the school while bleeding out as you make your way down the hall. Not only is this unsanitary, but really harmful to a girl’s confidence. There’s been times I needed a period product, but the health office administrator had hid them upon my request. I was startled by this, just to be informed that she was hiding them to keep everyone from “taking them all.” Although she probably didn’t have bad intentions, it was incredibly mortifying to ask in front of everyone. This also accounts to the vast amount of times I have had to miss class to go home and change because nobody had a tampon or pad, negatively impacting my attendance record.
This is not only a problem for high school students, but girls as young as elementary. In February of 2016, I got my first period of many. I was 12 years old. This was incredibly hard for me, because at school I would have to dispose of my period products in the public trash in front of all my young peers. Not only were there no products provided for me, but also no place for me to dispose of them. As a 12-year-old, bringing a tampon or a pad to school was the least of my concerns, but if I didn’t remember, there would be no support from the school. Getting my period should have been a normal easy experience, but due to the stigma of periods and lack of resources available, it was a monthly occurrence that I soon started to fear.
In a study done by the CDC, they show that 56 percent of girls in America have their period by the age of 12. This is an insanely high percentage for schools to still not step up and do anything about it. If the schools start supplying these products in all schools, even elementary schools, it will make a huge difference as to how these students view periods. Mansee Khurana from NPR shares the many stories of young girls’ experiences, such as Mahoro Amani, who shares that she was told to keep her period a secret at the young age of 9 years old. She talked about the lack of education we receive about periods as students, and the sadness she felt seeing many girls crying or having panic attacks in the bathroom because they were in need of a tampon or pad. Amani is one of many students fighting to get menstrual products in the restrooms at school, but her school has informed her that they will not be contributing any funding towards the issue.
A common argument is that Tampon Tuesday is providing us with the menstrual products we need. While this is true, students and faculty are still having to spend their own money to get these items, and we as a district should be thinking of the many women that would benefit if these supplies were provided already. It is also unfair that the students are doing more and spending their own money on something that the school should be taking care of in the first place. The lack of menstrual products is also an issue in many schools, not just City High.
Another argument is that some bathrooms have a dispenser to purchase a pad or tampon. This would be a strong argument, if the dispensers were not broken. It is also unfair to expect female students to take quarters to the restroom.
As a district, we want all of our students to be learning, and maintaining comfort while going through the school day, so we need to provide the materials to do that. Until we have a reliable supply of menstrual products in our schools, girls are going to continue missing school, the stigma will remain, and the large percentage of girls menstruating at a young age will not have adequate hygiene when going through their cycle. It is time to step up and do better for these women, and remove the stigma of periods for many future generations to come.
Sincerely,
Sara Brenneman
