Periods Are Not a Luxury. So Why Are We Treating Them Like One?

Period poverty is the inability to access products due to cost or availability. It is not a rare or fringe issue. The average person who menstruates spends $1,800 on menstrual products over their lifetime, uses between 10-35 products per cycle and menstruates for a cumulative seven years of their life according to the American College of Physicians.

That financial burden falls hardest on those who can least afford it. A study by Brookings found that 64% of low income women were unable to afford period products at once in the previous year. And 24% faced this struggle every single month.

This is a systematic failure. 

The Cost of Doing Nothing.

When people cannot afford period products, they do not simply go without. They resort to rags, tissues, toilet paper, paper towels or wearing a pad or tampon far longer than is safe. The American College of Physicians explains that this can result in urinary tract infections, bacterial vaginosis and other serious health consequences. 

The damage reaches beyond physical health. One in four students in the U.S. struggle to afford period products and 39% of teens say they are unable to do their best schoolwork because of this lack of access, according to period.org.

Girls are sitting in classrooms distracted, anxious and ashamed. Not because of anything they did. Because a basic biological need went unmet. The UN finds in some countries girls miss the equivalent of a month and a half of school every year because they cannot afford or access products.

When girls fall enough behind they drop out entirely. When they drop out: doors close and futures narrow.

What We Are Asking For.

The solution is not complicated. It is simply a matter of will.

We are calling for menstrual products to be freely available in schools, shelters, prisons and public spaces. Treated with the baseline assumption as toilet paper. Menstrual products are rarely publicly funded in school, shelter or crisis center budgets and are generally not covered by public health and nutritional assistance programs. 

That needs to change. A student who cannot afford a pad should not have to choose between her dignity and her education.

We are calling for the end of the tampon tax, a sales tax levied on period products in states that still classify them as non essential.

We are calling for menstrual health education to be treated as what it is: a public health priority. 

What You Can Do.

You do not have to be a lawmaker to make change. You can donate to organizations getting products into the hands of people who need them like Amu4her.

You can write to your representatives. You write an article. You can stop whispering about periods like they're something shameful.

Because this is the truth—menstruation is not a luxury nor a lifestyle choice. It is a reality.

Corroborated by the UN, there is growing consensus that menstruation is not merely a hygiene issue; it is a human rights and gender equality issue.

It is time our policies reflected that.