- 2 weeks ago
Even though sales tax officials are roadblocking any chances on making tampons more accessible, other organizations are racing to meet women's needs as fast as they possibly can.
HAPPY PERIOD
A social movement of girlfriends providing menstrual hygiene kits.
http://hashtaghappyperiod.org/
THE MIDNIGHT MISSION
The Midnight Mission offers paths to self-sufficiency to men, women, and children who have lost direction.
http://www.midnightmission.org/
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Follow Jacki Huntington on Instagram: https://instagram.com/jackihuntington
HAPPY PERIOD
A social movement of girlfriends providing menstrual hygiene kits.
http://hashtaghappyperiod.org/
THE MIDNIGHT MISSION
The Midnight Mission offers paths to self-sufficiency to men, women, and children who have lost direction.
http://www.midnightmission.org/
ABOUT REFINERY29
Refinery29 is a modern woman's destination for how to live a stylish, well-rounded life. http://refinery29.com/
RELATED CONTENT
These Nuns Sell $60k Worth Of Weed Every Month http://bit.ly/2qFsn9Q
SEE MORE REFINERY29 VIDEOS
http://refinery29.com/video
SUBSCRIBE TO REFINERY29
Subscribe to the Refinery29 channel: http://bit.ly/subscribe-to-r29
For the latest trends and videos, visit: http://refinery29.com
Like Refinery29 on Facebook: https://facebook.com/refinery29
Follow Refinery29 on Twitter: https://twitter.com/refinery29
Heart Refinery29 on Instagram: https://instagram.com/refinery29/
TALENT
Follow Jacki Huntington on Instagram: https://instagram.com/jackihuntington
Category
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00I just started my period and I don't have a tampon.
00:03I know all of us have been in this situation, but today it's got me wondering, is access
00:10to menstrual hygiene a social justice issue?
00:17Let's find out.
00:19If you're some kind of coupon clipping champion, you might get away with only spending $70 per
00:25year on tampons and pads.
00:27But the average uterus is doing its thing from age 13 to age 51.
00:33And that's about 456 periods over the course of 38 years.
00:38So even if you're only buying the cheapest tampons, and you're probably not, that's
00:42still about $3,000 over the course of your lifetime to absorb blood.
00:48Maybe that doesn't sound expensive, but the fact that these products aren't freely available
00:52in public like toilet paper is an inconvenience.
00:56It's to me, to you, to a lot of people.
01:09This is Chelsea.
01:10She helps people who have a really hard time getting a hold of a tampon.
01:15About two years ago, she saw something that she couldn't ignore.
01:18I was driving one day, and I got stopped at a red light, and I saw this homeless woman
01:23at the corner, and she started crossing the street.
01:25And I noticed that her bottoms were stained in blood.
01:30She was so exposed.
01:32I mean, it was broad daylight.
01:33I just started looking around even more like, is anybody else seeing this shit?
01:38If we don't have these products, our health can be in jeopardy.
01:42STDs, STIs, urinary tract infections, toxic shock syndrome.
01:47But menstruation is necessary for humanity, period.
01:53People think like, oh, it's just the five to seven days that are important.
01:56No, it's every freaking day.
01:58It's a health issue.
01:59She was angry, and she got curious.
02:01If you are homeless, where do you go when you have your period?
02:06She called every homeless shelter in Los Angeles until she finally got through to someone.
02:11She answered, we don't really have something directly for that specific moment or need.
02:22Since then, she's been in touch with a number of shelters,
02:25and she agreed to come with me to Midnight Mission in Skid Row.
02:28This is a men's recovery portal.
02:30These are our dorms.
02:32Lady on deck!
02:33Lady on deck!
02:34Are we dressed?
02:35Say hi!
02:36Hi!
02:37Woo!
02:38Hey!
02:38That's right.
02:39We have an excellent gym and a workout room so they can start working on their physical...
02:44When these shelters were founded in the early 20th century, homelessness was a man's problem.
02:49But now, among the 47,000 people living homeless in LA County, about one-third are women.
02:57Here we go!
02:57This is the lovely women to have to come to you guys.
03:00Hi ladies!
03:01Shelters like Midnight Mission are racing to meet women's needs,
03:05but public understanding of homelessness hasn't kept pace.
03:08When people donate to these shelters, they normally think about men cleaning up for job interviews.
03:14I love that they have a library.
03:16They don't really think about women managing their periods.
03:19Second is some of my tattoos showing.
03:24That's great.
03:24Nice!
03:26What's your tattoo of?
03:27Oh my gosh.
03:28Well, I got it when I was incarcerated.
03:30This is Rita Richardson.
03:31She's a program manager at Midnight Mission.
03:33Where do your sanitary napkins, tampons, where does that come from?
03:38Well, that's a good question.
03:39A lot of it's donated and then we have somebody through Gift & Kind that does seek out different
03:45sources to help with the keep of the overall functioning and to keep that going.
03:50Because that can become very expensive, as you know.
03:53You know what I mean?
03:54So it does help when people love to, you know, a wish list per se or something.
03:58So basically they rely on donations.
04:01This is Janice Johnson.
04:02She lives in a tent on Skid Row and she stops by Midnight Mission occasionally.
04:06What has it been like for you when you get your period?
04:10What do you do?
04:12Um, well, if the store is closed, I will have to, you know, go to the restaurant, get some
04:19tissue, roll it up, make a pad or line it out of that.
04:23You got to be secure, you know, if you don't have the real thing, you got to make your own.
04:30This is Barbara.
04:32She's been in the shelter for six months after being homeless for 20 years.
04:36She wants to become a drug counselor.
04:38A lot of the missions will pass that out to you if you don't have it, if you don't have
04:43it.
04:43But if they don't have it and you don't have it, you have to hustle for it.
04:48Shelters like Midnight Mission do what they can for periods, but their supplies can be hit or miss.
04:53And only about 25% of the homeless population in LA County is in the shelter system anyway.
05:00That leaves a lot of people underserved and underwicked.
05:04Chelsea wanted to fill the gaps in the shelter system, so she decided to do something.
05:22She started Happy Period simply by calling her friends and asking them to donate tampons, pads,
05:28panty liners, soap, underwear, pack them up and deliver them to people on the street.
05:33It was that simple.
05:35So we know that tampons and pads and all of that stuff is important to our health,
05:39and sometimes expensive and hard to come by.
05:42But did you know that on top of all of that, these items are taxed?
05:46Yep, they call it the tampon tax.
05:52But before you get all up in arms and take to Twitter,
05:55you have to understand that the tampon tax isn't a tax just on tampons.
06:00And it doesn't specifically target feminine hygiene products at all.
06:05It's just sales tax.
06:08You're like, who cares?
06:10Lots of stuff has sales tax.
06:12But state by state, a bunch of items are exempt from this tax.
06:16Stuff that's considered necessities.
06:20But do you know what that includes?
06:28In California, where I am now, Assemblywoman Christina Garcia co-authored a bill that she's
06:33trying to push through state legislature to exempt feminine hygiene products from sales tax.
06:39She'd tried this before in 2016, and it was unanimously approved until it got to the desk of
06:45Governor Jerry Brown, where he vetoed it.
06:48He called it a tax break.
06:50And an estate strapped for cash?
06:52That just wasn't going to fly.
06:53What a buzzkill, right?
06:54If menstrual hygiene products can't be exempt from sales tax, then how did all of those other
07:00things become exempt in the first place?
07:02I thought it would help to consult an expert in economics.
07:07I was wrong.
07:08My name is Christopher Thornberg.
07:10I'm founding partner of Beacon Economics.
07:11I'm also the director of the Center for Economic Forecasting at the Business School at UC Riverside.
07:16Well, I'm curious about how all of those exemptions get determined.
07:22Because, I mean, I've thumbed through the exemptions in California.
07:25Where do those come from?
07:27Well, obviously, it's based on political decisions, correct?
07:30I mean, it's a game that gets played.
07:33Every sector likes to pretend that somehow or other,
07:36it provides a product or a service that is at some sort of morally higher level
07:43than other products and services.
07:45So many interests are benefiting from, like, the politicization of these tax exemptions.
07:51Why can't menstruating women also benefit?
07:55But that's not an argument to the positive.
07:58That's an argument for why all these other exemptions should go away.
08:01These exemptions, in general, are not logical.
08:04The point here is exemptions are wrong.
08:06The reason you're here is to discuss logical arguments, not emotional arguments.
08:11The problem is, is I'm painting you into a logical corner and you're frustrated.
08:15I, no, I...
08:17And let me go to the next step, because you're not even allowing me to fully construct my argument, okay?
08:21Because let's go back to the argument.
08:24Because the argument you're trying to make is that menstruation is a female issue.
08:31By and large, yes.
08:32Okay.
08:34If you're wondering what my face looked like during this interview, it was kind of like this.
08:40I'm sorry.
08:41If you're focusing your efforts on this tiny little thing, you're wasting your time.
08:47Because we have big issues in the world around us, real issues.
08:50Things that we should talk about.
08:53And that's what your people need to hear.
08:54Fine, women don't deserve these tax exemptions, because no one deserves these tax exemptions.
09:01It's not going to prove...
09:01Feminine hygiene products shouldn't be exempt from sales tax,
09:04because nothing should be exempt from sales tax.
09:07Because we have a lot of problems out there.
09:08But I wasn't mad at this guy.
09:11I was mad that among all of the things worthy of sales tax exemptions,
09:16it was like nobody could admit that tampons might be one of them.
09:19And the message that this sends to women is we need you to deal with your problems.
09:26So stuff some toilet paper in your coochie and shut up.
09:29It doesn't change what's happening on the ground.
09:35Do you think people ever think about a woman who's homeless and has her period?
09:39Do they ever consider the fact that you still might have your period?
09:43I don't think they even give a damn.
09:45How did you deal in between paneling and prostitution?
09:49How did you deal with your period?
09:51And I'm talking about like...
09:52I had to get tampons out of toilet paper, a clean sock.
10:02And a lot of times I resorted to stealing.
10:21Hi, do you need any feminine products?
10:27Do you need feminine products?
10:30Feminine products like pads, tampons, whites.
10:33You can grab one of these too.
10:34It's the same stuff, like wipes and...
10:36Uh-huh, you're welcome.
10:37After someone suggests that you might be wasting your time on an issue,
10:40I think you're obliged to seek out a second opinion.
10:45I'm about to call Jennifer Weiswolf,
10:47the woman who's credited as like making the tampon tax an issue worth talking about.
10:56Hello?
10:57Hey, Jen, how's it going?
10:58Good, good.
10:59By day, Jennifer Weiswolf works at New York University's Brennan Center for Justice.
11:04But by night and on weekends and in basically any spare moment she has,
11:09she's an advocate for what she calls menstrual equity.
11:12Menstrual equity means to me if their body menstruates, they need access to these products.
11:18They are not able to participate equitably and equally if they can't access these products.
11:23Jen was one of the first people to make a big fuss about the tampon tax in the U.S.
11:27The tampon tax isn't really the solution or the relief.
11:31What's great about it is it's got people talking about it.
11:34But here's the thing, we do have a system right now that allows for exemption.
11:39And like I said before, nobody ever raised the question of menstrual products.
11:44That's why it was never included in the exemptions that were offered.
11:48Wait, did you all hear that?
11:50The existence of the so-called tampon tax has less to do with the necessity of these items
11:55and more to do with who has a seat at the table and who does not.
12:00Would you consider access to menstrual hygiene a social justice issue?
12:05Yeah, I consider access to menstrual hygiene both a social justice issue and a human rights issue.
12:11Why?
12:12It could actually be a real crisis and it's not just a crisis of dignity,
12:17although that should be enough for any of us to be concerned, but it's a crisis in health.
12:21Here's the run.
12:23Whether or not there should be sales tax exemptions, there are.
12:27Menstrual products are left out of that simply because when a group of people met up to decide
12:31what was worthy, no one raised their hand for tampons.
12:34And this sends a message about how we as a society see menstruation and whose problem we think it is.
12:42Clearly it's not this guy's problem.
12:48But I mean, unfortunately we still have the tampon tax, but she's a rookie bike rider, I can tell.
12:56Sorry.
12:57We're in Venice, about an hour drive from Skid Row, depending on traffic.
13:07Handing out tampons works a little differently here.
13:09Well, it's Saturday, so there are some individuals who just look homeless, but they're not.
13:13So we got to be a little careful.
13:16Hi, how are you doing?
13:17I don't, I want to ask, do you need any pads or tampons?
13:21No, but thank you.
13:22Okay.
13:23As I watched Chelsea hand out tampons, tampons that she and her friends bought, sales tax and all,
13:30I wonder who else is going to step up.
13:32Who else is going to acknowledge that periods are not just a women's issue?
13:38Hi, do you need tampons?
13:39Oh yeah, sure, sure.
13:40I'm living on third street for the first time due to a heartbreak.
13:44Are you on third street?
13:45Yeah.
13:46In Venice?
13:46Yep.
13:47Oh, word.
13:48Do you want all of these?
13:50You're free to take them.
13:51Yeah, sure.
13:52Do you want some tampons?
13:53Oh wait, let's see.
13:55I'll just open this box.
13:57I mean, either one, either one.
14:00My aunt told me when I was like 13, she's like, don't use tampons because you're going to pop
14:04the chair and you're not going to be a virgin anymore.
14:06I'm like, okay, that's funny.
14:08When we go out and we're passing out kits, you know, overall it makes me happy.
14:13However, I know that I'm privileged and I'm not here to judge.
14:18I'm not here to bother.
14:19I'm just here to help.
14:23Look at that, I didn't even know.
14:24Where's Jackie?
14:27Oh, my shadow.
14:31All over the country, this is an issue that's hiding in plain sight.
14:35It's important to understand that fixing access to menstrual hygiene,
14:38if that's even possible, is not just about handing out supplies on the street,
14:43and it's not just about changing tax policy or electing diverse public officials.
14:48It's a combination of everything in between, starting with a radical acknowledgement that
14:54menstruation isn't just a women's issue.
14:57It's a public health issue.
14:58You don't have to be a woman to care.
15:03Thanks.
15:04And every single one of you came out of a uterus.
15:07Don't pretend.
15:08Thanks for watching.
15:10If you were born of a menstruating human, tell us about it below in the comments.
15:14If you want to see more videos like this, click here.
15:17And if you want to subscribe to Refinery29, click here.
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