Sanitary pads. Photo: Pastorius/Wikimedia Commons. CC BY 3.0. Some rights reserved.
Women everywhere must endure pain, every single month, for up to a week or longer, from the age of around 12 to 50. Yet society still makes us feel as if our periods are disgusting – dirty aspects of our existence that we should hide, regardless of how much pain or discomfort we face. Like J.K. Rowling’s Lord Voldemort, even the word ‘period’ can feel stigmatised beyond utterance; He-Who-Must-Be-Renamed “that time of the month”.
In the UK, a 2015 survey suggested that women spend more than £18,000 on their periods over the course of their lifetime. Sanitary products are pricey – a fact not helped by the 5% VAT charge for being considered a “luxury item” (while baked goods like Jaffa Cakes are considered essential items, and are untaxed). A recent investigation by the charity RightsInfo revealed that 5,000 women (and perhaps many more) collect sanitary products each month from food banks and homeless shelters.
