Two PharmaChoice pharmacies in Dartmouth — on Portland Street and in Highfield Park — are doing God’s work. Actually, scratch that. They’re doing the government’s work — supporting women who can’t afford menstrual products by giving them away for free.
But amid the congratulations, let’s all take a moment to recognize that most people don’t want to walk into a pharmacy and say: “Hi! I’m poor! Can you help me with my body?”
This has nothing to do with the kindness of the employees, nor the discreetness of the request. Monthly begging for help managing inescapable bodily needs can feel dehumanizing and embarrassing.
I remember the first phys. ed class of middle school. My teacher announced to the parquet floor full of Grade 7 girls that she kept spare pads.
Countless times, I was in dire period straits. But there was no way I was sidling up to Mrs. Boyd to ask for a pad. It was a giant wad of toilet paper and off to math class with a sweater wrapped around my mid-section.
Anyone who’s ever had a period has been caught short. So, women and transmen — yes, some of whom menstruate — would be much better served by having a complement of menstrual products included in the basic fare available in every public bathroom.
I mean, come on.
Halifax Stanfield International Airport provides pads and tampons as readily as toilet paper. My gym has a container of tampons in every bathroom, right beside the Kleenex. City council in London, Ont., on Tuesday voted unanimously to provide free pads and tampons in all arenas, community centres and pools, and sent staff away to work out the cost for providing them in all municipal buildings.
If these paragons of raging feminist leftism can figure it out, the rest of us can, too.
Could hoarding be a problem? Sure. But, ask yourself: who’s stockpiling tampons and pads? People who need them but who can’t access them.
Erin Casey is the founder of Dignity. Period., a Nova Scotia organization that works to alleviate period poverty by encouraging individuals and businesses to host pad parties to collect menstrual products for donation.
She’s not an expert on menstrual economics, but Casey can sometimes be found pushing a grocery cart full of period products for Dignity. Period. She pegs the monthly cost of bleeding anywhere from $10 to $25.
This is no small matter for income assistance recipients, who, as lawyer Vince Calderhead told the legislature’s law amendments committee Monday, are, accounting for inflation, poorer now than five years ago.
Nova Scotia has the lowest median income. Our minimum wage will soon be lowest in the country. Again.
This is why the two PharmaChoices are doing their amazing work. It’s likewise the impetus behind PC MLA Karla MacFarlane’s recent private member’s bill that would amend income assistance to give people who menstruate a top-up to cover period products.
But these solutions don’t address the indignity of having to ask for help when you’re bleeding down your legs. Even with MacFarlane’s bill, transmen would presumably have to out themselves.
What would help?
Seeing the connection between period poverty and the everyday situation of being caught needing a tampon. Making it the norm for pads and tampons to be available in public bathrooms just like toilet paper, water and soap. No ask required.
Hoarding, Casey argues, “is a really minor concern compared to meeting people’s needs and letting them have that dignity of having what they need without asking.”
And it might not be happening at all if people weren’t worrying where their next period product was coming from.
