Feminine hygiene products have been one of the trendiest feminist issues over the past two years. Now, Rep. Grace Meng (D-Queens) wants Congress to consider the issue, introducing the “Menstrual Equity for All Act of 2017.”
Already, over the past two years, lawmakers in several states have proposed legislation to eliminate the so-called “tampon tax,” while other feminists criticized the government for “period-shaming” women by categorizing feminine hygiene products as “luxury items.” (The categorization is different state-by-state but often includes deodorant, toothpaste and other items considered necessities in a civilized society.) The idea of the government “taxing your period” picked up steam and made its way through several state legislatures, including New York, Connecticut and Illinois, which all removed the tax from feminine hygiene products.
Now Meng wants to make this a national issue. “It is definitely not a luxury to menstruate,” she said on her congressional website. “And my legislation acknowledges this reality by making it easier for women and girls to access the products that their anatomy requires.”
The proposal includes a bevy of new legal requirements, not all of them bad. For instance, Meng would make menstrual hygiene products eligible for flexible spending accounts. The law would also use a combination of tax credits and grant money to insure maxi pads and tampons are available for low-income and homeless women, as well as women in jails and prisons. So far, so good.
But Meng’s legislation goes one crazy step further: She wants Congress and the Secretary of Labor to require employers with a workforce of 100 or more to provide free menstrual hygiene products to their staff.
In an op-ed for Marie Claire, Meng continued her argument that laws in the U.S. “period-shame women,” saying “Most Americans—across all income levels—believe that feminine hygiene products are basic necessities So why is it still so hard to afford and access them?”
To support her argument that tampons and pads aren’t easy to come by, Meng cites a freethetampon.org survey that states 86 percent of women have at one time started their period and didn’t have the supplies they needed.
But this doesn’t necessarily mean that women couldn’t afford or access these items—just that they didn’t have them on hand when they started their period.
In fact, none of the 86 percent said that the reason they didn’t have access to the necessary materials was because they couldn’t afford tampons or pads. Fifty-one percent of these women just forget to restock their supply of tampons or pads; and five percent didn’t take their purse (containing their tampons or pads) into the bathroom with them because others might assume they were on their period (emphasis added).
Meng’s argument is mind-boggling. The rationale for requiring employers to provide feminine hygiene products is that these items are a necessity for most women, and thus they should be available freely and on demand. But this ignores that employers already provide women with access to tampons and pads by paying them a wage.
The fact that it’s up to female employees to go through with purchasing the hygiene products, put them in their bag, and bring them to work, doesn’t make them less accessible to women than any other necessity.
We wouldn’t expect employers to provide their employees with food, toothpaste or shampoo, even though those are all generally acknowledged as necessities. Employers assume their employees will purchase those goods with the wages they’re paid.
The hyperbolic rhetoric around periods doesn’t help the stigma; it often reinforces it.
Declaring that the government is “fining women for having ovaries” or “period-shaming women” by not providing personal hygiene products free of charge doesn’t normalize periods. It exaggerates and dramatizes them.
More regulation on employers won’t help those who actually have restricted access to feminine hygiene products. If anything, this legislation would infantilize female employees, suggesting they don’t have the agency to purchase these products themselves. Perhaps more destructive, it creates a disincentive for employers, discouraging them from hiring female employees.
— Brooke A. Rogers is a contributor to Heat Street.
