How period poverty affects today’s teens

As students spend the final days of summer vacation before starting the new school year, countless parents do their best to get their children ready for class. While rarely on any official school supplies list, menstrual products—from tampons and tampons to moon cups—are back-to-school essentials, but for countless families they’re a financial drain. is still out of reach.

Nearly a quarter of teens say they can’t afford or access menstrual products, a phenomenon known as period poverty, according to a 2023 national study.

“Period poverty is a term used to describe menstruating people who do not have access to sanitary products,” said Geena Dunne, founder and CEO of Cova Project, an organization that has been working to solve the problem of period poverty in Liberia, Ghana, Uganda and other regions. Ravi. “Typically it’s due to financial barriers, but sometimes it’s geographic barriers, social barriers or cultural barriers.”

According to a recent Morning Consult report, only 36% of parents say they will be able to afford their children’s back-to-school supplies by 2022. As the cost of living continues to rise, parents are unable to afford not just laptops, graphing calculators and backpacks, but the basic menstrual products that allow their children to go to school, concentrate and walk down the school hall with dignity.

What to know about period poverty in the United States

Although many consider period poverty to be a problem in strictly low-income countries, an estimated 16.9 million menstruating people in the United States live in poverty, with two-thirds of them saying they cannot afford sanitary products. For example, a 2019 study of low-income people in St. Louis, Missouri, found that 64% had been unable to purchase menstrual products in the previous year.

“Period poverty is not an issue or concern at all in the United States, it’s a common misconception,” Dr. Jhumka Gupta, associate professor in the Department of Global and Community Health at the George Mason University School of Public Health, told Parents. “If anyone has actually experienced this, situation, then people assume this is due to their poor personal choices as well as structural issues such as gender inequality, the high cost and taxation of menstrual products, or a lack of emphasis on menstrual health in terms of legislation and funding.

Twenty-seven states currently require schools to provide free menstrual products to students, according to the Menstrual Products Alliance, a program of the National Diaper Bank Network that works to combat period poverty in the United States. However, only 11 of these states provide the funding necessary to provide these products.

Lawmakers in other states have publicly blocked efforts to make Times products free to students. Recently, Pennsylvania Rep. Stephanie Borowicz spoke out against a bill to fund free menstrual products in public schools, claiming that the bill is “just another step in the governor and Democrats’ efforts to make government provide everything for you, which leads to communism.” ism”.

But as Jennifer Gaines, national engagement manager for the Menstrual Products Alliance, points out, there are many factors that contribute to period poverty. These include “difficulties in accessing affordable menstrual products, socioeconomic disparities, racially driven wage gaps, gender inequality, cultural stigma surrounding menstruation, and policy gaps that fail to prioritize menstrual products as basic necessities.”

The impact of period poverty on teenagers and students

Although rarely discussed, access to menstrual products is critical to menstruating students’ ability to concentrate, learn, and even go to school.

One in four teenagers reportedly said they missed school because they couldn’t access menstrual products. Another 44% of teens said they felt stressed and embarrassed by not being able to access menstrual products, while 49% said they felt “schools don’t care about them” when sanitary products are not readily available for free.

“Period poverty is also linked to poor mental health,” Gupta added. “In my study of U.S. college students, students who experienced period poverty in the year before the survey were more likely than those who did not experience period poverty to report symptoms consistent with depression.”

Another 2023 study found that young women living in period poverty were “more likely” to experience adverse mental health outcomes than those with access to sanitary products. Other risk factors associated with period poverty include a variety of health problems, including infections, sepsis and toxic shock syndrome.

“When a student is unable to attend school because she is worried her clothes will bleed and provide no protection, not only is she at greater risk of missing school or dropping out entirely, but our entire country is disenfranchising all its young people. If A person is able to realize her academic potential, she may achieve and contribute to our society.

“At The Pad Project, we believe that a period should end a sentence, not a sentence [student’s] educate.

How to fight period poverty

Currently, 20 states tax certain period products as “non-essentials,” which increases overall costs and makes them more unaffordable for families living below the federal poverty line. Grassroots organizations like the Menstrual Products Alliance have created a Tampon Tax Toolkit and various templates to help people advocate for menstrual equity in their states—an important step toward making sanitary products available to everyone.

“Elected officials can introduce, support and pass legislation to help end period poverty, make menstrual products free in public schools and buildings, and end the tampon tax,” Gaines said. “Currently, there are no federal programs to provide funding To help low-income or poor people buy menstrual products.”

There are currently two bills in Congress related to period poverty: the Period Equality for All Act and the Period Pride Act. Gaines said urging lawmakers to pass both bills would be an important step toward ending period poverty in the United States.

Combating period stigma by openly learning and talking about menstruation is also an important step towards ending period poverty. According to the report, 78% of teenagers agree that education around menstrual health should be integrated into core school curricula such as math or science, while 92% agree that periods should be viewed as an indicator of health status rather than “dirty” or “Dirty” stuff. “In general.”

“Breaking stigma is the first step in the process,” Dunn explains. “You can’t solve a problem that people refuse to talk about. Menstruation has always been a topic in the bathroom, but it needs to be discussed openly at the dinner table with all family members.

“If period poverty continues to be considered a ‘women’s issue’ then progress will be slow,” she added. “The more openly we talk about it, the faster things will change.”