Menstruation: it’s an uncomfortable, messy and expensive time of the month for women.
Periods are an inevitable part of a woman’s life.
For the majority of women, they come every 28 days, and every 28 days they must shell out six or seven dollars plus tax to control them.
Since other medical products like treatments for yeast infections or erectile dysfunction are exempt from sales tax, feminine hygiene products should be exempt as well.
According to NPR, sales tax can “add an upwards of 66 cents per box” of tampons or pads, depending on the state where they are sold.
The Food and Drug Administration even considers tampons and pads to be medical appliances.
So why, then, should women be expected to pay an added sum for their tampons?
According to many opponents of the tax elimination, feminine hygiene products are an unnecessary extravagance.
You know, because women buy tampons just to treat themselves.
These products are just as necessary for women as Viagra is for some men — except that a much larger amount of women are afflicted with a menstrual cycle than men are with erectile dysfunction.
Without these products, women would be subjected to more discomfort than they already are.
In addition, they may have to spend even more money to replace undergarments or clothing items that are ruined in the fray of a period.
NPR reports that ten states in total have removed sales tax from tampons, pads and liners.
Five of these states do not tax them just because they do not have sales tax on anything.
Representative Melissa Sargent from Wisconsin seeks to make her state the 11th.
However, she is being faced with a lot of push back from legislators who favor the ideology that the products are luxuries.
The obstruction of her bill, which would remove sales tax for feminine hygiene products, likely stems from deep-rooted menstrual shame and gender inequality.
People, let alone lawmakers, don’t want to talk about periods.
They’re gross, right?
Passing a bill would require them to have a deeper discussion about a lady bleeding.
Women don’t even want to talk about their periods. If we continue to treat tampons and pads as unnecessary by not taxing them it makes periods seem much less natural and more shameful.
No other sales tax directly targets a gender like this one.
These are products only women need therefore only women are affected.
Legislators need to realize feminine hygiene products are just as necessary as other medical supplies that go untaxed.
meickhof@indiana.edu
@maggie_eickhoff
