Give them mooncups...

...says my wife. Far cheaper, safer and better for the environment.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-47553449

Oh, I don't doubt that some people can't afford them. But why give them the most expensive and least eco-friendly option....(Because they are too lazy to learn and don't want to clean a bit of their own blood up)

Give a Somalian girl a tampon and she can stop bleeding for a day (albeit with a high risk of TSS). 

 

Give a Somalian girl a Mooncup and you can conceal evidence of FGM for a lifetime.

One in ten female teenagers have at some point been unable to afford sanitary products.

On in seven female teenagers have had to borrow tampons or suchlike from a friend because they couldn’t afford to buy their own at the time.

When you throw into the mix the occasional need to purchase replacement underwear as well as medicine such as painkillers, it is no wonder that women on low incomes and teenagers sometimes struggle.  It is a real thing.

Oh ok thanks wibs, glad you cleared that up for me.

Would you mind contacting Plan International UK and let them know that the findings of their independent study in 2017 is bollocks?

I try to use reuseable sanitary products for environmental reasons, but it's not always possible.

If I am using a mooncup on a work day, for example, I need to find a disabled toilet with a hand basin in the cubicle so I can rinse the mooncup after I have emptied it and then put it back in again without exposing my colleagues to the sight of my menstrual blood. I'm in my 30s and not at all squeamish, so I can't imagine many teenage girls would be happy to be seen washing out their menstrual cups in front of their classmates in the school toilets.

If the point of providing free sanitary products is to give these girls and women back some dignity, I think that should include allowing them to choose the sanitary products most appropriate to their body, age, flow and personal circumstances.

1 in 10 worldwide - might be true. 

1 in 10 in the UK is a lie. 

hth. 

 

PS - I think having them free in schools is a good idea. Lets not pretend there is a terrible need due to poverty though. 

This is what I mean - this is utter bollocks. Sorry but it is. 

Why do you think it is bollocks?

Some girls come from families where the household budget is so stretched that they don't get enough to eat. If your parents can't afford to feed you appropriately, they can't afford to buy sanitary products either.

Some girls live in families where parents are simply neglectful, or don't consider that buying sanitary products for their teenage daughters is their responsibility. It's hard to earn your own money if you are 14 and your parents don't give you anything.

There are loads of reasons why a teenage girl might find it difficult to afford the products she needs.

So is this why so many chav girls get knocked up - because they can't afford tampons and it stops the flow, rather than to produce an income bearing entity which they can then neglect?

Interestingly, one thing these girls could do is go on the pill (which is free) to stop their periods altogether. But I'm not sure I'd recommend filling your body with synthetic hormones if you are not actually having sex.

Hools they were free at the point of access but of course they weren't f*cking ultimately free in the same way that the ones provided to state schools will be paid for by taxpayers.  I didn't think I actually needed to explain that stuff provided to pupils by private schools is ultimately paid for by the parents as that's kind of obvious isn't it?

I used to get proper bollocked by my parents at the end of every term because I had/have a stationary obsession and we could buy whatever we wanted and it’d be put on the bill.

I read that as: - 

 

I used to get proper bollocked by my parents at the end of every term because I had/have a sanitary obsession and we could buy whatever we wanted and it’d be put on the bill.

Perhaps if a few more went on the pill instead, Anna, there'd be a lot less girls who can't afford sanitary towels in a few years time.  Christ, did Larkin ever have it right:  man hands down misery to man. 

If you cannot understand your own breezy pointless arrogance in saying 

 

"At my mixed boarding prep school such things were simply available from matron."

then you're beyond help on the matter sailaw 

Perhaps if a few more went on the pill instead, Anna, there'd be a lot less girls who can't afford sanitary towels in a few years time. 

Yes. Because as always it's entirely the woman's fault for getting upduffed. No involvement from any other person in that debacle!

Perhaps if a few more went on the pill instead, Anna, there'd be a lot less girls who can't afford sanitary towels in a few years time.

Putting to one side the fact that all contraception has a small failure rate, girls/women aren't having babies because they don't want to go on the pill. They're not going on the pill because they want to have babies.

Having them very young and having more than you can afford to support might be a poor choice in most people's eyes, but it is still a choice. The women you are talking about don't need to learn where babies come from and how contraception works. They need to be taught that there is more to life than having babies and that their lives might be better and more financially secure if they wait a bit and don't have so many (even if they are not persuaded that there is a moral implication to having more children than you can afford and leaving the taxpayer/environment to pick up the bill).

Period poverty in the UK is a fabrication for politicians to try to make a name for themselves. Even they know it's made up.

Period poverty in countries where women have to go to literal huts obviously is a thing. 

Annoys me when Danielle roundfacely tries to conflate the two.

I was simply agreeing that it is sensible for such things to be handed out at school and that in some cases that has been done for over 30 years.

Isn't that more because rich kids who are shut up in a boarding school in some country mansion out in the sticks can't just pop out to Boots no matter how loaded they are?

I'm pretty sure if you have to go to a food bank for food you're probably also struggling to pay for other essentials like sanitary towels

the causes of that situation may be socially complex but it doesn't remove the situation that many people struggle to pay for basics on a day to day basis 

That’s why when I do my food bank shop I always put in a few non food items like toothpaste, cleaning products, tampons etc. 

There is a charity which specifically raises money to provide sanitary products to food banks.  To say period poverty doesn’t exist is astonishing.

The fact that bodyform donate 200,000 packs of sanitary products every year to In Kind Direct who distribute them to those in need demonstrates that the industry itself recognised that it is a real thing.

Anna there's an element of that but also nothing to stop parents sending girls back with a stockpile.  I used to start each half of term with a load of extra provisions.

This thread is so grim.  Anna, if u want the day off just say to us you have "women's issues" and we will say "ok" whilst pittering away in an embarassed manner.

You realise the next step from the mcup (I went to spell the whole two words but this put me appositely in mind of the single from Hanson) is sheepgut c9ndoms

Anna there's an element of that but also nothing to stop parents sending girls back with a stockpile.  I used to start each half of term with a load of extra provisions.

*bangs head on desk*

Guys, leave Saillaw alone.  He is physically incapable of commenting on ANY thread without making it about himself.  Even a thread about mooncups.  He can't help it.

Anybody who doesn’t believe in period poverty has never clearly had to count whatever change they can find in the sofa to see if they can afford milk for the rest of the week. 

There are thousands of people who live in relative poverty. Sanitary products aren’t high on the list of necessity’s when you don’t have enough to eat. 

Period poverty exists. 

Mooncups don’t necessarily solve this issue as they require access to certain facilities in order to maintain hygiene. 

If you are poor you often won’t have access to clean private bathrooms with a wash sink in them. 

If you have to rely on public facilities you are going to be shit out of luck a lot of the time. 

Leaves. Rags. Being told to stay away from the main group for several days because of various hokum ideas about what a period actually is. 

 

Btw this ^ still happens in countries around the world. A girl died of carbon monoxide poisoning when she was trying to stay warm in a hut used to keep menstruating women separate in case they cause plants to die and milk to turn sour. 

 

So fook off all you men who so easily dismiss the hardships of others just because you cannot comprehend beyond your own cosseted life experiences. 

As a male, we men should not purport to be the experts on this topic.

Incidentally, sanitary products should be free to all those women and girls who cannot afford it, especially where there is a stark choice between eating, heating or needing these products.

If the UK had a Scandi-style social and economic system, these issues wouldn't be discussed, at least on issues of affordability.

As someone who is not living in period poverty or in a part of the world where women are segregated and shamed for having periods, despite the inconvenience of it all I see periods as a powerful reminder of how amazing women's bodies actually are. Periods need better PR. And more understanding to combat these backwards attitudes, as well as more investment to prevent period poverty and allow proper medical research to help treat women suffering from unusually painful or irregular cycles.

Torn rags stuffed in their underwear Bernstein.. and they wouldn't leave the house.

This then requires access to laundry facilities and is the origin of the saying ... 'being on the rag'.

 

 

"Torn rags stuffed in their underwear" would be a great opening line to a song.

You could set it to that song by Train:

Torn rags stuffed in their underwear

Drops of Jupiter in their hair

hey yeaaaah yeah...

Anna I was clearly talking about a school where parents can afford hundreds a term in fees so can definitely afford to stockpile stuff for their daughters to use at school.  

Very sensible post I thought

Raises the issue whether all sink comprehensives should have matrons

Might have helped combat some of these grooming gangs which Labour politicians ignored  

Well schools should certainly have trained medical staff onsite.  Sadly at secondary school our matrons had no medical training which was a little startling.

Anna I was clearly talking about a school where parents can afford hundreds a term in fees so can definitely afford to stockpile stuff for their daughters to use at school.  

So literally the opposite of the people living in period poverty then.

Yes but I assumed you'd be able to work that out logically given the scenario I was talking about.

I shall in future lengthen my posts explaining all logical deductions that might otherwise be expected to be made and any assumptions and giving full background detail.  Sadly it will totally kill some of my attempts at humour having to explain that they are attempts at humour and why they might be amusing.  Perhaps I should introduce each one with a preamble and then some boilerplate assumptions and definitions, etc...

Last time I checked it was a free discussion board where people can say what they like within reason and you're welcome to just ignore it if you think it's irrelevant so feel free to ignore me Hools.

Wibble not always the case.  I went to one school where the matrons were all former nurses and one where the house ones had no training the but central sick room was staffed by qualified nurses.

I shall in future lengthen my posts explaining all logical deductions that might otherwise be expected to be made and any assumptions and giving full background detail. 

Or perhaps you could refrain from making irrelevant and unhelpful contributions to discussions about periods (when you don't have a uterus) and poverty (which you appear to understand even less about than having a uterus).

As I explained above I was trying to agree that such things should indeed be made available free in schools but apologies for not making that suitably clear.  In future I'll just ignore your threads even when I'm inclined to agree with you and try and support you.

Surely you can understand that the way you tried to do that, by comparing it to girls simply "getting such things from matron" in your expensive private school where "such things" would be billed to their parents at the end of term anyway, was completely tone deaf?

Sorry I assumed you'd infer that I was suggesting that they should be given out for free in a similar manner with the tab being picked up by taxpayers rather than parents.  Admittedly the analogy between women who can't physically buy such things and those who can't afford them may not be obvious.

Another great first song line in the title

give them mooncups

for the secret smile

give them laughter

all the while...

I can see Morecombe carrying this off but Wise looking a little uncomfortable.  The 2Ronz would nail it.

So are we all done here then.

Mooncups - Awkward for younger girls, but if desperate, they are cheaper and more environmentally friendly than any of the disposable types of sanitary products.

 

The PIll - Effective at regulating periods, slowing periods or even stopping them. More environmentally friendly? Not sure about that. Cheaper? No.

 

Free sanitary products - Not environmentally friendly and a cause of TSS. 

FFS everyone, stop dithering. The products should be free for the reasons I previously stated. The socio-economic changes advocated will take longer (or maybe not). Hopefully, many of my fellow males on this chain of comments are not on any diversity committees. If they make rag jokes, one presumes they're not too hot on LGBTQ rights or racial diversity either. The legal professions have a long way to go yet...

Would like to point out that at no time have I tried to suggest what anyone should or shouldn’t use, all I did was provide facts proving that period poverty is a real thing.

Ta.

I am so glad that Warlord has told us all we need to know. As a woman who has been having periods for....ooh about twenty years, it's so inspiring to be talked through all this by a man who knows best. Aren't we LUCKY.

Heh. 

Same as Teclis, I laid out some facts and summarised the arguments, but at no time did I make any suggestion as to which should be used. 

My wife was a victim of period poverty in her early teens and since her experience working in the community and growing up to learn the various options available, she told me that mooncups should be the default given out for free. 

Oh just fook off all of you with your pretend woke nonsense. Not one of you thinks men can have periods and you just think it's funny to pretend to. It isn't funny. Shut up with it.