Why are condoms free, but not period products? It’s time for EC to offer free menstruation products on campus.

Editorial Board

What does it say about Elmhurst College’s priorities when condoms and lube are free but menstruation products are not?

Here is a hint: it says that despite periods being an essential, non-optional biological function, EC simply does not value students who menstruate enough to support them. 

The Leader investigated every all gender and female designated bathroom on campus, and while some have a dispenser that cost a dime for a tampon, others had none at all. When dispensers are available, the product is low quality, sometimes unavailable, and largely inaccessible because no one carries around loose coins any more. 

EC has an obligation to all of its students, and while sexual health is important, and free condoms are a good thing, this blatant disparity reveals that EC is providing for some students more than others. Sex is a choice, but bleeding every month is not. 

This is blatant gender discrimination, and we have not even mentioned the other groups who may menstruate like trans men.

EC must supply high quality and easily available period hygiene products in all gender and female designated bathrooms for free.

EC would not be the first school to do this, and—in fact—this is not a new concept in the state of Illinois. As of January 1, 2018, all Illinois high schools were required to provide free tampons and sanitary pads to all female students in bathrooms.

Periods are expensive. You have to take into consideration how much you bleed, whether or not your period flows regularly, and—depending on how severe your menstruation cycle is—you have to factor in the cost of medication and time off as well. 

We have not even talked about the period tax yet where period products are taxed more than regular toiletry products, or even sex products like viagra which is not taxed at all. Illinois has just eliminated this tax, but the expense of periods still takes a toll.

In Pennsylvania, another state that has recently dropped the period tax, students have similar experiences. 

Melanie Peron, a French professor at the University of Pennsylvania, told The Daily Pennsylvanian that one of her female students said “that money is so tight that she must sometimes choose between eating breakfast or buying tampons.” 

The dispensers on campus cost money and can only be paid for with coins. They provide a low quality version of a product that not everyone is comfortable using. 

For 10 cents, all you will get is a spider crawling out of the end of the dispenser where your sh*tty cardboard tampon should be. 

The only other place on campus where students can buy period products is The Roost, which only carries marked-up versions of name brand products. 

Hygiene at a campus like EC should not be a privilege or a luxury, so why is it that the school makes arguably no effort to provide this service? 

In some areas of campus, such as the girls bathroom in the Chapel, someone has kindly placed a box of tampons with a Sharpie message saying, “Take what you need.” 

Why should members of the campus have to take it upon themselves to offer these resources?

There is a cultural taboo around periods. This taboo has had real consequences and puts students in really difficult positions. Periods can cost and even interrupt students’ educations. 

It is time EC moves past this juvenile attitude towards periods. 

It is simple, and it is necessary. 

Hygiene is not an option. 

Provide all students with readily available, high quality menstruation hygiene products for free.