The Price of Periods: Shortage of Feminine Hygiene Products at Grace
Feminine hygiene products are fundamental to the health and well-being of young and adult women. Yet with tampons and pads retailing for an average price of $10 per box, this monthly expense adds up to a costly fee for simply maintaining proper health. Since all female-bodied people experience the trials and tribulations of the menstrual cycle, it seems like a blatant act of human decency to provide hygiene products in the women’s restroom. However, this seemingly apparent choice proves itself to be not so obvious after all in the Grace community.
“It comes down to an equity issue because female-bodied students and people have the right to have menstrual products provided free of cost,” said Ilana Laurence, Dean of Student life at Grace. As many students have noticed, Grace has consistently failed to supply feminine hygiene products in girls’ bathrooms. Ms. Laurence explained that “The school has every intention of supplying the menstrual products, but the implementation of that has still not been perfected.”
Issues surrounding communication between maintenance and cleaning staff have inhibited the allocation of tampons and pads to dispensers.
Mary H. ‘25 emphasized Ms. Laurence’s critical points as she said, “This is not just a women’s issue; this is a health issue.”
Mary, a leader of the Gender Equity Club, explained her experience with being forced to scour multiple bathrooms in the school before finding one with tampons or pads. She continued, “You shouldn’t have to go to the nurse’s office or all the way to the third-floor girl’s bathroom… You shouldn’t have to search the school to find the products that you need.”
As Mary explained, women should not be expected, nor forced to travel flights of stairs in search of basic necessities. During times of dire need, the stress of searching for hygiene products simply makes this bothersome time of the month that much more stressful.
While one may argue: if a bathroom is out of products, the easy option would be to consult the school nurse. At least one student, who asked to remain anonymous, described feeling uncomfortable going to the nurse or an administrator to ask for feminine hygiene products, as it is a very personal subject.
“The subject of menstruation is extremely stigmatized,” Mary agreed. Talking about these issues with administrators or teachers is “awkward” for many students and “something they would rather avoid doing.”
One student, who asked to remain anonymous, recounted a time last spring when she lost time on a math test because she could not find a tampon or pad. She didn’t feel comfortable asking an administrator for one, “or even telling [her] teacher why [she] had left the classroom because he was male and [she] felt it would be awkward.”
Ms. Laurence continued, “We need to develop a better system because female-bodied people shouldn’t be penalized for the fact that these products aren’t readily available.”
According to Cammy Ollivierre, the Director of Facilities at Grace, distributing tampons and pads into the dispensers and bins in the bathrooms is managed by the cleaning crew, who arrive in the school buildings after school.
In an interview with the Gazette, Mr. Ollivierre recalled that, by the end of September, he realized that many of the tampon and pad dispensers were empty or broken. Mr. Ollivierre reached out to the cleaning crew to ask when they last checked the dispensers and came to understand that the cleaning team had not completed the checks in a while due to many of the notifiers on the machines malfunctioning.
“I have checked the dispensers around the school and I am contacting the supplier to get information on how I can fix them,” he said in last month’s interview.
Currently, the bins in the bathrooms hold small, cardboard tampons that students have referred to as “antiquated” and “useless.” A student who wished to stay anonymous noted that “every girl has a different flow, so how can the same ineffectual tampons work for us all?”
The tampons in the bathroom are thin and do not support heavy menstrual flows. Along with that, students complained that the cardboard applicators are “painful” to insert. Unlike the overall lack of products, this problem cannot be solved by communication; only funding and coordination.
“If we don’t know, then we can’t help,” said Mr. Ollivierre. He encourages students to contact Dana Foote, student and family coordinator admissions associate, or Vicki King, the high school nurse, if they notice a lack of feminine hygiene products in the bathrooms.
The problems surrounding menstruation and feminine hygiene products go beyond their stigma. Access to menstrual supplies can have a serious effect on a student’s education. Without easy access to menstrual supplies, students often miss class or do not participate to the extent they normally would. The less stressed a student is about their health, the more focused they can be on their learning. The bare minimum that a school can do to support menstruating students is to provide conveniently available feminine hygiene products.