Why are conservatives gripping (tampon) strings to criticize Tim Walz
Within hours of Vice-President Kamala’s announcement that she had selected Minnesota Gov. I can’t have been the only person who had to cram scratchy one-ply toilet tissue into my underwear when an unexpected or ill-timed period occurred at school. As a teenager, my friends would ask me every month if I had any spare pads or tampons. According to Alliance for Period Supplies which is a network of 140 community-based, independent nonprofits that work to end period poverty and 86 percent menstruating women have had their period in public. To learn that Minnesota public school bathrooms are now stocked with supplies to ensure students, teachers and staff have what they need is shocking. It’s not at all shameful. It’s exemplary.
However, conservatives took a cursory look at the law and decided to run with the sensationalized spin that Walz was forcing fourth-grade boys to have tampons in their bathrooms. The language actually allows schools to be flexible and nobody is forced to use any products. When I asked my son about the Tampon Tim name, he assumed it was a positive endorsement from the Harris camp and laughed when I suggested that anyone would use it to mock someone. The outrage and shock over boys as young as 10 coming across a pad or tampon at school is just a smokescreen for transphobia. Because yes, there are likely nonbinary or trans students, staff, and faculty who now really appreciate having access to health-care products they require. The worst-case scenario is that these boys get free toys to enjoy. In our home, menstrual items are not dirty, disgusting, or shameful. They are just needed from time to time. My son laughed when I asked him if he’d heard the Tampon Tim name. He thought that it was a positive endorsement from the Harris camp and didn’t think anyone would use it to mock someone. In a report by Kotex on Period Poverty for 2021, 42 percent of respondents said they had struggled at one point to buy period products because of a lack of income. This is a 35 percent rise from the 2018 data. The report noted that 38 per cent of women who menstruate had to miss school or other activities due to lack of menstrual products. Alliance for Period Supplies reported that 1 in 4 students have difficulty affording these products, up from 1 in 5 last year. Before COVID-19 4 out of 5 teens had missed classes or knew a friend who did because they didn’t have access to period supplies. This is a nationwide problem, and one that Minnesota lawmakers were eager to address.
Minnesota is not alone. Hawaii, California and Colorado are among the states that offer free period products to public schools. New Jersey, New Mexico Ohio, Oregon, New Jersey and Connecticut also do so. Ten other states, including Washington, D.C., mandate that free period products be available in schools, despite the fact that they do not provide funding. Eight other states, which include conservative-leaning states like Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, have no such state mandates, yet still fund schools who want to offer these free products. While online critics are attacking Walz, over 50 percent of the states have taken on this issue. In New York City, after schools were required to provide free period supplies, there was a 2.4 percent increase in attendance.
The bottom line is that menstrual products are a basic need for over half of our population. It is not outrageous to make these products available to those who are in need. Nobody is complaining about the free hand soap and toilet paper that schools provide in their bathrooms. Conservatives may use “Tampon Tim”, but we see it as a way to show that no one should miss their education due to a lack of money.
