What if it were toilet paper?
Was the decision to remove the menstruation product machines economical or sexist? According to student records, menstruation directly affects over half of the Evergreen campus and indirectly affects all of the Evergreen community. Oh, and the whole world. So why are we down from 35 machines to six?
According to the Cooper Point Journal, “a sizable increase in damage to on-campus feminine product dispensers has prompted the college’s decision to remove most of the machines. According to an email sent Feb. 22 to the campus community from Director of Facilities Services Paul Smith, 20 dispensers have been damaged or even completely removed from the wall this school year, including two [the weekend before the CPJ published its article]. About five dispensers are damaged in a typical school year.”
We have to search for the cause of the damage before we can assess a solution. The removal has obviously caused uproar from the students. The administration may not understand this uproar – maybe because they are not in direct communication with the students, faculty, and staff for whom they make decisions. We have not been asked about this decision, despite the fact that it directly affects us. Why?
Maybe this has something to do with our bodies. Menstruation is an unavoidable occurrence, a part of the daily lives of people who have vaginas. But menstruation has been marketed and capitalized on. The market has designed glorified cotton balls for around $7 a pop. The market has created chemical pills for us to swallow down in order to control our flows. These products are expensive and unsustainable, and many people do not know of alternatives.
After the “vandalism” of the tampon machines, my roommate came home and proclaimed “the tampon machine has been liberated! It was amazing!” For some people, the “vandalism” was actually empowering. It meant that the products marketed for menstruation that are usually expensive and inaccessible had been let free.
Paul Smith, of course, did not see this act as empowering, but as money down the drain. But don’t we “pour money down the drain” when we buy and fix these machines? What if we used that money to just buy more products? Some Evergreen students decided to try just that.
In order to see what would happen if the college decided to provide menstruation products for free rather than in dispensing machines, a group of Evergreen students decided to do a little experiment. If the school were to provide free products, would people just take all of them and leave none for others? Would people with extra products maybe leave a few of their own behind? Would there be enough for everyone? What would it look like and how much would it cost?
Twice a day, ten pads and ten tampons were placed in the Women’s restroom, five tampons and five pads in the gender neutral restroom, and 5 pads and 5 tampons in the men’s restroom. Along with the products wasa note with an explanation about what was happening and a stack of zines about menstruation and what is going on at Evergreen. The products were donated by the Women’s Resource Center and the Evergreen Queer Alliance.
The different restrooms showed different results. The women’s restroom often had a few products left when checked on, on different days there were various amounts left. It was similar in the gender neutral bathrooms. Notes and e-mails of appreciation were received saying thank you. The men’s bathroom had quite a different outcome. Often, participants of the experiment found the men’s baskets in the women’s bathroom, or in the trash, or they had all been taken. Although the products had a message that explained that bodies menstruate, not sexes, and that male-identified people use these products as well, somehow some people didn’t understand. At one point there was a dialogue being written in the bathroom. One of the messages read “This is the men’s bathroom.” The choice to put menstruation products in the men’s bathroom encouraged trans awareness on campus. Some people who use men’s bathrooms did, indeed, use the products that were left there as they were intended to be used.
How much money was used on the trial week and how much money it would cost to stock Evergreen’s bathrooms with free products is still being figured out. How much would be needed and how often they would need to be stocked are some of the topics being discussed.
Regardless of the costs, an important question for facilities and the community to ask itself is this: What if it were toilet paper? What if it were something that Paul Smith relied on? Would the toilet paper be removed if it were being stolen? The college provides free condoms, lubricant, salt packets, pain-killers, popcorn, tea, cookies, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Why is it so difficult to provide menstruation products?
According to Paul Smith, “The purpose behind these dispensers was to provide a service should you forget, start early, have a heavy flow, etc. They were not intended to be the sole source for this product for the women on campus.”
We can be responsible people that take care of each other. We can learn to understand our bodies and take the shame of bleeding away; it does not have to be a secret anymore. We can educate ourselves about alternative methods of menstruation: products that do not only benefit our wallets but also our forests, such as moon pads, sponges, and diva cups.
Although the decision of the product machine removal was made without anticipation of resistance, this issue is far from over. The removal has given people a chance to talk about menstruation and discuss the future of free products for all basic human needs. We need to find ways to create decision-making processes that value the voices of the people for whom decisions are made.
To put it simply, the decisions that Paul Smith has made do not affect Paul Smith. Would it be so crazy for people who menstruate to be able to make decisions about their own bodies?