Special to the Express
Youth activists from the movement “PERIOD @ 901 Memphis” will host a rally at 2 p.m. Saturday in Overton Park, Memphis. The rallies will mark a single day of organized effort across all 50 states to demand legislators address taxation of menstruation products.
Members of the Menstrual Movement believe that it is a fundamental human right to have access to menstrual hygiene. Currently, 35 states in the US still have a sales tax on period products considering them luxury items, while products for men’s sexual health such as Viagra are considered essential goods.
The average woman will spend an average of $11,000 in her lifetime on tampons, and one in four women struggled to afford period products in the last year because of a lack of income.
The most recent city-based study on period poverty revealed that 46 percent of women had to choose between food and menstrual hygiene products. PERIOD is working to eliminate this.
On National Period Day, PERIOD and its chapters will be rallying to fight for equitable access to menstrual hygiene. They are calling for two major actions:
- For clean and healthy period products to be freely accessible in schools, shelters and prisons, and
- For the elimination of the “tampon tax” (sales tax on menstrual products).
Movement founder Nadya Okamoto has also been a thought leader in the Menstrual Movement, addressing policy in her book “Period Power.” She has worked to ignite all 400+ chapters to use social media, local news and grassroots organization to address the removal of the luxury tax on menstrual goods.
“The work we are doing at PERIOD has never been more important than right now, especially with everything happening in the world around reproductive rights and gender equality,” said Nadya Okamoto, founder and executive director at PERIOD. “In the last four years, PERIOD has addressed over 700,000 periods through our work distributing PERIOD packs and products. Our work and activism this coming year will be critical to addressing our goal of ending period poverty and stigma. We demand change NOW.”
To find other rallies, visit nationalperiodday.com.
