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00:00I just started my period and I don't have a tampon.
00:03I know all of us have been in this situation, but today it's got me wondering, is access
00:10to menstrual hygiene a social justice issue?
00:17Let's find out.
00:19If you're some kind of coupon clipping champion, you might get away with only spending $70 per
00:25year on tampons and pads.
00:27But the average uterus is doing its thing from age 13 to age 51.
00:33And that's about 456 periods over the course of 38 years.
00:38So even if you're only buying the cheapest tampons, and you're probably not, that's
00:42still about $3,000 over the course of your lifetime to absorb blood.
00:48Maybe that doesn't sound expensive, but the fact that these products aren't freely available
00:52in public like toilet paper is an inconvenience.
00:56It's just to me, to you, to a lot of people.
01:09This is Chelsea.
01:10She helps people who have a really hard time getting a hold of a tampon.
01:15About two years ago, she saw something that she couldn't ignore.
01:18I was driving one day, and I stopped at a red light, and I saw this homeless woman at the
01:24corner, and she started crossing the street, and I noticed that her bottoms were stained
01:28in blood.
01:30She was so exposed.
01:32I mean, it was broad daylight.
01:33I just started looking around even more like, is anybody else seeing this shit?
01:38If we don't have these products, our health can be in jeopardy.
01:42STDs, STIs, urinary tract infections, toxic shock syndrome.
01:47But menstruation is necessary for humanity, period.
01:53People think like, oh, it's just the five to seven days that are important.
01:56No, it's every freaking day.
01:58It's a health issue.
01:59She was angry, and she got curious.
02:01If you are homeless, where do you go when you have your period?
02:06She called every homeless shelter in Los Angeles until she finally got through to someone.
02:11She answered, we don't really have something directly for that specific moment or need.
02:22Since then, she's been in touch with a number of shelters,
02:25and she agreed to come with me to Midnight Mission in Skid Row.
02:28This is a men's recovery school.
02:31These are our dorms.
02:32Lady on deck! Lady on deck!
02:34Are we dressed?
02:35Say hi!
02:36Hi!
02:37Woo!
02:38Hey!
02:39That's right.
02:39We have an excellent gym and a workout room so they can start working on their physical...
02:44When these shelters were founded in the early 20th century, homelessness was a man's problem.
02:49But now, among the 47,000 people living homeless in LA County, about one-third are women.
02:56Here we go!
02:57This is the lovely women!
02:59They have to come see you guys.
03:00Hi, ladies!
03:01Shelters like Midnight Mission are racing to meet women's needs,
03:04but public understanding of homelessness hasn't kept pace.
03:08When people donate to these shelters,
03:10they normally think about men cleaning up for job interviews.
03:14I love that they have a library.
03:16They don't really think about women managing their periods.
03:20It's okay.
03:20There's some of my tattoos showing.
03:24It's okay.
03:25It's okay.
03:26What's your tattoo of?
03:27Oh my gosh.
03:28Well, I got it when I was incarcerated.
03:30This is Rita Richardson.
03:32She's a program manager at Midnight Mission.
03:33Where do your sanitary napkins, tampons, like, where does that come from?
03:38Well, that's a good question.
03:39A lot of it's donated, and then we have somebody through Gift and Kind that does
03:44seek out different sources to help with the keep of the overall functioning and to keep that going.
03:50Because that can become very expensive, as you know, you know what I mean?
03:54So it does help when people love to, you know, a wish list per se or something.
03:58So basically, they rely on donations.
04:01This is Janice Johnson.
04:02She lives in a tent on Skid Row, and she stops by Midnight Mission occasionally.
04:06What has it been like for you when you get your period?
04:10What do you do?
04:11Um, well, if the store is closed, I will have to, you know, go to the restaurant,
04:19get some tissue, roll it up, make a pad or line it out of that.
04:23You got to be secure, Baba.
04:25You know, if you don't have the real thing, you got to make your own.
04:29That's right on there.
04:31This is Barbara.
04:32She's been in the shelter for six months after being homeless for 20 years.
04:36She wants to become a drug counselor.
04:38A lot of the missions will pass that out to you.
04:40If you don't have it, if you don't have it.
04:43But if they don't have it and you don't have it, you have to hustle for it.
04:48Shelters like Midnight Mission do what they can for periods,
04:51but their supplies can be hit or miss.
04:53And only about 25% of the homeless population in LA County is in the shelter system anyway.
05:00That leaves a lot of people underserved and underwicked.
05:04Chelsea wanted to fill the gaps in the shelter system, so she decided to do something.
05:22She started happy periods simply by calling her friends and asking them to donate tampons,
05:27pads, panty liners, soap, underwear, pack them up and deliver them to people on the street.
05:33It was that simple.
05:35So we know that tampons and pads and all of that stuff is important to our health,
05:40and sometimes expensive and hard to come by.
05:42But did you know that on top of all of that, these items are taxed?
05:46Yep.
05:47They call it the tampon tax.
05:52But before you get all up in arms and take to Twitter, you have to understand that the tampon tax
05:58isn't a tax just on tampons. And it doesn't specifically target feminine hygiene products
06:04at all. It's just sales tax. You're like, who cares? Lots of stuff has sales tax.
06:12But state by state, a bunch of items are exempt from this tax. Stuff that's considered necessities.
06:20But do you know what that includes?
06:28In California, where I am now, Assemblywoman Christina Garcia co-authored a bill that she's
06:33trying to push through state legislature to exempt feminine hygiene products from sales tax.
06:39She'd tried this before in 2016, and it was unanimously approved, until it got to the desk
06:45of Governor Jerry Brown, where he vetoed it. He called it a tax break. And an estate strapped for
06:51cash? That just wasn't going to fly. What a buzzkill, right? If menstrual hygiene products can't be
06:56exempt from sales tax, then how did all of those other things become exempt in the first place?
07:02I thought it would help to consult an expert in economics. I was wrong.
07:07My name is Christopher Thornburg. I'm founding partner of Beacon Economics. I'm also the director
07:12of the Center for Economic Forecasting at the Business School at UC Riverside.
07:16Well, I'm curious about how all of those exemptions get determined, because I've, I mean,
07:22I've thumbed through the exemptions in California. Where do those come from?
07:27Well, obviously, it's based on political decisions, correct? I mean, it's a game that gets played.
07:33Uh, every sector likes to pretend that somehow or other it provides a product or service that is,
07:39uh, at some sort of morally higher level than other products and services.
07:45So many interests are benefiting from, like, the politicization of these tax exemptions. Why can't
07:52menstruating women also benefit? But that's not an argument to the positive. That's an argument for why all
08:00these other exemptions should go away. These exemptions, in general, are not logical. The
08:05point here is exemptions are wrong. The reason you're here is to discuss logical arguments,
08:10not emotional arguments. The problem is, is I'm painting you into a logical corner and you're frustrated.
08:15I, no, I, and let, let me go to the next step, because you're not, you're not even allowing me
08:20to fully
08:20construct my argument, okay? Because, let's go back to the argument, because the argument you're trying to
08:25make is that menstruation is a female issue. By and large, yes. Okay. If you're wondering what my face
08:35looked like during this interview, it was kind of like this. I'm sorry, if you're focusing your efforts
08:43on this tiny little thing, you're wasting your time, because we have big issues in the world around us,
08:49real issues, things that we should talk about. And that's what your people need to hear. Fine. Women
08:56don't deserve these tax exemptions because no one deserves these tax exemptions. Feminine hygiene
09:02products shouldn't be exempt from sales tax because nothing should be exempt from sales tax. We have a
09:07lot of problems out there. But I wasn't mad at this guy. I was mad that among all of the
09:13things worthy of
09:14sales tax exemptions, it was like nobody could admit that tampons might be one of them. And the message
09:20that this sends to women is, we need you to deal with your problem. So stuff some toilet paper in
09:28your coochie and shut up. It doesn't change what's happening on the ground.
09:35Do you think people ever think about a woman who's homeless and has her period? Do they ever,
09:40ever consider the fact that you still might have your period? I don't think they even give a damn.
09:45How did you deal, in between penalizing and prostitution, how did you deal with your period?
09:51And I'm talking about like... I had to get, um, make tampons out of toilet paper,
09:59um, a clean sock, um, and a lot of times I resorted to, um, stealing.
10:10So, I'm going to take another one.
10:21Hi, do you need any feminine products?
10:22Of course. Thank you so much.
10:23Do you need feminine products?
10:30Feminine products like pads, tampons, wipes. You could grab one of these too. It's the same stuff.
10:35It's like wipes. You're welcome.
10:37After someone suggests that you might be wasting your time on an issue,
10:40I think you're obliged to seek out a second opinion.
10:45I'm about to call Jennifer Weiswolf, the woman who's credited as, like,
10:50making the tampon tax an issue worth talking about.
10:56Hello?
10:57Hey, Jen, how's it going?
10:58Good, good.
10:59By day, Jennifer Weiswolf works at New York University's Brennan Center for Justice.
11:04But by night, and on weekends, and in basically any spare moment she has,
11:09she's an advocate for what she calls menstrual equity.
11:12Menstrual equity means, to me, if their body menstruates, they need access to these products.
11:18They are not able to participate equitably and equally if they can't access these products.
11:24Jen was one of the first people to make a big fuss about the tampon tax in the U.S.
11:27The tampon tax isn't really the solution or the relief.
11:31What's great about it is it's got people talking about it.
11:34But here's the thing.
11:35We do have a system right now that allows for exemption.
11:38And like I said before, nobody ever raised the question of menstrual products.
11:44That's why it was never included in the exemptions that were offered.
11:48Wait, did y'all hear that?
11:50The existence of the so-called tampon tax has less to do with the necessity of these items
11:55and more to do with who has a seat at the table and who does not.
12:00Would you consider access to menstrual hygiene a social justice issue?
12:05Yeah, I consider access to menstrual hygiene both a social justice issue and a human rights issue.
12:11Mm, why?
12:12It could actually be a real crisis and it's not just a crisis of dignity,
12:17although that should be enough for any of us to be concerned, but it's a crisis in health.
12:21Here's the rub.
12:23Whether or not there should be sales tax exemptions, there are.
12:27Menstrual products are left out of that simply because when a group of people met up to decide
12:31what was worthy, no one raised their hand for tampons.
12:34And this sends a message about how we as a society see menstruation and whose problem we think it is.
12:42Clearly it's not this guy's problem.
12:48But I mean, unfortunately, we still have the tampon tax, but she's a rookie bike rider, I can tell.
12:57Sorry.
12:57We're in Venice, about an hour drive from Skid Row, depending on traffic.
13:07Handing out tampons works a little differently here.
13:09Well, it's Saturday, so there are some individuals who just look homeless, but they're not,
13:13so we've got to be a little careful.
13:15Hi, how are you doing?
13:18I want to ask, do you need any pads or tampons?
13:21No, but thank you.
13:22Okay.
13:23As I watch Chelsea hand out tampons, tampons that she and her friends bought,
13:28sales tax and all, I wonder who else is going to step up.
13:32Who else is going to acknowledge that periods are not just a women's issue?
13:37Yeah.
13:38Hi.
13:39Oh yeah, sure, sure.
13:40I'm living on third street for the first time due to a heartbreak.
13:44Are you on third street?
13:45Yep.
13:46In Venice?
13:46Yep.
13:47Oh, we're on third street.
13:48Do you want all of these?
13:50You're free to take them?
13:51Yeah, sure.
13:52Do you want some tampons?
13:53Oh wait, let's see.
13:55I'll just open this box.
13:56Tampons would be better.
13:57I mean, either one, either one.
14:00My aunt told me when I was like 13, she's like,
14:03don't use tampons because you're going to pop the chair.
14:05You're not going to be a virgin anymore.
14:06I'm like, okay.
14:07That's funny.
14:08When we go out and we're passing out kits, you know, overall, it makes me happy.
14:13However, I know that I'm privileged and I'm not here to judge.
14:18I'm not here to bother.
14:19I'm just here to help.
14:23Look at that.
14:24I didn't even know.
14:25Where's Jackie?
14:27Oh, my shadow.
14:31All over the country, this is an issue that's hiding in plain sight.
14:34It's important to understand that fixing access to menstrual hygiene,
14:38if that's even possible, is not just about handing out supplies on the street,
14:43and it's not just about changing tax policy or electing diverse public officials.
14:49It's a combination of everything in between, starting with a radical acknowledgement that
14:54menstruation isn't just a women's issue. It's a public health issue.
14:59You don't have to be a woman to care.
15:03Thanks.
15:04And every single one of you came out of a uterus. Don't pretend.