Key Drivers of Menstrual Inequity
Menstrual inequity does not exist in a vacuum. It is held in place by several key drivers that overlap and reinforce one another. The cost of products strains already tight budgets. Racial and geographic inequities decide which schools, shelters, and neighborhoods stay stocked. Policies still treat pads and tampons as luxuries instead of essentials. A long history of treating women’s bodies, and the bodies of others who menstruate, as an afterthought in public life keeps these gaps in place.
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When you look at periods through these lenses of money, race, law, and power, it becomes clear that this is not just about products. It is about who is allowed to have their basic needs taken seriously.
Aria Gao
When a box of pads has to compete with groceries, rent, or bus fare, a period stops being a private inconvenience and becomes another burden on an already stretched budget. As long as managing your cycle requires disposable income, menstruation is effectively paywalled.
Period poverty follows the same fault lines as racial inequality: the schools, clinics, and shelters that underserve Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities are the same places where pads run out first. Who bleeds without supplies in America is not random; it tracks with whose neighborhoods have been underfunded for generations.
Menstrual inequity is written into law every time pads are taxed as “luxuries,” left out of school budgets, or omitted from prison and shelter standards. Whether someone can manage their period with dignity often depends less on their body and more on the policies passed in rooms they will never enter.
The issue has dragged on for decades not because it is impossible to fix. It has persisted because it happens to women and others who menstruate. In systems, cultures, and social circles where their needs are taken less seriously, menstrual care is treated as optional instead of recognized as a basic requirement for everyday life.