Period.

“So, the average period is between 10-35 mL of blood, each tampon holds about 5 mL, so 7 tampons per cycle. Let’s be generous and say 10 for those ladies with an extra juicy uterine lining. 9 periods per year = 90 tampons max. You can get a 64 pack on Amazon for $7.90 plus shipping. Buy two packs, save on the shipping and have 128 tampons for the year, that’s about $20 here or their (sic) for a years periods. Cut down on your starbucks venti frapps and stop whining.”

What?

Some idiot really posted this on Facebook.

Sir, we need to talk about periods. I don’t know what rock you crawled out from under, but this is 2019. Women are not hidden in menstrual huts in the U.S. (however, they still are in other countries. Bastards). If you’ve had a mother, sister, girlfriend, or have seen a woman in person, you have probably heard about a period before. It is time to stop being grossed out by something that happens naturally and start educating yourself so you don’t look like a moron.

Let’s talk about his silly rant for a minute.

Honey, I’ve used 7 super plus tampons since 6 am. It’s now 4:00.   Today, I’ve had to change an average of every 85 minutes (about an hour and a half) to prevent myself from bleeding through. This is changing a pad AND a tampon, because I’m apparently one of those ladies with a ~juicy~ uterine lining. Around noon, 1 super plus tampon lasted me 20 minutes. That’s 12 grams of blood in 20 minutes. And you want me to use 7 of these in a week? This is not typical for all women, so please don’t use me as a measuring stick. I’m just trying to prove a point. Some women, like myself, bleed excessively. Some probably could get through a day using 2-3. The point is that we are all different, and for this d-bag to even begin to start throwing numbers about something he obviously knows nothing about is so detrimental for women everywhere.

Also, how long do you think these suckers last? You should change your tampon every 4-8 hours. Unless you want to get toxic shock syndrome. This is a life-threatening bacterial infection caused by Staphylococcus aureus and Streptococcus pyogenes. These are naturally occurring bacterium inside of our vaginas that can grow super fast when there is dark, wet, and warm environment (your bloody tampon). So say that our periods last 6 days on average, which is 144 hours. Let’s be generous and say we can leave them in for 8 hours. 7 tampons x 8 hours each = 56 hours. What do you want us to do with the remaining 88 hours of our period? Maybe you’re also friends with the guy on Twitter from 2016 that thought that women could hold their period in by clenching our bladder. *Side note: your period doesn’t come from your bladder. Not even the same organ.

It’s kind of common knowledge that the average amount of time a woman has in a cycle is 28 days, so let’s round to 1 month. There are 12 months in a year, first of all, so that equals 12 periods. I go through about 1.5 boxes per period, so that’s $7 a box, so $10.50 for me. $10.50 x 12 = $126. Sure, that doesn’t really sound like an insane amount, but it’s a lot more than your measly $20 estimate. And that isn’t taking into account the pantyliners and pads that you also need to buy, because tampons leak. Well, the one’s you know of might not leak because you can apparently use 1 a day.

So I went to WalMart last night to pick up my necessities for my period. Here is what I have:

• 1 box of Tampax Super Plus: $7.00 (for the 6 days I am really heavy)
• 1 box of Tampax Regular: $3.50 (for the 2 days that I am light. This carries over into my next period, so I cut the price in half.)
• 1 box of Always Flex Foam: $4.00 (because I unfortunately have to wear pads and tampons on days 1-4 if I don’t want to have to buy new underwear every month.
• 1 pack of Always Pantiliners: $1.85 (for days 5-8 when I’m not clotting).
• 1 pack of Always Radiant Overnight Pads: $6.97 (because regular ones don’t work at night).
• 1 pack of Midol for pain relief: $6.69.

This puts me at approximately $30 per period, times 12 periods a year = $360.

To put this into perspective, I could pay half of a month’s mortgage for how much I spend per year on a bodily function that I can’t control.

I could pay for my college textbooks for a semester on how much I spend on my period per year. (Which is also outrageous, but that’s for another day).

I could pay for 3 months of electric bills.

I could pay for 5 trips to the grocery store.

I could pay for 4.5 months cell phone bills.

I could buy 8 40-pound bags of food for both of my pets.

But I’m not done yet!

I’ve had my period since I was 11, so 15 years. $360 x 15 = $5,400 spent on my period in my life so far. Most women stop getting theirs at 55, so I’ll have my period for approximately 44 years. $360 x 44 = $15,840. It also costs approximately $125 for a yearly exam, so if I didn’t have insurance, I would be paying $4,500 in gynecological bills from age 19 (first visit) to age 55. So in my life, I will spend approximately $20,000 just for owning a vagina.

This is before tax.

I’m fortunate to live in a state where menstrual products are NOT taxed. There are 7 states in the U.S. that do not tax menstrual products (omitting the states that do not have sales tax at all). But if I did live in a state that had sales tax on menstrual products, I would be paying approximately $950 in sales tax on menstrual products in my life.

Here’s the kicker: Viagra is not taxed in ANY state except for Illinois.

Do with that information what you will.

Starbucks venti frappuccinos are not the problem here, people. The problem is that our government are charging us sales tax on our period products that are considered luxury items. Spending $360 a year to bleed for 96 days is not a luxury. Pink tax is a problem that can no longer be ignored. I’m sick of the inequality. Period.