Melissa Harris-Perry: It's The Takeaway. I'm Melissa Harris-Perry. In February, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed a bill into law ending the state's 6% sales tax on menstrual products. This could save households in Michigan which she says could be up to $4,800 over the course of a lifetime.

Gretchen Whitmer: I never dreamed number one we'd get it done, number two would take this long to get it done, and number three that I'd be the one who gets to sign this bill into law. I'm really happy about that.

[applause]

Melissa Harris-Perry: Dr. Betsey Stevenson, professor of economics at the University of Michigan spoke at the bill signing about the injustice of taxing people for basic necessities.

Betsey Stevenson: This is the tax where the consumer bears all the burden because there's no choice but to buy menstrual products. Because there's no choice, the people who sell it past that tax straight on to the women who buy it.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Michigan is one of several states that have eliminated this tax in recent years, but over half of US states still tax menstrual products. This conversation about tampons and pads and all things menstruation will extend beyond our wallets. We're talking about equity period, also period equity. For more I spoke with Jennifer Weiss-Wolf, women in democracy fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice and author of--

Jennifer Weiss-Wolf: Periods Gone Public: Taking a Stand for Menstrual Equity and my new book forthcoming in 2024 is Period Full stop: The Politics of Menopause. Period equity or menstrual equity is a phrase and a frame that I developed when I started thinking about policies and menstruation and what it means to exist in our society when we don't talk and think about menstruation.

In a nutshell, menstrual equity means this. In order to have a fully participatory society, we must have laws and policies that acknowledge and consider menstruation. Whether that's the affordability of menstrual products, the accessibility of menstrual products, education about menstruation, how menstruation affects us in society, our ability to be productive and present in school and work, and everywhere we are, we have to be thinking and talking about menstruation.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Let's think and talk about menstruation a bit in part because I think really in a sense, "Are you there God? It's me, Margaret." There's been this sense that thinking and talking about menstruation is something we shouldn't do in polite company.

Jennifer Weiss-Wolf: It's something we're supposed to be either feel ashamed of or quiet about or it's just not talked about in polite society. What happens when something that is so normal and natural for half of the population isn't talked about we also don't talk about the flip side of that, how it can actually be something that keeps people from participating fully or what questions are going unanswered. We're really turning that on its head.

I've been involved in this movement for about seven years now since early 2015. I have to say that since joining forces with policy makers and innovators and activists all around the country and all around the world, I can't even imagine a universe where we don't talk about menstruation all the time and what we're leaving off the table when we leave it out.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Just so that we don't leave this off the table, talk a little bit about when you talk about being able to participate what are the ways that menstruation affects the ability of girls and women to participate?

Jennifer Weiss-Wolf: It's everything from the ability to be present in school. It's really hard to sit in class if you're sitting there bleeding on your chair. Whether that means kids are staying home from school because they don't have access to these products or they have to leave in the middle of the afternoon to figure out a way to get them. Or even if it just means they can't pay attention in class because they're so worried about being made fun of or otherwise embarrassing themselves. It's same for people in the workplace. There are instances of people who've been fired from their jobs for having bled openly in the workplace.

When we talk about people who are incarcerated or experiencing homelessness and are living in public facilities, there are rules and practices that just make it harder for them to exist safely. Through my book, I've interviewed people who were incarcerated in state facilities and federal facilities, I interviewed people who were living on the streets, I interviewed people who were in shelters. It was a new universal experience for them that some aspects of menstruation made them feel less safe, less secure, less dignified, and just less themselves.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Let's just talk first about barriers. What is a tampon tax? Why would it be challenging or difficult for someone to have the products and tools that they need to have a dignified healthy menstrual cycle on a regular basis?

Jennifer Weiss-Wolf: The tampon tax is a good place to start. I should also say that I am a policy advocate, that's the work that I do. I think about public policy and try to imagine and consider policies that address the economics of menstruation and that do their part to ensure that the ability to afford or access menstrual products isn't a barrier for somebody. When it is a barrier, you can imagine as well as I can what that means for your life if you're not able to have a pad or a tampon or the product that you need when you need it and then to be able to participate and engage in any aspect of your life.

The tampon tax is one of the policies that's become emblematic of this movement and it's not the only policy. We'll talk about others. The tampon tax is this in the majority of states although at this point it's not the majority anymore now that this campaign has been successful. When this campaign started in 2015, the majority of US states did not exempt menstrual products, tampons, and pads, and the like from sales tax because it didn't designate them as a necessity that then qualified for an exemption from sales tax. It's not a special tax.

You'll hear people say things like luxury tax it's not that, it's not a special tax that's applied to menstrual products it's the failure to exempt them from sales tax. For most people who are buying menstrual products that's probably not the bank breaking amount of money but it's patently unfair. In fact, as I've argued an instance of discrimination and failure to abide by equal protection under the constitution to reject the exemption for menstrual products from state sales tax exemptions.

Melissa Harris-Perry: The failure to exempt is one thing. Let's talk about some of the other policies that are part of this broader landscape of menstrual equity. What would it mean to have menstrual justice? What would be some of the policies that would need to change?

Jennifer Weiss-Wolf: Here in New York City, I think that flag was planted for the entire country and the rest of the world back in 2015, 2016 when the city passed a slate of three laws mandating menstrual product provision in all of the city's public schools, it's shelters, and it's jails. That is something that we've seen get replicated all across the country in state legislatures, even in Congress to ensure menstrual access through those key places where people exist and might not be able to afford those products. In the case of people who are incarcerated do not even have the agency to access them on their own and quite often do not have the funds to buy them on their own. That's a starting place.

I think that we've seen as this movement has picked up a lot of steam around the world, over the past five to seven years even more creative law making that really acknowledges what it means to be denied not just access to menstrual products but marginalized such that public agencies aren't a catchall or a place that we can expect to equally or adequately serve everyone. What I mean by that for example is during the pandemic, it's one thing to have menstrual products available at schools, what happens when schools are closed as we saw happen at the early days of the pandemic? It makes you think beyond that, schools are closed in the summer, schools are closed on the weekend, can't control if your period comes on Saturday or Tuesday.

Why would anyone want this to be the thing that stood between a student's success or a person's ability to have a job? It's a pretty simple intervention but it's a really meaningful one. It's meaningful not just because of that pad or that tampon but the stigmas that we're breaking down and the ways we're thinking and talking about how people live their lives and what true equity and participation actually looks like. Menstruation is a great gateway for talking about what we care about and what we've left off the table by not talking about it and therefore not caring about it.

Melissa Harris-Perry: We have to pause for a quick moment. More on the politics of periods when we're back on The Takeaway. Thanks for speaking with us on the Takeaway. I'm Melissa Harris-Perry and we're talking about period equity and the tampon tax with Jennifer Weiss-Wolf, author of Periods Gone Public: Taking a Stand for Menstrual Equity. Now, these days, very few issues get bipartisan support but in some states, menstrual equity has attracted supporters from both parties.

Jennifer Weiss-Wolf: It turns out that this becomes this really interesting bridge builder. One of the things that I've found very unique and remarkable about this advocacy has been how at least- I think state legislatures are a slightly different story now in 2022. -up until this year, between 2016 and 2021, much of this lawmaking was rather bipartisan. There were just as many red states as blue states that were getting behind eliminating the tampon tax or ensuring menstrual access in their schools or their state prisons. I mean that in terms of both legislative champions who was bringing it up in their state legislatures and governors who were signing it into law.

That struck me as really unusual in our very polarized, very partisan politics. I had a good fortune and really interesting experience of talking to a lawmaker in Illinois who was a Republican. He was downstate Heartland Republican and he was supportive of both the Illinois move to eliminate the tampon tax which they did in 2016. They were one of the first states to do so. Then in 2017, when they passed a law mandating menstrual access in schools. I asked him about it, I was really curious how that might have affected legislating in their statehouse.

He replied by saying that it was actually a really high-impact experience for many of his colleagues and he attributed it to Illinois going on to become in 2018 the 37th state to ratify the ERA with Republican support in their legislature. Said that having some of the conversations they had around menstruation and the experience and the economics of menstration, during those other legislative sessions led them to that place.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Can you put this for me in an environmental or ecological perspective, what does menstrual equity have to do with climate change?

Jennifer Weiss-Wolf: Menstrual equity and climate change and menstrual equity and the environment are also inextricably connected. We have a tendency in this country in particular, to rely on disposable menstrual products which have their own footprint, given that we fill landfills with plastic tampon applicators. I want to say a little bit about that, too. Oftentimes people ask me about the advocacy that I do and say, "You're advocating for disposable pads or disposable tampons and applicators for low-income people or people who are in communities of need. Won't it just be better to bring in disposable products, menstrual cups, cloth pads?"

To that, I will say I do not want to put any extra burden on people for whom menstruation is already a challenge to their humanity and their dignity. I think there are many, many ways we need to address the environmental hazards of menstrual products but I would never put that on the back of people for whom menstruation is already a marginalizing experience. Both things are true at the same time and I think that it's been extraordinary as the activism around equity and access has arisen so too has there been all kinds of innovation for products that are made more sustainably or products that consider environmental hazards.

For there to be attention paid to what is in our tampons, how we're disposing of tampons and pads. They're not not connected but I do want to be clear about that'll be a takeaway that often happens which will be that people will say, "Then just bring menstrual cups to those folks." There's all kinds of as you can imagine too, cultural and religious and social and even access issues when it comes to disposable products. Not everybody has the ability to safely and carefully wash and dry these products if you don't have running hot water, if you don't have a private place to clean them. Not everybody is taught that there's something that they want to or should use.

Melissa Harris-Perry: For folks who want to get involved who are maybe hearing this for the first time who are like, "Wait, how can I make a difference?" What are some of the ways that folks can be supportive?

Jennifer Weiss-Wolf: There are so many ways to get involved in this movement which is I think one of the most glorious things about this particular activism because change can happen at every level of government. While there have been laws passed in Congress, while there have been laws passed in state legislatures and in big cities, you can also do this at your local school board, at your county office, in your own public library. If there's a place where women and girls or anyone who menstruate happens to use, make sure there are menstrual products there, talk about it. Menstruation, as we know is such a stigmatized and marginalized topic.

The more you talk about it with your family, with your friends, on your social media, you're part of the activism by doing that. You're part of this loop to create not just policy and legal change, but full-on societal change. If policy is your thing, there's loads of ways to do it. There are grassroots groups in every state focusing on this. There are groups that work in partner with communities around the world. Because this activism is in its early stage, this is a movement that it's been around for many years. I think there's been a groovy menstrual movement.

It's been really in the past seven years that it's become quite mainstream in terms of making these demands in legislative bodies and among public leaders and public officials. Please, you can take it everywhere from your community food pantry, all the way up to your member of Congress.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Jennifer Weiss-Wolf, thank you so much for joining us today.

Jennifer Weiss-Wolf: Oh, my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.

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