Period poverty - the government’s "façade of morality politics” & the students hoping to make a difference

Helen Clarke

Hannah is a student in Manchester who created a community to help tackle period poverty and host a creative festival to raise funds and awareness.

What sparked the idea for this event and why now

I chose period poverty for many reasons, one is that of poverty, poverty is heavily tied to Manchester.

It’s a historically working-class city and with rising levels of homelessness that at times feels unescapable in the city centre, it felt an important issue stimulated with the suffragette movement beginning in Manchester.

Another reason is the impact of the Sarah Everard murder - I was 16 at the time and witnessing thousands of women come together to support one another and create safe spaces.

I thought it was incredibly inspiring, and their ability to tie a nation together through shared pain allowed me to believe that once again women could be brought together to show support for one another and shared community issues.

As for the why now, with a new Labour government I believe it’s a time of fresh ideas and new policies to be born.

For too long period poverty has been dealt with on a community basis, whereas I believe its important for the government to take account of their responsibilities for the public and alleviate social and economic issues that come from being born a woman.

Labour has historically been the party of the working class, and I think it's important to hold them to account. 

What is your message and who needs to hear it

Poverty is not a choice. Periods are not a choice, and therefore why are we letting millions of women nationally suffer from this issue.

It is a health and gender-based injustice. So much more needs to be done, thousands of women are gaining health issues from wearing unsafe products and reusing them, girls are dropping out of hobbies and sports from period poverty, women are missing work.

So many issues are inherent to period poverty and yet many don’t even understand why it's important to talk about such issues. British women will spend as much as £18,450 on their periods over the course of their lifetime.

This issue exists, and needs to be resolved and the public need to be educated on health/social/economic misogyny. With rising misogyny and incel movements women are unsafe and this is further indentured by economic problems the government do not resolve.

This message needs to be heard by everyone as more needs to be done to remind the government that they are in their position of power to serve us, the people.

How can we solve this problem

While the government has removed VAT and stated schools should have period products for free it's not enough. They have seemingly tapped the iceberg of a much larger issue.

Secondary schools also only have plans to provide products until summer 2024 and no plans have been confirmed for the future so clearly more work needs to be done there.

It also should be made law for universities, large corporations and government owned buildings to provide free period products and a women’s equality select committee should be formed to help tackle and research misogyny within Britain.

The government created a period poverty taskforce in 2019, but they haven’t met up since the pandemic, an example of easy short-term solutions to help the public feel as though change is being addressed, when in reality it is a façade of morality politics.

Research also shows employers often want to help but aren't confident about doing so. There should be sufficient training to remove stigma of periods from the workplace.

There is definitely constructive engagement with Scotland to be had to help understand how their system of free period products work, what it costs, lessons to be learnt.

There is a multitude of ways period poverty can be solved, from directly creating systems to offer products, educating people on the issue, and helping to create ways to remove stigma.

Who took part in the festival

We had numerous artists from the university taking part as this was a great opportunity to showcase female talent, we also had talks presented in the form of literature circles/book clubs from female writers and students.

Other speakers involved menstruation educators who helped women on the day better understand their period cycles and hormones better.

What role can men play in solving the problem

Men are crucial to helping to remove misogyny, they are the creators and necessary resolvers of the issue.

They can help by not shaming women for periods as negative language and supposed ‘jokes’ create uncomfortable spaces and continued negativity.

Men can also be advocators for women, signing petitions, helping to bring awareness to problems, and educating themselves on what inherently affects women.

Reading feminist literature and academia is also important to help allow men to understand that it is not an 'us against them', issue but a human failing that has crucial gender biases.