I remember the following event. I come back from school with my best friend Karolina. Near the block my mother runs up to us and says that we have to go to the pharmacy quickly, because there are sanitary pads there. Once there, the line of women meandered all the way to the pavement. Each one can only buy two packs. Mum is happy because she leaves with four: she bought two for herself and two for me. I remember she said to Karolina that she would lend her money so that she could buy sanitary pads for her mother. Mrs. P. calls us in the afternoon with thanks.
That day, I realised that a sanitary pad is something very important in a woman's life, although I didn't know why yet. I understood it when I started menstruating myself a few years later. Fortunately, these were better times when sanitary pads were easily available at the chemist's. The book "About Girls for Girls", which we probably all had in our home libraries, made my hair stand on end. There were tips on how to sew a sanitary pad using what you had at home. I couldn't imagine how you could use something made of fabric from an old T-shirt and then wash it.
Papyrus tampons
This was the fate of our grandmothers and great-grandmothers until the 20th century. Sanitary pads were reusable only, they were fastened on the belt, and after use they were not only washed, but also... boiled in a saucepan on the stove. Women also coped with the use of absorbent grass and plant fibres. Ancient Egyptian women tried to make tampons, putting rolled papyrus into the vagina.
According to some historians, nurses were the first to experiment with disposable panty liners. The girls who treated the wounded during World War I, having access to bandages, realised that life was easier when, after assisting in the amputation of limbs or holding the hand of a dying person throughout the night, you do not have to wash your reusable sanitary pad in the bowl, you could just throw the used bandage away.
After the war, the Kotex company started producing the first sanitary pads from dressings not used in the trenches. As for tampons, the first ones, made in the interwar period, were uncomfortable and painful because of their large size. It was the German gynaecologist Judith Esser Mittag who came up with the idea that a tampon must be small before use, and only swell in the vagina when it is soaked with blood. The first patent for a tampon was issued in the USA in 1931.
I remember what a revolution sanitary pads with wings were, thanks to which we no longer had to worry that our trousers or dress, not to mention underwear, would be dirty anyway. And then the first super absorbent pads appeared. What a relief it was to have dry pants despite menstruation. Whoever has not gone through this, probably will not understand.
Silence
Almost two billion women menstruate in the world. At least 500 million of them do not have the conditions to take care of intimate hygiene during menstruation.
"Sure, somewhere in Africa, it must be a problem, but in Poland?" I've heard this so many times! I especially remember a long Facebook discussion with my friend psychologist and his friends who argued that buying a pack or two of sanitary pads should not be a problem in our country, because you can always pony up those 10 or 20 zlotys, especially now, when most women get 500 zlotys child benefit.
Well, unfortunately that's not the case. Every fifth Polish woman cannot afford to buy the hygiene products she would like.
Why is this so hard for us to believe? This is largely because Polish women simply do not talk about it. And this is because menstruation is still an embarrassing topic. The scale and mechanism of period poverty are well illustrated in the Kulczyk Foundation report, the first study of this kind in Poland. 42 percent of adult Polish women declare that they never talked about their periods in their family home. Since menstruation is not discussed, how can you talk about not having enough money for sanitary pads?
Aunt, my period has started
I was a student, I came to visit my mother, and she started talking to me about her friend's daughter with passion. The friend then turned sharply towards the Church. She devoted herself to it so much that as soon as the salary arrived, most of the money went to flowers to decorate the altar and to various ecclesiastical initiatives. One day my friend's teenage daughter knocked on my mother's door: "Aunt", she gasped confused, "can you lend me PLN 15 for sanitary pads and tampons, because my mother has no money again, and my period has just started?"
Her mother was not pathological. She was an educated woman with a really good heart, working with children from difficult families, curious about the world and friendly towards people. Yet there was a time when she greatly neglected her own daughter.
If it was possible in this family, why is it hard to believe that there are hundreds, thousands of teenagers next door who cannot ask their parents for money for sanitary pads? Because the mother drinks, doesn't care, or she is simply extremely poor?
Why do we believe that many Polish children are malnourished, and it does not occur to us that in a home where there is a malnourished child, there must also be a menstruating mother, or maybe a menstruating sister? Or two? Or perhaps a hungry fifth-grade girl also menstruates?
Why do we believe in the hard data that one million children are deprived of alimony because the state is unable to get the money, and we are unable to connect this to the simple fact that some of this alimony is deserved by menstruating girls? And their mothers, who – being the only breadwinners of the family – perhaps have to choose in a supermarket whether to spend the last 10 zlotys on sausages for a child or on sanitary pads?
Why should there be no period poverty in Poland if there are municipalities where half of the flats do not have a bathroom and there is no flush in the toilet? Referring to the numbers: there are no bathrooms in over 1.2 million Polish households, and 900,000 lack toilets. Who wouldn't get a bathroom if they had the money? The problem is mainly in the countryside, where women work less often, and if they do, they earn less than in cities. And sanitary pads in a supermarket cost the same in a small town and in Warsaw.
Scotland, an oasis of hope
Why is it so important? Because, as Dominika Kulczyk repeats, a sanitary pad gives freedom. Literally, not figuratively. If your panties are wet, your trousers or skirt are dirty with blood, and everything you sit on gets dirty, then you just don't go anywhere. You don't go to school, to chess classes you are great at, to volleyball training that you love. To run with friends in the yard.
A woman menstruates 350-450 times in her life. Missed days at school turn into weeks and months, a very talented schoolgirl will catch up, but a mediocre student probably won't. "All you have to do is give the girl a sanitary pad or a chance to produce it and you change her life," writes Kulczyk. – The girl goes to school, does not have to miss classes, has good grades, and gets a good job. She has not seven, but two children, her own money, which makes her independent from her husband. She can leave her flat, buy a bus ticket, get in one and go into town, do whatever she wants. She is no one's slave. A sanitary pad gives freedom."
Poverty freezes a person's life on many levels. – It paralyses – says Anna Frankowska, head of the Aid Projects Department at the Kulczyk Foundation. – Whether it is a question of hunger, homelessness or the lack of sanitary pads, such a person deals with nothing but this immediate problem, a problem that must be solved. A girl who has to figure out how to protect herself during menstruation does not study maths, read or draw during this time. We will never know how many painters, writers, scientists and sportswomen the world missed because they could not take care of nurturing their talents. And how many good teachers, great hairdressers and saleswomen have we been deprived of?
It is no longer possible to allow even one woman in the world to sit at home on a towel once a month or to cut her blouse and put it in her panties. Otherwise, we are not a civilisation.
Fortunately, there are oases of hope such as Scotland, which is the first country in the world to provide sanitary pads in every public place. Sanitary products should be in restrooms in schools and universities, offices, museums and libraries. The state and local governments should finally deal with it, and not wait for a foundation to take on the responsibility.
A report such as that made by Dominika Kulczyk should be prepared at the Ministry of Social Policy. And then the state should conduct a social campaign encouraging the provision of sanitary pads and tampons also in workplaces, pubs and shopping centres.
The hell, we are half the society that keeps this whole society alive with our ability to menstruate.
Author: Natalia Waloch
Article was published in "Gazeta Wyborcza” on 23 December 2020.
