Why Is Jupp's Argument Of Periods Are As Important?

Let’s begin with the obvious, all women have had their period. This process is as natural as eating, peeing, drinking and sleeping. Now have any of you ever walked into a bathroom and had to pay for the toilet paper? No, you haven’t. I’m sure that it also never occurred to anyone to carry around toilet paper in case they had to do their business away from home. For sanitary reasons we want people to wipe their behinds. For sexist reasons, we don’t offer the same concern for women who don’t want to bleed on furniture or their clothes. After years of women being shamed into not talking about periods more and more are speaking up.

“If Men Could Menstruate” by Gloria Steinem paints an image of what our society might be like if men, not women, menstruated. Steinem portrays males in a way that challenges patriarchal society in order to develop a commentary on the cultural paradigm and appeal to the female demographic.

There has always been a stigma surrounding the topic of women’s health, especially the reproductive kind, as the world has set standards for a how a woman’s body should be. The stigma begins where, unfortunately for the world, women’s bodies oftentimes do not comply with these standards. Because of the rifts between expectation and reality girls are shamed, oftentimes unconsciously or via systemic responses and interactions. It becomes an ingrained and understood conduct, teaching girls that their bodies exist for objective purposes, and it lays the foundation for developing insecurities. Bodily insecurities tend to run so deeply that even women in adulthood shy away from taking proper care of themselves. Because of how taboo discussing women’s

In the mid-1800s American women united to participate in social reforms movements more than ever before. This movement’s involved: struggle to abolish slavery, outlaw alcohol, and ban child labor among others (Rupp, 1987). Despite the failure of the women's movement to attain one among its primary goals, the passage of the ERA , the movement overall accomplished an excellent deal. For several women activists, management over their bodies was a central issue in the campaign. Women needed to be liberated to explore and control their gender, while not being judged by society. An oversized a part of management during this arena concerned having access to birth control, or contraception ways (Fishman, 1998). The contraception pill, associate inoculant,

“Sir James Clarke’s Female Pills” and other similar products were part of a class of patent medicines targeted at women and advertised as a cure to a universe of “painful and dangerous diseases incident to the female constitution” (Fig. 5The Daily Globe 1856). They offered hope for women in search of relief from monthly discomforts. In actuality, patent medicine manufacturers were capitalizing on the increased demand for abortifacients by advertising products that restored the regularity of the monthly period. To avoid prosecution, veiled language was used to advertise their nature, which compelled women to consider them for the purpose of removing what was described as “irregularities,” “suppressions,” and “obstructions” of the menses and to deal with all causes of the cessation of menstrual flow (Fig. 5; The Daily Globe 1856; The Star of the North 1855).

The idea of birth control has been around since before the eighteenth century. However, those in control of it have changed over time leading to several positive and negative effects including seeking underground abortions and disguised labeling of products for contraception.

Menstruation is a normal part of life with the female body. Unfortunately, many young women today still face shame when their cycle comes along. Due to lack of resources and the feel of shame, many young girls around the world are forced to miss school or drop out once they get their periods. With some cultures, women do not speak about menstruation with their daughters and what to expect. Planned Parenthood has helped educate and inform people of menstruation and birth controls. One way that Planned Parenthood helps women are through period trackers. They have made period tracking easy for women by creating an app that provides guidance, tips and fun facts for women who have questions or are ashamed to speak about

Menstruation is nearly a universal life experience for all females. The average woman uses approximately 12,000 to 15,000 non-reusable feminine hygiene products in their lifetime (Weir, 2015). Moreover, women spend around 7 dollars on average for a box of tampons on a monthly basis (Durkin, 2017). This cost does not include additional state government imposed taxes on feminine hygiene products which adds an additional economic burden. In Michigan, tampons are classified as “optional luxury items” by the General Sales Tax Act and there is an imposed tax of 6% on top of the purchase price (S.B. 0091, 2017). According to the Senate Committee on Finance, this sales tax

The modern world is in the midst of reconstructing gender roles; debates about contraception, reproductive freedom, and female inequality are contentious and common. The majority now challenges the long established assertion that women’s bodies are the eminent domain of patriarchal control. In the past, a woman’s inability to control her reproductive choices could come with ruinous consequences. Proponents of patriarchal control argue against reproductive independence with rhetoric from religious texts and with anecdotes of ‘better days,’ when women were subservient. Often, literature about childbearing fails to acknowledge the possibility of women being uninterested in fulfilling the role of motherhood.

Drawing heavily on de Beauvoir (1953) she highlights the constraints placed upon women by their reproductive biology; that menstruation, pregnancy and childbirth are not only detrimental to her physical strength and health but also confine her to the ‘mere reproduction of life’. This stands in contrast to man, who is free to assert his

In this article the Author talks about how girls are often too embarrassed to even ask their moms for clean cloths and end up getting serious infections because of it. () She even mentions a case that led “to a 13-year-old having to undergo surgery to remove her uterus.” () In an interview author Chris Bobel talks about the need for menstrual activism and the negative way we (women and men) as a society are accustomed to talking about periods. She addresses the fact that girls are trained to hate their periods before they even have one, and men and women alike are conditioned to make jokes about raging PMS. In fact, sometimes it seems the only "OK" way to talk about periods is by making PMS jokes or going on and on about how horrible and painful periods

In “Margin of Error” Paula injects herself with the perfect cell drug, this way she is able to fit into a society where all the successful females have perfect breasts, facial features, and bodies that will not allow for child bearing. “Nobody much cares about women’s ovaries. Only fourteen percent of college-educated women want to muck up their lives with kids” (Kress, 38). In this scene Karen explains that in the society that they live in, women desire to have a body that is perfect all around, which means that having children would ruin their perfect bodies, as well as their lives. In contrast she sees that after Karen has children, her body as well as her life become imperfect, and as a result Paula refuses to have children herself. Paula is conforming to a society that demands a women to have a body that is perfect and can not be destroyed from child bearing. In “Even the Queen” menstruation in their society is seen as unnecessary and unnatural for women to have since they have the option to stop their own menstruation. Perdita’s family, as well as the rest of the society of women, use ammenerol and shunts to prevent their menstruation cycle from happening. The abolition of the menstruation cycle is seen as the norm in society for all women, this way by preventing menstruation, women are able to have clean and natural functioning bodies that don’t have to fall under the pain and messiness of

Women make up just slightly over half the U.S population (US Census Bureau, 2010) and should not be even considered a part of a minority group. The female population should acquire the same equal research attention as men do, especially when it comes to health issues. The unavoidable, yet quite simple realities of breastfeeding, menstruation, menopause, along with pregnancy require special scrutiny from medical experts. Those medical specialties are generally referred as gynecologists or obstetrics, who focus on the exclusive needs of a female’s reproductive health throughout their lifespan. Historically, the health needs of women have been disregarded as well as their fundamental rights. However, over the past few decades, it has grabbed the media and the government’s attention causing some major changes in support of women’s rights and health care.

Periods are no luxury. No woman asked for a period. Women cannot choose to menstruate. Despite this, a whole heap of disadvantages have been created for those who do. By not using sanitary products, it can lead to a number of health risks; jeopardise maintaining a normal, professional or personal life; and result in public ridicule. However, it is apparent that the Australian Government disregards this and continues to tax a necessity while at the same time, not taxing condoms, sunscreen and lubricants (Gleeson, 2016). This issue is a worldwide problem that needs to be changed.

The United Nations declared menstrual hygiene a public health, gender equality, and human rights issue, but on what ground? Often times, policies are routed on or based off theoretical perspectives from philosophers, ethicists, economists, etc. Unfortunately, not all countries agreed with the UN on this declaration of women’s right, despite women make up half of the global population. The understanding of women’s bodies is relatively new, and literature on women’s rights is also relatively new. Women in countries around the world are shamed and limited in activities they are legally and socially permitted to do depending on their menstrual cycle. In this paper, I will agree with the UN’s declaration that menstrual hygiene management (MHM) is a public health issue, gender equality, and human rights issue through the lens of Sen and Nussbaum’s “capabilities” approach in addition to Jagger’s criticism of Nussbaum.