August 12, 2023 • 21 mins
A coalition of businesses, activist groups, lawmakers and others around Massachusetts are teaming up to support a bill on Beacon Hill called "I AM", which hopes to expand free access to menstrual products in public places around the Commonwealth, including schools and prisons. Mass NOW is one of the advocacy groups that's part of the Massachusetts Menstrual Equity Coalition, and Executive Director Sasha Goodfriend joins Nichole on the show this week to talk about what the bill entails. She also dives into the prevalence of "period poverty" here in Massachusetts and the impact it can have on someone's life.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:07):
From WBZ News Radio in Boston.This is New England Weekend, where each
and every week we come together andtalk about all the topics important to you
and the place where you live.Great to be back with you again this
week. I'm Nicole Davis. It'scertainly not too often in everyday conversation that
you hear the term period poverty.That being said, it's very much a
problem here in Massachusetts, around NewEngland, and really around the country.
(00:32):
See, there's a lot of stigmasurrounding the topic of periods of menstruation,
and that stigma carries into the conversationabout accessibility to proper personal hygiene necessities.
There's a bill that's going around BeaconHill right now that's hoping to change the
narrative and highlight the importance of treatingmenstrual hygiene as a fundamental right rather than
a luxury. Let's talk about theI Am Bill. Let's talk about period
(00:56):
poverty. Somebody who's really been apivotal advocate for shaping the discord around period
poverty in Massachusetts is Sasha good Friend. She is the executive director of mass
Now and she is here with us. Sasha, thank you for your time.
And to begin here, I'd liketo know more about mass NOW.
I know nationwide now has been aroundfor a while, but what's going on
(01:17):
with your group specifically? Mass Nowis a membership based organization that was started
over fifty years ago. Mass Nowis the Massachusetts chapter of the National Organization
for Women, and so we arepart of a movement of feminists around the
country who in the early nineteen sixtieswere galvanized to take personal topics that had
(01:41):
not been safe to talk about inthe public, meet together and turn their
the personal to political, or theirtruth into testimony and fight for a feminist
democracy. Fifty plus years later,we are in many ways still fighting for
the exact same issues as when wewere founded, for pay equity, for
(02:07):
reproductive justice, bodily autonomy. Butit is really exciting to be in Massachusetts
and see how much progress we've beenable to make and the work that's happening
right now. Massachusetts is seen asa pretty socially liberal state. How does
that impact the work that you're doingin, say mass Now, as opposed
(02:27):
to other Now organizations in more conservativeparts of the country. Well, the
fact of the matter is is thateven though Massachusetts has made a lot of
strides compared to the rest of thecountry. We are still working on a
system that is long overdue for takinggender minoritized issues and putting them making them
public policy. So there's still alot of room for improvement in terms of
(02:52):
achieving true reproductive justice and bodily autonomyfor people in Massachusetts. There's still abortion
deserts, there's still access barriers forpeople, especially when we're looking at people
living at the intersections of multiple systemsof oppression, women of color, women
in rural areas, women of differentability, for example. And what I
(03:19):
love about being here in Massachusetts isthat we get to focus on scaling up
solutions that work. So there isa lot of affronts on women, on
trans people, on LGBTQ people,people of color happening around the country right
now, and in Massachusetts we getto focus on setting the standard for what
(03:39):
an inclusive democracy looks like. Andonce we pass these reforms in Massachusetts like
pay family medical leave, gay marriage, pay equity legislation, then we see
other states around the country able tolook at Massachusetts and say we can do
this too, And that's really excitingto see that movement growing at the same
(04:02):
time something that kind of piqued mycuriosity which made me want to talk to
you. It's a bill on BeaconHill called the I Am Bill. So
this is focused on access to menstrualproducts in public places. We're talking like
train stations and schools and playgrounds andparks and stuff like that. Why is
this such an important issue? Likewhy do we need to have this access
(04:24):
for people? Yeah? I lovetalking about periods. First of all,
there is something through there's you knowthis and all the conversations I've had about
periods. Train stations in fact,has not been one of those areas that
has come up before. And Ilove it because it just goes to show
how we are everywhere, and periodproducts need to be everywhere too, just
(04:46):
like toilet paper. So this isan issue period poverty that is not new
to mass Now. I have lookedthrough our archives and seen documents from the
addies of women talking about not havingaccess to period products. So I just
want to reiterate that because it seemslike a new issue, but it's really
just new to talk about it.The shame and the stigma has silenced myself,
(05:10):
even like so many people who menstraight for such a long time that
we are only now starting to seeit as a public policy issue. This
still would make period products free inall schools K through twelfth grade and all
shelters and all incarcerated facilities, whichincludes prisoned jails, temporary housing, emergency
(05:36):
housing, and is modeled off ofa bill that passed in New York City
in twenty sixteen. When math Nowworked with our lead sponsors and Representative Livingstone
and Barber and Senator Jalen shout outto them to introduce this fill in twenty
(05:57):
nineteen, we didn't realized that itwas, in fact the first time the
Massachusetts legislature had ever had a billintroduced about period product. Wow. Yeah,
So we had to do a lotof education with legislators, with people
who have never menstruated before, onwhat menstruation is, Why people are missing
(06:23):
school because they don't have access tomenstal products, why people are having to
choose between paying for food, payingfor rent, and menstrual products, about
what people do when they have tocreate menstrual products out of toilet paper or
socks or other unhygienic substitutes. Andwhat we realized from these conversations is that
(06:46):
our state agencies. Also, we'renot collecting enemy data on access to period
products. There was no discussion aroundperiod poverty as an issue at all in
Massachusetts, and MASKS now came andstepped in and created the Massachusetts Mentoral Equity
Coalition to bring together all of thesedifferent stakeholders and ask questions about how many
(07:12):
students are missing school because they don'thave access to mentoral products, what kind
of products do students want, howdo teachers and school nurses and health curriculum
professionals and schools already feel about mentoruationeducation and access to period supplies. And
what we found was that overwhelmingly schoolnurses wanted students to have free access to
(07:35):
products, and we're even paying outof their own pockets to provide students with
products. And in some instances,nurses were even charging students for products in
school and sending students home because theydidn't have a change of clothes to where
if they bled through their clothes.And so once we started to get these
(08:00):
stories and the data, it's helpedNow thirteen cities in Massachusetts takes action to
make period policy a practice, andwe hope that this momentum in the conversation
can result in having a statewide policyso that everyone across the states doesn't have
(08:24):
to choose between paying for menstrual products, food, or rent. And those
menstrual products are not cheap. Imean a pack of pads or a box
of tampons can run you easily overten dollars. And some people might say,
oh, well, you only needlike one a month, what's the
big deal? But sometimes you know, if you're living paycheck to paycheck ten
(08:45):
dollars, or if you're a teamright who is living in foster care,
or maybe you don't have an activeparent in the home and you're kind of
taking care of yourself ten dollars twelvedollars, especially with inflation, that can
really make or break some people.And it's a us that only half of
the population has to bear. Andwhat I think is new to think about
(09:05):
is that it's a necessity. Toiletpaper is not something that we charge anyone
for. And in fact, inMassachusetts, we don't even know how much
we spend on toilet paper because weconsider it a necessity. And that is
what we need to think about withmental products an essential good. No matter
what happens, you still need theseproducts. That's the thing. I mean,
(09:28):
you could walk around all day withlike a wat of toilet paper or
whatever, but it's not the sameand it's not hygienic, and really without
having these products it could lead tohealth issues too. We have been talking
about menstruation as pre contraceptive health becausethere's been a lot of discussion around reproductive
justice around abortion access that and maternalmortality and teen pregnancy and childcare that really
(09:56):
if we started earlier with education aroundwhat the menstrual cycle is and what our
what is irregular for menstruation as well, if we all have more knowledge,
both people who menstrate and people whodon't mend strate, I think we could
(10:18):
really move the needle on some ofthose other risk factors that we're looking at
later on in the reproductive health journey. And so that's what's really exciting about
investing in setting period property is reallyhow much we can actually start to solve
(10:39):
in terms of having better menstrual products, in terms of having better diagnoses for
pcos and endometriosis and other period healthproblems, and better sex education also menstruation
and things like endometriosis and PCO.I don't even see it as sex education.
(11:01):
It's just health because people who menstruate, people who have a uterus and
this part of their bodies. Imean, this is just what we were
born with. You know. It'snot a choice, it's not a you
know, whatever you want to putthe word on it. This kind of
leads me to a question that youbrought up shelters and prisons and so on
and so forth. I was assumingthat they already had access to menstrual products,
(11:24):
because again, these are health situations. What are you seeing when it
comes to that. Most shelters dependon donations for mental products, and those
are the shelters that do have products. Many shelters don't have products. It's
not something that they stock. It'snot part of their budget. They have
bigger fish to fry, if youwill, in terms of managing their caseload.
(11:46):
And this is exactly why the stateneeds to come in and create these
line items for shelters to purchase productsand being reimbursed for them like they do
for other essential items. The incar started facilities is a harder nut to
crack because there is less transparency.But we have done two surveys, one
(12:13):
with the sheriffs of the six countiesthat have people who menstrate in their facilities,
and the good news is that theyall believe people should have free access
to menstrual products, but only twoof the six counties actually had policies to
(12:33):
articulate that. And in our experience, if something is not written down in
a policy, if the correctional officersdon't know that it is in fact a
practice for a policy to hand outfree access to menstral products, no questions
asked. If inmates during their orientationare not told that they have the right
(12:56):
to access free products, then thatis not true access. But we did
last year was we did a publicinformation request with the Department of Corrections to
see how much do mental products cost, because, like you said earlier,
we know they're more expensive when you'reliving paycheck to paycheck and you're buying them
(13:16):
at a local bodega than they arewhen you buy them at bulk from BJ's.
And in fact, out of thefour hundred items for sale in commissary
in Massachusetts jails, mental products arethe third and fourth most expensive thing that
you can buy. The only thingmore expensive is typewriter. Inc. What
(13:39):
who uses typewriters? Not half thepopulation I'll tell you that. I mean
they're great, don't get me wrong, but really, huh and what was
the justification for that or did younot get any We only got the data.
We didn't get any conversation around whatwe found. And it's infuriating,
(14:00):
honestly to think about people who don'thave access to choice being left with no
choice for what to do with theirmental products. We've heard from doctors who
work with the who do the medicalservices for people who are incarcerated, including
the people who mentrate, and theyhave told us their concerns by seeing people
(14:22):
use unhygienic substitutes for mental products becauseit creates more reproductive health issues down the
line. And we have that datain Massachusetts for the disproportionate rates of incarcerated
people who have failed pregnancies and otheravoidable reproductive health problems. So there are
(14:43):
only one or two other states aroundthe country who have policies for making mental
products free and incarcerated facilities, andwe believe that in Massachusetts we should be
able to make this even right andreinstore menstrual dignity to everyone. Well,
(15:05):
you talk about preventive care as well, and some people might say Oh,
that's a lot of money to beputting menstrual products in facilities like that.
But then if you're causing people tohave more health issues later on, if
cost is really your concern, Imean, then I would think that by
people coming down with bigger health problemslater because of not having access to period
(15:28):
products, it would end up costingmore in the long run. And not
just in facilities like that, butin schools. You know so many kids
who end up losing time and class, or they end up coming down with
some illness, or they have complicationsfrom endometriosis or something that they're not able
to detect because they don't have properproducts. I mean, preventive care is
(15:50):
so important. And talk with usabout what is the argument here for people
who might say that's just going tocost a lot of money, Like,
we don't really have the money forthat. What's your argument to that.
We don't know the cost for otheressential items like toilet paper, and so
using that perspective, we should notbe comparing the cost for other essential items.
(16:14):
Two menstrual products are actually really cheap. They're made out of cotton ideally,
they are one hundred percent organic,and they don't have any chemicals or
fraquences in them, because that canalso lead to health issues for people down
the road. So there are companieswho, through scaling up, have been
(16:36):
able to provide menstruators with products forjust a dollar a year. So we
can definitely afford to do this inMassachusetts. If people are able to get
this in whatever way for a dollara year, why are those of us
going to whatever, name your pharmacyhere, name your target, your Walmart,
whatever, and paying ten, twelve, fifteen bucks for a box or
(17:00):
a bag of menstrual products or likea cup that's I think like a silicone
cup is like twenty thirty dollars,which is certainly more of a cost effective
option. But where is the disconnecthere? I think the disconnect is not
having the conversations together about what acomprehensive menstrual equity strategy from Massachusetts looks like.
(17:22):
I think that when we have theseconversations in silos, and when the
state doesn't take action and cities andschool districts are working in their own silos
in order to come up with solutions, we're missing the big picture option for
maximum efficiency for the state budget.Honestly, and so I understand that this
(17:42):
conversation has been overlooked for hundreds ofyears in our government, and there is
a lot to catch up on.But it's definitely not an issue that has
only talked about in schools or onlyin shelters in car strated facilities. It's
every single state agency, including transportationand the train like you were saying,
(18:04):
that needs to think about how theysupport menstruators. Because when we support menstruators
and people who menstrate, then weare supporting everyone. We're supporting our econdomy,
our businesses will do better, we'llhave our educational inequity, health inequity
will decrease, and so there's alot of opportunity for collaboration across sectors on
(18:29):
this issue. Sure, so,how are people on Beacon Hill responding to
your efforts here when it comes tomenstrual products? Are you getting good feedback?
Not great feedback, A lot ofwhy should I care? Feedback?
What are people saying? The firstquestions we got when we started this campaign
is this a real issue? Andis there any data? So we had
(18:49):
to do surveys with state agencies inorder to collect the data and show that
it is a real issue. Thenext set of questions was, well,
how does this work, what doesthe solution look like? Where do we
buy mentional products from? Which officeis going to have the budget, and
where are the dispensers going to bewhere they'll be vandalism. And that is
(19:15):
where mass now has stepped in andthrough a state grant, been able to
pilot approp program in Fall River andNew Bedford, to cities where the school
districts have decided to provide free accessto mentional products in all school bathrooms and
study what the implementation looks like sothat we could create a toolkit for best
(19:37):
practices to be built upon for therest of the state. So we believe
that we have the data, wehave the examples of best practices nationwide and
right here in Massachusetts. And thebiggest barrier is that it's not the first
thing that comes to mind for ourleadership when they think about I raised for
(20:00):
the commonwealth, maybe because they've neverexperienced periods or period of poverty before,
or because it's been invisible from thepublic conversation for so long. And so
we need to do everything we canto get in front of them and have
the confidence like our founding mothers didover fifty years ago to take our personal
(20:22):
truth and stories about bleeding through ourclothes, about not using unhygienic substitutes,
about all the different experiences that we'vehad, and actually be able to have
these conversations with legislators. So rightnow we're supporting people and submitting written testimony
(20:44):
to the Public Health Committee and thehopes that they will urgently move to report
the bill favorably out of committee likethey did last session, and last session
the bill passed the Senate unanimously.How can people connect with mass now if
they're curious, they want to learnmore about your work, what can they
do, how can they find yousomeone, and so forth? You can
(21:07):
go to our website mass now dotorg to sign up to become a member,
sign up for our email list,you can sign up to volunteer and
learn about all of our priority issueareas and ways to take action. Sasha
good Friend from mass Now, thankyou so much for your time. This
has been such an eye opening conversation. Thank you for having these conversations and
being willing to talk about this.Thank you so much for giving us the
(21:30):
space. I have a safe andhealthy weekend, and please join me again
next week for another edition of theshow. I'm Nicole Davis from WBZ News
Radio on iHeartRadio
From WBZ News Radio in Boston.This is New England Weekend, where each
and every week we come together andtalk about all the topics important to you
and the place where you live.Great to be back with you again this
week. I'm Nicole Davis. It'scertainly not too often in everyday conversation that
you hear the term period poverty.That being said, it's very much a
problem here in Massachusetts, around NewEngland, and really around the country.
(00:32):
See, there's a lot of stigmasurrounding the topic of periods of menstruation,
and that stigma carries into the conversationabout accessibility to proper personal hygiene necessities.
There's a bill that's going around BeaconHill right now that's hoping to change the
narrative and highlight the importance of treatingmenstrual hygiene as a fundamental right rather than
a luxury. Let's talk about theI Am Bill. Let's talk about period
(00:56):
poverty. Somebody who's really been apivotal advocate for shaping the discord around period
poverty in Massachusetts is Sasha good Friend. She is the executive director of mass
Now and she is here with us. Sasha, thank you for your time.
And to begin here, I'd liketo know more about mass NOW.
I know nationwide now has been aroundfor a while, but what's going on
(01:17):
with your group specifically? Mass Nowis a membership based organization that was started
over fifty years ago. Mass Nowis the Massachusetts chapter of the National Organization
for Women, and so we arepart of a movement of feminists around the
country who in the early nineteen sixtieswere galvanized to take personal topics that had
(01:41):
not been safe to talk about inthe public, meet together and turn their
the personal to political, or theirtruth into testimony and fight for a feminist
democracy. Fifty plus years later,we are in many ways still fighting for
the exact same issues as when wewere founded, for pay equity, for
(02:07):
reproductive justice, bodily autonomy. Butit is really exciting to be in Massachusetts
and see how much progress we've beenable to make and the work that's happening
right now. Massachusetts is seen asa pretty socially liberal state. How does
that impact the work that you're doingin, say mass Now, as opposed
(02:27):
to other Now organizations in more conservativeparts of the country. Well, the
fact of the matter is is thateven though Massachusetts has made a lot of
strides compared to the rest of thecountry. We are still working on a
system that is long overdue for takinggender minoritized issues and putting them making them
public policy. So there's still alot of room for improvement in terms of
(02:52):
achieving true reproductive justice and bodily autonomyfor people in Massachusetts. There's still abortion
deserts, there's still access barriers forpeople, especially when we're looking at people
living at the intersections of multiple systemsof oppression, women of color, women
in rural areas, women of differentability, for example. And what I
(03:19):
love about being here in Massachusetts isthat we get to focus on scaling up
solutions that work. So there isa lot of affronts on women, on
trans people, on LGBTQ people,people of color happening around the country right
now, and in Massachusetts we getto focus on setting the standard for what
(03:39):
an inclusive democracy looks like. Andonce we pass these reforms in Massachusetts like
pay family medical leave, gay marriage, pay equity legislation, then we see
other states around the country able tolook at Massachusetts and say we can do
this too, And that's really excitingto see that movement growing at the same
(04:02):
time something that kind of piqued mycuriosity which made me want to talk to
you. It's a bill on BeaconHill called the I Am Bill. So
this is focused on access to menstrualproducts in public places. We're talking like
train stations and schools and playgrounds andparks and stuff like that. Why is
this such an important issue? Likewhy do we need to have this access
(04:24):
for people? Yeah? I lovetalking about periods. First of all,
there is something through there's you knowthis and all the conversations I've had about
periods. Train stations in fact,has not been one of those areas that
has come up before. And Ilove it because it just goes to show
how we are everywhere, and periodproducts need to be everywhere too, just
(04:46):
like toilet paper. So this isan issue period poverty that is not new
to mass Now. I have lookedthrough our archives and seen documents from the
addies of women talking about not havingaccess to period products. So I just
want to reiterate that because it seemslike a new issue, but it's really
just new to talk about it.The shame and the stigma has silenced myself,
(05:10):
even like so many people who menstraight for such a long time that
we are only now starting to seeit as a public policy issue. This
still would make period products free inall schools K through twelfth grade and all
shelters and all incarcerated facilities, whichincludes prisoned jails, temporary housing, emergency
(05:36):
housing, and is modeled off ofa bill that passed in New York City
in twenty sixteen. When math Nowworked with our lead sponsors and Representative Livingstone
and Barber and Senator Jalen shout outto them to introduce this fill in twenty
(05:57):
nineteen, we didn't realized that itwas, in fact the first time the
Massachusetts legislature had ever had a billintroduced about period product. Wow. Yeah,
So we had to do a lotof education with legislators, with people
who have never menstruated before, onwhat menstruation is, Why people are missing
(06:23):
school because they don't have access tomenstal products, why people are having to
choose between paying for food, payingfor rent, and menstrual products, about
what people do when they have tocreate menstrual products out of toilet paper or
socks or other unhygienic substitutes. Andwhat we realized from these conversations is that
(06:46):
our state agencies. Also, we'renot collecting enemy data on access to period
products. There was no discussion aroundperiod poverty as an issue at all in
Massachusetts, and MASKS now came andstepped in and created the Massachusetts Mentoral Equity
Coalition to bring together all of thesedifferent stakeholders and ask questions about how many
(07:12):
students are missing school because they don'thave access to mentoral products, what kind
of products do students want, howdo teachers and school nurses and health curriculum
professionals and schools already feel about mentoruationeducation and access to period supplies. And
what we found was that overwhelmingly schoolnurses wanted students to have free access to
(07:35):
products, and we're even paying outof their own pockets to provide students with
products. And in some instances,nurses were even charging students for products in
school and sending students home because theydidn't have a change of clothes to where
if they bled through their clothes.And so once we started to get these
(08:00):
stories and the data, it's helpedNow thirteen cities in Massachusetts takes action to
make period policy a practice, andwe hope that this momentum in the conversation
can result in having a statewide policyso that everyone across the states doesn't have
(08:24):
to choose between paying for menstrual products, food, or rent. And those
menstrual products are not cheap. Imean a pack of pads or a box
of tampons can run you easily overten dollars. And some people might say,
oh, well, you only needlike one a month, what's the
big deal? But sometimes you know, if you're living paycheck to paycheck ten
(08:45):
dollars, or if you're a teamright who is living in foster care,
or maybe you don't have an activeparent in the home and you're kind of
taking care of yourself ten dollars twelvedollars, especially with inflation, that can
really make or break some people.And it's a us that only half of
the population has to bear. Andwhat I think is new to think about
(09:05):
is that it's a necessity. Toiletpaper is not something that we charge anyone
for. And in fact, inMassachusetts, we don't even know how much
we spend on toilet paper because weconsider it a necessity. And that is
what we need to think about withmental products an essential good. No matter
what happens, you still need theseproducts. That's the thing. I mean,
(09:28):
you could walk around all day withlike a wat of toilet paper or
whatever, but it's not the sameand it's not hygienic, and really without
having these products it could lead tohealth issues too. We have been talking
about menstruation as pre contraceptive health becausethere's been a lot of discussion around reproductive
justice around abortion access that and maternalmortality and teen pregnancy and childcare that really
(09:56):
if we started earlier with education aroundwhat the menstrual cycle is and what our
what is irregular for menstruation as well, if we all have more knowledge,
both people who menstrate and people whodon't mend strate, I think we could
(10:18):
really move the needle on some ofthose other risk factors that we're looking at
later on in the reproductive health journey. And so that's what's really exciting about
investing in setting period property is reallyhow much we can actually start to solve
(10:39):
in terms of having better menstrual products, in terms of having better diagnoses for
pcos and endometriosis and other period healthproblems, and better sex education also menstruation
and things like endometriosis and PCO.I don't even see it as sex education.
(11:01):
It's just health because people who menstruate, people who have a uterus and
this part of their bodies. Imean, this is just what we were
born with. You know. It'snot a choice, it's not a you
know, whatever you want to putthe word on it. This kind of
leads me to a question that youbrought up shelters and prisons and so on
and so forth. I was assumingthat they already had access to menstrual products,
(11:24):
because again, these are health situations. What are you seeing when it
comes to that. Most shelters dependon donations for mental products, and those
are the shelters that do have products. Many shelters don't have products. It's
not something that they stock. It'snot part of their budget. They have
bigger fish to fry, if youwill, in terms of managing their caseload.
(11:46):
And this is exactly why the stateneeds to come in and create these
line items for shelters to purchase productsand being reimbursed for them like they do
for other essential items. The incar started facilities is a harder nut to
crack because there is less transparency.But we have done two surveys, one
(12:13):
with the sheriffs of the six countiesthat have people who menstrate in their facilities,
and the good news is that theyall believe people should have free access
to menstrual products, but only twoof the six counties actually had policies to
(12:33):
articulate that. And in our experience, if something is not written down in
a policy, if the correctional officersdon't know that it is in fact a
practice for a policy to hand outfree access to menstral products, no questions
asked. If inmates during their orientationare not told that they have the right
(12:56):
to access free products, then thatis not true access. But we did
last year was we did a publicinformation request with the Department of Corrections to
see how much do mental products cost, because, like you said earlier,
we know they're more expensive when you'reliving paycheck to paycheck and you're buying them
(13:16):
at a local bodega than they arewhen you buy them at bulk from BJ's.
And in fact, out of thefour hundred items for sale in commissary
in Massachusetts jails, mental products arethe third and fourth most expensive thing that
you can buy. The only thingmore expensive is typewriter. Inc. What
(13:39):
who uses typewriters? Not half thepopulation I'll tell you that. I mean
they're great, don't get me wrong, but really, huh and what was
the justification for that or did younot get any We only got the data.
We didn't get any conversation around whatwe found. And it's infuriating,
(14:00):
honestly to think about people who don'thave access to choice being left with no
choice for what to do with theirmental products. We've heard from doctors who
work with the who do the medicalservices for people who are incarcerated, including
the people who mentrate, and theyhave told us their concerns by seeing people
(14:22):
use unhygienic substitutes for mental products becauseit creates more reproductive health issues down the
line. And we have that datain Massachusetts for the disproportionate rates of incarcerated
people who have failed pregnancies and otheravoidable reproductive health problems. So there are
(14:43):
only one or two other states aroundthe country who have policies for making mental
products free and incarcerated facilities, andwe believe that in Massachusetts we should be
able to make this even right andreinstore menstrual dignity to everyone. Well,
(15:05):
you talk about preventive care as well, and some people might say Oh,
that's a lot of money to beputting menstrual products in facilities like that.
But then if you're causing people tohave more health issues later on, if
cost is really your concern, Imean, then I would think that by
people coming down with bigger health problemslater because of not having access to period
(15:28):
products, it would end up costingmore in the long run. And not
just in facilities like that, butin schools. You know so many kids
who end up losing time and class, or they end up coming down with
some illness, or they have complicationsfrom endometriosis or something that they're not able
to detect because they don't have properproducts. I mean, preventive care is
(15:50):
so important. And talk with usabout what is the argument here for people
who might say that's just going tocost a lot of money, Like,
we don't really have the money forthat. What's your argument to that.
We don't know the cost for otheressential items like toilet paper, and so
using that perspective, we should notbe comparing the cost for other essential items.
(16:14):
Two menstrual products are actually really cheap. They're made out of cotton ideally,
they are one hundred percent organic,and they don't have any chemicals or
fraquences in them, because that canalso lead to health issues for people down
the road. So there are companieswho, through scaling up, have been
(16:36):
able to provide menstruators with products forjust a dollar a year. So we
can definitely afford to do this inMassachusetts. If people are able to get
this in whatever way for a dollara year, why are those of us
going to whatever, name your pharmacyhere, name your target, your Walmart,
whatever, and paying ten, twelve, fifteen bucks for a box or
(17:00):
a bag of menstrual products or likea cup that's I think like a silicone
cup is like twenty thirty dollars,which is certainly more of a cost effective
option. But where is the disconnecthere? I think the disconnect is not
having the conversations together about what acomprehensive menstrual equity strategy from Massachusetts looks like.
(17:22):
I think that when we have theseconversations in silos, and when the
state doesn't take action and cities andschool districts are working in their own silos
in order to come up with solutions, we're missing the big picture option for
maximum efficiency for the state budget.Honestly, and so I understand that this
(17:42):
conversation has been overlooked for hundreds ofyears in our government, and there is
a lot to catch up on.But it's definitely not an issue that has
only talked about in schools or onlyin shelters in car strated facilities. It's
every single state agency, including transportationand the train like you were saying,
(18:04):
that needs to think about how theysupport menstruators. Because when we support menstruators
and people who menstrate, then weare supporting everyone. We're supporting our econdomy,
our businesses will do better, we'llhave our educational inequity, health inequity
will decrease, and so there's alot of opportunity for collaboration across sectors on
(18:29):
this issue. Sure, so,how are people on Beacon Hill responding to
your efforts here when it comes tomenstrual products? Are you getting good feedback?
Not great feedback, A lot ofwhy should I care? Feedback?
What are people saying? The firstquestions we got when we started this campaign
is this a real issue? Andis there any data? So we had
(18:49):
to do surveys with state agencies inorder to collect the data and show that
it is a real issue. Thenext set of questions was, well,
how does this work, what doesthe solution look like? Where do we
buy mentional products from? Which officeis going to have the budget, and
where are the dispensers going to bewhere they'll be vandalism. And that is
(19:15):
where mass now has stepped in andthrough a state grant, been able to
pilot approp program in Fall River andNew Bedford, to cities where the school
districts have decided to provide free accessto mentional products in all school bathrooms and
study what the implementation looks like sothat we could create a toolkit for best
(19:37):
practices to be built upon for therest of the state. So we believe
that we have the data, wehave the examples of best practices nationwide and
right here in Massachusetts. And thebiggest barrier is that it's not the first
thing that comes to mind for ourleadership when they think about I raised for
(20:00):
the commonwealth, maybe because they've neverexperienced periods or period of poverty before,
or because it's been invisible from thepublic conversation for so long. And so
we need to do everything we canto get in front of them and have
the confidence like our founding mothers didover fifty years ago to take our personal
(20:22):
truth and stories about bleeding through ourclothes, about not using unhygienic substitutes,
about all the different experiences that we'vehad, and actually be able to have
these conversations with legislators. So rightnow we're supporting people and submitting written testimony
(20:44):
to the Public Health Committee and thehopes that they will urgently move to report
the bill favorably out of committee likethey did last session, and last session
the bill passed the Senate unanimously.How can people connect with mass now if
they're curious, they want to learnmore about your work, what can they
do, how can they find yousomeone, and so forth? You can
(21:07):
go to our website mass now dotorg to sign up to become a member,
sign up for our email list,you can sign up to volunteer and
learn about all of our priority issueareas and ways to take action. Sasha
good Friend from mass Now, thankyou so much for your time. This
has been such an eye opening conversation. Thank you for having these conversations and
being willing to talk about this.Thank you so much for giving us the
(21:30):
space. I have a safe andhealthy weekend, and please join me again
next week for another edition of theshow. I'm Nicole Davis from WBZ News
Radio on iHeartRadio
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