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Menstrual Cups Help Keep Kenyan Girls in School

spiegel.de

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Re: Menstrual Cups Help Keep Kenyan Girls in School

#41

Post by lixtra »

JauntyHatAngle wrote: post #24
vixen99 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's inconsistent tax rates which are crazy. Isn't toilet tissue 'essential' in the same way? Should that be exempt from sales tax? In many EU countries foodstuffs (difficult to 'make do' in its absence) and pharmaceutical products attract VAT albeit at a reduced rate.

Perhaps I'm missing the point, but I think the concern is more that Women have to pay money for essential hygiene products than Men due to their gender - which can be seen as inequitable. Toilet paper is an essential for both genders.

What is the tax status of razor blades in your state?

Re: Menstrual Cups Help Keep Kenyan Girls in School

#42

Post by drakonka »

tropdrop wrote: post #40
drakonka wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I don't really even know any women who have IUDs, much less any who have IUDs and have tried menstrual cups unfortunately.

Well, you know one now! I have a copper IUD and I cannot recommend it enough. My body reacts poorly to hormones, so the pill wasn't an option, but a condom-only based approach to birth control wasn't going to work in a monogamous, multi-year relationship - over a ten year period, 86 in 100 women who only use condoms become pregnant [1]. This probabilistically makes sense, given that 10 years includes hundreds or thou…

Thanks for sharing! I've never been on the pill due to the hormonal aspect as well, but I've also heard some things that put me off of copper IUD. I'll have to do more reading about it, but it's condoms for me for now. I'm also going to try out Natural Cycles, considering it's been shown effective and approved as a birth control method and I think I'm diligent enough to maintain the proper usage it requires. Birth control method aside though, even with condoms, if I get pregnant once in ten years I have no moral qualms about abortion. It's something I take seriously of course, but once incident in the span of ten years is an acceptable rate of failure for me.

Re: Menstrual Cups Help Keep Kenyan Girls in School

#43

Post by Fnoord »

amelius wrote: post #38
veidr wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow! If you insist on having a floating bar at the top of your web page, this sort of scrolling progress indicator should be mandatory. (Also, I learned about menstrual cups due to your enticing reference to the progress indicator which tipped the balance in favor of clicking though to the article.)

I already have a scrollbar indicating the position in the page. Now I have two indicators, which seems a bit much.

True (though I did like it aesthetically as it isn't noisy). This custom scrollbar could've added several features though such as an indication of how long the article would last time-wise (which is an estimate). Tells me much more than a scrollbar would.

Re: Menstrual Cups Help Keep Kenyan Girls in School

#44

Post by FearNotDaniel »

amelius wrote: post #38
veidr wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow! If you insist on having a floating bar at the top of your web page, this sort of scrolling progress indicator should be mandatory. (Also, I learned about menstrual cups due to your enticing reference to the progress indicator which tipped the balance in favor of clicking though to the article.)

I already have a scrollbar indicating the position in the page. Now I have two indicators, which seems a bit much.

Very often there is a difference between how far you are along the article, versus how far you are down the actual page, especially if the page has a large footer, additional advertising down there, and an unmoderated comments section. In the latter case, the actual text can end less than half way down the page. So the additional indicator, when used wisely, can actually have a valid use case.

Re: Menstrual Cups Help Keep Kenyan Girls in School

#45

Post by ben_w »

jaabe wrote: post #5
rlabrecque wrote: post #2

It absolutely blows my mind that Menstrual cups aren't more widespread globally. I basically wouldn't even know about them if my partner didn't use them. They seem like a better option than tampons and pads 90%+ of the time.

My better half uses one, but after the birth of our first child she had to use pads for a while. This was the first time I got to buy them. They are insanely expensive, it’s truly mind blowing that more women aren’t using the cup. I mean, I know it doesn’t work for everyone, but it’s frankly as though women have some sort of “life-tax” attached that we men don’t, with pads being so expensive by comparison. I don’t re…

> They are insanely expensive, it’s truly mind blowing that more women aren’t using the cup. I mean, I know it doesn’t work for everyone, but it’s frankly as though women have some sort of “life-tax” attached that we men don’t, with pads being so expensive by comparison.

My partner introduced me to them, and when I saw how expensive they were I immediately wondered how much it would cost to 3D print moulds for them so that entrepreneurial Kenyans could mass produce them as a cottage industry. I only got as far as a first print of a positive before someone pointed me to (I think) an Alibaba listing where they cost 5¢ each if you bought 1,000 at a time. I can’t find them quite so cheap any more, but I have just found them at €0.18 each. Perhaps a “buy one for yourself, get a hundred more for Kenya” marketing strategy could help? I have no idea how to do that without the annoying and condescending out-of-touch white-male saviour stereotype though.

Re: Menstrual Cups Help Keep Kenyan Girls in School

#46

Post by robin_reala »

lixtra wrote: post #41
JauntyHatAngle wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps I'm missing the point, but I think the concern is more that Women have to pay money for essential hygiene products than Men due to their gender - which can be seen as inequitable. Toilet paper is an essential for both genders.

What is the tax status of razor blades in your state?

Shaving is both not a necessity and something people of every gender do equally.

Re: Menstrual Cups Help Keep Kenyan Girls in School

#47

Post by robin_reala »

drakonka wrote: post #28
systemBuilder wrote: post #23

Sounds like it is way more ecologically sound than tampons; do women in America use them? Why not?

They are becoming more popular. In Sweden almost every pharmacy stocks at least one brand of menstrual cup, and now even some grocery stores in the feminine hygiene section. They're still not as popular as tampons, but there's definitely a higher level of recognition of them now.

My local ICA supermarket has three or four brands of cup alone.

Re: Menstrual Cups Help Keep Kenyan Girls in School

#48

Post by Moru »

ghda wrote: post #21
franky47 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue of advertising and marketing pressure towards a conforming image of what "young males" should be/look/smell like is a similar one to that of females. Not conforming to this image is often seen as a rebellious act, and depicted with shame for not following the holy rule of capitalism. Yet when such products are partly responsible for the destruction of our ecosystem (single-use products, greenhouse gas emiss…

We all have our own “life taxes” to pay. Here’s one: since men are larger and headboard than women, we need more food just to stay alive! A few hundred extra calories a day over a lifetime, the cost must be substantial — almost certainly greater than the cost of tampons. Life is unfair to all of us, both sexes.

How much more is a man making in salary compared to a woman doing the same job? In any country? You can't compare the small ammount of less food needed in calories compared to the large difference in salary for a man, the extra food does not warrant the difference.

You as a man can choose not to east as much as you need. You grow a bit less and need less food. A woman can't choose not to leave the house 5 days per month if she want's to keep a job. Yes, we can keep arguing over this but I though we were done with this already 50 years ago. I'm a bit surpriced to see it to be honest. We talked about this in school when I was 12, 30+ years ago. (Sweden)

Last year one county here started with free menstruation protection for 12-23 year olds [0] (swedish...) Apparently Scotland was first in the world 2017 [1]

[0] https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/stockholm/gratis-mensskydd...

[1] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/scotland-fir...

Re: Menstrual Cups Help Keep Kenyan Girls in School

#49

Post by Double_a_92 »

ben_w wrote: post #45
jaabe wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My better half uses one, but after the birth of our first child she had to use pads for a while. This was the first time I got to buy them. They are insanely expensive, it’s truly mind blowing that more women aren’t using the cup. I mean, I know it doesn’t work for everyone, but it’s frankly as though women have some sort of “life-tax” attached that we men don’t, with pads being so expensive by comparison. I don’t re…

> They are insanely expensive, it’s truly mind blowing that more women aren’t using the cup. I mean, I know it doesn’t work for everyone, but it’s frankly as though women have some sort of “life-tax” attached that we men don’t, with pads being so expensive by comparison. My partner introduced me to them, and when I saw how expensive they were I immediately wondered how much it would cost to 3D print moulds for them s…

> I have no idea how to do that without the annoying and condescending out-of-touch white-male saviour stereotype though.

How would those pesky old white males bother you with your project?

The product will mostly be bought by women, so they are the customers that you need to convince of the good cause. If you need to start a business and set up some webshop and organize marketing campains you can perfectly do that as a woman, with or without the help of other women if you prefer them.

Stop blaming men for you own insecurities!

Re: Menstrual Cups Help Keep Kenyan Girls in School

#50

Post by Double_a_92 »

tropdrop wrote: post #33
aaronbrethorst wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Notably there are also literally taxes attached to such things. Washington tried to make feminine hygiene products tax-free during this legislative cycle, but it died in committee. Hopefully it'll pass next year, but this is still crazy. https://crosscut.com/2019/02/wa-lawmakers-want-make-tampons-...

For context: many places around the US will separate food, drugs, and medical appliances (considered essential for life) from all other goods, taxing the former at 2% and the latter at something like 8-10% - Chicago, for example [1]. This 2% category often includes candy, soda, Viagra... in 15 states there are no restrictions, as long as it is consumable as food. Goods in the latter category are considered "luxury,"…

Wouldn't it be a better marketing tactic to propose that pads & co should be considered medical appliances?
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