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Menstrual Cups Help Keep Kenyan Girls in School

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Re: Menstrual Cups Help Keep Kenyan Girls in School

#71

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

I'm only one person, but I'm an American woman, and I've been using a cup for 16 years. I've introduced them to one other women too.

I also wear reusable cloth pads on light/spotting days. I wash my pads in the wash machine.

Re: Menstrual Cups Help Keep Kenyan Girls in School

#72
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for asking! When you are a young woman just getting your period, it's confusing and messy. Society doesn't help in that it's also taboo. There is a lot of fear and worry involved with having your period that lasts for many women through their lives. I have friends who won't use a tampon that doesn't include the applicator [1] (it helps insertion without needing to get your hands dirty). So using a cup means, y…

While blood might be good for compost that also sounds like a prime method to distribute germs and viruses. Seems dangerous.

A compost toilet is an aerobic environment composed largely of sawdust, human waste and sometimes earth that is decomposed by bacteria and fungi. Properly managed, it's perfectly safe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composting_toilet

Re: Menstrual Cups Help Keep Kenyan Girls in School

#73
post #45
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…

You referring to the annoying and condescending out of touch white males, that built civilization and technology?

Re: Menstrual Cups Help Keep Kenyan Girls in School

#74

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,"…

> the all-male panel rejected eliminating the tax, citing that they would need to recoup those tax funds from other sales, and that it was "unfair to tax the whole population for something that only affects half of it."

They should go have a chat with their moms.

Re: Menstrual Cups Help Keep Kenyan Girls in School

#75
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

You referring to the annoying and condescending out of touch white males, that built civilization and technology?

No, just the ones amongst us who talk more than we listen and presume we know better without having lived someone else’s life or bothering to ask people what their needs or wants are.

I’m a guy. I’ve met guys like that. I’ve been on the receiving end of such presumption from both men and women. Heck, my current landlord is like that. I don’t want to be a guy like that, especially not in the context of “shove this into a part of your anatomy that I don’t have myself”.

Re: Menstrual Cups Help Keep Kenyan Girls in School

#76
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

You referring to the annoying and condescending out of touch white males, that built civilization and technology?

I don't think white males built civilization and technology. The western numeric system is arabic, for one. Gunpowder is Chinese (along with many other intellectual advancements, philosophy, religion, art...). Much of american cultural music is black. The first novels are arguably from either Japan or the Mayan period. Great architectural works and civilizations spanning centuries exist in most continents.

Re: Menstrual Cups Help Keep Kenyan Girls in School

#77
post #55

This needs to come to some far villages in Nepal. In many villages, women are banished to small, cold huts at the outskirts of villages to remain - alone, shut in, and forbidden to go outside - until the end of the period. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/photography/proof/2017/03...

Y'know, I thought so too until I saw the system in Suriname. Women are expected to work around the clock there, carry heavy things and do all the cooking. This system means that you actually don't have to work while possibly in pain and probably unwell, and you don't have to explain yourself to anyone. Yes, it is a bad taboo system that assigns women a 'dirty' status, but there are some positive effects as well (in a…

I hope you read the article I linked to - this is all info you would find there.

I really don't agree this is "better." Given these two horrible choices, I would rather be afforded freedom to roam (even with heavy things), get food and go on a walk than this. There's no kitchen, so the women have to wait for someone to bring them food or water. They're not safe in these huts - many are exposed to the elements, and these "sinful" women are apparently free taking for raping (which is why they try to coordinate and not go alone). Many die from heat stroke or poisonous snakes. There aren't even beds or mattresses... these are prison cells.

Re: Menstrual Cups Help Keep Kenyan Girls in School

#78
post #21

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.

Between tampons/pads, bras, thinner/less quality clothing for as much or more $$$, and socially pressured skincare/makeup/hair product, the overall cost I would guess would be equivalent or more than the nutrition for a few hundred calories per day. There are a lot of factors forcing or pressuring women to spend more money or recieve social reprimand, lowered job prospects, etc. (As in the article! Keeping girls in school!)

Men also get pressured in other ways, but very rarely are they directly monetary/consumptive the way women are in my opinion.

Re: Menstrual Cups Help Keep Kenyan Girls in School

#79
post #58
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've introduced 3-4 women to them. They all have ended up loving the cups. I now live in Vietnam and know the owner of one of the leading brands here. She said that her biggest challenge is the fact that a lot of women don't even use tampons because of the whole fear of losing their virginity cultural stigmas.

I don't buy this argument. Which mother (arguably a good chunk of population) cares about that ?

IME (east asian) this fear is really common and I've heard among other east asian female peers of mothers shaming them or shouting at them for daring to use tampons.

Re: Menstrual Cups Help Keep Kenyan Girls in School

#80

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.

From my wife experience they work well assuming you have access to clean water and a proper environment. She wouldn't wear it in camping for example.
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