Period Power by Nadya Okamoto
Author:Nadya Okamoto
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
• REPRESENTATION •
You may have noticed that when it comes to menstrual equity, most of the people who are speaking out for change and are initiating it in the government are women. Well, representation matters.
In January 2016 “Barack Obama likely became the first president to comment on menstruation,” in a video interview with Ingrid Nilsen, YouTube star and lifestyle guru.102 During the interview Ingrid asked President Obama about the sales tax on period products as luxury items. His response to the question, which then went viral, was, “I suspect it’s because men were making the laws when those taxes were passed.”103 EXACTLY: Representative democracy is essential for meeting the needs of all Americans. Women make up more than half of our country’s population, but only 20 percent of the congressional seats are held by women.104 If the remaining 80 percent of those positions are held by men, many of whom are made squeamish by the mention of tampons or pads—God forbid we talk about menstruation in Congress—then we will continue to have legislation such as a sales tax that considers menstrual hygiene a luxury.
The United States is not great at all about representative democracy when it comes to having women in office, and over time we have gotten progressively worse about it. In 2017 data from a study conducted by the Inter-Parliamentary Union revealed that the US sank “from 52nd in the world for women’s representation to 104th” over the last two decades. From just 2016 to 2017 the US dropped from 95th to 104th place in the rankings of more than 190 countries.105 A 2011 American University report titled “Men Rule: The Continued Under-Representation of Women in U.S. Politics” showed that in the worldwide rankings of women in the national legislature, top countries such as Rwanda and Andorra had women in more than 50 percent of national legislative roles, while the US had women in only 19.3 percent, putting it in 90th place.106 No wonder we in the US have such a difficult time making more institutional change toward menstrual equity. We can bring about a huge cultural shift in the perception and treatment of menstruation if we do two things: (1) get more women into office and (2) elect more men who are ready to talk about menstruation matter-of-factly, to acknowledge the importance of menstrual equity, and to empathize with the importance of having access to period products.
We have to work to encourage women to embrace political ambition, and we have to encourage voters to support women candidates. We also want women to run for higher positions! The American University study revealed that women tend to run for lower positions in public office, but in general more than twice as many men as women run for office. Women have much less confidence about having the qualifications to run, whereas men are less likely to think they are underqualified when they are. And men are more likely to consider themselves very qualified when they aren’t. When men look in
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