Menstrual Health and TampAction
Menstrual Health and TampAction
In the US, we're currently required to take a health class or three throughout the course of our public school education. We learn about the changes that occur in our adolescent selves, and are taught how to practice responsible debauchery. Unfortunately, these health classes overlook an area that society in general overlooks: menstrual health. We learn that we have the option of using pads or tampons, and that each of us has a different absorbency, and that Toxic Shock Syndrome is generally bad, so ya might want to use pads.
But unless we're blessed with a flower child for a gym teacher, we probably hear nothing about the piles of plastic waste in landfills and littering beaches, cancerous chlorine bleach by-products, males heading menstrual product companies, the importance of the vagina's self-cleaning system, or the miniscule lacerations caused by non-cotton fibers (natural or man-made) in tampons. Yeah, there are a number of useful things we could have been taught, but weren't.
So I won't beat around the bush (as it were). Instead, let me recommend using cloth pads, organic 100% cotton tampons, or a menstrual cup, and try to wear cotton panties as often as possible to avoid yeast and bacterial infections. The following list should provide you with whatever your body may desire. Also, note that a number of the commercial companies carry multiple types of alternative menstrual products, so you can take your pick.
Cloth pads:
Menstrual Cups:
A couple of online sellers of biodegradable, organic, cotton tampons and pads:
There are other online vendors, of course, so feel free to shop around.
Education:
- The national TampAction website. Provides concise, honest reviews of different types of menstrual products, as well as information about campaigns, causes, etc.
- mum.org -- The Museum of Menstruation and Women's Health. Provides hours of random education and amusement.
College of Wooster
In 2003, Kayde Deardorff attended a TampAction presentation at a SEAC convention of some sort, and was inspired to bring the cause home. She started the campus TampAction group, which to this day has no budget and boasts only somewhere between 3 and 8 devoted members. Since its inception, it has held two bulk Keeper sales, and is working on another one now. These sales involve placing amusing ads in the campus event flyer and manning an education table in the student center. C.O.W.'s TampAction group also promoted an invented event called "Seven Days of Stubble," which encouraged both men and women to break the shaving convention. Members of Xi Chi Psi, Green House, and C.A.R.D.ED acted as reluctant poster children for the event. The campus TampAction group also threw together a poorly publicized (and similarly attended) women's health workshop for some unobtrusive education of the general public. As of early March '05, an education zine is in progress.
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