Scotland becomes first country to make period products free

All I would add is that the 'long' ones with wings are good for teenagers overnight. I remember being mortified when me or the pad had shifted overnight and leaked on my PJs/bedding.

 

We men should start a campaign for free shaving products. Have you seen the price of Gillette Mach 3 blades?

 

Can women join that one too if we’re going to be expected to keep shaving our underarms, legs and whatever topiary the adverts choose to use to represent elsewhere? I’ll swap you for the chin and upper lip area. It takes me forever and a day to do my legs and as you say, razors aren’t cheap!

 

Oh god, nights were the absolute worst at that age! So many sneaky attempts in the morning to wash my pants in cold water so they wouldn’t stain and scrubbing my bedding hoping it would dry without anyone noticing. They make nighttime sanitary towels though that I think are preferable to using medium long ones. Or maybe I just have a thing against the long ones because Will bought me them by mistake ones and they were like actual nappies and were completely unwearable to me. We still joke about it loads now.

 

A few years ago I bought my wife about 300 long ones that were like extra thick or something by mistake. I think she used 1.

 

I can remember going into aldi and buying some pads for my daughter once. As they came down the conveyor the young girl smirked at me and said 'Bet you're embarrassed buying these aren't ya?' To which I replied 'No, not at all. My daughter needs em.' She shut up.

 

My missus and I once had a jokey argument (we were both agnostic veering towards atheism at the time) on the subject....

It started when she argued that God must be a man since only women have to sit down to pee and the monthly 'red letter day' (as it was euphemistically called) proved it. I on the other hand argued that God must have been a woman since the sloppy design and implementation would never have happened if God was a man. She countered that the flaw in the design was proof of that it was a man, since having got the male bits right he had attention span deficit, got decidedly bored, it was a Friday night and after wrestling with the problem of the female reproductive processes (not to mention childbirth process itself) for all of 5 minutes, chalked 'fu*k-it' and buggered off to the pub!

For centuries though, and in some religions, menstruation was and still is in some instances considered, 'unclean' (not in the physical sense) and I am sure women were shut away or isolated women during that time. Still called the 'curse' in some quarters and some denominations still ban women from attending church during menstruation it is one of those natural bodily functions that makes the subject 'hidden' It was a taboo subject and therefore the reason many men, particularly single young men were so uncomfortable with it. I know it is not exactly dinner table conversation stuff but sex education has helped tremendously to explain it to us ignorant men.

I think this thread has been a refreshing change with the frank and open comments and openness form poster like Jamdrop. l do think though, the thread has glossed over the facts that for a percentage of women it is more than just an inconvenience. Severe stomach cramps and other side effects can badly affect some women. I knew someone who was virtually bed-ridden for two or three days, several times a year when she had a particularly bad one. Ultimately, years later complications led to her having to have a hysterectomy. At least by that time she had had two healthy children but it was still a big blow to her eased somewhat by a sympathetic and understanding partner.

Looking on the internet, I believe that Sanitary towels (invented by a woman surprise surprise) were not invented until 1888 and the modern Tampons did not appear until the late 1920s or 1930s ( Invented by a man but patented and manufactured by a woman. ) One can only guess at what if must have been like for the masses up to the late Victorian era.

 

Of course you can join the campaign, there's no racial, sex or any other discrimination. Free shaving for all!

PS I like the "Topiary" reference....

 

Imagine comparing it to shaving products.

Almost as stupid as Nudger asking for free condoms at oakwell when they started the free period product campaign there.

 

It was only a bleeding joke mate.

 

Good point. I forgot that the night ones existed!

 

Don't know if that choice of words was deliberate, but it made me laugh and I choose to believe it was on purpose.

 

my wife's mum told her she would produce an egg every month when telling her about periods, she was only 10 and was mortified thinking she was becoming a chicken of some description

 

I thank you...

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55502252

At last we've been able to stop the sexist tax. The EU should follow suit.

 

Had we remained EU members we were abolishing that tax from from January next year anyway.

 

Is Ireland not in the EU?

 

must be amazing to be able to make your own laws whilst being an EU member... who’d have thought it!

 

Do you mean take back control of the control we already had?

 

exactly. Along the same lines of controlling our borders... like we already could too.