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For anyone who has to endure periods, you know just how awful it truly is, but for homeless women, it is a whole different story.
According to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, 2015 annual homeless assessment report, 39.7% of all homeless people in the United States are women. 50,000 of those women are unsheltered and living on the streets. This means that for homeless women, they often won’t know where to turn when they are trying to take care of their feminine hygiene needs, which therefore often leads to many homeless women having to make the difficult decision between food and tampons.
This problem directly correlates with the cost of sanitary products, as the average cost for sanitary products per package in the United States is $5.84 for pads and $7.62 for tampons. It is also estimated that the average annual cost for pads is $70 and $90 for tampons. In Britain, the average cost for a box of tampons from supermarkets is between 2 to 3 pounds, which is normally the same price for pads. However, local shops tend to sell pads and tampons as high as £5. The average person who has a period knows that other items such medication for cramps, new underwear, hot water bottles and chocolates can accumulate to be rather expensive, which
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means that those additional items to help treat periods are not an option for homeless women. A short video conducted by ‘Bustle’ shows just how difficult that time of the month can be for homeless women.
The women talked about how they have used plastic bags, towels, napkins, socks and many other items as an alternative to tampons or pads. Because of this, they are more prone to getting infections and homeless women who can purchase tampons are much more prone to toxic shock syndrome because they are more likely to have them in for a longer duration of time. One woman, Alexa, stated, “I’d rather be clean than full.” Homeless women don’t have the option of buying new clothes if they bleed on them during their period, and this can be an extremely embarrassing situation, which will often damage their
dignity. It is reported that homeless shelters don’t always provide these essentials because they are deemed to be ‘luxury’ products. This also goes for some prisons and schools. Many different movements and organisations have pushed for more awareness, as this issue needs to be addressed. Hashtag Happy Period being one of them. Happy Period’s aim is to provide menstrual hygiene kits to the homeless who would otherwise go without out. They recognize and support teenagers, nonbinary, and the LGBTQ community. The Homeless Period is another movement, which addresses this issue, as they believe that tampons and towels should be made available to homeless shelters, the same way the government provides condoms. You can support this cause by donating tampons and towels to homeless shelters, or directly giving these essential products to homeless women, or checking out Hashtag Happy Period and The Homeless Period to get involved.
It is with this ecological context-based approach that the authors conduct their study. The program consisted of 445 randomly selected homeless women (p. 17). The women were considered eligible if they were at least 18, had sex with a male partner in the last six months, spoke and understood English, and did not have significant cognitive impairments (p. 17). The women...
“On average according to [Larimer], women in California pay about $7 per month for 40 years of tampons and sanitary napkins” (Larimer 1). Over the years, paying for these products has added up. Jordan Gass-Poore, author of “Citing Gender Bias, State Lawmakers Move to Eliminate ‘Tampon Tax,” argues that the tampon tax exists because of gender bias. One of the reasons why these products are taxed is because they aren’t intended to be used internally or externally, or for diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or to prevent illness or disease (Gass-Poore 1). This tax is making periods sound like an illness that all women have instead of a natural cycle that happens to most women.
One student, Aesha, was homeless due to being physically abused by her child’s father, she spent 30 days in a temporary shelter and then was moved to an emergency assistance unit. She told The Progressive, “It was horrible’... ‘We slept on benches, and it was very crowded. I was so scared I sat on my bag and held onto the stroller day and night, from Friday to Monday.’” (635) Aesha and her son were eventually moved to a family shelter in Queens which presented problems of its own. The ordeal of being homeless had taken a toll on her and her studies. The Progressor has a quote by her saying, "I spend almost eight hours a day on the trains," she says. "I have to leave the shelter at 5:00 a.m. for the Bronx where my girlfriend watches my son for me. I get to her house around 7:00. Then I have to travel to school in Brook...
It’s shown satirically on television, made fun of in music, and joked about in day-to-day activities: being homeless. I don’t understand what’s so funny about being homeless. The struggle to stay alive in an uninviting climate with nothing but the clothes on your back, doesn’t seem very fun. Yet in the media, being homeless is still treated like a joke. In the essay “Homeless” by Anna Quindlen, the reader is shown what it truly means to be without a home. My view on the struggles that homeless people have to endure is very similar to that of Quindlen’s in her essay, which perfectly captured the reality of what it is like to be without a home, and what it truly means to be homeless; while simultaneously demonstrating to me the negative effect
There are many other cases of why the homeless are homeless like domestic violence, mental illness, addictions, and unaffordable health care. Homelessness is a problem which has been caused by many different aspects but mainly money because of massive unemployment rates. A hidden aspect to homelessness that we may not think of is ...
“Homeless is more than being without a home. It is tied into education needs, food, security; health issues both mental and physical, employment issues, etc. Don’t forget the whole picture.” (“Boxed In” 2005 pg. 108)
...ty for increasing the likelihood that women will become homeless. Female single parent families rose form 23.7 % of all families in poverty in 1960 to 52.6 % of all families in poverty in the mid 1990's. (Hagen, 1994). As a result of historical growth in women's poverty and female headed family homelessness, it has been increasingly important for research to focus on the unique sets of issues and problems that women's homelessness presents.
Today in the U.S. there is a large percentage of people that are homeless. There are so many questions when one sees a homeless person, for example why doesn’t he or she get a job and get out of the streets? People that make comments like the one just made probably doesn’t really know anyone that is homeless so they do no understand what they go through. In the book “ Tell Me Who I Am,’’ Elliot Liebow tries to explain what the cost and gains are for women living in a homeless shelter.
every aspect and institution in a society work as one to create a function; these institutions are said to be
Furthermore, Homelessness is also a strong outcome of poverty, in comparison to people that are in poverty, but live in a home. Homeless children do not have access to adequate nutrition and medical care therefore causing even more health problems. Homeless women “experience higher rates of low‐birth‐weight babies, miscarriages, and infant mortality”(Cliffnotes,2015). Homelessness makes it extremely difficult to obtain a job due to the many under developments; mental and social that are obtained due to this life making poverty a never ending cycle, extremely difficult to
Armand, Lione, Kapecki, Jon. 1975. ¡§Testing Tampons in Rochester: just what can you Rely on?¡¨ Jul23-Aug5. Rochester Patriot. Vol.3, No.14
Imagine eating Christmas dinner underneath a bridge on the cold dirt because you and your family were evicted from your home. Just trying to find a single meal is what thousands of people, who live on the street, go through each day. They have been kicked out of their houses and apartments because they can't afford rent due to their low paying jobs.
Imagine if it were you: missing school or work since you cannot afford the products you need. Imagine if it were you: forced to leave your home as it is "that time of the month". Imagine if it were you: shunned by family and friends; made to feel like less of a person simply because of a natural bodily function. This is life for millions of women around the world and it needs to change. Women are historically encouraged to hide their periods. Even today, in "modern" society, menstruation is still highly stigmatized. This stigmatization leads to serious problems with health, social situations, personal development, society, and even endangers women's lives.
Many people still think of homeless transients as alcoholics and/or mentally disabled. The truth is, the current homeless population consists of runaway adolescents, single adult males or females, battered women and over one million homeless families with children – typically headed by a female parent.
Another use of TO for social change was to empower homeless women by highlighting their innate abilities. It served as a tool to help homeless women deal with their present emotional and mental health challenges to hopefully motivate change in their future (Woodson, 2009). Forum theatre proved to be a useful application here. As defined earlier, Forum theatre addressed a range of problems that allowed the audience to portray and dissect on their own. Because this study took place in a women’s shelter, the issues addressed revolved around the sharing of certain items. For example, some women had conflicts in the shower, where some women would leave the shower to take a phone call, and then get mad when someone took their spot when they returned.