By Riley Dauber
Editor-in-Chief
No matter how prepared one is, anyone who menstruates is bound to face a bloody surprise every now and then. Fortunately, Washington College worked with the company Aunt Flow to install free period product machines at the start of the fall semester.
Director of Student Engagement Antoine Jordan ’12 spearheaded the initiative, which the Hunger and Homelessness Committee has discussed for a year and a half. Together, they researched different affordable and sustainable companies before landing on Aunt Flow.
According to their website, the Flow dispensers are affordable and easy to use. Instead of inserting a quarter and selecting a low-quality sanitary napkin, users can choose between a free pad or tampon whenever they need one.
Not only do the dispensers use high-quality materials to create their products, but they also last longer and take 30 seconds to reload, according to the Aunt Flow website. These features made Aunt Flow the ideal company for the College, as students, staff, and faculty will now be able to find comfortable products across campus without unnecessary stress.
According to Jordan, the 30 dispensers arrived over the summer, and the Office of Buildings and Grounds started installing them over the past few weeks.
“The places we thought would be the most feasible would be gender neutral bathrooms or the restrooms across campus, especially in academic and public buildings. We didn’t want to place them in locations where it was strictly decided by gender. We wanted to make sure that they were accessible for everyone who might need to use them, regardless of how they identify,” Jordan said.
The Office of Student Engagement is currently working on creating a campus map so students, faculty, and staff can easily see where the closest machine is. The team will also place QR codes next to all of the dispensers so users can report broken parts or lack of supplies. These materials will be available in the next few weeks.
“Part of what the original bulk order was was not only the dispensers but a large supply of tampons and pads. It’s very easy for us to just hop back in with Aunt Flow and order replacements whenever we need them at a relatively reasonable rate, which [provides] a service to the students and the members of the community here at the College,” Jordan said.
Along with the academic buildings on campus, the school also installed dispensers in the residential hall laundry rooms, except for the Western Shore buildings.
“It’s all about making sure students have what they need to get through their day, to really focus on living and existing here without additional worries or stressors,” Jordan said.
The dispensers came at the perfect time, as the price of period products increases despite their necessity.
During the fall 2023 semester, Peer SMART, which stands for Sexual Misconduct Advocacy Response Team, hosted a period drive to collect period-related items for Kent County High School.
“Right now, the prices of period products are insane. Then when places try and get lower-cost period products, they’re usually not the best quality…or just not variety in sizes,” Peer SMART president senior Lindsay Saddic said. “If these products were more accessible, there would be more initiatives to have them readily available for students.”
According to Harvard Health Publishing, over 22 million women struggle with affording and accessing period products.
“I have had patients tell me that they use toilet paper or paper towels instead of pads or tampons because they cannot afford menstrual products,” Harvard Medical School’s instructor in obstetrics and gynecology Huma Farid wrote.
These high prices are a result of the pink tax, which is an increased price applied to toiletry items marketed toward women, including razors, shampoo, and deodorant.
For example, according to the Walgreens website, a three-pack of men’s razors are $6.79 and a three-pack of women’s razors are $7.49, despite the fact that the products are seemingly the same, save for the different colors.
The pink tax also applies to menstrual products, even though anyone who menstruates needs these items to manage their periods each month. The Always brand of pads averages $13 a pack, while a box of Tampax tampons comes in at $12, according to Walgreens.
While a person’s cycle may vary in length and frequency, they typically experience their menstrual phase once a month. Depending on the flow and number of days, they may go through an entire box of pads or tampons a month.
“As women, we can’t control when we get our period or that we even get it in the first place. It’s not necessarily fair that we have to pay for something that happens to us biologically,” Peer SMART secretary senior Logan Kenny said.
Placing the dispensers on campus may lead to more open conversations about period poverty, the pink tax, and menstrual cycles in general, which might help reduce the stigma surrounding one’s cycle.
Photo by Hope Benjamin.
Photo Caption: The plan to install the dispensers has been in the works for over a year and a half.