Hey, how about some good news, about people who are making other people’s lives better? All you have to do is go to a Democratically controlled state, you know, like Minnesota. High school kids have been lobbying for free menstrual products, and the state legislature is going to approve it!
Students and their allies have pressed lawmakers for years to address the problem they describe as “period poverty.” They detailed the indignities of struggling with periods at school without the products they need or the means to buy them. They framed it as a public health issue for those who viewed it as just a hassle.
The payoff for that hard work may come soon. Minnesota lawmakers appear poised to pass a bill requiring Minnesota public schools serving students in grades four through 12 to provide free pads, tampons or other menstrual products to students in all restrooms.
Advocates credit students for speaking out publicly and refusing to let the issue be ignored at the Capitol. Elif and other teens say in the fight they’ve learned some real-world lessons on power, persistence and making change.
It makes sense, it gives people dignity, it improves education. It looks like it also teaches students that they have the power to make a difference.
Well, Republicans also teach an important lesson. That panem et circenses is critical to governing, especially when the bread part is omitted and let them eat brioche is the suggestion to objections over the lack of bread.
They’ve also introduced a new tariff on national razors from France.
Had this happened in Tennessee, the students would have been expelled from school (students-of-color, anyway) and Florida would have passed a law to prevent this from ever being discussed in class.
” . . . free pads, tampons or other menstrual products to students in all restrooms. ”
That’s OK with me as long as each product has the 10 Commandments printed on it. A reasonable compromise if you live in a purple state.
Wow, I guess my high school in Illinois back in the early ’70s was really progressive for its time.
The girl’s restroom in the main building had a “matron” on duty – an older lady who would sit there, reading or knitting.
She would make sure that supplies never ran out and that “her” restroom was clean.
There was a cabinet in the corner that was filled with feminine hygiene products, and all we had to do was ask for whatever we needed.
I’m willing to bet that this service is no longer available in that high school, but it was 50 years ago.
@4 I’m willing to bet that this service is no longer available in that high school
I’m sure you’re correct, and I’m willing to bet that it was removed because some older, conservative, white guys felt that it was somehow impinging on their rights as taxpayers (as in “I don’t need them, so why should I pay for them?”).*
*I only say that because I’ve heard those same arguments before.
This contrasts with the Idaho legislature:
I don’t recall if it was from here or another site, but I recall seeing a screen cap of a Tweet from some asshole who said that women should “just hold it.”
Evidently, basic human biology was considered unimportant in this moron’s education.
“It makes sense, it gives people dignity, it improves education. It looks like it also teaches students that they have the power to make a difference.”
All of which the Republican Party is vehemently opposed to.
#7 “Evidently, basic human biology was considered unimportant in this moron’s education.”
I went to school in southern Arizona in the late ’60s – early ’70s. I was not taught a word about menstrual cycles. We had a handful of “sex ed” presentations, where the girls and boys were separated, and the PE coaches for each gender read verbatim off a script they had been handed. IIRC, the boys’ talk was mostly about how you could get a “venereal disease”. I don’t even remember if they discussed masturbation. I assume the girls also got some info on pads and tampons, but obviously we boys didn’t need to know that icky stuff.
Again, in my progressive high school, we were shown a film of a birth.
A friend who was sitting next to me fainted while watching it.
She later confided in me that she had just found out that she was pregnant.
I was young, but I realized that she needed lots of support, and I supported her in every way that I could.
Some good comparisons and stats on Repug Red vs Democratic Blue states here in this youtube clip that’s over a dozen minutes long.
I have mixes feelings about this. Of course it is nice for people to have access to menstrual products independent of their wealth, but it would be better if nobody was that poor that this was even necessary.
*mixed
OT
Does Britain still count as a state, even if it is a failed state? I think tories definitely count as MAGA .
“London Metropolitan police to flush out bad cop, badder cops.”
https://www.newsbiscuit.com/post/met-to-flush-out-bad-cop-badder-cops
“Evidently, basic human biology was considered unimportant in this moron’s education.”
It was a long time since anything MAGAistas said could surprise me.
OT
Another British story.
This is not directly related to tory mismanagement of the country, but the idea of solving things by drinking yourself unconscious on Bailys is probably more widespread today than before the Nasty Party took over 13 years ago.
“He Has Risen!”
https://www.newsbiscuit.com/post/he-has-risen
I am tired, so I read “demonic states are so much nicer than Republican ones”.
But even the misread sentence would be true.