Hacker News Reader

Comment by jaabe | Hacker News Reader

My better half uses one, but after the birth of our first child she had to use pads for a while. This was the first time I got to buy them. They are insanely expensive, it’s truly mind blowing that more women aren’t using the cup. I mean, I know it doesn’t work for everyone, but it’s frankly as though women have some sort of “life-tax” attached that we men don’t, with pads being so expensive by comparison.

I don’t remember the prices exactly, but it’s the range of a year of cup coverage being cheaper than one pack of pads.

View on HN

Notably there are also literally taxes attached to such things. Washington tried to make feminine hygiene products tax-free during this legislative cycle, but it died in committee. Hopefully it'll pass next year, but this is still crazy.

https://crosscut.com/2019/02/wa-lawmakers-want-make-tampons-...

It's inconsistent tax rates which are crazy. Isn't toilet tissue 'essential' in the same way? Should that be exempt from sales tax? In many EU countries foodstuffs (difficult to 'make do' in its absence) and pharmaceutical products attract VAT albeit at a reduced rate.

Perhaps I'm missing the point, but I think the concern is more that Women have to pay money for essential hygiene products than Men due to their gender - which can be seen as inequitable.

Toilet paper is an essential for both genders.

Well, they don't need to. Maybe pads should be taxed more so that more women would use menstrual caps? Pads seem to be quite environmentally harmful as well, they produce a lot of non-recyclable waste (unlike toilet paper).

What is the tax status of razor blades in your state?

Shaving is both not a necessity and something people of every gender do equally.

Razor blades are also substantially cheaper than feminine hygiene products. One number I saw was that the average woman spends $150 - $300 per year on pads.

In contrast, I can spend an order of magnitude less on razor blades, as a pack of Harry's blades end up being something like $2/each, and that's basically about a dollar or two a month (or less).

I agree with your main point - it's the inequity that's the point.

In the UK tampons and pads have VAT charged on them (as they count as a luxury); there is a campaign to remove this and it has been reduced to 5%, but it's still there (due to EU regulations I believe).

As a side point, in many parts of the world, toilet paper is not an essential; it's regarded as a dirty and unclean western practice.

> Toilet paper is an essential for both genders.

In walked the bidet.

None of that is essential.

For menstruation, you can do free bleeding.

For defecation, you can use a bidet, or go old-style with corn cobs. You can use an odd number of stones, as specified by Muhammad.

The same goes for shampoo (don't need it), deodorant (don't need it), and many other things.

What this all boils down to is a fear of having other people think you are weird, defective, dirty, gross, etc.

For context: many places around the US will separate food, drugs, and medical appliances (considered essential for life) from all other goods, taxing the former at 2% and the latter at something like 8-10% - Chicago, for example [1]. This 2% category often includes candy, soda, Viagra... in 15 states there are no restrictions, as long as it is consumable as food. Goods in the latter category are considered "luxury," so what's mentioned here is the battle against the luxury tax for products that are essential to a female's life.

Chicago, a small handful of cities and ten states have already eliminated this unfair burden on top of the average $18,000 spent on feminine hygiene over a lifetime [2].

But the most tragically comical story I've found about this is what happened in Utah - the all-male panel rejected eliminating the tax, citing that they would need to recoup those tax funds from other sales, and that it was "unfair to tax the whole population for something that only affects half of it." The representative sponsoring the bill keeps trying every year, and every year the all-male committee continues to say No to her...

[1] https://accountingsolutionsltd.com/faqs/sales-tax-rate-chica... [2] https://www.sapling.com/3308/the-amount-youve-probably-spend...

Wouldn't it be a better marketing tactic to propose that pads & co should be considered medical appliances?

> the all-male panel rejected eliminating the tax, citing that they would need to recoup those tax funds from other sales, and that it was "unfair to tax the whole population for something that only affects half of it."

They should go have a chat with their moms.

> They are insanely expensive, it’s truly mind blowing that more women aren’t using the cup. I mean, I know it doesn’t work for everyone, but it’s frankly as though women have some sort of “life-tax” attached that we men don’t, with pads being so expensive by comparison.

My partner introduced me to them, and when I saw how expensive they were I immediately wondered how much it would cost to 3D print moulds for them so that entrepreneurial Kenyans could mass produce them as a cottage industry. I only got as far as a first print of a positive before someone pointed me to (I think) an Alibaba listing where they cost 5¢ each if you bought 1,000 at a time. I can’t find them quite so cheap any more, but I have just found them at €0.18 each. Perhaps a “buy one for yourself, get a hundred more for Kenya” marketing strategy could help? I have no idea how to do that without the annoying and condescending out-of-touch white-male saviour stereotype though.

There are also menstrual sponges. They’re more comfortable than a cup, are made for reuse, but they’re a bit more work to clean than the menstrual cup.

I can't imagine anything being more comfortable than the cup. If inserted correctly I can't feel it at all and the added comfort of no leaks or string like when I use to use tampons.

I think the sponge still had the blood tss, if I am not mistaken.

Im a cup wearer and this is correct, a properly inserted, properly fitted cup can't be felt.

It seems my "life-tax" is needing to eat about twice as much as my wife. The extra food I eat costs more than pads. However, my wife prefers a cup, so that cost is gone. I'm still left with my dietary needs. Our weights are not that different and neither of us is overweight.

This "life tax" is hardly a surprise when most governments and boards of directors are made of mostly men, who have been taught not to ever speak about these issues (a taboo due to religious or social beliefs).

Now if there's a way to make money, suddenly it becomes an attractive subject for some, but the liberation of women with reusable products (menstrual cup, washable pads and period pants) will always come second to potential wealth increase with single-use solutions, especially for someone who does now experience the "problem" in the first place.

Worse than all that, the people in charge of pushing single-use products genuinely believe they are helping out women, when in reality we see cases of toxic shock syndrome due to chemicals in tampons, and the ecological impact of such single-use products.

My wife has been using reusable solutions for a few years now, the cup and period pants being the most liberating according to her.

who have been taught not to ever speak about these issues (a taboo due to religious or social beliefs).

More basically, men simply won't know or the importance won't cross their mind, even if they do kind of know.

I do my best to leave informative comments on HN with details men are unlikely to know, such as this comment:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19594977

I will add that the high cost of feminine hygiene products is a problem for a lot of poor American women. It isn't covered by Food Stamps. Homeless services have limited quantities of such things. Etc.

Admittedly, the majority of women around me sticks to non-reusable solutions not because they don't know, but because they feel more comfortable with things they can just throw away when dirty.

That being said, I'm on the fence about believing this is more than a question of habit vs an actual thing that will bug you. After all, the average US woman seems to be completely thrown about how you can use a tampon without an applicator. In Europe if you ask for them, most people won't even know what you mean and I don't see what their appeal is, but if that is what you grew up with....

(edit) Just to clarify, I also use a cup and it has upsides and downsides, but overall to me it is a net win.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com