Hacker News Reader

Comment by sevilo | Hacker News Reader

Pads and tampons. Some argue these are environmentally unfriendly and produce too much waste, but you have to think, not everyone is privileged enough to own a washing machine in their own home, particularly those in 2nd and 3rd world countries. I genuinely believed pads and tampons allowed women to be more productive in the work force and eventually lead to more equality, just hearing my mom and grandma's story of having to hand wash your own bloody (literally) period bands gives me nightmares, that was in the 70s, not that long ago.

View on HN

Menstrual cups are a step up from this!

They produce much less waste, are much less messy (almost never leak), and don't need to be changed as often (once every 6 - 12 hours and without the TSS risks that tampons have).

It's better to use running water to wash them out, but simply wiping them with tissue paper can work too (albeit a little messily), if water is scarce.

A downside that I've read about however is that just like with tampons, some cultures consider inserting anything into the vagina as losing your virginity so using them may be considered taboo.

True. On your last point, I think that actually makes pads a more significant invention over tampons and menstrual cups, because it allowed women in very conservative cultures where losing your virginity before marriage is considered taboo, to still able to go about their normal daily actives during periods. Interesting me and friends from elementary school in China were never taught to use tampons, tampons and menstrual cups didn't become a thing until very recently.

> without the TSS risks that tampons have

consumer reports disagrees with you

[1] https://www.consumerreports.org/women-s-health/menstrual-cup...

Thank you for linking that report, very interesting.

I also read through the article[0] that the report linked. I think a significant factor in the difference in risk is how much contact tampons are making with the vaginal canal vs menstrual cups; the article mentions that the risk is higher if the cup is allowed to overflow (and the toxins from within the cup make contact with the vaginal canal).

So I suppose that even though the cup can be left inside for longer than a tampon can, that (as advised) it should definitely not be left inside for longer than necessary.

[0] https://aem.asm.org/content/84/12/e00351-18.full

I live in New York and the majority of my friends do not have washing machine in their home. In fact, it’s a luxury to have one. In contrast, I’m originally from Ukraine where not having a washing machine is weird to say the least. There are many things that would make me call US a 2nd world country, so I’m having a hard time understanding which countries are 1st world countries.

Wow. I've lived in the US all my life and I've never heard of a majority of anyone's social group not having a washing machine.

Have others experienced this? If so, in what city?

It's common in San Francisco, if you rent. Often you'd have a slated washer dryer in the building, but sometimes not.

I believe this is quite common in New York City, Boston, and Philadelphia.

Most larger buildings have a washer and dryer in the basement of the building.

Many people send their laundry out to have it washed and folded by someone else.

In major cities you'll find that luxury units or condos have in-unit washer and dryer; but below luxury level apartments and condos do not. Nicer places will have a laundry on each floor. Others will have something in the basement or not at all.

It's an optimization that saves the owners significant amounts on up front and maintenance costs.

On the other hand, most people in trailer homes in the US will have a washer and dryer in their trailer. They aren't expensive appliances. They just take up space and require additional plumbing and ventilation - which can lead to significant expenses if you are designing buildings with 100's of units.

I live New York. 5/7 years I’ve been here I haven’t had a wash.

In my experience, an apartment with in-unit goes for 10% more than one without. My rent is 1850/mo and my local friendly laundromat does wash-and-fold for $0.90/lb. The math works out that an in-unit wash just isn’t worth it to me.

Even if you’re lucky enough to afford rent in New York you probably can only afford one or two luxuries. For me I‘ve chosen living alone and windows that get sunlight over things like square footage, location, or a wash.

The time savings from using a wash and fold service aren't to be denied, either. You just drop off a huge sack of laundry once every week or two before work, and you pick it up on the way home nicely washed and folded, better than I, at least, would have done it. By the time you buy detergent and fabric softener and dryer sheets, and factor in the time derping around waiting for it to do its thing, especially in a sketchy coin-op laundry or a dank shared basement washroom, it's a little silly to do it yourself.

Speaking of course as a bachelor. When you are coupled up, or especially when children are involved, dirty laundry production escalates exponentially and wash-and-fold becomes prohibitively expensive and the capital investment in laundry equipment reduces in importance.

Yeah, I had to use a service for a few years (no laundramats within walking distance) and while it was definitely more expensive than doing it myself, it was pretty great. I was always amused by getting my clothes back in this perfectly rectilinear package. My main complaint was that the service insisted on a pick up/drop off time that was like 7am and I lived on a 4th floor walk up, so I have a lot of memories of getting jolted out of a sound sleep and having to schlep a heavy bag up or down a bunch of stairs.

How small are these apartments? I live in a 25 square meter one (according to wiki the definition of a tiny house is something smaller than 36 square meters) but there's still room for a washer and drier stacked on top of it. Around here the people that use building machines or laundromats are generally in the 15-20 square meter range or on razor tight budgets. Apart from that I know one guy without one and he's betting on not living long enough for it to be a wise investment.

Are the really that tiny in NY?

25 meters is pretty reasonable for a NYC apartment. I think it has more to do with the additional plumbing and ventilation setup that's missing. The old pre-war buildings are too expensive to renovate to add that kind of thing and a lot of the newer construction is aimed at maximizing profit by cutting every possible corner and those buildings were competing with the older buildings that didn't have them so they skipped it too. I also wouldn't be surprised if there's some NYC regulation or code that makes it extra complicated and expensive to add them.

Definitely the default in NYC. Lived there 15 years and only had a washer/dryer in one apartment (which was a condo that I was subletting. Any friends I had over were amazed and jealous when they saw it). If you're lucky, your building has a laundry room in the basement. Less lucky and you use a nearby laundramat. One place I lived basically didn't even have a laundramat within a 10 minute walk, so I had to pay for a laundry service that would pick up/drop off.

This is only a thing in extremely dense, expensive American cities. Most Americans have washing machines in their home.

What is surprising is how many houses don't have a dish washer, in both urban and rural areas.

A quick Googling suggested that 25% of them don't have dishwashers. I don't know if that number is accurate, but 25% would be a lot more than I would have expected too.

After WWII, there were two superpowers splitting the world between them: the first world was the NATO West, and the second world was the Soviet East. Countries who were unaligned, or not considered sufficiently important, made up the so-called third world. If these terms ever meant anything, they don't anymore, and they certainly have nothing (directly) to do with washing machines!

Although the terms first, second and third world are often used to connote standards of living, that’s not the original sense[1] in which these terms were coined. They were Cold War era terms used to classify countries into Western bloc, Soviet bloc and the countries not aligned with either of the aforementioned blocks. And going by measure, the US could never be a 2nd world country :)

[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_World

One thing is the fact that it's expected to have both washing machine and dryer in US. This leads to additional space and ventilation requirements.

The solution would of course be ditching the dryer, but not both.

You could also say the bra.

Less of a hygienic product for sure, bras spelled the end of corsets and really helped usher in many changes that led to a big increase in personal freedoms for women (both physically and socially).

Hey, I would love to learn more about this. How did bras usher in a bunch of physical and social changes in freedoms for women? I'm not too read-up on any of these topics but I'm incredibly interested.

Equally important is contraception and elective abortion. Being able to control the timing of raising a family allows a much higher degree of freedom and also ensures a safer and more healthy environment to raise a child.

I think the most important prerequisite to being a parent is the desire to be a parent.

I dont think "you can pretty much build it yourself" applies here.

eh, I'd say it depends on the quality you're going for. Some sheep intestines and string seemed to do it for a lot of people back in the day...

While you make a good point, I wouldn't call condoms made using sheep intestines and a string to be a modern invention, as that dates to at least 1500s.

> ... safer and more healthy ...

Not for that dead child.

> I think the most important prerequisite to being a parent is the desire to be a parent.

I don’t disagree with this. Thankfully adoption exists.

I'm assuming you were downvoted for your first point. Not sure why as it is true. There are two sides to the equation.

As for the second point, it's always better to plan for children, but people can step up to the challenge to become great parents.

Not surprised you're getting downvoted around here for saying the abortion isn't healthcare. Techies can bury their heads in the sand about it because of their political correctness, but it doesn't change the fact that the procedure does not extend a child's life but ends it.

The crux of the debate is on whether a fetus is a child. Your ‘fact’ calls it that, but it’s one that is rooted in your beliefs rather than some larger truth.

It's not rooted in belief, it's rooted in science <jessepinkman.gif>

From a completely objective and scientific viewpoint, I think it's incredibly difficult to posit that life begins at any other point other than conception. After that it's just a matter of how "done" they are. The Human gestation period has been known to be as little as 22 weeks [1] or as long as 53 weeks 4 days [2], while the standard time is 37-40 weeks. Given more technological advancements, perhaps the time could be even shorter.

I would say that given only this information, a fetus is a full human being at a minimum by 22 weeks. Now, by 10 weeks "all major structures are already formed in the fetus" [3]. So, if a fetus is not a "child" until 22 weeks (as it has viability out of the womb), but by 10 weeks has all the major components of a human, can you tell me at what point in-between does it suddenly become a child, and have a guaranteed right to life?

I don't think you can. If you use conception, you can point to the precise moment in time where every single human being that has ever lived or will live becomes a human being. I'm not sure how you can get any more scientific than that, but apparently it's easy to ignore for the sake of justifying abortion.

[1] http://www.nbcnews.com/id/17237979/ns/health-childrens_healt...

[2] https://www.medhealthdaily.com/longest-human-pregnancy/

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prenatal_development#Developme...

I agree with pads & tampons being a great invention. Can we however please finally stop referring to "2nd and 3rd world" countries. Get on a plane - things are more similar than different in most parts of the world, stop perpetuating dated notions.

On your last point: Having recently returned from rural africa where girls miss significant amount of school for lack of pads & tampons (still), I can't exactly agree with this sentiment.

Edit: if you care to read more or donate, check these out http://www.zanaafrica.org https://www.huruinternational.org

When did you last visit a country where the gdp per capita is a few hundred dollars? Trust me, it’s pretty different.

2nd / 3rd world notions have nothing to do with GDP. There are plenty of countries (a lot of the middle east for example) that would have back when 2nd and 3rd world were relevant notions been considered 3rd world, these currently have some of the highest GDP (PPP Adjusted) per Capita ;)

Sure, but I responded to the comment about “getting on a plane” and discovering that all countries are so very similar.

Yes, but the parent didn't imply that the two necessarily correlate. All you showed was that developing countries can have a high GDP. Are there any countries considered first world that have a low GDP?

These terms don't mean 2nd and 3rd tier countries. At least they didn't used to.

> The three-world model arose during the Cold War to define countries aligned with NATO (the First World), the Eastern Bloc (the Second World, although this term was less used), or neither (the Third World). Strictly speaking, "Third World" was a political, rather than an economic, grouping.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World

I actually didn't state anything about economic grouping. My point is the notion is dated - and you've illustrated that quite well with your comment. The eastern & non-aligned blocs dont exist any more & the first world has split into its own bloc-ish things, yet everyone is a lot more willing to play ball with each other than at any given time in history before.

Get on a plane? Please, I'm from a plane. Being able to live in these highly developed western countries is a massive privilege. And trust me, a lot of things you take for granted these days, say birth control pills or IUD for women, are still frowned upon and not the easiest to access in China unless you're married, despite its development in the last 20 years. And even relatives who are making good earnings still wash their dishes by hand and dry their clothes with air, restaurants and food handling have little health inspection standards unless you're at a 5 star hotel. And I'm not talking about the rural parts of China, I'm talking about some of the most developed cities.

It’s common for women in Japan to get their friends traveling abroad (to eg Taiwan or Vietnam) to bring them back eg birth control or the morning after pill. It’s expensive and typically not covered by insurance (problem 1), and extremely hard to get a prescription for because the doctor will likely be male and lecture you on how you should get married and have babies (problem 2).

As an alternative to "2nd/3rd" or "developing" countries, I really like the "Four Levels of Global Income" model[0] that Hans Rosling put forth in his book Factfulness[1] (a must-read IMO).

It gives a much clearer perspective on how people live (and as you mentioned, how similarly people live across the world amongst the same income levels)

[0]: https://www.gapminder.org/topics/four-income-levels/ [1]: https://www.amazon.com/Factfulness-Reasons-World-Things-Bett...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com