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Since we can use this platform to vent about anything (including about vulnerable groups of people with whom we've never personally interacted in real life), let me share my tidbit.
Lot of middle class, upper class women (white + bipoc) will never understand the hardship of getting a period when growing up poor. In fact, from personal experience they go quiet when you mention how difficult it was to get pads, and you had to stuff toilet paper in your underwear. If you had an underwear that is!
If anything, puberty was an inconvenience. I remember not having underwear and just stuffing tp in my pants in 5th grade. It was so embarrassing when I got off my chair and there was a splotch of blood on it.
Luckily I worked hard in school, got a job and provided my sisters with what I didn't have. With my doctoral degree, I work at a place that stocks pads and tampons in bathrooms.
Makes me think. How do homeless women experience periods and the pain? I wish all these upper class women would do something about this-- at least use their time to make pads more accessible in other workplaces. Or spend time on services for homeless women they apparently care so much about.
Usually they give you a blank look when you mention these things. Are they the same woman as me?
TIMs have male privilege on steroids... While I agree with you, I'm unsurprised that a rich person can't relate to a poor person's experiences. They've never experienced it. Out of curiosity did these women accuse you of making it all up and then shame you, and call you exclusionary for merely speaking about your experience? Were they dressed as poor women? What you said could be misconstrued as affluenza-phobic.
period poverty is a serious problem that is completely ignored by the government. i know women who gathered donations to buy period kits to poor women. i couldn't do the work with them, but i donated to help. it's hard work and i think the government should do something about it. we pay taxes and we can donate to those who help, but we need people who know where to find and how to approach the women and girls who need this.
My university recently started to provide free period products in all bathrooms. Before it was implemented it was exactly the type you describe (men and rich women) who called it an unnecessary waste of funds and spread the fear that people would vandalise the dispensers and take way more than they need and drive the costs up. You can probably guess that none of that happened. And even IF someone took a few more pads: nobody does that for fun. They (or their mothers, sisters or daughters) very likely need and can't afford them. They're not going to sell them on the tampon black market.
I read this a few days ago, didn’t quite comprehend and moved on. But after reading the comments it seems you’re comparing classed women to males? I’m a little wary of women that sow enmity between women through class division. All women are oppressed under patriarchy. All female humans are impacted to varying extents depending on factors such as class and culture. Something about your post echoes the simplistic, inane musings of libfem SJWs. In that politic, complex socio economic concepts are flattened into a “villain and victim” dichotomy. And God save you if you’re found to be in the wrong class or “privileged” by virtue of race or class. Then, your humanity is called into question and regardless of the nuances of your own life, you’re the enemy. How is it the fault of upper class women that our misogynistic societies refuse to acknowledge female biology and respect it? An upper class woman in certain countries may have less autonomy than a lower middle class American woman in NY. I’m from sub saharan Africa, and period poverty is definitely a very real problem, and I sympathize with the struggles you had to go through. But I also invite you to interrogate the responsibility you seem to foist on “upper class women” as if they created the problem. There are many reasons they could have responded that way, especially if they felt awkward after you pointed out the class division. You’ll probably get more understanding and less awkwardness from women with similar lived experiences.
So you're literally saying wealthy women are like TiMs, got it. You're entitled to your viewpoint, but I think it has some serious and obvious flaws.