Elisabeth Oster

IOWA CITY, Iowa— University of Iowa graduate student Berkley Conner spends most of her days on campus from 9 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. Conner said there were many times where she would unexpectedly get her period and was without personal menstrual products. 

“I’ve used the free products in the bathroom. Are they the best? No. But you know what, they got me through my day,” Conner said. 

In recent years, the University of Iowa began providing free menstrual products, in the form of tampons and pads, for students in campus bathrooms and residence halls. However, the university’s solutions are not without problems regarding accessibility and quality. 

Conner teaches Gender, Sexuality and Media and is working on a dissertation regarding menstrual containment and politics. She said there’s a lack of respect and urgency around providing high-quality menstrual products on a large scale. 

“I don’t need to provide my own toilet paper when I go to the bathroom, and managing your menstrual cycle is essentially the same thing,” Conner said. “It’s just a bodily function that needs to be taken care of.”

Trends towards campus access

According to the New York Times, six states currently have mandates requiring free menstrual products in schools. In 2020, Iowa Senate introduced a bill requiring free tampons and pads in all state buildings, including public schools and universities. The bill died in the Human Resources committee a month later. 

Two of Iowa’s three public universities currently provide free menstrual products, including the University of Iowa. Iowa State University has provided free products since 2010, though Iowa State Daily called their “location unknown” in 2020. The University of Northern Iowa currently does not offer free menstrual products on campus, with a student government initiative “in progress” as of 2019. According to campus newspaper The Northern Iowan, the University of Northern Iowa does provide free condoms in campus bathrooms. 

Conner experienced a similar situation relating to the discrepancy between condom and menstrual product access at Ball State University, where she earned her undergraduate degree. 

“You could go to the health center, and you could get like ten free condoms a day, but you had to pay for menstrual products. This was a point of contention, and students were like what gives,” Conner said. “If people can grab a handful of condoms, why can’t we grab a handful of menstrual products?”

Campus-wide bathroom vending

The University of Iowa’s most accessible menstrual products are in campus building women’s restrooms. According to the Daily Iowan, the university made the tampon machines free in 2015, saving $30,000 annually by eliminating “cash-handling administrative expenses.” The machines initially cost 25 cents per tampon or pad. 

Though Conner has used the bathroom products, she said the cardboard applicator tampons and thick pads are cheap and uncomfortable. 

“There’s a whole conversation around quality menstrual products and what counts as a safe, quality menstrual product,” Conner said. “Lots of these things are still made with synthetic materials. People who have latex allergies, for example, can’t use certain menstrual products.”

Morgan Corbett, a residence hall front desk worker, said the unreliability of campus product vending was the main reason Associated Residence Hall’s goal this year was to provide products to residents. 

“I have never trusted those, and I never plan on trusting those,” Corbett said. “They’re rusty, they’re crusty, and I don’t think they’ve ever been replenished.”

UI second-year student Raginya Handoo said she’s only taken a tampon from a campus bathroom once and didn’t end up using it. 

“I use tampons, but I would probably use a pad because I would never put cardboard up there,” Handoo said. “It’s nice that they have it, but I personally would probably resort to a pad if I ever needed to use one. I would avoid it if I can at all costs.”

University of Iowa Facilities Management redirected inquiries to multiple staff members and did not end up commenting. 

Additionally, Conner said the machines have limited accessibility. The menstrual product machines are only available in women’s restrooms. 

“It’s always important to note that not all women menstruate, and women aren’t the only people who menstruate. Putting those products in all restrooms and not having the focus just on women’s restrooms is also hugely key to providing access in that way,” Conner said.

Products in the residence halls

In terms of higher quality menstrual products, the University of Iowa residence halls began providing organic cotton tampons and pads at residence hall front desks this fall. 

Leandra Jenkins, coordinator of education residence leadership, found the Aunt Flow Program, a company that provides businesses and universities to provide free menstrual products to students and employees. Jenkins was at a conference when she noticed that St. Louis University provided Aunt Flow products in their bathrooms. 

The residence hall senate then voted to use student funding to provide free menstrual products to student residents. Corbett, a member of the residence hall diversity, equity, inclusion committee, was part of presenting the plan to the residence halls. Corbett said she’s seen residents take advantage of the new program so far. 

“For example, Catlett is very common, and we’ll run out there. It even depends on where the box is placed and what we’re doing right now is trying to figure out how to show the residents that it’s there,” Corbett said. 

Jenkins said that although she’s received positive feedback, the boxes aren’t getting as much use as she would’ve like to see this year. 

“But we’re also in a pandemic now so we weren’t expecting when we did the initial vote. We’re hoping to track the use once we come back full force on campus and see if it’s still the same,” Jenkins said. 

According to Jenkins, the committee continues to monitor usage for stocking purposes to order through Aunt Flow and to reassess whether or not to fund the project annually. 

For Conner, aside from the organic product option only being accessible to residence hall residents, the front desk location may pose an issue for usage numbers.

“Now you’re in a public place where you have to say ‘I need these,’ and put them in your bag or pocket,” Conner said. “There is a huge stigma still around menstruation to the point that even if we were to give people free access to these products in public areas, menstruators still feel the need to hide those products.”

Jenkins said that the front desks are currently the best option and that most of them aren’t directly in front of a front desk worker. The location also means the products can be accessible to everyone in the halls, compared to the tampon machines that are limited to women’s restrooms. 

“We know that eventually, we would love for them to be in every restroom, but that means we have almost 200 student restrooms in our residence halls to stock. We can’t say that these will only go in female restrooms because we have an issue with that,” Jenkins said.

For Jenkins, menstrual products are an important resource for the residence halls to continue providing. Jenkins said that she realizes that many students struggle with their finances and that the Aunt Flow program operates under the rule that there are no limits to how many products a student takes.

“When we talk about menstrual products, that doesn’t necessarily affect every single body, and so generally it gets kind of put to the side or forgotten altogether,” Jenkins said. “So we wanted to make sure that we were advocating for things that affect people in a way that people didn’t necessarily think of.”

The cost of menstrual products

Aside from free products in campus buildings and residence halls that both rely on cardboard applicators, students can buy Tampax plastic applicator tampons at the residence hall convenience stores. 

 For those who prefer a plastic applicator or want a name-brand product, the convenience store option comes at an upcharge. A box of 10 regular tampons there currently costs $3.75. In comparison, a box of 36 tampons of the same brand and type $7.49 at the downtown Iowa City Target. That means a student pays 1.8 times more per single tampon at the residence hall convenience stores.

According to the New York Times, Iowa is one of 30 states that charges a 6% sales tax on menstrual products, part of a collective $150 million collected annually from purchases within the United States. 

To learn more on menstrual commercialization throughout history, listen below to hear Berkley Conner explain. 

“In some sense, we can’t get over the tampon tax because there’s this incentive for these corporations to make a lot of money. So that’s one thing, it’s about American greed,” Conner said. “The second thing is that there’s a lack of respect for menstruation as an issue that needs to be dealt with on a structural and systemic level.”

As of January 2021, Iowa Senate introduced a bill that would exempt menstrual products and diapers from sales tax. Conner said she doesn’t have much hope that the exemption would pass. 

“People don’t want to talk about. It’s really as fundamental as that. You’ve got a majority of white cis-gendered men in leadership and they don’t want to hear it,” Conner said. 

The sales tax on menstrual products further adds to the urgency to provide free access on college campuses. According to a 2021 BMC Women’s Health study, about 1 in 10 college women could not afford menstrual products on a monthly basis. 

Jenkins said the fact that University of Iowa students could only buy menstrual products at the residence halls was the driving force for residence hall initiatives this year.

“We know that students are struggling to eat, and so that is another thing that they would have to pay for,” Jenkins said. “We wanted to use our funds to take that from students so they can overall be good and not focusing on something outside of their engagement in their classes.”

Handoo said having to buy menstrual products each month “100%” affects her daily life. 

“It’s not a want for a tampon or that I want a pad. It’s something that I need. I think that the whole pink tax is ridiculous that you literally tax more on something we can’t control,” Handoo said.

Conner said she often thinks about Rebekah Rennick, a student at Grinnell College, who broke into all campus vending machines with a bobby pin in 2013. Rennick left them out so students would have access to free menstrual products until the university made them free a year later. 

“We have free ones, and it’s great, but students have to take these things in their own hands because administration won’t listen,” Conner said. “I think my kneejerk answer is to find some space in the budget to provide these people with menstrual care products in safe, private, comfortable, sanitary spaces that aren’t maybe your residence hall desk. Put them in the stall, just do it.”