Imagine you are a woman (if you aren’t one). Now imagine you are a prison inmate (we won’t discuss the legitimacy of your incarceration– that’s another topic for another article). Your period is starting– what do you do?
You may have one or two pad rations that you have to share with your cellmate. But those don’t stick and will frequently fall off. You can try to buy some from the commissary. But you may not have any money outside of prison, and if you earn money working in prison (usually less than a dollar a day), it will cost almost a week’s wage for a pack of pads. If you need a pack every cycle, that is roughly one week’s wages per month going towards menstrual supplies. And that’s only if you can afford it.
If none of those options work for you, you may end up wearing your period.
It’s not pleasant to think about, but it happens more than you may think. The American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan has filed a lawsuit against a Muskegon Country prison for civil rights violations of female prisoners, alleging that:
“in addition to being exposed to unsafe physical conditions, male guards at the prison are permitted to watch female inmates even when the women have to get naked to change clothes, shower and use the toilet. The plaintiffs said they also are targeted with slurs and are often denied access to clean underwear and basic sanitary items such as toilet paper and feminine hygiene products.”
This is a big problem. If a menstruating woman bleeds through her clothes, the suit alleges, she often has to wait until the next day for a new change of clothes. This is unsanitary and humiliating. But there is a reason for it, according to a former Connecticut inmate:
“Stains on clothes seep into self-esteem and serve as an indelible reminder of one’s powerlessness in prison. Asking for something you need crystallizes the power differential between inmates and guards; the officer can either meet your need or he can refuse you, and there’s little you can do to influence his choice.”
Adding to the inmate/guard power differential is the female/male power differential, and you have a recipe for destroying a person’s sense of self. The cumulative effect of this is dehumanizing, and is unacceptable for a first wold country. As the former inmate says:
“Having access to sanitary pads is not a luxury – it is a basic human right. Just like no one should have to beg to use the toilet, or be given toilet paper, women too must be able to retain their dignity during their menstrual cycle. Using periods to punish women simply has no place in any American prison.”
