An article on what they did before.
“You have to place an order a week ahead via a slip, and if there’s a mistake anywhere along the way, which is fairly common, you just don’t get your items,” Bozelko says. On top of that, she notes that most women in prison are poor or have no access to their funds outside of prison, and ordering pads and tampons can be incredibly expensive.“There’s a shortage of prison jobs, and even if you get one, you earn about 75 cents a day,” Bozelko says. “So to have to spend $2.34 for 24 pads is a quarter of your weekly paycheck, keeping in mind that you’d also have to buy soap, shampoo, toothpaste, and all the other hygiene items that are basic to human existence.”
“There’s a constant negotiation with COs to get menstrual health supplies. “You’d ask a CO for pads or tampons and he would ask you questions like, ‘How long have you been bleeding? Didn’t I give you a pad yesterday? How long is this one going to last?’” Bozelko says. “It shouldn’t be shameful—it’s a natural bodily function—but it’s embarrassing to be required to disclose this kind of information and negotiate just to get the supplies you need to stay clean every month.”
Bozelko also says she believes that keeping menstrual health products—and bodily sanitation in general—just out of reach of prisoners was often used as a psychological control tactic.“If I saw it once, I saw it 35 times that someone would say to a CO, ‘I don’t have anything, I’m gonna bleed right through my clothes,’ and he’d say, ‘Go ahead, bleed right through your clothes, I don’t care.’ …Then when women did bleed through, which did happen frequently, the guards would make fun of her for it. It was really just a set-up to treat women poorly.”
Please note that this news only applies to federal prisons, which means this is still a serious basic-access issue for people who menstruate.
germansingergirl
yousharknotpass
dailybridgerton
kianamaiart
dededos
jacobvanloon
turnnoffyourmind
snowghoul
discoholicmusic
