Filed under: Attempts, Current events, Uni | Tags: accessibility, Feminism, gender discrimination, McGill University, menstruation, Once a Month Campaign, tampon dispensers, women's washrooms
An article in the Daily brought this to my attention a few months ago, but I hadn’t encountered the problem myself until today. As is the case with many reported injustices, many get your head shaking but don’t really matter until they affect you personally. But the problems I encountered this morning got me kind of riled up, so I will write about it, even though some readers might find it a bit T.M.I.
So today, rather unexpectedly (but only a little bit) I noticed it was that time of the month. As I mentioned, this was unexpected so I was not carrying the appropriate products with me, nor was there anyone around appropriate to ask for a spare, but I thought there would be a vending machine somewhere even if not in Shatner (our student union). I remembered seeing them in the library somewhere, so I ran up and down six flights of stairs visiting the women’s washrooms on every single floor. RIEN. I ended up calling Kat and she brought me some on her way to school.
Anyways, problem solved, what’s the matter? Maybe I should be more responsible about carrying emergency goodies in my schoolbag and knowing what my menstrual cycle is like (although it’s been whack since winter vacation, it’s probably the stress), et cetera. Still, I am blogging about this because I find the removal of tampon dispensers to be akin to gender discrimination. Some high school kid in #btts† is accusing me of “crying sexism” as I complain about this, that the removal of tampon dispensers from campus is merely “unfortunate,” so I realise some may disagree. But hear me out.
In certain parts of the world, girls don’t go to school during their periods. They’re missing up to five days of class once a month because of a biological fact. Inspired by whatever benevolent spirit‡, a number of charities and developmental organisations work actively in these countries to provide female pupils with access to sanitary pads and other menstrual products (ex: Once a Month Campaign) so that they can have the chance to go to school and have greater access to education, at par -or approaching it- with the boys. Although there might be problems with ~imposing a particular (Western?) relationship between the body and ~consumer products, the goal of improving female access to education is generally not contested and received as an important means for the reduction of gender inequality.
In light of this, it seems even more ridiculous (rather than just inconvenient) that all tampon dispensers (and vending machines for menstrual products in general) have been removed. Comparing what has transpired on campus over the course of the last year with what is happening in the so-called developing world, the removal of tampon dispensers seems to be a major step backwards for women’s access to education (i.e. gender discrimination). I think it’s rather problematic that I might have had to go home from school and miss class because I got my period and didn’t have my own products on hand.
Agree/disagree?
† Sraffies know.
‡ I’m being slightly ironic because I am critical of the way certain aspects of development are carried out, as stated above. Obviously I’m not completely cynical about benevolence and charity and development though. We could totally step up the active caring.
Filed under: Attempts, Consumerism, Travels, Uni | Tags: Grown ups, Harbin, Materialism, Migration studies, Study abroad, Xi'an
Today was a pub night and I think there was supposed to be socialising between students of different area studies disciplines, but instead I spent most more than two hours chatting about China plans with Ben, Sarah, and Xue-Rong (we’re in council together). I’m so excited; there will be so many friends and semi-friends there next year, and even just really nice acquaintances who would be such friendly faces to see while abroad. I should probably start some of those applications. I think I want to go to Harbin for the fall semester, and then Xi’an in the spring semester. Hopefully, everyone will be in Beijing.
Also, I swore I’d stop doing this, but clearly I can’t help it. (more…)
Filed under: Consumerism, Internaute, Uni | Tags: Alice + Olivia, Belle de Jour, Feminism, Secret Diary of a Call Girl
So I am blogging… but minimally, as in… I like this dress:
[420 USD]
Otherwise… I’ve finished a chapter of my thesis. I think it went better than the first chapter, which will need to be rewritten, but not ’til I write another chapter. That’s all for now.
[ADDENDUM] Actually I have something better to post about consumerism than a picture of that lovely earth-toned dress. I read Belle de Jour. At first I read it ’cause it was linked as an exciting and funny sex blog, or something, in a guide for bloggers not to pretend your life is exciting unless it actually is, for example, if you sell sex and consequently have great anecdotes.* Later, I read it ’cause it was clever and funny. Other times, I just like reading the blogs of strangers who have lives. As well, I think there is something like sincere feminism from a woman of middle class background who faces some kinds of gender oppression in society in general, but is honest about not facing other kinds because of said middle class background. This excerpt is from a post reacting to a friend’s death:
Yesterday in one of the broadsheets was published a list of things that I, as a woman, should have achieved by my thirties. What would ordinarily be weightless fluff suddenly felt morally offensive. I should have amassed a shoe collection? Been taken to lunch by my boss? Negotiated a pay rise? What the fuck, people? What the fuck? I hope no one in real grieving – my friend’s mother, say, or those female friends closer to him than I was – saw that article. We are being told by no less than the paper of record that the gold standard of human achievement amounts to buying pointless garments with the dosh you earned in your pointless job.
Yea.
*I was disappointed when the spin-off show didn’t have some blog-format in the way it was later realised in Dr. Horrible. I should note, however, that I didn’t read the spin-off book on which the show was based. It probably wasn’t blog-formatted.
