The Tampon Ticket
The Tampon Ticket
Donald Trumps selection of Indiana Governor Mike Pence for VP has observers puzzling through the similarities and differences between the candidates. Theres one unexpected and oddly ironic commonality that the two men share: menstruation. Both stirred controversy over women and their periods during the past year. The Trump-Pence team might as well call itself The Tampon Ticket.
Periods for Pence has been a social media sensation since it launched last spring in response to Indianas passage of a new swath of abortion restrictions. One of the most intrusive and burdensome laws in the nation, the legislation signed by Pence not only forces women to disclose their reasons for terminating a pregnancy, but requires that miscarried fetal tissue be interred or cremated, regardless of the duration of the pregnancy. In other words, mistaking an early miscarriage for a heavy period could subject women to criminal penalties.
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And, of course, Trump catapulted periods into the campaign after the first Republican debate last summer when he crudely charged FOX News moderator Megyn Kelly of menstruating while moderating. His ever eloquent, and now infamous, accusation made headlines: Blood coming out of her wherever. Backlash was swift. The hashtag #PeriodAreNotAnInsult went viral as women took to Twitter to flood Trump with real-time reports of their menstrual cycles.
It took two serial misogynists to help shatter a lifetime of radio silence. After generations of being relegated to the marginsshrouded in stigma, a source of shame and embarrassmentperiods have gone proudly public and political. Menstrual matters have become public as of late for the first time since, perhaps, the Garden of Eden. NPR and Cosmopolitan declared that we are in The Year of the Period. Newsweek boldly featured a tampon on its April cover with the headline There Will Be Blood.
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By 1920, profound change was achieved on both fronts. Women claimed a hard won victory with the ratification of the 19th Amendmentand Kotex made its debut in the commercial market. Not only did the formerly disenfranchised now have an equal voice in each and every election, they had access to the supplies that would enable them to more effectively engage and participate in civic life. Pads, and then tampons too, provided a new form of freedom to the formerly housebound. Nearly a full century later, the campaign for the presidency is rife with misogynya wide open field for public mockery, degradation and control of womens bodies, realities and lives. Surely we can, and should, demand and do better.
http://msmagazine.com/blog/2016/07/20/the-tampon-ticket/