The menstruation taboo

Hiya

I recently saw a post on the everydayfeminism.com forum questioning tax on sanitary products. I don't fully understand tax so I'm not sure how it works but apparently tax on tampons and pads is 5% whereas some products that are apparently considered "essential" like men's razors are not taxed at all.

First of all what? Not essential? Unless it's suddenly become ok for women to have blood stained clothes and bleed all over the bus seats I don't see how sanitary products are not essential. Personally, I think they should be free or in the UK, provided by the NHS like condoms. They are essential to having a healthy reproductive system and being generally hygienic. Here is a petition you can sign to try to reduce tax on sanitary items to 0%.

What also puzzles me is the insane taboo around menstruation, women rarely talk about it openly, we're always trying to hide our products in pretty cases and god forbid a man see us take one out of our bags. There's all this stigma around the word "period". Periods make us "crazy" and "irrational". Being on your period is "dirty" and it makes you "untouchable". Even seeing a tampon laying around is "awkward" or "gross". Without periods, there would be no babies, without babies, the human population would disappear so yeah, they're pretty important. 99.9% of women menstruate which is practically half of the population so I don't see how it could be any more normal. 

Women in countries like Kenya and Uganda have to be removed from school for a week a month because they are not provided with the products they need to live an easy, normal life. This has a massively negative impact on their education. There are many charities that allow you to donate sanitary products to these girls in these countries to allow them to have uninterrupted education. Here are a few good ones:

http://www.dignitysquad.org/
http://www.globalgiving.org/girleffect/learn-more/
http://www.globalgiving.org/projects/girl-support-project-in-uganda-africa/

These taboos also have a more detrimental affect on a lot of women worldwide.

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If we had a choice to opt out of this monthly inconvenience we would (technically I have, the implant worked in my favour, but that's not the case with 4/5 women). Don't make periods any worse than they already are, basically. Also, never ever ask a woman if she is on her period because she is in a bad mood. We are allowed to be angry or upset sometimes and you are making it 100000X worse. Make periods common ground, talk to your girlfriends about them, help to remove the taboo.