It’s Shark Week! Ugh. I’m on the rag. A visit from Aunt Flow.
For as long as women have been menstruating, we’ve come up with creative ways to talk about it — without sounding like we’re talking about it.
Enough already!
If you’ve ever hidden your tampon in your sleeve on the way to the bathroom, tied your sweater around your waist to hide a red spot, or worse, wondered how to pay for supplies, it’s time to talk about it out loud. Period!
Podcast Transcript:
Julie Holton:
It’s Shark Week.
Audrea Fink:
Ugh. I’m on the rag.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
A visit from Aunt Flow.
Julie Holton:
For as long as women have been menstruating, we’ve come up with creative ways to talk about it.
Audrea Fink:
Without sounding like we’re talking about it.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Enough already. If you’ve ever hid your tampon in your sleeve on the way to the bathroom, I have tied your sweater around your waist to hide a red spot.
Julie Holton:
Which I have! Or worse, wondered how to pay for supplies. It’s time to talk about it out loud. Period.
Audrea Fink:
The climb to the top feels so good when you get there. Is it just us or can it feel lonely sometimes even when you’re successful?
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
And who defines success anyway? What about life’s twists and turns?
Audrea Fink:
We’ve learned a few things along the way and we’re ditching the culture of competitiveness.
Julie Holton:
Bringing together women from different backgrounds to share their stories.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Let’s do this together. Welcome to Think Tank of three Podcast.
Julie Holton:
Welcome to the show. I’m Julie Holton with Audrey Fink and Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris. We are your Think Tank of Three, and today we are talking about periods with a nationally recognized leader. Lysne Tait is the co-founder and executive director of Helping Women Period, a nonprofit that provides free menstrual products to those who need them. Lysne, welcome to the podcast.
Lysne Tait:
Thank you so much for inviting me. I’m excited to talk about this.
Audrea Fink:
We’re really excited to talk with you as well. So periods are natural, the normal, every bleeding woman has one and they’re healthy. Why the stigma? Why do we have girls growing up thinking periods are dirty or that they’re dirty because they have periods?
Lysne Tait:
Everyone loves someone who’s had a period. We’ve all, we love our moms, but it’s always been kept a secret, like you said, and I think a lot of it has to do with our Puritan forefathers here in the US. We’re so used to not talking about women. We don’t talk about what happens. That all happens behind closed doors and there’ve been so many other cultures that embrace it and then so many other cultures that are also scared of it. And I think that’s why people don’t know about it. So they keep it quiet and they don’t know about it because they keep it quiet. But it becomes this self-perpetuating circle of unknowing.
Julie Holton:
I remember being young and starting my period and not even wanting to tell my mom about it. And it’s so interesting as I was preparing for this podcast, this is a topic we wanted to talk about with you for a long time. In fact, Audrey’s been just jumping at the bit. This is her topic guys. So I was reflecting back as I was looking through different articles and statistics and it really surprised me how many young girls don’t even want to talk to their moms about it because they’re also women and it’s your mom. And growing up, I would share anything and everything with my mom. And so it makes me reflect back why was this something I was embarrassed to tell her about. And I found statistics that show that is really common for little girls, young girls to not even want to tell their own mothers.
Lysne Tait:
That’s true.
Audrea Fink:
I think you get girls who are, if you’re lucky, you can talk to your mom about it or you can talk to your girlfriends. I knew my period was coming. I was very well versed in that. And I knew you talked to your mom about that. You did not talk to your father. You did not have a conversation with your brother. You didn’t tell your guy friends, you didn’t tell your teachers. So even when there was this sort of strength and safety in women in talking about your period periods were still not something you talked about beyond the safe circle.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Wasn’t there even in the movie, a movie, I want to say want to say it was Carrie and there was this whole situation where it was evil now. And now I think about these things and I’m like, “Wow, we really do have some stress in this.” I mean, here’s a little stat that I wasn’t even aware of. One in four girls in the United States reports being bullied about her period in school. That blows my mind. So you say this is an education problem, kids aren’t being taught enough. What do we do about this? How do we fix that?
Lysne Tait:
Well, I talk to women who are 80 years old and still are embarrassed to tell me about the time they bled through in school. And we’re teased mercilessly for that. So I mean that stigma stays with you. For a long time too, I was doing, looking around and in Michigan we have this thing called the Michigan Model, which is the reproductive health. Well, it’s all health curriculum and it’s optional for schools to teach this stuff in fourth and fifth grade.
So it’s not even part of the curriculum. So first you have nobody talking about it at home and then you get to school where you can get all sorts of information that’s not necessarily accurate because you’re talking to your friends, and they heard from somebody else. And I think the only way to cure it is to keep talking about it and to talk about it loudly. I’ve done 12 back to school events this last two weeks. And we were even, we’re at a event this weekend that was called The Festival of Oddities. It’s like all sorts of murder, mystery kind, murder kind of things and weird occult stuff. And we were there as the scariest booth in the festival because we were talking about periods.
People would walk by covered, dressed up like Jason Voorhees, right? And blood and everything. And then they’ve like look away from our booth as they went past because they don’t want to talk about it. We did talk to some really great people who were very interested, some men who were like, “I’m a nurse, I’m a dad. I know this is what, Oh, look at this stuff.” And they’re very excited about it, but people don’t get that kind of experience anywhere.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
For this to be optional. Still, in the fourth grade, fifth grade blows my mind. I started in the fourth grade. So your kind of waiting unnecessarily with the need of knowledge-
Audrea Fink:
It’s medical.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
It’s not, Thank you.
Audrea Fink:
That’s something that blows my mind. This is a medical issue. This is something that happens to the majority of people who identify as women. It happens to most girls when they’re young. It’s a thing that happens. Our cycles happen. It’s literally part of how we reproduce. It’s why we are on this planet. I just don’t understand how we’ve managed to take something medical and turn it into something so taboo. Viagra is less taboo than your period and tampons. How is that ends?
Lysne Tait:
It’s true. And girls are starting earlier and earlier, I was just talking to one of the clinics we drop off and the doctor there said that she’s been seeing girls eight starting their period. They can barely write their name at eight. I can’t imagine trying to manage menstruation at that age and the parents are ready. And so yeah, we do need to talk about it. And yet the whole medical, it is an issue of public health really. You boil it all down. It’s an issue of public health. That’s why we provide free menstrual products because we don’t want people to be on the bus and leak and then leave it there, right? It’s not good for our health.
That’s a very small part of what’s not good about not having the products that you need. It’s a emotional, self-esteem issues. There’s so many things that we can solve by handing out menstrual products, which also it’s just part of, it’s dealing with the symptom and there’s really, we want to fix this whole thing. We need universal healthcare, and we need a livable wage. But until then I’ll be handing out pads and tampons.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Thank goodness for that. And that medical mental aspects. So I think I said it was in fourth grade, it’s either fourth or fifth. It was one of those, it was right there. I was just younger. I might have just hit 10 or I might have still been nine. I cannot completely remember. But I do remember when it happened, I kind of freaked out. My mother’s not a prude. It just didn’t occur to her that I would be that young. She was thinking I got time. But then I remember when I showed her, she was like, “Oh, come with me.” And it was no big deal. And so it never became a big deal. But the fact that it’s still a big deal, the fact that this is a fearful discussion, the fact that it causes discomfort and like Audrey said, they will talk about any and everything on the planet. They will get into the topics of actual intercourse. But the discussion of the medical thing that happens to the majority of biological women is a problem. It’s ridiculous.
Audrea Fink:
The only time it’s okay and safe and comfortable to talk about it is when you’re mocking it. You think about all of public. If the thinking about one of my favorite movies Anchorman, and I’m sorry to admit that’s one of my favorites, but the whole point is they mock periods there when we talk about, “Oh, I’m on the rag, it’s hush, hush, it’s uncomfortable, let other people know.” But you can mock it, you can make fun of it. And we do it right as women, we do it God, it’s that time of the month again or whatever. But you’re either shoving it under the rug or you’re mocking it. Those are the two ways in which it’s safe to talk about your period.
Julie Holton:
We are also guilty of that. I mean I mock it every single month, although I actually mock it in kind of a real way where once a month I decide matter of fact, that if men had periods, then every person in this country would have one week off a month because they would not be able to function during that week. Any woman out there who has PMS or has bad cramping, headaches, the whole bit. You know what I’m talking about, once a month I decide like, “Oh my gosh, why do I even have to function right now?” Because let’s be real, like the medical situation that’s happening in our bodies.
For some women it causes more discomfort or even pain, other issues. And we also never talk about that. I think right beforehand when we were talking in our podcast notes call about Hillary Clinton being mocked when she was on the campaign trail when she was running for president. And no matter what your politics are, when we’re talking about a woman running for president and having the question come up of, “Oh, can we give her the nuclear codes because is she just going to push the button on when she’s PMSing.” That’s how we talk about periods in this country. And that’s not what the conversation should be.
Lysne Tait:
Yeah, I think we are so focused on the messy parts that’s when your period is, but we don’t look at the whole cycle. And if we were all aware of our own cycle and paid more attention to that, then we could, when we know that that PMS part is coming, we can schedule fewer meetings or do some other things that are going to take care of us and our need to just be alone and not talk to people. And if everyone knows about that, if my kids know that this is what’s coming up, then they know you don’t ask mom for things that week. You wait.
Julie Holton:
The actual thing, yeah.
Audrea Fink:
I’ve been seeing a lot lately of discussion about women trying to schedule their lives around their cycle and understanding that sometimes right before your cycle, your energy level is going to be low. When you’re on your cycle, you’re going to be a little bit more scatterbrained or maybe a little bit more emotional because you have hormone changes happening after your period is when you’re going to have a lot of strength and clarity of mind because your body is of fleshed itself. Do you see anything in the work that you’re doing in society as a whole that is of seeing that take root? Are you seeing that be a thing that’s really applicable?
Lysne Tait:
I am actually, there’s a period tracking app, and I know they’ve had bad press lately, but they’re working on it. A lot of period tracking apps have had a bad press, but this one is called FitrWoman, F-I-T-R. And the women’s soccer team, the USA women’s soccer team uses it and their coaches can see, they let their coaches see the information and the coaches can schedule their workouts depending on where those women are in their cycle. And they gave that app credit for helping them win when they won a couple years ago. And I think that’s really seeing more of that kind of thing in the news. And I also think that the pandemic has helped us a little bit because people were home, and they were able to pay attention more to themselves rather than everyone else in the office. And they were able to say, “Oh wait, look at this. I’ve worked really well because I didn’t talk to anyone all week. This is great.” And so I think it is. And I think the whole period conversation is becoming louder. And so I think that’s good.
Julie Holton:
I think it’s really interesting too. We talked about education of our young girls, but also education of us as women. I’m a woman who just turned 40 and thinking about all the things I still don’t know. I also use a period tracking app and I could not believe the things I started learning that it would tell me about. It starts to predict when you might start experiencing headaches or when you might start having different things happen. And I had no idea. I mean, it makes sense. The human body is as intricate place with all these hormones and different things all connected and I don’t know how to function at my peak. And there now we have technology that can help us with that. I think this is also part of the conversations that we’re not having. Not only are we not talking about periods in general or painting them with this ugly picture of their dirty and their gross and whatever, but we’re also not talking about how they actually impact women and how beneficial it can be to even learn and understand how our bodies work.
Lysne Tait:
Well, I think some people in society don’t want women to work at their highest potential because that’s scary.
Julie Holton:
What? Why did you say that, how you possibly think that?
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Stop that now. Who you talking about?
Lysne Tait:
And another thing that’s kind of tangential to this is that there’s not a lot of research on women and women’s bodies. If you look at the percentages of when they do things like test for different medications, they don’t like to test on women because their hormones mess everything up. So they just do the basic on of 24 year old white male. I don’t know if that’s the right one, but it’s something like that. But they don’t look at the women and see why their hormones or why we might react to medication differently because our bodies metabolize things differently. Like menopause is scary because nobody knows anything. You only know what your mom said, or you only know what your grandma said. Or there’s so many different areas in our world that don’t focus on women.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Learning about perimenopause now learning about it right now. And it’s very interesting because again, and then there was an episode on the show Blackish where she’s a doctor and she’s like, “I don’t know anything about perimenopause and I’m a doctor.” And it’s real. And I’m sitting there looking stuff up and I’m like, “What do you mean that can last 10 years before that menopause actually happens?” What?
Audrea Fink:
We don’t know about UTIs. The science behind UTIs or bladder infections, if you want to call it that, is over 50 years old. And they haven’t really changed it because they haven’t needed to. Why? Because UTIs primarily affect women. The diet industry, all diets are tested on men. They’re not tested on women. The fact that we don’t know about menopause, not surprising at all because it’s a strictly female issue. I think when we look at medical science, we see there’s this big gap because women are harder, if you will, because we change, we shift, we’re dynamic.
Lysne Tait:
And if you have a disease like endometriosis, it takes a long time to get diagnosed. Long time because no, it is an average of 10 years for people to get diagnosed with endometriosis, which is ridiculous. We’ve known it for years and years and years. And so things like that. And then somebody has endometriosis, they might have heavier periods. If somebody has heavier periods and they’ve always had heavier periods, then it’s normal for them. But it might not be normal. They might have a blood disease, they might have endometriosis system. So the more we talk about our experiences with our periods, the more we can figure out what’s more normal and what’s, if you are flat out on your bed for three days because of your period, that’s the problem.
Julie Holton:
Yes. I will tell you that actually happened to my sister, who won’t mind me sharing this. One of those kids growing up always had extremely heavy periods. That was just the way it was for her. It wasn’t until after her first child, after she had given birth and didn’t stop bleeding from giving birth, that they discovered that she has a blood condition that causes her to not clap her blood doesn’t clap very well. And she almost bled out. And it has happened. She now has four children. It has happened with each child. It has. And so it is incredible to me that it took until she actually had a baby to discover that this wasn’t just heavy bleeding. This was an actual condition.
Lysne Tait:
Yeah. It’s…
Julie Holton:
All right. So everyone with a period has been surprised at some point in public, even if they don’t want to admit it, whether you’re at work, you’re out, you’re out at a restaurant, some public restroom, the chances of finding a pad or a tampon are usually next to no. Why is this? And what do we about it other than stuffing our purses with products that I feel like I do. And then whenever I need something, that’s the one time I didn’t grab that purse or something. Why is this Lysne?
Lysne Tait:
Well, I think we keep going back to a lack of education. People who are setting up the bathrooms don’t probably don’t men straight, so they don’t think about it. We’re trying, I’ve worked with a couple of different cities, The City of East Lansing, the City of Novi, and the City of Ann Arbor in Michigan have passed ordinances that require menstrual products in every public restroom. So free menstrual products in every public restroom, which I think is amazing.
Julie Holton:
Really? That’s huge.
Lysne Tait:
Yeah. And the City of Lansing is actually working on it, but there’s also national legislation and state legislation that are trying to get free products in public spaces, in schools, in public buildings like government buildings. Which I think would be so helpful because, and it’s not going to cost everybody a lot, each of those different individual buildings. It’s not going to cost you a whole lot just to have that available. One thing I like to do is when I see it in a bathroom, I take a picture and I post it like, “Yay, this company or whatever.” Because it is so rare. Yeah. I think that’s the only thing we can do is start talking to the people and who run the places and start thinking how much do you spend on toilet paper?
When I first started this Helping Women Period in Lansing, the City of Lansing toilet paper line item went down the first year that we were there because people weren’t taking toilet paper and using it when they needed it. It’s just one thing we have to start talking to schools about that needs to be in the budget and it’s not going to hurt as much as they think it is. Things are expensive for individuals, but you can buy in bulk and it’s not that-
Julie Holton:
Technically, it’s hurting people more to not have products available. I mean even thinking to schools and the self-esteem of girls, let alone their medical hygiene. I mean, what a world of a difference it would make to have free products available.
Lysne Tait:
Well, and in Michigan, one in four menstruators don’t go to school or work because they don’t have the product they need. And you think, “Oh, well it’s only $10 a month.” But when you’re only bringing in 780 and you have to pay for your apartment and food and your car and insurance and all that other stuff, $10 is a lot. There’s also the issue with if you are low income, you probably don’t have that many pairs of clothes. So if you bleed through, can’t go. And it really affects in the long-term people going to job interviews, people going to work. If a lot of people who are low income have, they can’t take a day off.
Audrea Fink:
I think one of the additional side effects, if you will, of not talking about periods, having periods be dirty and scary and hidden under the rug is then we don’t talk about the cost, the actual dollars and cents of having your period. We don’t talk about what that looks like as a society. We don’t talk about what that looks like as an individual. So let’s talk about that here. Talk to us a little bit about period poverty.
Lysne Tait:
When I first started this, I assumed that government programs like SNAP and WIC paid for those products. I had no clue that it wasn’t available.
Audrea Fink:
Which is insane. It’s insane.
Lysne Tait:
Yeah, it is. So SNAP and WIC were both created when SNAP was 64 and WIC was 72. The people who were in the legislature at that time were not menstruators. And even now there’s more people named John and the legislature than there are women. We need to get more women into making these kinds of decisions because the people who created WIC, women, infants, and children, you think diapers, pads and tampons and formula, they only do formula. They don’t even do diapers because the people who created that program were only, were not thinking about that stuff because it was already taken care of by somebody else and they didn’t. I think ’70s were the very beginning of disposable diapers. So people were doing homemades and cloth diapers at home and wasn’t that big of a deal. So I mean that’s part of it. And pads and tampons, especially since the pandemic and there’ve been shortages. So prices are going up.
Audrea Fink:
Expensive, yeah.
Lysne Tait:
It’s really expensive. So we try and offer, there’s other alternatives right now. There’s menstrual cups, there’s menstrual underwear, there’s menstrual discs, and those all last longer, but they’re a bigger initial investment, $30, $35. And the period underwear, you need at least four pairs to get through your cycle, so that’s a big initial investment. But then the period underwear will last you for four or five years and the menstrual cup last you for 10. So it’s really hard. You also have to think about people who are homeless. If they’re functionally homeless, then they don’t have a place to clean out their pads or their menstrual cups or their period underwear. So disposable is better for them in that situation. So we can’t just issue everyone a menstrual cup and be done. Because some people don’t want to be that intimate with themselves and other people, it’s not working for them.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Got to say that whole menstrual cup is a whole other conversation.
Audrea Fink:
Oh my God, it’s so much better. So much better.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Let’s talk about, you touched on it just a little bit just now with regards specifically to say the homeless individuals or those struggling to find safe and regular housing. The medical and hygiene problems that are afforded in individual who doesn’t have the monetary means to get what they need for women’s personal care.
Lysne Tait:
And it’s really hard to because I talk to people who are in this situation all the time and they’ll take whatever I give because they need it, but it’s probably not the best thing for their body. The pads I give right now are organic because we had a huge donation from Honey Pot. But the other pads that when I buy it in bulk, they’re just plain old pads. They’re not organic and the materials can really affect people. And so then they still can’t live their best life because they’re not quality product. It’s like-
Audrea Fink:
Yeah, a lot of the tampons will have bleaching agents for the cotton so that it’s whiter. They’ll have certain chemicals to keep it fresh or the scent and shame to people who prefer that, but that can cause a lot of health issues.
Lysne Tait:
And then you don’t want to talk about those health issues because it’s known-
Audrea Fink:
You couldn’t talk about your period to begin with. You’re not going to talk about how maybe your period’s causing problems.
Lysne Tait:
Right.
Julie Holton:
Well, and I’m going to talk about it right now for just a moment because let me tell you how many women have sensitive skin. I feel so many women that I know, three of us right now are like, “Yep, that’s me.” Well, guess what? I also have sensitive skin. And come to find out, when I stopped using tampons, I felt so much better a problem I didn’t even know I was having because low and behold my skin is sensitive. And the material that, all the things you just described, Audrea, the toxic chemicals, the material itself, being in a place that maybe our bodies weren’t designed for, some women, some women might love… Maybe it’s great for you, but it’s not great for everyone.
And again, this is something that I never even thought of bringing up to my doctor because I didn’t even know it was a thing because no one else is talking about it. So how would we know? But something so simple as, and then you think about it later and I was like, “Man, well that makes sense. My skin is so sensitive.” Why putting the wrong kind of lotion on my skin can make me break out in hive. So who knows? Change it and [inaudible 00:25:15]-
Audrea Fink:
And you can change other brand. Yeah, it changes over time.
Julie Holton:
It changes over time.
Audrea Fink:
When I was young and I first started my period, it doesn’t matter what tampon I wore now I literally can’t wear a tampon it makes me feel like my insights are on fire. So I’ve now shifted, right? I use the menstrual disc and I use the period underwear, but I also have the privilege of having the money to be able to afford that investment because it was an investment and it took me four different kinds of disc, cups before I found the one that actually worked for me in my period. Those things are 40 bucks a pop.
Lysne Tait:
Right.
Audrea Fink:
And I got the cheap ones because they were 40 bucks a pop.
Lysne Tait:
Well, and if something says organic on the label, when it’s a menstrual product, it doesn’t have to be all organic, it only has to have one part. So it could just be the cover that’s organic and then everything else inside is not. And the other thing that I think is an issue, and we probably don’t have time to go into this, there’s one company in the US, one factory that makes period products here in the US disposable, everything else is made overseas. And that company isn’t even always or whatever, Kotex or whatever, I don’t even know who they supply. Everything else is made overseas. So during the pandemic we had a lot of logistical issues because we couldn’t get the product we needed because it was in China and then there was that whole thing with the canal. But it’s a problem that we don’t make our own products here in the US.
Julie Holton:
See, and that’s something the pandemic definitely exposed. I mean we’ve seen this ongoing problem with baby formula and realizing, I mean, how many of us knew that most of the formula that our babies consume is not from this country. And here we are like, “I’m learning for the first time, neither are our period products.” And this is not a supply chain issue, regardless of some of the other conversations that come into this. Lysne, I want to ask about your nonprofit itself because we haven’t gotten into that too much and I, you’re doing some really incredible things. Tell us about Helping Women Period. What led you to launch your nonprofit?
Lysne Tait:
Well, I always say it’s an accidental nonprofit. We really didn’t mean to start one. My friend and I read the same article on Huffington Post I think in January 2015 and reposted it. And then we’re like, “What are we doing up at two in the morning?” Because it was an issue, like I said before, we thought SNAP or WIC had covered these products and so we decided we needed to do something about it. And so we looked around and we found a local homeless shelter and we thought, “Okay, well we’ll just invite 30 of our friends to a breakfast. We’ll maybe raise $500, buy a couple cases off of Amazon and give it to our shelter and we’ll be done.” And we put it on Facebook on a Sunday. And on Tuesday we had to change the venue because we had a hundred people coming that 30.
And then on Thursday that week we filed nonprofit paperwork because we had people from all over the world who wanted to send us money and we wanted to be as transparent as possible with what we were going to do with that. And so we had our breakfast, we raised, I don’t know, $4,000 we were able to, and we thought, well, we don’t want to just send it all our money to Amazon. So we looked and we found a local janitorial supply company and talked to the owner and he was gobsmacked as well. He has a daughter and he’s like, I can’t imagine her going without. He said, “So I will give it to you at cost. You buy a hundred cases, I’ll give it to you at cost.”
So instead of the two or three, we bought a hundred and had them stuffed in our dining room, in our cars and stuff and tried to figure out how else we could distribute the product without being, I don’t know, another middle-aged white woman handing out product of somebody saying, “Here, let me help you.” So we started partnering with other nonprofits, food banks, and schools in the area. So here we are, seven years later, we are working with 180 charity partners, we call them in 20 counties. And it just keeps getting bigger. I keep saying, “Oh, we’ve got this area kind of taken care of and then it all blows up.”
Julie Holton:
I absolutely love the story of how you started. I mean, give two women a challenge and bring it on. I mean, the work you do in our community is incredible.
Lysne Tait:
Well, thank you. Yeah, we’re, last year we distributed 740,000 items in, we were only six counties last year. And now since we’ve expanded, we’re on track to do a million this year. I really think we can do it. It’s mind blowing and it’s a lot of fun though too. And I like talking to people about what we do and how we do it.
Audrea Fink:
So as we were preparing for this podcast, one of the facts that Julie sent us was that Michigan, Connecticut, and Washington are all among the states that are period tax free, which is awesome. 27 states still tax menstrual products though. Tell us a little bit about the problem with that. Why we have this movement to take the tax off and why it’s so important that we take it off.
Lysne Tait:
The reason Michigan doesn’t have a tax on it anymore is that the CARES Act helped put menstrual products as a medical necessity. That’s how they classified them with the IRS years before then the IRS was like, “No, its nonmedical necessity, so we won’t let you take it off on your taxes, for example.” And so had to pay tax on the items. Now, Michigan tax law says that medical necessities should not be taxed. And so that’s how we got out of it. There are other states that are still trying to catch up with that. The nice thing about the CARES Act is that people can now buy their menstrual products with their FSA or HSA. So it’s a lot easier to not be taxed because you’re buying it also with your tax free money. And I think it’s more of that WIC, SNAP issue of the people who created those laws didn’t think that it was, they’re like, “Oh, well this is, people buy a lot of these, so let’s make sure they’re taxed.”
And when other items that are made out of the same material, for example, newspapers are not taxed. I don’t know. That’s why. I mean that’s part of the reason it’s unfair. The other part of reason it’s unfair is that the people who buy those products cannot buy those products. You can’t say, “No, I’m not going to use that this week.” And so they’re kind of getting dinged because they’re need to use those products and that’s-
Audrea Fink:
Very discriminatory.
Lysne Tait:
… not okay. Yeah, lot of, I was working with a coalition to get rid of the tax here in Michigan. And so there’s a group called Period Equity, and they’re trying to get taxes off of everything. And I think that there’s that law and that’s in the house in the federal government that’s trying to get free products in schools. And part of that is also making sure that they’re untaxed.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
There’s a lot there. There’s a lot happening and clearly, so much still needing to be done as you were just now referencing with regards to what is that, the pink tax? So what is your vision for the future?
Lysne Tait:
Oh, I’m trying to legislate myself out of a job. My big vision in the next couple of years, I would really like to get free menstrual products in schools. I think that would be huge. And trying to figure out the best way to do that. Do we have schools already have so much stuff put on them, we need to figure out a different way to distribute those products. I’ve been working with health departments to do that because I think it is a matter of public health that’s been working well, but we just have to keep talking to legislatures about getting those bills on the voted on so that’s in a big world. I would love to be out of a job and not have to do this because that’s what nonprofits are for. We fill in the cracks and I like this crack to be gone.
Audrea Fink:
What would you recommend for individuals one-on-one, on having the conversation about periods? How do we start, I mean, clearly Julie and I are already having it. Reischea’s don’t get there but we’ll get her-
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Probably a little too often.
Audrea Fink:
But for someone who’s currently uncomfortable with talking about the period, the 80-year-old who is still uncomfortable talking about it, that the moms out there, the girls who just got it, what can we as individuals do to keep the conversation going and keep this from being swept under the rug?
Lysne Tait:
I think social media has got a great spot for this. Try and promote groups, posts from groups like mine, Helping Women Period. Doing that kind of thing is really helpful because then you don’t really have to say anything. You can be your little keyboard warrior without having to, but that’ll get you into the conversation like, “Oh, I didn’t know that one in four people have been bullied or whatever.” We’re trying to gather stories, period stories so that we can make it also normalize and normalize the stigma. Normalized period doesn’t get rid of the stigma. I think those are some other things you can do is volunteer. You can donate to your local food bank, donate period product. You can volunteer with groups like mine. They’re all over the world. You can donate money because my group, we can provide one person’s menstrual needs for an entire year for $40, which is pretty good.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
That’s awesome.
Lysne Tait:
And so there’s all sorts of things you can do. And once you start volunteering, once you start sharing those things, the conversation will increase. And I talk, there’s so many high school groups of kids that really want to talk about this. I think the next generation is going to save us all because they’re not uncomfortable talking about periods. They’re very, very willing to talk about it to ad nauseam. But, and I think that’s great. I think that’s what we need to do is just start promoting and supporting groups that do these things.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
I’d like to caveat that I’m not uncomfortable talking about the period. I think that once I had my fibroids removed and my periods were no longer lasting for three weeks, they just became a non-entity in my life. And it was just like, “I don’t need to discuss it anymore. I’m not bleeding for 14 days, five days off, 14 more days.”
Audrea Fink:
No one is shaming you, Reisch. We’re just saying it’s one of our favorite topics. And by ours, I mean mine. And you’re over it. And I understand that. But I’m not over it. I’m not over it.
Julie Holton:
I also now have way more, I mean I had a lot, lot of respect for you before, but holy moly, that’s a lot of period days each month that you were having-
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Yeah, so it was rough.
Lysne Tait:
… so extra respect.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
It was rough. But I had a gynecologist who was actually talking to me and she’s like, “I don’t know why you won’t have this fibroid surgery.” And I said, “Because I’ve only got one uterus and if anything goes wrong then what?” But I reached a point where I couldn’t handle it anymore. My husband saw me laid out on the floor one day and he’s just like, “I don’t really know what to do here.” And I said, “Nothing, get out.” And so I had the surgery and then I was able to get pregnant because then the doctor who did the surgery told me, “You would’ve never gotten pregnant.” I don’t know what was going on. I had a jaw breaker sized fibroid, large jaw breaker. So that’s a whole other conversation.
Audrea Fink:
That’s my PCOS periods, super mild in comparison.
Lysne Tait:
Well, and so there’s more issues that people don’t know about Fibroids or PCOS. I mean we just need to keep talking.
Julie Holton:
And thank you for having the conversation with us today, Lsyne. We have just loved having you on the show. Thank you for being here. We’re not quite done with you yet though. Before we go, we collect advice on our podcast from each of our guests. So we have three rapid fire questions for you. Are you ready?
Lysne Tait:
Sure.
Julie Holton:
Okay. I promise they’re not too hard.
Audrea Fink:
They’re not hard, they’re fast.
Julie Holton:
Okay. Is there a lesson that you’ve recently learned that you wish you would’ve learned earlier in your life?
Lysne Tait:
Oh, there’s a lesson that I keep learning. And I probably should have learned it a long time ago, but I didn’t. And that is to accept help. I get so overwhelmed sometimes and it’s so much easier for me to do everything and not let anyone else do it because I can. I know how to do it, but I’m only one person and I really need to learn how to accept help. And it doesn’t make me weaker because I need help. The thing that keeps going back and forth because I’m like, “No, I can do it my own self, but I really can’t.”
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
What is one piece of advice you would offer to any woman?
Lysne Tait:
I think it’s to remember that you are enough.
Audrea Fink:
That’s a good one.
Lysne Tait:
I have a little saying on one of the sticky notes that says You are enough. It’s amazing how enough you are.
Audrea Fink:
What would you say is one of the most important skills for women to cultivate?
Lysne Tait:
I think it’s… So I’m saying I think it’s being assertive and aggressive. And not knowing what you’re going to say. No. I think it’s believing into yourself. I really do. And tell the truth. Before this podcast, I was having a really kind of overwhelmed day. I have so much stuff going on and I even tried to get on the podcast last week because my life was just so full of stuff. But talking to you all, it’s been so nice and reminding me that I am good at what I do. Because you have those imposter syndromes like, “Oh my God, I’m not, I’m just pretending.” But you really know more than you think you know.
Julie Holton:
And that’s the amazing thing about talking and getting things out in the open. Circling back to our theme of this podcast, whether it’s talking about periods or talking about work, talking about life. The more we talk, the more we realize we’re all in the same situation. We all have those moments where our confidence breaks, or something happens that throws us off. And I really feel like these podcasts are even our own regular therapy sessions to help the three of us remember that. So I love hearing you say that because it’s so true. And the more we talk things out, the more we will remember that. Lsyne, thank you so much for being on the show. Where can our listeners connect with you online? Where do they go to find out more about Helping Women Period?
Lysne Tait:
Well, thank you for having me. Helpingwomenperiod.org is our website and we have lots of information on how to get involved and how to donate. We’re on all the social media channels. We’re on Facebook at Helping Women Period. Instagram @helpingwomenperiod. Twitter, we’re HelpingWomen1, and I don’t remember, we’re on TikTok, but I don’t remember the number, but…
Julie Holton:
So just search for a month Helping Women Period. And while you’re on the website too, you can find they’ve got various partner nonprofit organizations that Lysne mentioned. If you’re looking for a national organization or another ideas to get something like this started in your community, just like Lysne did, check out their website to learn more. Thank you again for being part of this conversation. That is all for this episode of Think Tank of three.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
If you have topics, you’d like us to cover or guests you’d like to hear from, send us a message at thinktankofthree@gmail.com. Subscribe to the Think Tank of Three wherever you listen to podcasts and connect with us online. We blog weekly @thinktankofthree.com.
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Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
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