{"id":2272,"date":"2015-11-19T20:58:24","date_gmt":"2015-11-20T04:58:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wou.edu\/westernjournal\/?p=2272"},"modified":"2015-11-19T20:58:24","modified_gmt":"2015-11-20T04:58:24","slug":"free-bleeding-in-the-uk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/free-bleeding-in-the-uk\/","title":{"rendered":"Free-bleeding in the UK"},"content":{"rendered":"
By: Katrina Penaflor Managing Editor<\/pre>\n
The United Kingdom has renewed their tax on tampons, keeping them marked as a \u201cluxury item\u201d after a recent vote on Oct. 26, 2015. <\/p>\n
The result of the remaining tax, which is 5 percent, has led to women free-bleeding outside of British Parliament in an effort to protest.<\/p>\n
Free-bleeding is the forgoing of feminine hygiene products while menstruating, to show the visual results of a period without tampons, pads, or the alternatives.<\/p>\n
One of the protestors, a woman named Charlie Edge, recounted her feelings in a Facebook post:  “People are so quick to tell people that the tampon tax is something we shouldn’t be upset about [\u2026] But then they get upset when I show them the reality of the necessity of sanitary items.\u201d<\/p>\n
Edge also went on to write about the negative backlash she and fellow protestors received from free-bleeding.<\/p>\n
“We’re getting lots of dirty looks and someone just shouted at us to get a job,” Edge wrote, adding \u201cTaxes are necessary, I get it. So are tampons\/pads.”<\/p>\n
The argument behind the protestors is that feminine products should be viewed as essential items to a woman\u2019s health and sanitation, and should not be taxed as a \u201cluxury item.\u201d <\/p>\n
This is especially important when there are women who struggle to afford tampons in the first place; the additional tax only adds to the issue.<\/p>\n
British Labour M.P. Stella Creasy spoke to Parliament about how the tax shows inequality among society, and it fails to take into consideration the necessary hygiene products a woman can need.<\/p>\n
\u201cTampons and sanitary towels, even I\u2019m struggling with the words tonight it seems, have always been considered a luxury. That isn\u2019t by accident, that\u2019s by design of an unequal society, in which the concerns of women are not treated as equally as the concerns of men,\u201d Creasy said.<\/p>\n
UK comedian Russell Howard addressed the absurdities he saw with the \u201cluxury\u201d marking, calling to attention a number of items that are not taxed and considered by Parliament to be more essential than tampons.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell here is a list of some of the things that the taxman thinks is essential more than tampons: helicopters, bingo, Twiglets, adult nappies, flapjacks, toffee apples, edible cake decorations, a ticket to the zoo and crocodile meat,\u201d Howard said on his talk show.<\/p>\n
The protestors hope the free-bleeding will raise enough attention to the topic of menstruation and what should and should not be considered a luxury item. <\/p>\n
Edge went on to tell Buzzfeed, \u201cIf people are grossed out by me not wearing a tampon then I think that emphasizes my point [\u2026] They\u2019re not \u2018luxury items.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By: Katrina Penaflor Managing Editor The United Kingdom has renewed their tax on tampons, keeping them marked as a \u201cluxury item\u201d after a recent vote on Oct. 26, 2015. The result of the remaining tax, which is 5 percent, has led to women free-bleeding outside of British Parliament in an effort to protest. Free-bleeding is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":823,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/823"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2272\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}