Can you believe the average price of a box of tampons in the US is $8.29? In New York City, it’s $15.56. Women spend up to $100 every year on menstrual products. For the fortunate, this is not a major expense; for others, it’s 14 hours of work every year just to meet a basic need.
It’s no secret that tampons and pads cost a lot of money. You can go to any Target, Walgreens, or CVS and check the prices. But it’s rarely talked about. Women are expected to suck it up and buy products that are not only expensive, but often times unnecessary and even dangerous for them. Women are pressured to buy pads that come with scents, boxes of pads with flowers and fresh scents to remind women that not only do you have to bleed without society knowing, you have to smell good doing it too. And why?
Women have to deal with so much: cramps, mood swings, acne, tender breasts and much more. Then they are expected to not talk about them because it’s considered bad conversation, like people knowing that a person is on their period somehow makes them gross, and others uncomfortable. When a person is shedding their uterine lining, in extreme pain and sometimes unable to regulate their emotions or hormones, the last thing on their mind is smelling good. Women are expected to keep their periods a secret, like it’s this dirty word that makes you unclean, and can corrupt others, as well.
Not only are women pressured into buying scented pads, but the products available are dangerous, as well. On July 13 of 2024, UC Berkeley Public Health published an article where they revealed that out of 14 brands, 30 tampons revealed to contain 16 different metals including arsenic, cobalt, copper, iron, manganese, mercury, nickel, and lead. Thirty tampons out of 14 brands might not seem like a significant number at first, but just one tampon with a hint of any dangerous metal is too much. And they are rarely tested.
It seems that from lead in tampons to the alleged UTI-causing pads, there is not a safe option for women to use. There have not been many studies done on the chemicals in pads, but after the uproar on Tiktok after many women came forward about intimate health problems they experienced after using Always pads, many women are feeling like they don’t have a safe option to use.
Other than having to deal with products that cause problems, the symptoms that women experience are not taken seriously either. Almost every woman has heard, “You’re just being dramatic. Cramps don’t hurt that bad.” Women everywhere have their pain constantly cast aside, being branded as over dramatic or simply not strong enough to handle the pain that periods cause.
Fact: Women do not just bleed on their period, they shed their actual uterine lining according to the Cleveland Clinic. Fact: according to the AMA one out of ten women experience endometriosis – the growth of tissue found in the uterus, outside of the uterus – which can only be diagnosed through a surgical biopsy. A person will only find out they have endometriosis if they are willing to be cut open and tested. Fact: A multitude of articles and researches have been on how endometriosis affects the male partner, not the female partner. Many corporations are more concerned with how men’s emotional and sexual lives are changed by their partners getting diagnosed with endometriosis rather than how endometriosis affects women! There are very few studies being done to see the effects of endometriosis or more ways to find symptom relief other than having a baby.
Finally, what can we do? This problem may seem unfixable, but change can be made. You can boycott certain products so that they lower their prices; you can donate safe products to women’s shelters so that more women can have access to basic necessities that can help them feel clean; you can lobby, and write to your local representatives so that real change can be made. But most importantly you can listen to and support people affected by periods and the societal standards surrounding them.
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/10132-menstrual-cycle
Jacqueline Lopez • Jan 30, 2026 at 2:50 pm
Excellent Article! It highlights a critical issue: how societal conditioning often teaches women to suppress, rather than honor, their body’s natural functions. The article’s segment on endometriosis is spot on; the normalization of women’s pain often leads to patients being unfairly labeled as dramatic. My own ‘undiagnosed’ status is a choice made to avoid unnecessary surgery. In many healthcare systems, insurance providers and medical standards demand surgical confirmation to prove a patient’s daily reality. This barrier to validation represents a failure in how we prioritize and protect women’s health. Great read!