Interesting idea. (Note, "interesting" does not mean "good.")

The argument that toilet paper is free, therefore tampons should be free might make sense to some, although I feel that the comparison is a poor one. Toilet paper is used and finished with at the toilet, but a tampon is more a "continuous use" item.

Consider the quality of public restroom toilet paper. Ladies, is that really the quality of tampon you wish to use? I imagine they'd feel like cardboard.

Gotta love third wave feminism.

I don't know about where you are, but where I am at businesses are not required to provide TP...they are required to provide a way to clean up your hands and other publicly exposed areas. Most business do because not doing it would be bad for business. For the most part, business are not even required by law to provide restrooms to customers (they are usually required to for employees) but again most do. I do know of a number of places around me that don't have restrooms available to the public. Most are take-out type places.

Isn't free tampons discriminatory against men? If a business provided free XYZ for female bodily functions without providing an equivalent ABC for male bodily functions, sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen.

You're a rare woman not seduced by free stuff for internal genitals.

This is why we "all" get our "free" reconstructive surgery after breast cancer, male or female, even though it's going to be used 99.99% by women; this is why Obamacare outlawed consideration of the 50%+ cost of women's health service use and taxed men claiming they were fixing some ancient wrong; and this is also why the price discrimination based on sex for auto and life insurance has not been on the agenda and never will be:

It's easy to buy women voters by offering them free stuff.

Principles go out the window when you start waving around "free" Plan B. Hillary Clinton was screaming the other day that she can compel a service provider to give you "your right" to their service. America is topsy turvy, but, it all ends the same - broke and screaming about why there is no toilet paper and no tampon because they're both supposed to be "free".

mer: "Isn't free tampons discriminatory against men?"

Absolutely. To be fair there should be tampon dispensers in men's bathrooms too. Otherwise a man having his period (female-to-male transgender person, or FTM) might be humiliated by having to ask a cis woman, male-to-female transgender person (MTF), bi-gender person, gender fluid person or lesbian to get him a tampon from the women's bathroom. Or he might have to go en femme and go in and get one himself. If a woman has a dick (MTF) can she have a free tampon?

Of course, businesses are free to provide free tampons, free tires, and free lunch to all -- if they wish to do so.

Ken R...hilarious.

Positively medieval. It's as if being a female of reproductive age is a medical codition.

"It's as if being a female of reproductive age is a medical condition."

And it exposes a fundamental logical inconsistency: "We are as strong as men and we can do anything men can do! But we require all of these special considerations for our weaknesses!"

And imagine how this would work out... different women prefer different brands or designs, so pretty soon everyone is required to stock a dozen different types. And that's before considering the women who would rather use pads. Where are all of those special-snowflake construction women out at the job site going to find that magical women's porta-john with a drugstore full of women's products to pamper them? The humanity!

There is a minority of men who have a tampon fetish--specifically shoving multiple packs up their buttholes.

I suspect if businesses gave out free tampons they would be used as any free item is--without consideration. Women are disgusting bathroom users (way fucking worse than men) so I bet you I would see alot of bloody tampons not even properly disposed of and men with tampon fetishes would go into bathrooms to use them to jerk off.

I always feel for janitors.

Cousin Dave: And imagine how this would work out... different women prefer different brands or designs, so pretty soon everyone is required to stock a dozen different types.

I know very little about feminine products, and it's probably best for me to stay away from the topic, but I would point out here that of those dozen different brands they would have to stock, each brand would also have to come in different sizes. (It's not a physical size thing, but the size of the flow.) I don't know all the sizes they come in, but I do know that it is not a "one-tampon-fits-all" accommodation.

And don't forget the pads for those heavy-flow days. Basically, they would have to stock something akin to a large candy machine in each restroom, so everyone can pick the brand and size they need, plus pads if necessary.

Women are disgusting bathroom users (way fucking worse than men).... ~ Posted by: ppen at March 2, 2016 6:53 AM

While in college, I worked in a restaurant. As low man on the totem pole, it was my job to clean the restrooms after shift.

The men's room I could generally clean with a hose and a mop.

The women's room, however, required a haxmat suit and asbestos gloves.

Basically, they would have to stock something akin to a large candy machine in each restroom

Get your bathroom vending machine franchise now! Great locations available! Make full time money for part time work!! Act now, and we'll cut your franchise fee in half!

This hot opportunity won't last long. ACT SOON!

Wut?

According to Melissa Harris-Perry, formerly of MSNBC until she walked off the job in a race-baiting hissy fit of epic proportions,

tampons make good political-statement earrings.

Goofy - but she was responding to the security goombahs at the Texas Capitol who outlawed tampons in the building out of fear they'd be thrown at legislators.

Dumb vs dumberer.

The central argument is that women are "taxed for being women". The principle behind this means that (even) natural sex differences require compensation. Following throught with that, one would have to determine all (natural) sex differences (impossible due to uncertainty), determine the advantages and disadvantages, and compare all that on some value scale (impossible due to incommensurability). It would mean removing all sex differences, or transferring goods between men and women to compensate. In essence this would be one giant endeavour to determine the "comparable worth" of manliness/maleness and femininity/femaleness. Fundamentally impossible. It doesn't even work for simple contracts/transactions.

It's not surprising, but inconsistent, that advocates of "free tampons" do not advocate that men be compensated for dying 5 years earlier. That fact can simultaneously be understood as a "tax" one men for being men to the amount of 5 years of life, as well as a tax that has men pay for the 5 additional years that women use social services and health care.

Men's earlier death is part of a trade-off, much like assertiveness and sensitivity have distinct advantages and disadvantages. I also do not see why one would have to make men and women the same, but not stupid and intelligent people, charismatic and dumb people, athletic and clumsy people... and so forth.

Even so, those who adhere to this paradigm of "equality" do not get to be inconsistent. Sure, have relativism. But that requires internal consistency, which "tampon politics" lack.

By the way, Martie Haselton's "counter-argument" was this: http://ww3.haverford.edu/psychology/ddavis/p109g/steinem.menstruate.html One has to give her credit. Others see the "right to tampons" as a natural, self-evident truth.

The women's room, however, required a haxmat suit and asbestos gloves.

When I worked in a grocery store, I started as a bagger. Cleaning the restrooms at the front of the store was part of our job. I was used to seeing the male baggers who had to clean the restrooms leave the ladies restroom with a despairing look.

"How was it?" I asked a fellow bagger one day.

"Bloody," he replied.

More words on "taxes".

The concept has been used to speak of a "racial tax" when black people don't get cabs as easily as white people. R. T. Ford (Race Card, FSG), gets much right, such as the conflict with safety (eg black neighborhoods more dangerous for taxi drivers/owners) and profitability. Yet a tax means taking away something you own. They tax the income you have earned through voluntary transactions. You haven't earned a taxi ride. There's nothing to tax here, nothing is being taken away from you. You simply do not get something that you want to have. You might as well say that you have a right that a woman has sex with you, and if she declines that you are being "taxed" (try "for being a man").

I'm not certain it's the case now, but in Japan you couldn't even be certain of toilet paper in the public toilets. Fortunately there were usually people handing out those pocket size packets of tissue advertising something in most shopping areas.

Ladies...

Do you really want to put something that has been unattended, in a public area, for - months, possibly - in there?

I thought not.

There are many ways this idea is lunacy.

@MarkD -- that was true as of about 3 years ago when I visited. (maybe 4 - time flys)

The central argument is that women are "taxed for being women". The principle behind this means that (even) natural sex differences require compensation. ~ Posted by: Stephan at March 2, 2016 10:22 AM

That central argument relies on the assumption that women are inherently unhappy being women.

The power of giving birth makes "womb envy" more logical.... ~ Martie Haselton

Joseph Campbell theorized in The Masks of God that the rise of a belief in magic wielded by men was a way for men to get back the power that women's role in having children had taken from them, the ability to create life.

That the Zeus-Athena myth (and other males creating life myths) stemmed from men's jealousy of women in that regard.

Notice how Athena was perfect, but Hephaestus, created solely by Hera was lame.

Happiness assumption: outline.

Mythology: worth considering. But: Demeter, Persephone, Freyja, etc.

But: Demeter, Persephone, Freyja, etc. ~ Posted by: Stephan at March 2, 2016 4:35 PM

Obviously, not every myth was born of a single source or grievance. Besides, it was only one guy's theory.

And the fantasy of the beautiful kick-ass chick did not start with Lara Croft.

I find it kind of amusing that many of the male commenters don't seem to know that tampon and pad vending machines already exist, always have, in my lifetime. To boot, they can dispense both products easily and are quite low tech, and probably cheap. They cost a quarter and nobody wants the quality of product they dispense unless the alternative is half a roll of folded-up TP.

Maybe I'm just a weirdo, but I've always carried my own tampons in my purse. I don't think I've ever gotten one out of the machines. Is it really that hard to plan ahead and keep a supply with you?

Allison: "I find it kind of amusing that many of the male commenters don't seem to know that tampon and pad vending machines already exist..."

I think men are pretty much aware of that. The discussion isn't about whether there should be tampon vending machines in women's restrooms, it's about feminists thinking it's some sort of patriarchal aggression that the tampons aren't free.

BunnyGirl: "Is it really that hard to plan ahead and keep a supply with you?"

I think that's what most women do. But they're forced to suffer the indignity of paying for them. Then they conceal them in a purse or a pocket, as if menstruating is somehow shameful or invalid under a system of patriarchal oppression.

Apparently there are some who believe tampons should be free. Perhaps some might even go a step farther and say the vending machines should be located prominently outside the doors to women's restrooms, so that menstruation is openly validated, in the faces of the male oppressors.

For women who prefer to carry their own tampons, perhaps someday a standard feature of purses will be four or five loops attached accessibly on the outside or on the strap, for holding extra tampons; kind of like the loops chauvinist oppressors attach to a shotgun or sling for holding extra shells.

http://www.aresgear.com/images/ShellMod_01.jpg

Maybe I'm just a weirdo, but I've always carried my own tampons in my purse. I don't think I've ever gotten one out of the machines. Is it really that hard to plan ahead and keep a supply with you?

Posted by: BunnyGirl at March 2, 2016 11:53 PM
______________________________________

I have to agree.

But...since, as Amy Dacyczyn once pointed out more than 20 years ago, tampons cost as much as disposable diapers, for some weird reason (maybe prices for each have changed - I wouldn't know), many women find it MUCH more economical to pay for The Keeper (made of gum rubber) instead. It lasts for at least 20 years, maybe far more. Much better for the environment too - not to mention janitors. (A woman who uses the Keeper will still need panty liners, but those can be had for $1 for a pack of 30 at dollar stores.)

Allison,

It isn't that men are unaware tampon/pad dispensers exist. As you noted, they cost around a quarter and are so low quality that no one really wants them. So consider how good the quality will be when they cost nothing. Tack on 'single payer' i.e. all tampons must be free.

The feminists are advocating only tampons that are even lower quality than what you can get in a restroom should be available. Yick.

"...tampons cost as much as disposable diapers, for some weird reason (maybe prices for each have changed - I wouldn't know),..."

Heard of "toxic shock syndrome"? It can't be just any cotton - it has to sterile and fungus-free cotton.

Nobody's leaving a disposable diaper on for two or three days.

Well, call me unprepared, but the number of times I have wound up on the rag and out of tampons is greater than zero. I am not focused on the free part, but it would be nice if more places would stock them, low quality or no. They are a thing people commonly use in the bathroom, arguably on par with tp and soap. It seems like it would be even better if someone would come up with a better disposal can, or at least go back to the old-school, triangular-lidded floor ones. The wall mounted ones are truly revolting and quite literally in your face.

I dunno, toilet paper is free

Pads are more expensive than diapers, if you want to save money buy newborn size grocery store diapers, they work better because they conform to your body, too

Heard of "toxic shock syndrome"? It can't be just any cotton - it has to sterile and fungus-free cotton.
___________________________________

But there's still a good deal more material involved with a disposable diaper - and I assume those have to be sterile too, even if there's no cotton involved.

NicoleK,

I'm not aware of any laws requiring free toilet paper. That some places chose to offer it for free is their business. If you want a store to offer free tampons take it up with their management.

Allison,

The free part is the whole point. If people weren't pushing for the government to force businesses to offer free tampons we wouldn't be having this conversation.

Lenona,

Then open a feminine hygiene business and sell your own for less. If you can do better compete and get rich. But don't tell someone else how much to charge. A debate over how expensive things 'should be' should be moot.

I dunno, toilet paper is free ~ Posted by: Nicolek at March 4, 2016 2:33 AM

It's not free. Somebody paid for it.

And it it's offered in a building's public restroom, the building management paid for it.

Perhaps the building management thought it better to offer toilet paper to the public at no charge than to risk what might happen if toilet paper was unavailable.

But it wasn't free.

Perhaps that argument could work to justify offering tampons to the public at no charge. But someone will be paying for them.

To Ben:

So there's no such thing as sneaky overpricing? Interesting.