No tampons, no problem: NYC legislator discusses making tampons a public good.
Take that, stigma!
Toilet paper, like the hand soap and paper towels we also find in public restrooms, is a sanitary product.
And at some point in our history, a decision was made to make those products available to everyone for free in public restrooms because it's good for the public.
Image (altered) via jmawork/Flickr.
The same logic (and courtesy) has yet to be extended to the tampon.
Despite the occasional protestation on Twitter...
...and a whole movement for bathroom equality...
...they still ain't free in most places.
In fact, you're lucky if you can even find one of these things stocked and functional:
Image (altered) by jill, jellidonut... whatever/Flickr.
Some companies have seen the light, and the light says, "Free the tampon!"
Since 1981, Apple has made tampons just as available to their employees as toilet paper.
Apple's not just ahead of its time when it comes to iPhones. The company was one of the first clients of Nancy Kramer, the founder of Free the Tampons. Image (altered) via Matthew Yohe.
If only Apple ran every public restroom. But they don't. So women have to either guesstimate and preempt or be forced into spontaneous DIY projects using the toilet paper at hand until they can find an ally with supplies or a corner store, where they'll spend almost $10 because corner stores don't sell individual tampons or pads.
That raises an important economic argument for making women's hygiene products available for free in public restrooms:
40 million women live in poverty in the United States. A year's worth of tampons or pads can cost around $60 — and these products are not covered by food stamps.
The lack of feminine hygiene products has been a HUGE problem for homeless shelters and prisons. One Michigan prison has been sued, in part, for denying prisoners access to pads and tampons. And in homeless shelters, donors are wising up in light of reports that shelters are sorely lacking in period gear.
But who bears the brunt of the problem? Low-income teens, says Al Jazeera's Lisa De Bode:
"Many girls were reported to miss school to avoid the embarrassment of staining their clothes, according to representatives at the meeting, or having to ask staff members for menstrual hygiene products."
Really, America? Last I checked, America was not about being the place where young women are forced, due to lack of resources, to stay home from school because they have their period.
That's like LeBron James missing basketball practice because he forgot his socks and there's a stigma around feet.
But New York City is ready to up its tampon game! And hopefully more cities will follow.
"I just felt there was a shame associated with something that just says that you're absolutely healthy," says Julissa Ferreras, a New York City councilwoman. "Celebrating that to me is why we need to remove the taboo."
Ferreras is drafting legislation and assessing the costs of making tampons and pads free in NYC public junior and high schools. In an interview with the New York Post, she raised yet another great point on this issue:
“In a city where we hand out free condoms, we should be making tampons more affordable and accessible."
So what are we waiting for, folks? Let's free the tampon!
A Generation Jones teenager poses in her room.Image via Wikmedia Commons
An office kitchen.via 
An angry man eating spaghetti.via 
Gif of baby being baptized
Woman gives toddler a bath Canva
An Irish woman went to the doctor for a routine eye exam. She left with bright neon green eyes.
It's not easy seeing green.
Did she get superpowers?
Going to the eye doctor can be a hassle and a pain. It's not just the routine issues and inconveniences that come along when making a doctor appointment, but sometimes the various devices being used to check your eyes' health feel invasive and uncomfortable. But at least at the end of the appointment, most of us don't look like we're turning into The Incredible Hulk. That wasn't the case for one Irish woman.
Photographer Margerita B. Wargola was just going in for a routine eye exam at the hospital but ended up leaving with her eyes a shocking, bright neon green.
At the doctor's office, the nurse practitioner was prepping Wargola for a test with a machine that Wargola had experienced before. Before the test started, Wargola presumed the nurse had dropped some saline into her eyes, as they were feeling dry. After she blinked, everything went yellow.
Wargola and the nurse initially panicked. Neither knew what was going on as Wargola suddenly had yellow vision and radioactive-looking green eyes. After the initial shock, both realized the issue: the nurse forgot to ask Wargola to remove her contact lenses before putting contrast drops in her eyes for the exam. Wargola and the nurse quickly removed the lenses from her eyes and washed them thoroughly with saline. Fortunately, Wargola's eyes were unharmed. Unfortunately, her contacts were permanently stained and she didn't bring a spare pair.
- YouTube youtube.com
Since she has poor vision, Wargola was forced to drive herself home after the eye exam wearing the neon-green contact lenses that make her look like a member of the Green Lantern Corps. She couldn't help but laugh at her predicament and recorded a video explaining it all on social media. Since then, her video has sparked a couple Reddit threads and collected a bunch of comments on Instagram:
“But the REAL question is: do you now have X-Ray vision?”
“You can just say you're a superhero.”
“I would make a few stops on the way home just to freak some people out!”
“I would have lived it up! Grab a coffee, do grocery shopping, walk around a shopping center.”
“This one would pair well with that girl who ate something with turmeric with her invisalign on and walked around Paris smiling at people with seemingly BRIGHT YELLOW TEETH.”
“I would save those for fancy special occasions! WOW!”
“Every time I'd stop I'd turn slowly and stare at the person in the car next to me.”
“Keep them. Tell people what to do. They’ll do your bidding.”
In a follow-up Instagram video, Wargola showed her followers that she was safe at home with normal eyes, showing that the damaged contact lenses were so stained that they turned the saline solution in her contacts case into a bright Gatorade yellow. She wasn't mad at the nurse and, in fact, plans on keeping the lenses to wear on St. Patrick's Day or some other special occasion.
While no harm was done and a good laugh was had, it's still best for doctors, nurses, and patients alike to double-check and ask or tell if contact lenses are being worn before each eye test. If not, there might be more than ultra-green eyes to worry about.