Every girl remembers that talk: your parents (probably your mom) sat you down. Maybe she brought a book or pamphlet with her or was simply armed with a creative metaphor. No not the sex talk - the menstruation talk (raise your hand if you cringed at that word). To the best of their ability, they attempted to prepare you for the changes your body will go through. Let's be honest, you were kind of disgusted because although your period is a completely natural bodily function, it’s still a chore. Faced with that task, imagine my surprise at realizing that my own government was placing a “luxury” tax on my monthly cycle - as if me bleeding for a week each month came with cucumbers on the eyes and a hot stone massage. Dubbed the “tampon tax”, the tax placed on feminine hygiene products like menstrual pads and tampons was first protested back in the fall of 2015 in the United Kingdom as thousands of British women (and men) took to Twitter to mock the so-called luxury of having a period. Most notably was a truly hilarious rant by comedian Russell Howard, who said "They're tampons, not Ferrero Rocher! No woman has ever inserted one and gone: 'Oh, I am spoiling myself – I feel so decadent!'" Yet, despite this truly entertaining marathon rant and more serious petitions, the UK government didn’t budge. Nor is the UK alone in their ridiculous policy: many other countries around the world also tax women for...well, being women. Most recently, perhaps inspired by our friends across the pond, American women have addressed their own country’s tax law. While it’s not a federal tax, like that of the UK, 40 states in the US have been found to practice the “tampon tax”, renewing the now-international debate months later. Feminist organizations nationwide have railed against the law as clearly misogynistic and another example of the country’s attack on women’s reproductive health. Even President Obama, in a recent interview condemned the state legislatures for the practice. If you have followed the debate as I have though, you’ll see a new argument coming out of the woodwork, in the defense of the controversial tax. The Daily Beast and The Washington Post to name a few have recently come out with similar articles shaming those who were too quick to scream at the government and call on the “war on women” cry. They explain that the “tampon tax” in the US is simply just a regular sales tax that is being applied to a variety of other products and therefore the public should not misconstrue this as “squeamish, old, predominantly male politicians are punishing half of humanity for the crime of having a period.” At first I was inclined to agree, after all I hail from Florida, a state with one of the country’s highest sales tax rate(some cities reaching 7.5%), and sometimes it seems that everything under the sun is being taxed. Yet, when I actually read the Florida tax code, that wasn’t necessarily the case. There’s actually a lot of everyday “necessities” that are being exempt from this so-called overarching sales tax. Which begs the question: what criteria is being used that disqualified tampons and menstrual pads from the “Nontaxable Medical and General Grocery List,” yet in the same list antacids and athletes foot medicine made the cut?You might be thinking, well there’s thousands of products that the legislature has to consider, we can’t be cutting taxes willy-nilly, this simply could have been an oversight. However, when you see how detailed they are in listing other products, it becomes increasingly obvious that the “oversight” was probably made by a mostly male legislature whose primary concern was dealing with heartburn from all the “pork-barreling”, a monthly lifelong reality for women never coming to the forefront of their male minds.This article was written by Ana Cicenia. Please send an email to [email protected] to get in touch. Photo Credit: C Jill Reed via Flickr