A year ago, Maggie Walker was bored in quarantine. Now, she’s meeting with policymakers, discussing how to repeal the tampon tax in Mississippi and helping provide period products to the Oxford community.
Walker, a junior public policy leadership major from Suwanee, Georgia, is the founder of Period@UM. Period@UM is a campus organization whose goal is to fight period poverty through education, service and advocacy. Period@UM was not just a product of Walker’s quarantine boredom, but also her desire to invest her time in something that makes a true difference in Mississippi and her passion for women’s rights.
“Period poverty is the lack of access to sanitary products or menstrual hygiene education,” Walker said. “One in 10 college students experiences period poverty. I don’t think I understood how big of an issue it was when I first started doing this, but it is a really big issue.”
Period@UM’s first-year efforts in bringing attention to this issue have been primarily service-based. Its most recognizable impact is the distribution of period baskets that provide free menstrual products in bathrooms around campus.Although she expected to meet logistical challenges, Walker said the campus administration and community have been receptive and welcoming to the project.
“One of our awesome members, Caroline Sturgis, runs the period baskets in the student union,” Walker said. “We’re getting ready to expand that over to the Turner Center and SCRC. In the next two weeks, we should be providing period baskets in 17 major on-campus bathrooms, which is super awesome.”
Organizations like the Veterans Association and the Jackson Free Clinic have also supported Period@UM in their efforts. Most of the stock that Period@UM used to refill period product baskets was donated by sororities, EDHE and Honors 101 classes.
The Diversity and Community Engagement Center recently awarded Period@UM with the Diversity Incentive Fund grant award, which helped the organization purchase 115 reusable menstrual cups. Period@UM plans on using these reusable menstrual cups to help the greater Oxford community.
“We’re giving those to local high school and middle school nurses to distribute to students who come and ask for tampons or pads who are struggling with period poverty,” Walker said. “It comes with an informational pamphlet on how they can use it and the benefits of it. We’re also keeping some to distribute to on-campus departments as well.”
While Period@UM’s service projects are primarily located in Oxford, their foray into advocacy has the potential to impact the entire state of Mississippi. Period@UM is in the process of learning how to challenge Mississippi’s tampon tax.
Tampon tax refers to the sales tax charged on tampons and other menstrual products. Typically, essential hygiene and health items are exempt from this tax.
“There’s a lot of different hygiene products, and men’s products that don’t get that additional tax added on to them, which is wrong and it’s unconstitutional because 50% of the population is dealing with menstruation,” Walker said.
Recently, Walker met with Laura Strausfeld, the Co-Founder and Executive director of Period Equity. Strausfeld has worked with and been successful in places like Michigan and New York in filing lawsuits against the state to repeal the tampon tax.
“We’re trying to sue the state of Mississippi, and Strausfeld is helping me figure out how to do that,” Walker said. “It was insane to get to talk to her because I think that’s the hardest pillar for us students to pour into besides writing letters and making calls and being annoyingly loud about the fact that women aren’t being treated with the same respect that they deserve.”
One of the biggest challenges that Walker anticipates is ignorance from lawmakers surrounding what menstruation is and how it affects people physiologically and communities economically.
Period@UM currently holds biweekly meetings open to members and nonmembers that focus on menstruation-related topics. Still, Walker wants to expand the education aspect of Period@UM, bringing in OB-GYNs, counselors and other women’s health professionals.
“We’re hoping to do some public forums on women’s health awareness and do some campus-wide initiatives partnering with ASB and CPH,” Walker said. “We want to get into the curriculum of the University of Mississippi because so many people, especially growing up in Mississippi, didn’t get comprehensive sex education.”
The outreach, education and membership efforts that Period@UM has done on campus have been well received so far. In two or three months, Period@UM gained over 100 general members, which Walker attributes to the ease of joining the organization and that the need hadn’t been addressed on campus before.
Despite the success of Period@UM, Walker can tell that there’s still a long way to go.
“Whenever I table in front of the union, and there are big groups of boys walking by, I try to make it a point to talk to them because they’re the type of person that we need to be educating and destigmatizing these conversations to,” Walker said. “But I think that we have come a long way, and the team that we have compiled is awesome and passionate about combating period poverty and stigmatization of menstruation on campus, so I’m hopeful.”
