Dignity! Period.

My university sent me their newsletter. Next week is Women's week: they will be showing some films and doing a female health sesssion and so on, as well as celebrating International Women's Day. They are also encourging boys to dress like girls for charity. Quite a good move in some ways as student males seem to, on the whole, delight in this activity. It disturbs me a little that the young men of my generation seem to think that putting on skirts and dresses and pretending to be girls or women is a funny thing to do, but there we are. (Girls dressing as men is nowhere near as desirable, and I think this is probably because women, and particularly, female students, live in remarkably similar clothes to their male counterparts. I'm terribly guilty of this; today I'm wearing a boyish-cut t-shirt and combat trousers, not to mention cute 'boyshorts' underneath. Clearly there's something going on with the fact that many of my clothes are based on male tailoring, but that's for another day.)
As a fancy dress choice, boys choosing cross-dressing is very common. In fact on Wednesday I went out to a 'superhero' themed fancy dress do, and a boy there dressed in drag. Quite sweet really, I'm pleased he recognises that women are indeed superheroes, but it also made me laugh as he proudly wore his 'What Would Jesus Do?' bracelet and engaged in the usual homo-erotic behaviour which only seems to afflict church-going, geeky young men. I'm always throughly confused by this, but I see it happening a lot. I always think that it's nice that they embrace their homoerotic side as eagerly as they do lesbianism (with much gusto, in case you needed clarification). But I still think there's probably a million contradictions going on there.
Anyway, the charity they are raising money for through the medium of boys (hiliariously, I'm sure, and accompanied by much 'laddish' homo-erotic fun) dressing as girls is 'Dignity! Period'. These people are raising money to send tampons to Zimbabwe. At first I was utterly disgusted by this idea. I assumed that Zimbabwean women were, like the women I met in the Gambia, using rags to soak up the blood released during their period and then burning or washing the rags afterwards. There is nothing undignified about this practice in my opinion, and sending the westernised idea that unless you can take it out of several layers of packaging, admire the bleached whiteness, then throw it away, it must be unclean, is completely unethical and irresponsible.
So I did some research and found a website on it: Dignity Period. It seems I'm not the only one who has questioned this. I wouldn't expect a charity to give out the hippy favourite, mooncups, but sending disposables seems really unethical. The reply to a similar question posted there informed me that women in Zimbabwe have been using tampons for a while, and since the cotton is now very scarce and therefore expensive, due to the complete degradation of farming and society in general, the only factory making tampons has closed and although there are some available they are prohibitively expensive. It's reported that women have been using packed wedges of newspaper or leaves instead. This is leading to infections and vaginal health problems, which in a country with widespread HIV infection and huge stigma about such matters is problematic, and contributing to domestic violence and supression of women in Zimbabwe. Hence the campaign. They chose disposable tampons because 'that is what women have been using'. Fine, and some women probably have. They also tell me that clean water is scarce, so maintaining hygiene is difficult with regards to washable sanitary protection. Which is a problem anyway. And frankly, another part is the fact that western women on the whole feel no guilt about using plastic backed, over-packaged sanpro, so to criticise Zimbabwean women for being environmentally unfriendly is ridiculously westerncentric, when we've been polluting the planet by doing the same thing for many more years.
However, I still think it's a huge generalisation to say all women in Zimbabwe were using tampons and have forgotten how their grandmothers dealt with their periods. Clean water is scarce in many places, and often accompanies widespread poverty. How do other women cope?
I hope they raise lots of money and send truckloads of tampons, if that's really what's needed right now. But I think in the long term what's needed is a greater communication on sanpro itself, and more social studies into women and their periods now, and in the past, all over the world. My favourite mag, Scarlet, this month has an interesting article on the history of sanpro, but they avoid any of the environmental arguments about modern period products. I think they missed a trick there, but the article was otherwise very good. The best thing about Scarlet apart from their lack of squemishness about women's issues is their 'no celebrities and no diets' policy. Although I also noticed that there was an advert by a condom comapany this issue which was in an article format and provided a 'sex diet plan'. Hmm.
Going back to the Dignity! Period campaign, I think my biggest problem is with the name; I feels it suggests that non-tampon methods of sanpro are somehow undignified. The NUS is backing their campaign, and some universities have put forward support for the motion of a 5% 'tax' on tampons to be added to their price and then contributed to the campaign. I'm all for that; but then I'm a Natracare towels or washable towels girl.
So I hope they send many many tampons, and that through this type of campaign there's more openess about the issues regarding 'sanitary wear'. But I've decided againist trying to get my boyfriend to wear my clothes this week. Quite apart from anything else, he'd be no fun and look completely normal: I wear jeans and a t-shirt most of the time as well. Plus he's already got longish curly hair, and, bless him, he's no giant. He gets mistaken for a girl too much for his liking already.