Tampon Taboo

Anyone who has ever searched for or had the luxury to actually find and buy tampons in Latin America knows how rare they are. They are usually hidden in some corner behind the counter at the pharmacy or buried behind piles of every kind of pad you could imagine. When you finally find them the excitement is short-lived. They're the most expensive thing on the shelf, come in packs no larger than 12, are small, and have no applicator, plastic or otherwise. After settling on these sub-par products as your only option, you have to endure the judging eyes of the cashier as she rings you up.

The geography of tampon use is not something we think about in the US and Canada, where 70% of women use tampons. We just accept it as a fact of womanhood and are comfortable asking our friends for one, buying them in stores, and keeping them in the cupboards of shared bathrooms.

However, only 10% of women outside of the US and Canada use of tampons, and, in Latin America, only a tiny 3%. In this largely Catholic region, there exists a strong religious taboo against their use even though the Church has no official stance on the matter. The popular perception is that women can lose their virginity through the use of tampons, especially those with larger applicators. Even doctors, most of whom are males, often hold this misconception and know only of vague outdated statistics about the risk of toxic shock syndrome. They know very little about the risk-reducing improvements in labels, instructions, and product design achieved in the last decade.

This may sound a bit dramatic, but I strongly believe that tampon availability and education is a necessary part of the women's movement in Latin America. A woman confined to pads is like a woman confined to skirts and heels. She meets some sort of unspoken patriarchal quota of femininity and pureness at the expense of mobility and personal choice. A woman limited to pads cannot swim and feels uncomfortable running, biking, or doing any manner of physical activity. In other words, she has little power over her body and, in particular, how her reproductive cycle affects her daily life. Availability of tampons can help women regain this power.

The second aspect, education of women and doctors, is important in a more theoretical sense. The current discourse regarding tampons centers around the ideals of (female) virginity/ religious purity and unquestioning trust of the medical profession.
a) Virginity is a social construct that gives men the power to "take" something valuable from women, perpetuates a double standard between the sexes, creates a hierarchy of women based on number of sexual partners, shames natural sexual desires and actions, and places sole authority over what constitutes "acceptable" sex in the hands of the Church, namely the institution of "holy matrimony." Not using tampons to "preserve one's virginity" only furthers these societal structures.
b) The medical profession is conservative, heteronormative, and male-dominated, ill-suited to address the needs of many of the people who most need it-- the sexually active, pregnant, etc. Blind trust of physicians, especially by women, should not be an ideal worth upholding.
It is essential that women understand the true facts and risks of tampons in order to weaken the monopoly that men and the Church hold over knowledge and female bodies in Latin America.

Source:
http://www.eltiempo.com/archivo/documento/MAM-­‐130159