Many college campuses across the United States, Iowa State included, are making the shift to not only provide more free menstrual products to students, but also to make them more accessible to all students on campus, not just women.

According to ACUI, many college campuses are pushing to end “period poverty,” which means that those who menstruate cannot reach their full potential as the lack of sanitary products hinders them from living their day-to-day lives. Many students in institutions are combatting period poverty by implementing menstrual products within their institutions. 

Various student governments and student organizations are leading the way in facilitating free access to menstrual products across campuses, and they are working with health services divisions, local and national nonprofits and menstrual hygiene product companies to get the goal accomplished.

Many of these schools work with campaigns, some of the most popular ones being PERIOD, Free The Tampons and Aunt Flow. These campaigns have not only helped bring free products to campus, but also products for all genders and gender non-conforming people who need menstrual hygiene products.

No current Iowa State organizations or any Iowa State affiliated groups have worked with any of these campaigns, but Iowa State has started some other initiatives regarding menstrual hygiene products.

Elena Hoffman, senior in global resource systems and director of the Diversity and Inclusion Committee, said that Iowa State has these products in limited areas on campus.

“Iowa State does provide free sanitary pads and tampons,” Hoffman said. “As for their location, most buildings try to have them in one bathroom at least and typically are located in a female bathroom.”

Hoffman also explained that members on the Diversity and Inclusion Committee are working on getting these services located in more family-friendly and gender-neutral restrooms in the meantime.

She also said students can access a guide from Student Government on the locations of the gender-neutral restrooms on campus. There is currently no map or resource for students to locate which bathrooms have menstrual hygiene products, but Hoffman said there are talks about getting a map together for the location of these menstrual products.

Iowa State’s Student Health and Wellness Center had no information available surrounding this topic at the time of writing this article.

Other universities across the nation are also in the process of providing menstrual hygiene products on their campuses.

According to The Daily Pennsylvanian, the University of Pennsylvania has a campaign to provide more products on its campus in high traffic areas, and is even heading in the direction to implement these products in gender-neutral bathrooms and spaces on campus.

“Both the Penn Women’s Center and Student Health Services currently provide free menstrual products at their offices, and select restrooms across campus have vending machines that sell pads and tampons,” The Daily Pennsylvanian said.

Other universities such as Yale, Columbia and Princeton are implementing similar campaigns at their campuses.

However, this campaign for free access to menstrual products for all genders is a hard campaign to accomplish in some areas.

Southern Methodist University students are running into issues regarding the university putting the same importance on menstrual hygiene products as protective sex products. Due to these issues, they have started their own campaign on campus called “The Period Project” in order to increase accessibility on campus.

A student leader at Southern Methodist University reported to the SMU Daily Campus that the university has made great strides for the health of the students. They noted the Health Center has an initiative to have condoms in each commons, yet a student still has to trek in order to get a pad or tampon. The student had a meeting with SMU Facilities and said that at any given time of the day, a student has free access to condoms.

“Yet sex is voluntary, menstruating isn’t,” the student said.

A bigger controversy regarding this topic, however, is the concept of moving from the “feminine hygiene product” to a more gender-neutral and inclusive concept of “menstrual hygiene products.”

“As the crusade for what’s often termed ‘menstrual equity’ gains momentum nationwide, activists and lawmakers — and even major corporations — are focusing on those who might not identify as women but still get a period,” The Chicago Tribune said.

The Chicago Tribune also acknowledged the backlash regarding changing packaging on hygiene products to be more gender inclusive. In order to be more inclusive of transgender and non-binary customers, Procter & Gamble Company last month said it would be removing the Venus symbol — a circle and cross typically representing womanhood and the female sex ― from the wrappers of Always sanitary pads.

Some resources regarding this topic are PERIOD and Free The Tampons, which are both nonprofit organizations that are resources for education and available to help create initiatives and campaigns that have to do with menstrual hygiene products. Aunt Flow is an organization that has a step-by-step program to help provide free menstrual products on college campuses.