Your federal dollars may go toward tampons

Bonnie Watson Coleman must be very, very bored. Or perhaps she is suffering from a severe case of PMS and is temporarily out of her mind. Her idea for legislation that provides for free feminine hygiene products in public buildings NATIONWIDE is LITERALLY the dumbest idea today.

Coleman grandly introduced H.R. 6266, the Enhancing Public Access to Feminine Hygiene Products Act, legislation that would provide free feminine hygiene products in public federal buildings nationwide. And if this didn’t make me so angry I would laugh. STOP SPENDING MY MONEY. Period (No pun intended).

Taking advantage of her gender, she’s turning the latest potential waste of taxpayer money into another “oh poor women” issue. Says the deluded Coleman: “Our society is built around the perspectives of men, and the services, facilities and even rules have always followed that perspective. It’s why women in the House of Representatives didn’t have a restroom off of the floor until 2011, and it’s why toilet paper and hand soap are offered for free, but tampons and pads are doled out at a cost.”

No, Bonnie. It’s because EVERYONE uses soap and toilet paper. And only SOME women, SOMEtimes use feminine hygiene products. Not to mention the choices involved. Should we have a whole array of products available for free? Pantyliners, minipads, maxipads, overnight, super plus tampons, slim tampons, with wings? Wingless? Are we depriving a woman of her basic rights if she usually uses pads with wings and we only pay for wingless ones?

Women throughout the ages have figured out how to navigate that time of the month using whatever they could find — leaves, paper, scraps, rags, newspaper, cotton, what have you — to address their “issues." In modern society, we’ve come up with so many better ideas. Isn’t that enough? You want them to be free, too? How about if you can’t afford them go back to the scraps!

And yes they may be costly. But that’s part of life. Do we pay for the business attire? The stockings the high heels, the makeup, the smart business suits, which also can be costly? If not, why on God’s Green earth should I have to pay for tampons??!!

If a woman buys feminine hygiene for her home bathroom, she can certainly afford to bring a couple in her purse to work. And If a woman literally cannot afford tampons, her problems are bigger than i can address here. Should we also require the government to take care of other issues such as feminine itch and yeast infections? Or douches in case a woman finds it impossible to get through the workday without “freshening up?”

This idea is so ridiculous that it is beyond the pale and makes me wonder exactly what her real motive is. To get her name in the paper? To be a “champion“ of women’s rights?

To further embarrass us, the law is supposed to provide for “gender parity" for the various sanitary products offered in public restrooms by ensuring that women can access them for free.

Gender parity? Does that mean we will offer them to men, too? Or will we come up with some other “masculine hygiene product” to offer to the boys to achieve TRUE gender parity?

Do they have nothing else to do in Washington? Do we have no other pressing issues for our representatives to think about? Have there been a lot of women walking around the halls of Congress vigorously menstruating without a pad, tampon or a panty-liner in sight? This idea is an embarrassment to all of us, especially considering that it was dreamed up by a representative of New Jersey. If it passes, we’ll have to change the old slogan to “Trenton makes (dumb laws), the world takes (dumb laws).”

I’m sorry to break it to you, Bonnie. And any other woman in the public buildings of our nation. Your period is your problem.

More from New Jersey 101.5: