A few weeks ago, exactly 48 hours before House Bill 162 “Period Products in Schools” passed the Utah Legislature, our Utah Period Project team went to SheTech, a STEM-activation program for high school girls.
Thousands of girls gathered at the Mountain America Exposition Center for courses and encouragement in pursuing science, technology, engineering and math.
Women come together at the state capitol in support of period products for Utah students.
We found out about SheTech two days prior — and made a slightly reluctant decision to pull on our well-used hot-pink t-shirts, and pull out our beat-up posters and stickers for yet another round of period talk and tabling.
We’d spent the last seven months working for the successful passage of HB 162 — a bill that would require every public and charter school in the state to provide access to free period products in every girls’ and all-gender bathroom — attempting to get what felt like the entire state on board with this movement.
Feeling a bit exhausted from the road-show that had become our lives, and a bit anxious, praying that HB 162 would get funded and get passed, we spread out what was left of the cookies from the former day’s event, a few stickers and a period product dispenser on our table, located toward the back of the exhibit hall.
It looked a bit sparse, but as fortune had it, one of our team members found some tampons she had at home that happened to be wrapped in bright pink plastic. We placed those in a vase in lieu of flowers.
We set everything on the table, took a deep breath and put smiles on our faces — to mask our lower-than-normal enthusiasm.
Within seconds of the doors opening, our table was flooded with girls. Tall girls, short girls, girls in glasses, girls with spray tans, girls that were athletes, girls that were gamers, girls with many friends, girls on their own; well-resourced girls and girls that likely needed more than they had.
Clamoring to the pink. Intrigued by what we can only assume were those spectacular tampons. Wanting to know more.
And so, we told them.
We told them that the state was coming together for them. To care for the silent and basic needs that accompany menstruation.
We told them that when this bill passed, it would signal that the legislature cared about their access to education and their ability to stay in school and avoid embarrassment.
We told them that every female legislator on the committees had spoken to the importance of caring for menstruation — sharing how menstruation had affected them or their daughters. Illuminating that menstruation should be a signal of power, not shame.
We told them that two Utah families, the Larry H. & Gail Miller Family Foundation and the Andrus Family Foundation, pledged $2 million to put dispensers into every one of their school bathrooms, because the need was so obvious and the desired outcome so positive.
We told them dozens of blazing hot pink billboards from Brigham City to St. George, emboldened with the mantra “Girls are worth it. Period.,” were donated to smash the stigma of menstruation and begin building back its beauty.
We told them that bakeries and artists and craftswomen had created cookies and paintings and balloons — to turn periods into a party.
We told them that social media influencers and women and men in every corner of the state hosted luncheons and invited friends and raised money to contribute to this effort.
We told them that both doctors and orphans had testified of bled-on-pants and period poverty.
We told them that people in power and people with no apparent power, be it Republican, Democrat, woman or man — people as diverse as they were — had come together, for them.
To smooth the path and to do something that is long overdue.
Two days later, HB162 passed the Utah Legislature unanimously. And it has been signed into law.
This specific work is done.
It’s been nothing short of a gift to work on this issue, to be a part of something greater than oneself and to see light come from pain. There is absolutely more to be done, but this year, 330,000 students will benefit from the passage of HB162. Forty years from now, that number will be 1.3 million girls and menstruators.
A Canadian poet, Rupi Kaur, wrote:
I stand
On the sacrifices
Of a million women before me
Thinking
What can I do
To make this mountain taller
So the women after me
Can see farther
And so we celebrate every woman and every man who made the mountain taller so this next generation can see farther.
Emily Bell McCormick is the founder and president of The Policy Project, a non-profit organization that works to strengthen communities by implementing healthy policy. Its most recent effort is the Utah Period Project.