Lady Bearcats Start a Hygiene Campaign

An attempt to gain free feminine hygiene dispensers on campus is currently being led by senior students Samantha Gonzalas, Kylie Managan, Anika Perez and Aubrey Cleveland. Forty-nine percent of campus has the potential to benefit from inserting dispensers into the student restrooms. The movement, Taking Care of Business, currently has a survey available on their Instagram and Facebook, and have a petition circulating on campus.

Part of the goal is to “spread awareness about how tampons and pads [are not] a luxury but are simply a basic human right,” according to Gonzales. Tampons are globally seen as a luxury item, with 28 states declaring them so. Support for the cause is rapidly growing since its social media launched merely weeks ago, with just under 125 followers on Instagram, and 62 on Facebook.

However, these students aren’t the only women seeking change. Cristina Garcia is introducing a new bill to the California state assembly in an attempt to “require the department [of education] to provide public and private schools, including charter schools, with an adequate supply of feminine hygiene products sufficient to meet the needs of all female pupils and to ensure that female pupils have direct access to feminine hygiene products in school bathrooms,” according assembly bill 10.

Since Mar. 4, paper petitions have been circulating campus in an effort to gain product dispensers to be packed with pads and tampons. The campaign’s future is looking bright, many “teachers and staff are supporting” it and giving “advice on how to advance,” Gonzalez said. Campaign leaders are hoping to meet with the school board in the near future.