This is exactly how I feel whenever I indulge in a tampon.
Luxury
noun
- a state of great comfort or elegance, especially when involving great expense.
There’s nothing I enjoy more than a good tampon. Sometimes, when I am feeling really blue, and I’ve had a bad day at work, I’ll cheer myself up by unwrapping a tampon and inserting it. What bliss! Other days, when I am feeling more conservative, I’ll hold back on the tampons and put a sanitary towel in place instead. I save the tampons for times when I’m really in need of cheering up.
Admit it ladies, there is nothing that you like better on a lazy Sunday afternoon, than settling down with a good book, a box of chocolates, and a tampon. Apparently we’re all susceptible to the guilty pleasure of sanitary products, and women between the ages of 14 and 55 are particularly indulgent.
This is rather off topic for me—as this is not about eating disorders, yoga, or chickens—but this issue really gets my goat so I need to express about it. I’m talking about the recent hoo-har in the UK about the tax on tampons.
I don’t really consider myself a feminist, but apparently if one thinks that men and women should be paid the same amount for doing the same job, or that women shouldn’t be treated as second-class citizens, that makes one a feminist—so I guess I am.
I have never thought of myself as a consumer of luxury either—I’ve never had a pedicure, a manicure, or a facial, and I even cut my own hair simply because I cannot be bothered with sitting in the hairdressers. It seems that I was wrong there too. Because I am a woman, I am a consumer of luxury by default.
For those of you who are unaware, in the EU and many other parts of the world, tampons are considered a “non-essential luxury item,” and therefore they are taxed accordingly at 5 percent. Cake, on the other hand, is not considered a luxury good and is not taxed as one. I can only assume that the man who made those decisions in 1973 liked to eat cake and wasn’t married.
Incidentally, crocodile meat, alcoholic jellies, and Jaffa cakes are not considered luxury goods either, so they are not taxed. Of course, one simply cannot live without alcoholic jellies, but tampons on the other hand are purely frivolous extravagances. All us women all over the world treating ourselves once a month to tampons should be ashamed of ourselves. Maybe we simply don’t have enough to do with our time, so we amuse ourselves by going out and buying sanitary protection.
Yes, it seems that plugging oneself with a rolled up wad of cotton to avoid spilling one’s uterus lining all over the place is a luxurious thing to be doing. In that case, I suggest that we all stop this nonsense immediately and proceed to bleed on everything—public transport will never be the same after half the population have let their menstrual blood seep into the seats, will it?
Now if that’s not an egregious silent protest I don’t know what is.
This is David Cameron’s answer when questioned by a student at a recent appearance:
“Some VAT things you can change. Other VAT things, if they’re linked to other products, it’s quite difficult to do it within the framework of European laws and I can’t remember the answer.”
“I think it’s very difficult to do but I’ll have to go away and have a look and come back to you.”
What a Twat.
The question of whether or not to fight the EU on the matter was raised in The Commons, but 305 MPs rejected the idea. Only 287 members voted in favor of raising a stink with the EU on the subject of tampon tax. Yes, the majority of the voters were men. Sigh.
Believe me, if we were to stop using tampons en mass for just half an hour, someone somewhere would work out how to annihilate that tax. There is nothing that people like to see less than visual evidence that women have periods.
Okay. I feel better already. Thanks for reading!