The Canadian government removed the tax on menstrual hygiene products after an online petition that gathered more than 74,000 votes. The Goods and Services Tax (GST) will be canceled as of July 1.
Whether or not to tax menstrual hygiene products, the debate has been raging for a while. We could have called it the “Tampon Gate” or even “Don’t touch my stamp! In fact, it seemed quite absurd and terribly unfair to charge women more for necessities. Note that these are not the only products for which women helmet more. In absolute terms, the category of care and beauty products is more expensive for women than for men.
Menstrual hygiene products (sanitary pads, tampons, menstrual cups, sanitary belts and others) were considered non-essential, luxury goods. Hence the 5% tax which, casually, considerably weighed down women's budgets in terms of annual expenses.
Periods are the whims of Mother Nature and not those of women. We do not choose to buy tampons or sanitary napkins as we would choose to buy a good bottle of whiskey. It is an implacable fatality that has been unleashed on women around the world since the dawn of time. This is the purple tragedy of the female gender...
Well...enough joking. All that to say all the absurdity and injustice of a tax which, fortunately, will no longer be.
