U of A now offers free menstrual products

All women’s and gender-neutral bathrooms on every building’s first floor across campus now offer tampons and sanitary pads paid for by UA, thanks to the initiative led by the Graduate and Professional Student Council’s Menstrual Equity Committee.

The two exceptions are the Residence Life Hall and main Student Union buildings.

The project’s initial proposal projected an annual cost of $46,491 for the menstrual products installed over approximately 280 bathrooms. Facilities management is paying for it, said GPSC President Jeremy Bernick.

“When we first envisioned this project, we figured that this was a conversation that was generational, that this would be something that people our age would get, rally behind and spend money on, but that older, more entrenched” folks might not get, Bernick said.

Bernick credited Chris Kopach, associate vice president of facilities management, and Celina Ramirez, vice president of university initiatives and policy, saying “they understood the urgency and need of students who don’t make enough money to pay for these things, and that this was a health access issue as much as it was a gender issue or a gender equity issue.”

“A lot of these students can’t buy food, and so, you know, things like menstrual products are going to be even further down the line of needs,” Bernick said in an interview with the Arizona Daily Star.

The initial conversations the students had were personal and inspiring, as individuals shared how they had struggled with not having adequate access to menstrual products in a timely manner, said Bernick.

Previously, the only UA sites where the products were freely available were the Feminist Pharmacy and Campus Pantry during their open hours; campus recreation centers and residence life halls where students had to explicitly ask for them; and three UA libraries and a women’s bathroom in the Eller College of Management.

“We had known that there was a feminist pharmacy at the U of A which has provided limited access to things like birth control and menstrual products, but we wanted to reduce the strain on them and make it more of something you didn’t have to seek out,” said Bernick.

Both Arizona State University and Northern Arizona University rolled out free menstrual product initiatives in the past couple of years, the proposal said.

Nearly one in four students have struggled to afford period products in the U.S., and lower-income students face more issues accessing the products, according to 2023 data on the website of Period, the Menstrual Movement.

According to a Women’s Health 2024 survey, 17.1% of students faced period poverty, 55.8% said they experienced class disruption due to periods, and 47.5% said they avoided changing their menstrual products on campus.

Miranda Lopez, Southern Arizona director for the Arizona Students Association, said the project’s success shows “the power of student organizing.”

Ciara Garcia, GPSC representative for the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, said it is important for students to understand that this initiative was not handed to the student body but was won through actively advocating for it.

“As a graduate student, I know sometimes when my income is very tight, there’s another emotional burden to have to think about how I’m going to afford something that I need, and that I don’t have a choice whether to need,” said Garcia.

“It’s empowering to know that we have organizations like GPSC and UCW (United Campus Workers) that are advocating for needs like this, when students feel that maybe the administration is not proactively thinking about this, especially in the current financial or fiscal climate of the university,” Garcia said.