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Still taboo or largely overlooked in many parts of the world, including the Mediterranean, the fact that women have a menstrual cycle is slowly seeping into the consciousness of the other half of humankind. Yes – getting a period every month is no small feat.
Cramps, endometriosis, stigmatization… Coping through these few days of their cycle represents a significant expense for women of modest means and can even become unaffordable. Yet this expense is inexorably incurred every month of their lives for almost four decades.
Medfeminiswiya journalists have taken note of prices in supermarkets in Montenegro, Croatia, France (France 2), Italy, Morocco, and Tunisia, analyzing the cost of sanitary products against the economic reality of the most precarious women in their respective countries.
In doing so, they also reviewed the measures adopted by their governments to alleviate these costs, most often deploring the lack of real support, both social and economic.
Observation: from one shore of the Mediterranean to another, and from makeshift sanitary pads and tampons to painkillers, more and more women are struggling to meet the financial burden of buying the products necessary during menstruation.
