Of all things to be considered a luxury item, feminine hygiene products like tampons, panty-liners, and pads should be at the end of the list. Menstruation is a natural biological function that women cannot control, in other words, when Aunt Flo visits, you can only hope it’s a short one. It is very misconstrued to think that women can just hit the pause button and choose not to have a period, or that every woman can afford an alternative option, such as birth control, to help with her period.

According to the Huffington Post, . On average, a woman has a period for three to five days, and will menstruate from the age of 13 until she is 51. That’s about 2,300 days with a period, or to put it in even better perspective, 6 years of her life.

Which raises another question, why are women expected to pay for basic health care needs? An aspect a lot of people don’t seem to think about is the impact a period has on women living in poverty. There are thousands of women who live in fear of their period because they simply cannot afford sanitary products. Homeless women are forced to use pieces of clothing as rags or bleed through their clothes, which means they’ll have to wear those soiled clothes until others can be donated. Many young girls skip school every month because of their period and miss out on essential learning days, according to the Huffington Post.

Women, poor or rich, should not have to pay for something as crucial as feminine hygiene products. They are not a “luxury” item, as it has been so callously dubbed. They are a necessity that is predominant in the basic function of a woman’s life, so why should we be expected to pay for them? Even more why should we be expected to pay a tax on them when we aren’t even taxing candy or soda? Priorities need to be changed and men need to stop making laws regarding women’s bodies, when they clearly have no idea what it is like to walk in our shoes.