The cost of living crisis, which has seen the UK’s rate of inflation reach a 40-year high of 10.1%, means period poverty is rife. According to a survey by the charity, WaterAid, almost ⅓ of those who menstruate in Britain worry that they will be unable to afford period products in the future, and 22% have relied on free period product provisions in the past year. This is in spite of the long-awaited declaration of sanitary products as essential items and the subsequent abolition of the 5% ‘tampon tax’, earlier last year.
To combat this issue within Oxford, Sofia Olendraru (a chemistry student at Worcester College) is spearheading The Oxford Period Campaign, which officially launched this morning. The campaign aims to raise awareness about period poverty and increase access to free menstrual products throughout the university.
Despite the small committee size of only four students, the campaign has big ideas and goals for the year ahead. “The main goal [in the long term] is to get free period products across all colleges and all department buildings,” said Olendraru. “Libraries, labs, all of those places across the university.”
Though it may seem like a large goal, Olendraru explains that “there was a similar campaign at Cambridge”, with The Cambridge Period Project beginning their campaign to reduce period poverty at the university, as well as in the local community, in January 2021. After over a year of lobbying from The Cambridge Period Project and an open letter signed by over 1,460 students, the University of Cambridge agreed to provide free menstrual products throughout all of its colleges.
Prior to setting up The Oxford Period Campaign, Olendraru worked as the Gender Equality Representative for Worcester College’s JCR. Under her role, she lobbied the college for access to free, accessible, and sustainable period products, having run a survey to determine how many people in college would use them, and calculating estimates of the costs. Olendraru won the Oxford Student Union’s Student Voice Award earlier this year for her lobbying within college.
Following the award, Olendraru was determined to take this project further, hoping to see it implemented throughout all of Oxford’s colleges and departments; “I got together with [three] current or former Gender Equality Representatives from different colleges as I didn’t want to do it on my own.” Olendraru noted that “a lot of individual Gender Equality Representatives have been working on similar projects at their colleges […] but there’s a big lack of transparency between colleges, so it’s hard to know what goes on in other colleges.” Rather than individually lobbying their respective colleges, it was decided that starting a campaign would exert external pressure on colleges, allowing them to push for a standard of period product provisions throughout the university.
Though the campaign has only just officially launched, Olendraru conveyed that lots has been going on behind the scenes; “We put together a committee in the Easter vacation and created a survey [about menstrual product provisions in colleges].” It was a slow start to the campaign—“We got a fair amount of responses, so we could see what differences there were at different colleges, and then decide how he could improve from there.”
The good news is that most colleges do have some level of provision. However, Olendraru highlighted that “There’s a lot of disparity in terms of the budget, the source of the budget, and how people can get the products,” and that this varies between colleges. “Just because the college provides [period] products doesn’t necessarily mean that people are satisfied with it—there’s a lot that can be improved.”
Even in colleges where period products are available to students, it is largely funded by the JCR rather than by the college itself. “They’re essential products,” Olendraru emphasised, “so they shouldn’t necessarily come from the JCR budget.” This issue can be exacerbated by the fact that some JCR budgets are not large enough to cover the price of the products. Furthermore, as Olendraru highlighted, MCRs tend not to provide period products, meaning that the already small supply afforded by the JCR budget is often shared amongst the wider student body.
Amongst the colleges where period provisions are available, Olendraru pointed out that “a lot of them only provide period products in public bathrooms,” which makes them somewhat less accessible. “At Worcester, I was aiming for a permanent supply so that people wouldn’t have to buy them outside of college, but obviously that’s a lot more expensive.” One college is even noted to have been reluctant to put out too many period products in case students hoarded them.
This is in contrast to the provisions of contraception, such as condoms and dental dams, which are readily available to students at almost every college, though Olendraru did note that even these are usually funded by the JCR welfare budgets.
As well as writing an open letter to pressure the colleges and the university, the campaign aims to circulate another survey to compile statistics about the experiences of individuals with period poverty in Oxford. The statistics will be published openly, an attempt to increase the transparency that, as Olendraru pointed out, is currently missing. Campaigning will also take place on social media, where the campaign intends to share informational posts about period poverty—today’s launch has seen The Oxford Period Campaign set out their aims, as well as introducing committee members. Whilst Michaelmas will largely be focused on launching the campaign and raising awareness, Olendraru also shared that the committee are keen to host events later in the year.
If you would like to get involved with the campaign, you can find them on Instagram @theoxfordperiod, as well as on The Oxford Period Facebook page.
