A Moment of Reflection
I recently posted, what I thought to be a relatively benign, status on Facebook. It read; Condoms should be sold; sanitary pads should be given for free. Sex is a choice. Menstruation is not...young girls are suffering. I posted this because I had, recently, read an article in the Daily Nation that said that young girls are resorting to prostitution in order to be able to afford sanitary pads. Prostitution, for me, is not the issue. The issue lies in the absence of a state mechanism to help these girls get the resources they need and the ubiquity of those mechanisms worldwide. It lies in the general treatment of menstruation by social bodies (governments and doctors for example), which informs the absence of the necessary mechanisms. Hence, the status spoke to me; because there was evidence of this suffering. Yet, soon after I posted this, two people raised the fact that one should not be provided, for free, at the expense of the other and that both are equally important. As...