A nonprofit organization at Michigan State University is continuing to advocate for free and accessible menstrual products on campus.
Mission Menstruation has been providing free sanitary products to students since 2018. In 2023, they successfully lobbied the university to stock many — but not all — bathrooms.
Khushi Chhabra, the organization's lead advocate and an MSU senior, says menstruation is not a choice and should be treated like any other sanitary need.
“We're in the 21st century, these are basic needs,” she said.
Chhabra says because the bodily function is so stigmatized, women all over the world are impacted by what she calls “period poverty.”
“When you don't get the proper education, the proper resources, the proper things that you need to maintain your period in a hygienic way, that's what period poverty is,” Chhabra said.
When Mission Menstruation surveyed students in 2022, organizers found 94% of the 500 respondents didn’t feel like they had access to free period products on campus when they needed them.
Since then, MSU has rolled out free products in some campus bathrooms. The nonprofit sent out another survey this week; Chhabra says so far, the more than 2,000 responses they’ve gotten indicate that people think products have become more accessible on campus, but there still needs to be change.
“It's a great thing that the products have been put in the first-floor bathrooms, but that's just the start, because many people mentioned that they should be available in all of the bathrooms,” said Chhabra.
She says in a perfect world, menstrual products will be just as common as toilet paper in bathrooms everywhere.