Many moons ago, when I was in elementary school, high school and college, if I had been asked on an English test to define the work “woke,” I would have written that “Woke is the simple past tense of the verb wake.” To use the word in a sentence: I woke up yesterday morning at 8am. If a teacher were to give the same exam today, I’m not sure what answer they would receive. The definition of woke seems to change depending on who you ask, and your politics.
For conservatives it has become a derogatory term to describe what they consider progressive values. For folks like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, it’s “woke” to teach about the experience of kidnapped Africans who were brought to the Americas in slave shipped and worked until died. It’s “woke” to have students read The Diary of Anne Frank because it might make some persons of German descent uncomfortable to talk about camps built by their ancestors that were designed to exterminate an entire segment of the population of Europe.
His recently proposed law known as the “Stop WOKE Acts,” where “woke” is used as an acronym for “Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees,” was designated to combat “woke indoctrination” in Florida businesses and schools by prohibiting instruction that could make some parties feel they bear “personal responsibility” for historic wrongdoings because of their race, sex or national origin.
But this week members of the Republican-controlled legislature in the state of Idaho took the use of the term “woke” to new heights. To these neanderthal Idahoans it is “woke” to provide feminine hygiene products to female students in the state’s public schools. What period of history are they living in?
The proposal that would have provided free menstrual products to public school students in grades six through 12 was called “liberal” and “woke.” The bill died, falling one vote short of a necessary majority after one Republican legislator — who happens to be a female — called it a “very liberal policy” and said that terms like “period poverty” and “menstrual equity,” which are used to describe the inaccessibility to menstrual products, were also “woke.”
Advocates of the bill point out that the state already funds toilet paper, soap and other hygiene products for students and argue that feminine hygiene products are similar items and equally necessary. I wonder if the state provides talcum powder for male athletes with jock itch.
The bill would have cost about $300,000 a year or $3.50 per student, after a one-time installation cost of about $435,000. In support of the project, the Idaho Period Project estimated that three in four East Idaho students missed class due to lack of access to menstrual products. A nationwide study in 2021 found that 23% of students struggle to afford period products.
By the way, Idaho is projected to have a $1.4 billion revenue surplus this year — no small potatoes.
In an era of growing inflation, and more and more people relying on food banks to feed their families, the cost of feminine hygiene products can add up, especially in a household with more than one female. A quick check on Amazon shows that 132 sanitary napkins cost about $20 and about the same price for 100 tampons. Fortunately, many states have eliminated sales tax on feminine hygiene products, but still for a struggling family or teenager, that could add up to a tidy sum.
According to statistics provided by the U. S. Census, Idaho has just over 1,9000.00 residents. The average household median income is $64,000 and the per capita income is just over $31,000. Which seems like Idaho has a lot of struggling families. Oh, and by the way, only .09% of the population is Black so no one can argue that this decision was made along racial lines particularly since all women, no matter what their race, have the same challenges in terms of dealing with menstrual cycles.
My uncles ran a drugstore in Aiken, South Carolina for many years. It opened back in the early part of the 20th century by my grandfather, Dr. C. C. Johnson, an early graduate of Howard University Medical School and one of the first Black doctors in South Carolina. I remember going there as a small child. My uncles would have one of the clerks wrap up every box of sanitary napkins in plain paper. At the time I had no idea of what the clerk was doing and what was in the boxes. The boxes would be stacked on the upper shelves of the store, obscured from the view of the public. Female customers would quietly ask for them and walk home with their secret purchase. Periods and feminine hygiene were not discussed in public.
Today, all you need to do is turn on your TV and you will see ads for tampons, sanitary napkins, bladder control problems, erectile disfunction, body odor and other personal hygiene problems that no one discussed in polite society 50 years ago. Which makes me surprised that the neanderthal-minded members of the Idaho legislature were even able to bring such a delicate subject to the floor. But they did and felt no qualms about voting it down — sending a clear message to the women of there state. Your problems are not our problems.
Clearly none of the men or women in the legislature have ever had the experience of most women of starting their period and not being prepared. Or not having the money to buy sanitary napkins. Well, all I can say is shame on every person in the state legislature of Idaho who voted against a bill and shame on every voter in Idaho who votes to send such a bunch of non-caring mean-spirited people to make any decisions about the fate of their government.
I wonder if the state of Idaho pays for Viagra for state employees. Those men who voted against this bill are probably in need of it.
C. Ellen Connally is a retired judge of the Cleveland Municipal Court. From 2010 to 2014 she served as the President of the Cuyahoga County Council. An avid reader and student of American history, she serves on the Board of the Ohio History Connection, is currently vice president of the Cuyahoga County Soldiers and Sailors Monument Commission and president of the Cleveland Civil War Round Table. She holds degrees from BGSU, CSU and is all but dissertation for a PhD from the University of Akron.
One Response to “New Period in Conservative Madness: Idaho Makes Menstrual Cycles “Woke” by C. Ellen Connally”
Mel Maurer
Another incisive article by Retired Judge Connally on an important subject. I think that most of us would believe that such necessary products would be available in every school in the country. I’m disappointed that any man would vote against this and amazed that women did.