Sophie is the 2013 UWA Women’s Officer .Only after her term started did she label herself a feminist but since she adopted the title she has decided that to her feminism is more about how she lives her life and how she allows other people, especially men, to treat her. She also has an astounding ability to fall over multiple times in a day for no apparent reason.
The Axe The Tampon Tax Campaign was born one Tuesday in the office of a colleague during casual conversation. I decided that, since I am Women’s Officer at the UWA Student Guild, I finally had the power to do more than bitch about it.
Since then, more menstrual puns than the world’s men can handle have been shared on social media, and the change.org petition has gained more than 10,000 signatures in less than two days.
The whole argument of this campaign is that having a tax on tampons is fundamentally sexist.
I’ve had a lot of criticism on this, and I think a lot of it is because people (ok, men) don’t get the point of the petition. I don’t think there is anything wrong with taxing most products – even things like nappies and children’s clothes. Sure, in an ideal world we wouldn’t have tax, yaddyayaddya, but we do – and everyone uses these things. However, unless you are libra pad man, if you are a male, you will never use sanitary products, which means you will never be taxed for them. Having your period sucks enough without chucking a sexist tax into the mix. And to add insult to injury… condoms are already GST free – so men, the argument that you get taxed for your essentials? So INVALID.
You can get involved with this issue by signing the petition here:
http://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/axe-the-tampontax-bloodyoutrage
And tweeting all the pollies you can – let everyone know what a #bloodyoutrage it is!!!
by
Sophie Anne Clare Liley
Women’s Officer at the UWA Student Guild
NUS Women's Department 