Tampon Tax: Revisited

242 days ago, our first post on Adam and Even was about the tampon tax, the tax which forces everybody who menstruates to pay 5% tax on sanitary products as they are deemed ‘unnecessary’ by the 70% male British parliament. 

This, by its nature, is a female only tax and an example of plain discrimination based on gender. It seems ridiculous that we are forced to pay 5% extra on tampons and sanitary towels when betting shops are VAT exempt.

Last night there was a vote in the House of Commons which voted AGAINST the proposal which would abolish the 5% tax which half the population are forced to pay, with their 30% lower wages, for a good part of their lives. Perhaps I was naïve, but I really hoped that the 191 female MPs would vote for this proposal, showing female solidarity. 

But no. A number of Conservative female MPs incomprehensibly voted to continue this unfair tax. 

One of these MPs was my local MP, Maria Miller. I was shocked that she had given in to the powerful men who are willing to publicly persecute every women in this country. The reason that I am so shocked is that on the 20th April this year, I went with a number of other members of GirlGuiding UK to an evening called ‘Girls Matter’ which was organised by Maria Miller to encourage brownies and guides aged from 7 to get their voices heard, to try and put across what they believed was right and to believe in themselves. Over the course of the evening we spoke about everything from cyber bullying to the representation of females in the media. I was genuinely blown away and I went to college the next day raving about this tory, expenses cheating woman to my left wing feminist friends. Miller personally told me that she would try everything in her power to reduce the tax on these sanitary products and her personal aim was to get David Cameron to say 'tampon' yet it turns out that she is just another liar. 

However politics aside, it confuses me that the few women who actually have the power to change things all bow down to what the men want, even when it will NEVER affect the men. At this moment, the change.org petition to stop the tampon tax has 257,368 supporters, yet out of the 191 female MPs who make up 30% of our government, over 60 of them voted for this tax which they will have to pay every month. It is just another example of how women are silenced in their places of work because I genuinely don’t believe that these women are happy paying this sexist tax.

Written by Georgina

Picture credit: Lili