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Periods For Profit And The Rise Of Menstrual Surveillance, Michele E. Gilman
Periods For Profit And The Rise Of Menstrual Surveillance, Michele E. Gilman
All Faculty Scholarship
Menstruation is being monetized and surveilled, with the voluntary participation of millions of women. Thousands of downloadable apps promise to help women monitor their periods and manage their fertility. These apps are part of the broader, multi-billion dollar, Femtech industry, which sells technology to help women understand and improve their health. Femtech is marketed with the language of female autonomy and feminist empowerment. Despite this rhetoric, Femtech is part of a broader business strategy of data extraction, in which companies are extracting people’s personal data for profit, typically without their knowledge or meaningful consent. Femtech can oppress menstruators in several …
Period Poverty In A Pandemic: Harnessing Law To Achieve Menstrual Equity, Bridget J. Crawford, Emily Gold Waldman
Period Poverty In A Pandemic: Harnessing Law To Achieve Menstrual Equity, Bridget J. Crawford, Emily Gold Waldman
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
Period poverty is not new, but it has become more visible during the COVID-19 crisis. Worldwide, menstruation has long caused marginalization and vulnerability for many. The pandemic has only amplified these conditions. This Article makes three claims. The first is descriptive, identifying four interrelated aspects of global period poverty that have gained new salience during the coronavirus pandemic: lack of access to affordable menstrual products; lack of access to other needed supplies and services for health and sanitation; lack of menstruation-related information and support from schools and health professionals; and menstrual stigma and shame. Using examples from multiple countries, the …