It's hard out there for people living on the lower end of the income spectrum. And not least because the world is full of bizarre bear traps designed to make every little thing way harder than it has to be for people who can balance their bank account on one hand. With two fingers left over. For example ...

5 "Period Poverty" Is A Very Real Problem

When living on a limited budget, you have to make sacrifices in order to get by. One result of this is that low-income people are often unable to afford pads, tampons, and other menstrual hygiene products.

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To say that this is a widespread problem would be an understatement. It's been reported across the world, in places as far-flung as India, Sub-Saharan Africa, the UK ... and of course, the United States. A recent study in St. Louis, for instance, found that nearly two-thirds of women living on a lower income are unable to afford menstrual products at least once a year, while a fifth admitted that this was a problem they faced every month.

What are they using as replacements, you might ask? Anything they can get their hands on: rags, paper towels, diapers, even mesh underwear given out by emergency rooms to postpartum mothers. As the author of the aforementioned study explains, it's not that using impromptu fixes is an inherently bad thing. Relying on them because you can't afford the real deals, however, can have a damaging effect on your mental health. "Most women can identify with having to 'make do.' But to have to do that every month, and to have to do that when you may have only one pair of underwear yourself -- that affects your dignity and your sense of self and your sense of being able to care for yourself."

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Research conducted in the UK found that, of 500 women who had experienced period poverty, nearly two-thirds said they lack confidence on account of being bullied, while over a third reported experiencing anxiety and depression. There's also a myriad of physical health problems associated with using improper sanitary products, including irritation and an increased risk of infection.

So what's to be done? We need to ensure that menstrual products are more accessible -- a process which itself begins with pushing states to abolish the so-called "tampon tax," which is imposed on sanitary products on the absolute nonsense basis that they're not "essential" items. There's also the fact that assistance programs like SNAP, WIC, and Medicaid can't be used for menstrual products. However, if dicks started squirting blood on a monthly basis, cotton-lined sheathes would probably rain from the sky.