Annotated Bibliography

Maile Coulter

Tara Lindsey

Junior Seminar

20 September 2018

How can we improve the availability of feminine products for women in developing countries?

Kuhlmann, Anne Sebert, and Kaysha Henry, and L. Lewis Wall. “Home - PMC - NCBI.”

Advances in Pediatrics., U.S. National Library of Medicine, 20 June 2017,

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5482567/.

The authors of this scholarly article address the evidence of studies upon the issue of the

sufficiency of menstrual education, care, and hygiene in developing countries. Also

addressing how non-sufficient menstrual hygiene is a crucial problem for women and

young girls, who are a part of “resource poor” countries, therefore affecting the health

and proper development of adolescent girls. The evidence in this source concludes that

the main developing countries of sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia are described to

have positive approaches to menstrual hygiene. Several school-based studies show that

menstrual hygiene deficiency is common in girls who are a part of rural areas and those

attending public schools, compared to girls attending private schools. Studies about

working to improve positive education on menstrual hygiene have shown evidence that,

focused interventions do indeed improve the consciousness of girls knowing the

importance of menstrual hygiene.

 This is a useful and reliable source because the authors that collaborated to write this

article are all Assistant Professors of Behavioral Sciences and Health Education. The

article also uses sources from the US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of

Health.

This article is helpful to answer my driving question because it shows credible proof of

how underestimated the issue of lacking resources for girls and women in third world

countries is. Along with how this is physically affecting them. This source explains the

significance of how reaching out to these girls with positive attitudes towards menstrual

care, will help them in their everyday lives, not just improving their health, but improving

their knowledge to be aware of proper menstrual care.

Michel, Anne. Personal Source. 808-874-5637

Anne Michel is a seamstress who specializes in alterations. She will be helpful to my

project because I can contact her if my partner and I run into any complications during

the sewing process. She will be able to give me general tips and suggestions about

sewing, and working with the required fabrics. I have set up a meeting with her to

discuss advice that she has for me when creating the Days for Girls Kits, as well as

asking her opinion on the design/choices of material that the organization Days for Girls

has created and used. The interview is scheduled for September 25, 2018 at 2:30. She

will help me towards answering my driving question by giving a professional

opinion on the fabric and patterns, to ensure that these reusable pads are not only safe,

but efficiently made to the best of their ability to guarantee that they will be beneficial to

the girls in developing countries.

Ratcliffe, Rebecca. “Tampons That Care: Helping Girls across the World to End 'Shame of

Periods'.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 27 May 2017,

www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/may/27/one-for-one-firms-target-stigma

-menstruation.

This news article from “The Guardian” covers the topic of the thriving companies who

promote and dedicate their impact to menstrual hygiene. The authors list companies such

as Thinx, who have created special absorbent underwear as a more comfortable

alternative to sanitary products such as pads and tampons. Many of the listed companies

are companies who are promising consumers that they can help bring sanitary products to

women who cannot afford them, by buying their products. The article shows data and

numbers of the major impacts that companies such as Thinx have made, as well as the

growth in popularity that these companies have reached.

This is a trustworthy article because Rebecca Ratcliffe the author, has written several

other pieces that have to do with supporting women’s rights, gender equality, and articles

on improving the education for the younger generations. Ratcliffe is clearly

knowledgeable about topics surrounding my driving question, and has good inventions to

improve such topics, so she is an unbiased source.

This source can help me with shaping my argument/main point because it shows how

entrepreneurs have been informed of and inspired to get involved in the issue of how

improper menstrual hygiene, lack of availability of sanitary products to women in

developing countries, detriments their education. These entrepreneurs have massively

taken this into account to create these amazing, thriving companies who have already
 made such a big impact towards the issue. This article represents just how big this issue

is, how much we are already working towards to better it, and what future plans are to

come to continue moving forward in this area.

Roudi Fahimi, Farzaneh, and Valentine Moghadam. “Empowering Women, Developing Society:

Female Education in the Middle East and North Africa.” ​Population Reference Bureau​,

20 Nov. 2003,

www.prb.org/empoweringwomendevelopingsocietyfemaleeducationinthemiddleeastandn

orthafrica/.

The main idea of this source is to show that e​ducation is a crucial component of strategies

to improve individuals’ well-being and societies’ economic and social development. In

the Middle East and North Africa, access to education has increased massively since the

2000s, and there have been several improving trends in girls’ and women’s education.

This source shows data and explains how countries that have made social investments in

health, family planning, and education have slower population growth and faster

economic growth in comparison to countries that have not made those investments. The

authors touch on subjects such as how education has helped women take advantage of

opportunities that could benefit them and their families, preparing women for the labor

force, and helping them understand their legal and reproductive rights. They have also

shown how economies are indeed giving opportunities to women, but this is only

effective if the women have had a proper level of education, and training. In all, the most

beneficial expense a country can make is enhancing the availability and value of

education. Investing in women's education will grow the Middle East and North Africa
 region’s economic and social development by elevating human capital, delaying

population growth, and reducing poverty.

This is a useful and reliable source, because this article is from The Population Reference

Bureau, which is a private, nonprofit organization specializing in collecting and

supplying statistics necessary for research and academic purposes focused on the

environment, health and structure of populations. The first author, ​Roudi Fahimi,

Farzaneh, is a specialist in female education on the Middle East and North Africa, and the

second author, Valentine Moghadam, is a ​director of women's studies and associate

professor of sociology at Illinois State University.

I can use this information from this source by showing it as an example of what situations

the lives of the women and young girls may be in, who live in the Middle East or North

Africa. Also, by showing that if we bring empowerment, and education to girls in any

way, it can change their lives. Their minds will grow to make smarter and stronger

independent decisions, as well as benefit the future of countries’ economies.

“The Girl Effect: The Clock Is Ticking.” ​YouTube,​ 13 Sept. 2010, youtu.be/1e8xgF0JtVg.

This video was created by the organization Girl Effect, who build youth brands and

mobile platforms to empower girls to change their lives. This video shows the difference

between what would happen to when a twelve-year-old girl in poverty is considered a

women and does not have the ability to control her life because she did not have the

support and courage to stick up for herself to create a happy, healthy life for herself, as to

a girl in poverty, who at the age of twelve had the resources and support to thrive in her

life. There are over 50 million twelve-year-old girls who live in poverty. This means
 that there are 50 million girls in the world that can create a different life for themselves.

They are less likely to become pregnant at the age of fifteen, less at the risk of dying

from that childbirth, and having to sell their bodies in order to provide for their children,

putting them at risk of contracting HIV, and never having the opportunity to have an

education or career that they have always desired.

This video helps to shape my argument/main point by showing another issue that

surrounds the struggles of girls in poverty, who lack everyday resources and support that

millions of other girls have access to. This video shows how drastically not only a girls

life, but the future of the world can change. If we could empower girls in any way, such

as providing them with safe feminine hygiene products, we can liberate them to feel

confident, to feel safe or not embarrassed due to their menstrual cycle. We can allow

them to get an education, so that they can become the strong women that they should.

We can change the future of the world, more Doctors, Programmers, Scientist,

Mathematicians, Teachers, and more, will be created, impacting the future of all of our

Lives.

Toussaint-Strauss, Josh, et al., directors. ​Girls Challenge the Stigma Surrounding Periods in

Nepal.​ ​The Guardian​, Guardian News and Media, 27 May 2017,

www.theguardian.com/global-development/video/2017/may/27/girls-challenge-the-stigm

a-surrounding-periods-in-nepal-video.

This video was created by Ekaterina Ochagavia, Josh Strauss, Liz Ford, and Sundus

Saeed, who all have created pieces attending to the subjects surrounding developing

countries, women’s rights, and the younger generation. This video is about a group of
 girls who live in a village in Nepal, and how they have changed the stigma of

menstruation in their culture. Up until 2016 these girls were not allowed to cook, read, go

to school, sleep in their own beds, eat certain foods such as papaya and cow’s milk, touch

plants, and cross rivers because it would bring a curse on them. Their own mothers told

them that they would have “devils” inside of them, or that they should be ashamed if they

crossed the rivers or disobeyed any of these restrictions while they were on their periods.

This group of girls wanted to end this stigma, and change the minds of the village, so

they decided to create a gallery of photos of each girl challenging these disgraces. This

allowed the girls to open up and talk about menstrual care and how they shouldn’t feel

shameful to be on their periods. After bringing awareness to this subject to their families,

they are no longer so harsh and restricting of the girls when they are menstruating. The

girls have also become excited to teach the new generations all the way to their future

children about positivity around menstrual care.

I can use this video to help me build my argument/main point by taking this as proof that

by just standing up to these restrictions that disobey girls from doing everyday activities,

can change the minds of others, as well as better the lives of girls living in developing

countries. If we could just bring the smallest light of positivity surrounding menstrual

care, we can not only educate girls around the world, but set them up with the mind to

want to educate the next generations.

Weiss-Wolf, Jennifer. “Helping Women and Girls. Period.” ​The New York Times​, The

New York Times, 28 Jan. 2015,

kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/01/28/helping-women-and-girls-period/.
Jennifer Weiss-Wolf is the author of a book called “Periods Gone Public” where she tells

the story of the new political movement for menstrual equity. She is also the Co-Founder

of Period Equity, the nation’s first law and policy organization fighting for menstrual

equity. Their goal is to ensure that menstrual products are affordable, safe and available

to those in need. She is talked very highly of by magazines such as Newsweek, and New

York council members such as ​Julissa Ferreras.

This news article by Jennifer Weiss-Wolf covers the topics of how costly feminine

hygiene products are, and the effects of lack of accessibility of feminine hygiene products

for women who are either poor or on the edge of it. The author also touches on the aspect

of how debilitating it is to have your period in developing countries due to the stigmas of

certain cultures, and how deadly improper care of menstruation is and can be. In India

lack of knowledge and proper care of menstrual hygiene has been connected to high rates

of cervical cancer, specifically from using infectionish rags. She relates all of these issues

to why we should be reconsidering what public benefit programs are collecting, what we

in our communities could be doing to help women and young girls across the globe, to

advocating all the entrepreneurial solutions who create affordable, safe feminine hygiene

products and who have greatly succeeded in their requests. Just a simple task of creating

a community-based tampon drive, just as you would a canned food drive, can make all

the difference.

This news article can help shape my argument by showing the real behind the scenes of

women in poverty and what they are dealing with in regard to menstrual care. As well as
showing different ways our local communities can help in any way to provide women all

around the world with feminine products.