The Myth of Pumpkin Spiced Tampons

 I have a financial question for you.

Why does it cost money to own lady business***?

Let me clarify.

Generally speaking, there are two types of humans. There are penis owners and quim owners.

Medical fact: Making a new human requires parts from penis owners and bajingo owners.

Penis owners require little to maintain their twig and berries in good working order. They clean themselves with soap and water, occasionally apply powder to their berries and walk confidently down the street, wearing comfortable underwear. Or not.

All told, they may spend a total of $10 bucks a year maintaining their private parts. If they live to be 80, that's $800 worth of magic ball dust.

It's a different story for those who own a mulva.

For today's discussion, let's set aside two MAJOR financial issues that differ between the sexes. Here's what we're not talking about:

1. HAVING BABIES: The cost of cooking up ($2000.00 for prenatal care) and subsequently giving birth ($10,000.00 vaginal delivery and $15,000.00 cesarean delivery) to a new human. 
2. THE WAGE GAP: The roughly $1,000,000.00 LESS (over a lifetime) that women are paid, compared to men DOING THE SAME JOB.

When I told my son I was writing about how much it costs to be a woman, he asked "Oh, like, the cost of makeup and stuff?"

Nope.

Just the cost of owning a minge.

Black Iris painting by Georgia O'Keeffe:

If humans want to continue as a species, uterus-owners will need to continue ovulating (producing eggs that are ready to be fertilized) and therefore menstruating (a process quite like the re-set button on the uterus, getting ready for the possibility of a new human in the go next round).

It's beneficial to all humans that this process continues.

But this process costs money. Women menstruate for an average of 40 years, from their early teens to their early 50's.



Sanitary products (tampons, maxi-pads, etc.) cost between $3,000.00 and $4,000.00 over a lifetime for the average length of fertility of Vag owners.

The cost to relieve pain from menstruation with medicine is about $20 a year or $800.00 over a lifetime.

In addition... 

Lady Birds require the use of toilet paper every time you go to the bathroom (for both number 1 or number 2). If women use about twice a much toilet paper as men, that averages to $150.00 a year, $75.00 more than penis owners use. The life expectancy of a woman in the US is about 80 years, so over her lifetime, that's $6,000.00 more than men on toilet paper.

Because the urethra (pee hole) on a foof is in a tricky place and is shorter than a man's, women frequently get urinary tract infections (UTIs). Special pain medication ($6) and antibiotics are required ($40 for generic brands). If the average woman gets about a dozen UTIs in her lifetime, that's about $1,300.00.

I highly recomend you check out this video about UTIs. Very funny.

The whole set up down there for ladies is complicated. There's actually a delicate balance of healthy bacteria and yeast involved in a Lady Garden. When this balance is upset, vajayjay owners get yeast infections. It happens frequently, with some women experiencing symptoms up to 5 times a year. If the average woman gets one every few years, that's about 20 in a lifetime. Medication to treat this costs about $15, so a lifetime of use would cost $300.00.

A woman will spend about $28,000.00 over a lifetime on contraceptive use. If a man used a condom every day for his reproductive life, it costs him about $17,000.00. (That's a very busy man!) That's a conservative $11,000.00 difference for women who use the pill than men who use condoms (likely not one a day).

Also, check out this 4 minute video of the history of The Pill. 

Cancer screenings of V's used to cost upwards of $500 a year. However, the Affordable Care Act reduced the cost of this life-saving screening to $0. (Hooray!)

Y'all, that's a difference of  

$23,400.00 

in out of pocket costs over a lifetime 
just for owning a vagina.

If I'm a woman who doesn't have sex with men (i.e. lesbian, nun, etc.) or a woman whose ovaries have been removed or doesn't have one of the many medical conditions which oral contraceptives are also prescribed, we could take the $11,000 out for birth control. Other women choose non-hormonal forms of birth control. Without the 11 grand in pills, that still makes it $12,400 more expensive to have a vagina than to have a penis.

We're not talking about 23 grand of frills or extravagances. This is not the higher cost of shoes, the cost of getting our legs waxed or the cost of nail polish. And I didn't even add the cost of a bra, without which a breast-owner would be in quite a lot of pain.

These are not extravagant expenses like the $4 a day habit of the Pumpkin Spice Latte.


This is simply the price of owning a female genitalia as opposed to male.

How do we even this out? Why does half the population need to pay extra for their bathroom parts?

You might argue that since not everyone has a vagina, only those vagina-owners should pay for said vaginas.

Yet, people without children still pay taxes to build schools.

And people who don't drive pay taxes to fix roads.

How would life be different if everyone had to chip in to maintain half of our population's genitalia?

Could we call it a Lady Garden tax?  

Of course, my favorite libertarian, Ron Swanson, would not like the idea of a Honey Pot tax.

A tax is not the only possible solution to this problem. This is not a simply Republican, Democrat, Libertarian or Progressive idea. Everyone has Panty Parts.

The cost of owning a Sea Biscuit is a non-partisan fact of life.

So how do we fix this imbalance of financial burden?

What do you think?


***Disclaimer: In her book How To Be A Woman, Caitlin Moran describes how she feels the word vagina is too clinical to be used in social settings. She prefers terms that are more colloquial and approachable. This post talks a lot about vaginas. As a public health professional, I prefer to use the anatomically correct terms for things. However, I will refrain from typing the word vagina (or uterus or vulva) over and over again as I'm sure it's making some of you cringe. (Hi, dad!) Instead, I'll employ more friendly and amusing terms to lighten the mood and leave you feeling... fresh.