#Tampontax: Living the life of luxury

The Problem

When we think about poverty, we think about the lack of access to food or inadequate housing. However, period poverty is experienced by many women in the UK, due to not being able to afford sanitary products.  According to the Plan international UK, 1 in 10 young women are unable to afford pads and tampons.

The impact of this on one’s life, whilst often not talked about, is huge. Girls may use alternative materials if they cannot afford menstrual products, including leaves, toilet papers, socks and rags. Some may take their contraceptive pill continuously, to avoid having a period or change tampons or sanitary pads less frequently, increasing the risk of infections and toxic shock syndrome. Experiencing these issues are likely to have a detrimental impact on mental health, impacting self-esteem and sense of dignity ("10 Reasons Why Period Poverty is a Global Issue", 2019). Furthermore, not being able to afford these necessities is affecting girls’ opportunity to learn. According to the FreePeriods Campaign, over 137,700 children in the UK have missed school because of period poverty. It has also been shown that if a girl misses school every time she has her period, she is set 145 days behind her male peers ("facts — free periods", 2019). Whilst period poverty might not be something you have ever thought about, it is clear that it is having an impact on girls’ health, education and emotional well-being.

In spite of this nationwide problem, currently sanitary items are still being taxed as a luxury. Tax codes normally contain exemptions for items regarded as necessary, such as clothing or food groceries, but sanitary goods still have a 5% consumption tax - known as the ‘tampon tax’. Although this rate is an improvement from the standard 20% VAT rate, we stand with the thousands of other campaigners and women who ask the question: Why are we still having to pay the 5%? ("Tampon tax: How much have you spent?", 2019).

At the start of 2019 Australia abolished the tampon tax, however the push for the UK to do the same has been a long process. 11 countries started to take action in 2016 repealing the tax, and in early 2016 EU leaders showed support for abolishing it. However by mid 2016, arguments against the proposals meant that EU countries had to continue to tax the products.

In 2017, Tesco reduced the prices on sanitary products in order to cover the 5% tax, with the Tesco Group Brand Director stating that “for many of our customers, tampons, panty liners and sanitary towels are essential products”. After this, other leading supermarket brands followed suit and also committed to cover the costs, including Waitrose and Morrisons.

Whilst it is important to tackle the tampon tax, schemes and organisations have been started to try and reduce period poverty in other ways. The Scottish government have introduced a new scheme investing £5.2 million to provide every school, college and university in Scotland with free sanitary products. In 2018, ‘Always’ launched a campaign, #EndPeriodPoverty, increasing the awareness of Period Poverty and the impact it has on girls in education. Using poems to express the experiences of the young girls, Always donated a pad to the ‘The red box project’ for every like or comment the poems received online. (“Always donates over 33 million pads”, 2019)

It is clear that society is becoming more aware of the issues of period poverty and different organisations are working to try and combat this issue. The UEA student union became the first to remove VAT on sanitary products in the SU shop and then went one step further and made period products available to pick up for free (Baldwin, 2019). Many universities followed in giving out free products, including Middlesex, Lancaster, Stirling and Sunderland (Murray, 2018). These massively influential changes sets the example for universities nationwide and inspired our plans to reduce period poverty at Warwick.

What We Did

We have noticed over our 3 years at the University of Warwick that sanitary products in the Rootes Grocery Store seemed considerably more expensive than in supermarkets, like Tesco for example. Given the research we had done showing how bad period poverty is in the UK, we decided that this was an issue that needed tackling within the university - particularly as other universities have already begun to make a difference.

Initially, we each ran an Instagram poll, asking ‘Would you be more likely to buy sanitary products from a store that covered the #tampontax ?’, to find out if other students agreed about the desperate need to end period poverty. With 159 out of 175 (91%) of participants saying yes they definitely would, we decided to proceed with our idea of contacting the manager of the university shop, ‘Rootes Grocery Store’ with the aim of tampon tax being covered by the store to reduce costs to female students. We put together an email consisting of information about why period poverty is a problem, what other stores have done to help, and the results of our Instagram poll. A copy of this email is presented below.

We believe that this could be the first step in a greater project; it could further encourage other university students to approach their on-campus stores about covering the tampon tax, or even inspire larger shops to follow the example of their competitors. Even if cutting tampon tax is not the solution reached everywhere, just raising awareness of the issue could lead to more help within communities, for example donating sanitary products to food banks as well as food - something many people do not consider doing. It may also reduce stigma around the topic, persuading those in need of help to speak up. Specifically at the University of Warwick, we would encourage the SU to begin a scheme giving out free sanitary products. The current ‘locker’ system rarely works and is purely for emergencies; it would be beneficial to have a system that is easily accessible for all.

Persuasive strategies

The first theory we integrated into our email was the Elaboration Likelihood Model. The ELM is composed of the peripheral route and the central route, of which we decided to use the central route as research shows that attitude change that results from this tends to be longer lasting and better at predicting behaviour (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). The central route also leads to integration of information into one’s view point, meaning that the Manager would be more likely to assimilate the information we have provided him with and strive for a price change (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). Key aspects of the central route are high ability and high motivation. We believe the Rootes Grocery Store manager would be highly motivated, as he would want to attract more customers to shop at the store. He is also likely to have the ability to analyse arguments and understand what we have proposed. Furthermore, argument quality is said to be of utmost importance in the central route, with stronger arguments being shown to gain more positive responses, and so we tried to back up any claims with statistics and numbers (Cheung, Sia & Kuan, 2012).

The Yale Approach (Hovland, Janis, & Kelley, 1953) focuses on who said what to whom when looking at attitude change, and outlines characteristics of each that can be important to persuasion, some of which we used in our email.

“Who” – the source:

Social norms was an important part of our message – we wanted to portray that most people agreed with our claims that the tampon tax and period poverty are an important issue. We quoted a social media poll saying that 91% (159 out of 175) of people would be more likely to buy sanitary products from a store that covered the tampon tax, which acts as social proof. Here, we also made sure to include a natural frequency as well as a conditional probability, as these are said to be easier to comprehend (Gigerenzer, 2011). We also highlighted the other grocery stores that cover the tax (including Tesco, who are probably Rootes’ main competitor), demonstrating that doing so is a norm. People tend to conform to norms, as they set a standard for behaviour (Hovland et al., 1953).

“What” – the message:

A number of the characteristics of our message are likely to increase persuasion and attitude change. Throughout the email, we reported facts and statistics on period poverty and the tampon tax – this repetition, according to Hovland et al. (1953), is likely to increase the chances of persuasion.

We also used a two-sided argument, rather than a one-sided argument, in that we anticipated the reason our proposal might be rejected, and tackled this. In our email, we acknowledged that covering the tax would cost Rootes, but pointed out that they would probably gain customers by making the prices more comparable to those at Tesco, given the store is already much closer to almost everyone on Warwick campus. A two-sided message is more effective than a one-sided argument when the audience is well-informed, and can increase credibility of the source (Eisend, 2006). As the manager of Rootes would be motivated to consider the argument carefully and come to the conclusion most beneficial for the store, a two-sided argument was likely to be most effective (Hovland et al., 1953) (just like the central route of the ELM was most useful).

“Whom” – the audience:

We had no prior knowledge on the manager of Rootes grocery store, so there was not much we could plan for here. However, we assumed they would be motivated to increase the store’s profits, and so we used this to tailor our argument – for example, using the central route of the ELM.

Just asking for something can be effective in getting someone else to do something (Clark & Hatfield, 1989; Flynn & Lake, 2008). Therefore, just sending an email and asking Rootes to lower the prices of sanitary products may have been sufficient for them to do so. Furthermore, we used the pique technique by asking for something specific, which increases compliance (Santos, Leve, & Pratkanis, 1994). Rather than just asking them to reduce the price, we specifically asked them to cover the tax – that is, reduce the price of sanitary products by 5%.

Outcomes

We received an email back from the manager of Rootes saying they were going to try and reduce prices, and within the following few weeks they did indeed reduce a lot of the prices, many of them by more than the 5% we asked them to. In the most recent email we received from him, the manager assured us he would continue with efforts to try and reduce costs further. The reductions are summarised in the table below:

Product	Previous Price	New Price	Reduction
Intelud Tampons	£1.20	£1.10	~8%
Coop Reg Ultra Wing 14’s	£1	95p	5%
Always Dailies Liner Normal	£1.50	£1.20	20%
Kotex Panty Liners	£1.60	£1.29	~19%
Coop Maxi Towels 16’s	£1	95p	5%

References

“Always donates over 33 million pads” (2019). Retrieved from https://www.always.co.uk/en-gb/about-us/endperiodpoverty

Baldwin, L. (2019). UEA students’ union offer free sanitary products to students. Retrieved from https://www.edp24.co.uk/news/uea-students-union-offer-free-sanitary-products-to-students-1-4925030

BBC News (2019). Tampon tax: How much have you spent?. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-42013239

Cheung, C. M., Sia, C., & Kuan, K. K. Y. (2012). Is this review believable? A study of factors affecting the credibility of online consumer reviews from an ELM perspective. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 13, 618-635.

Clark, R. D., & Hatfield, E. (1989). Gender differences in receptivity to sexual offers. Journal of Psychology & Human Sexuality, 2(1), 39-55.

Eisend, M. (2006). Two-sided advertising: A meta-analysis. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 23(2), 187-198.

Flynn, F. J., & Lake, V. K. (2008). If you need help, just ask: Underestimating compliance with direct requests for help. Journal of personality and social psychology, 95(1), 128.

FACTS — FREE PERIODS. (2019). Retrieved from https://www.freeperiods.org/mission

Gigerenzer, G. (2011). What are natural frequencies? BMJ. DOI:343:d6386.

Herd, N. (2019). 10 Reasons Why Period Poverty is a Global Issue. Retrieved from http://www.irise.org.uk/blog/10-reasons-why-period-poverty-is-a-global-issue

Hovland, C. I., Janis, I. L., & Kelley, H. H. (1953). Communication and persuasion.

Murray, J. (2018). How to save money on sanitary products. Retrieved on 19th February, from https://www.savethestudent.org/save-money/health/save-money-on-sanitary-products.html

Petty, R. E., & Cacioppo, J. T. (1986). The elaboration likelihood model of persuasion. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 19, 123-205.

Santos, M. D., Leve, C., & Pratkanis, A. R. (1994). Hey Buddy, Can You Spare Seventeen Cents? Mindful Persuasion and the Pique Technique 1. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 24(9), 755-764.