PADS UNAVAILABLE

A female passenger on China’s high-speed rail faced abuse online for suggesting trains should sell female sanitary products onboard, inspired by an awkward experience on a recent journey when she had to ask for a menstrual pad from a train attendant.

In response to an online post the passenger made about her experience, Chinese train authorities stated that menstrual pads were “personal items” and they would not consider her suggestion. Various netizens also lambasted the passenger for her supposed “entitlement,” spread misinformation about menstruation, and called women’s sanitary products a “minority need.”

Conservative notions and poor sex education have contributed to multiple debates about “period shame” in China in recent years, such as when female medical workers were criticized for calling for donations of pads during the Covid-19 outbreak in Wuhan in 2020, or a group of Shanghai university students mocked for placing boxes of free pads around campus.