Even earlier than the official announcement that Tim Walz could be named the vice presidential candidate on the Democratic ticket, the Web churned out a cacophony of clips and quips reflecting his progressive bona fides. As Minnesota governor embracing a gaggle of youngsters on the invoice signing totally free faculty breakfasts and lunches. As folksy dad joking along with his daughter, a vegetarian, about whether or not turkey is meat. (In response to Walz, “In Minnesota, turkey is particular.”)
Amid these, a corresponding, extra crude moniker arose: Tampon Tim. This time, an obvious conservative dig referencing Walz’s assist for a 2024 state legislation that requires all Minnesota public colleges to supply menstrual merchandise in loos.
There is a component of deja vu within the timing. Practically 9 years in the past to the day, on August 8, 2015, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump hurled an insult at then-Fox newscaster Megyn Kelly: he accused her of getting “blood popping out of her wherever” when he thought her debate questions have been unfair. On the time, I wrote right here at TIME: “Interval jokes are a dime a dozen, Donald. Half of the American voters–certainly, half the world’s inhabitants–copes with menstruation. However for individuals who stay in poverty, lack of entry to menstrual well being care is greater than a punch line.”
Now practically a decade later, durations have grow to be a mainstream public coverage precedence. Removed from being mocked or maligned, “menstrual fairness” is an agenda that enjoys broad bipartisan assist throughout the nation. To date, 30 states have eradicated state gross sales tax on menstrual merchandise (also called the “tampon tax”), together with a legislation signed final yr by the Republican governor of Texas, Greg Abbott. Minnesota is one in all 28 states dedicated by legislation and/or finances to offering menstrual merchandise in colleges, joined by states with Republican management like Georgia, New Hampshire, Ohio, and Utah.
The truth is, in 2018, Trump himself signed the first-ever federal menstrual entry requirement into legislation—the First Step Act, a 2018 jail and sentencing reform bundle that mandates menstrual product provision in federal prisons. In 2020 he went on to signal the CARES Act, which made it doable for the primary time for workers to make use of their Versatile Spending Account allowances to purchase menstrual merchandise with pre-tax {dollars}.
As for the most recent spherical of identify calling, it appears the side of the Minnesota legislation that has conservatives most agitated is its language: the legislation states that pads and tampons should be accessible to “all menstruating college students” and “in restrooms often utilized by college students in grades 4 to 12.” A failed try and amend the invoice to solely identify “feminine restrooms,” didn’t hold it from passing as is with bipartisan assist. Amongst its Republican supporters, Rep. Dean Urdahl remarked, “Simply speaking with my spouse and members of the family, they felt prefer it was an essential situation I ought to assist.”
And it actually needs to be that straightforward. Insurance policies that handle the financial burden of menstruation, and that acknowledge the tutorial worth of treating interval merchandise as primary faculty provides, have confirmed to be a preferred and customary sense reform—at residence and overseas.
As a matter of political gamesmanship, zeroing in on any situation that implicates reproductive well being, menstruation amongst them, is a dangerous gambit for Republicans. Ballot after ballot reveals that almost all of Individuals assist reproductive rights and end up to vote on the difficulty. In her function as Vice President, Kamala Harris has taken up the dialogue round menstrual literacy and information safety because it pertains to abortion, for instance. With Gov. Walz as a champion for combating interval poverty, it’s a drum the ticket is sensible to beat.
And eventually, as Walz reminds us—anybody who thinks that interval jokes are acceptable or humorous is simply plain, nicely, bizarre.