In honor of this weekend’s BLANK Party, sponsered by an unaffiliated coalition of amazing women at Harvard, we’re treating you to a profile of our favorite of those amazing women: Eudora Olsen, class of 2017. Not only did Eudora use the BLANK Party as an opportunity to collect feminine hygiene products for women in our area, she also bleeds out of her vagina for a few days every month.* Surprisingly, she does much much more — she studies comparative religion, crushes premed classes, meets streams of friend for meals in Adams Dining Hall, and runs the Hygiene Campaign, a movement dedicated to bringing sanitary feminine hygiene products to women who have no access to them and erasing the stigma around menstruation overall. To learn more about Eudora, her period, and the Hygiene Campaign, keep reading!
On how she became the superhero she is today . . .
I started The Hygiene Campaign last spring and it’s really grown since then. I was in a WGS tutorial, which definitely informed my thinking about these issues, and I ended up doing my final project on Tampax and Kotex advertisements throughout the 20th century, and how the luxury status around these products started. I was thrown that tampons and pads are considered “luxuries”. Going to bed one night, thinking about all of this, and I thought, “this has to be something that people are already addressing”. Shockingly, I realized it wasn’t. When I talked to my mom about it, she said, “I, in my 55 years on this earth, have never thought of that”. I was convinced someone had to be thinking about it! But then people all had reactions similar to my mom’s.
It made me question why this thing that every woman goes through, every month — this thing that is so present — why it is that people don’t think about the lack of access to the necessary products for handling menstruation. I realized that it was because people do not talk about about menstruation, at all. It is a stigmitized topic for both men and women. The after-effect of this lack of conversation is that homeless women and women of lower socioeconomic status don’t have access to tampons and pads.
That’s how I conceptualized my campaign. I see the campaign as doing two things: first, it’s a donation project to address the very real, very pressing issue that these things haven’t been donated regularly and that there is a huge need for them, especially for homeless women; and secondly, it starts the conversation. It’s so interesting to me that people like myself had never thought of these issues before. I think having conversations with people and having the Hygiene Campaign be foundationally educational is super important. That’s why I call it the campaign, because I’ve always wanted it to be about conversation.
On combating ignorance, one tampon at a time . . .
We’ve done a couple big donation events on campus, but because I’m not a recognized student organization [yet, there is an application pending], I have teamed up with a lot of the already-established groups, like sustainability drives and Valentine’s Day drives, to get work started on the Campaign. Recently, we hosted our largest stand-on-it’s-own event for Mardi Gras. It was so successful and people were incredibly helpful. Since then, even more interest has accumulated, so that’s been great.
People on campus are always busy, so I like to make our events big and available. I think large, on-campus events are the best way to reach Harvard students.
I’m also excited about spreading to other campuses. I’ve made the Campaign into something I want anyone on any college campus to take and run with. The website and social media stuff are easy to pack and bring to other schools, so a lot of my friends have been able to take the campaign and start these conversations elsewhere. They’ve been super successful, with their campaigns ranging from putting a donation box somewhere and labeling it to making similar Mardi Gras-type events.
Ruminating on her successes . . .
The Mardi Gras thing . . . that went awesome. We raised over four-hundred dollars at that event, which was crazy. On that point, I try to stay away from monetary donations because I think there’s something to be said for people recognizing what product is being donated and watching the tampons go hand-to-hand. Of course, they’re still appreciated! But it’s really important to remove the stigma and put the products up front as well. Last night, we held our second large event: a Fund-Rager. We collected thirty boxes of tampons and over a hundred dollars.
Actually, I found out today that the Cambridge Counsel just passed a bill that will make it an imperative to have tampons and pads in all public restrooms. That is hella cool because that will affect the access of a lot of women, myself included — when I get my period and I’m out somewhere, I usually have to go home. Now, I don’t have to. I spoke on behalf of the bill before the council when they were voting on it, after a woman on the council reached out to me about the Hygiene Campaign. I’m super passionate about these issues, so I was eager to speak up for them. It’s great to already see a change happening.
And how there’s so much further to go . . .
I was having a conversation about the Hygiene Campaign with a man who works in the science center. He was talking about his wife and daughters and his mother, and he was adamant that everyone should be caring about these issues. We both realized that even though it should be, because it affects every woman, menstruation is simply not a comfortable topic for anyone to talk about. I don’t forsee myself stopping the campaign until it is.
Pictured: Eudora
Not Pictured: her period, because she has access to the “luxury” of feminine hygiene products
On hurtling toward the future . . .
It’s fun to see how The Hygiene Campaign has evolved and expanded in ways I didn’t even anticipate. I definitely plan to keep working at it as long as women keep having their periods . . . so forever. One of my goals for this summer to gain non-profit status. Long term (I’m pre-med), I plan to take the year off in between college and med-school to work with communities on starting conversations and changing the luxury taxes.
Interested? Riled up? Desperate to get involved, or just need to know why you have to use balled-up toilet paper when you’re out and can’t find a tampon? Contact eudoraolsen@college.harvard.edu to join the campaign and the conversation.
*NOTE: Actually, every woman bleeds out of her vagina, usually once a month. For further explanation of this mysterious phenomenon, check back on Her Campus Harvard in two weeks for the Period Week, coming soon to flabbergasted men and chargrined women near you.