Name: Zoe Karp

Social Justice Group: Menstrual Health

Date of Fieldwork: January 31, 2018

Name of Organization:

Person (people) with whom I met and their job titles: Mary Coyle – Social Worker

Type of Fieldwork: Interview

What I did:

We met with Mary Coyle, a social worker who works with women at Rikers Island trying to get them equal rights, including access to menstrual products.

What I learned:

We learned that women at Rikers Island and many other correctional facilities are told that they will have access to menstrual products, but once they are in prison, they don’t have any at all. The pads are thin, and made of a substance almost as thin as paper, and they are kept in the guard’s cubicle, so the menstruators have to ask for the pads themselves. Sometimes, the guards don’t give the products.

What I learned about Social Justice “work” and/or Civil and Human rights “work” from this fieldwork:

The topic of incarcerated menstruators is something that we don’t think about very often, but it’s something very important and something we need to be thinking as well as talking about.