Name: Io Weintraub

Social Justice Group: Menstrual Health

Date of Fieldwork: January 31, 2018

Name of Organization: Social Worker

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

Type of Fieldwork: Interview

What I did:

We interview a social worker, Mary Coyle, who helps people on Rikers Island get products to manage their period. We asked her many questions about what is allowed to be used and how they access to products.

What I learned:

I learned that menstruators incarcerated have trouble finding enough products to manage their periods. Two things really stuck out to me. I thought that it was very scary that the guards would ask them why they needed more pads and tampons because they just got more yesterday. It must be scary having to explain to someone who does not menstruate that they have a heavy flow or a long period. It was also interesting to me that they could not use reusables like menstrual cups because they would get taken away. I thought that reusable would really solve part of the problem because they would not need to ask for pads and tampons and they could always has access to a product if needed.

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

I learned that menstruators being incarcerated don’t have a basic human right for these reusable products. Many things get taken away. Mary Coyle mentions that most of these women being incarcerated are only in trouble because their troubled boyfriends did something and they were dragged into it. Because they were dragged into something they don’t have access to stop blood from free bleeding out of their vaginas?