Speaker: Claire Coder, Founder & CEO, Aunt Flow
Happy Women’s History Month/International Women's Day! How are you celebrating?
Claire Coder: Happy Women's History Month. At Aunt Flow we are celebrating this whole month long by advocating for freely accessible period products outside of the home. Over 20 states have passed legislation requiring bathrooms to offer free period products. This is monumental and truly a step forward to ensure no one ever has to worry about getting their period in public. That's how we're celebrating. Want to advocate with us?
2023's International Women's Day theme is #EmbraceEquity. How do you think (the collective) we can work together to impact positive change?
Claire Coder: When I founded Aunt Flow back in 2016, my first initiative was to ensure that none of our packaging had the term "feminine hygiene products". What the heck is a feminine hygiene product? A boob cleaner. At Aunt Flo, we focus on embracing equality by ensuring that our verbiage is clear - period products, not feminine hygiene products - and inclusive. We know that not everybody who menstruates identifies as a woman. And also not everybody who menstruates is feminine. That's why we use the words menstrual products and period products to refer to our tampons and pads. That's what embracing equality looks like at Aunt Flow.
What advice would you give to the next generation of women as they begin their careers?
Claire Coder: My advice for the next generation of women is stop hiding your period product up your sleeve as you go to the bathroom. If toilet paper is offered for free in bathrooms, why aren't period products? In a very small step that we you can do to embrace equity in the workplace is by not hiding our natural bodily functions and by advocating for freely accessible period products in the workplace. A small action but can eradicate tons of taboos. That's my advice.
