To reduce the spread of the virus, social distancing is being urged. That means avoiding public places to the degree possible and, when it’s unavoidable, trying to stay six feet away from anyone else.  It also means that large crowds are excellent places to stay away from. Some states and municipalities have even imposed guidelines and restrictions on the size of gatherings allowed.

BUT that doesn’t mean you have to sit in a room by yourself and wonder what to do for the next few weeks (or months). And it doesn’t mean that you’re stuck inside the house.  You can still go for a walk or a hike, you can go for a bike ride, do some gardening, play fetch with the dog in the back yard.

The Christmas season can be lots of fun – the shopping, the presents, the food, the parties, the get-togethers with friends and family.  

It can also be a particularly stressful time of year – the shopping, the presents, the food, the parties, the get-togethers with friends and family.

Christmas stress affects more people than you might think.  A recent survey conducted by Healthline revealed that 62 percent of the people surveyed reported that they found the Christmas season to be “somewhat stressful” or “very stressful”. 

Kaitlyn Luckow

I remember being in middle school and always so excited to read the next issue of Seventeen Magazine. And the first page I would turn to? Embarrassing period stories.  

I would sit there and giggle, but most importantly, it helped me realize that I wasn’t alone. If these awesome people could make it out of these embarrassing stories still being the badasses that they were, maybe I would be okay.

However, as I’ve gotten older, it has become even more than that. I have realized that these “embarrassing” period stories weren’t embarrassing.

I did a little research into the word “embarrass” and it’s the feeling of discomfort..... 

J.B.

Nanotechnology is, according to one government site, “science, engineering, and technology conducted at the nanoscale, which is about 1 to 100 nanometers”. (A nanometer is really, really small – it takes more than 25 million of them to make an inch.)

Richard Feynman, an American physicist, is credited with having introduced the concept of nanotechnology in 1959, although the term “nanotechnology” wasn’t coined until 1981.  Feynman’s idea was that things could be made much smaller.  For instance, in 1959 computers were massive; some of them weighed literally tons and took up entire rooms.  Feynman theorized that they could be made much smaller using nanotechnology.   He was bang on about that.  Computers keep getting smaller, faster, and better with nanotechnology.

Apart from not having to build an extra wing to your house for your home computer, there are many other applications of nanotechnology in use and in development. 

Kaitlyn Luckow

Every day, 830 women die from maternal mortality throughout the world. That’s approximately 290,500 women a year who die from complications of giving birth.

According to the World Health Organization, maternal mortality occurs when a woman dies while pregnant or within 42 days of the termination of the pregnancy. The majority of maternal deaths occur due to severe bleeding, infection, high blood pressure, complications from delivery, and unsafe abortions. 

Kaitlyn Luckow

“That’s what she said!”  

Someone that shouts that joke every chance he gets may not seem like he would be feminist icon material. You might be thinking, Kaitlyn, are you kidding me? Michael Scott is probably the last T.V. character I would label as a feminist.

However, after binging The Office far too many times than I care to admit, I’ve come to the realization that this is, in fact, the case. 

Kaitlyn Luckow

Oftentimes when we write and talk about menstruation, it’s easy to talk about just women who menstruate or refer to girls and use “she/her” pronouns. But it’s important to understand and be aware of the limitation of this kind of dialogue. 

By gendering menstruation in this way, we are actually ostracizing people who aren’t women or individuals who don’t identify with “she/her” pronouns. 

Let’s make one thing clear: menstruating does not make someone a woman, not menstruating doesn’t make them not a woman, and women aren’t the only individuals in this world that menstruate.

We need to make sure that we are telling everyone’s stories.

Kaitlyn Luckow

Imagine living in poverty and having to choose between feeding your family or buying feminine hygiene products.

This is a reality for more than 16.3 million women in living in the United States. According to the National Women’s Law Center, women are 38% more likely to live in poverty than men, and women of color experience poverty at a much higher rate than white women.

Women and girls who are living in poverty often have to sacrifice buying menstrual products in order to help pay for other necessities. This is largely due to the high price of menstrual products and the fact that they are taxed as “luxury items”. However, menstrual products are just as necessary as food, water, shelter, and other hygiene-related products.

Kaitlyn Luckow

Image by Tim Marshall

Imagine having to pay for something that was natural and completely out of your control.

Guess what?

We’re doing it.

Over the past few years, news and social media campaigns have brought light to the issue of the “tampon tax”, also known as the “pink tax”  in America as well as the rest of the world. Perhaps like you, I had no idea that this tax even existed until a few years ago. And I was just as taken aback as many people–and remain confused even today.

People are outraged and are demanding change because of this tampon tax, but do we fully understand what the tampon tax is?