Andréanne's Journal - March ✍🏼

Ladies, we’ve found each other again! 👋🏼

I can’t even begin to talk about last month without immediately telling you about the launch of our Women at the Top initiative! Gannnnnnngggg! I NEVER thought this project would get so big! When I had the idea of including printed inserts in customers’ packages so they could subtly send a message to their bosses about providing free menstrual products in the workplace, I just thought it was a cool mini-idea. At the same time, I wondered if it really made sense as an actionable project. Ideas that are out of the ordinary often cross my mind and, to be quite honest, it’s not always glorious. I wasn’t sure it would go anywhere, but somewhere inside me was a little voice saying that I COULD make a difference. I thought that even if it was a small, slow start, other companies might eventually follow suit. If the initiative changed the workplace for even just one woman, it would still be a mission accomplished.

Every two to three weeks at Womance and SF, we hold what we call creative sessions. Everyone is invited and we all get together to brainstorm on a particular subject. We always give the team a heads up of about a week so they can think on the subject and come up with ideas. This time, we asked them what kinds of promotional items we could create to go with the campaign. (I call it a campaign now because that’s the direction the media took it, but at the time we just had a short video and a cool idea.) We already had coasters and magnets in mind, but it was during this creative meeting that other great ideas were born. A big thank you to Maude who had the idea of including toilet paper rolls. That proposal was met with a big WOW from the team!

No matter what topic we’re focused on during these creative sessions, the goal is always to seek out a variety of opinions from the largest possible group so we can collectively generate ideas we might not have thought of on our own. Everyone is encouraged to express their opinions. We don’t hold creative sessions without a specific goal or topic in mind, and the results are always surprising!

Using the ideas we collected in the session, I started to set up the video project (who do I think I am haha!) I went through each scene and determined everything we were going to say and do. My priority was to make the subject approachable, accessible and easy to understand. I really wanted any business owners who saw the video to think to themselves, “Well yeah, that makes sense. It’s a yes.” As I mention in the video, EVERY TIME we talk about providing free menstrual products in the workplace, I get so many messages from women who tell me their boss would never back such a project. It’s shocking. So, how do we start the discussion? I’m so proud to say that we not only started the discussion but that our little idea turned into a full-blown campaign!

We (the entire Womance team, SF and I) NEVER expected the video to create so many waves! It’s just crazy. I’ve lost count of the number of messages I’ve received about companies getting onboard and starting to offer free menstrual products to their female employees. I’m not saying that this movement came only because of us, but I believe that this initiative has created a great opportunity to open the discussion and create an easier call to action. Again this week, I received several messages from employees of Urgence Santé or the National Bank (bravo to these huge corporations!) who now order boxes of sanitary products to provide to their employees for free. One message particularly touched me when a woman who works for the National Bank said “knowing the budget cuts currently being made by my employer, this expense is very representative for us. Bravo for your action!”

I repeat it again and again: offering free menstrual products costs about $0.07 per day per employee. Who can’t afford this simple expense? At what point is a company able to justify that this is a superfluous cost? I would go even further: at what point should women’s well-being be considered a new expense to be included in the budget?

Considering women's needs on the same level as men's should not be something that we study for years. I talked to you about it on social media, but when we asked the provincial government about this – wanting to know if it was considering offering free menstrual products to all government employees – we learned that the Ministry of the Status of Women had already been analyzing a 2020 study on the idea of ​​facilitating access to menstrual products for two years. For two whole years, they had been trying to determine whether this simple act was a feasible, good idea. I am here to say yes, it is. (Note that since December 2023, providing free menstrual products has been mandated for federal government employees, so it is far from an impossible idea to implement.) Oh, and what was the Minister of the Status of Women’s response when she was questioned on the subject? “Given our current economic situation, it will not be possible to provide free menstrual products to government employees.”

As I mentioned before, women’s well-being should not be considered a new expense to be included in the budget. We need to stop believing that gender equality comes only from parity in government or major committees. Gender equality is built with concrete actions and gestures that really effect change.

Thank you! Well done! Congratulations again to all the Quebec companies that have decided to move forward with this initiative. Thank you and bravo to the women who had the courage to demand change, and to the women who are now inspired to do so. I hope that all of you, like me, will realize one morning that your voice has more power to change things than you think.

- Andréanne Marquis, founder of Womance & Sans-Façon Cosmétiques