Man tells women to 'stop whining' about tampon prices - is suitably ridiculed

'Has this man ever even met a woman?'

A Facebook user has been criticised online after telling women to “stop whining” about the price of sanitary products.

Taking mansplaining to new heights, a man decided to wade in on the debate over free sanitary products by calculating just how many tampons a woman needs to use for “the average period”.

Unfortunately for the individual, his maths didn’t quite add up.

A Twitter user shared a screengrab of the comment which was initially posted on PinkNews’s Facebook page.

“So the average period is 10 to 35ml of blood, each tampon holds about 5ml, so seven tampons per cycle,” the Facebook user wrote.

“Let’s be generous and say 10 for those ladies with an extra-juicy uterine lining.

“Nine periods a year equals 90 tampons max,” he added, before referring to a 64-pack of tampons listed for £7.90 plus shipping on Amazon.

“Cut down on your Starbucks venti frapps and stop whining. This isn’t a first world problem,” he concluded.

The tweet has since gone viral, receiving more than 19,000 likes, 3000 retweets and more than 1,000 comments.

The man’s unsolicited advice hasn't gone down well, with people on Twitter pointing out his calculations didn’t account for the fact that many women have periods that are heavier, more frequent or last longer than predicted.

“He literally was like women are pregnant for nine months which means they only get nine periods a year. Sounds accurate,” one woman commented.

Another added: “I just realised this a**hole also thinks we have 9 periods per year.”

“Oh yeah, because I always hit the pause button during swim season. So easy!”

Others took issue with the fact the social media user ignored medical advice around toxic shock syndrome (TSS) which suggests women should change their tampon every three to four hours.

“Do you want TSS? Because that's how you get TSS,” one person wrote.

Another sarcastically added: “Yeah, because leaving a tampon in for 12-24 hours is a REALLY good idea...”

A third commented: “Love to wear tampons for 12 hours at a time and die of infection.

“Saves a lot of money in the long run.”

The man’s misguided calculations follow the news that all NHS hospitals in England will be required to offer free tampons or sanitary products to any patient who needs them from this summer.

The new rules follow months of campaigning from charities like Freedom4Girls and Free Periods calling on the government to eliminate period poverty.

In March 2017, a police officer working at a school in Leeds discovered a large number of female students were truanting because they were unable to buy products during their menstrual cycle, which is estimated to cost in the region of £20,000 over a woman’s lifetime.

“A large number of students were asking us for sanitary products in school. A lot of teachers were buying them from their own pockets to give out,” Sara Barrie, safer schools officer for West Yorkshire Police, told The Independent at the time.

“It was clear there was an issue. And when I then delved a bit deeper and opened up discussions, the girls said financing and funding was a real problem."

Barrie explained that many of the children she encountered were from low income families.

"There’s often more than one child, and families really are struggling with finances, with these products often coming far down the priority line," she said.

"The girls are so sensitive that they don’t want to upset mum by saying they need them because they know money’s tight."

The tweet comes just weeks after a man tried to mansplain about vulvas on Twitter.

When the Guardian tweeted about a recent photograph series titled "Me and my vulva: 100 women reveal all", one man, called Paul Bullen, took it upon himself to "correct" the tweet, incorrectly commenting underneath: "The correct word is vagina".

In response, a number of women set out to educate Bullen about genitalia.