Mary Epworth is a British singer/songwriter who was touring through Iowa when she realized that it was her time of the month and she needed tampons. However, when she got to the counter, the young male clerk refused to sell the tampons to her and had a female clerk ring her up instead. His reason was both amusing and disturbing – he thought they were “gross.”
Mary had been a little disappointed to see that there was a man behind the counter, as she would have preferred that a woman sell her the tampons. It turned out that the outcome was even worse than she would have thought. She stated of the woman who rung her up, “She looked me in the eye like she knew it was ridiculous.” It was pretty clear that things like this had happened before with this male clerk.
Mary posted about her experience on Twitter, and she did get some entertaining replies about how ridiculous the incident was. However, even though some may see the incident as amusing, it points to a disturbing attitude whereby it is still somewhat acceptable to discriminate against women. Discrimination is alive and well, even though it is 2015. Of course, this male clerk was very young and clearly immature, so he will hopefully grow up sometime and realize how ridiculous his behavior was in this incident.
It is good that at least people see that women should not be treated as “gross” for needing feminine products.