A new Connecticut law mandates tampon dispensers be placed in some boys’ bathrooms, but the young men at one of the state’s high schools did not waste any time making their feelings about the policy known. Within 20 minutes of the dispenser being installed last month, it was ripped off the wall.
On Monday’s show, Megyn was joined by Kmele Foster, co-host of The Fifth Column, and Inez Stepman, senior policy analyst at the Independent Women’s Forum, to discuss the boys’ “revolt” and what it says about the state of culture today.
Tamping Down the Tampons
Beginning September 1, Connecticut law will require schools to offer free menstrual products in women’s restrooms, all-gender restrooms, and at least one men’s bathroom for grades three through 12.
A dispenser was placed in a boys’ bathroom near that front office at Brookfield High School around 9:30am on January 24 in response to the forthcoming regulation, but it didn’t last long. According to reports, it was torn from the wall and discarded in a toilet by 9:52am. The box was apparently “destroyed” in the process and tampons were left littering the floor.
In an email to parents and staff obtained by CT Insider, Brookfield High School Principal Marc Balanda called it an “egregious instance of vandalism and destruction of property.” He also said it was “the work of immature boys, not men.”
It is unclear how many students took part in the incident, but Brookfield Schools Superintendent John Barile told the media that it “has since been addressed.” The identities of the students and any punishment has not been made public.
‘Good on You, Boys’
Megyn praised the young men who chose to take a stand. “Good on you, boys in Brookfield, Connecticut. I’m cheering you on,” she said. While Balanda has vowed to reinstall the dispenser, Megyn said the students should not back down. “Get a group of you… and pull the next one down, and the one after that, and the one after that,” she added.
While Megyn admitted that it may be “jarring” for boys to see tampons in a middle school or high school bathroom, she said it’s not unlike what many young women have been forced to experience. “The boys are starting to feel our pain,” she explained. “As upsetting as they might be to see a tampon dispenser in your bathroom, why don’t you see what it’s like to see a penis in your little girl’s locker room?”
Incidents like this can be “barrier breakers” and “significant culturally,” Megyn said. And in Stepman’s view, they also help explain why young men are increasingly trending to the right in polling all over the world. “You see that young women are turning very, very, very sharply to the left and boys… are trending more conservative,” she concluded. “I do think we’re going to see more ‘revolt of the boys’… against a stifling culture.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Foster and Stepman by tuning in to episode 717 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.