Sexist Values Still exsist within so-called "civillised" government

So this post will probably gross-out some of the readers and loose me the followers i already have, but this is something that needs to be talked about. Remember the "tampon in a teacup" scene from that 'Ghost world' movie, the one that stars Scarlett Johanson  and some other girl in an awesome dinosaur shirt? Well I remembered this scene just the other day when my mother and I were discussing how stupid it is that GST is charged on women's sanitary items in Australia. No one seems to have brought this up publicly, so here I am.

For those who don't know GST stands for 'Goods and Services Tax'. It was a tax introduced in Australia a very long time ago (apparently when sexist values still existed amongst Australians) to cut down on the number of taxes in our country so that all consumers could pay a percentage of what they spend to the government. This was basically a way to roll all the taxes into one and make everyone pay it and because there are rules about what GST is charged on and what isn't everyone seems okay with that.

Whether or not items have GST added to their price depends on what category they fit into. The original rule for items to be GST free was that they had to be "Essential". So things such as raw meat, bread, milk, eggs, butter, fruit and vegetables are all GST FREE and items like cigarettes, lollies, chips and softdrink are GST inclusive. Just the fact that GST is charged on women's sanitary items is an insult because this classifies the items as "Non-essentials". The sad thing is, that these items are indeed essential to women. Also by adding GST on to items like this is making them more expensive and they are something that women cannot afford to live without.

Another problem with this is that there are other items listed as "Essentials" that are clearly not required in a household such as Tea and Coffee. Caffeinated drinks are something that people convince themselves that they need, but according to many health programs and articles are not needed and can actually lend to health issues and Caffeine Addiction.

I wonder at all if the government had thought to revise the GST law in order to make sure that all the essentials were on the "essentials" list. Especially seeing as we have a Woman Prime minister and Premier. Oh, but I almost forgot these same women were running the country when a new law was released requiring teen mums to return to school or work after their child turns one. So while we have these sort of Cold-hearted people in power I guess we can expect more severity on our own sex to continue and increase as they stay in Parliament.

 I hope this one post does not turn anyone away from reading my otherwise book related or fashion related posts. I apologize for veering off track. If this post disagrees with your morals than that is your problem not mine. 


Your favourite Cynical blogger,
Natalie