FemPower

##Inspiration The stigma or taboo surrounding the menstrual cycle of a woman in our privileged, comfortable lives only entails not being able to openly speak about it. However, for the girls and women who are underprivileged, it extends into the state of their health and the availability of their opportunities. Our main inspiration was the Bollywood movie ‘Pad Man’, which is based on the life of Arunachalam Muruganantham: the inventor of a low-cost sanitary pad-making machine to aid rural women in India. The movie highlighted how deep-rooted the stigma is, how it could be life-threatening and the way it affects women in their personal, social and professional lives. Thus, we wanted to use our capabilities to also contribute to this cause in our way.

What it does

The FemPower website provides all the necessary resources for the user to educate themselves on issues such as Tampon Tax and Cultural Stereotypes which are often overlooked, with a concentration on the countries we are from: the United States and India. With a smooth user experience as well as images and information that awaken the empathy of the user, our website has the potential to make a significant difference. It also encourages the user to take action immediately by including a donation box and a list of NGOs that cater to women all over the globe.

How we built it

On the Replit IDE, we used HTML and CSS to build and style the various features on the website. We use Javascript to create the donation box under the ‘Take Action’ section and Canva’s graphic design features to design our logo.

Challenges we ran into

We were initially unable to format the text in the Navigation Bar at the center due to the FemPower logo. If the logo was enlarged, it would displace the text. On the other hand when it was minimized, it was barely visible. Another challenge we faced was in the addition of content to the ‘Countries’ section as the images and information would not fit inside the boxes we added. It felt a little intimidating as we needed some good knowledge about CSS box properties. But after getting one-to-one guidance from one of the mentors, we were able to solve that problem and our website was ready.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We were able to overcome all of the challenges we faced and successfully create a website that we are satisfied with, portraying an issue that we are all passionate about. Our teamwork made the whole process smooth and fun, even during the frustrating times. We put our trust in each other as each member tackled a challenge: some of us worked closely with a mentor to format the Countries Page while the rest ended up removing the FemPower Logo from the Navigation Bar and setting its position value to absolute to fix the problem.

What we learned

As the members of our team were from different parts of the world, we were able to educate ourselves as well as each other about the different ways menstrual cycles are stigmatized and the effects they have on the women of our countries while doing the research for the website. Some of us were unfamiliar with web development, but we were still able to put all our strengths together and help each other whenever necessary thus learning about the value of teamwork and cooperation.

What's next for FemPower

We hope to reach a global audience, provide regular updates and other resources for education on other countries as well as others and help the world take one step closer to removing the stigma around a process most women, transgender and non-binary individuals go through.

Built With

• css
• html
• javascript
• replit