A Sacramento State student wrote an open letter to President Robert Nelsen, the Women’s Resource Center and Associated Students, Inc. advocating for access to free feminine hygiene products on campus.

We Sac State students should be with her.

Let me share a personal anecdote with you — something that all of us People With Vaginas experience.

It’s a school day and I have reached the end of my period, or so I think. Surprise, surprise, during the second class of the day, my period is back with a vengeance.

I reach into my bag in an effort to take care of the problem and I realize that I am not equipped with the proper materials needed for feminine health care, which can include a variety of things like Midol, tampons and different types of pads.

At this point, I’m much more concerned about how I’m going to do damage control than whatever is happening in class. I’m faced with a couple options: go home and get supplies, ask a fellow Person With A Vagina, or go to the student store and buy a marked-up box of tampons.

Though Sac State has the dispensers available, they have not offered feminine hygiene products since 2009. That means that students who want to buy a tampon or a pad must purchase them from a campus store.

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The tampons offered at the University Bookstore are $6.99, with tax. The same exact kind of tampons can be found on Walmart’s website for $3.83.

According to the Free the Tampon Initiative, 86 percent of women have started their period in public without the supplies they need. Forty-eight percent of women obtained their supplies from a tampon or pad dispenser in a public restroom.

For many good reasons, we are bombarded with free condoms on campus — there’s literally a condom cart that makes stops in the University Union. This is a good service that makes it so financial cost isn’t a hurdle for safe sexual activity. But still…

Even for college students, sex is a choice. Getting a period is definitely not. Part of me wonders if the reason for this is because condoms are related to the health of men.

For sanitary reasons, we are offered toilet paper and seat covers in restrooms. We’re also offered soap, water and paper towels. Bleeding out onto desks and chairs on campus is also a sanitary issue — but we are afforded no products to tend to this normal bodily function.

There’s only ONE place on campus that offers free tampons and pads — the Women’s Resource Center. Tampons should be as widely available as toilet paper, paper towels and condoms.

Sac State is a bit behind on the times — lots of colleges are providing tampons to their students: Brown, Columbia, University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the University of Minnesota.

So where are our hygiene products, Sac State?