Taylor Schuebel
Staff Writer

I’m pretty sure there are going to be male readers who will either cringe or roll their eyes at the site of this article, but I honestly don’t care. So I’m confident that there are women on campus (students and professors) who go through those lovely moments when they either just find out that it’s their time of the month or they are basically floating in their panties and low and behold they don’t have a pad/tampon on their person. And of course, being the low budget-nearly broke college student, having to pay $5 to $8 for a box of feminine products is a complete pain in the ***. Women already have enough pain to deal with when blood gushes out of her mermaid purse, putting a dent in her wallet is just plain unnecessary.

Adding to this, I can’t be the only woman who gets irritated when only finding one brand of pads in small supply at the university store, but there are days where people can get condoms for free. There are even bathrooms that provide free condoms, but tampons are 25 cents. Don’t get me wrong; free condoms are awesome. Hurray for safe sex! But sex is a choice between two (or more, I don’t judge) consenting adults. A female can’t choose to have her period when its convenient, so she shouldn’t have to pay to have the required product so that she doesn’t walk around with blood running down her legs and stains on her clothes.

I’m sure that many universities provide pads and tampons for female students, professors and administrators, but its more of a under the table affair where a woman has to whisper for a tampon from a teacher, a front desk person or at the health department. I had to do that during middle school, and trust me that was really awkward. Can’t people be more upfront about it? Maybe there can be candy bowls littered on random tables in every building, but instead of candy the bowl is filled with pads and tampons with colorful wrapping like the U kotex brand. That way it’s just a grab and go, no questions asked experience. Boyfriends can even earn brownie points with their girl by grabbing a few nonchalantly and not have to go to the store and deal with that uncomfortable exchange between them and the cashier.

I’d also love to put a stop to the whole “Oh, you’re really angry you must be on your period,” bit from guys because that’s just stupid and unfair, but let’s not get into that right now! Let’s get back to the pads and tampons thing. Even the Cosmopolitan has an article about this issue. In the article, Cosmopolitan writes about Christy Lee of The Johns Hopkins News-Letter quoting the following:
“With a 52 percent female undergraduate student body, one would think that our school would provide a half decent supply of a monthly necessity for thousands of students,” Lee writes. “We speak of equality so often, yet we still seem to ignore some fundamental physical limitations of half of the population. Hygiene is an integral part of health and safety, and I certainly hope that the University would start paying more attention to the health and safety of us female students.”

Seriously Millersville, look at the stats and listen to the monthly screams emitted by woman all over campus. Help a girl out and consider my idea…please?