BY ELIZABETH LITCHFIELD ’18
Job hunting is incredibly difficult, and it becomes even more of a challenge when you’re a first-generation student. I am one of these first-gen students trying to get my life together before I walk across that stage in May. My parents, while they both have a wealth of real-life knowledge, don’t have a wide variety of professional contacts that can help me score a job. I know my fellow first-gen students can relate to this, as it’s a normal thing for us to face.
BY CHLOE JENSEN ’20
This past October, actor Anthony Rapp alleged in a Buzzfeed article that actor Kevin Spacey made advances towards him when Rapp was 14 and Spacey was 26. In many ways, the response to Rapp’s accusation was immediate and heartfelt: many media outlets such as CNN, NPR and the New York Times placed the blame on Spacey, and Netflix pulled Spacey’s show “House of Cards.” This response differed from many celebrity sexual assault accusations, where a woman accuses a man of assault and is met with skepticism and no results. Rapp’s believability is based on two factors: first, Rapp is a man himself, and second, that Rapp accused a man rather than a woman, further projecting the idea that gay men are predators.
BY JULIA SIENKIEWICZ ’20
I’ve been an ardent supporter of Hillary Clinton since I saw her speak at the State Department when I was 12. Hearing that she signed a financial deal with the Democratic National Convention (DNC) broke my teenaged heart, and enraged me. Then more information came out, showing that while questionable, the deal wasn’t illegal or financially compromising, and the same deal was signed by Sen. Sanders’ campaign. Regardless, the revelation that the DNC was millions in debt was surprising to me, as someone who assumed that all these political machines had cash to spare.
BY NAIEKA RAJ ’19
Gun violence tragedies have claimed the lives of thousands of innocent civilians over the years, deaths that could have been easily prevented with some basic legislation. According to the Brady Campaign, around 17,012 American children and teens are shot in murders, assaults, suicides, unintentional shootings or by police intervention every year. Every new tragedy stirs the pot but soon we move past the issue and continue with our daily lives, isolating the subject until another, seemingly inevitable, attack takes place. The Gun Violence Archive updates its records on daily mass shootings, projecting the bleak social condition of this country.
Stella Elwood ’19
After reading last week’s piece about the Animal Welfare Association’s chalk campaign, I noticed that the article didn’t mention that the organization also wrote, “Make veganism an intersectional movement.” As animal rights activists, we acknowledge and attempt to avoid problematic tactics that many other groups employ to convey their message. However, we also call attention to sensitive and complicated topics, since animal rights intersect with many other issues.
BY CHLOE JENSEN ’20
Many Mount Holyoke alums have been sharing their stories of sexual harassment at Mount Holyoke in Facebook alumni groups in response to the #MeToo social media movement. While the details of these stories range, their message remains the same: Mount Holyoke did not do enough to support students who came forward with accusations, or to prevent the attacks in the first place. In many ways, Mount Holyoke supports its students and alumni, however it also glosses over its dirty history of sexual harassment.
BY CHLOE JENSEN ’20
Last Thursday, the Animal Welfare Association drew chalk signs with messages such as “#PlannedPetParenthood” and “Animal liberation = human liberation.” These messages imply that somehow, if we collectively stop mistreating livestock in factory farms and pets in animal shelters, that humans too will be free of the many inequalities among us.
BY LILY REAVIS ’21
Campaigns aimed at raising awareness of the common female experience of sexual harassment and assault have become increasingly visible in the past 30 years. Anita Hill’s 1991 testimony against Clarence Thomas originally opened the floor for survivors to speak out, and that sentiment has been growing since. The #YesAllWomen and #WhatWereYouWearing hashtags trended on Twitter in the past few years, along with many others. Most recently, the #MeToo campaign has gone viral in response to allegations, with CBS News reporting 1.7 million retweets as of Tuesday.
BY JULIA SIENKIEWICZ ’20
My pre-Mount Holyoke life story is, I imagine, much like many of my fellow students. I came from an affluent, pressure-cooker high school that offered all the AP exams and churned out future Ivy League graduates. I participated in the rat race of applying to 13 top-tier schools and I agonized over whether the schools that accepted me would like me enough to award a scholarship. This sense of competition is socialized into us at a young age: personally, I planned my high school class schedule in seventh grade, and I was signed up for a wide range of activities in the hopes that I would distinguish myself in at least one of them.
BY JULIA SIENKIEWICZ '20
I’m very restrained in my emotions; I don’t cry often, maybe once or twice a month. The night following the Boy Scouts’ decision to let girls in, I made the mistake of reading too many awful articles, and seeing far too many of the comments. I wept for an hour; seeing how many people fail to understand the mission of Girl Scouts and the positive impact it has on its members made me feel like all I’d learned from my 13 years of scouting was meaningless.
BY JOURNEY MARTIN '21
What does it mean to be American? As a black American woman, this is something I constantly ask myself. We celebrate our independence on July 4, when the 13 colonies claimed independence in 1776 from England. We celebrate by dressing up in our national flag’s colors and watching fireworks at the end of the night. However, how does this day represent independence for black Americans when we were still enslaved during this time?
BY SARAH PAUST ’20
Pasta E Basta is a quaint Italian restaurant located on Main Street in downtown Amherst. It has two dining options: you can enjoy a sit-down meal with typical service upstairs, accessible via a windy staircase; or peruse the (downstairs) counter-service if you’re in a rush. I visited on a lazy Sunday evening with my friend, Mary Di Buono ’20, and we decided to sit upstairs in order to take advantage of the more leisurely setting.
BY LILY REAVIS ’21
The other day, I decided to test out the College’s Dining Services website, which lists the nutritional information for each meal served on campus. I’d picked up Indian dal for lunch, and wanted to know what was in it. During my search, I discovered that the nutritional information available online is difficult to find and often false.
BY NAIEKA RAJ ’19
If you have ever come across a vapid, face-palm-worthy, pseudo-inspirational article on Facebook shared by one of your insufferable relatives, then you should know that, as millennials, we are incapable of meeting the exceptional standards set by our predecessors — especially when it comes to maintaining successful relationships.
EILEEN O’GRADY ’18
Last Monday night as I walked the darkened path from Blanchard to Creighton Hall, I decided to count the pieces of litter that I saw on the ground along the way. I assumed that I would see some, but I didn’t ever imagine I would see the amount of litter that I did — plastic spoons, trampled plastic bags, dirty hand wipes, candy wrappers, paper towels, cigarette butts and an entire half-eaten paper bag full of Blanchard popcorn, just sitting on the ground beside the sidewalk.
