BY CHLOE JENSEN ’20
Early on Saturday morning, the GOP passed a new tax bill that would damage the American middle class. Although there are many elements of this law to criticize, like the cuts to Medicaid and the 35 to 20 percent corporate tax decrease, its effect on academia, and specifically, graduate students is particularly aboherrent.
BY JULIA SIENKIEWICZ ’20
“The average American produces 4.4 pounds of trash per day,” I read on a Buzzfeed listicle. So I’ll start carrying reusable shopping bags, and save today’s dinner for tomorrow’s leftovers. I’ll buy a bamboo tooth brush, and cosmetics from companies that love the environment as much as I do.
BY LILY REAVIS ’21
Taylor Swift should have used her newest album, “reputation,” as a platform to address her concerning political views, to prove her 2014 claim of feminist viewpoints and to dispute recent Nazi accusations. Instead, she used the album to continue petty, problematic arguments with celebrities such as Kim Kardashian, Kanye West and Katy Perry.
BY CHLOE HARKINS ’18
While on her recent visit to South Sudan, United States ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley briefly visited with refugees in a United Nations camp. However, the majority of her visit was devoted to multiple meetings with President Salva Kiir, warning that the United States could pull aid from the country if they continued to fail to see improvement. This reflects the fundamental failure of current U.S. – South Sudan relations.
BY CHLOE JENSEN ’20
One of the most pressing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community issues has been whether or not to adopt the word “queer” as an umbrella term. Many LGBT people use this word because it is vague in nature. By definition, the word queer simply means to be deviant or unordinary. As an identity, the word means to identify as anything other than cisgender or heterosexual. While you are free to self-identify as queer, applying the term to the entire LGBT community reinforces it as a slur and inadvertently homogenizes the lives and experiences of the community.
BY ADWOA AWUAH ABOAH ’18
Chad withdrew hundreds of troops in the first weeks of October from Niger, where they were helping local forces fight Boko Haram insurgents, according to The Atlantic. This occurred after Chad was listed in the US travel ban. The loss of troops from one of the region’s most powerful security forces will be a major setback to the region-wide fight against the insurgency.
BY NAIEKA RAJ ’19
November is the time of year when upperclassmen at Mount Holyoke are no longer safe from the crushing pressures of “the real world.” Even as a junior, I’ve begun to feel it. Some of us are too comfortable in a protective bubble of convenient meal swipes and daily routines. Finding the time to submit resumes is challenging enough, but once you start reflecting on the likelihood of getting your dream job, the worries seem endless. While all college students face some version of this struggle, to what extent does Mount Holyoke successfully guide juniors and seniors through this process?
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.
