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(03/14/14 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>On March 11, Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus published “What the Duke porn-star student shows us about our degraded culture.” Marcus attempted to tackle a variety of issues, through the lens of the Duke University undergraduate who was recently discovered by a classmate to be working in the adult film industry to pay for tuition.She criticizes Belle Knox — the girl’s “nom de porn” — for citing female empowerment and freedom from patriarchy as reasons she loves her night job. Knox apparently feels she’s participating in a sexual revolution in which women will, for once, come out on top. No pun intended.Though I disagree with Knox’s premise — porn is notorious for exploiting and misrepresenting women, and that won’t change any time soon — the holes Marcus tries to poke in Knox’s statements for the sake of exposing college “hook-up culture run amok and the demise of shame” originate in the mentality that Knox, however clumsily, is trying to reverse.Marcus points out that Knox was “outed” by a male classmate who recognized her while watching one of her company’s films and “told his frat-boy friends,” a pointedly condescending stereotyping of the male Greek community that isn’t even rooted in fact, according to other articles published about Knox. The pigeonholing doesn’t end there.“It would be naive to expect that they, like thousands of teenage boys, don’t spend some computer time on activities other than studying,” Marcus writes. “Fine. Boys will be boys, and girls too, for that matter.” Apparently Marcus doesn’t actually have a problem with boys consuming porn. Or girls, either. Where she does take issue is the “vulnerability underlying the faux-feminist, hear-me-roar bravado about rejecting slut-shaming.”There are few things more frustrating than members of news media who employ gender stereotypes to attack feminism and argue that our society has eroded to youths recklessly pursuing a superficial, family-values-threatening hook-up. Porn doesn’t seem empowering. It seems fake, misleading, and exploitative of men and women alike. I am encouraged by the fact that sex, an essential part of life, is now easier to talk about. That doesn’t just align with feminism, it promotes human rights as a whole. It is far easier now than 50 or even 20 years ago for someone with a question, an issue, a disorder, a trauma or a disease to find health care, answers and professional support. In fact, someone with any of the above worries or interests could just as easily chat with a friend at the mailbox without requiring the advice of a doctor, therapist or sociologist.Our generation is OK with sex. Some may handle their sexuality in a manner that society as a whole still deems wrong or immoral, and I have no problem affirming that I think porn is the wrong way to pay for college. But if we’re talking feminism, or just self-empowerment in general, I’m thankful that we as a youth culture are creating a world in which something so natural is no longer hidden or feared as corrupt or disgraceful. Marcus cites “the demise of shame” as a travesty, but that should be our goal. The resulting improvement in our nation’s mental health is invaluable, especially when it comes to defending individuality from naysayers like her. sbkissel@indiana.edu
(03/07/14 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>As modern college students, we’re all familiar with standardized testing, likely more familiar than we’d prefer. In high school, the SAT was the name of the game when it came to college. We all complained about it, prepared for it, took it and put the results on our college applications in hopes they would be the ticket to an acceptance letter. But I could never shake the feeling that the multitude of tests I took throughout my junior year weren’t measuring my intelligence or even how much I had learned in high school. According to the College Board, that’s about to change. On Wednesday, College Board President and CEO David Coleman announced the new SAT, designed for release in 2016, is constructed to produce scores that accurately represent the knowledge and skills we develop in primary and secondary school. Coleman cited the disconnect between the SAT’s design and America’s high schools — it seeks to trip up students with deceptive questions and harbor “tricks” to raise scores that reveal weakness rather than assess strength. The shift in focus of the new SAT is in its purpose. Instead of choosing a correct answer, the College Board is interested in the logic students use to justify their answers. A score will reveal how well a student can think critically with precise rationale, rather than how well a student can navigate each question’s illusion. Another troubling aspect of the current SAT, reported recently by the Washington Post, is the correlation between a family’s wealth and the score that family’s student receives. Unsurprisingly, wealthy kids do quite well, while low-income kids do poorly. In my hometown, where the overwhelming majority of graduates attended college, standardized testing was the means by which we were to achieve success. A high SAT score was the key to a good school and a bright future. My hometown was also affluent, and expensive prep courses to achieve that elusive prestigious score were a given. The first time I took the SAT, my score was average. My parents were willing to pay for a lengthy and expensive College Board prep course to teach me how to get a higher score, not by reviewing the material, but by learning the pitfalls and how to evade them.My composite went up 350 points. I didn’t get smarter, I didn’t learn more. I was shown the tricks. The sole reason my score was higher than another student’s is that I could afford the prep course, and that is a discriminatory outrage. For a nation that so highly values a citizen’s ability to achieve regardless of the circumstances into which he or she was born, the new SAT’s realigned priorities are a huge step in the right direction. Exacerbating the advantage of the wealthy over the poor by validating a test on which high scores can literally be bought fundamentally defies the American dream.“If there are no more secrets, it’s very hard to pay for them,” Coleman said. Let’s start measuring high school graduates accurately by the strength of their critical thinking, not by their ability to buy a bag of tricks. sbkissel@indiana.edu
(02/28/14 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Every time I’ve trudged to the Student Recreational Services Center for a workout this week, I’ve been greeted and cheered by signs declaring “Celebrate EveryBODY.” Celebrate EveryBODY Week fights back against a must-achieve-a-beach-body mentality with gigantic posters, encouraging messages scrawled on mirrors, and colorful little reminders to “be-you-tiful” posted on every machine.But that’s just what troubles me. “Be-you-tiful.”As I walked past all the phrases and quotes painted on the mirrors, I couldn’t help but notice that nearly all of them included vocabulary like “beautiful” or “gorgeous.” It’s no secret that those who battle insecurity regarding weight and body image are overwhelmingly women — more than 90 percent — but the almost complete absence of messages geared toward men speaks to a different issue entirely. If we keep negative body image a women’s issue, it will not only exacerbate the problem for women, but limit support and availability of resources for men who battle the same damaging mentality. Of course, the SRSC’s oversight is one in a million examples of gendered self-empowerment campaigns. A quick visit to the WeightWatchers website shows women joyfully swinging in the sunset or running through the waves, exalting in their new bodies. Seventy-five percent of the customers featured on the “success stories” page are women. Their celebrity spokeswomen include Jennifer Hudson, Jessica Simpson and Jenny McCarthy, but there’s not a man in sight. The media spreads two dangerous body-image messages every day. The first is that worrying about one’s weight is for women, and the second is that it’s a totally acceptable part of female culture.The high prevalence and normalization of physical insecurity among women in America needs no reinforcement, considering we celebrated the 10-year anniversary of “Mean Girls” this week.But what about the guys? They comprise only 10 percent of those who struggle with eating disorders, but even 0.1 percent would be a statistic worthy of attention.Despite many shortcomings, our generation will usher in a new era of more open-mindedness and acceptance. We need to make sure that everyone is welcome on that bandwagon. I applaud the SRSC’s campaign to end self-criticism and encourage us all to appraise our reflections with a little more kindness and love. There are not nearly enough organizations today who attempt to promote that message without promoting a product or agenda alongside it. Let’s just remember to truly celebrate every body by removing the gendered stigmas of self-image battles and promoting the kind of fellowship that allows us to love ourselves and each other for who we are. sbkissel@indiana.edu@QueSarahSarah_
(02/21/14 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Facebook is a social-networking monster.Home to more than 1 billion users as of March 2013 — the same population as Africa, the planet’s second-most-inhabited continent — Facebook is an indelible part of our daily lives.It is not alone. Apps like Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat have been titans in the business for years, too.However, it looks as if their era could be coming to an end. In April 2012, Facebook purchased Instagram for a cool $1 billion and, in the words of TechCrunch journalist Josh Constantine, “turned a budding rival into its standalone photo app.” Though the offer was spurned, Facebook also pursued Snapchat for $3 billion in 2013. And the Wall Street Journal recently reported on its website that Facebook and Google are in talks with Twitter regarding a potential deal. The frenzy to acquire startups and protect Facebook’s turf consumed another popular application Wednesday — WhatsApp. With 450 million users, Mark Zuckerberg issued a statement revealing that he would pay at least $16 billion for WhatsApp, a number that raised eyebrows and questions about the overvaluing of Internet companies. Clearly, these high-ticket deals are an indication that one cannot overvalue a form of networking and communication that has revolutionized modern virtual relationships. As a generation that has grown up in a digital world, it is likely most of us cannot imagine life without Facebook, not to mention the major apps it has acquired or sought. Their irreplaceable status is exactly why Facebook’s mission to buy up the market and thus avoid competition scares me so much. It strikes me as exceedingly irresponsible — and more than a little Brave New World-esque — to have a single corporation as the sole owner of the entire online community. The notion that Facebook is slowly buying up the Internet rather than competing in the global market by improving or reinventing itself is a troubling one, particularly because its CEOs have shown no indication that they plan to cease this high-cost, high-reward takeover. Facebook’s enormous popularity has blown through typical corporate milestones and opened up literally limitless possibilities for future expansion, which would undoubtably benefit them but drastically narrow the field of choice for us. It’s hard to know what people can do. Compared to Facebook’s staggering cash on hand, it seems we have very little control over our apps’ slow landslide into Facebook’s grasp. Let us not forget that it was us, the consumers, who bestowed Facebook with such fortune in the first place. With that should come a degree of influence that can be exerted to inform lobbyists, legislators and Facebook high-ups to show we disapprove of their manic manipulation.In a nation where money is considered free speech, I am not condemning Facebook’s success, merely imploring our generation to be vigilant. While checking notifications and sharing photos, don’t forget a status update on the corporate world. Our freedom depends on it. — sbkissel@indiana.eduFollow columnist Sarah Kissel on Twitter @QueSarahSarah_.
(02/14/14 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>One of the first things we associate with America is freedom of speech.Always a blessing but often a curse, the limits of the freedom of speech are tested on a daily basis, from everyday American households to the U.S. Supreme Court. Frequently, legal rulings designed to limit free speech are founded on a common-sense approach to defending decency.The dispute currently raging about a graphic anti-abortion display at Florida Gulf Coast University is no exception. On Feb. 11, the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform, an anti-abortion organization with a reputation for extreme methods, put up a display in the middle of FGCU’s campus featuring shockingly violent and disturbing images and associations. The exhibit, entitled “The Genocide Awareness Project,” included photos of late-term abortions and deceased fetuses. Although those images were turning heads and stomachs, most students took the most offense to the comparison of abortion to the Holocaust or violence toward Native Americans in the 18th and 19th centuries.It’s difficult to select a starting point in mourning the ironically violent, graphic nature of anti-abortion protests, so let’s start with the Holocaust and “Trail of Tears” analogy . The decision to terminate a pregnancy, especially when it threatens the life of the mother or was conceived violently, has absolutely nothing in common with the horrific mass genocide of entire races. Of all the associations manipulated by anti-abortion protestors, invoking historical tragedies to demonize women who have had abortions by comparing them to the perpetrators of heinous crimes against humanity is the most despicable I’ve seen.The Center for Bio-Ethical Reform has a right to enter a public university campus and express its opinions. But, like the Westboro Baptist Church and other groups who employ graphic images and malicious slogans in an attempt to offend passersby into changing their minds, the students of FGCU have every right to tell them “Enough is enough.”It wasn’t long before speaker Judy Minahan’s presentation devolved into a one-sided shouting match with the enraged students, and a petition was circulated to limit the content they could display on campus. I find it incredibly generous that the petition doesn’t call for the CBER’s total removal from campus. They simply ask that the disturbing images be turned inward — toward the main campus green and away from the sidewalks — and that speakers not use microphones. This will allow students a choice — they can walk through the exhibit and approach the presenters if they like, but those who don’t won’t be bombarded by the images and messages on their way to class. I applaud the students of FGCU for taking an active role in controlling what they choose to hear and see without limiting the rights of fear-mongers whose tactics deserve to be nixed. In addition to the rights enumerated in our founding documents, an understood right resides — freedom of decency. FGCU has embodied the beauty of free speech in America by countering vulgar rhetoric with decorum and democracy. May the rest of the nation follow suit. — sbkiseel@indiana.edu
(02/07/14 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The moment I saw Coca-Cola’s Super Bowl commercial, I knew it would ruffle feathers from sea to shining sea.Not only did it feature seven different languages — English, Spanish, Tagalog (spoken in the Philippines), French, Hindi, Hebrew and Keres (spoken by Pueblo Native Americans) — it highlighted multiple religions and a gay couple, presumably with their daughter.Many found such a display of brotherhood offensive and ridiculous, evidenced by a litany of infuriated tweets declaring that “we speak English in America” and that there was nothing beautiful about the message of diversity.Of course, let us not forget that the advertisement was, at its core, a brilliant marketing move. Coke has joined the flocks of companies and organizations who have begun publicly taking sides on national and political issues. When the Indiana State House of Representatives was debating HJR 3, a “proposed amendment that would alter the Indiana Constitution to define marriage as between one man and one woman,” the @FreedomIndiana Twitter account was publishing the names and logos of various Indiana businesses that opposted the ammendment.Namely, the Indianapolis Star, Area 10, Borshoff, and the Indy Bar Association.I was shocked by the number of people in my Facebook and Twitter feed who apparently are, firstly, opposed to compassion and fellowship and, secondly, under the impression that English is our national language.It’s not. Though English is spoken by a strong majority of Americans — 73 percent — the other languages in the commercial are relatively well-represented within the population as well. Spanish is spoken by 35 million Americans, or 11 percent; Tagalog and French are spoken by 1.5 million Americans each; and Hindi, Hebrew and Keres account for the primary languages of about .2 percent of Americans. Only 27 states have declared English as their primary language. Five of those have secondary official languages like Spanish and Hawaiian.Even if all of those statistics weren’t true, resenting Coke for glorifying racial, cultural, linguistic, religious, sexual and socioeconomic diversity is both offensively mean-spirited and blatantly contradictory to the core message of a song so beautifully representative of our nation.The ludicrous reaction by far too many becomes laughable in light of the lesser-known second verse: “O beautiful for pilgrim feet / Whose stern impassioned stress / A thoroughfare of freedom beat / Across the wilderness ... ”“America the Beautiful” is about immigration. Pilgrim feet made America a haven of liberty and justice for all. It’s not that American businesses getting involved in national issues is a recent occurrence.But in our increasingly connected world, seeing companies put themselves and their consumers on the right side of history — even if the true goal is increased sales — is encouraging. It doesn’t matter why Coke ran the ad. They were right. America is beautiful because of its diversity, not in spite of it.Anyone who has a problem with crowning our good with brotherhood needs a far greater paradigm shift than one commercial can provide.— sbkissel@indiana.eduFollow columnist Sarah Kissel on Twitter @QueSarahSarah_.
(01/31/14 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>It’s no secret President Obama is a fantastic speaker. His charismatic performances and dynamic campaign persona were powerful enough to outshine formidable opponents twice.This year’s State of the Union was no exception. Obama strode into the House of Representatives armed with the same winning combination of poise and passion we’ve come to expect, and it worked for him. However, inspiring as his grand claims about equality and opportunity were, many of them sounded all too familiar. Nearly every one of the visions delineated during the State of the Union were campaign promises he has yet to fulfill from 2012, many from 2008.In 2008 and in this year’s State of the Union, Obama vowed to close the facilities at Guantanamo Bay. He made many references to the benefits of immigration and his intentions to enact reform. The rest of the aspirations Obama alluded to were echoed from his 2012 campaign speeches — keep jobs in America, improve infrastructure, invest in a more skilled workforce, end the war in Afghanistan by 2014, eliminate preexisting condition discrimination and invest in clean energy sources, to name a few. It was an undeniably beautiful speech, but the strategy isn’t working.According to a public opinion poll conducted by NBC News and the Wall Street Journal, 68 percent of Americans believe the nation is the same or worse off than when Obama was inaugurated in 2009. Sixty-three percent responded that they believe the country is on the wrong track, and the president’s approval rating is a puny 43 percent. A slim majority of Americans — 51 percent — blame Congress for Obama’s inability to accomplish lasting change. But as he confronts his last three years in office, I discourage Obama from reconciling his dire poll numbers with the knowledge that most Americans don’t blame him directly. Now is hardly the time to point fingers and pass blame to other branches of government.A poll conducted by CNN revealed only 44 percent of respondents had a “very positive” response to the speech, down from 53 percent in 2013. It’s going to take much more than euphonic syntax and compelling imagery to affect change and fulfill the campaign promises from 2008 and 2012. Obama closed the speech with a stirring call for commitment and hope.“But if we work together — if we summon what is best in us, with our feet planted firmly in today but our eyes cast towards tomorrow, I know it’s within our reach,” Obama said. “Believe it.” We’ve stopped believing, Obama. Give us a reason to start again. — sbkissel@indiana.eduFollow columnist Sarah Kissel on Twitter @QueSarahSarah_.
(01/24/14 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>President Barack Obama announced he has shifted his sexual assault-preventative attention from the U.S. military to our college campuses.In the wake of a White House council report that revealed about 22 million women in the United States, or about 20 percent, have been raped in their lifetimes, Obama gave a task force three months to develop a plan of action to both reduce the number of sexual assaults on college campuses and increase awareness about the growing problem. While I applaud the president for seeking a solution, I found it ironic that presumptuous sexism underlined his charge to combat a crime widely viewed as solely a women’s issue: “We can do more to make sure that every young man out there, whether they’re in junior high or high school or college or beyond, understand what’s expected of them and what it means to be a man and to intervene if they see somebody else acting inappropriately,” Obama said. Perhaps before we communicate those expectations to “every young man out there,” it would be helpful for the president to delineate exactly what those expectations are, and what precisely he thinks it means to “be a man.”Rather than fighting an erroneously gendered issue with an erroneously gendered mindset, President Obama needs to task officials with raising awareness about the ramifications of rape throughout all of society, not just among women. A study done by the Center for Disease Control found that one in 21 men, or 4.8 percent, reported that they had been forced to engage in intercourse. This study did not include men in prison. In 2010, Human Rights Watch estimated that at least 140,000 inmates had been raped while incarcerated. Although that statistic includes male, female and transgender prisoners, the perpetrator and victim are almost always the same sex due to the gender-segregated nature of incarceration. The expectation Obama implied — that “every young man” should “intervene if they see somebody else acting inappropriately” — is frankly ridiculous and offensive in its assumption that every assaulter is a young man and it is therefore their duty to prevent assaults.This is a global issue. Sexual violence is one of the most prevalent and least-reported crimes in our society today, and a monster of this magnitude finds both blame and resolution in everyone, not just college boys. This is not a question of “being a man,” but being a human. Rape affects everyone, and by accrediting a massive problem to a small slice of the community, Obama and those who employ similar rhetoric are perpetuating the power-dynamic psychology that leads to most forms of violence and victimization in the first place. I appreciate the president’s intentions, but the ends do not justify the means. Declaring to young men that they are failing to fulfill society’s “expectations” and must “be men” is precisely the wrong way to end violence between genders, among genders and throughout the world.Empowerment is indeed the name of the game, Obama, so empower everyone. — sbkissel@indiana.edu
(01/17/14 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>During a lecture this week, my professor described the many memorials and homages to notable faculty and Hoosiers around IU. Almost every campus building is named for an influential professor, including professors Daniel Kirkwood, Carl Eigenmann and Elisha Ballantine. When my professor reached the end of the list, he quipped, “That was back when they named buildings after professors instead of donors.”Certainly his comment was not made with malice or bitterness, just as an offhand joke. But many Hoosiers have not been shy about trumpeting their disapproval of the use of Cindy Simon Skjodt’s (pronounced “Scott”) astoundingly generous $40 million donation, and frankly, it’s ridiculous.An IU alum herself, Simon Skjot gave the following statement at the Assembly Hall renovation project’s announcement Dec. 19: “It brings me great pride to be able to offer this gift to IU for the next generation — not just for my children, but for future children, too. I strongly believe that if you love this University, you should give back to this University.” Sports authorities throughout Indiana and around the country agree that Assembly Hall is in desperate need of repair, and Simon Skjodt’s unprecedented donation — the largest ever made to the University — is saving Hoosier Nation’s headquarters from total demolition and reconstruction that would leave the Hoosiers without a home court for three or more years. And the title “Assembly Hall” didn’t go anywhere. Eleven letters high on a facade is more than a fair compromise for $40 million and the revitalization our cream and crimson capitol deserves. Personally, I would not have had a problem if Simon Skjodt had in fact wanted to rename Assembly Hall “Simon Skjodt Hall.” In exchange, we get to keep our home court intact for the next few generations of Hoosiers, and when renovations end, it’ll be fortified into a historic landmark to host Hoosier Hysteria for decades to come. Simon Skjodt’s family has an incredibly generous charitable history, both within the state of Indiana and around the country. Through countless philanthropic foundations, initiatives and donations — many to IU — it is high time we recognize them as members of the Bloomington tribe who love Indiana basketball and want to ensure that Assembly Hall is always here for Hoosiers young and old to gather and celebrate our favorite tradition. The perfect home court is the best gift anyone could give a school, a community, a nation that loves basketball the way we do. Say thank you, IU. Go, Hoosiers.— sbkissel@indiana.edu
(12/13/13 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>I love Barnes & Noble.There are few things more comforting than walking through their big double doors and being overwhelmed by the smell of coffee and new books. I even did a large portion of my holiday shopping there.But when the Barnes & Noble book blog shared a list of “25 Days of Modern Mom Must-Reads,” my spirits sank. A quick skim confirmed my fears: the list was weighted heavily with advice books on parenting, grocery shopping and staying calm within the overwhelmingly hectic life of parenthood. Eight of the as-of-yet-shared 11, in fact.In a moment of bitter irony, I noticed two of the books — entitled “Raising Cain” and “Ophelia Speaks” — are based on subverting cultural stereotypes and empowering sons and daughters. Sons by teaching them to reclaim their emotions and sensitivity, daughters by teaching them to deal with struggles “from body image to boys to parents to school.”Though I agree wholeheartedly these are important issues to address when raising kids, nothing complicates the theme of subversion and empowerment quite like the term “modern moms.”In addition to the fact that the phrase “modern moms” sounds like the title of Sarah Palin’s next memoir, Barnes & Noble did not, of course, choose to compose a list of “25 Days of Modern Dad Must-Reads.” Naturally, I assume, because dads are too busy to read with all of the breadwinning they have to do. While the list does seem to include some valuable works, it’s sending contradictory messages that perpetuate sexism of the worst kind: subtle sexism. It’s almost unnoticeable until you realize Barnes & Noble is trying to tell us what they think modern moms should be reading.Our normative-seeking selves see the suggestions of what corporations like Barnes & Noble think we would enjoy, and our subconscious turns that message into a standard, “This is what you should be reading because apparently everyone else is.” Modern moms do care about groceries and kids. They also care about politics, history, sports, religion, art, computers, health and education. Becoming a parent adds colors to your spectrum of interests; it doesn’t reduce you to three boring shades of macaroni, clorox and finger paint. Rather than assuming a woman’s motherhood limits her interests to “all things mom,” make a list of top 25 books for modern women. Women are frequently moms and doctors, lawyers, politicians, artists, astronauts and professors. Instead of advising a modern mom to read books about empowering themselves and their children, how about cutting to the chase by respecting them enough to understand them as an audience more complex than a single label, a single role, a single syllable. The plot twist is this blog was written by a woman.Whitney Collins — author, parent, blogger — tweeted on Oct. 18, 2013: “Two of the more annoying things I can think of are group projects and old men. No wonder more women aren’t in politics.” I’d venture to guess it also has something to do with the fact that women, moms especially, are still afraid of breaking the mold this list of parenting and grocery books so neatly validates. Two of the more annoying things I can think of are discreet, friendly sexism and women who perpetuate it. If you want to do the modern mom a real favor, give her credit, freedom and a reading list as multi-faceted as she. — sbkissel@indiana.eduFollow columnist Sarah Kissel @QueSarahSarah_.
(12/06/13 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>With finals approaching like the four horsemen of the apocalypse, everyone’s running low on time, energy and patience.The flexibility provided by many classes offered at IU also furnishes my opportunity to learn the most important college lesson: how to prioritize. What needs to be done? How much time will it take? How much time do you have? What needs to be cut?Prioritizing for the sake of efficiency and success is a lifelong professional necessity. The superfluous gets axed to free up calendar space for what’s essential in any workplace. We cannot live productive lives without deciding what matters and leaving the rest behind.Imagine my anxiety and frustration when a professor this week began class by reminding us all of the course’s attendance policy: “If you miss a class, you must hand in a written response to the reading when you return. Miss more than four classes, and your grade will suffer!”At the risk of sounding self-centered, ain’t nobody got time for that.While I understand professors may believe their attendance rules are a blessing in disguise for the slackers who’d drop out if someone weren’t making them show, in reality they’re simply a hindrance to students with so much on their plates that something’s gotta give, especially at this time of the year.When I find myself drowning in assignments, there are two classes in which I feel comfortable enough to miss a day if there simply isn’t enough time to complete an task. If I feel like passing up a class will just set me back and create more work, I go. Simple as that.Perhaps I’m disillusioned, but operating this way feels more like managing my time wisely than slacking. Besides, if I want to fail, isn’t that technically my prerogative?By the time we get to college, we should be responsible enough to recognize education’s importance, go to class when we need to go and work when we need to work. This is where we truly begin making those life-defining decisions that make the college experience so essential. Blowing off academics and failing out is a choice. So is making the Dean’s List.The fact of the matter is that classes without attendance policies demonstrate efficiency at its finest.I realize that in the real world, we’ll all eventually have to attend mind-numbing conferences and pointless team-building activities. The expectation that professional life will be without its time-wasters is admittedly unrealistic, but the trick to regaining those lost hours still lies in an astute sense of urgency and the ability to fry big fish first.Each career comes with a set of tasks coupled with an ebb and flow workload that will require a firm understanding of how to effectively finish what matters and skip what doesn’t.As we all stare down term papers, final projects and exams, the freedom to spend each day’s hours where they’re most needed would be invaluable. Start the clock. — sbkissel@indiana.eduFollow columnist Sarah Kissel on Twitter @QueSarahSarah_.
(11/22/13 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Horror is notorious for objectifying women.Every cult classic features a moment of spine-tingling dramatic irony: we all know the bad guy’s in the basement, so why is that dumb girl going down there alone to investigate a weird noise? Scary movies seem to render women powerless — usually the killed, rarely the killer. A brief survey conducted by the Huffington Post revealed that more than 60 percent of first victims in horror films are women. Typically young, beautiful and sexualized, scary-movie chicks are cast as the prey, the kitten targeted by curiosity’s knife. Until, that is, the premiere of “American Horror Story.”Marketed as an “erotic thriller,” with an overwhelmingly female cast, this wildly popular series was on a crash course with gender expectations in horror media from the start.The large volume of female sexuality at the beginning of the first series left me feeling a little tricked and unsettled. All the archetypes were present: the temptress, the virgin, the victim, the mother and even the crazy ex-girlfriend.But upon closer examination, and as the plot unraveled, these mistresses and murderesses were developed into richly layered representations that bore more resemblance to real women than anyone I’d seen on “Pretty Little Liars” or “Gossip Girl.”They experience love, compassion, lust, loss, hatred, envy, empathy, vengeance, victimization, condescension, respect, failure and triumph. They represent the whole spectrum of human nature like pleats on an open fan. All of this feminine commentary reaches a frenzied pitch in Series 3, “Coven,” in which creators Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk explore the time-honored tradition of societal fear toward women with power through — what else? — witches. Set against the backdrop of New Orleans, voodoo and witch hunts, Murphy and Falchuk criticize our fear of fierce females by enforcing the myth rather than debunking it. These women are fierce.The plot twist is that these women are also shamelessly real. They embody the yins and yangs of human nature complicated by classically feminine issues like infertility, virginity, body image and loss of youth. Now, AHS is no “Jennifer’s Body.” Female characters that devour their male victims like wickedly seductive harpies in blood-red lingerie are the opposite of empowerment. These Morticias simply fuel the Maneater stereotype, the Rizzo to the basement-searching Sandy. The female characters aren’’t overwhelmingly weak or overwhelmingly strong. They get attacked, raped, abused, manipulated, tortured and often murdered. But they also pull themselves up by their bootstraps and get the last laugh. Madeline Davies, a feminist blogger frequently published on Jezebel, sang these witches’ praises in a January post: “(The women of AHS) are the kinds of women who, when punched in the face, will spit out a bloody tooth and throw a punch of their own. I’m not watching because I like to see them brutalized. I am watching because I like to see them fight back.” The women of “American Horror Story” have a complicated tale to tell. Some of them are young, some old, some married, some single. Virgins, mothers, seductresses, villains, nurturers and cold-blooded killers. No matter their role, they begin to redeem the horror genre by bearing a striking resemblance to everyday life despite their supernatural backdrop. Sometimes they side with the angels, sometimes with the demons, but always — ironically — with reality. — sbkissel@indiana.eduFollow columnist Sarah Kissel on Twitter @QueSarahSarah_.
(11/15/13 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>We all need ENDA. The Employee Nondiscrimination Act is a piece of legislation that would “prohibit discrimination in hiring and employment on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity by employers with at least 15 employees.” No matter what you think about marriage, sin, condemnation, abominations or whether or not you’ll see Nathan Lane in heaven — you will, don’t worry — I think we can all agree that discrimination is wrong. At least, one would hope.“Liberty and justice for all white, upper-class, straight, educated males” just doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.I can understand the marriage debate. I think the kindest adjective to characterize it would be “misguided,” but I can see why lawmakers long ago in a society much more religious and less compassionate than ours made the erroneous decision to be superficially exclusive.What floors me about the ENDA debate is that it exists in the first place. The notion that there are people — and politicians — in this country who believe it is acceptable to hire or fire employees based on who greets them when they get home after a long day at work is infuriatingly incomprehensible.Translating homophobia from marriage to employment redefines the consequences from psychologically disturbing to economically terrifying. The vicious cycle of social injustice finds its footing in drastic discrepancies between economic statuses, and letting prejudice dictate an individual’s financial security (or lack thereof) is boldfaced cruelty. When the Senate passed ENDA on Nov. 7, 64 to 32, they made a clear statement that government-sanctioned inequity was no longer acceptable. Is justice around the corner? Nope. Why? House Republicans. CNN reported that House opposition was so strong, it was “unlikely” that the bill would become law, and that highlights the second thing that baffles me about resistance to ENDA. The Republican Party is slowly but surely making itself irrelevant. In December 2012, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus commissioned a report that illuminates a major flaw in the GOP game plan: alienation of the fastest-growing groups in the United States, which includes Latinos, African-Americans, Asian-Americans and people under the age of 30. Our generation is poised to usher in a new future for America, one that finally embraces, embodies and exhibits the ideals behind “liberty and justice for all.” Our generation is also fleeing the conservative camps in droves, according to Priebus’ report, and as we go on to raise open-minded children, the Grand Old Patriarchy will soon be left in its 18th-century dust. This is a prime opportunity for the GOP to clamber out of the grave it dug during the 2008 and 2012 elections. Conservative politicians who are either too afraid of losing their constituents to compromise or are still pretending it’s 1865 and are alienating our generation by polarizing themselves to an unrelatable end of the spectrum on social issues.In a refreshing display of good sense, 10 Republicans joined 52 Democrats and two Independents in supporting ENDA in the Senate. If Republicans in the House want to see the party survive, they have to stop polarizing their constituents and rejecting the politically moderate, which describes the majority of voters. End discrimination, end polarization or end the GOP. — sbkissel@indiana.eduFollow columnist Sarah Kissel on Twitter @QueSarahSarah_.
(11/08/13 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>At the close of a religious studies class last week, I talked to my friend about mentioning my youth group discussions so frequently.“I just don’t want people to think I’m in church all the time,” I said.“Yeah,” she said. “I try to keep my Christianity on the down-low because people tend to think you can’t be a person of faith and an academic.”That was one of many situations that have been nagging me for weeks. I dread Saturday-night questions like “Why do you have to leave early?” or “What are you doing tomorrow?” I cringe and say casually, “I have church. But it’s just because I really like to sing in the choir.”The embarrassment and defensiveness that color my tone when I admit to spending a lot of time in church are reflective of two troubling issues: my own insecurity and society’s disdain for the religious. In academia, there’s a subconscious assumption that I cannot grasp the complex truths about life, death, society, the origins of humanity and religions themselves because I’m filtering it all through a thick lens of convictions about what I believe is “true.” That couldn’t be farther from the truth. The belief that science and knowledge are the enemies of religion is senseless. Religion is meant to be questioned, studied, examined from every angle. I have questions about all faiths, and that’s why I pursue them in church and the classroom.“Open-minded Christian” is not an oxymoron. I trivialize the joy church brings me because I don’t want to alienate myself from those who don’t agree with, believe in, support or value religion the way I do. In reality, I’m only perpetuating the problem.I remember telling a high school acquaintance that I enjoyed attending church every week following a particularly heated social debate in Advanced Placement Government. She gaped at me, eyes wide. “But ... you’re so liberal.”Christianity as a whole has become synonymous with blind adherence to doctrine and hypocritical condemnation of anyone not “like us.” So I portray my church involvement as insignificant when I encounter someone I think may feel that way because I resent that association deeply.One of the countless characteristics that drew me to Bloomington was its diversity. The last thing I want to do is put up a wall between me and the new people I meet by declaring membership to an organization that doesn’t exactly have the best reputation for open-mindedness.I love going to church because I find the old-fashioned hymns breathtaking. Poetic words, vivid imagery and beautiful melodies create a truly uplifting experience. I also love going to church because unconditional love and kindness are comforts I find priceless.The spectrum of remarkable individuals I’ve met in church stretches across every single one of those pesky categories: income, theology, race, gender, age, sexual orientation, nationality, marital status, political leaning and favorite ice cream flavor. I love learning, I love church and I think having one foot in each world is the best way to learn. Let’s all just love a little more and judge a little less. To me, that is the solution to every problem under the sun.— sbkissel@indiana.eduFollow columnist Sarah Kissel on Twitter @QueSarahSarah_.
(11/01/13 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The Boy Scouts of America has been on my black list ever since I discovered they were teaching young boys narrow-minded bigotry alongside community service and campfire skills.As the United States crawls its way out of the 15th century and into the 21st, it was very encouraging to see the organization’s leadership rescind their policy towards homosexual members in May 2013. Effective January 2014, “No youth may be denied membership in the Boy Scouts of America on the basis of sexual orientation or preference alone.” However, the trail to equality stretches out long and rocky before the scouts. Openly gay men are still forbidden to become adult leaders on the grounds that “homosexual conduct is inconsistent with the obligations in the Scout Oath and Scout Law to be morally straight and clean in thought, word and deed,” according to a 2008 policy statement. With this history of earth-friendly discrimination in mind, imagine my surprise when I discovered the organization’s new national president is to be Robert Gates, former U.S. Secretary of Defense and CIA director. What I find most encouraging about Gates is his extensive background in gender and sexual equality activism. In February 2010, he lifted the Department of Defense’s ban on women serving on submarines and oversaw abolishment of the infamous Department of Defense Directive 1304, or “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” In March 2010, he approved new legislation that made it much more difficult to discharge servicemen and women for being homosexual. Frankly, I am exhausted at the notion of entering into yet another debate on sexual equality. I’m tired of, heartbroken by and fed up with of all the foundationless hate, so I can only imagine how those who don’t share my rights must feel.No one is born discriminatory. It’s an erroneous manner of thinking introduced in childhood, nourished by fear and denial into adulthood, and passed on to the next generation of youngsters who look to their role models for guidance. The Boy Scouts of America’s decision to appoint a president who will usher in a new era of acceptance means a new population of children will be taught compassion rather than exclusion.At long last, with our generation, the tide of hateful exclusion is beginning to shift, and that’s what I call scouts’ honor.— sbkissel@indiana.eduFollow columnist Sarah Kissel on Twitter @QueSarahSarah_.
(10/25/13 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times: Europe is way better than America.Don’t get me wrong. I love my country, but Europe has been looking down its refined nose at kid-brother USA since Shakespeare was spouting sonnets while the Aztecs were cutting hearts out.It’s no secret that in recent years the United States has been winning all of the wrong global races, from obesity and heart disease to incarceration and teen pregnancy. But several recent tragedies around the nation and close to home have called my attention to another major discrepancy, one that’s easy to fix. Alcohol-related deaths.American culture thrives on sensationalism. We worship our celebrities, adore juicy scandals and are magnetically drawn to anything taboo. As teenagers, sex, drugs and alcohol form an unholy trinity that beckons with the allure of forbidden fruit: against the rules but within our reach.Lowering the national drinking age is a debate that has taken a back seat to others in the past two elections, but a quick glance at the drastic difference in statistics between America and many European countries indicates an issue that desperately needs revisiting.In 2011, the Youth Risk Behavior Survey found that during a given month, 39 percent of teens consumed alcohol, 22 percent binge drank, 8 percent drove after drinking and 24 percent rode with a drunk driver. All of those numbers contribute directly to the annual number of alcohol-related deaths. Unsurprisingly, America takes the cake there, too: 1.6 per 100,000 people every year. In 2010, 10,228 people were killed in alcohol-impaired car accidents — over one-third of all traffic-related deaths in the U.S. In Europe, where most nations have a drinking age of 18 or younger, the alcohol-related death statistics are much lower. About 0.9 per 100,000 people die of alcohol-related incidents in Ireland, 0.3 in Greece and 0.2 in Italy. Recent research published by the World Health Organization found that while 15- and 16-year-old teens in European nations where the drinking age is 18 or lower — and mostly unenforced — drink more frequently, they are dangerously intoxicated far less often than their American counterparts.All of this data throws the United States’ flawed approach to promoting safety into stark relief. Individuals drink at ages 16 and 18 anyway, but because they’re doing so illicitly and relatively informedly, the hype of the act causes more accidents. In Europe, the hype doesn’t exist: young adults can legally drink in their teens, so even though they drink more in aggregate, they injure themselves and others far less.We should normalize alcohol and integrate drinking naturally into everyday culture.By treating alcohol as something to be neither idolized nor abhorred but simply enjoyed in moderation — like the Europeans do — the underage abuse rate would fall, and the alcohol-related death rate would follow.The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimated in 2006 that 17,941 people died in alcohol-related collisions, nearly half of total traffic deaths in the United States. A statistic like that commands our attention. I love America. I love the Fourth of July, I love Thanksgiving and I’ve sung the national anthem at countless home games in high school. But when it comes to protecting young adults from themselves, we’re failing miserably. Denial is not the answer. Information always is. — sbkissel@indiana.eduFollow columnist Sarah Kissel on Twitter @QueSarahSarah_.
(10/14/13 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Sex has claimed our subconscious’ center stage since that universally infamous middle school health class, and that’s exactly where we need to start if we’re going to lift the veil, cure the curiosity and attend to our generation’s sexual health. American teens are having sex. Unsafely, misguidedly, uninformedly. They’re having it young, often and unprotected. They’re spreading disease and generating accidental pregnancies. A quick glance at recent statistics indicates a generation stumbling through its sexual landscape armed with nothing but hormones. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 47.8 percent of American high school students had engaged in sexual intercourse, and 35 percent considered themselves consistently sexually active in 2007.NBC reported data from the Kinsey Institute that revealed the average teen loses his or her virginity at about age 17.To further compound the issue, an estimated one in four sexually active teens contracts a sexually transmitted disease annually.The prevalence of teen intercourse, disease and unplanned pregnancy is especially troubling considering all 50 states have their own versions of sex education. Sorry, let me rephrase that: abstinence education.Only 19 states require sex education must be medically accurate. That means only about four of 10 American teens who entered college this year were required to receive sex education that was actually correct. Only 46 percent of them were taught anything other than abstinence. Those who do receive federally funded sex education receive psychologically troubling and emotionally critical lectures on the danger of sex outside of marriage. Title V of the Social Security Act dictates a school’s program must “teach the social, psychological and health gains to be realized by abstaining from sexual activity; that a monogamous marriage is the expected standard of human sexual activity; that sexual activity outside marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects; that bearing children out-of-wedlock is likely to have harmful consequences for the child, the child’s parents and society.” This kind of diction is foreboding, threatening and focused on moral intimidation via the threat of rejection.And we wonder why teenage pregnancy is two to 10 times more likely in our country than in Europe, Asia and other similarly developed countries. Teens aren’t being scared into abstaining. They’re being scared into having unsafe sex. Young adults who choose to become sexually active aren’t unprepared because of their youth. They’re unprepared because they’ve been taught to fear societal reprimand instead of being educated on how to live healthy, happy sexual lives. In his 1953 book “Sexual Behavior in the Human Female,” Dr. Alfred Kinsey wrote, “There are those who believe that we would do better if we ignored (sexuality’s) existence, that we should not try to understand its material origins, and that if we sufficiently ignore it and mop at the flood of sexual activity with new laws, heavier penalties, more pronouncements and greater intolerances, we may ultimately eliminate the reality.” Teens of America, reclaim your reality.— sbkissel@indiana.eduFollow columnist Sarah Kissel on Twitter @QueSarahSarah_.
(09/30/13 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>I respect good politicians.When I pause to consider what holding public office entails — total lack of privacy, constant criticism, high-stakes decisions and a relatively low salary — I find myself in awe. Ted Cruz is not a good politician. Nor is any politician who filibusters, for that matter.The news media was abuzz this week telling and retelling the story of valiant Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who occupied the Senate floor for more than 21 hours Friday in protest of Obamacare.When he finally finished reading Dr. Seuss, praising White Castle hamburgers, quoting Ashton Kutcher and imitating Darth Vader, the Senate still voted to override his filibuster and send the bill back to the House where, odds are, the Affordable Care Act will receive renewed funding.This boils down to the frustrating fact that Cruz did not, as conservative organizations like to claim, take a stand for his beliefs and demand that members of Congress heed his warnings in some sort of star-spangled martyrdom.He wasted everyone’s time.Washington itself is infamous for wasting time. It’s nothing new that House and Senate members love to grab the floor and run their pretentious self-interested mouths. Where I take issue is this fiscal year comes to an end at midnight, and our government is on the verge of shutdown because no one can negotiate a compromise on the debt ceiling. When we consider that Congress has so little time to decide whether the United States government defaults on our loans or raises the debt ceiling, those 21 hours Cruz wasted quoting Duck Dynasty suddenly become much more valuable.I concede Obamacare is far from perfect, and I sincerely appreciate those public office-holders who spend their time and taxpayers’ money on thoughtful discourse and productive solutions. That is what keeps our country running.What shuts us down, however, is the reckless irresponsibility of media stunts like filibusters, and the pageant so artfully executed by Cruz is no exception. We are currently facing conditions similar to those in the 1990s during the Clinton administration when the government did shut down for 28 days. The economic repercussions of the shutdown were quickly remedied, but the economy was robust. It absorbed the consequences.I can’t remember the last time anyone used a positive adjective to describe our current economic climate, and I can’t imagine anything we need less than a government shutdown. Except, maybe, a self-righteous Texan senator wasting precious hours between now and Tuesday by abandoning national responsibility and trying his hand at stand-up comedy. If you want to be a comedian, Cruz, go be one. But if you want to be a politician, be a good one. Bust the filibuster, and get something done. — sbkissel@indiana.eduFollow columnist Sarah Kissel on Twitter @QueSarahSarah.
(09/16/13 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>When we were high school seniors, we heard it day in and day out. “College is so different! You have much more free time to manage your own way and pursue your own interests.”As I head into my fourth week as a Hoosier, most of what my older friends told me about distinct schedules, bigger blocks of free time and easier time management has been spot-on. That already makes college better than high school, let alone all the other trappings of independence. With two or three classes each day of the week, I find myself with time to finish homework sooner, get more involved in Bloomington culture and start having those experiences that, legend has it, make these four years the best of our lives.But for some reason, schools, specifically public schools in Indiana, wait until college to adopt the block scheduling process. In high school, I was busy 24 hours a day, seven days a week, as many students were. I rarely had time for more than two or three extracurricular activities because the whole day was consumed by school, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., without pause. Those seven hours were also intensely structured.Each period — including lunch time — was designated for a specific task, whether or not that task was efficient for me. In college, we have a couple of hours a day exclusively for class time, but how we spend the other 18-plus hours is entirely up to us. For the first time, I have the opportunity to grab some coffee, hit the gym, take a quick nap or get a head start on my work throughout the day. The time saved with this kind of independent efficiency is priceless and full of opportunity, especially in Bloomington. Music, art, culture, football. A 2002 study by Brown University revealed the positive results of block scheduling in secondary education include students’ increased ability to focus, reduced fragmentation of material, higher rates of teacher collaboration, improved attitudes and comprehension, increase in standardized test scores and improvement in discipline, among many others.It’s no secret that primary and secondary public schools in Indiana are struggling. With the recession came round after round of devastating budget cuts, and one of the most damaging consequences is that our generation is terribly unprepared for the transition to college life: independence, effective study habits and time management.After four short weeks of college life, I can say without hesitation that I would have benefitted tremendously from a block schedule in high school. According to the scientists at Brown, so would every other student in the country.I find it more than a little crazy that the difference between high school and college life is so drastic due to an outdated, monotonous system. With the dawn of the 21st century, it’s been tried and found no longer true. Make some noise, Hoosier fans! Block that schedule.— sbkissel@indiana.eduFollow columnist Sarah Kissel on Twitter @QueSarahSarah_
(08/27/13 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>A friend and I had just finished an episode of American Horror Story when he stood up to leave. One glance out the window at the vacant street below and a knot of apprehension formed in my stomach.“Please don’t walk — please take a cab,” I said. My friend arrived safely, so when the sun rose the next morning I was ribbed for my overprotection. I was willing to concede I acted silly when someone quipped, “He was fine, he’s not a girl.”The knot came back, but this time it was irritation.I feel the freshman class has an inaccurate sense of safety on campus.When a feminist blogger posted on Tumblr her “university teaches ‘How to Avoid Getting Raped’ instead of ‘Don’t Rape’ at freshman orientation,” I counted the IU class of 2017 lucky.The famous “Welcome to College” musical effectively combated a large handful of stereotypes and misconceptions about sexual assault.Nationally, the statistics are grim.The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics reported one in six American women have experienced rape or an attempted rape, and more than a quarter of college-aged women have experienced sexual assault. In Bloomington, we are safer than we’re led to believe. According to the Campus Safety and Security Data Analysis Cutting Tool presented by the U.S. Department of Education, the frequency of sexual assault on IU’s campus has declined in recent years. The number of sexual assaults has shrunk by half, from 21 to 11, since 2009, while occurrences of burglary almost tripled.But do you ever hear of a college girl worrying about having her wallet stolen? Of the freshmen women I’ve talked to, all have either stated or implied they’re significantly more worried about being alone at night than their male counterparts and that there are good reasons to worry. I can blame the media. Gender roles and victim stereotypes are too easily reinforced with provocative characters and crime scenes. With victim-blaming, the media makes rape seem like an inevitable side effect of foolishness.I know I’m not the only woman who has looked out from her dorm window and seen nothing but fear. But why was I so scared?Was it just because I had watched American Horror Story, or because that’s the nature of sexual assault and its resulting stereotypes?— sbkissel@indiana.eduFollow columnist Sarah Kissel on Twitter @QueSarahSarah.