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“It’s on / Again you nod your head and take my hand / Though I’m not sure where we’ll go (amen) / To worship more than what we know (amen) / As long as you’re there I won’t be alone (amen).” These lyrics come from the song “Familiarity” by the Punch Brothers. For me, these words capture the task I believe lies before our extremely discombobulated but extremely competent student body.
“This is good. These girls always think it will help to talk to the press, and every time they come off looking cheap.” This line from “Confirmation,” a docudrama about the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill hearings has stuck with me for days. Uttered by a Republican senator trying to push Clarence Thomas’ nomination to the Supreme Court in the wake of law professor Anita Hill’s accusations that Thomas sexually harassed her, this line emphasizes that it didn’t matter if Hill’s story was true or not; it mattered whether she was a convincing and smart victim of sexual harassment.
This past week, I attended Bernie Sanders’ rally in Philadelphia, marking my first time attending a presidential campaign rally. Reflecting over the past several days, I found myself fiddling with my contradictory feelings. The rally was both thrilling and disappointing. It was both unifying and alienating. It made me both hopeful about the plausibility of change and worried about the long-term consequences of populist politics.
As I waited for my bus to Maine, I readied myself to spend three weeks off the grid by mindlessly scrolling through my Instagram feed. While my eyes floated over selfies and vague acquaintances enjoying themselves on beaches, I remembered an observation made by rock musician and “Portlandia” star Carrie Brownstein. “We’re not quite sure if there is a point in doing anything anymore if it can’t be documented, if no one is there to observe it.” I began calculating the thousands of tiny moments I spend refreshing feeds and checking likes and started to seriously wonder if any of this made me feel good.
On Feb. 11, taxi, limo and Uber Black drivers blocked traffic in Center City to protest UberX and Lyft — the cheaper of the ride-sharing services — claiming that unregulated drivers are undercutting other drivers. It seems that no one is winning in the gig economy. As I encountered the protest, I couldn’t help but feel frustrated.
Writer Ta-Nehisi Coates recently criticized Bernie Sanders’ class-first policies in a piece in The Atlantic. When asked if he supported reparations for slavery, Sanders was hesitant. He cautioned that the pursuit of reparations would prove both politically unfeasible and divisive. Sanders suggested, instead, that efforts to ameliorate the economic effects of racism in America should focus on pursuing policies that emphasize public investment.
This week’s issue of The Nation featured two cover articles: “Why this Socialist Feminist is for Hillary” by Suzanna Danuta Walters and “Why this Socialist Feminist is not Voting for Hillary” by Liza Featherstone. For me, the pieces raised some compelling questions about my priorities as both a feminist woman and a progressive.
Last week, I enjoyed a Thanksgiving meal with my family. Every year, I find myself dissecting what exactly it is I’m supposed to be celebrating on this holiday. I wonder what the exercise of giving thanks is really meant to entail. It is this time of year when I typically breach the damning question, “How much of who I am is the blessing of my unearned circumstances?” It is this time of year when I typically feel excruciatingly indebted to the fortune of my place in the world.
It seems like every Locust Walk encounter with a friend, acquaintance or classmate brings another instance of a Penn student bemoaning their own misfortune for being swamped, under-socialized, under-slept and overworked. Not one comments on the fulfillment brought to them by their various commitments, classes or even friendships. However, I imagine fulfillment is comprised or takes a back seat somewhere along the burnout experienced by many of my peers.
“I think the big problem this country has is being politically correct.”
For many of you, Thursday, Oct. 8 passed unnoticed. However, Philadelphia was the site of the latest casualty of the American alternative newsweekly with the City Paper putting out its very last issue after 34 years of exceptional local journalism. On Oct. 6, the City Paper was sold to Broad Street Media and the City Paper staff was notified of the sale of their paper and their layoffs through a press release. Drinking together in a bar, the City Paper staff began brainstorming ideas for their last issue. Sharing the news with their readers, the staff posted online, “we did our best to do good journalism, to give a voice to the people and stories of Philadelphia that sometimes get overlooked.”
If Pennsylvania House Bill 262 becomes law, employees of adult entertainment establishments will have to pay $50 to register with the state, including a copy of photo ID, personal criminal history, eye color, hair color, stage names, height, weight, personal address and phone number. This database would be accessible by law enforcement. In addition, the bill would ban alcohol and private rooms from strip clubs.
Breast cancer awareness month begins a week from today, initiating thousands of fundraising campaigns to support breast cancer research. Both on and off Penn’s campus, these campaigns capitalize on the sexual appeal of saving breasts. A bar I passed posted a flyer for a “drink to save boobs” event, two years ago a Penn fraternity sold watermelons with the fundraising slogan “melons for melons” and a fraternity at Keene State College wore bras on the outside of their shirts, which they asked donors to stuff money into.
The School District of Philadelphia is in crisis. In the summer of 2011, Pennsylvania legislature cuts to the statewide education budget led to a $629 million budget shortfall in Philadelphia. In an effort to navigate this budget crisis, the School District of Philadelphia closed 31 schools over the course of two years and eliminated 5,000 staff positions, including laying off nearly 2,000 teachers. Since this devastating move, classrooms have been overcrowded and two young schoolchildren have died during the school day when no nurse was on duty.
Cheryl Strayed’s book “Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail” has sold over 1 million copies, held a place as number one on the New York Times Best Seller List for seven consecutive weeks and was recently adapted as a film starring Reese Witherspoon. Of course, no best-selling story of self-empowerment would be complete without a spot on Oprah’s Book Club reading list. Strayed’s book has inspired many to lace up their hiking boots and go on a trek of self-discovery on the Pacific Crest Trail.
When I read that Kate Bolick’s book “Spinster: Making a Life of One’s Own” was akin to Betty Friedan’s “Feminine Mystique” in its transformational and generation-defining significance, I immediately picked up a copy. Unfortunately, I was immediately disappointed. Here was a gorgeous white woman living in a Brooklyn apartment with 11-foot ceilings outfitted by an interior designer. She found herself in partnerships with clever men more often than not, and had just secured a six-figure book deal. It felt insincere. She was rising to minor TV personality fame and cashing in by calling herself a spinster: a woman intentionally choosing to live by herself in rejection of marriage.
This past week, I attended an event at the Free Library of Philadelphia hosted by the editors of n+1, a small New York-based literary and social criticism magazine. At the event, one of the editors, in a jab at a recent piece published about the magazine, pointed to the political datedness of its author and the irony of his belonging to an Althusserian tradition. A woman approached the editor at the end of the event and commented, “Mentioning Althusser to a public audience at the Free Library creates a troubling knowledge barrier.” The editor responded with, “Well, how many blue collar people do you know?”
This past week, an advisory panel of the Food and Drug Administration recommended approval for flibanserin, a drug that would treat low sexual desire in women. Chairwoman Susan Scanlan of Even the Score, a coalition of women’s organizations lobbying for the drug’s approval, celebrated the recommendation. “Today, we write a new chapter in the fight for equity in sexual health,” she declared. The push for flibanserin and its treatment of hypoactive sexual dysfunction disorder in women not only makes a mockery of the drug approval process. It marks a dangerous emboldening of the trend towards medicalizing women’s sexuality and a step away from women’s equality in the bedroom.
The first winners of Amy Gutmann’s President’s Engagement Prize that awards its recipients with $100,000 to fund a “promising engagement project” at the local, national or global level the year after graduation were announced in March.