Harry Styles’ Brand of Gender Nonconformity Is Not the Paradigm

By Nina Larbi ’22

Op-Ed Editor

Released on Nov. 24, Vogue’s December 2020 issue has sparked controversy, as the cover features British singer Harry Styles wearing a Gucci dress. Conservative commentators like Candace Owens and Ben Shapiro have voiced their disapproval of Styles’ appearance, claiming that wearing a dress is an outright attack on masculinity. Various people have come to Styles’ defense, asserting that gender roles are restrictive and clothing is genderless. 

As important as it is to have these conversations, I feel as though this happens every six months. Harry Styles will wear one skirt in a photoshoot or paint his nails, and media outlets and social media platforms will shoot out article after article and post after post on how he is either a traitor to masculinity or how he is the vanguard of breaking gender norms — all for one measly skirt. Whether you fall into one of those two camps — or neither — Styles has been chosen as the face of “gender-neutral fashion,” as affirmed by Priya Elan in The Guardian. Though he is a major public figure who dresses in a manner that challenges traditional Western masculinity, centering him as the sole forerunner of gender neutrality in fashion is dismissive of the various people of color that are doing the same. 

To answer Shapiro and Owens’ rhetorical questions on the fate of Western masculinity, men have been wearing skirts since antiquity. The link between pants and masculinity may be due to the necessity of divided legs for riding, but the strong association of the two was cemented during the 19th century in the West. Traditional masculinity hasn’t been traditional for very long. Moreover, there has been a myriad of people who have challenged conventional masculinity since, like Prince and David Bowie.

The fashion world itself specifically owes much to LGBTQ+ artists of color. In the 1990 documentary “Paris is Burning,” director Jennie Livingston recorded the 1980s New York City ballroom culture and the involvement of Black and Latinx LGBTQ+ people in the scene. “Paris is Burning” provided insight into a community that was disparaged for its race, gender, sexuality and class, and has been recognized as culturally significant by the Library of Congress. The documentary’s depiction of ballroom culture heavily inspired the popular television show “Pose,” which has been met with critical acclaim. Ballroom culture and the window “Paris is Burning” provided for mainstream audiences has roused people. The fashion industry is no exception. 

Though clothes are highly gendered modes of expression, fashion has always pushed the envelope regarding gender nonconformity. The Met Gala is certainly a place where gender norms can be challenged, as it is meant to be a spectacle put on by celebrities and designers for the fashion critique of the masses. 

The 2019 Met Gala pushed a bit more with the theme “camp.” Anna Wintour, editor-in-chief of Vogue magazine, picked the theme herself, along with the curator of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, Andrew Bolton. Celebrities showed up in a variety of colorful and over-the-top costumes. But, as Lena Waithe put it, “Black drag queens invented camp.” She continued, “Pepper LaBeija, Benny Ninja, RuPaul, all these pioneers. … I really wanted to pay tribute to them and all that they did for the culture. … They started this whole ‘camp’ thing by being over-the-top.” Despite this long historical precedent, camp was still considered groundbreaking in 2019, as well as Styles’ dress a year later.  

Styles’ Gucci dress certainly got more attention than is warranted in 2020, even if he is the first solo man on a Vogue cover. The Vogue issue praised him as “revolutionary” when he and many others have worn skirts and dresses before. 

Why is it that when Styles does it, he’s radical? Various artists of color similarly challenge gender norms but are met with heavy criticism and little praise. To be clear, Styles isn’t intentionally profiting off of femininity to give his work more intrigue. In an interview with The Guardian, he answered such claims: “Am I sprinkling in nuggets of sexual ambiguity to try and be more interesting? No.” He then went on to say, “I want things to look a certain way. Not because it makes me look gay, or it makes me look straight, or it makes me look bisexual, but because I think it looks cool.” 

Though he is not deliberately wearing dresses to market himself as LGBTQ+ adjacent, Styles’ brand of gender nonconformity is the most easily accepted by people because he is a white cisgender man. Many artists of color, LGBTQ+ or not, are told that they are “doing too much” when they adopt gender neutrality and subcultures like ballroom as part of their image. Prince, Jaden Smith, Janet Jackson, Janelle Monae, Young Thug and Lil Nas X have all been branded over-the-top as if they are challenging gender roles too much for their image choices. Still, Styles’ ruffled dress somehow seems to be the perfectly palatable type of nonconformity. Young Thug wore a similar pale blue ruffled dress on his “JEFFERY” mixtape cover, but it didn’t create nearly as much buzz as Styles’ Gucci number. 

I am happy to see that people are growing increasingly supportive of Styles’ manner of dress, but I also want to see other artists, the ones I mentioned earlier, receive that same praise. Rather than having a narrow type of “acceptable” gender nonconformity, we should seek to expand and include artists of color and their nonconforming presentation. We need to recognize the impact that people of color have had on fashion and, rather than appropriate, give credit where credit is due.

College Ranking Systems Undermine Historically Women’s Colleges

By Jahnavi Pradeep ’23

Staff Writer

By May 5, 2019, I finalized my decision to enroll at Mount Holyoke College, a gender-diverse liberal arts college in western Massachusetts. When my friends and relatives asked me where I would be starting school, a lengthy response would inevitably find its way out of my mouth. There was a need to clarify where and what this little-known college was. Eyebrows raised, people questioned why I chose what they might call an “all women’s” or “girl’s” college. Why an unheard-of liberal arts college? The raised eyebrows were common and still are. This negligence toward historically women's colleges by both the general public and college rankings reflects the increasing need for more of such institutions. 

I've seen this negligence reflected in people I know, both in the United States and back home in India. When I stayed with my cousin in Boston during the break before arriving at college, neither he nor his friends had ever heard of Mount Holyoke. They didn't know of the Seven Sisters either. I've often been questioned on the ranking of my college. The college rankings on different websites such as U.S. News reflect what appears to be only partial knowledge of these colleges. The lower ranking of Mount Holyoke amid the broader college culture has often left me confused. Currently, Mount Holyoke is ranked 34 in the list of national liberal arts colleges created by U.S. News.  

This has often led me to think that the rankings of HWCs in the broader college culture, including public perception, were determined by the fact that they were aimed at offering women and, later, transgender and nonbinary folks, an education. Did the fact that no cisgender men were walking around their campuses make them somehow less appealing to the masses? If this is the case, it turns away from the realities of inequality that still exist for women, trans and nonbinary individuals and the importance of empowering them and providing them with an education in a safe space. 

The Seven Sister colleges, for example, were established in the 19th century to provide women with educational opportunities equal to the then male-only Ivy Leagues. These colleges have continued to offer their students a sense of empowerment, drive and community outside the pressures of a hierarchy determined by cisgender men. For instance, Bryn Mawr College President Kimberly Cassidy, in a U.S. News article on gender gaps in STEM, charts how gender stereotypes have led to an “unequal distribution of mentors and lab opportunities.” HWCs can offer their students opportunities outside these disparities and develop a “built-in sense of belonging, with plentiful female role models and female-majority workgroups,” Cassidy said. 

Even today, there is still a very prevalent hierarchy that seats the cisgender man at the top. There remains a need for safe spaces of education and empowerment for people of different gender identities. 

Isshita Fauzdar ’23 emphasized that there is still a strong need for HWCs today and their exclusion from rankings is unfair given their rich histories. “If the earliest women's colleges weren't founded in the mid-19th century, then we might not even have had the opportunity to attend any higher academic institution[s] today,” Fauzdar said. With this in mind, she encouraged more people to attend and recognize institutions that have “a solitary purpose of empowering students with a rigorous education that might not have been accessible to all otherwise.”

The incessant questioning of or indifference to the need for HWCs sidelines their intent and the fact that they offer educations as meaningful as the colleges cisgender men attend. When people keep asking, “Why a women’s college?” — if they are even aware of their existence — it proves that they do not understand the need for such spaces in our society. This reflects the prevalent and embedded hierarchy in our society. No, patriarchy is not gone, and yes, we still need colleges that are affirming and safe spaces. I have chosen to attend Mount Holyoke as a conscious choice, not because I had to settle for it. A gender-diverse women’s college has given me an empowering, quality education filled with rich traditions experienced alongside a bold and driven community. These colleges deserve more recognition and need to increase in number so that we can create  a society in which gender inequalities are recognized and combatted.

‘the Crown’ Reflects Larger Issue of Conservative Misrepresentation

By Kaveri Pillai ’23

Staff Writer

Binge-watching media content has become a household norm during the lockdown, and with the much-needed time off for Thanksgiving break, many people got the opportunity to watch the latest season of the Netflix series “The Crown.” Season Four, the last season for the Olivia Coleman-headed cast, welcomes two iconic women of the ’70s: Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Lady Diana Spencer. Needless to say, I had prepared myself for a week of endless drama and shocking revelations about the British royal family. However, after days of watching “The Crown,” one thing stood out. While the mistreatment of Lady Diana as a member of the royal family has been widely publicized for decades now, the negative representation of Thatcher and the failure of her tenure is stressed in the course of the 10-episode season. This rather skewed representation of the first female prime minister of the United Kingdom reveals a dark truth about the media: Conservative politics are hardly ever tolerated in TV shows and movies. Even if right-wing politics are showcased in this form of media, it is done poorly and in a way that undermines the entire conservative ideology. 

 The lack of representation of conservative politics is harmful to the public. Because people rely on works of fiction for the truth about our reality, shows like “The Crown” have a moral responsibility to represent the truth. The creator of the show, Peter Morgan, has never denied taking artistic license when it comes to portraying the world’s most famous royal family while simultaneously emphasizing his devotion toward getting some of the facts right. Nevertheless, getting Lady Diana’s iconic wedding dress and Queen Elizabeth II’s corgis right cannot compensate for bending the historical and political truth Morgan is responsible for portraying.

For many of the viewers, my grandparents included, the 1970s and 80s are decades that they vividly remember. The Falkland War in 1982 and the Right to Buy Housing Act of 1980 are etched into the minds of the people who lived in the U.K. at that time. The fifth episode of season four is completely devoted to the impact of Thatcher’s policies and the massive increase in unemployment, something that seems unusual for a drama like “The Crown.” 

After years of showcasing the intricacies of the royal family structure, “The Crown” detoured while sensationalizing Thatcher’s reign. The episode narrates the true story of a Buckingham Palace intruder Michael Fagan who wishes to speak to the queen in order to voice his concerns about the deteriorating country under Thatcher’s rule. While this incident did occur, the representation of the bureaucracy and the government’s inefficiency was selectively portrayed to undermine the work Thatcher did for the U.K. The Right to Buy Act successfully allowed tenants to buy the council houses at a large discount, increasing the national homeownership rate by 15 percent, yet the scenes in the show focused solely on citizens of lower incomes living in dilapidated council houses. A noble endeavor is undermined when Thatcher’s name is dragged through the mud. 

In November, Vulture noted that Gillian Anderson’s portrayal of Thatcher in the show reflected the animosity toward the prime minister’s conservatism as well. The over-the-top accent work went beyond mimicry or character impersonation — it presented a caricature of Thatcher to a 21st-century audience that showed the Iron Lady as rude, uptight and hated by many. 

 Political analysts have countlessly voiced criticism regarding Thatcher’s administration, which is understandable when one analyzes the populism that surrounded her campaign. However, movies like “Vice,” which portrayed Christian Bale and Sam Rockwell as Vice President Dick Cheney and President George W. Bush, respectively, echo the same liberal bias the film industry consciously perpetuates. By glamorizing Cheney and Bush’s row with alcoholism and their post-9/11 conflict with the Middle East out of proportion, the film’s creators dangerously create an image for the public that conservative politics is a nasty business. 

 The biased reporting of politics threatens the integrity of fictional representation and media commitment to showing the truth. This liberal-minded interpretation of politics has unfortunately seeped into news outlets as well, with a Gallup poll finding that 66 percent of Americans think the news does a bad job of separating factual reporting from opinion. Various news outlets, like The Washington Post, discuss Obama’s presidency as if his worst controversy was a tan suit, rather than the impact of some of his detrimental programs like Operation Fast and Furious, which allowed for a dangerous amount of firearms sales. Headlines like these highlight the media’s favoritism when it comes to liberals. 

 Thatcher is just one political leader who has been reduced to an ineffective and ruthless woman by the film industry, showcasing that the improper portrayal of conservative political leaders across many media forms is a larger issue. With this misguided motive to homogenize politics and to make every issue a partisan issue, we are being anything but democratic and undermining the achievements of leaders like President Abraham Lincoln and President Ronald Reagan who helped the country as conservative leaders. 

The last two seasons of “The Crown” can only depict the fresher political wounds the U.K. has had to bear, and the public anticipates the portrayal of national issues like the London bombing attacks and Brexit. One can only hope that truth prevails and conservatism is given a second chance. 

Mispronunciation of Names Harms an Individual's Sense of Individuality

Graphic by Anjali Rao-Herel ‘22

By Kaveri Pillai ’23

Staff Writer

With over 7 billion people engaging with approximately 7,000 languages, the world we live in is becoming more diverse. Differences in faith, religion and socioeconomic status create a sense of organic solidarity in which every individual on Earth has a unique role to play. The duty to unite and establish harmony in this pool of heterogeneity comes with an enormous amount of responsibility.

             It is inevitable that, with so much variety, one starts to question their authentic self. Genetic composition, family and names — these three elements help determine one’s personal history and co-constitute one another. The name-giving process has deep roots in culture and self-identity. Unfortunately, with the rise of globalization and this incessant need to create uniformity, we are losing the authenticity of names, especially the proper ways to pronounce them. 

With a myriad of ethnicities worldwide, it is understandable that one cannot attain knowledge of every group and every culture. However, this cannot be used to justify the sheer ignorance that is present while attempting to understand the importance of names. The Namkaran ceremony in Hindu rituals is a symbol of the celebration of birth with the name-giving tradition. Astrological charts are aligned to produce a name so prosperous that it is a gift from God to the child who is about to take their first steps into the world. So when Republican Senator David Perdue intentionally mispronounced Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’ name, he didn’t just manage to show to the world how deeply immersed he is in his Anglicized racism — he robbed Harris of her identity. 

By adding the culturally deteriorating phrase, “I don’t know. Whatever,” to get a few cheap laughs from the political rally, Perdue diminished the value of a Namkaran ceremony in which the name given to the child represents the auspicious nature of their arrival and how prosperous their journey and identity will be. 

This particular example from last month echoes the historical Western ideal of accepted names, which we still follow today. What might have started with the wave of colonization and the degradation of people as slaves has slowly transitioned into the 21st century McDonaldization realm in which Starbucks will invariably print “Karen” on my coffee cup. It’s not just the pure laziness of refusing to improve or be receptive that bothers thousands of people, but that this belief of “usual” and “unusual” names is so deeply-rooted in a majority of people that raises concerns. 

Colonization marked the plundering of resources, manpower and even native identity. Pre Emancipation, enslaved Africans were given names by slave owners in the United States that were supposedly easier to pronounce and identified them as slaves. Indian workers pre-independence were given first names recorded in public records to reaffirm their status as people who didn’t even have the right to keep their own names. This transition from mispronouncing given names to completely obliterating them has repercussions in today’s world, too. 

Xiaohui Xu ’24 said, “As a Chinese [person], there is a reason why I use an English name instead of my given Chinese name. I know it’s hard for English speakers to pronounce the Chinese name right since the ‘x’ phonetic doesn’t exist in the English language. For the sake of convenience, I’ve decided that for the school[’s] purposes, I will use ‘Amanda,’ which is my English name.” 

Moreover, not putting effort into accurately pronouncing names is not a problem solely faced on an international level. Saee Chitale ’22 said, “All my life, I’ve struggled with people back at home pronouncing my name improperly. Every time a person has read out a list of people and have paused, it has invariably been my name that has created this confusion.” Sadly, the issue of mispronunciation reinforces the Western idea of “normal” names as the uniform setting that all ethnic groups refer to, regardless of where you are from. 

Often, children of nursery school age in countries like India use names like “Sam” and “Molly” while writing about villagers in their country. While this might seem to be a result of immaturity or even innocence, it is important to acknowledge that this idea of “accepted” names creeps into children’s thinking from an early age. This standard diminishes the stories and even the existence of people who simply don’t operate in the restricted Western world. 

Mount Holyoke College’s implementation of name recordings on Moodle, our primary academic platform, helps tackle the problem of name pronunciation. It allows professors and students the opportunity to respect others by addressing them accurately. While this might be a small step toward shattering the power dynamic that dictates what is or is not accepted, the world needs to become more aware of cultures that go beyond their narrow circle of traditions to fulfill that responsibility of creating harmony. 

Due to Environmental and Ethical Concerns, Firecrackers Should No Longer Be Used for Diwali Celebrations

By Jahnavi Pradeep ’23 

Staff Writer

 As November comes around annually, I prepare myself for a time of celebration and festivity. In the time of this pandemic, Diwali is a light of hope, an opportunity to get out of the drudgery of online classes and celebrate. However, as I partake in this celebration, there is a lingering thought in the corner of my mind asking me if I am celebrating with awareness. As the holiday season engulfs us, we must rethink the ways in which we celebrate and ensure that we are doing so with a sense of sustainability and responsibility to health and the environment. 

Traditionally, Diwali is celebrated by lighting “diyas” or oil lamps. However, since around the 1940s, the rampant usage of fireworks to mark the occasion has made its way into the festival. 

While growing up, my grandfather would buy sacks of fireworks, called firecrackers or just "crackers" in India, for all of us to celebrate, and Diwali would be filled with the noise and smoke of firecrackers burning all over the city. However, today, caught amid the climate change crisis, we must pause to reconsider these crackers’ place in Diwali celebrations. Crackers are pollutants, harmful to both our health and the environment, and to purchase them is to bolster an industry of fireworks factories that employ child labor. 

Diwali fireworks have led to a 30-40 percent increase in recorded breathing problems. The fireworks’ chemicals contain “a mixture of sulfur-coal compounds, traces of heavy metals, and other toxic chemicals or gases.” All of these lead to breathing problems, and bursting the crackers in such a rampant manner puts many people, especially the elderly and vulnerable, at risk. 

Additionally, amid a pandemic, we must realize how bursting crackers demonstrates our privilege and negligence toward those who are more at risk for health issues. Along with harmful smoke, the crackers also produce noise pollution, detrimental to both people and animals. This pollution leads to a sense of anxiety, sleep disturbance and, according to The Indian Express, “asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, allergic rhinitis, lower respiratory tract infections, and lung cancers.” 

In light of the pandemic, some state governments in India passed a ban on the usage of crackers for Diwali. However, while the government called for the ban, it was not entirely carried out. According to The Hindu, “bursting of firecrackers could be heard across Delhi and its neighbouring areas on Diwali night even though a ban was imposed on its sale and use in the national capital region in view of rising air pollution and COVID-19 pandemic.” Hindu groups, including many Bharatiya Janata Party members, argued that the bursting of firecrackers was an essential part of the festival and should not be banned. 

However, caught in the middle of a pandemic and facing global warming, we must rethink how we can do justice to both festivities as well as environmental consciousness. We must work to celebrate festivals like Diwali with these dangers in mind. Given that fireworks are only a recent addition, perhaps we can return to lighting diyas as the main attraction. We can draw rangolis, make sweets and, in a safe manner, come together with friends and family, preserving the essence of the festival. After all, Diwali is the celebration of good over evil, and we must not forget that even in the excitement of the celebration. 

Additionally, while evaluating if the Diwali celebration is staying true to its intent, we must be aware of the horrors of the firecracker industry bolstered on this day. The firecracker industry in India carries a history of child labor. Young children were used for rolling fireworks and stuffing explosives into them because they had tiny hands and fingers that would ensure precision. Working in unsafe conditions, the children’s jobs expose them to harsh chemicals, injuries and lifelong health issues. While there has been a decline in child labor in the industry, we cannot neglect its presence and history. When we burst these crackers in celebration, we are also bolstering these young children’s trauma and suffering. This act of celebration is definitely not in line with the intent to celebrate Diwali and honor the triumph of good over evil. 

Right now, we have  an opportunity to reevaluate the ways we celebrate Diwali and other festivals, keeping in mind an awareness of the times we are in and the changes that we and the environment are going through. It is an opportunity for us to review some of our practices while staying true to the festivals and their intent. 

Ethical and Sustainable Consumption Will Not Solve Climate Change

Graphic by Anjali Rao-Herel ‘22

By Nina Larbi ’22

Op-Ed Editor

Climate change is the slow apocalypse already underway. The planet has warmed 1 degree Celsius compared to pre-industrial times, according to the International Panel on Climate Change, threatening mass extinctions and natural disasters like wildfires and floods. Awareness of the dire situation of the planet has led to increasing environmental consciousness in highly developed countries with a history of mass consumption like the United States. People are sitting down and asking themselves, “How can I reduce my carbon footprint?” beyond just turning the lights and water faucet off when they are not in use. 

In response to the pursuit of a smaller carbon footprint, various “ethical and sustainable” brands have established themselves, making their way to consumers via social media advertisements and targeted articles on lifestyle websites. Despite the clear benefit ethical and sustainable products provide, we cannot buy our way out of a global environmental crisis. Climate change requires both top-down and bottom-up levels of change, and not just with consumer products. 

Overconsumption is directly leading us to impending environmental collapse, whether it be fossil fuels releasing greenhouse gases that warm the planet or consumer goods with externalities. Cheap goods, like $15 t-shirts, exchange a low price tag for poor working conditions and pollution at various points along the supply chain. In this way, both the environment and workers are paying the price for cheap goods. 

In over-consuming countries like the U.S., consumption is built into people’s lifestyles. Gasoline-powered cars, smartphones, toilets that flush down a stupidly large amount of water and the ubiquity of rarely recycled plastic packaging are parts of our lives. This consumption can be reduced by using hybrid or electric cars and energy-efficient light bulbs and buying a toilet that has varying flushing settings. But these modifications are either nominal in their impact or absurdly expensive for most people. 

Regarding lifestyle goods, consumers do have more choice and can pick a sustainable option that is neither incrementalist nor inordinately expensive. Clothes and shoes are the easiest to swap out for sustainable alternatives because they don’t require in-depth research, installation or maintenance, unlike other products. Thus, a crop of “ethical” and “sustainable” brands like Everlane, Ecoalf and Veja have gained popularity, each promising a guilt-free product that neither harms workers nor excessively pollutes the environment. 

Despite the attractiveness of such products, companies are still companies, and they want to sell people products. Greenwashing is a deceptive marketing tactic that makes products seem more environmentally friendly than they are; for example, using the color green on packaging and advertising that a product has “natural” qualities despite there being no clear definition of the word. Blue-washing is the formation and heavy advertisement of an agreement to comply with the United Nations Global Compact, a non-binding corporate commitment to sustainability. 

Brands will also proclaim their mission to work on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals without any evidence of doing so. There are ways to check companies’ sustainability commitments, but all require synthesizing publicly available data and statements, which are often sparse or nonexistent regarding labor standards and pollution. Popular ethical and sustainable brand Everlane’s data was synthesized by the Australian application Good on You, and they found no evidence that Everlane pays a living wage in its supply chain or makes conscious efforts to reduce textile and water waste.

Ultimately, green consumption is a business-as-usual model with a leaf on it. Even if companies aren’t lying about their commitments to sustainability, feigned sustainability pressures individuals to bear the burden of global environmental destruction through the singular freedom of consumer choice rather than holding large corporations and governments responsible for causing and allowing climate catastrophe. Cultural awareness of sustainability is beneficial, but it does little to remove the problem at its root, which is lax and avoidable environmental and economic policy that permits corporations to completely wring the Earth dry of its resources and mistreat workers. 

Laws Protecting Indigenous Sovereignty Are Toothless

By Kaveri Pillai ’23

Staff Writer

Nobody is above the law. 

This idea, shared by many democratic countries, creates credibility that the legislative arm of the government embodies. In democracies with growing populations like India and the U.S., it is the codified law that holds sanctity together. When someone is involved in breaking the law, they are rightfully persecuted. Yet there are certain social groups, specifically Indigenous peoples, that miss out on these fundamental rights. 

Indigenous groups worldwide do not benefit from the promise of justice. A new wave of activism seems to have engulfed the larger public when it comes to awareness and campaigning for Indigenous rights. The divide that was created between the people of today and the people who simply do not fit in, often seen as the “other,” is commonly traced back to the colonizers and their vicious journey of pillage and plunder. 18th century India might have fought against the British before our tryst with destiny, but the “divide and rule” policy that they implemented is something the government has to deal with today. 

 The 1979 Mandal Commission signed by the then-Prime Minister of India Morarji Desai was one of the few steps taken to formally identify the “socially or educationally backward” classes. Initially what might have been seen as a monumental constitutional right for scheduled castes and scheduled tribes in the Indian subcontinent,  — the protests regarding reservation of seats in universities and civil service job posts are — is what made this social movement for Indian Indigenous groups a rather turbulent one. 

This first step toward justice laid the foundation for various Indian activists who challenge the myopic legislation and the unfair execution of the same. However, this wave of activism gets diminished when confronted by the oppressive national government. Since 2018, 16 activists who have been lobbying for Adivasis, the native tribes, have been arrested under the pretense of belonging to the radical left Naxal group. The recent arrest of a Jesuit priest, Father Stan Swamy, further ignites the flame of intolerance that has been fueled by the right-wing government. 

Swamy, who has been a beacon of hope for the tribal community in the state of Jharkhand, has spent 30 years of life-fighting for the Fifth Schedule of the Indian Constitution, which is supposed to grant free land and autonomy to the Indigenous groups of India. A believer in leveling out the scales and bringing peace to the ostracized, Swamy has also tried to advocate for native land for the creation of small and big industries. 

Coloring a Christian priest’s act of service and goodness as a threat to the purity of Hinduism is just the first tactic used by the not-so-secular ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. By labeling Swam a “Maoist,” the government has successfully shown the country and the world that India will never truly welcome Indigenous peoples as Indians. The irony that the ones who were colonized are now playing the role of the colonizer is something that unfortunately goes beyond national borders.

The United States has established its global hegemonic status as the leader of the free world despite denying its own citizens freedoms for political reasons. The tales of the first few American presidents and the botched-up narrative of history reify this long-standing animosity white Anglo-Saxon Protestants have regarding Indigenous peoples. This connection between native identity and native land echoes the need for tribal sovereignty, self-governance and legitimate autonomous rule that was earlier promised by the United States Supreme Court in the McGrit v. Oklahoma case in July. 

However, like all power-hungry government bodies, the Trump administration gave the Environmental Protection Agency full access to the once-promised independent Muscogee Creek region of Oklahoma in October. Under nefarious acts like the Toxic Substances Control Act, which can, in a stupendous change of events, overrule a Supreme Court hearing, hazardous waste and toxic air pollutants can be discarded into this preserved land. What the government fails to realize is that this genocidal move does not only threaten the natives’ access to clean water or even a sense of personal land, but also normalizes the fact that Indigenous land has no meaning to a 21st-century society, and the people inhabiting this land are seen as anything but human. 

The separate colonial contexts of both India and the United States include different yet similar problems ranging from slavery to economic suppression. However, what seems to be a constant is the ill-treatment toward Indigenous groups and the legislation that is passed by these “democratic” countries, which creates a divide between national citizens and native peoples. 

The world we now live in revolves around money and political gain. In this fight to achieve absolute power, the Indigenous population has been conveniently left out. This stifling nature of governmental bodies will soon enough crush the spirit that drives such groups and will reduce ethnic history to forgotten anecdotes that will be dominated by the spoils of oppressive modern states.

Celebrities Should Be Checked for Their Hypocritical Activism

By Jahnavi Pradeep ’23

Staff Writer

Today, we live in a largely online society with most of our communications nurtured by the blue glares of our smartphone and tablet screens. In this ecosystem, the internet has influenced the way we interact with various forms of activism. A blue profile picture for Sudan, a red #StandwithKashmir Instagram story and a recent surge of black boxes and #BlackLivesMatter posts sum up our solidarities. 

We must pause to evaluate how this internet culture often echoes incomplete solidarity and hypocritical actions, and the first target of this scrutiny is celebrities. Many celebrities are performative in their activism, taking up topics as they are “trending” or selectively choosing topics that do not harm their privileged positions. They choose this over actually getting their feet wet and undertaking meaningful actions and dialogues. With the awareness of these public figures’ power and influence, we must call them out when they lack the responsibility to engage in certain discussions. 

Indian actress Priyanka Chopra is the embodiment of this selective and privileged activism. In June, Chopra expressed her solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, posting a “Please, I Can’t Breathe” image on Instagram. However, there is a dark side of her activism, or rather, her lack thereof. 

For starters, Chopra has been the brand ambassador of skin lightening creams and products that promote and reinforce colorism and its thriving industry in India. She endorsed Ponds lightening cream in 2008 and Garnier lightening cream in 2012. When influential figures like Chopra endorse such products, it sanctions discrimination and prejudice and is the opposite of the “responsibility to end hate” that she posts about. As Bhawna Jaimini noted in a LiveWire article, “Nothing like earning those big bucks from endorsements and still earning those brownie-woke points.”

Additionally, Chopra, who claims to be concerned about systemic oppression and police brutality, solely talks about occurrences in the U.S. What about incidents taking place in India? The anti-Citizenship Amendment Act student protests at the end of 2019 in India were met with state-sanctioned police brutality. During one such incident at Jawaharlal Nehru University, a masked mob entered and attacked, injured and arrested students. These government-backed atrocities have continued in communal riots leading to injuries, deaths and the arrest of activists with no word from Chopra, who was otherwise preoccupied with galas and events and, according to Jamini, “celebrating the amassing of 50 million followers.” 

Additionally, the Black Lives Matter movement also sparked a Dalit Lives Matter movement in India protesting the caste order and its systemic oppression against the Dalit community. Chopra was silent. 

Despite being an ambassador of UNICEF and a proclaimed feminist, Chopra’s activism remains narrow. An explanation of her performative action versus her actual activism is that Priyanka Chopra’s Black Lives Matter post is simply a move to establish herself as a part of the West, speaking up on social and political movements here, while neglecting those back home. This idea is supported by the fact that her solidarity for BLM was a mere performative post with no active involvement otherwise. 

Another reason for shying away from Indian matters could be Chopra’s allegiance with the Modi government. In her privileged position as Modi’s ally (he was even invited to her wedding), Chopra’s activism in India is absent, and she keeps quiet on the bigotry that his government carries out. While she implicitly endorses his atrocities as acceptable, she simultaneously speaks up about the dangers of bigotry, racism and hate in the West. Chopra’s selective activism comes from a privileged position of securing her Modi friendship while at the same time securing her place as an ally in the West. 

Chopra is not the only celebrity guilty of selective and hypocritical activism. Many other celebrities speak out about specific topics, but their actions say otherwise. One such example is Chrissy Teigen and husband John Legend. Both have repeatedly spoken about climate change, urging followers to support the environment. Recently, Teigen and Legend took a private jet to get dinner at an exclusive French restaurant 500 miles from their residence, a sign of their elitist actions not bearing congruence with their earlier tweets. 

Other celebrities, including Leonardo DiCaprio, have been called out for using private jets and yachts while campaigning for the environment. The Kardashians are notorious for their baseless solidarities. Kylie Jenner took to Instagram in January to talk about donating to wildlife rescues and helping animals, but she was also caught wearing animal fur coats this year. Where is the consistency?

Celebrities, seemingly offering solidarity, need to be rechecked for underlying bigotry and the incomplete activism they endorse and profit from. No matter how much we love a celebrity, we must bring to light their hypocrisies and injustices to meaningful causes and not let their icon status obscure their discrimination and tone-deaf, selective solidarities.

Punk, Emo and Goth Subcultures Exclude People of Color

By Nina Larbi ’22

Op-Ed Editor

Within the past year, alternative styles of dress based primarily in emo, punk and goth subcultures have gained popularity on social media. It may be the 20-year cycle of fashion looping back to the scene and emo styles of the early 2000s, or quarantine nostalgia for pop punk bands, but the 2020 reiteration of subculture styles by contributors on platforms like Instagram and TikTok is distinctively more diverse than I remember them being. Punk, emo and goth subcultures have historically excluded people of color, maintaining the image that people of color were never meant to be a part of their movements. These exclusions have also buried the contributions made by people of color to these ideologies and arts. Though the tide has been changing for a while, people of color are still excluded from these subcultures, and their white peers need to actively uplift and acknowledge them and their artistic and ideological contributions. 

Individuals are drawn to subcultures because they feel rejection from society and its institutions, like the working-class Brits who created punk. Punk is anti-establishment and anti-consumerist, emo is saturated with angst and misanthropy and goth is characterized by anti-conventional beauty standards and gender expression. Emo and goth subcultures originated as reactions to an established punk scene, and they share some ideologies. These subcultures all have artistic elements, including music and dress, from the dyed mohawk punks to the Hot Topic studded-belt-and-skinny-jean emos. 

Rejecting the status quo and deviancy is what makes a subculture a subculture. However, the issue with racism and exclusion stems from a misunderstanding and willful ignorance of what it means to be oppressed. The 2003 documentary “Afro-Punk” opens with plain text referencing Patti Smith’s song in which she likens herself to Black people via a slur, then points out that “She felt she could liken her personal trials as a feminist musician in a c----rock culture to the African American struggle for equality.” If punks are not already on the outside of society, they want to be there. But people of color are already there. Why can’t white punks, emos and goths recognize that without trying to conflate all marginalized identities into one underclass of society? The experience of racism is different from that of sexism and that of homophobia, and some individuals experience all three. 

There are aesthetic values within subcultures that reject and appropriate people of color besides their otherness, like in the case of Smith. Goths and emos like pale skin, dark hair and dead eyes because it’s the opposite of the tanned (but white), blonde-haired, bright-eyed beach babe. 

Moreover, from their roots these three subcultures have had heavy contributions from people of color, but their legacy has been ignored and actively suppressed. All types of rock music have their origins in American blues and country music, which were created by Black people. Additionally, various proto-punk bands, like the Mysterians and Death consisted of musicians of color and subsequently influenced the punk genre for decades. Different punk scenes came to be because groups of people felt like they were ignored by the system or just didn’t fit in, and this included communities of color. The Los Angeles punk scene was created by youth who felt othered because they were Latinx, which led them to create the L.A. punk scene and hardcore punk. 

Punk, emo and goth continue to evolve today thanks to the efforts of artists of color. Now, there is emo rap and punk rap, with artists like Lil Uzi Vert and Rico Nasty challenging the emo and punk conventions through musical synthesis. After the success of the “Afro-Punk” documentary, the annual Afropunk Festival was created, giving space to people of color to explore subcultures and defy expectations. People of color are key members of and contributors to the punk, emo and goth subcultures. We share experiences of otherness not to be likened to each other — and shouldn’t subculture be open to all those who reject the status quo and want to join? I sincerely hope that recent visible diversity in subculture social media continues and that members of such subcultures vocally acknowledge and uplift people of color. 

Social Media Filters Harm Young Girls by Reinforcing Beauty Standards

Graphic by Trinity Kendrick ‘21

By Kaveri Pillai ’23

Staff Writer

In 2015, Snapchat changed the way we looked at ourselves, literally and metaphorically. Its revolutionary camera feature Lenses allows users to edit their photographs in real-time. Festive backgrounds, animal and beautification filters have crept into our picture-taking routines, and the good old DSLR seems to have lost its magic. And so the question becomes: What is it about a camera filter that makes it so attractive to people? 

3.96 billion people use social media, and it has become particularly pervasive among young people. 73 percent of Generation Z adults aged 18-23 are active Instagram users, and 63 percent of the same demographic are active Snapchat users. With such a young demographic being sucked into this sphere of virtual reality, the scrutiny toward social media has been increasing over the past two decades. The creation of Lenses, which alter people’s faces, allowing them to attain a certain look, have reified toxic societal expectations and norms that are targeted toward young girls. 

These filters appeal to those who want to look conventionally attractive. The homogenization of beauty that correlates to the standardization of one type of perfection is unfortunately enforced upon many people who don’t necessarily align themselves with this restrictive canon. The “western ideal” highlights the prevalence of neo-colonialism in the 21st century, and leaves women of color like myself feeling that they need to change to be beautiful. The Instagram filter that glamorizes freckles, blue eyes and blonde hair might seem petty in this fight to accept and appreciate diversity. However, labeling such features as symbols of feminine perfection champions an archaic form of racial superiority and alienates a handful of social groups who are seen to be the antithesis to this regressive norm of beauty. 

By marketing these specific facial features as the ones that personify beauty, the commodification of biological characteristics inevitably produces issues of self-esteem and low confidence in young girls. The oppressive nature of western standards of beauty are reminiscent of the obsession colonizers had with curtailing native culture and anything that appeared to be tangential to their set normative expectations. 

Power shapes the gendered notion of beauty as well. The filter effects of freakishly pore-less cheeks and over-the-top doe eyes make women look like caricatures of young, unadulterated purity. The constant need to infantilize women echoes the sentiment shared with those who find it imperative to diminish women as subordinates. By equating this “childish” beauty to the facade of naive, weak and immature women being accepted and appreciated, the system succeeds at reifying the idea of perfect women being treated like infants. The “young girl” filters rob women of adulthood and diminish them to a social group that is stagnant in this race of growth — once again leaving a vulnerable and marginalized group behind when it comes to creating a universal set of expectations. 

The filters that seem to give every person unnecessary chin tucks and nose jobs hammer an idea in the minds of young girls that what they look like right now is anything but perfect. The constant interfering with one’s natural body echoes the body image issue that is rampant among young people and pushes social media users to go down this dark route of treacherous surgeries and constant cynicism regarding their bodies. 

The hyper-sexualization of women of color appears to contrast the white ideal of perfection that still manages to alienate groups as “exotic” and “abnormal.” As Alizeh Azhar ’23 says, “These dark skin tone filters really do a lot of damage to young brown girls who want to achieve this stature of normalcy when they are being targeted for looking different.”

 As I go through these filters now, I can’t stop myself from thinking about my 13-year-old sister who is being directed by social media to look a certain way in order to be accepted by the world. This toxic wave of artificial appearance has engulfed an entire age group, and it is important to challenge the discourse that surrounds the approval of such ideals of perfection to ensure that the pedagogy that exists regarding beauty standards is flipped. 

Indian Media Focus on Drug Scandals Obscures the Country’s Crises

By Jahnavi Pradeep ’23

Staff Writer 

Bollywood film and its supporting industries have long been a source of fascination and devotion for Indian audiences, permeating our lifestyles and making us experts on its movies and stars. However, this obsession has pervasively occupied media and government focus in recent times, making it a playground for controversy and moral debates. This has strengthened misogynistic discourses within the country and replaced media spaces meant for more critical national information. 

The media focus on the Bollywood industry began with the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput in mid-June. The resulting investigation has heavily focused on his girlfriend, Rhea Chakraborty, who was recently arrested on charges of supplying him marijuana. The media coverage has repeatedly slandered her and spread several conspiracy theories. Had she intentionally made him overdose? Was she trying to steal his money? Even leading news platforms such as Republic TV — a right-leaning prominent Indian news channel — painted her in a negative light, insinuating that she was a gold digger who had murdered her boyfriend. What happened to innocent until proven guilty? 

The case also led to a separate drug probe in which other Bollywood stars were questioned for their involvement with marijuana. Interestingly, all of the accused so far have been female actors. 

This issue illuminates moral debates about women in India. There have been long-standing stereotypes against women in the film industry, regarding them as morally loose since they perform and showcase their bodies on screen. Adding in drug use only furthers the patriarchal practice of policing female bodies. Associating women’s usage of recreational drugs with the death of a man demonstrates the perceived danger of such behavior and results in criminal allegations against women. 

Recently, a relative of mine mentioned how there will only be a change in drug usage and other habits in the common people when more prominent names are punished. Surely, if drug usage in everyday people is a problem, there is a better and more systematic approach to this, one that does not involve a smear campaign against solely female celebrities. Additionally, if we are debating recreational drug usage (mainly marijuana), why are only women being pulled into it? It is hard to believe that no men use marijuana. 

Media outlets have become saturated with accused actresses’ names flashing across the headlines of different papers, tablet screens and ordinary conversations. In this process, other news, such as that regarding the pandemic, has been pushed to the sidelines. The government recently claimed it had no data on the deaths of health care workers and migrant workers. This reflects the irresponsibility of the government to support its biggest sources of support during this time. Tracking the numbers of deaths is the least the government can do to pay respect to these workers. If headlines and government agencies can find so much information relating to one superstar’s death, why can’t they document the deaths of thousands of heroes? 

The Indian government has consistently centered itself around ideologies. Is this another tactic for the government to shy away from their responsibilities and preoccupy their citizens with more sensationalized headlines? Silence is the only thing honoring these workers’ deaths. 

Mahua Moitra ’98, a member of India’s parliament and a Mount Holyoke alum, spoke to these events via Twitter. “Turning SSR into Bihar vs Maha & now a new Bollywood drama to focus attention from -23.9 percent GDP growth, Centre’s default on state’s GST dues, China border fiasco & host of other issues. No one plays the distraction game better than ModiShah!” one Tweet read. 

Another of Moitra’s tweets stated, “Once the ModiMedia stops obsessing over Bollywood dramas maybe they’ll ask the @BJP government questions about what really matters.” 

The other day, when I told my friend about my article, she laughed and told me to keep myself and my social media apps safe from the government. Have they achieved their goal? To use controversies to incite fear in their citizens and use this as their ruling weapon over open and well-informed media and structural change? 

Media in India has become a platform for patriarchal discussions on morality, drugs and Bollywood, instead of grounds for more meaningful conversations such as the pandemic and the government’s response to it. Is the Indian media hiding its reality behind the Bollywood industry’s controversies and feeding this to the cinephilic commoner instead of important news on government policies and responsibilities?

Mount Holyoke Virtual Events Lack Community Inclusion and Cohesion

By Kaveri Pillai ’23

Staff Writer 

On Sept. 30, Mount Holyoke announced that Mountain Day 2020 would take place during the fall break between the two modules, a divergence from the tradition’s usual scheduled date sometime during class time in the first semester. Under normal circumstances, the announcement of Mountain Day would’ve ignited a flame of rejoicing and celebration. However, this year, student responses ranged from confusion to disappointment  

A virtual Mountain Day continues to push the boundaries of our new expectations regarding school events, and one big question remains: Will replicating these long-established traditions online result in a failure to create an in-person feel? Should Mount Holyoke adapt to this online setting and create more suitable traditions? Most importantly, can one leave out traditions like Mountain Day and still create the sense of belonging students crave right now? 

 From “It’s Mountain Day!” chants in the hallowed hallways of the Community Center to the long lines that lead up to the white shuttles, there’s more to Mountain Day than trekking up Skinner State Park. The feeling of waking up in the morning and having brunch with friends, followed by eating ice cream and pie on the summit while taking beautiful pictures, goes beyond just documenting our memories — we get to live this experience. With this event going completely online, it is fair to question what will happen to these experiences. The COVID-19 restrictions globally don’t allow most students to step outside their house, let alone to climb a mountain. 

The College seems to think that replacing the actual hiking with mountain documentaries and festive Zoom backgrounds can still create a sense of community, but students have their doubts. Shreya Nair ’22 said, “As an international student, the thought of going on Zoom for Mountain Day is not exciting at all, it just reminds me that I’m not on campus.” This comment echoes a shared sentiment among students: fear of not replicating the joy and excitement of actual Mountain Day, compounded by missing out on breaking in new winter shoes and scarves, not to mention the chance to miss classes. 

 Mountain Day is such a treasured event because it gives students a much-needed break from the academic workload that starts to intensify around mid-semester. Given the shift from the traditional semester system this year, it is understandable why the College decided to keep Mountain Day during the intermission between Module 1 and Module 2. The module system requires academic rigor and is constrained by time; however, this time allocation for Mountain Day led to an exponential decrease in the appeal of the event. With no one missing any class this year, it can be assumed that many students won’t tune in to the online celebration. 

 Mountain Day isn’t the only tradition being undermined due to its virtual celebration status. Other Mount Holyoke traditions and webinars are being negatively affected by the lack of in-person elements. M&Cs, a cherished tradition among all students on campus, is one of them. The entire appeal of a tradition like M&Cs is to allow students to take a break from their hectic academic and nonacademic responsibilities and enjoy the childhood joy of having late-night milk and cookies in dorm common rooms with friends. I remember the many nights I spent in MacGregor Hall pulling all-nighters for research papers and finding comfort in the fact that I could take a break and go to the ground floor if I wanted a snack. Virtual M&Cs defeats the purpose of this tradition. Moreover, like many other Mount Holyoke events, virtual M&Cs fails to include international students and blatantly homogenizes the applicability of Eastern Standard Time. Mount Holyoke administration should understand that 8 p.m. in South Hadley is 4 a.m. in countries in South Asia, which forces students to make a decision between sleeping at a normal local time or conforming to this facade of inclusion and community with cookies and milk from their own kitchen. 

Ava Healy ’24 understands the struggles of making friends and fitting in during her first year at MHC. “I work a lot outside of school and I'm afraid that I might miss the online events,” Healy said, further highlighting the problem with these synchronous events and the lack of participation that comes with them. 

 Isshita Fauzdar ’23 said, “As times change, MoHo should modify their traditions accordingly. Replacing Mountain Day with something more practical like a virtual indoor activity makes more sense.” 

It is important to acknowledge this need to create a community off-campus now more than ever. With students all across the globe, altering traditions to fit our new circumstances in an online platform would help unite students. It might be best to designate events like Mountain Day or M&Cs as on-campus activities and instead create new ones that can only be done virtually. The sense of belonging and the creation of a tight-knit community that new virtual events would create is part of what makes Mount Holyoke so inclusive. It would be a shame if we lost that due to the pandemic.

The COVID-19 Pandemic Exposes the Dark Side of Exam Culture

Graphic by Anjali Rao-Herel ‘22

By Shloka Gidwani ’22 and Lauren Leese ’23

Copy Editor and Staff Writer

This semester, Shloka Gidwani ’22 is taking a microeconomics class that uses the mastery-based grading system to evaluate students’ performances. According to the Connecticut Department of Education, a mastery-based learning system helps to “produce grades that more accurately reflect a student’s learning progress and achievement, including situations in which students struggled early on in a semester or school year, but then put in the effort and hard work needed to meet expected standards.” Rather than judging a student’s performance based on letter grades obtained after exams, the mastery-based grading system does not penalize students for getting the answer wrong the first time, but allows them to understand the gaps in their knowledge and aims to reinforce areas in which they might be struggling.

As the world grapples with a pandemic, we are noticing more and more glaring flaws in our educational systems, many of which are related to exam culture. Even beyond the fact that traditional timed closed-book exams are difficult to proctor over the internet, they also exacerbate inequalities in education. 

“I tend to think that exams are not a very effective way to assess a student’s understanding, and especially not in a pandemic,” Mavis Murdock ’22 said. “I think that steady work and class participation is much more important than a single high-stress exam, which is more likely to promote cramming and introduces a lot of factors that have nothing to do with a student’s understanding of the material.”

Moreover, the exam-based system promotes unhealthy competition instead of collaborative learning. From an early age, students are pitted against each other in an attempt to get the highest grade. This defeats the primary purpose of education, which is to understand a concept rather than memorize material just to regurgitate it on an exam. Exam culture inculcates fear of failure rather than a love of learning, which makes students more likely to cheat. A Fordham University poll affirms the benefits of cheating, having found that students who cheat had GPAs an average of 0.56 points higher than their honest counterparts. The Open Education Database speculates that “many probably feel compelled to compromise their school's ethics policies in their own self-interest — especially considering the significant number of academic rewards hinging on one's GPA.”

Students’ incentives to cheat only increase while taking exams remotely, since there are limited ways to supervise test takers. While exams are showing loopholes in our educational system, they also prove ineffective when assessing a remote learner’s performance. 

Sal Khan, founder of the online education platform Khan Academy, is an influential proponent of the mastery-based grading system. “Instead of artificially constraining, fixing when and how long you work on something, pretty much ensuring that variable outcome, the A, B, C, D, F — do it the other way around,” Khan said in a 2015 TED Talk. “What’s variable is when and how long a student actually has to work on something, and what’s fixed is that they actually master the material.” Khan went on to say that, today, the U.S. has achieved close to a 100 percent literacy rate, so why can’t we achieve a high rate of people who understand calculus or organic chemistry? The answer is that we do not teach people to master these subjects, instead relying on exam systems that penalize students for not understanding the material on their first try.

Khan’s philosophy is more pertinent now than ever, as students across the world are learning remotely. We are now limited in our face-to-face interactions with professors: Office hours have been reduced or are at inconvenient times because of time zones, making it difficult for professors to keep track of students’ progress. In the midst of all these problems, adding an exam to the mix makes for a stressful concoction. 

It is important to note that as an elite private liberal arts institution, Mount Holyoke has the resources to foster a collaborative and mastery-focused learning environment more effectively than many other universities. While Mount Holyoke has a ways to go in terms of promoting mastery, its learning environment is much better than that of many state universities, which disproportionately serve low-income and marginalized students. 

Lauren Leese ’23 has experience taking classes at large state schools where the teaching method is often based around reading a textbook, memorizing the study guide, regurgitating the information for a multiple choice exam, rinsing and repeating. Until mastery-based learning becomes a widespread educational philosophy, this method will be confined to privileged institutions with the right resources. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that our educational system needs radical reform — not only to adapt to online education, but to better serve students’ needs in general. The mastery-based grading system is a more equitable method that shifts the focus away from judging and often belittling students for their mistakes and toward instilling a passion for learning.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Legacy Should Be Honored, Not Overlooked

By Kaveri Pillai ’23

Staff Writer

Sept. 18, 2020 seemed to cast a shadow on all those preparing themselves for the revival of American democracy. Sadness, confusion — probably the first few emotions that clouded my mind when I read about Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s passing. However, my social media platforms managed to turn this grief into frustration and anger. 

 My classmates’ posts from all over the world overcrowded my social media feed. The first few stories honored “The Notorious RBG’s” legacy and her contributions in the field of justice, but they didn’t seem to overpower the content that was fueled by irritation and sheer distaste in the 87-year-old associate justice’s work. It was surprising to see so many students my age flood Instagram with posts saying that “RBG could have done better.” These posts were created and shared by those who were focused on simply replacing her now vacant Supreme Court seat, preferably with a left-leaning candidate. 

I understand the importance of moving on and focusing on the future of how rights are addressed and how inclusive our legislation will be, yet this blatant neglect of Ginsburg’s contributions undermines her legacy. 

The 2020 presidential election is being viewed as the turning point for the United States. CNN confirmed President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nomination of Amy Coney Barrett a few days after Ginsburg’s death. While one could have anticipated this strategic move from the Trump administration, it is worth seeing how Democratic voters have responded. Over the past few years, the Supreme Court has been divided into right- and left-wing groups, making the last standing apolitical branch political. With Barrett taking anti-abortion, ambivalent LGBTQ+ and pro-gun stances, she is being seen as the antithesis of what Ginsburg stood for. Her possible win could most certainly make it the most conservative Supreme Court since the 1930s. 

 As much as I understand the dangers of a 6-3 highly polarized Supreme Court, I can’t seem to put aside my respect for RBG. Not just her role and position as a justice, but as a woman who fought for change. She is the reason why gender discrimination was addressed as a clear violation of the 15th Amendment that supposedly champions equal protection. Anybody can be a caregiver or a breadwinner, regardless of their gender, a point that took Ginsburg decades to popularize. Does it really hurt to celebrate the woman she was? And can we take a second away from the scheming and focus on altruistic gratefulness for her service? 

With the current political and social climate in the U.S. drawing attention to the non inclusive environment we have created for many marginalized groups, many young voters argue that Ginsburg didn’t do enough. Her propagation of white feminism and her Supreme Court rulings catered to white women and disadvantaged women of color. American lawyer, activist and scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw, in her argument for promoting intersectionality, spoke about the “double jeopardy” faced by Black women in which they appear to be fighting for their race and gender. This ideology has been seconded by all the posts that demand Ginsburg supporters own up to her mistakes. 

Can one person really fight for every cause under the sun in a just manner? Can real change only be made in small steps? As a young advocate for civil liberties in the 1970s, Ginsburg’s first step for achieving gender equality was to establish precedence that this gender discrimination existed. Califano v. Goldfarb and Moritz v. Commissioner echo her fight for the right to fair survival conditions for women. It makes this hatred look severely gendered. If it were a man who fought for a few monumental causes, he’d be praised. Are we more critical of the lack of holistic approach to law taken by Ginsburg because she is a woman? And is it truly fair to spend days that should be spent honoring her cherry-picking her achievements? 

Ginsburg was more than just an American justice; she shaped how we view women’s rights all over the world. By remembering the woman she was and the legacy she left behind, we will get the closure required to ensure that the administration and the Supreme Court we get post-November is just and fair to all. 

Remembering Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Graphic by Anjali Rao-Herel ‘22

By Lily Reavis ‘21

Editor-In-Chief

As this edition of Mount Holyoke News is released on Sept. 24, 2020, the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg lies in repose at the Supreme Court. Late Friday night, Ginsburg died at age 87 late due to complications from metastatic pancreas cancer. From Ginsburg’s early legal career and through her 27 years as the second woman to ever serve on the Supreme Court, she was a true champion for women’s and reproductive rights. The last decade of her life was marked by fame, as she became a cultural, legal and liberal feminist icon and her prominence on the Court expanded. 

While Ginsburg’s sharp focus on the advancement of women’s rights was profound and notorious, it is crucial to remember her mixed and, at times, problematic treatment of incarcerated individuals and people of color. Her legacy as a liberal icon will remain — with it, her silence on this year’s Black Lives Matter campaign, her dismissal of Indigenous rights and her disengagement with prison reform. 

Still, a fact remains: Ruth Bader Ginsburg changed the ways of life for American women and LGBTQ+ individuals. She worked tirelessly for 60 years to undo the restraints placed on women in the home, in the workplace and in the courts. In 1972, Ginsburg co-founded the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project and quickly convinced the Supreme Court to further consider laws that discriminated on the basis of sex. She pioneered same-sex marriage legislation in the Supreme Court, directly leading to its federal legalization in 2015. As a society now left without Ginsburg’s voice, we must recognize both her failures and her successes, holding in remembrance the rights and achievements she worked to give the American people. 

Ginsburg’s death will inevitably spark a torrid and polarized political debate, as it opened a seat on the Supreme Court just 46 days before the upcoming election. Her dying wish, we are told, was that her replacement would not be selected “until a new president is installed.” As we watch the next few months unfold, Ginsburg’s words regarding gender equality and representation remain. When will there be enough women on the Supreme Court? “When there are nine.”

‘Classic’ Books Must Be Evaluated for Their Prejudice

by Nina Larbi ’22

Op-Ed Editor

During these past six months of social distancing, I have been obsessively revisiting my favorite childhood media, going through my old bookshelves and rediscovering kids’ cartoons. Rereading my trusty favorites with a new pair of eyes made me realize how many stories I once loved were actually terribly bigoted. Had I tried to read the “Narnia” series now, I would have put it down 10 pages into “The Horse and His Boy,” because I don’t want to read about the nice white boy and the bad brown people who are polytheistic. 

Poor representation of marginalized groups in media isn’t just a problematic element to stories — it greatly impacts how they are consumed. Individual consumers have the right to refuse to read “1984” because of its sexism, or “To Kill a Mockingbird” because of its white savior complex, but rather than tacking on warnings telling audiences that “it was a product of its time,” we need to reconsider our literary canon and our discussions of how we approach media.

 The literary classic genre is highly esteemed by a number of influential people and has been deemed to have had a significant cultural impact over time. For example, “Catcher in the Rye” is an American classic because it was one of the first mainstream novels to discuss the problems of adolescence. The people who decide its cultural influence are those with high socioeconomic status, and thus have the means for their voices to be heard. Publications like The New York Times also have a hand in determining literary tastes, decisions that are then corroborated or rejected by the upper class. 

There are other “essential” media that are not of the 50-plus-year-old literary genre that may have been constructed by a wider audience, like the graphic novel series “Watchmen.” However, they did not rise to their status in a bias-free market. Western graphic novels like “Watchmen” have a very white and male audience, and the novel’s success was predicated on their tastes and prejudices. There are popular works now that have held their own for a handful of years, enough for socially distanced people like me to have gone back and revisited, like the children’s book series “Harry Potter” or “Percy Jackson,” but neither have existed for long enough to determine their relevance over time.  

The lack of diversity in the bodies of individuals who decide the cultural value of books is why book lists are completely populated by a homogenous group of authors, save for the occasional Maya Angelou. Furthermore, the authors of the popular books among my classmates that were not assigned in classes were also overwhelmingly white and male, except for the occasional white female author like J.K. Rowling who wrote the “Harry Potter” series. 

Understanding that classical literature is not neutral is key to deconstructing it. But we also have to reexamine our own feelings towards the specific classical works that we like. Do I like this because it’s nostalgic? Or do I think the message is poignant? If you enjoy reading “1984,” you can still like it, but you have to recognize and accept its sexism and understand that others may not want to read it because of that. 

Because of the multiple factors that go into what we consider classical, for both ourselves and for society at large, what I consider to be good but problematic might not be worth it for someone else to read. Additionally, there are other books out there! Librarians across the country have been rewriting their book lists to replace classics containing prejudiced language with books that are written by a more diverse range of authors that are not as “problematic,” like on the School Library Journal’s website. Ultimately, it’s not bad to like “To Kill a Mockingbird,” but recognizing a work’s faults and why others may not like it is crucial to understanding its place in society.

International Students Bear the Burden of the College’s Decision to Go Remote

Graphic by Anjali Rao-Herel ‘22

By Jahnavi Pradeep ’23

Earlier in August, on a breezy Friday evening, I got on a call with my college friend from Bombay, discussing Daal from the Dining Commons, Target hauls, Creighton Hall luxuries and our recently booked flight tickets back to the world of Mount Holyoke. After months of speculation, the international flights from India had finally opened up, and we had hurriedly talked to travel agents and finalized our not-so-cheap flight arrangements. To our great disappointment, just a couple hours later, College President Sonya Stephens’ email flashed on students’ screens across the globe, disinviting us from living on campus and instead moving to a completely remote system. 

While Mount Holyoke’s decision to move to an online forum prioritizes health and safety in the face of the growing pandemic, I found that this decision had added more challenges for international students than domestic students. 

The last-minute decision to close campus left many of us with a mess in regard to flight bookings and other expenses. I remember calling my friends back later that evening, asking them what they would do with their recently booked flight tickets. A cancellation would mean a 10 percent fee, which is expensive for an international flight. The 48-hour deadline to apply for extenuating circumstances did not give me time to consult with my parents on taking another new decision, and so we, like numerous other international students, resorted to doing my semester from home. Soon, my friends and I began frantically calling travel agents (for the umpteenth time), storage units and domestic relatives who had sent out our boxes to stall everything. While perhaps many domestic students have gone through flight cancellations and shipping reversals as well, the situation has been a lot more confusing and costly for international students, the flight expenses being a clear cut example of this. 

The online module has also not been an easy feat for international students. The classes are structured mainly around Eastern Standard Time. This leaves several of us, international students more so, having to take classes at extremely odd hours. For example, I dread having to stay up for my classes from 12 a.m. to 6 a.m. during Module 2. This module, my professors have personally been extremely understanding of time differences, but there is nothing that can make them eradicate synchronous classes altogether and stay true to the College’s academic commitment. 

Sohini Bhatia ’23, also residing internationally for this semester, echoed this concern as well. While acknowledging the sincere efforts of the professors, Bhatia expressed how “trying to attend synchronous classes and getting all your quizzes and assignments on time” can be harder for the international student to do, especially while at the same time “juggling social lives and family time.” 

This is the same for clubs and organizations as well, having to attend meetings in the middle of the night. Siona Ahuja ’24 discussed these difficulties, stating, “My only fear is that of missing out on socializing with fellow first-years because they hold their plans when I am asleep.” 

Similarly, living in a modestly sized house myself, the sound of my classes carries through the house, disturbing the sleep of the rest of my family. Staying up so late inevitably leads me to sleep into the mornings and not be able to pitch in to help with the morning chores. 

Rameen Farrukh ’24, currently in Pakistan, has also experienced additional challenges for the household. “The power cuts and unstable internet has been one issue I recently faced in the storm season because every time there was a bad thunderstorm outside, I would have a class. This had given me so much stress mentally and financially because I had to arrange a heavier generator that could cope with a 12-hour power failure,” Farrukh said.  

There is also the added woe of not being able to take up campus jobs. On July 31, the student employment office sent out an email in which they noted that “due to issues related to international employment law, students who are living abroad, unfortunately, may not work for the College. This is true regardless of citizenship or previous employment with MHC.” They listed how, since employment laws vary widely from country to country, Mount Holyoke would not be able to comply with all these different regulations to “lawfully employ students living in various international locations,” according to the email. 

This revision to the employment plans prevents all of us residing abroad from taking up any offered campus jobs. For many international students, making this money is a big deal. What happens to those that rely on this income for work-study? Has all of this only become a perk to those residing domestically within the United States? 

Additionally, I watched international students from other American colleges take up college jobs and work in research labs, as teaching assistants and in writing centers. If other colleges are not necessarily following this procedure, why must Mount Holyoke? 

I acknowledge that Mount Holyoke is striving to best support all of its students, including the international population that it boasts of. However, I still find there is an inevitable and additional burden on international students’ shoulders compared to domestic students on the online platform. We are compromised in the face of classes, time zones, campus jobs and other expenses.

Performative Activism: Social Media’s Newest Problematic Trend

Graphic by Trinity Kendrick ‘21

By Kaveri Pillai ’23

In a world where social constructs like gender, race and religion seem to divide the public, social media has provided a platform to bridge that gap. For the past decade, social media users have been using their platforms to express their opinions. With the work of social movements rising in 2020, critics must question if this expression is just a way of ranting, or if it actually is a revolutionary form of activism. 

According to Robert Putnam’s work in “Bowling Alone,” social capital is a network of relationships made within the society, enabling them to work efficiently within the system. He highlights how active civil engagement has been decreasing for the past 30 years, which gives critics a reason to analyze this new type of activism more carefully. This is where the question comes up: Do we post on social media to enhance our social capital? Or do we attempt to be “woke” and conform to the trend of speaking up out of fear of being left behind? 

 Performative activism is a superficial way of demanding or making change. New York Times writer Nikita Stewart’s article, “Black Activists Wonder: Is Protesting Just Trendy for White People?”  is about a new wave of protests that consisted of predominantly white people during the Black Lives Matter marches in 2020. She expressed her reservations regarding their involvement, fearful that it would only be temporary. Her piece communicates a common theme of frustration with the fact that “allyship,” especially that of white people, has only occurred in response to recent social media trends. The immediacy of social media makes it easy to engage with, but this version of activism does not go far enough. 

Often, the core motivations for activism are misconstrued on social media. The “Challenge Accepted” trend resulted in women across the globe posting black and white pictures of themselves to show the idea that women stick together. Not only was the origin of this online trend eliminated from the posts, but it also merely scratched the surface of the original feminist issues which started the trend. 

Gendered honor killings is an issue Turkish feminists are attempting to combat with. The recent brutal killing of a 27-year-old student Pınar Gültekin by her ex-boyfriend reiterated the importance of raising awareness of femicide. The trend of posting these monochrome pictures was initiated as a way of echoing the pictures of murdered Turkish women that end up in the newspapers on a daily basis. 

This strong wave against patriarchal and misogynistic oppression was unfortunately reduced to young women using photoshoots to showcase their superficial solidarity with other women instead of honoring the original purpose of the challenge. This not only cheapens the social capital produced by a generation working tirelessly to demand legitimate change, but it also damages the growth they have accomplished in the fight to achieve justice. 

 On any given day, social media is flooded with content regarding the Black Lives Matter movement. Posts and stories address a myriad of points from checking your privilege to signing petitions calling for real structural change. “People know that Black people are constantly being murdered at a disproportionate rate, and seeing a video on Instagram that ‘proves it’ isn’t going to make any real change — the fact is that they just don’t care,” Chia Webb-Cazáres ’24 said. 

An overt sense of hypocrisy is laced in these posts. Many of the same people who repost CBS footage or the unforgettable words of Martin Luther King Jr. are the ones who fail to turn up at the voting booths. While performative activism may turn out to be a shortcut to increasing one’s social capital, it is constant engagement with the system which fulfills democratic duties. 

Voting is one such democratic duty that is an integral element of activism. In 2016, only 13 percent of the youth voted in the presidential election. In that same election, 47 percent of white women and 62 percent of white men voted for President Donald Trump. These staggering numbers justify the apprehension people of color have regarding the idea of allyship.

If this new age of activists is all about the talk and not about performing one’s duty as a democratic citizen, there will be no change in the way we view BIPOC, rewrite legislation or implement a sense of human decency in everyday life. The youth, regardless of their #blacklivesmatter posts and signatures on “Justice for Breonna Taylor” petitions, will continue to casually use racist slurs and make racist jokes because they haven’t actually committed themselves to the eradication of systemic racism. 

 A #blackouttuesday post does nothing, and neither does sharing videos of violence toward marginalized groups — which, if anything, desensitizes others to human rights violations. Generation Z might have produced great activists like Greta Thunberg and Malala Yousafzai, but in the end, our fight to be trendy over our fight to make real change has made our social performance meaningless. We have become the epitome of performative activism and social media has unwittingly promoted that.