I do not believe there will ever be a mythical “silver lining” to a condition that is asphysically, emotionally, mentally, and financially draining as acne.
Hundreds of female alumni returned to campus this weekend for the three-day “She Roars” conference to celebrate women. This celebration would only have been more rewarding if trailblazing alumni could meet those they blazed the trail for.
Of course, this trial is a monumental and impactful and semi-permanent decision of one of our nation’s highest positions. But why are we, Princeton students, really watching?
Yet across the country women refuse to be silenced. The event with Sotomayor and Kagan today is billed as a conversation, but it is more than a casual exchange or a play on our Orange and Black heritage.
You can call yourself a feminist, participate in marches, wear ribbons for awareness, and stand up for women in every way possible. Yet you can’t understand the gravity of sexual assault until a survivor is sitting in front of you, waiting for an answer. Waiting for you to tell her she can forgive herself. Waiting for your reaction, if any, which may well tell her everything she needs to know. And even then, you can only fathom a fraction of the suffering.
It’s also not that I’m not independent or strong: I can guarantee you that I am. I’ve traveled the world alone, proven myself academically, and built incredible relationships. But societal norms of male-female interaction have been drilled into my brain for so long that sometimes they inhibit my independence and strength. So many successful, incredible women are the same. It’s not that we’re inherently afraid of something: it’s that we’ve, in a way, been raised to make ourselves small so that men can be big. We’ve been taught to self-sacrifice, to give ourselves up for the benefit of others.
Have you seen the zombies walking around campus? My RCA said he went to bed at eight yesterday. I was impressed until he clarified that he went to bed at eight in the morning.
Ford’s story would not necessarily hold up in a court of law, but this hearing was not a court of law. Rather, it was a job interview, for what might currently be the most important job in the country. Thus, the hearing should have focused on whether Kavanaugh is qualified to serve as a Supreme Court justice, rather than whether he committed the assault. It is clear from his reaction that he is not qualified.
Congressman O’Rourke’s campaign has shown me hope, progress, and success that I never believed imaginable. The politics of the possible is alive in Texas, fueled by the people who have come together to realize it.
We, as undergraduates who voluntarily accepted Princeton’s offer of admission, would be bound by its obligations much as we are bound by many other obligations imposed on us once we agree to matriculate ― to write a thesis, to take so many classes a semester, to go on Outdoor Action, to stay out of disciplinary or academic trouble. We all accept admission on the understanding that there are obligations.
What we are living and witnessing in our present politics is highly anomalous, but more importantly, it cannot be dismissed or ignored. We must not allow ourselves to normalize the noxious. The unprecedented denial of science by many members of the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate is unacceptable.
The University cares about building friendships and camaraderie, as it works so hard on OA/CA/DDA and ’zee groups for first-year students. Why not go one step further and institute a policy requiring personal introductions in precepts, seminars, and other small classes?
Brett Kavanaugh, accordingly, is a product of an elite American subculture that privileges those who can claim a hegemonic, heteronormative masculinity. While we can’t expect the U.S. Senate to hold Kavanaugh and others accountable for their misogyny, we can and must strive to empower women and men to assert their worth and express their identities outside of the imprisoning dictates of our masculine world.
