Over and Under by Julie Tran

A womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s magazine

Copyright ÂŠ 2014 by Julie Tran This publication is set in Bebas, Bebas Neue, Borgia Pro, Karla, and Futura. All rights reserved. The scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the authorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s intellectual property. Published in the United States by Over and Under, a division of Chimera Inc., San Francisco. Printed in the United States of America First Edition: December 2014

OVER AND UNDER by Julie Tran

Contents 5 Introduction 6 Malala Yousafzai gives $50,000 to reconstruction of Gaza schools 7 A Message to the Beauty Industry 8 The Feminist Death Match Between Emma Watson and Beyoncé 12 Fetishization and Nicki Minaj’s “Anaconda” Excellence 16 Laverne Cox Electrifies 16 Creating Change Conference 18 Black Moms Tell White Moms About the Race Talk 21 Still I Rise 22 Emma Sulkowicz Inspired Students Across the Country to Carry Their Mattresses. Now What? 26 I Am Not Your Wife, Sister or Daughter 28 When You Are Hurting 30 Index

Introduction

eminism stands stronger every day despite the numerous obstacles. However, it often lacks in actively involving intersectionality: the consideration of how various minority categories such as race, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, ability, and class interact within systems of oppression. This magazine features important women and ideas that are overlooked and underappreciated. It delves into topics such as discrimination, fetishization, and the dehumanization of women, while also showing womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s stories and artwork. Over and Under aims to inform and give light to important subjects.

Pakastani education activist, Malala Yousafzai after waking up in Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham

Malala Yousafzai gives $50,000 to reconstruction of Gaza schools by James Meikle Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani education campaigner shot by the Taliban, has donated $50,000 towards the reconstruction of schools in Gaza. The Nobel peace prize winner, speaking after receiving the World Children’s Prize for the rights of the child in Marienfred, Sweden, on Wednesday, said the money would be channelled through the United Nations relief agency UNRWA to help rebuild 65 schools in the Palestinian territory. Malala, who now lives in the UK and has her own fund to help small-scale organisations in a number of countries, including Pakistan, told journalists that children in Gaza had suffered from conflicts and war. The money would help children get “quality education” and continue their life, knowing they were not alone and that people were supporting them, she said. She is the first person to receive the children’s prize and the Nobel in the same year. The Sweden-based organisers of the

children’s prize said millions of children around the world had voted for Malala. The children’s prize also announced two honorary laureates. John Wood, who quit his job as a Microsoft manager, has spent 15 years working for books, school libraries, and schools for millions of children, through his Room to Read organisation, while Indira Ranamagar from Nepal has fouwght for 20 years for the rights of the children of convicts to education and to live outside of prisons. In remarks published on the UNRWA website, Malala said the organisation was performing “heroic work” to serve children in Gaza. She added: “The needs are overwhelming—more than half of Gaza’s population is under 18 years of age. They want and deserve quality education, hope, and real opportunities to build a future. “This funding will help rebuild the 65 schools damaged during the recent conflict.

Innocent Palestinian children have suffered terribly and for too long.” Pierre Krähenbühl, UNRWA’s commissioner general, said the organisation was “deeply touched” by the gesture. It would “lift the spirits of a quarter of a million UNRWA students in Gaza and boost the morale of our more than 9,000 teaching staff there”, he said. “Their suffering during the fighting was devastating and your kindness will do much to ease the pain of recent months.” He said Malala had “become a symbol of the boundless potential that lies within each and every child on Earth”, and she was “an aspirational figure to the next generation in Palestine and beyond” as well as an inspiration to all.

A Message to the Beauty Industry by Julie Tran It is an accomplishment like no other to be able to manipulate millions of girls into thinking and acting the way you want them to. Into buying your products so they can walk out in public without feeling self-conscious. You bring our self-esteem down low enough to kick around on the ground. Dear beauty industry, you left a seventeen year old girl crying to herself on a Wednesday night wondering when her face will stop looking like that. Wondering when they’ll stop telling her how to be beautiful. Because now she spends twenty dollars every month on makeup trying to make herself look the way you want her to. How everyone else wants her to. Now it seems like the only way to gain confidence is to buy it. You left a seventeen year old girl who used to think she was confident in her image cry so hard that she felt sick enough throw up. Vomit like the girls you made bulimic and anorexic and emotionally unstable. You make women hate their bodies so much, we are more willing to destroy ourselves than look in the mirror.

Dear beauty industry, you foster and encourage self-hate to make a billion dollar profit. Mascara: $8. BB cream: $10. Eyelash curler: $15. Eyeliner: $7. How I feel: worthless. But even when girls are told they’re pretty or cute or have a perfect body, that doesn’t help them at all. Because it’s still telling them that beauty is number one. That looks are the most important quality a woman possesses. This girl’s parents remind her more about her acne than the D on her report card. Now she wonders when her priorities flipped upside down. She finds herself running late to school because she has to finish putting on her eyeliner or make sure her mascara isn’t too clumpy. No, telling her she’s beautiful doesn’t help. Because her body image should not be her number one priority. It’s her health, education, family, and friends. Women are allowed to look ugly. Women are allowed to be comfortable, successful, and happy. Women do not owe others their beauty. And those who can’t stand it can just look away.

Beyonce during her "On the Run" tour, standing in front of the word "FEMINIST", defined by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie as "a person who believes in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes

The Feminist Death Match Between Emma Watson and Beyoncé by Olivia Cole

n Saturday, Emma Watson gave a speech about feminism and gender equality. She said things that many of us have said a thousand times, online and offline, about the right to choose, healthcare, equal pay, and men’s duty in fighting for gender equality. The Internet went crazy with applause, praising her as a feminist hero. Although nothing Watson said was groundbreaking or especially unique, it’s great to see a young woman of her celebrity use her position of influence to make an intelligent statement about feminism. I love Emma Watson. She’s bright and positive and it’s great. What isn’t great is the attitude I saw on social media following her speech, in which a compar-

ison began to be drawn. “That’s feminism,” I’ve seen it tweeted over and over since Saturday. “Not a neon sign and spandex.” The digs at Beyoncé got louder and bolder. One of the tweets that started it all read: “Well done Emma Watson. THAT is feminism (watch and learn Beyoncé).” And it wasn’t just random Internet users. Vanity Fair wrote an article praising Watson and comparing her feminist impact to Beyoncé’s, stating, “[Watson’s] widespread influence on young minds (still forming their opinions on gender roles and advocacy) is even stronger than other high-profile defenders of the F-word like Beyoncé.” The Internet’s overwhelmingly positive reactions to Watson’s feminism were exciting, but also

troubling when I remembered the way Beyoncé’s feminism was dissected, critiqued, and doubted last year when she dropped her self-titled album that included a recording of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie speaking about feminism. Hopefully you all remember the numerous times Beyoncé’s feminism has come under attack in the past? No? I’ll refresh your memory. When Beyoncé dropped “Beyoncé” last year, accompanied by a corresponding collection of music videos, the think pieces flew fast and thick. “Is Beyoncé a feminist?” “OK, but is Beyoncé actually a feminist?” The speculation was endless, despite the fact that Beyoncé was self-identifying, answering the question before it was even asked. But somehow many mainstream publications still thought that their opinion on Beyoncé’s feminism overrode her own identification. When Emma Watson gave her speech on Saturday, I didn’t see a single tweet (other than from Men’s Rights Activists) criticizing her. No one dissected the roles she’s taken in Hollywood, the times she posed in sexy clothes, no one has questioned her relationship status. [But when compared to Beyonce as a feminist, tweets range from “Maybe because Emma actually dresses like a lady!” to “Maybe because Emma has a college degree!” “Maybe because Emma didn’t dedicate an album to her husband and take his last name!” “Maybe because Emma doesn’t

gyrate on stage!” “Maybe because Emma included men in her argument!” Don’t believe me? Look on Twitter. These tweets aren’t hard to find. Guys…as a white feminist whose feminism is by no means perfect and has committed her share of missteps in the past, let me say this as gently as I can: This…shit…has…to…stop. Maybe because Emma dresses like a lady? What does a lady dress like, exactly? And who decided what a lady looks like? What bearing should one’s clothing have on one’s

your husband’s last name means you’re not a feminist now, huh? Beyoncé is a wife and a mother, so now she’s not a feminist? OK. I’ll remember that. Don’t ever get married or I’ll picket your wedding. Maybe because Emma doesn’t gyrate on stage? Hmm. I seem to recall a lot of white feminists defending Miley Cyrus for doing exactly that, proclaiming her a feminist and shielding her from slut-shaming. Last I checked, part of feminism is owning our sexuality and expressing it however we choose.

"Because in case you didn’t know, fellow white feminists, the white experience of womanhood is different than the black experience of womanhood." identification as a feminist? This is exactly the kind of misogynist policing we’ve fought tooth and claw against for decades, and to level this line of “reasoning” at Beyoncé is not only antifeminist, it is despicable. Maybe because Emma has a college degree? You can’t be serious. Since when does education level have anything to do with whether or not a woman (or man) can identify as feminist? My mother didn’t finish college and she created a feminist in me by the time I was five. Does she not count? Beyoncé is incredibly successful and self-sufficient, and you would target her college education as an area of critique? Emma didn’t dedicate an album to her husband or take his last name? Oh? So taking

Maybe because Emma included men in her speech? Oh god. So including men in conversations about feminism is now a box that must be checked to consider oneself a feminist? That’s just silly. There were other bits of drivel that dropped—and continue to drop—in my mentions on Twitter, but these are the attacks on Beyoncé’s feminism that I saw repeated most often. If you use any of the aforementioned lines of attack…you are being antifeminist. When you criticize Beyoncé’s feminism based on the clothes she wears, her level of education, the dances she does; when you say she cannot be a feminist or is less of a feminist than a woman who wears clothes differently, has been

educated differently, dances differently, you are erasing her nuance and you are erasing the part of her feminism that is interlocked with her humanity. Because in case you didn’t know, fellow white feminists, the white experience of womanhood is different than the black experience of womanhood. The expectations, perceptions, context, and history of black women are not the same as the expectations, perceptions, context, and history of you as a white woman. Intersectional feminism means that women of color experience womanhood at a place where race and gender intersect. It means that the way they experience life as a woman is influenced by their race, and vise versa. With that in mind, think about why, then, a woman of color—particularly a black woman—might find Beyoncé’s brand of feminism more relatable than Emma Watson’s. @thetrudz, arguably one of the most prolific writers and scholars on race, gender, and misogynoir of our time, wrote a beautiful piece about why Beyoncé’s album Beyoncé resonated with her as a black woman, as it spoke to issues of sexuality, the pain of Eurocentric standards of beauty, and dance. What’s more, think about the core concepts of Watson’s speech: it focused on a binary system of oppression, oppression of woman by man. Women of color are oppressed on more than one level, so a speech that doesn’t address issues of violence and harm against women of color specifically does not speak to the whole experience of a woman of color. None of this is a competition. This not a Feminist Death Match between Emma Watson and Beyoncé, nor should it be. In fact, that

was one of the other more common responses I saw to my tweet: “But why can’t we appreciate both Beyoncé and Emma Watson? I love them both!” Congratulations! You can! And many of us do. I even saw a tweet that said “Beyoncé for president, and Emma Watson for VP.” Who’s the “better feminist” should never be a competition: We all have different interpretations and applications of feminism. As feminists, we celebrate others’ right to identify as whatever kind of feminist they choose. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie spoke beautifully to this (specifically as it relates to Beyoncé) in an interview at the Schomburg Center in Harlem, in which she said “Whoever says they’re feminist is bloody feminist.” Period. According to Roxane Gay, we’re probably all “bad feminists,” and I agree. We are humans, and therefore we are creatures of context and nuance. We stumble, we contradict, we backslide, we mess up. None of that makes us antifeminist. But you know what is antifeminist? When we attack one woman’s feminism by means of credentialism and respectability politics, when we bend over backward to deny a woman who identifies herself as a feminist the right to that self-identification, in the process contradicting our own beliefs about the freedom women (all women, we claim) are entitled to when it comes to our bodies, our relationships, our clothes, our pursuits. You don’t have to like Beyoncé’s feminism, but there are millions of women around the world who like it, love it, celebrate it, live it, and we damn sure don’t get to say that they’re wrong.

Fetishization and Nicki Minaj’s “Anaconda” Excellence by Julie Tran

any feminists argue the line between appropriateness and inappropriateness of revealing clothing. At what point does provocative behavior go from being for oneself to being for the male gaze? The aspect that many white feminists overlook: race. At the surface, objectification is just seen as being a nice ass and pair of breasts to a man, but it delves much deeper than that. Women of color must face dehumanization. For latina women, that means being seen as exotic Amazonian creatures or the seductive tigress who can only speak Spanish. For asian women, it’s the shy, submissive girl, or the sensual geisha who exists only to please. Black women, especially, are sexualized even at the start of childhood. Due to racist preconceptions, black girls are seen as less innocent and therefore, more sexually mature. With this in mind, white feminists who criticize women of color for being willfully sexual are problematic. For example, dismissing Beyonce as a feminist due to her revealing clothing and promiscuity, while calling Emma Watson a “game changer” for feminist, is biased. Despite what some think, the measure of a feminist is not based on her looks. For women of color, provocativeness becomes about reclaiming their sexuality—about being able to own their bodies in a way that rejects male ownership and racist fetishization. In Beyonce’s instance, she does not present herself as an object, but rather, a subject. She is the one in control of

her body and does as she pleases. Likewise, so does Nicki Minaj in her song and music video, “Anaconda.” She’s taken snippets from Sir Mix-a-Lot’s infamous “Baby Got Back”—the big butt anthem, and made them her own. People could argue that “Baby Got Back” either objectifies women, or praises them, or both. Either way, the women in the song have no voice except for the ones who

are so baffled by the curvy ladies. Nicki Minaj, on the other hand, puts a spin on the song by making herself the sexual subject, rather than object. Molly Lambert, from Grantland states: “Anaconda” turns Nicki’s butt into a literal force of nature, causing earthquakes in a jungle setting. After parodying the idea of exoticism by opening on a jungle scene, she shifts into a workout setup with comically small weights. All of these setups make the same point: Nicki’s body is the modern ideal. And because Nicki is spitting rapid-fire jokes the whole time she is onscreen, it’s impos-

The "Anaconda" cover art that caused much outrage from the public

sible to feel like she’s been reduced to a mere body. She knows exactly what she is doing and she does not care whether or not it appeals to men; “Anaconda” displays her power. In the song, she describes what she is doing and the unbelieveable effect that she has on her man. “Pussy put his ass to sleep, now he callin’ me Nyquil,” she raps.

Minaj plays on stereotypical sexual fantasies of men by wearing a skimpy maid’s dress and spraying whipped cream on her chest … and then cutting up a banana while laughing. Regardless of whether it makes men excited or scares them away, she is enoying it. Minaj makes it clear that she wants to comment on racism

and sexualization. When she released the album artwork of “Anaconda,” where she put her butt on display, the masses went wild. Some were impressed, some surprised, but many appalled she would be so willingly revealing. After all the negative feedback about her album cover, she went to Instagram with a response. “Angelic. Acceptable. LOL,” she captioned a photo of the cover of Sports Illustrated, a shot of three topless white women with nearly bare butts. Minaj then posted a photo of her own cover art, saying “UNACCEPTABLE.” By pointing out this double standard of white women as angelic and sweet, and black women as sexual objects, Minaj demonstrates a clear understanding of what she’s doing and where she stands in the world— that her body will be devalued while a white woman wearing less clothing is looked up to.

Actress Laverne Cox as Sophia Burset on the set of Orange is the New Black

Laverne Cox Electrifies Creating Change Conference by John M. Becker

n Januray 30, 2014, an estimated 4,000 LGBT advocates, allies, and activists converged in Houston, Texas for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force’s 26th annual National Conference on LGBT Equality: Creating Change. The action kicked off in earnest with the opening plenary session, where Laverne Cox, star of the Netflix hit series Orange Is the New Black, delivered an electrifying keynote address that set the room on fire. When Cox, a transgender woman of color, emerged from backstage, she was so touched by the crowd’s warm welcome that she was moved to tears. “You’re going to make me cry,” she told the room. “This feels so amazing, all this love that you’re giving me tonight. I have to say that a black, transgender woman from a working-class background raised by a single mother... getting all this love tonight—this feels like the change I need to see more of in this country.” Cox said that the simple act of receiving love can be a new experience for many trans people, including herself.

“Some days I wake up and I’m that... kid in Mobile, Alabama who’s being bullied... Some days I wake up and I’m that sixth-grader who swallowed a bottle of pills because I did not want to be myself anymore, because I did not know how

She talked about the challenges and injustices trans people face in everyday society, the media, and in the prison system; honored trans pioneers and unsung heroes working for trans equality across the country; and expressed hope for the fu-

"I understand that when a trans woman is called a man, that is an act of violence." to be anybody else, and who I was I was told was a sin, was a problem... Some days I wake up and I am that black trans woman walking the streets of New York City, hearing people yell ‘that’s a man!’ to me. And I understand... that when a trans woman is called a man, that is an act of violence.”

ture, declaring, “There will be justice.” And she called on the LGBT community to lead the way by more fully embracing and loving each other, and reaching out across our differences. “Loving a trans person, I believe, is a revolutionary act,” Cox said. She added later that

while we may not always know “the right thing to say” to others of varying orientations, identities, health statuses, and experiences, we still need to have those conversations—across our differences—“with love, and with empathy, and with a desire to get to a level of understanding that we didn’t have before” so we can truly be there for one another. And the crowd went wild.

Laverne Cox is the first openly transgender actress to be nominated for an Oscar

Black Moms Tell White Moms About the Race Talk by Aisha Sultan

en black mothers sat on the stage in an auditorium and looked into a diverse crowd of women in the audience. They were about to share something personal and hurtful with this room full of mostly strangers. They were going to talk about something they didn’t normally share with their white friends or colleagues. It was about to get real in that room. In the aftermath of the killing of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager fatally shot by a white Ferguson, Missouri police officer, conversations about race in the St. Louis area have been loaded. Christi Griffin, the president of The Ethics Project, wanted this to be different. She wanted to invite mothers of other races to hear directly from black mothers the reality of raising a black son in America. She wanted them to hear the words they each had said to their own sons, in different variations over the years, but all with the same message: Stay alive. Come home alive. She wanted mothers who had never felt the fear, every single time their son walked outside or drove a car, that he could possibly be killed to hear what that felt like. Griffin’s son, now grown, had never gotten in trouble nor given her any trouble growing up. But when her son was 14

years old, the family moved into an all-white neighborhood. She took him to the police department to introduce him to the staff. She wanted the officers to know that he belonged there, that he lived there. When he turned 16, it was time for another talk. Every single time he got into his car to drive, she made him take his license out of his wallet and his insurance card out of the glove compartment. “I did not want him reaching for anything in the car.” He graduated from college with a degree in physics. Marlowe Thomas-Tulloch said that when she noticed her grandson was getting bigger and taller, she laid bare a truth to him: Son, if the police stop you, I need for you to be humble. But I need more than that. I need for you to be prepared to be humiliated. If they tell you take your hands out of your pockets, take your hands out. Be ready to turn your pockets out. If they tell you to sit down, be prepared to lie down. You only walk in the street with one boy at a time, she told him. “What?” her grandson said. In his 17-year-old mind, he hadn’t done anything wrong and nothing was going to happen to him. “If it’s three or more, you’re a mob,” she said. “That’s

how they will see you.” She started to cry. “Listen to me,” she begged. “Hear me.” Finally, she felt him feel her fear. If they ask you who you are, name your family. Yes, sir and no, sir. If they are in your face, even if they are wrong, humble yourself and submit yourself to the moment. “I’m serious,” she said. “Because I love you.” She told him she would rather pick him up from the police station than identify his body at a morgue. When her grandson left to go home, she called her daughter to tell her about the conversation. Her daughter asked her what she had said, because her son came home upset, with tears in his eyes. “I hope I said enough to save his life,” Thomas-Tulloch said. “I’d rather go down giving him everything I got.” The mothers talked about the times their sons had been stopped in their own neighborhoods because “they fit the description.” They shared the times their sons had come home full of rage and hurt for being stopped and questioned for no reason. And they told the other mothers how often they told their sons to simply swallow the injustice of the moment. Because they wanted them alive, above all. Amy Hunter, director of racial justice at the YWCA

in metro St. Louis, said it’s taken her 10 years to be able to share this story about her son without crying. She didn’t want her white friends to see her cry when she told it. She didn’t want to look weak. Her four children are now older, but when one of her sons was 12, he decided to walk home from the Delmar Loop in University City where he had met some friends. He saw a police officer circling him, and he knew. He was wearing Sperrys, a tucked-in polo shirt, a belt. He was 12, and he knew, but he was scared. He lived five houses away, and he hadn’t done anything wrong. “I knew you were home,” he said to his mom when he finally made it home after being frisked. “I knew I was about to get stopped, and I thought about running home to you.” His mother froze. “I forgot to tell him,” she said. “I forgot to tell him: Don’t run. Don’t run or they’ll shoot you.” Her 12-year-old cried when he told her what had happened and asked if he was stopped because he was black. “Probably, yeah,” she said. “I just want to know, how long will this last?” he asked her. That’s when she started to cry. “For the rest of your life,” she said. It doesn’t matter about your college degree, the car you drive, the street you live on, she told the moms in the audience. It’s not going to shield your child like a Superman cape. She admitted that it was difficult to share these painful moments. Just one of the mothers on the stage asked a single question of the audience. Assata Henderson, who has raised three children, all college graduates, said she called her sons to ask them what they remembered about “the talk” she had given them about how to survive as a black man. “Mama, you talked all the time,” they said to her. It made her wonder, she said. She said she wasn’t pointing any fingers, but it made her wonder about the conversations the other mothers were having with their sons, who grow up to be police officers, judges and CEOs. “You’re the mothers,” she said to the crowd. “What are the conversations you are having with the police officers who harass our children?” PHOTO: Jordan Marshal and Theo Murphy light candles for Michael Brown’s memorial, a scene of roses lining the street where he was killed

still i rise by Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may tread me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you? Does it come as a surprise That I dance like I’ve got diamonds At the meeting of my thighs?

Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom? ‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells Pumping in my living room.

Out of the huts of history’s shame I rise Up from a past that’s rooted in pain I rise I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide, Welling and swelling I bear in the tide. Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear I rise Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise I rise I rise.

Just like moons and like suns, With the certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I’ll rise. Did you want to see me broken? Bowed head and lowered eyes? Shoulders falling down like teardrops. Weakened by my soulful cries. Does my haughtiness offend you? Don’t you take it awful hard ‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines Diggin’ in my own back yard. You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Columbia University student Emma Sulkowicz carries her Twin XL across campus

Emma Sulkowicz Inspired Students Across the Country to Carry Their Mattresses. Now What? by Amanda Hess

pine green air mattress floats through the Columbia University campus, climbs the steps toward the library, passes a line of reporters and a couple of girls clutching worn white pillows, and settles into the back of a crowd of students wearing hoodies with sleeves marked “X” in red tape. A few steps up, more people are holding 28 bare white mattresses like protest placards, one for each Columbia student who has signed on to a Title IX complaint against the university. Each mattress is taped up with a slogan: “IX,” for the federal law that’s meant to prevent sexual harassment on campus to ensure equal educational opportunities for women; “NO RED TAPE,”

for an administration that some students believe is failing victims of sexual assault; or just “MOCKTRIAL” and “CU SWING,” signs of solidarity from slices of the school’s social scene. In front of them, the small circle of Columbia students who have emerged, in the past year, as national leaders against sexual assault on college campuses pass a megaphone to women who share their stories, and activists who call out the school’s response. Thin navy mattresses ripped from dorm beds form a halo around them; auxiliary air mattresses dot the crowd. Since September, Columbia senior Emma Sulkowicz has been hauling her own dorm mattress around campus every

day, everywhere she goes. Part protest, part performance art, Sulkowicz’s mattress serves as a visual reminder that the student she says raped her—two other Columbia women have filed sexual assault claims against him, too—is still free to attend the school without formal consequences while she carries the burden of the alleged attack. (Columbia doesn’t comment on individual cases, but Sulkowicz says that a disciplinary hearing found the man “not responsible”—a decision that sparked her protest against the school. The man has never commented on the matter.) The mattress has also become a calling card for “No Red Tape,” a Columbia activist group launched by Sulkowicz

Students at the National Day of Action carry mattresses to stand in solidarity with survivors of sexual assault

and another student, Zoe Ridolfi-Starr, who also says the administration brushed off her rape report, and began rallying other victims and activists to hold the school accountable. When Sulkowicz steps out on campus, friends and strangers emerge to help her lug the thing around. Now, the phenomenon has transformed into an international activist movement. On Wednesday, students around the world pledged to help “Carry That Weight” for victims of sexual assault, propping up a mattress in the quad of Iowa’s Drake University, clutching colorful pillows at Oregon’s Pacific University, and raising a mattress above heads at Bangor University in North Wales. Carry That Weight offers a symbolic upgrade to the anti-rape activism that’s been waged on college campuses for decades. Take Back the Night, which bubbled up from radical marches in the 1970s before calcifying into annual campus programming in the ’90s, symbolized the need for women to walk the streets safe from sexual violence. Carry That

Weight acknowledges that most college assaults are committed by acquaintances of the victims, often in their own dorm rooms; carrying a mattress out the door exposes that private scene in the public square. Plus, every college student has access to a cheap mattress, and transforming the university’s property into a challenge of its policies supplies an obvious thrill. The image of a young woman hauling around a mattress for weeks on end is a powerful one, but as the symbol replicates, it risks being diluted. In an opinion piece published last week in student newspaper the Columbia Spectator, Sulkowicz made a bid to preserve her artistic vision as it spread beyond her grasp. “I understand that many of you are considering carrying a pillow on this day of action,” she wrote. “I hope that very few of you end up carrying pillows. Pillows are ‘light,’ ‘fluffy,’ and may detract from our message. … If we flood the Internet with images and the inevitable ‘selfies’ that look like they came from a slumber party, we will fail to communicate what I think we all believe: Sexual assault is neither a ‘light’ nor ‘fluffy’ matter, and we cannot treat it as if it were.” At Wednesday’s protest, activists circulated a list of 10 demands for Columbia’s administration, ranging from the general (the first asks the school to “prioritize the voices of survivors and activists” in its policies) to the specific (the third commands Columbia to “remove deans from the decision making roles in the disciplinary process”). But just a few steps out from the protest’s nucleus, outsiders appeared to co-opt the crowd for their own purposes. Reps from Columbia patrolled the perimeter, passing out a one-page university statement with 10 bullet-pointed defenses of the school—its brand-new campus rape crisis center branch, 24hour support hotline, and three full-time “survivor advocates” represent a response that’s “unparalleled among the nation’s colleges and universities,” the flier read. A representative for New York City Public Advocate

Leticia James sought student signatures, e-mail addresses, and phone numbers for a petition to end sexual assault on all college campuses. Two older women circulated the crowd, pressing glossy cards hawking a talk between a prominent communist activist and a famous socialist intellectual into students’ palms; one told me that the gathering was the perfect site to propose an “end to all forms of human oppression.” And journalists like me sidled up to X-marked students to extract packagable stories; when I approached one woman to fish out a quote, she looked like she might actually gag. “The reporter response has been really aggressive and not what I expected,” Sulkowicz told the Cut last month. “It is a sensitive subject, and I can’t be accosted in the middle of campus to talk about it. One guy, while I was carrying the mattress, he just opened up my backpack and threw his business card in, which was a real violation of my space and made me really upset and triggered a lot of memories of being raped.” Sulkowicz’s symbol attracted an audience, and now Columbia’s activists are hashing out who it will serve. Is this a press stunt? A support group? An art project? A political platform? A symbolic gesture? Or something more personal? Rebecca Breslaw, a Columbia student who joined No Red Tape in its infancy, says that as the movement gains an “even bigger presence in the national spotlight, dealing with the amount of new people in the group—and figuring out how to organize for Columbia with the greater purpose of eradicating rape culture everywhere—is something that’s been really present in my mind.” These activists are balancing those interests

the best they can—refining their message as they amass intel about the university’s response, crafting bystander intervention workshops when student groups express interest, and bringing in select professional advocates, like Hollaback!’s Emily May, to help distill their message into international talking points. But they’re also still young women grappling with their own experiences. When Sulkowicz seized the megaphone to deliver the rally’s final speech, wind and rain drew listeners closer. “I don’t need to say his name,” Sulkowicz said of the man she says attacked her. “You know who it is.” She was speaking among friends and classmates here, not journalists or admirers who will never run into him at parties or sit next to him in class. When she finished, the students—mostly women, but lots of men, too—lifted the 28 mattresses over their heads and marched down the street to Columbia President Lee Bollinger’s home, stacked the mattresses on the sidewalk, and affixed the list of demands to his door with another X of red tape. The list—after offering recommendations for online evaluation forms and comprehensive reviews and disciplinary processes— ended with a personal appeal, for the university to re-open Sulkowicz’s own case. As students dispersed, journalists closed in on the group of activists with cameras, mics, and booms, but the students held them off to pose in front of the mattresses for cell phone pictures shot by their friends. “Give us a minute,” Ridolfi-Starr told me. “We just want to be able to remember this.”

I Am Not Your Wife, Sister or Daughter by The Belle Jar

don’t have to tell you that Steubenville is all over the news. I don’t have to tell you that it’s a fucking joke that Trent Mays and Ma’lik Richmond, the two teenagers convicted of raping a sixteen year old girl, were only sentenced to a combined three years in juvenile prison. Each will serve a year for the rape itself; Mays will serve an additional year for “illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material.” I probably don’t even have to tell you that the media treatment of this trial has been a perfect, if utterly sickening, example of rape culture, with its focus on how difficult and painful this event has been for the rapists who raped a sixteen year old girl then proceeded to brag about it on social media. And I almost certainly don’t have to tell you that the world is full of seemingly nice, normal people who want to go to bat for the convicted rapists. I’m quite sure that you already know about the victim-blaming that’s been happening since this case first came to light. You know about the fact that people have actually come out and said that the real lesson to be learned here is that we need to be more careful with social media (i.e. go

ahead and rape but make sure you don’t get caught). You already know that people seem to think that being a sports star and having a good academic record should somehow make up for the fact that you are a rapist. I don’t have to tell you any of that because it’s all par for the course. What I do want to tell you is that you need to stop using the “wives, sisters, daughters” argument when you are talking to people defending the Steubenville rapists. Or any rapists. Or anyone who commits any kind of crime, violent or otherwise, against a woman. In case you’re unfamiliar with this line of rhetoric, it’s the one that goes like this: You should stop defending the rapists and start caring about the victim. Imagine if she was your sister, or your daughter, or your wife. Imagine how badly you would feel if this happened to a woman that you cared about. Framing the issue this way for rape apologists can seem useful. I totally get that. It feels

like you’re humanizing the victim and making the event more relatable, more sympathetic to the person you’re arguing with. You know what, though? Saying these things is not helpful; in fact, it’s not even helping to humanize the victim. What you are actually doing is perpetuating rape culture by advancing the idea that a woman is only valuable in so much as she is loved or valued by a man. The Steubenville rape victim was certainly someone’s daughter. She may have been someone’s sister. Someday she might even be someone’s wife. But these are not the reasons why raping her was wrong. This rape, and any rape, was wrong because women are people. Women are people, rape is wrong, and no one should ever be raped. End of story. The “wives, sisters, daughters” line of argument comes up all the fucking time. President Obama even used it in his State of the Union address this year, saying, “We know our economy is stronger when our wives, mothers, and daughters can live their lives free from discrimi-

nation in the workplace, and free from the fear of domestic violence.” This device, which Obama has used on more than one occasion, is reductive as hell. It defines women by their relationships to other people, rather than as people themselves. It says that women are only important when they are married to, have given birth to, or have been fathered by other people. It says that women are only important because of who they belong to. Women are not possessions. Women are people. I cannot believe that I have to say this in 2013. On top of all of this, I want you to think of a few other implications this rhetorical device has. For one thing, what does it say about the women who aren’t anyone’s wife, mother or daughter? What does it say about the kids who are stuck in the foster system, the kids who are shuffled from one set of foster parents to another or else living in a group home? What does it say about the little girls whose mothers surrender them, willingly or not, to the state? What does it say about the people who turn their back on their biological families for one reason or another? That they deserve to be raped? That they are not worthy of protection? That they are not deserving of sympathy, empathy or love? And when we frame all women as being someone’s wife, mother or daughter, what are we teaching young girls? We are teaching them that in order to have the law on their side, they need to be loved by men. That they need to make themselves attractive and appealing to men in order to be worthy of protection. That their lives and their bodily integrity are valueless except for how they relate to the men they know. The truth is that I am someone’s wife. I am

also someone’s mother. I am someone’s daughter, and someone’s sister. But those are not the things that define me, or make me valuable in this world. Those are not the reasons that I should be able to live a life free from rape, sexual assault or any kind of violent crime. I have value because I am a person. Full stop. End of argument. This isn’t even a discussion that we should be having. So please, let’s start teaching that fact to the young women in our lives. Teach them that you love, honour and value them because of who they are. Teach them that they should expect to be treated with integrity because it’s a basic human right. Teach them that they do not deserve to be raped because no one ever, ever, ever deserves to be raped. Above all, teach them that they are people too.

When You Are Hurting by Raquel “A.J. White”

hen you are hurting, there will always be people who find a way to make it about themselves. If you break your wrist, they’ll complain about a sprained ankle. If you are sad, they’re sadder. If you’re asking for help, they’ll demand more attention. Here is a fact: I was in a hospital and sobbing into my palms when a woman approached me and asked why I was making so much noise and I managed to stutter that my best friend shot himself in the head and now he was 100% certified dead and she made this little grunt and had the nerve to tell me, “Well now you made me sad.” When you get angry, there are going to be people who ask you to shut up and sit down, and they’re not going to do it nicely. Theirs are the faces that turn bright red before you have a chance to finish your sentence. They won’t ask you to explain yourself. They’ll be mad that you’re mad and that will be their whole reason alone. Here is a fact: I was in an alleyway a few weeks ago, stroking my friend’s back as she vomited fourteen tequila shots. “I hate men,” she wheezed as her sides heaved, “I hate all of them.” I braided her hair so it wouldn’t get caught in the mess. I didn’t correct her and reply that she does in fact love her father and her little brother too, that there are strangers she has yet to meet that will be better for her than any of her shitty ex-boyfriends, that half of our group of friends identifies as male—I could hear each of her bruises in those words and I didn’t ask her to soften the blow when she was trying to buff them out of her skin. She doesn’t hate all men. She never did. She had the misfortune to be overheard by a drunk guy in an ill-fitting suit, a boy trying to look like a man and leering down my dress as he stormed towards us. “Fuck you, lady,” he said, “Fuck you. Not all men are evil, you know.” “Thanks,” I told him dryly, pulling on her hand, trying to get her inside again, “See you.” He followed us. Wouldn’t stop shouting. How dare she get mad. How dare she was hurting. “It’s hard for me too!” he yowled after us. “With

fuckers like you, how’s a guy supposed to live?” Here’s a fact: my father is Cuban and my genes repeat his. Once one of my teachers looked at my heritage and said, “Your skin doesn’t look dirty enough to be a Mexican.” When my cheeks grew pink and my tongue dried up, someone else in the classroom stood up. “You can’t say that,” he said, “That’s fucking racist. We could report you for that.” Our teacher turned vicious. “You wanna fail this class? Go ahead. Report me. I was joking. It’s my word against yours. I hate kids like you. You think you’ve got all the power—you don’t. I do.” Later that kid and I became close friends and we skipped class to do anything else and the two of us were lying on our backs staring up at the sky and as we talked about that moment, he sighed, “I hate white people.” His girlfriend is white and so is his mom. I reached out until my fingers were resting in the warmth of his palm. He spoke up each time our teacher said something shitty. He failed the class. I stayed silent. I got the A but I wish that I didn’t. Here is a fact: I think gender is a difficult and personal topic and people that want to tell others what defines it just haven’t done their homework. I personally happen to have the luck of the draw and identify as female in a female body, which basically just means society leaves me alone about this one particular thing. Until I met Alex, who said he hated cis people. My throat closed up. I’m not good at confrontation. I avoided him because I didn’t want to bother him. One day I was going on a walk and I found him behind our school, bleeding out of the side of his mouth. The only thing I really know is how to patch people up. He winced when the antibacterial cream went across his new wounds. “I hate cis people,” he said weakly. I looked at him and pushed his hair back from his head. “I understand why you do.” Here is a fact: anger is a secondary emotion. Anger is how people stop themselves from hurting.

Anger is how people stop themselves by empathizing. It is easy for the drunken man to be mad at my friend. If he says “Hey, fuck you, lady,” he doesn’t have to worry about what’s so wrong about men. It’s easy for my teacher to fail the kids who speak up. If we’re just smart-ass students, it’s not his fault we fuck up. It’s easy for me to hate Alex for labeling me as dangerous when I’ve never hurt someone a day in my life. But I’m safe in my skin and his life is at risk just by going to the bathroom. I understand why he says things like that. I finally do. There’s a difference between the spread of hatred and the frustration of people who are hurting. The thing is, when you are broken, there will always be someone who says “I’m worse, stop talking.” There will always be people who are mad you’re trying to steal the attention. There will always be people who get mad at the same time as you do—they hate being challenged. It changes the rules. I say I hate all Mondays but my sister was born on one and she’s the greatest joy I have ever known. I say I hate brown but it’s really just the word and how it turns your mouth down—the colour is my hair and my eyes and my favorite sweater. I say I hate pineapple but I still try it again every Easter, just to see if it stings less this year. It’s okay to be sad when you hear someone generalize a group you’re in. But instead of assuming they’re evil and filled with hatred, ask them why they think that way—who

knows, you might just end up with a new and kind friend. By telling the oppressed that their anger is unjustified, you allow the oppression to continue. I know it’s hard to stay calm. I know it’s scary. But you’re coming from the safe place and they aren’t. Just please … Try to be more understanding.

index cover ● >> PHOTO of Maya Angelou courtesy of Washington Post ● >> Khalo, Frida. Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird. Portrait. Oil Paint. 1940 page 6 ● >> Meikle, James. Malala Yousafzai Gives $50,000 to Reconstruction of Gaza Schools. The Guardian. N.p., 29 Oct. 2014. Web. 10 Nov. 2014. ● >> PHOTO courtesy of University Hospitals Birmingham page 8 ● >> Cole, Olivia. The Feminist Death Match Between Emma Watson And Beyoncé Is Some AntiFeminist Sh@t. XO Jane. N.p., 25 Sept. 2014. Web. 14 Nov. 2014. ● >> PHOTO by Jason LaVeris page 10 ● >> PHOTO from Beyonce’s Partition music video page 12 ● >> Lambert, Molly. Nicki Minaj Reclaims the Twerk in the ‘Anaconda’ Music Video. Grantland. N.p., 20 Aug. 2014. Web. 12 Nov. 2014. ● >> PHOTO courtesy of Nicki Minaj

page 13 ● >> PHOTO courtesy of Nicki Minaj and Young Money ● >> PHOTO from Nicki Minaj’s Anaconda music video page 14 ● >> PHOTO by Theo Wargo ● page 16 ● >> Becker, John M. Laverne Cox Electrifies Creating Change Conference. Bilerico Project. N.p., 31 Jan. 2014. Web. 14 Nov. 2014. ● >> PHOTO by Eric Leibowitz ● >> PHOTO by Jessica Borges page 17 ● >> PHOTO courtesy of Netflix’s Orange is the New Black page 18 ● >> Sultan, Aisha. Black Moms Tell White Moms About the Race Talk, Parents Talk Back. Uexpress. N.p., 29 Sept. 2014. Web. 12 Nov. 2014. ● >> PHOTO by Christian Gooden page 20 ● >> PHOTO courtesy of Burns Library page 21 ● >> Angelou, Maya. Still I Rise. 1978.

page 22 ● >> Hess, Amanda. Emma Sulkowicz Inspired Students Across the Country to Carry Their Mattresses. Now What? Slate Magazine. N.p., 30 Oct. 2014. Web. 11 Nov. 2014. ● >> PHOTO by Andrew Burton page 23 ● >> PHOTO by Millie ChristieDervaux ● >> PHOTO by Kiera Wood page 24 ● >> PHOTO courtesy of New York Magazine page 26 ● >> I Am Not Your Wife, Sister or Daughter. The Belle Jar. N.p., 18 Mar. 2013. Web. 11 Nov. 2014. page 28 ● >> When You Are Hurting... Red Blood, Black Ink. N.p., 11 Feb. 2014. Web. 16 Nov. 2014. ● >> PHOTO courtesy of Knox Gardner