The Queen's Journal, Volume 148, Issue 15

the journal Queen’s University

Vol. 148, Issue 15

Thursday, November 26, 2020

Situated on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee peoples.

Since 1873

Some international students at Queen’s face a winter break away from home

The Journal

offer COVID-19 testing, there’s no way to know whether she would be able to get her required test results within 48 hours of her flying home.

Due to the stress of not knowing whether she’d be able to get her test results by the time of her flight, as well as added concern for potential exposure during her flight and in the airport, Zhu and her parents decided it’s best for her to remain in Canada for the holiday break.

Zhu said she could potentially travel to New Brunswick to see other family, or spend Christmas with friends in Oakville or Toronto, however she’s unsure about the risk domestic travel presents.

After not returning home for the summer break as well, Zhu cited homesickness as something of her concern.

“I’ve been an international student for the past six years, homesickness is something I always feel,” she said. “It’s a motivation for me to think about going home to visit my family.”

“After I realized I wasn’t going home [for the holidays] I started feeling really stressed and sad, and I feel like I don’t have something to push me going forward.”

With an increased number of international students remaining in Kingston over the winter break, the University is prepared to

provide several services to the students who will remain on campus.

“QUIC will be promoting programing to students who plan to stay in Kingston over the holidays,” Mark Erdman, community relations manager, wrote in a statement to The Journal. “This includes QUIC’s World Link events, and various holiday time offerings and events in Kingston.”

Erdman also said residence dons will be available for emergency support throughout the winter break for students remaining in residence. These students will also receive an information package including resources to local wellness services, as well as contact information for who should be contacted in an emergency.

Information in these packages will include information about 24/7 mental health supports, links to Empower Me, and how to contact Kingston, Frontenac, and Lennox and Addington (KFL&A) Public Health, if needed.

QUIC is also providing guidance to all international students seeking to visit home for the winter break by providing students with information on the latest travel requirements for their country and the requirements for returning to Canada safely in January.

animator on

and there is high testing capacity (community swabbing has increased).”

Yellow community status also means KFL&A Public Health now updates its COVID-19 case data dashboard every day of the week.

There has been a total of 245 positive cases in the KFL&A region since the

outbreak of the pandemic.

The University said the yellow level requires heightened safety measures, which affect select activities on campus. However, the changes are expected to be minimal because Queen’s has been operating under stricter COVID-19 guidelines throughout the term.

One student discusses the difficult choice to stay in Canada Cassidy McMackon Assistant News Editor As the semester wraps up, many students are making plans to safely travel home for the holidays. For international students, staying in Kingston isn’t a decision that’s easily made.

Despite having initial plans to go home to China for the winter break and see her family, Annabel Zhu, ArtSci ’21, told The Journal these plans have now been abandoned.

Zhu was preparing to face the rigorous travel policies put in place by the Canadian and Chinese governments.

“North America has a lot more COVID-19 cases compared to China,” she said.

“You now have to get two negative COVID-19 tests within 48 hours of you flying to be able to go home.”

Zhu explained, with several people trying to fly back to China for the winter holidays and few clinics being available to

Read the rest at Queensjournal.ca

As Kingston goes yellow, all COVID-19 cases at Queen’s resolved

Claudia Rupnik News Editor

The University has reported all cases of COVID-19 are resolved in the Queen’s community as of Wednesday afternoon.

According to the University’s COVID-19 case tracker, no new cases of the virus have been reported this week.

The University has identified a total of 28 cases in the Queen’s community since Aug. 31, including nine cases in residence and 19 off-campus.

Kingston, Frontenac, and Lennox & Addington (KFL&A) Public Health is reporting 16 active cases in the region.

KFL&A Public Health raised the community status from green to yellow on Nov. 23 at the direction of the provincial government. The COVID-19 yellow community status indicates the region has “a few active positive cases, less than two active outbreaks, full local hospitality capacity, cases and contacts are being reached within 24 hours of notification of positive test results,

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talks to an Pixar’s Soul N athan G allagher Arts Editor Inspired by her late grandfather, Emilie Goulet wanted to be an animator since early childhood, which makes her work on Pixar’s Soul, a film that explores themes of celebrating life and embracing death, feel like a culmination of the ambitions he nurtured in her.

In an interview with The Journal, Goulet discussed how she began her animation career and described some of the work she did for upcoming Soul, which premieres on Disney+ on Dec. 25.

Sylvia Wong, from Ottawa, Ontario, is the Layout Technical Director on the film. Before working at Pixar, she attended Queen’s University. Wong was unavailable for an interview.

Goulet, originally from Montreal, graduated from Concordia University in 2001 with a BFA in Film Animation.

“I feel like I’ve always loved drawing, and my grandfather was an architect,” she said.

“For as far [back] as I can remember, that was my favourite thing to do especially with him. I remember the first time sitting down with him, and we just started drawing, and getting a reaction from him and also from my parents from my own drawing—from there it evolved into storytelling through drawing, and then of course you go watch animated movies, and that’s it, I fell in love[…]Once you’re in a theatre, and you have a big screen in front of you with characters, I kind of got addicted.”

Fate would have it that the first animated movie Goulet ever saw in theatres was Fantasia, a film made by Disney, the parent company of Pixar, where she now works.

“When I was a kid, Pixar didn’t exist, but the first movie I saw in theatres was Fantasia,” Goulet said. “I think that’s also one of the reasons why I wanted to work in animated movies, because I remember this experience as being extremely emotional.”

Having grown up loving animated movies, Goulet remembers what a big deal it was when Pixar burst onto the scene with the world’s first ever 3D-animated movie, Toy Story, a film whose enormous success radically changed the genre, making 3D-animation the dominant form.

“Coincidentally, Toy Story just came out 25 years ago, right. I remember also when that movie came out,” she said. “I was 17, and it’s as if all of the sudden an entire world opened. It’s a new medium but it’s also a different type of storytelling […] I feel like back in the day what we would see mostly from animation was musicals, and [Toy Story] was different. It’s just very inspiring, and I remember being a teenager and [thinking], ‘I want to do that.’”

See Pixar on page 11

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Thursday, November 26, 2020 Engagement

Julia Harmsworth and Cassidy McMackon Assistant News Editors As the fall semester draws to a close, The Journal sat down with the AMS executive team to review their progress and the status of the goals outlined in their platform.

President Jared Den Otter, Vice-President (Operations) Alexandra Samoyloff, and Vice-President (Student Affairs) Alexia Henriques touched on student wellness, equity, student engagement on campus, and supporting students during the COVID-19 pandemic and remote term.

Student Wellness

The executive reported they’re engaged in monthly conversations with Executive Director of Student Wellness Services (SWS) Cynthia Gibney to discuss student wellness needs, with a particular focus on mental health.

The Peer Support Centre (PSC) moved online at the beginning of the fall term to provide students with mental health support over Zoom. A major part of the executive’s campaign platform included promoting the PSC to first-year students in residences, especially to those spending time in isolation residences.

“We’re very proud of [the PSC’s] ability to adapt to being online,” Samoyloff told The Journal.

The Health and Wellness Caucus outlined in the executive’s platform has been implemented, with the first Wellness Caucus happening on Nov. 11.

Henriques said the purpose of the Wellness Caucus is to approach student health and wellness from a “more holistic approach,” examining mental, sexual, and physical health.

“Commissioner of Campus Affairs Charlotte Galvani has done a really great job coordinating with members from clubs, student wellness groups, and faculty-society representatives,” Henriques said.

The Wellness Caucus will continue to meet on a monthly basis. The AMS hopes to use it as a safe space for students to collaborate and share concerns about wellness on campus, and for the AMS to communicate these concerns to SWS. Sustainability

Following consultations with

Team AJA said it’s incredible to watch the AMS team grow.

AMS Fall in Review

Team AJA discusses sustainability, student engagement, and COVID-19 various stakeholders over the summer, AMS Assembly officially ratified Molly Urquhart as the Commissioner of Environmental Sustainability in September.

Urquhart is currently building her Commission, working to hire a Deputy of Environmental Sustainability who will work with her to create an Environmental Coalition pushing for more policy changes from the University.

“The Commission is slowly being built from the ground up,” Henriques said. “We’re taking a lot of time and effort into doing research and really learning what from students are looking for in this Commission.”

Another platform point was to revitalize the Equity Caucus.

The Social Issues Commission has been meeting with the Equity Caucus to assess certain social issues discussed in previous years.

Henriques noted Social Issues Commissioner Angela Sahi’s goal of allowing students to lead conversations surrounding equity on campus.

Henriques noted the priority for the Caucus is to remain relevant for students, while providing them with a space to share and collaborate on equity

initiatives and the opportunity to address equity gaps to the Social Issues Commissioner.

To further collaborate with Four Directions, the executive is prioritizing open communication with the Centre, including monthly meetings. They’re also in communication with other stakeholders on campus supporting marginalized students.

Den Otter and Henriques addressed the Society’s initiative to share information released by Four Directions through the marketing and communications office.

“Traditionally, the AMS executive wouldn’t have lines of communication [to the centre] directly, but we wanted to prioritize that and emphasize that equity, inclusion, and indigeneity goes beyond one commission and needs to be ingrained throughout the organization and all of our campus stakeholders,” Henriques said.

The AMS is also providing mental health support for BIPOC students on campus, including speaking with SWS about bringing in BIPOC counselors to support students.

The executive has also been advocating for more support for BIPOC students on a provincial level through

this Friday at 5 p.m. over Zoom to reflect on the remote student learning experience.

The Town Hall will overview students’ experiences after the fall term, to find ways to improve online learning in the winter term.

“We want to convey that everyone had to adapt to the pandemic and that everyone shares that feeling of frustration.

We want to compile what works for students in terms of learning experience, and if it is possible for professors to embed them into

their teaching in the upcoming term,” Flora Lin, COMPSA vice-president (student affairs), told The Journal. “While it is unfortunate that the winter term will also be remote, COMPSA wants to facilitate this event so everyone can reflect together and improve the situation.”

“Since the start of the term, there has been a disconnect between faculty and students that cannot be replicated on Zoom calls or onQ discussion boards. This pandemic is pushing everyone to adapt and adjust to new ways of

Equity

COMPSA to hold Town Hall meeting on remote learning School of Computing professors to attend event Cassidy McMackon Assistant News Editor After a full semester of online learning, the Computing Students Association (COMPSA) will be holding a Town Hall meeting

PHOTO SUPPLIED BY THE AMS

the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance (OUSA), specifically to implement more community-based support for BIPOC students.

“Although Queen’s University and [SWS] need to play a huge role in advocating for our students, they can’t do it alone,” Henriques said. “We are really advocating to various MPPs and ministers on some of our priorities.”

External Affairs

The AMS hasn’t yet reached out to the University to provide student input on the construction of the residence building on Albert Street, as outlined in their campaign platform. They’re currently working with the University on the ongoing JDUC construction project.

“We’re actively seeking any areas that we can collaborate with the University,” den Otter said. “There’s definitely still areas to reach out to […] and see how we can provide student input.”

The AMS is also working to rebuild lines of communication with the City of Kingston.

Henriques said they’ve had “a lot of really great meetings” with Mayor Bryan Paterson about affordable student housing.

Through OUSA, the AMS published a policy paper focusing on affordable and safe student housing.

“That’s always something we’ll be prioritizing,” Henriques said. learning/teaching.”

Lin said students in the School of Computing have experienced several issues throughout the semester, with professors implementing more weekly assignments rather than bigger projects. Students have also felt a greater disconnect from professors due to all communications being online.

“The fall term has been very new and frustrating for students in general, which is why having this discussion will bring to light these issues,” Lin said. “Hopefully,

Under the Clubs Commission and in collaboration with the Student Experience Office, the AMS has implemented the Club Hub, an online remote toolkit to assist clubs in operating remotely throughout the school year.

Requirements for club grants have been expanded to become more accessible for clubs during COVID-19, and the remote Clubs Caucus will continue into the winter term.

Following a remote Orientation Week and with significantly fewer first-year students living in residence, the executive reported challenges in introducing first-year students to the AMS and its services.

The First Year Intern Council was revitalized to combat this problem. Currently, there are more than 20 interns on the First Year Intern Council that consists of students both on and off campus.

The AMS has also advertised safety and wellness services, such as Walkhome and the PSC, in residence through a collaboration with the Residence Society.

However, the Society is seeking new marketing avenues to further engage first-year students from the First Year Intern Council.

The Winter Term

When The Journal asked about her biggest priorities for the winter term, Henriques highlighted the development of the new International Affairs Deputy, a collaboration with the Sexual Assault Centre Kingston (SACK), and implementation of the AMS Compensation Policy.

The policy is currently with the AMS Board of Directors for approval.

Samoyloff said one of her biggest goals is expanding AMS service offerings and improving internal operations—one of the biggest challenges she anticipates is the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

“A lot of the past few months has been very ground-up, so really focusing on how we can operate and what that looks [like] to do safely,” she said.

Den Otter spoke to the upcoming AMS elections and the need to increase student engagement and accessibility. The AMS is hosting an information session on Dec. 2 during which students can learn about how the election process works and what the executive team does.

“It’s been a challenging semester and it’s been a challenging summer, but I think we’re all learning and we’re all growing, and we’re adapting and it’s just been incredible to watch the AMS team grow in to their positions,” he said. we can find ways to resolve them going forward.”

The event will be attended by both students and faculty. Lin said Professor Nick Graham, Professor Randy Ellis, Professor Ting Hu, and Professor Wendy Powell will all be in attendance at the event to reflect on the online learning experience with students.

“This term has been very frustrating for students and faculty alike, and having this open discussion to talk about what works and what doesn’t would benefit both parties greatly.”

News

Thursday, November 26, 2020

queensjournal.ca • 3

Campus magazines navigate the impacts of COVID-19 MUSE Magazine, Undergraduate Review are finding new ways to reach readers Claudia Rupnik News Editor Editor’s note: One member of The Journal’s Editorial Board is one of the Editors in Chief of the Undergraduate Review.

As COVID-19 keeps students at home, campus publications are pivoting to reach readers.

MUSE Magazine (MUSE) is launching its first online issue on Thursday.

“This is our first online issue, so that was a really big challenge for our layout team because their skillset isn’t necessarily in website design—it’s more in Photoshop or Illustrator,” Anna McAlpine, editor

in chief of MUSE, told The Journal.

“We ended up hiring a few new people to help transition from print issue to an online issue.”

McAlpine said money was the main factor in transitioning away from print this year.

“Initially, I asked all of the Heads to make three business plans. I wanted to see one for 100 per cent online, one for online in the fall and in-person in the winter, and one for 100 per cent in-person—just so we were prepared for every outcome,” she said.

“It became pretty clear before those were even due that it wasn’t worth doing the 100 per cent in-person one. Every week, for a while there in the spring, it was [asking] what’s different this week?”

She said the magazine’s fundraising model has changed this year because they’re no longer able to make money from in-person events, or depend on small businesses in Kingston purchasing advertisements.

“They’re not in a position to

Anna McAlpine is the Editor in Chief of MUSE Magazine.

advertise with us in the same way that they’d normally be able to,” McAlpine said. “We understand that.”

The magazine is also funded through an optional student ancillary fee, which she said students opted into at a “pretty consistent” rate compared to previous years.

She said the online format also makes delivery and distribution easier.

“It’s not safe for us all to be in the ARC touching the magazine and handing it out in the way we normally would. It’s also [a way we’re] able to reach students who aren’t in Kingston.”

MUSE launched its 20th issue in the spring, though the pandemic pushed distribution to the fall term.

“We were distributing [the last issue] through [Common Ground Coffeehouse] and through our Shopify, so we’re able to ship it

University launches eight-week program to support students managing substance use and addiction Queen’s works with St. Lawrence College and Kingston Public Health on new program Simone Manning Assistant News Editor The University has partnered with a team of mental health providers from St. Lawrence College (SLC) and Addiction and Mental Health Services – Kingston, Frontenac, Lennox, and Addington (AMHS - KFLA) to develop an eight-week Substance Use Wellness program.

This collaboration followed a joint proposal by Queen’s and Student SLC to receive additional staff training for campus mental health providers and additional addiction support from

AMHS-KFLA for students.

Kate Humphrys, health promotion coordinator at Student Wellness Services, specified each session will address a particular topic related to substance use and addictions.

Sessions within the psychoeducation program include non-judgemental information sharing, discussion among participants, and resources and worksheets, all of which are facilitated within a harm-reduction framework.

“Students will have the opportunity to engage about different aspects of substance use and how it affects their lives in different ways, and to receive support for issues they might be experiencing related to substance use, misuse, or abuse,” Humphrys wrote in a statement to The Journal.

According to Humphrys, attendance is flexible, with an encouragement for students to attend sessions which will provide

the most relevant resources.

“We want to support students to make their own choices about their use of substances” Humphrys wrote. “There are a wide-variety of options or outcomes that could be right for each individual.”

Facilitation of this partnership project was led by Mike Young, a former rector who is now the executive director of the Empathy Institute and an external consultant with AMHS-KFLA. Funding for this work was obtained through a grant from the Centre for Innovation in Campus Mental Health (CICHM).

Humphrys said funding was obtained before the onset of the pandemic, as an additional way to provide support for students experiencing issues related to substance use, misuse, or abuse prior to COVID-19.

Read the full story online at queensjournal.ca

Canada-wide,” McAlpine said. “It’s just different because there’s more traffic through the ARC and other buildings on campus where we’re able to reach more people, whereas this year you had to seek us out.”

McAlpine said they’ve had significant engagement with first-year students, despite the remote learning environment.

“I was surprised by how much we’ve been able to reach first years, which is something I thought might be difficult because most of them aren’t on campus, and, even if they are, they’re pretty sectioned off in residence.”

“I think, in some ways, because people aren’t on campus and aren’t going to class, they’re even more eager to get involved than they would be otherwise. I think it’s been great for us.”

Hannah Bush, one of the editors in chief of the Undergraduate Review (UR), said UR will still be printing the magazine this year.

“We’ll still be doing a physical copy and it’ll still be distributed,” Bush told The Journal. “[W]e’re trying to help with the mailing costs so students who aren’t here in Kingston will also be able to get a copy.”

UR will also be working with local stores to distribute the magazine in the community.

Bush said one of the biggest challenges this year is finding ways to explore different types of artistry when gatherings are restricted. “[W]e can only add photos,

PHOTO BY MAIA MCCANN

written works, paintings, or drawings to the actual magazine,” Bush said. “We don’t have these opportunities to explore other types of art works, like singing, dancing, or spoken word poetry.

Things that can’t go into a book.

We would usually have events to promote those types of things.”

She pointed to Art Fest and the Art Gallery, two events celebrating artists working with the magazine.

“We usually have live bands or spoken word artists. That’s something that can’t be added into the magazine, things that are live and deal with music, or any type of performance,” Bush said. “[W]e just won’t be able to do that this year.”

“Instead, we’re trying to push for those things through social media.

Thankfully, we’re in a time when social media is so big and there are so many different opportunities for us to show these live artworks, like Instagram Live, or Instagram takeovers, posting videos.”

Bush said the current team is also trying to promote past editions of the magazine by having copies archived in the public libraries in Kingston. “[It’s] a goal this year to make artwork throughout the community and combine the everyday life and artwork together,” Bush said.

“That’s one of the themes we’re working with this year—trying to get the community into the magazine a lot more.”

News

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The University released the third TRCTF report in September.

PHOTO BY SPENCER HENDRICKSON

said. “There’s been activity in some respect on almost every recommendation in […] the report. So I’m pleased with that.”

“Mind you, a lot of the work, I think, is done on the ones that are easier. Like, in terms of representation, so hanging art and creating space.”

Hill said there has been “a lot of engagement” in the use of Indigenous languages to identify spaces on campus.

Julia Harmsworth According to her, one of the major Assistant News Editor recommendations from the national TRC report involved post-secondary institutions Kanonhsyonne (Janice Hill), associate adopting Indigenous language programs. vice-principal (Indigenous initiatives and “I’m really glad to see all of the efforts reconciliation), told The Journal recent made around [that], especially Indigenous progress in Indigenous reconciliation at language work at Queen’s,” she said.

Queen’s gives her hope.

Hill added she’d like to see the University The Queen’s Truth and Reconciliation move away from “faces, places, and spaces” Commission Task Force (TRCTF) released and look at more concrete action, working its third Implementation Report in to address the systemic barriers Indigenous September. The report addresses the students, staff, and faculty face on campus.

University’s progress in fulfilling the 25 She also said she wants the University recommendations discussed in the TRCTF’s to prioritize Indigenous research and final report in 2016. the establishment of an Indigenous “It’s been a difficult year for all of us, but Research Centre.

I think the work is ongoing, and we’re still Hill said a major challenge Queen’s still continuing to address the recommendations,” faces is Indigenous representation. She Hill said. said there’s “not a lot” of Indigenous staff Queen’s is currently fulfilling each of and faculty at Queen’s right now and more the 25 recommendations, according to Indigenous faculty is needed to teach the report.

Indigenous studies courses.

“I think we’re doing pretty good at According to the report, there are responding to the recommendations,” Hill currently 100 Indigenous staff members

Hill says Queen’s needs to move beyond representation and address systemic barriers on campus

Queen’s to participate in the Times Higher Education University Impact Rankings University committing to UN Sustainable Development Goals Julia Harmsworth Assistant News Editor Queen’s is participating in a project to measure the global impact of universities across the world.

The University committed to the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Principal Patrick Deane’s Report on the Conversation. The SDGs provide goals for working towards sustainability and solving issues like inequality, poverty, and the climate crisis.

To measure how the global university

sector is working to meet these goals, Times Higher Education (THE) launched the THE University Impact Rankings in 2019.

Deane has committed to taking part in these rankings to measure the University’s progress in meeting the SDGs. “As we determine the new strategic framework for our university and our future, we need to consider social impact as one of our top priorities,” Deane said in a press release.

“By aligning our emerging vision with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, we will be able to develop a clear sense of social purpose for Queen’s that emphasizes the wellbeing of people and the survival of the planet.”

Queen’s has established a Project Team and Working Group composed of staff and faculty from across the University to complete its submission. The submission

Thursday, November 26, 2020

Kanonhsyonne (Janice Hill) reflects on Truth & Reconciliation Commission Task Force’s third report at Queen’s.

Hill said one of the most important things the University has accomplished in the past year is the establishment of a minor program in Indigenous Studies.

“The whole reason we exist is for the purpose of education, and the whole purpose we exist is really in service to students,” she said. “So I think if we don’t provide proper and adequate information to students on Indigenous initiatives, then we’re doing students a disservice.”

She said she hopes the program will embrace Indigenous pedagogy and learning from the land, once COVID-19 restrictions allow students to gather in person again.

“The question of land is very important,” she said. “So I think it’s important for everyone to have opportunity to engage with the land.”

Hill referenced the recent incidents

at Chown Hall and the Four Directions Indigenous Student Centre, saying they “rocked the community” and the Indigenous community is “still recovering” from them.

Last October, a violent note was found in the fourth floor common room of Chown Hall. The note targeted LGBTQ+ and Indigenous students and referenced an incident earlier that month in which a Métis flag and a Pride flag were stolen from the common room.

The Pride and Indigenous flags hanging outside of Four Directions were also vandalized in June, and the tipi in the backyard was vandalized in July.

“There’s always going to be people who don’t think this work is important, but I like to think […] there’s more people who are what we normally would refer to as allies, who are assisting with this work.”

Principal Deane called Queen’s current rankings “depressing.”

The results are expected in April 2021.

will demonstrate how Queen’s is working to meet all 17 SDGs. The University’s submission is due Nov. 30 and results are expected in April 2021.

“Taking part in the 2021 Impact Rankings demonstrates our commitment to ensuring our institution is focused on the UN SDGs—the hallmarks of which are community, sustainability, equity and internationalization efforts—all integral to our current and future state,” Deane said.

THE uses data provided by the institution and bibliometric datasets provided by data company Elsevier to evaluate each university’s submission. They also consider the various purposes of post-secondary education, like teaching, research, outreach, and stewardship.

They determine the rankings based

PHOTO BY MADDISON ANDREWS

PHOTO BY DANIEL GREEN

on the three SDGs each institution scores highest in, plus the last goal: partnerships for the goals.

“The University plans to leverage the dashboard to understand how we performed globally and domestically and ascertain how individual metrics contributed to our score in each SDG,” the University wrote in a statement to The Journal. “We will apply those findings to future submissions.”

Deane told the Board of Trustees in September that Queen’s global standing is a “critically important issue” and that its current rankings are “depressing.”

In the meeting, he announced Queen’s would be participating in the THE University Impact Rankings for the first time.

According to Deane, Queen’s ranked in the envelope of 251-300 in the most recent THE ranking.

News

Thursday, November 26, 2020

queensjournal.ca • 5

‘Risks of gender-based violence are higher in university-aged populations’ Sexual Violence Prevention and Response Office leads 16 Days of Advocacy Against Gender-Based Violence Claudia Rupnik News Editor The Sexual Violence Prevention and Response Office (SVPRO) launched a new social media campaign on Wednesday.

The 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence (GBV) is a call to action and a renewal of commitment to end GBV, encapsulating the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women on Dec. 6.

“Because of this call to action idea, the purpose of the 16 days of activism is to talk about what kind of things our community can do to engage in prevention,” Taylor Mackenzie MacPherson, sexual violence prevention & response community outreach and student support worker in the Human Rights and Equity Office, told The Journal in an interview. “That’s in a variety of ways, from learning more and working out ways we can support organizations like the

Sexual Assault Centre Kingston and Kingston Interval House.” “[A] lot of organizations— and we’ll share some of those throughout our campaign—are also doing some vital petitions and [sharing] information about certain bills coming into play in the next couple of months, or other bills they’re advocating for. There’s also that push on government action.”

MacPherson said a lot of universities have participated in the campaign over the past couple of years, as well as organizations throughout Ontario and Canada.

Queen’s SVPRO has shared a calendar with daily topics about the conversations they’re planning to engage in over the next two weeks. MacPherson said they’re focusing on an intensive social media campaign because of the remote setting and how busy this time of year is for students.

“The idea is that students can follow our Instagram and our Facebook, and they can engage with daily content that is quick to read, but is also engaging and makes them think a little bit about ways they can learn more and ways they can support and ways they can take action,” MacPherson said.

MacPherson said there will also be a couple of Instagram Live streams, with videos from some of the services at Queen’s, but the campaign’s primary focus is

providing the community with bite size content that’s easy to follow along with.

The first day took an educational approach by defining GBV. “The hope is students engage with the content and they’re able to take away a piece that continues past those 16 days. Something that’s important to our office is that, when we do these campaigns, they’re not the only thing that’s happening,” MacPherson said.

“We’ll be talking about other initiatives coming up next semester, and the hope is that this continuous conversation is happening on campus because we shouldn’t be engaging in activism for only 16 days.”

MacPherson said it’s important to educate university-aged people about GBV because universities and campuses are a “microcosm of society.”

“GBV prevention education matters across age groups regardless; however, we do know that risks of GBV are higher in university-aged populations,” she

Scholar (QNS) program.

QNS was first established in 1985, with the objective to “enrich teaching and research in newly developing fields of knowledge as well as traditional disciplines,” with those appointed under the program committed to advancing equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI).

The program has historically selected emerging leaders in teaching and research to develop innovative academic programming, expanding the interdisciplinary field of Black Studies at Queen’s.

This selection follows a commitment by Principal and

Vice-Chancellor Patrick Deane to broaden the hiring process for faculty of the BA Minor/ General in Black Studies, as well as a University-wide pledge to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Indigeneity implementation.

The QNS Chair in Black Studies in the Faculty of Arts and Science was also established, as well as two QNS appointments to support the Black Studies program which are open to all faculties and schools.

“The Queen’s National Scholar program attracts top talent, ensuring growth and renewal of our university’s efforts to

Haley Adams designed a memorial in Beamish-Munro Hall.

Queen’s National Scholar 2020-21 program supports Black Studies QNS appointments to facilitate equity, diversity, and inclusion in new Minor Simone Manning Assistant News Editor Queens’ Black Studies Minor, expected to launch in fall 2021, has been awarded two positions through the Queen’s National

PHOTO SUPPLIED BY FEAS

said. “And I want to acknowledge [it’s] particularly higher for women.

We also know when we talk about GBV we have to recognize the risks people experience are not equal and there are ways in which GBV intersects with oppression, specifically racism, ableism, homophobia, and transphobia, to name a few.”

“We, as a university campus culture, experience those risks pretty acutely.”

Going beyond intervention, MacPherson said GBV prevention includes building a positive consent culture and encouraging positive romantic, sexual, professional, personal, and platonic relationships.

“The reality is that this is our campus community and we all have an impact on what we want it to look like. Having these conversations about what we want that campus culture to look like really matters because we have the ability to change that.”

The National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women is Dec. 6 to mark the anniversary of the 1989 École Polytechnique massacre in Montreal.

“There’s a tradition to wear white ribbons on Dec. 6, but we can’t hand out white ribbons this year,” MacPherson said.

Instead, the SVPRO is accepting photo submissions from the Queen’s community to represent

a call to action and create visibility for the day.

The Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science (FEAS) will also have a memorial event on Dec. 3.

Presented by the student-led Engineering Society (EngSoc), the event will be a livestream featuring Principal Patrick Deane, Dean of the FEAS Kevin Deluzio, Chair for Women in Engineering Dr. Heidi Ploeg, and other students.

The FEAS will also unveil a memorial art installation in the atrium at Beamish-Munro Hall designed by Haley Adams, ’Sci 21.

More information about the livestream will be made available

by EngSoc next week.

The SVPRO will also be participating in an online memorial hosted by the Sexual Assault Centre Kingston this year.

The office has submitted videos and pictures from other services on campus to the memorial, which they will share on the day alongside the white ribbons.

“The day is about remembering and mourning, but it’s also about calling to action and thinking critically about the ways in which we need to be continuing to have these conversations and actually taking tangible efforts,” MacPherson said. “[And asking ourselves:] what does it look like to do that individually?”

advance research and provide an exceptional student learning experience,” Principal Patrick Deane wrote in a statement.

“This year, we are excited to announce that the program will be dedicated to delivering on our promise to launch a BA Minor/General in Black Studies, boosting our capacity for excellence in this important field and championing greater diversity among our faculties.”

The BA Minor/ General in Black Studies was established to cohesively unify existing Black studies courses in Arts and Science, predominantly led by Professor Katherine McKittrick.

McKittrick, a professor in the Gender Studies Department, played a key role in the development of this program, including courses on Caribbean political economies, water politics in Southern Africa, Black sound studies, African American history, Black feminist thought, and Black geographies.

The QNS appointments provide foundational support to the Black Studies program, which has been stated to diversify curriculum, increase access to interdisciplinary programs, and offer programs which engage intellectual curiosity within and beyond Western knowledge frameworks.

6 • queensjournal.ca

While many students turn to sugar dating for needed financial support, it doesn’t come without stigma Cassidy McMackon Assistant News Editor This story mentions sex work and sexual violence. It may be triggering for some readers.

Fo r Kate*, sugar babying—engaging in a kind of dating where one partner financially supports the other—started as a way of earning some additional income.

As a graduate student, Kate receives funding from the University as her primary source of income.

“I enjoy being a sugar baby as it provides me with spending money, which allows me to live a more lavish lifestyle than your average graduate student,” Kate told The Journal.

Kate started sugar babying when she signed up for Seeking Arrangements in the summer of 2019.

“I had just moved to a new city and had made a new group of friends. One of my closer friends in the group and I were joking about how we thought it would be easy to be a sugar baby and we’d probably end up making good spending money,” she said. “Later that night we had some wine and decided to sign up on Seeking Arrangements.”

The Journal spoke with three female-identified students who have engaged in sex work via sugar babying at different points throughout their time as students.

Despite being alucrative job to have as a student, all three women have kept their involvement in the industry largely private, in part due to the potential stigma they would otherwise face. ***

Kate has had a number of sugar daddies since joining Seeking Arrangements in 2019. She browses the website in search of sugar daddies, weeding out men who she feels are merely pretending to have money or she isn’t physically attracted to.

First dates always take place in public; the pair meet up for coffee, drinks, or dinner to get to know one another and sense whether there’s chemistry.

Kate has had both short-term relationships that were restricted to the internet and longer-term relationships involving sexual aspects. In both situations, Kate would be sent an allowance for photos and text messages, or for in-person dates and sexual intercourse.

“I prefer long-term relationships with someone I can really trust.

The consistent allowance is nice, and it feels more natural to me,” Kate said.

T* and Kristy* also began working as sugar babies after finding sugar daddies online.

Thursday, November 26, 2020 Both in their second year, the two women started sugar babying during their first year at Queen’s.

“I was messing around on Tinder one night and put my age settings all the way up when a guy started talking to me,” T said. “I wasn’t really seeking to be a sugar baby, it just kind of found me and I thought the opportunity was too good to pass up.”

T started an online relationship with a sugar daddy based in Kingston in the winter. In exchange for an allowance and gifts, she would send her sugar daddy daily photos and act as his companion in her free time.

“I felt like I was a companion for him to talk to about things that he couldn’t necessarily share with the actual people in his life.”

Kristy, who started sugar babying in high school, has used Seeking Arrangements in the past to find sugar daddies in the Greater Toronto Area. In looking for potential sugar daddies, Kristy would go through a vetting process with each potential match.

“I would try to feel guys out on Seeking Arrangements.

There’s kind of a pattern to these conversations, since both parties are trying to figure the other party out and determine what each other want, what their availability is like, and what their interests are,” she said.

After determining whether a potential sugar daddy was a safe option, Kristy had both online relationships as well as in-person meet-ups with sugar daddies.

“For typical dates I would often get to choose where we would go, whether that was for dinner or drinks,” she said. “Sometimes we would go to hotels, and I would have sex with them.”

“For me, there was no emotional gain. The focus was always on the sugar daddy and that’s how you get your money.”

Kristy told The Journal that she has had her share of interacting withthe varying degrees of sugar daddies, ranging from men who are gentler and simply looking for companionship, as well as sugar daddies who are more aggressive and sexually demanding.

“I have also dealt with violence when sugar babying,” she said.

“Sometimes I’ve been scared [my sugar daddies] would find me in real life and try to hunt me down. There have also been some situations where I have been in the hotel room praying to God that I would come out alive.”

Kristy said. “Financial struggle was something that was consistent throughout my life, and I knew I had to pull my own weight if I wanted to go to school.”

Despite the high financial return, working in the sex industry presents a high risk to individuals who choose to do so. The need to have a safety net ensuring one’s personal safety, as well as ensuring the experience is as comfortable as possible, presented an obstacle for all three women.

For T, safety precautions were largely a matter of maintaining privacy.

“I never told my sugar daddy where I lived and did not let him send things to my home address,” she said. “There were a lot of instances where he would want to send me stuff to where I was living, but there was no way that

providing these friends with the location of their date and a time they could expect to hear from them to verify the safety of their dates.

“Street smarts and common sense also play a big role,” Kate said.“I always trust my gut.”

Maintaining the upper hand by controlling the location of a date is also of vital importance.

While hotel rooms offer venues for privacy while still being in a public location, a sugar daddy’s home presents a number of unknown risks.

“I would never go to their homes,” Kristy said. “That was too dangerous for me.” ***

Despite a relatively sex-positive environment at Queen’s, sugar

Features

Being a sugar baby at Queen’s was happening.”

“I didn’t want him to know specific details about my life; all he knew was that I was a Queen’s student and that I lived in the Kingston area.”

T also took precautions to ensure she would not be pressured into doing things that made her feel uncomfortable during her online relationship.

“I actually told my sugar daddy that I was a virgin so he wouldn’t ask me to do or send him weird things,” she told The Journal. “He started escalating in sending me increasingly inappropriate messages which is why I broke off the relationship.”

For Kate and Kristy, safety precautions were more rigorous, as their arrangements took place in-person.

Both women told a small number of close friends about the work they were doing,

babies and sex workers are still met with stigmatization for the work they engage in. Kate, Kristy, and T all agreed this stigma is both prevalent at Queen’s and external to the institution.

“There is a stigma for individuals who engage in sugar babying and other forms of sex work, but I don’t believe this is unique to Queen’s,” Kate said. “Embracing [or] owning your sexuality and partaking in academia are two things that people assume cannot coexist.”

T also cited the lack of discussion on the topic of sex work at Queen’s as contributing to the overall stigma. “[Sugar babying and sex work]

is not a topic that is really talked about a lot, and I don’t often talk about with people that aren’t close to me,” she said. “There isn’t enough discussion about it, which makes it hard for those who do engage in sex work to find outlets to talk about it.”

“I found that it was really hard to find people who were in the same situation as me, just because people aren’t open to speaking on these topics because of the stigmatization. I think there needs to be an open conversation about the topic.”

Kristy also noted that the casual nature in which sugar babying is joked about can be harmful to those who engage in sex work.

“I always hear jokes where people will tell their friends to just go find a sugar daddy,” she said.

“People pass it off as sugar babying being very easy and that it’s easy to just sell yourself off, when in my personal experience the reality was a lot harder than what people make it out to be, especially when there is a lot of violence and a heavy time commitment.”

For Kristy, despite experiencing significant adversity throughout her time engaging in sex work, she has found the experience to be beneficial outside of its financial aspects.

“It’s odd what you can take away from the experience […] I used to be a little more passive; but when you’re dealing with sugar daddies you can often have to deal with more aggressive people, so I learned how to be more assertive and stand up for myself, and I’ve been able to apply that in my experience as a student.”

“I wouldn’t trade my experience as a sugar baby for anything else, actually.”

*Name changed for anonymity due to safety reasons.

***

While Kate is still sugar babying, both T and Kristy are currently not involved in sex work.

Kristy, who stopped sugar babying when she was in her first year, cited the time commitment as being a key deterrent to why she stopped working.

All three women agreed that the financial aspect of engaging in sex work has been the largest benefit of working in the industry.

“I didn’t grow up very rich,”

ILLUSTRATION BY ASHLEY CHEN

Thursday, November 26, 2020

queensjournal.ca • 7

A Queen’s Journal Podcast

8 • queensjournal.ca

Thursday, November 26, 2020

EDITORIALS

THE QUEEN’S JOURNAL

The Journal’s Perspective

As we integrate more with technology, unplugging is no longer the solution

Even before the pandemic, smartphones and laptops were attached to us by the hip.

Over the past few months, this invasion of technology into our lives has only been exacerbated as we work from home or connect with loved ones online. We’re now constantly plugged into our devices—but is that really such a bad thing?

Technology, and the social media on them, were designed to be addictive.

Given the countless articles, studies, and documentaries about this, almost everyone is aware our phones are taking advantage of us.

But even knowing this, we can’t just “unplug.” Both our personal and our work lives are now integrated with our devices,

doesn’t mean you’re not getting bombarded by emails, texts, or calls from work. This can not only be overwhelming but may invade time you would normally have set outside for yourself.

Despite this, unplugging isn’t always an option. Doing so would mean sacrificing both work and personal notifications. At a time when our social lives are mostly conducted over the internet, this is unrealistic. Turning off your phone for extended periods of time can also heighten anxiety, making you feel like you’re missing something important.

Unfortunately, technology isn’t going away anytime soon, which means we’re going to have to adapt.

As work invades our personal lives more and more, there are ILLUSTRATION BY ASHLEY CHEN things we can—and should—do to whether this be through social media, email, set boundaries. text, or workplace applications like Slack and While totally unplugging is unrealistic, Microsoft Teams. disabling notifications for emails and texts Our excessive technology use isn’t after a certain time each day is a good start. necessarily a bad thing. Our phones allow us As winter break approaches, logging out of to keep up with friends and loved ones across Slack or other work-related apps will give the world, which is especially important at you the headspace you need. Curating your a time when social distancing has become social media feeds to include more positive the norm. posts could also help.

That said, the ability to be reached at any It’s true—we’re constantly plugged into point in the day is blurring the line between our devices. But in a world that now relies on our personal and our work lives—this is the them, doing otherwise is unrealistic. Instead issue: not the volume of technology usage, of swearing off it, we must accept that but how we separate it. technology is becoming more integrated into Because of technology, we’re working our lives. The best we can do is adapt. outside of our normal work hours more and more. Just because you’re out of the office, —Journal Editorial Board

Arts students deserve more credit

Despite the creativity and perseverance necessary to pursue a degree and career in the arts, Arts students are consistently labelled as less motivated, less driven, and less realistic than their STEM counterparts.

The tension between STEM and the arts has been present for decades, but the shifting digital landscape of our world has heightened it. There’s a very real demand for science and engineering students in the professional world, and the idea of progress is often equated with large tech companies like Tesla, Apple, and Google.

However, validating students in STEM while infantilizing students in the arts reveals a cultural inability to place value in what truly connects us as humans.

History majors understand the nuance of our past and can predict the politics of our future. English majors see the beauty in literature and have the capacity to write novels that stay with us long after we read them. Students in the fine arts can create films, TV shows, and music that will inevitably keep us sane in the face of chaos.

Art has been, and always will be the heartbeat of our society.

Moreover, those who label Arts students as lazy and unmotivated fail to recognize the leadership qualities and intellect required to land a career in the field.

Whereas STEM students often have a clear job correlating with their program, Arts students are required to narrow their interests,

gain experience in their field, and find creative methods to advocate for their abilities. There is no clear or linear path to a job, which places the emphasis on students to carve one for themselves—even if that path doesn’t yet exist.

Simply put, Arts students deserve more respect.

Placing value in the arts doesn’t discredit the demanding realities of completing a STEM degree. STEM programs are undoubtedly difficult and time-consuming, pushing students to the edge of their intellectual and often emotional capacity. There is no doubt that students in these fields have a fuller and more structured timetable.

Rather than constantly comparing career paths and forcing them into a hierarchy, our society needs to celebrate the diverse schools of thought created by different programs and recognize the vital importance of the arts in sustaining our humanity.

We are in an era of rapid technological growth and innovation that is simultaneously exciting and terrifying. Now, more than ever, Arts students are necessary to balance our world and ground us in the spirit of human connection.

Alysha is a third-year English student and The Journal’s Assistant Arts Editor.

Alysha Mohamed

Volume 148 Issue 15 www.queensjournal.ca @queensjournal Publishing since 1873

Editorial Board Editor in Chief Managing Editor Production Manager

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Features Editors

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Editorials Editor

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Opinions Editor

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Want to contribute?

For information visit: www.queensjournal.ca/contribute or email the Editor in Chief at journal_editors@ams.queensu.ca Contributions from all members of the Queen’s and Kingston community are welcome. The Journal reserves the right to edit all submissions.

The Queen’s Journal is an editorially autonomous newspaper published by the Alma Mater Society of Queen’s University, Kingston.

Situated on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee peoples. The Journal’s Editorial Board acknowledges the traditional territories our newspaper is situated on have allowed us to pursue our mandate.

We recognize our responsibility to understand the truth of our history.

Editorial opinions expressed in The Journal are the sole responsibility of The Queen’s Journal Editorial Board, and are not necessarily those of the University, the AMS or their officers.

190 University Ave., Kingston, ON, K7L 3P4 Editorial Office: 613-533-2800 Business Office: 613-533-6711 Fax: 613-533-6728 Email: journal_editors@ams.queensu.ca Please address complaints and grievances to the Editor in Chief and Managing Editor.

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Contents © 2020 by The Queen’s Journal; all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without prior permission of The Journal.

Circulation 3,000

SUPPLIED BY ALYSHA MOHAMED

Angus Merry

Assistant Sports Editor

Thursday, November 26, 2020

OPINIONS

OPINIONS

queensjournal.ca • 9

Your Perspective

ILLUSTRATION BY ASHLEY CHEN

Sutainable shopping is a luxury not everyone can afford.

Consumers cannot be blamed for unethical consumption Sustainable shopping is a privilege While leading a clean lifestyle has always been important, it’s now become a popular trend.

Unfortunately, not everyone has the means to participate.

The digital age has brought awareness to sustainability and the exploitative nature of the production of goods. A rapidly approaching climate crisis and initiatives centered on conscious shopping have opened the door for conversation. Perhaps more than ever, the general public is discussing the role of the consumer going forward.

Over the last few months, young influencers have been receiving backlash for promoting shopping hauls from companies that promote fast fashion such as SHEIN. Comments can be seen denouncing child labour and labelling these influencers as part of the problem. While promoting exploitative companies is not ideal, shaming consumers for not shopping ethically is wrong.

Companies like SHEIN provide low prices through unethical practices, be it poor working conditions or child labour to mass produce goods. The standards of this company’s operation must be questioned when they are providing 500 new styles a

prioritize buying ethical clothes when making ends meet is a task of day. Other companies such as its own.

Forever 21, Zara, and H&M The bottom-up approach to have also been attacked tackling fast production suggests for negligence i n people be conscious of where they their labour conditions buy from. Through the recycling of and the strenuous environmental old materials and maintenance of impact of their practices. ethical working conditions, some The fashion industry has companies are changing the way experienced exponential growth products are bought and sold. The in the last 20 years and clothing desire to reuse, reduce, and recycle production has doubled since is greater than ever.

2000. The production of cotton Yet, as with anything that seems and polyester is the most wasteful too good to be true, there’s a catch. and 85 per cent of textiles gets Sustainable clothing and living thrown out annually. These is expensive. Leading brands in companies will continue to ignore the sustainable clothing industry the climate crisis and abuse like People Tree, Reformation, and natural resources as long as their Patagonia may be conscious, but profits skyrocket. their prices for a single item are Fast fashion corporations often over $100. There’s a huge provide little to no information discrepancy in the socioeconomic on their production process to status of those able to participate protect their reputation and allow in ‘ethical’ shopping and those shoppers to be ignorant when who can’t. purchasing. While "boycotting" Sustainable brands have these brands is good in theory, higher prices for a reason, as it’s not feasible for many people. there are large costs associated Consumers can’t be faulted for with not cutting corners or flocking to clothing that’s accessible taking advantage of the little man. and inexpensive.

Unfortunately, these costs price In Canada, 53 per cent of out many consumers who would the population lives paycheck support their businesses. to paycheck and this number As a result, people often jumps to 80 per cent when resort to buying secondhand and talking about the United States. thrifting as a more cost-effective Society cannot expect everyone to means to shop while limiting

their environmental impact. Yet as thrifting has become trendy and popular in recent years, the corporations running these shops have recognized the profit potential and raised their prices.

The gentrification of thrift stores has created an environment that no longer welcomes underprivileged communities who rely on low prices. Limited availability of sizes, reselling of product, and price increases all limit those in need. Still, thrifting remains a good option when trying to limit your carbon footprint.

Donating old clothes back into the thrift stream is a great way to be environmentally cautious and potentially help someone else.

This issue plaguing consumerism doesn’t stop at clothes, either. The food required to eat sustainably is often less available to low-income communities. It’s also hard to compete when the food industry pours 1.3 billion tons of waste into landfills yearly.

Food Secure Canada has pushed for legislation within the government to address the disadvantages faced by underprivileged individuals when healthy and sustainable options are more expensive than those included in wasteful production.

Thankfully, Canada has adopted

the National Food Policy to properly support local farmers, signifying a step toward providing all Canadians with a nutritious and waste-cautious future.

Even as positive moves are made, the exploitation of resources and people are at the heart of our capitalist society. The need to maximize profit overpowers the need to protect the vulnerable.

Whether it be labourers in terrible working conditions or impoverished locals who require accessible thrift stores, the system we live in makes it challenging to lead a clean lifestyle.

In this world driven by profit and monetary success, there aren’t big enough incentives for corporations to care about the repercussions of their actions.

There isn’t enough financial liberty for people to vote with their wallet, either. Changes must be made in the modes of manufacturing and ideally, companies will recognize the detrimental impact of fast production.

We all have a responsible to limit our footprint. However, we can’t be tricked into thinking that the ability to live green isn’t a privilege afforded to a select few.

Rida Chaudry is a second-year Arts & Science student.

Arts

10 • queensjournal.ca

Arts Arts

Viveka Melki’s ‘the FENCE’ tackles revisionist history of Japanese POW Camps

Documentary the Fence examines Japanese Prisoner of War camps.

Montreal director

discusses new doc Nathan Gallagher Arts Editor Viveka Melki’s the FENCE examines the four-year period during WWII in which 2,000 Canadians suffered incarceration inside Japanese Prisoner of War (POW) camps in Hong Kong and Japan.

The film features interviews from Canadians George Peterson and George MacDonell, the last two surviving veterans from the camp in Hong Kong, who, for the first time, describe the atrocities that happened there.

In an interview with The Journal, Melki discussed the film.

“I was interested in a silence that I was feeling around the story,” she said. “When I would interview veterans on other projects […] I felt there was a silence, there was something that wasn’t being said in the interviews […] There was something that was so hidden about the story.”

Melki’s the FENCE is the culmination of a decade of research that carefully uncovered the truth behind Japan’s revisionist history of events.

“This is a network of people, of historians, researchers, survivors, who have created a network around this story because they were trying to understand what happened, because there were few archives of life in the prisoner of war camps. So, with their help, and especially with the help of Dr. Chi Man Kwong, who is in the film and is a professor at Hong Kong [University], we did uncover for the first time the first proof of cannibalism in Hong Kong during this period in time,” Melki said.

During the making of the film, Dr. Kwong discovered a document proving that Japanese soldiers were engaging in cannibalism during WWII. Another atrocity which has been glossed over is the bayonetting of babies committed by the Japanese imperial army.

Thursday, November 26, 2020

According to Melki, it was very important to her that these upsetting truths be acknowledged in the film because the Japanese history of the war would tell you it never happened.

“Well it did happen,” she said. “And we have a veteran [George Peterson] who tells us the story of his trauma on camera. So, even if it’s not registered in a history book and we don’t have an archive of it, the living memory is right in front of you.”

The film also features interviews of Luba Estes, who was 10 years old at the time and living in Hong Kong while her father, Alexander, was interned in the Sham Shui Po prison.

“Discovering Luba Estes and discovering that she was alive was incredible because this is her first time ever telling her story as a white Russian ten-year-old girl who was in Hong Kong.”

Melki also explained how important it was to show compassion to her interview subjects when asking them to share their trauma.

“I specialize in history and trauma and resilience-type interviews, so I have gone through a lot of training on how to interview somebody in what we would call safe space,” she said.

“For example, after we interview a veteran, I would also make sure there was either a counselor or a priest and definitely a family member aware and present […] I’ve been lucky to recently go through Indigenous teaching and it’s been a gift to know that you can—using methods that have been taught to me—you look at somebody in the face, and you’re transparent about what you’re doing, and you’re transparent about your job as a director or as a filmmaker to tell those stories for the right reasons.”

Melki added that people want to tell their story because telling the truth is how they heal.

“In a lot of ways, I’m glad to say that people have left my film not more traumatized. They’ve left my film happy that they’ve told their story and maybe sleeping better at night.”

It was also important for Melki not to present a simplified historical narrative that

says “we are the good guys and the enemy are bad guys.” She also wanted to avoid demonizing the Japanese soldiers.

“You have to do your research really well and you have to be backed up by those who have 20, 31 years [of] experience around this story or in the case of Chi Man, he’s written eight books on military history in East Asia,” she said. “I chose people who had compassion. I chose people who wanted to cross the fence […] We were never out to make a story that didn’t have compassion because I don’t think history is black and white.”

“George MacDonell in the film says, ‘there was compassion, there were [Japanese] soldiers who looked away so that we could receive food,’” Melki said. “There’s always the individual in the collective even when there’s fear there.”

For Melki, the documentary’s title, the FENCE, is about more than just the literal fence at the POW camp which Luba would often walk by to try and see her father.

“The fence is very much about perspective […] about how you look [at] which side of history are you in, which side is right, which side is wrong? It’s never clear. Which is why, for me, it’s something in between.”

The main themes of the film are compassion and acknowledgment.

“It’s important to acknowledge the suffering of people,” Melki said. “To move forward, I believe you have to acknowledge your suffering and others acknowledge your suffering, and what gets me about this story is that that suffering has been erased. It’s been erased from the history books—not our history books—but if you erase it from Japanese history books then you’re erasing our history as well and that’s not okay.”

However, Melki also noted some of the archives used in the film’s research came from the POW Research Network of Japan, a group that want the true history to be told.

“We are an international network of people who are just saying, this is the story.

Don’t look away from the story. This is what happened,” she said.

Melki considered it her responsibility as a filmmaker to help the two veterans and Luba work through the trauma by telling their stories for the first time.

SUPPLIED BY LOUIS-PHILIPPE CUSSON

“The veterans in the film are […] amazing people and they never expected anything.

The thing that struck me with them is they had moved on, they weren’t waiting for an apology […] I believe, of course, that trauma stays in the walls of the house. If you don’t deal with that trauma then the next generation is taking it down in some way.”

To shoot dramatic re-enactments, the art directors Greg Nowak and Patrick Binette designed the POW camp based on drawings

by Luba’s father, Alexander, and rebuilt everything to scale.

“We flew in 800 pieces of props into Cuba because we couldn’t replace anything if something broke so everything came in directly with us, and the crew was made up of Quebec artists mostly, the actors were Canadian and Cuban […] It was quite amazing, it was seven days of filming, but we went back and forth two or three times to build the fence. It took a couple of months.”

Although most of the doc’s screenings had to be cancelled, Melki asserted that she will book new screenings once the pandemic is over.

“The film is fabulous on the big screen, the artists worked on the film for that level and it’s really wonderful,” she said. In particular, Melki mentioned the stunning colour correction done by Vickie-Lynn Roy. “The props in the film are amazing, they’re literal recreations, and some of them are actual [originals]. The teddy bear is 100-years-old. Every detail is precise because we’re talking about revisionism so when you’re talking about revisionist history, I really try to go as close to reality as possible.”

The reality of war for Melki is that everybody suffered.

“The trauma that all they came back with in Japan and in Canada, and all over the world. And Luba, that’s the point of the last shot of the film. She says, ‘I’m fine,’ but then she reaches into her handbag and she still sleeps with bread by her bed every night.”

“The trauma is endless,” she added. “But that’s war. I think I want people to walk away with compassion. I never wanted people to walk away with hate. I think acknowledgment is very important and it’s one of my life goals in all my work.”

Arts

Thursday, November 26, 2020

queensjournal.ca • 11

Animator talks designing subway scenes, afterlife locations in upcoming Soul Continued from front...

Twenty-five years on and now with Goulet as part of the team, Pixar is still pushing the boundaries of animation on both a technical and storytelling level.

“I can’t be super specific because I would reveal some spoilers,” Goulet said, when asked which scenes she had a hand in animating for Soul.

“But I can tell you that one of the scenes was taking place in the New York subway, and I had a lot of fun animating in that sequence just because—coming from Montreal, even though the New York subway is completely like [a] dialed up Montreal subway—it was just really fun to just think and remember how it was to be in the subway and all the experiences you can live in the subway even though oftentimes we’re just passing through and going somewhere. I could go on about being metaphorical about traveling on the subway,” she laughed.

Soul takes place partly in the real world in New York, but also in several afterlife locations referred to as “The Great Before,” “The Great Beyond,” and “The You Seminar.”

Some of the characters in these scenes are created with a combination of 3D-animation and 2D lines, which presented a technical challenge to the animators.

While Goulet didn’t personally work on those characters, she explained some of the behind-the-scenes conversations involved in bringing them to life.

“It was challenging just because you still

Right: Emilie Goulet.

want to make it look like it’s part of the same world even though some of the characters have a lot of depth but the other ones are very flat—even if I didn’t work on them, I would sit in reviews and be part of the conversation—and I think that that was the biggest challenge, and it’s almost kind of abstract but it’s not so it was fascinating,” Goulet said.

While she didn’t specifically work on the line characters, Goulet was involved

SUPPLIED BY DEBORAH COLEMAN / PIXAR

in animating some of the scenes in the spiritual realm.

“We go from reality to the soul world, and I did animate some shots in the soul world,” she said.

“You go from something that’s more caricature of life to something that’s completely stylized. So, I would say that that was challenging, and also respecting the vision of a director, Pete Docter and also, Kemp Powers, the co-director, that’s always

a challenge in itself on any movie. But on this one, I love the movie so much that it’s as if you feel a bigger responsibility because you’re like ‘Oh my god, I love this movie and I want to make sure that I honour it as much as I can.’”

The first Pixar film Goulet worked on was 2017’s Coco, which, similar to Soul, also explores death and what makes us unique.

“I remember going through the Pixar gates on the first day, and yeah, I was pretty emotional. I wish—you know I was talking […] about my grandfather earlier and he passed away but gosh, I wish he was still alive because I remember having conversations with him about things like Toy Story. He just couldn’t understand. It was too complicated with the computer. I think about him every day, and it’s just very emotional because so much has happened since then and this company has evolved so much. You know, when you think about it, Toy Story and Soul, it’s completely different.”

Pixar has proven it’s still capable of crafting compelling original stories and taking bold risks in exploring mature themes in a way that’s accessible to children and adults alike.

“Soul and my first movie Coco, which also dealt with those themes, it’s [about] dying but it’s also celebrating life,” Goulet said. “Even though my grandfather passed away, he’s with me every day, and I feel like there’s stuff in [Coco] and Soul, it’s very much that: celebrating life, what is it about life that makes it so beautiful and worth living.”

The Blue Stones release new EP ‘Live on Display’

Alt-rock duo discusses latest release and post-pandemic plans nathan gallagher Arts Editor To make up for all the cancelled concerts this year, The Blue Stones have captured the atmosphere of live music on their new EP, featuring performances of their singles at Smash Salvage, an antique store in Hamilton.

While alt-rockers Tarek Jafar, vocalist and guitarist, and Justin Tessier had originally planned to record a whole new album this year, those plans were swept up by the pandemic. But ‘Live on Display’ takes four of their singles, “Let It Ride,” “Grim,” “Careless,” and “Shakin’ Off The Rust,” giving them the spirit and energy of a live performance that so many music fans are missing.

In an interview with The Journal, The Blue Stones discussed how they got their start and where they’re at in their journey so far.

While Jafar and Tessier didn’t start playing music together until they were in university, they initially became friends by playing something else: football.

“We played on the high school football team together. That was way back—I don’t know probably 2004 or something,” Tessier laughed.

Both of them attended St. Anne’s High

School in Windsor, and then went to the with, super humble, super focused. [We] and we had some dates booked, we were University of Windsor for their undergrads. learnt a lot from him so it was really a great on the road when all of the lockdowns “We were close friends through high experience overall.” hit. We were over in Winnipeg, we drove school,” Tessier continued. “And when we Jafar also mentioned some of the musical two days to get to that show, and then were in university, we decided to finally inspirations he had growing up. we played that show, and everything was start a music project. We kind of realized “I think early on, let’s say when we were cancelled after that, so we had to drive two that when we were in undergrad, that was starting our budding passions for being in a days home.” the first time in our lives that we could do band, it was probably The Black Keys […] and “But we wanted to give our audience whatever we wanted to and we didn’t need for myself it was Mutemath. I also listened to a a better, more intimate and just a higher to ask anyone’s permission…we figured lot of hip hop in high school so artistis like Jay-Z production value show because we couldn’t we’d just start playing bars and see where and J. Cole and Kanye West were definitely on play,” said Tessier. it goes.” my roster.”

So, in October, the two released ‘Live on Jafar added, “I myself went to Leeds Tessier explained how COVID-19 was the Display’ as a video on their YouTube channel, Beckett University in England for my masters inspiration behind releasing Live on Display. after which their label approached them and Justin is a Queen’s boy.”

“We noticed a lot of people were doing with the idea to release the recordings as “Yeah, so I’ve just finished a master the livestream thing and we felt like it was an EP. of Management Innovation and overdone,” Tessier said, referring to all the “It’s just a cool item that people can have Entrepreneurship at Queen’s,” Tessier said. bands performing virtual concerts to keep forever and remember this crazy time,” After the success of their first album, with social-distancing guidelines.

Tessier said.

The Blue Stones signed with Paul Meany, “We didn’t really quite get the connection, the lead singer and keyboardist of Mutemath and a collaborator with Twenty One Pilots.

“It was shocking at first for us because we had our hopes very, very high for a dream producer that we wanted to work with, and I remember mentioning it to our management,” Jafar said. “We were both like, ‘Yeah it would be a dream to work with Paul Meany but obviously we can’t.’ […] Basically, we got one of our heroes who we’ve listened to from 2009 onwards to work on our music with us.”

Jafar noted how it can be frightening at first to work with someone you idolize.

“You’d imagine you’re kind of scared to meet your idol because you don’t really know if they’re going to be a dickhead, maybe they’re egotistical, but Paul is actually the entire opposite of that. He’s a SUPPLIED BY STANISLAV MAKITA great, great coach, awesome guy to work The Blue Stones played at an antique store in Hamilton.

Sports

12 • queensjournal.ca

Thursday, November 26, 2020

A history of Queen’s Football: a new sport for a new school How Queen’s contributed to football—and how it shaped the school Matt Funk Sports Editor

football and they won championships.

And, you know, This story is the first they were this little of a two-part series school down in on Queen’s football eastern Ontario, they before, during, weren’t Montreal or and after the two Toronto. And so it World Wars. was a matter of some When today’s pride or some sort students zip through of school reputation Mackintosh-Corry that this is the thing Hall between by which everybody lectures for a knows us—and we reprieve from the damn well better winter wind, few, do something if any, are aware about this.” they’re standing on In 1921, Queen’s hallowed ground. built the original Where the current Richardson labyrinthine eyesore Stadium where sits, was once the Tindall field and original Richardson MackintoshMemorial Stadium, Corry presently an important home stand, hired a for both Canadian full-time coach PHOTO BY JODIE GRIEVE. CREDIT: QUEEN’S ARCHIVES and, football and Queen’s (From left to right) Early roots of the Queen’s-Western rivalry, ‘The fearless-fourteen’ according 1934 champions, the Queen’s squad in 1900. school identity. to Daub, started buying football ‘Football-rugby,’ which rose Dr. Merv Daub, author of Gael championship in 1893, called the Many who returned appeared players from some of the in popularity throughout the Force: A History of Football at Dominion Championship with this eager to leave the war in the past professional teams. late 19th century, bore little Queen’s, said Principal George famous guy, Guy Curtis,” Daub said and resume student life, though The investment paid immediate resemblance to the game many Grant viewed the development in an interview with The Journal. many were more focused on dividends. In 1922, Queen’s was now tune in to every Sunday. In of rugby football as an important “[T]here wasn’t a whole lot academics and employment crowned the best football team fact, if you went back to watch step in building Queen’s of attention paid to academic than sports. in Canada by winning a Grey one of Queen’s earliest football reputation—at the time, Kingston qualifications on the part of the Immediately upon returning Cup, the banner for which still matches over a century ago, you was essentially an outpost, and people who played necessarily. home, the world was ravaged by hangs in the ARC’s main gym. would have likely thought you there was talk of amalgamating Curtis, as I said in the book, was the Spanish Flu. This, however, did Queen’s went on to complete were at the wrong venue.

Queen’s with the University at Queen’s for quite a number of not stop some Queen’s football the three-peat winning again in For one, the forward-pass was of Toronto. years and never attended class players from carrying out the 1923 and 1924. This period has not allowed—similar to rugby, only What Queen’s lacked in very much, which drove Principal 1919 season. Daub believes this been called Queen’s Football’s lateral and backward passes were academic stature, it hoped it could Grant nuts, but you know, he a is likely because after surviving days of glory. permitted. If a player wanted to compensate for athletically. Most was a big guy helping them win World War One, enough players By the 1930s, football rugby launch the ball forward, their only of the early football players weren’t football championships.” were willing to play they game was more recognizable to the option was to kick it. While today’s academically inclined, viewing Queen’s newfound sport was they loved rather than continue to modern-day game. Balls were football critics may complain university as an opportunity to building momentum into the live in fear. snapped to the quarterback as players spend more time standing play sports.

20th century until a significant “I still think this is probably one opposed to the rugby-style scrum, around than playing, the opposite disruption took place: the of the valid reasons, is a lot of those and a try—what eventually was true for the old game; with the First World War. Nearly all guys that survived the war, right. evolved into a touchdown—had exception of sustaining a ‘disabling undergraduates left campus to And they probably thought to replaced kicking as the primary injury’, there was no time stoppage, join the fight, which they thought themselves, ‘you know, I survived goal of the game. Forward passing and no convening or strategizing. would be a short bout for glory. the damned war. I’m gonna go play however, had to wait—it had And perhaps the most foreign This belief was woefully misguided, football. If I catch this thing, and I been a development in American aspect to football in its infancy as the hiatus stretched on for four die, I die,’“ Daub said. “‘We’ve spent football, and after fighting was that a field-goal was more years, and many of Queen’s players four years in war in the trenches alongside the Americans in World desirable than a touchdown. either came back wounded or not and all this kind of stuff. And to War Two, the Canadians appeared Queen’s football pioneers first at all. hell with it. I’m gonna go play.’ And to bring it into their game. took to the pitch on Oct. 11, 1882 I n t e r e s t i n g l y, s o m e I suspect there was a great deal of Despite being a tumultuous for an exhibition game against historians believe the ethos of that around.” time globally, Queen’s continued the Royal Military College (RMC). sport—notions of triumph and The ensuing season did not its success, earning championship An excerpt from The Journal heroism largely promulgated go very well—as Daub mentions seasons in 1930, ‘34, ‘35, and ’37. described that match: by the spirit of British in his book, Queen’s “found itself The end of this decade marked the “On the afternoon of Wednesday, imperialism—translated to overmatched and out-spent” by onslaught of another unfortunate Oct. 11th, a very interesting the battlefield in the First other competitors, namely the hiatus in WW2. and exciting match was played World War. University of Toronto and McGill.

Daub believes football played in the cricket ground between In an email to The Journal, “When they came back after the a pivoted role in both establishing the Queen’s, and Royal Military Queen’s historian Duncan war, they really had a big choice to Queen’s reputation and its school College, Rugby teams. The day MacDowell noted a sinister make, as to whether to restart the identity throughout the first half of was a splendid one for the game, example where, in motivating rugby football,” Daub said. “[A]fter the 20th century. but was rather cool for the officers to battle, “British officers about two or three lousy seasons, “[Queen’s] wasn’t a big school. spectators, many of whom were kicked soccer balls into no-man’s where they played right through And yet, it had this reputation; ladies. At about 3:45 the cadets land and urged their men to the Spanish flu pandemic, actually it won grey cups after the war, arrived on the ground and at 4 —Duncan MacDowell, charge the enemy as if it were a made the decision to go big, rather and it won championships Queen’s historian sporting dash to the other side’s than go home.” o’clock the opposing teams took during the 1930s. […] And so their positions.” trenches - they were, of course Daub believes this was because people knew across Canada who Queen’s rag-tag team was all mowed down by German Queen’s reputation was largely Queen’s was because they played no match for the cadets, but “Queen’s got into the game machine guns.” predicated on success in football. football.” the game had nonetheless in 1882 and fielded a team It’s unclear whether the “I think the school had enjoyed a sparked a strong interest in the continuously down through the ethos of battle translated to the certain notoriety in the pre-WW1 Want to write? Email new sport. years. They won [their] first big playing field following the war. period because they were playing journal_sports@ams.queensu.ca.

“British officers kicked soccer balls into no-man’s land and urged their men to charge the enemy as if it were a sporting dash to the other side’s trenches—they were, of course, all mowed down by German machine guns.”

Thursday, November 26, 2020

Sports

queensjournal.ca

The Journal asked student-athletes whether the pandemic given them a much-needed break from their busy schedules.

• 13

ILLUSTRATION BY ASHLEY CHEN

Semester Review: How are athletes coping with their pandemic regimens?

“We’re still playing six times a week, and [weightlifting] twice a week,” she said. “I think part of it is that second year is a bit harder than first year, and also being online makes it harder to manage your time, I’m finding,” she said.

Matsukubo mentioned that she’s perfectly happy with how similar the training load is this year, and that the coaching staff’s efforts to keep the team Angus Merry engaged, combined with a lack Assistant Sports Editor of competition for playing time, has meant a stronger overall There’s little doubt that being team dynamic. prevented from playing your sport Ironically, the exact opposite of choice—especially at the varsity has been experienced by level—is a bit of a drag. fifth-year football vet, Ben With the indefinite suspension Arhen, who finds that this year’s of varsity sports in light of the restrictions have created a weaker pandemic, student-athletes are connection among teammates. facing at least 10 more months of “There are rookies on the team training before they’re able to play this year that I’ve never seen competitively again. What’s more, before, that I’ve never spoken to some students who are currently before. If everything was normal, in their final year might have we’d be going to Ban Righ every already played their last game and day together, and we’d be hanging didn’t know it. out […] The dynamic is very Evidently, the restrictions disconnected,” he said. that have come along with the Arhen also mentioned that COVID-19 outbreak have been a team workouts are a fraction of massive hindrance to them and what they used to be. During a their athletic pursuits. With the normal football season, the total semester drawing to an end, The time spent training would amount Journal set out to see just how to about 41 hours a week, which the pandemic has altered athletes’ isn’t including time spent studying daily lives and how they’re coping playbooks and watching film. Now, with the changes. the total amount of time he and Jenna Matsukubo, a his teammates spend working second-year on the women’s out together is six hours per week, soccer team, said she finds herself if that. busier now than she was last year.

On whether managing

With classes online and varsity sports suspended, student-athletes have mixed feelings about fall semester

schoolwork has been much of an issue, Arhen said that having a packed schedule in previous years often helped him and other players more than it hurt them.

“A lot of the guys [on the team] do better during the football season. When you’re an athlete, you have a sense of urgency and balance in your life where you know that you need to get things done, otherwise you’re screwed.”

This sentiment was adamantly shared by second year women’s rugby player Ally Rupar, who said her rookie season’s packed schedule helped her stay on to p of her wo r k .

“Honestly, having fewer scheduled things this year hasn’t actually helped for productivity or getting things done at all.”

—Ally Rupar, Women’s Rugby

“I found it extremely manageable.

I’ve even noticed, some of my other [teammates] who struggled with last year’s scheduling are saying that they’re not doing any better this year.”

“Honestly, having fewer

scheduled things this year hasn’t actually helped for productivity or getting things done at all,” she said.

On the subject of training, Rupar said it’s still a very consistent part of her schedule. Although field practices have decreased, Rupar said she’s been able to get in the gym twice as much as usual.

Echoing a similar sentiment to Matsukubo, Rupar said the women’s rugby team has also grown closer due to a lack of competition surrounding playing time, and teammates have also taken it upon themselves to create a better support structure for struggling teammates.

One noticeable problem, however, is a lack of motivation that’s beginning to show in practices. Speaking about one in particular which occurred recently, Rupar said it suddenly hit everyone that they won’t be playing a single game for close to a year, and their effort was reflecting that.

“We all just kind of lost it. We realized that we’re not going to be playing a game for months on end,” she said.

“You don’t always think that, but sometimes when it hits in practice, it’s really hard,” she noted Finally, The Journal spoke to fourth-year Matt Flood about his experience as a cross country and track athlete this fall. Flood was quick to state that his training regimen hasn’t changed all that much, despite the restrictions.

“It’s pretty much the same, I

would say. The only thing that’s different is the build-up to every workout, or every run, because we can’t utilize the ARC anymore,” he said.

One change Flood did mention was the closure of the RMC indoor track, which the cross country team uses as a facility multiple times a week during the winter semester.

Although he feels the training schedule is as manageable as it has ever been, Flood believes the restrictions that have been imposed on the team—specifically running alone more often—has been a slight detriment to his level of enjoyment and motivation toward training.

“It kind of gets you motivated when you have someone to run with every day, whereas if you’re running on your own, it can get a little monotonous and boring,” he said.

On the whole, Flood feels that the fall hasn’t done any wonders for his training or productivity, but he was optimistic in stating that the restrictions might have opened some new doors for people who thrive on looser schedules.

“For some people [these restrictions] could also be a positive. It could open up a lot more time for them to run, and there are a lot of people who are okay with running by themselves all of the time. But for me, personally, it’s a bit of a detriment.”

LIFESTYLE

14 • queensjournal.ca

Thursday, November 26, 2020

Lifestyle

Harry Styles’ ‘Vogue’ cover isn’t a threat to masculinity Men can be manly in a dress Cassidy McMackon Assistant News Editor If you opened Instagram on Nov. 13, you likely saw images of Harry Styles shared across your friends’ stories.

Styles appeared in American Vogue as the first ever solo-appearing male celebrity to be on the cover of the magazine. On the cover, Styles is photographed wearing a powder blue Dolce & Gabbana dress with a black blazer thrown over top.

Throughout the pages of his editorial, Styles reflects on his own sense of style and his fashion transformation since his years in One Direction. His words are accompanied by photos of him dressed in variety of suits and dresses.

The infamous Vogue dress is far from his first diversion from traditional men’s fashion—Styles has made a variety of bold fashion statements in the past. His appearance at the 2019 Met Gala when he donned a sheer, frilly blouse accompanied with loose trousers, a pair of heeled black boots, and a single pearl earring

is particularly memorable. A large part of Styles’ acclaim is credited to his bold fashion choices. However, while several individuals admire Styles for the fluidity of his personal style, some prominent conservative figures have met Styles’ most recent fashion statement with harsh backlash.

The day after Styles’ cover went viral, Candace Owens, a prominent American conservative political commentator, tweeted out condemning Styles’ Vogue shoot. She cited the “steady feminization of our men” as an attack on masculinity and advocated for Western culture to “bring back manly men.” Ben Shapiro, another conservative commentator, supported Owens’ statement, tweeting: “Anyone who pretends that it is not a referendum on masculinity for men to don floofy dresses is treating you as a full-on idiot.”

Styles has famously avoided putting himself in a box and conforming to certain labels. From adamantly refusing to define his sexuality to exploring gender-fluidity through fashion, it’s clear that Styles isn’t trying to project a certain standard for men to adhere to—he’s simply expressing his identity as he sees fit.

Styles isn’t the first male celebrity to embrace more flamboyant styles in a public

setting; David Bowie would often wear makeup and campy jumpsuits in public, and Prince donned frilly shirts during performances and embraced androgynous fashion. More recently, we’ve seen men at major fashion events such as the Met Gala donning styles that are typically characterized as being more feminine.

For these men, their stylistic choices are not a reflection of the supposed compromised masculinity to which Owens and Shapiro mention, but an expression of confidence, an eagerness to explore, and a willingness to make a fashionable spectacle.

Though Styles has made a spectacle with his Vogue cover, it shouldn’t be considered a negat ive spectacle. The attention the c over has attracted has called for a celebration of males in the mainstream, public eye that embrace the fact that men can wear dresses and still be masculine.

At the end of the day, we should consider Harry Styles’ fashion choices to be what they are: an artist further developing and expressing his identity as he wants

ILLUSTRATION BY EILEEN RAISBECK

to. While commentators like Owens and Shapiro may see self-expression as an attack on masculinity, it’s important not to misrepresent represent fashion as anything other than what it is: self-expression.

The Tricolour Sex Column: The tea on anal The Kinky Scholar talks about her love-hate relationship with anal sex The Kinky Scholar The opinions expressed in this piece reflect only the experiences of a brown Queer Muslim cisgendered woman whose upbringing included poor access to sex education and reproductive healthcare. No article, author, or publication can accurately reflect the experiences of all women.

Please read with caution and kindness.

Sex is very confusing, but there’s one thing I’ve always been certain of: for some reason, straight men are obsessed with anal sex.

I can’t speak to why this is the case. Some part of me suspects that many of them might be bi-curious and looking for a toxically heterosexual outlet.

This claim has absolutely no substance: it’s just rooted in my own speculation. It’s important to read Queer theory and even more important to critically analyze toxic masculinity, but it’s still pretty fun to tease my straight boyfriend with this notion.

Regardless, straight men definitely go crazy for anal, but for many reasons, women attracted to men don’t always feel the same way for many reasons—the biggest reason being pain.

There are many academic studies on this pain. One from 2011 found that over 40 per cent of heterosexual women (a

group which I’m not a part of, but can nonetheless relate to) experienced pain their first time engaging in anal sex.

Many stopped immediately, but others endured the pain to please their male partners—which is deeply problematic.

That brings me to the one thing I hope all men reading this take away: never, ever coerce a woman into engaging in any kind

study about anal, finding 47 per cent of women experienced pain during vaginal intercourse, but still continued to have it.

Pain doesn’t necessarily erase pleasure.

Of course, stop immediately if you think your partner is uncomfortable or feeling pain, but sometimes sex is awkward to begin with and doesn’t feel amazing every second throughout.

of sex. We aren’t yours to convince, and our sexual preferences aren’t up for debate.

Now that that’s out of the way, I can safely tell you lots of women actually enjoy anal, including me. If you really want, you can find a woman willing to do butt stuff—please just wait until the pandemic is over.

Why do some women enjoy anal sex when it brings so many of us pain? For starters, let’s not forget vaginal sex comes with pain too. A 2013 study reported numbers similar to the aforementioned

Women are capable of making the necessary choices regarding their pain tolerance. Although our partners are certainly obligated to create an environment where we’re comfortable voicing our preferences, we know what we want and what we don’t.

There are paths to anal that remove pain altogether, but even the absence of pain doesn’t necessarily equal pleasure.

Anal, painful or not, is just fun

for us! Anal stimulation is good for everyone—and there are facts to prove it.

Anal does, in fact, increase women’s pleasure. A foundational study on the orgasm gap found that women were 14 per cent more likely to orgasm during a sexual encounter with some sort of anal simulation. That’s a huge boost, considering only 64 per cent of us overall orgasm during sexual encounters with men.

For me, anal has been a wild journey.

It started as a convoluted way to keep from losing my ‘virginity’—a tale I’d love to dive into another week—and eventually evolved into a cool secret weapon in my sexual toolkit. Now, it’s as much a part of my sex life as kissing.

I don’t do it as frequently as I once did, and I don’t do it to fulfill any sort of sick fantasy or maintain some lie of innocence—I do it because I enjoy it, and I only do it if I know I’m going to enjoy it fully.

My secret to this good anal sex—if you choose to believe there is such a thing for women with vaginas—is good communication, a slow start, and heaping amounts of lube.

Personally, I don’t douche beforehand.

Douching isn’t entirely necessary, but you should definitely do so if you’re worried that you’ll feel self conscious. Otherwise, just try not to eat a huge meal before, make sure your partner wears a condom, and you shouldn’t have too much of a mess on your hands.

Happy back door adventures!

Thursday, November 26, 2020

queensjournal.ca

• 15

‘You’ and ‘Barry’ are quiet commentaries on white male privilege How far will we go to forgive these straight white male protagonists?

Shelby Talbot Lifestyle Editor Joe Goldberg, the protagonist of the television show You, and Barry Berkman, the titular character from HBO’s Barry, have a lot in common: they both want nothing more than to fit in and feel loved, they’re both striving to become better people, and they’re both self-centred killers.

Part of what makes these series so compelling is how they manage to keep audiences rooting for their protagonists who are transparently bad people—Joe and Barry are well-loved by fans despite their worst tendencies.

This phenomenon raises a vital question: just how far are we willing to go to forgive straight white men?

Joe’s a bookstore employee and serial murder who’s killed eight people on-screen during the first two seasons of Yo u — i n c l u d i n g his girlfriend—but his good looks, charming personality, and self-heroizing narration have many viewers nursing a soft spot for him. When Joe has a run-in with law enforcement, you don’t want him to face the repercussions he justly deserves; when he’s confronted with the emotional fallout from his murderous

Joe Goldberg and Barry Berkman are oddly sympathetic characters.

actions, you feel bad for him.

Barry’s a violent assassin who’s self-interests propel his killing—by the show’s second season, it’s obvious the Marine-turned-contract-killerturned-actor doesn’t just kill people when he’s being manipulated by his handler into thinking it serves the greater good. But his own belief that he’s a fundamentally good person seeps into the audience, and you want Barry to find the sense of belonging he so desperately wants out of life, even though he should be owning up to his actions instead.

It goes beyond thinking the characters make for interesting television—there’s a nagging part of me that actually likes Joe and Barry, even though I can objectively recognize that

they’re awful people. It’s an uncomfortable sensation to say the least.

Both shows do an excellent job of making their antihero protagonists sympathetic characters, and a lot of that success can be attributed to clever writing and skilled portrayals from Penn Badgley (Joe) and Bill Hader (Barry).

However, another significant factor that makes viewers reluctantly taken with these characters is the shows’ leveraging of the well-established trope of maybe-redeemable, def i n it ely i r r edeemable white men.

We’ve seen this white male privilege reflected in television time and time again: Barney Stinson from How I Met Your Mother is fatphobic and terrible to women, yet he’s a

by a trend I saw on TikTok in the early days of lockdown this spring.

The premise is straightforward, but requires a bit of preparation: you and your friends each pick an absurdly niche topic, prepare an elaborate slideshow and script, and present your finished products over a screenshared video call. The result is hilarious: my

friends spanned topics from “Ranking the entire Kardashian family from most to least favourite” to “Why Adam Driver is the most attractive person alive (or dead).”

If you want to spice things up, you can swap scripts and slideshows, and have everyone present a topic that isn’t their own. My friends and I also made up award

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY SHELBY TALBOT

fan-favourite; Michael Scott from The Office gets the benefit of being redeemed from his ignorant and harmful season one self, while characters like Kelly Kapoor remain, for the most part, stagnant and unlikeable.

I’d go as far as to say that Joe and Barry are generally better liked than their women character counterparts. Beck (You) and Sally Reed (Barry) are condemned for being imperfect and a little self-absorbed—which they absolutely are—but their boyfriends are so obviously worse that their flaws should pale in comparison. If you walk away from an episode of You thinking Beck is awful but Joe is likeable, this may be a good opportunity to reflect on internalized misogyny.

We probably don’t need more television that angles to have us

forgive deeply flawed, violent men over and over, but to lump You and Barry in with shows that leave their characters’ straight white male privilege entirely unaddressed would be a mistake.

Bot h show s c ou ld be more explicit in this messaging—because they depend on sympathy for their characters, they still use Joe and Barry’s male whiteness to their advantage—but the deliberate way these series make their viewers uncomfortable for liking their protagonists calls some attention to their privilege.

There are valid criticisms levelled against both Barry and You—namely, their propensity for violence against women—and it’s difficult to say whether or not their subtle messaging about our biases towards straight white male characters outweighs the fact that the shows still cast these bad men in a forgiving light. If you don’t stop to think about why you root for Joe and Barry, their positive effect is lost.

You and Barry are far from a solution to the plague of questionable to downright deplorable white male protagonists on television, but they do spawn important conversation. The shows demonstrate a refreshing element of self-awareness, and it’s contagious—when I find myself hoping for the best for Joe and Barry, I’m left to confront my own internal biases.

Three safe ways to be social during winter break

Spend time with your friends while staying safe over the holidays Shelby Talbot Lifestyle Editor This winter break, I’ll be spending my holiday apart from my friends—but that doesn’t mean we won’t still hang out.

My hometown is a COVID-19 hotspot, so like many other students returning home for their break, I won’t be able to spend time with my friends face to face. Fortunately, my friends and I became well versed in the art of planning activities over video calls this summer.

While nothing can replace seeing each other in person, I’ve put together a list of alternatives to break the monotony of never-ending Zoom calls and repetitive phone conversations to try with your friends over the holidays.

categories and voted on our favourite slideshows.

Play games online

You can still have a game night over Zoom—there’s a wide selection of apps and games out there that allow you to connect with your friends to play together online.

If you’re a traditionalist,

Plan a slideshow night

I can’t take credit for coming up with this one—it was inspired

You can still have fun with friends, even if you're not together.

PHOTO BY JODIE GRIEVE

you’re bound to virtual versions of your favourite board games, like Monopoly and Clue. If you’re looking to try something new, I can vouch for Among Us and the JackBox Party Pack game series—both are incredibly fun and unlike any other games I’ve played before. Just hop on a phone or video call, pull up your game of choice, and get playing.

Have a virtual paint night

This is an activity that I haven’t had a chance to try in a group yet, but is definitely in the works.

Find a painting tutorial online—I recommend Bob Ross—grab your art supplies, and follow along together. This requires some preparation, but if you and your friends aren’t artists, you can pick up cheap supplies fairly easily.

I’ve followed a few tutorials myself, and I found it to be a surprisingly calming experience.

I can only imagine it’d be great to share with friends—if you’re not artistically inclined, compare finished products for a laugh.

If you and your friends are competitive, you can turn paint night into a friendly competition.

16 • queensjournal.ca

Thursday, November 26, 2020

POSTSCRIPT

PHOTO BY JODIE GRIEVE

Julia's hobby has evolved into a strategy to work through her worries.

How journaling is helping me overcome perfectionism Writing down my thoughts has kept me grounded Julia Stratton Staff Writer November 4, 2020: If I’m not my good grades, the hours I put in at the gym, or the clothes I spend hundreds of dollars on, then who am I? I bought my first journal at the beginning of Grade 12.

Originally, my intention was to start a food journal, but I soon realized I could use my journal to address my mental health in addition to my physical health. I enjoyed the freedom of writing, but I was also scared and ashamed to admit certain things to myself.

Since elementary school, I’ve been labelled a ‘model student.’

I’ve always been quiet, sweet, and focused, and done as I was told.

I did well in school, and every ‘A’ I nonchalantly showed my parents made them so proud. When I came home one day and announced that I wanted to be a doctor, my parents were delighted.

Somewhere along the line, I began to attribute my self-worth to my academic accomplishments—if I could succeed in school, everything else would fall into place. My plan was always to excel in university, get into a graduate program, and land an impressive job. I would have a good salary, a nice house, and, surely, I would stumble across a Prince Charming who would be impressed by the life I had made for myself.

Meanwhile, the compulsive

perfectionist inside me was always whispering, “If you miss a beat, your life will fall apart.

Eventually you will fail, and people will be disillusioned by your incompetency. Your success is fragile. The illusion of success you have meticulously crafted is bound to break, and you will be nothing.

Because you are nothing.”

"

My journals are a testament to who I am beyond my grades.

They hold my most precious memories, my goals and dreams. The tear-stained pages are humble reminders of the trials and failures that have made me who I am.

Although I excelled in high school, I began to recognize that university was going to be a much bigger challenge. In first year, I was very disappointed in myself after receiving my grade on my first university exam: the infamous PSYC100 midterm.

November 1, 2018: I got my psyc[hology] midterm back today. […] It was a wake-up call. […] I didn’t dwell on it though. I was shocked at first but then I said to myself: what would a doctor do? […] Roll with the punches, learn from your mistakes, and don’t give up on yourself.

Keeping a journal has given me the space to challenge my inner perfectionist. When I write things down on paper, I’m given an objective view of the seemingly earth-shattering situation at hand.

Even now, when I receive a bad grade, I get a sinking feeling in my stomach that says, “Of course you failed. You’ve gone as far as you can go and now you are starting to lag behind the others. You were never as good as them.”

Writing things down helps rationalize this pessimistic voice.

Life is about problem-solving and taking accountability for your failures, not being perfect.

My journals are a testament to who I am beyond my grades.

They hold my most precious memories, my goals and dreams.

The tear-stained pages are humble reminders of the trials and failures that have made me who I am. ***

Perfectionism isn’t limited to my academics; it has also metastasized to my outlook on my body.

Throughout my childhood, I was always very thin. I danced, played hockey, and was happy with my body. Then puberty hit, and I gained a lot of weight—suddenly, I had this weird, new body I wasn’t very fond of.

In first year, I realized I had the opportunity to form new health habits as I transitioned into living on my own. I decided to make my health and fitness a priority: I swam several times a week, went rock climbing, did spin and Zumba classes. Over time, my body started to change.

For years, all I’d wanted was to be thinner, yet, when I finally started seeing results, I wasn’t satisfied. I thought losing weight would make me feel better about myself, but instead, when the number on the scale actually

started going down, it felt like a game, and the number on the scale was the score. How low could I get it to go?

I maintained healthy eating habits, but my mindset going through these changes was not healthy. Nothing ever seemed to be enough.

the end of the "dayAtwhen I turn off

my laptop, put on my pyjamas, and open my journal, I ask myself: who am I today, and who do I want to become tomorrow?

In the midst of this transformation, I reflected on the greater purpose that bodies have.

Women’s bodies are not objects to please men, they are not trophies, and they don’t need to be perfect to be beautiful.

December 2, 2018: To my body, You’re supposed to be thin, you’re supposed to be strong, you’re supposed to be sexy, your skin is supposed to be perfect, your hair is supposed to be flawless, and you need to wake up every day and look the part. You’re thin, but not thin enough. Strong, but not strong enough.

Do boys even see you? Why does my skin look like that and why is my hair sticking out that way?

Why do you have to look like this?

I shouldn’t be so hard on you.

My legs have taken me everywhere I’ve ever wanted to go. My hands let me hold things: books, pens, babies, and other people’s hands.

Sometimes I like my hair best when

it’s a mess and when my mom used to run her hands through it when I was little. My eyes have let me see the world and my mouth will someday kiss someone I love. My skin may never be perfect but it’s nice when people touch your skin because it’s the closest they can be to you. And abs… just because I can’t see you, it doesn’t mean you’re not there.

I try to take care of you not because I hate you but because I love you. I want you to be healthy.

I need to learn to love you because you’re beautiful. Really, I mean that.

I’m not used to saying it and I’m bad at telling you, but you are beautiful. ***

Journaling has helped me solidify an identity for myself beyond my academics and my physical appearance. When I get caught up in the unattainable expectations of the world, my journal helps me ground myself.

Inevitably, I will fail to meet the standards for success and beauty imposed by our society, but that’s okay—it’s normal, even.

Journaling helps me to better handle the uncertainty that comes with failure.

In her book Becoming, Michelle Obama writes: “failure is a feeling before it becomes an actual result.”

As long as I don’t give up on journaling, I will never give up on myself. Failure is more of an obstacle than a finish line.

The less time I spend trying to be perfect, the more time I can spend being myself and discovering who I am. At the end of the day when I turn off my laptop, put on my pyjamas, and open my journal, I ask myself: who am I today, and who do I want to become tomorrow?