Issue 6 Spring 2019

Feature

TUFTS OBSERVER #PERSISTENCE Vol. CXXVIII. Issue 6.

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Tufts Observer

March 5, 2018

S TA F F EDITOR IN CHIEF: Alexandra Benjamin MANAGING EDITOR: Wilson Wong CREATIVE DIRECTOR: Erica Levy FEATURES EDITOR: Jesse Ryan NEWS EDITORS: Anita Lam Brittany Regas ARTS & CULTURE EDITORS: Juliana Vega del Castillo Alice Hickson OPINION EDITORS: Sasha Hulkower Alexandra Strong CAMPUS EDITORS: Myisha Majumder Josie Wagner POETRY & PROSE EDITORS: Ruthie Block Cris Paulino VOICES EDITOR: Rosy Triggs Fitzgerald PHOTO DIRECTORS: Stuart Montgomery Paula Gil-Ordoñez Gomez ART DIRECTOR: Laura Wolfe LEAD ARTIST: Joanna Kleszczewski COLUMNS EDITOR: Sivi Satchithanandan VIDEO DIRECTOR: Emai Lai PODCAST DIRECTOR: Julia Press

Rejecting the baseline 4 News | By Emma Herdman

a personal addendum 7 Opinion | By Emma Herdman

something sunrise 10 8 Prose | By Sarah Walsh

liminal 12 Poetry | By Grace Konstantin

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P E R SI S T E NC E

1 3 eulogy for my sesame street Photo Inset and Cartoon

1 8 beyond imposter syndrome Opinion | By Myisha Majumder

2 0 reclaiming the cannon Campus

2 2 bury a friend, build a career Arts & Culture | By Josie Wagner

2 4 Building cultures of consent Opinion | By ASAP

2 6 bridging the gender gap Campus | By Iyra Chandra and Katherine Wang

2 8 a woman possessed Voices | By Sara Barkouli

PUBLICITY DIRECTORS: Nasrin Lin Sarah Park STAFF WRITERS: Issay Matsumoto Trina Sanyal Sonya Bhatia Muna Mohamed Caroline Blanton DESIGNERS: Richard Nakatsuka Brigid Cawley Daniel Jelčić Sofia Pretell Brenna Trollinger Emma Herdman Janie Ingrassia LEAD COPY EDITOR: Sara Barkouli COPY EDITORS: Kate Bowers Aidan Schaffert Leah Kirsch Lola Jacquin Mahika Khosla Akbota Saudabayeva EDITOR EMERITUS: Emmett Pinsky CONTRIBUTORS: Tufts Green Dot Ailie Orzak Amy Tong Jesse Herdman Kelsey Trollinger FRONT COVER PHOTOS BY ERICA LEVY TOC PHOTO BY EMMA HERDMAN

I T O D E (Letter from the Editor)

I remember stopping by the Observer’s table when I visited Tufts for Jumbo Days. I picked up an issue, and my dad immediately squeezed my arm and said, “You’re going to work for them.” He was right, as dads often {infuriatingly} are. Just a few months later I squeezed into the Crane Room for a packed GIM, thinking there was no way I’d be able to get away with one of the few first-year staff positions. So I was shocked when, a few days later, I got an email from the Creative Director inviting me to be a designer (now, I tell our designers all the time that if I had been up against them, I never would have made the cut). I was excited, but I never could have imagined how transformative the O would be to my college experience, or that I’d be looking back on it four years later as Editor-in-Chief.

I’ve loved my time on the Observer for so many reasons—for the people and perspectives it exposed me to that I never would have encountered otherwise; for the lifelong friends I’ve made; for the professional experience I’ve gained (that tops anything I’ve learned in class or internships); for the growth it has allowed me as a writer; for all the thinking it has made me do about myself and the world around me. But the Observer also represents something bigger than all that, something that I have sometimes struggled to put into words, but that I have been thinking about more and more as my time both on staff and at Tufts draws to an end.

In those early days on staff, I felt somewhat invisible as a first-year designer, quietly clicking away at InDesign in a corner of the MAB lab while the upperclassmen rushed around me in synchronized chaos, pulling bits of the magazine together piece by piece late into the night.

During that time, I loved eavesdropping on staff discussions about the articles we ran and the issues on campus we wanted to investigate. It didn’t take long for me to notice a common theme among our coverage—much of it centered around criticizing Tufts.

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L

LEDITOR

At first, this didn’t make sense to me. All I had been led to believe in high school was that going to college was the best thing that could ever happen to a person—everyone loves their school, because how could you not? Universities are supposed to be wonderful institutions where we learn and make friends and have the best four years of our lives.

I’ve loved my four years—but I’ve also learned that this was never the whole truth, not for anyone, not for any school, and certainly not for Tufts. Tufts is riddled with flaws as an institution, and run surely by people with some good intentions, but overall by an administration that is out of touch with students and their needs. It consistently acts at odds with the values of students and fails to respond to our outrage when they do. I’ve seen this when it took a year of community protests for the third-highest paid University President in Massachusetts to finally agree to give dining workers a living wage and fair union contract. I’ve seen it when the school has retained symbolic and monetary ties to Big Pharma and fossil fuel giants. I’ve seen it perhaps most clearly when they have consistently disregarded survivors of sexual assault and their demands for a safer campus, choosing instead to protect perpetrators. Don’t believe me? Take a look at how the University handbook punishes sexual assault, and how it punishes plagiarism. Three guesses which one gets you expelled.

Again, this is not just a Tufts problem. But what makes me so angry, is that Tufts is unique in that it has spent years explicitly building its image around being a progressive institution that cultivates and empowers social justice. From all the inspiring advocates I’ve met during my time here, I can say with confidence that it certainly attracts that kind of person. However, Tufts completely fails to deliver on its purported values. Administrators continue to exploit the students who work so hard to bring about justice in our community every day, all for the sake of attractive marketing.

And it’s disgusting.

LEDITOR

I realized this more and more as I started editing articles investigating these topics, and eventually writing them myself. That’s when it really started to dawn on me what it meant to shed light on hidden injustice, to give voice to those who were silenced, and to be critical of corrupted power. Suddenly, student journalism wasn’t just a fun extracurricular activity anymore. It was speaking up for real people’s stories and livelihoods, sometimes when no one else would.

I firmly believe that doing this work for the Observer is the most important thing I’ve done with my time in college. Even at the times when I’ve been frustrated (once again) with the University’s lack of response to our critiques, I hold out for the fact that even when we are ignored, we are still documenting physical evidence of the injustices we see, and little by little, we are pushing back against the status quo and demanding action.

So now, when I look back at my first year self, astounded by how anyone could be so critical of the place they call home for four years, I obviously feel naive. But I also have realized that insistence to speak out about Tufts and its shortcomings isn’t born just out of bitterness or defiance. It is also born out of love. When you love something, you don’t give up on it; you push it to be better be-

cause you know it can be better. We know and believe that Tufts can be better, and we wouldn’t be here if we didn’t. I’ve had this thought not just about Tufts, but about our country too, another entity I’m frequently finding myself forgetting how to love. But like at Tufts, I see those who refuse to accept the status quo and love not what it is now, but what they know it can be. And that makes everything else worth it.

I don’t regret the countless hours I’ve put into the O, the 6 a.m. Tuesday late nights, all the times I didn’t study enough for a midterm because I stayed late at layout, or traded time perfecting a paper for editing and re-editing a tough article. The truth is, it was never really a choice. The O was just more important.

I am so grateful to have had this experience and reached these conclusions. And beyond the serious, I am just so grateful for all the beautiful people on this staff who have been there to laugh with me through many, many late nights, and who make this whole damn thing happen with me. So thank you—thank you to the now-graduated staff who made all this possible long before me; to the new staff members who I see so much for in the future; I am so sad I won’t be here to witness your growth first-hand. To my ray of sunshine Erica who makes our magazine so beautiful and never fails to make me smile; to my other half Wilson and other half-emeritus Emmett who I 100 percent never could have led this team without. And a special shout-out to maybe the most unexpected person the O ever gave me— my first co-editor, Misha. We worked together for just four months; not only does he continues to offer me some of my most valuable journalistic advice, but he is also my best friend to this day.

Alexandra Benjamin Editor in Chief

april 22, 2019 Tufts Observer 3

News

Baseline

Let’s not just accept that people have to deal with sexual harassment

By Emma Herdman CW: Sexual assault, suicide

O

ver the past several weeks, eight women have spoken out about their experiences with Delaware Senator and former Vice President Joe Biden. The potential 2020 presidential candidate has received criticism for overstepping boundaries and behaving inappropriately towards the people—particularly women—with whom he interacts as a politician.

Lucy Flores, a former Nevada assemblywoman, led the recent charge in calling out Biden’s behavior on March 29 in The Cut, where she detailed her encounter with Biden during a political rally in 2014. She was the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor in Nevada. He was the Vice President of the United States.

While they were standing backstage at the rally, Flores said that she “felt him get closer to me from behind. He leaned further in and inhaled my hair. I was mortified... He proceeded to plant a big slow kiss on the back of my head... I was embarrassed. I was shocked.

I was confused.”

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Flores continues to describe her feelings during the interaction. “There is a Spanish saying, ‘tragame tierra,’ it means, ‘earth, swallow me whole.’ I couldn’t move and I couldn’t say anything. I wanted nothing more than to get Biden away from me.”

Flores’ essay gained near-instant momentum and backlash. Several other individuals who had endured uncomfortable interactions with Biden came forward to tell their own stories. On April 1, Amy Lappos, a freelancer in the nonprofit sector, told the Hartford Courant that Biden had inappropriately touched her in 2009 at a political fundraiser. “He put his hand around my neck and pulled me in to rub noses with me,” she recalled, “When he was pulling me in, I thought he was going to kiss me on the mouth.” Before her public announcement, Lappos posted about the incident anonymously on the Facebook page Connecticut Women in Politics— ostensibly fearing the repercussions she might receive for making a more public statement concerning Biden’s behavior.

The following day, two more women, Caitlin Caruso and DJ Hill, told The New York Times about Biden’s inappropriate behavior towards them. Caruso, who was 19 at the time of the incident, described Biden resting his hand on her thigh, “even as she squirmed in her seat to show her discomfort.” The incident occurred during a sexual assault awareness event at the University of Nevada, where Caruso spoke out as a survivor. Caruso did not report Joe Biden’s behavior at the time, explaining that “it doesn’t even really cross [her] mind that such a person would dare perpetuate harm like that.”

On April 4, The Washington Post published an article with the stories of Vail Kohnert-Yount and Sofie Karasek, who both reported distressing interactions with Biden. Kohnert-Yount, a former White House intern, reported that “[Biden] put his hand on the back of my head and pressed his forehead to my forehead while he talked to me. I was so shocked that it was hard to focus on what he was saying.”

Karasek’s interaction with Biden occurred in 2016. She appeared in a group of 51 sexual assault victims who were invited on stage for an Oscar performance that Biden had introduced. Karasek said that she met Biden after the ceremony and shared a personal story involving another friend who had experienced sexual assault and ultimately succumbed to suicide. Biden grabbed her hands and “lean[ed] down to place his forehead against hers,” a moment captured in a widely circulated photograph.

Karasek said she “appreciated Biden’s support but also felt awkward and uncomfortable that his gesture had left their faces suddenly inches apart.”

Biden has issued two statements regarding these allegations. The first was released two days after Flores’ essay was published on Twitter. The statement was humble, but notably failed to assume any direct responsibility for the allegations and lacked an actual apology. “In many years on the campaign trail and in public life, I have offered countless handshakes, hugs, expressions of affection, support and comfort.

And not once—never—did I believe I acted inappropriately. If it is suggested I did so, I will listen respectfully,” Biden stated.

News

Tufts junior Han Lee, co-head of education and outreach for Tufts Action for Sexual Assault Prevention (ASAP), responded to Biden’s first statement via an email to the Tufts Observer, stating, “Biden’s situation in particular, I think, raises a lot of interesting questions about how we discuss consent and sexual assault/harassment.

Biden’s case… is focused solely on the determinants of sexual harassment. While this discussion may have some merits, I also think we should be discussing the elements of power and disrespect that comes into play in these situations.”

This observation is important to consider both in Biden’s statement, as well as the dominant media narratives surrounding the allegations. By insisting that he was unaware that his actions caused harm, Biden reveals the very power that he holds in his interactions. According to Lee, “Whether or not you deem his actions as innocent, a kiss on the cheek or a massage without consent are performances of power. Essentially, Biden claims access to these bodies and these actions are invasive and ignorant to a person’s level of comfort…

The underlying message is always: If I let him do this, what more might he ask for?”

Biden’s actions are simply the tip of the iceberg; they hint at much larger, intricately embedded power structures. And these stories are by no means exceptional.

People deal with workplace harassment and sexual misconduct daily, across all occupations. An online survey launched in January of 2018 by the nonprofit Stop Street Harassment found that 81 percent of women and 43 percent of men have experienced some form of sexual harassment during their lifetime.

Biden and his supporters have both claimed that his intentions in the interactions in question were always good, and that he is simply a victim of shifting generational views on sexual misconduct. In a two-minute video released on Twitter on

ART BY AILIE ORZAK

April 3, Biden acknowledged that “social norms are changing. I understand that, and I’ve heard what these women are saying. Politics to me has always been about making connections, but I will be more mindful about respecting personal space in the future. That’s my responsibility and I will meet it.”

In response to Biden’s video, Karasek told The Washington Post that Biden “emphasized that he wants to connect with people and, of course, that’s important. But again, all of our interactions and friendships are a twoway street… Too often it doesn’t matter how the woman feels about it or they just assume that they’re fine with it.”

Tufts Sociology Professor Brett Nava-Coulter, who studies Policy and Inequality, responded to Biden’s claim about shifting social norms, stating: “People have made this generational claim… but we are now in the present day. He should not be unaware at this point of the fact that society has deemed these interactions inappropriate.”

The former Vice President is in a particularly salient position for exemplifying the way we deal with sexual misconduct today. Though he still has yet to officially announce his bid for the presidency, Biden already leads the polls among more than a dozen other Democratic candidates. This begs the questions: will he face consequences for his actions?

Senior Ross Kamen, who is from Biden’s home state of Delaware, weighed in on the prospect of consequences. “It seems like there is no public figure who has been forgiven,” he said. “We only see cases getting swept under the rug or people being publicly condemned and haven’t really come back.”

“I think Biden is uniquely positioned to be one of the first people to just say ‘I’m

sorry, I understand that what I did hurt people and I am willing to change’ and maybe people will

be like yeah, we forgive you,” he continued.

“But he hasn’t done that yet.”

In an interview with CNN, Flores stated, “I think it really speaks to the fact that when behavior isn’t considered ‘serious enough’ for society, for America, it’s very easy to dismiss it… Never do I claim that this rises to the level of sexual assault or anything of that nature. What I am say-

April 22, 2019 Tufts Observer 5

News

ing is that it is completely inappropriate… and that is something that we should consider when we are talking about the background of a person who is considering running for president.”

Although Biden has vowed to learn from his actions, whether he will follow through remains to be seen. At a recent conference for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers in Washington, Biden joked about the controversy, hugging Lonnie R. Stephenson, the union’s president, and remarking as the crowd laughed, “I just want you to know I had permission to hug Lonnie.”

In response, Flores tweeted, “It’s clear @JoeBiden hasn’t reflected at all on how his inappropriate and unsolicited touching made women feel uncomfortable. To make light of something as serious as consent degrades the conversation women everywhere are courageously trying to have.”

Regarding this, Tufts Professor of Anthropology Nick Seaver told the Observer in an email that “the networks of trust and belief along which testimony travels don’t go everywhere—certain privileged positions are more likely to be believed than others. Similarly, people in certain positions are more likely to be sought out for their expert opinions.” He also cautioned that, as a White cis man himself, “I am not the ideal person to be weighing in on this issue!”

Indeed, recent events on Tufts campus exemplify the violence of undermin-

6 Tufts Observer April 22, 2019

ing underprivileged voices. On April 1, the Tufts cannon was painted with the message “support survivors.” The message was written in white and green, representing Green Dot, a national organization which promotes proactive and reactive bystander intervention. The following day, a bright red scrawl reading “#MAGA” was spray painted over Green Dot’s message.

“The cannon incident drew a pretty visceral reaction from me,” Lee said. “It was a targeted incident derailing campus support for the survivors on this campus. The implication that Trump’s campaign motto sends, sprayed directly over ‘support survivors,’ is that what will make America great again is to ignore survivors, to not believe those who have the courage to share their narratives. It sends a message that this campus is not safe, that to be a survivor is to be a liar. For every anonymous forum post or cannon painting, there is a survivor who is afraid to report, afraid to publicly detail what has happened to them, who has to relive their trauma again and again, who is double-checking statistics because their words aren’t enough, whose agency has been entirely taken from them.”

Seaver and Lee’s comments highlight an overarching theme that underscores the emerging narrative between Biden and his accusers. Survivors’ voices are consistently drowned out in favor of defending and listening to people in power, and we can see this dynamic play out in the polarizing responses to the Biden scandal. On the

right, Donald Trump has joked that Biden is a hypocrite who is being taken down by the very progressive policies that he has championed, remarking, “Welcome to the world, Joe. You having a good time, Joe? Are you having a good time?” On the left, Biden supporters, many of them women, have been quick to defend Biden, claiming the #MeToo movement has gone too far. Whoopi Goldberg downplayed Flores’ story, saying that “Joe is a hands-on kind of guy” on a segment of The View.

Lee argues that actions like this prove exactly how far the #MeToo movement still has to go. “We have to be thinking about the language that we’re using, the way we’re reacting to these cases,” she said. “This proves more than ever that survivors need support. This proves that sexual assault is not over, that it is not a crisis of the past. It is happening right here, on our campus, by the very people who are in your fraternity, who did a preO with you, who sit beside you in class.

The fight isn’t nearly over yet.”

Choosing to minimize survivor testimony to defend accused offenders of sexual misconduct, no matter the scale, actively perpetuates a damaging cycle of oppression which supports the status quo and resists progress. The Biden controversy has the potential to create a new precedent in the world of workplace harassment and beyond. It is time that we listen to the stories of survivors and allow them the space to heal without fear of backlash.

opinion

CW: Sexual assault

P

a personal addendum: shifting the narrative

eople from Delaware love to talk about Delaware. It’s not even just those, like me, who have escaped from Delaware, who love talking about Delaware. When I’m home (in Delaware), I am always amazed by how much pride people have for our state. When I moved from a small state to a small liberal arts university, I knew I could count on the other handful of Delawareans here to look out for me. Having pride for a place, whether that pride is ironic or not, naturally makes you a little protective over it.

Delaware is like my little sibling who I get to call names but I will be damned if I let someone from New Jersey talk shit about the Punkin Chunkin (look it up). We Delawareans hold each other in high regard, we want each other to succeed, and we stick up for each other.

That’s how, probably unwisely, I ended up sliding into the Twitter DMs of a guy who I went to high school with after I noticed he had been retweeting messages from various women, like Meghan McCain, who were coming out in support of Delaware Senator and former Vice President Joe Biden in the wake of recent allegations against him.

I wasn’t necessarily surprised by this behavior. Delawareans love Joe Biden as much as Joe Biden loves Delaware (a lot).

But more concerningly, seeing a White cis man show “empathy” (in the words of Meghan McCain) for Biden, over the stories of women who had recently spoken out about his sexual misconduct was… disconcerting.

Despite some claims to the contrary, retweeting someone is an endorsement of their content. It’s saying, “I like what you had to say so much that I want all of my followers to see it too.” In this case, the retweets felt like a self-congratulatory loophole. I imagined Biden supporters emerging from the woodwork shouting, “See? Women love Biden! There’s no way he could have done anything wrong.” And like any endorsement, positions of power matter. It disturbed me to see this person, who

By Emma Herdman

ostensibly felt like he couldn’t directly tweet the messages that he was retweeting, using his platform to celebrate Biden supporters without any mention of those who they were speaking over: the eight women who have made public statements about Biden’s inappropriate interactions with them. This was my message to him (which now admittedly feels a little apologetic): Hey. Noticing you’re retweeting a lot of Joe Biden sympathy tweets. Just wanted to let you know that survivors’ voices are always always getting silenced by people who would rather defend the honor of rapists and abusers than support and believe survivors.

Obviously the allegations against Biden aren’t officially confirmed but it’s important to note that retweeting these kinds of things perpetuates systemic violence against assault survivors by undermining their stories.

The next day, I received a long reply from the classmate. I won’t go into too many details, but I will say that his (356 word) response did not provide me any clarity on his position. In fact, it just confused me more. He began, “I am 100% behind hearing sur vivors and seeking to validate their claims. Especially in the case of rape and abuse accusations.”

But as it went on… and on… and on, he

explained that “equating an invasion of personal space to predation and assault undermines the #MeToo movement. It emboldens its detractors, and reframes the dialogue around more socially acceptable behavior such as shoulder touching rather than focusing on the larger issues of legitimate harassment.” Finally, he concluded with, “If retweeting first-hand defenses of a man who has spent his entire career championing women’s rights and whose character has been relentlessly praised by women qualifies as ‘perpetuating systemic violence against assault survivors,’ we need to reevaluate the #MeToo movement’s notion of justice.”

I didn’t know how to respond. I found myself wondering, what is “legitimate harassment?” Is it harassment that escalates to physical violence? Is harassment only considered as such if there is a legal precedent outlining the proper protocol for how to “deal with it?” Is it only harassment if it can be recognized as wrong by those outside of the interaction? And what was he purporting to be “the #MeToo movement’s notion of justice?” Their mission is simply to “Support survivors and end sexual violence.” To me, a survivor of sexual violence is someone who has experienced the loss of bodily autonomy, and who has persevered despite it. The women who have reported feeling “demeaned,” “harmed,” and “thrown away” by Biden’s actions have certainly lost autonomy and april 22,, 2019 Tufts Observer 7

opinion

deserve, at the bare minimum, to be believed and to receive the acknowledgment that they are not alone. That, if nothing else, we hear them.

We exchanged more messages on the issue, but it became immediately clear that

arguing was pointless. I shouldn’t have said anything, I thought. Like many times before, I felt the need to use logic and quantitative evidence to prove something that is societally engineered to be evidence-less, because it relies on the personal testimonies of people we are predisposed not to listen to. It disturbed me that, once again, someone’s allegiance to a man in power, perhaps a man who reflected their own identity and ideals, was weaponized to devalue victims’ statements.

He told me he planned on writing an article about the issue using my messages. I urged him not to. He did so anyway, courteously keeping me anonymous.

The article included only my initial message, ending with his response to me and his long-winded opinion on why listening to survivors was important, as long as they truly were survivors. I felt deflated. Most of 8 Tufts Observer april 22, 2019

the words that I had carefully engineered to explain my allegiance to the discounted narratives of Lucy Flores, Amy Lappos, DJ Hill, Caitlin Caruso, Ally Coll, Sofie Karasek, Vail Kohnert-Yount, and Alexandra Tara Reade were left out. My voice, too,

was erased. I felt like I had just lost a game on my own home court.

According to uslegal.com, harassment is defined as “unwanted, unwelcomed, and uninvited behavior that demeans, threatens or offends the victim and results in a hostile environment for the victim.” This perplexed me. The definition itself seems so clearcut, yet it often relies on personal testimony, subjective experience.

So what about the subjective experiences that Lucy Flores, Amy Lappos, DJ Hill, Caitlin Caruso, Ally Coll, Sofie Karasek, Vail Kohnert-Yount, and Alexandra Tara Reade described in their statements about Joe Biden? What good is a legal precedent based on personal testimony, if that personal testimony is so easy for us to ignore?

This interaction with my classmate does not exist in isolation. It reminded me about times that words had failed me before, times when I felt something wasn’t

right but could not verbalize precisely why.

I began to examine all of the interactions that have shaped my feelings about sexual assault and formed my understanding of what it is to be a survivor. When I was 15, I attended a work event with my parents. We were greeted by a wellknown Delaware politician— one who is currently still in office. I remember vividly what I was wearing: a green suede skirt with a pink and maroon floral pattern, a short-sleeved black v-neck that I had borrowed from my mom, and my hair, which was long then, sat in a ballerina bun on the top of my head. The politician greeted my parents and then me, say-

ing something along the lines of ‘what a beautiful young lady!’ I smiled; he asked how old I was, and I responded, “15.”

“Wow!” he chuckled, “they certainly didn’t make 15 year-olds like that when I was your age!”

At the time, I was naïve—I had no idea what he was implying.

I took it as a compliment. But I remember my mom’s awkward laugh as she abruptly pulled me away.

A year later, I began my first job at a local restaurant. It was a family pub with regular patrons. I could walk there from my house. As a host, I stood at a podium in the front and greeted customers. My post was about five feet from the bar, but at 17, I was too young to carry alcoholic beverages to customers at their tables. Still, I spent a lot of time chatting with regulars as they enjoyed their drinks. They were mostly men who seemed ancient to me (realistically, they were probably in their 50s). They could be flirty, but I didn’t find it alarming that men several decades my senior were taking interest in me. I found it kind of entertaining. I was being validated for my presence. One regular in particular got into the habit of asking, “You 18 yet?”

I laughed it off. It was slightly creepy, but harmless, I thought.

ART BY JESSE HERDMAN

opinion

Then, when I was 18, at a party with friends, I met the older brother of one of my classmates. I was a senior in high school. He was in college. He talked to me. It was exciting. We eventually started making out.

Things escalated quickly. At the suggestion of the party’s host, we made our way to a childhood bedroom. I wasn’t having fun anymore, but I didn’t say, “No.” And I did something that I had done in so many uncomfortable situations in the past—I went along with it.

When he left to use the bathroom, a wave of adrenaline hit me and I grabbed my clothes and ran outside to be with my friends. I figured he wouldn’t follow me. He wouldn’t want to make a scene, I thought. I felt safe outside of the room.

But he did follow me, and as he coaxed me back, I

panicked. I didn’t want to go, but I didn’t want to make it seem like a big deal. I didn’t want to acknowledge that something was wrong and by doing so, admit that it was. So I followed, and I waited for it to end, and then I waited until he fell asleep. I quietly got up, dressed, and crawled into bed with my friends in another room. One of them asked if everything was okay— he had noticed me running out of the room earlier and then reluctantly acquiescing to going back in.

I assured him everything was fine.

I thought it was! Bad sex happens, I told myself.

For a long time afterwards, life continued pretty much as normal. I didn’t think about the incident much, let alone describe it as anything wrong. But my body started to act differently. I got extremely anxious

at work, sometimes feeling like the comments that I had once laughed off might make me burst into tears. When I left after a shift, I would walk fast and alert. I didn’t listen to music or look at my phone. My stomach hurt.

More concerningly, I couldn’t have sex. I became anxious even in consensual sexual situations. Sex became painful or not possible at all. My muscles would clench uncontrollably. I had no idea what was going on. I confided in an older friend, thinking that this could somehow be a side effect of my birth control. She assured me that it wasn’t. Whatever I was experiencing was most likely “all in my head.”

About a year into this painful cycle, I was listening to a podcast when I heard a story about someone with a condition called “vaginismus.” It was, like many gynecological issues, a bit of a mystery (not to mention creepily named). But in her story, the woman explained that vaginismus often occurs as the result of sexual trauma. It is a subconscious bodily reaction to the anticipation of pain where the body automatically tightens the vaginal muscles, bracing to protect itself from harm. My body understood something that I didn’t have the words to describe.

I don’t tell this story to explain my sensitivity to sexual misconduct.

I would hope that being a survivor of sexual assault is not a prerequisite to demanding workplaces free of harassment, or

to understanding the importance of standing in support of survivors. But in thinking through my view on the Biden allegations, I have realized that I am viewing them from an entirely different world than

some of my classmates, colleagues, family members, and even close friends. It was through understanding that my body was responding to trauma that I began to heal.

When I addressed the trauma and began to recognize how entrenched it was, and is, in my interpersonal interactions, I allowed it to crystallize into something legitimate, something that I could acknowledge, and something that I was still recovering from.

And with the support of my community, I reminded myself that my body is my own, but also that I am not responsible for standing alone to protect it.

In a perverse way, my assault helps me to understand the misunderstanding of potential allies who seek a concrete definition of what it means to be stripped of control. I know all too well the desire to make things one-dimensional and easy to understand. But unfortunately, the factual evidence that we’re seeking just doesn’t exist. It’s embedded in intangible parts of our identities and relationships. To heal, we need to acknowledge that space and to speak it into our collective consciousness.

We cannot continue to discount the voices of survivors like Lucy Flores, Amy Lappos, DJ Hill, Caitlin Caruso, Ally Coll, Sofie Karasek, Vail Kohnert-Yount, and Alexandra Tara Reade. We need to push our perception of empathy beyond our own experiences and question who we choose to stick up for and support.

As a

Delawarean, I want to have faith in my community to speak up for me, and to be able to listen when questioned about whose narratives they support. To upset systemic power imbalances, we need to make them tangible, and the first step is acknowledging that what survivors—any survivors—have experienced is no less real than their continued survival. april 22, 2019 Tufts Observe r 9

FEATURE

S o m e t h i n At the Blue Swallow Motel, I could’ve been in love with her. We’d sit down on leather bar stools, pretend like we were a couple of cowboys. It’s dangerous not to, I would whisper. Yes, dangerous, you’d agree. You’d order whisky on ice, like a real cowboy, and I’d order a shitty beer to stop myself from getting something more ambrosial or a something sunrise. The problem is I’m always thinking about these things At the Blue Swallow Motel, I could’ve been in love with her. There’s a whole world there, of could’ves, but I’ve never felt ready. She’d sit down on a bar stool, and I’d spin it backwards towards me and kiss her kiss her kiss her then die I guess I don’t really know anything about her except she looks like Ella YelichO’Connor but with green eyes and maybe that is why I can’t talk about this. All I know is that everybody says they have green eyes but she really does, that she hides her mouth behind her hair when she gets nervous she keeps her vulnerability in and around her mouth mine is more diffuse. That when she was a kid she would suck the water from her hair after jumping in the lake or the pool likes apricots once I saw her use lavender oil drop it on her wrist a few times and sniff so she could present something to a crowd without shaking I asked for some felt like we were trying a new drug for the first time together it was only lavender oil At the Blue Swallow Motel, I’d ask a stranger for a coin just to stick it in the jukebox and pick something for you. He’d probably say no At the Blue Swallow Motel, I’d challenge a stranger to a game of darts, bet a coin on it. I’d win, stick the coin in the jukebox, and pick something for you. I’d ask you to dance I’d hope the world could disappear around me but the second you go away to buy another drink there’s a man there he’s telling me he likes what we are doing here. Everytime I think I have the whole precious moon in my hands he comes up to stick a flag in it I was never allowed to own this. I try to talk about this but I never can and it is not because I don’t know her or that she closes her eyes while running once literally ran off a bridge and fell 20 feet into a stream because of it that she presses flowers in notebooks every summer there is a drivein in her town and she loves it. It’s because it was never really mine and once I thought we were alone somebody would press the flood lights on and an audience would clap I’d wonder did I want this? Who did I do this for? The world is lost now, and I can go on without it but I wish I hadn’t had to

S u n r i s e 10 Tufts Observer April, 22 2019

ART BY LAURA WOLFE

FEATURE

n g

At the Blue Swallow Motel, we would make a cave of used quilts and color TV and bad wine and walls that are Tequila Sunrise pink and the quiet sound of glowing neon outside and we’d move to the shower kiss and fuck until time became timeless and I’d shut the blinds so tight we would not need to know when dawn came hounding us. We’d fall asleep on top of the covers I would not even wonder whose side of the bed the nightstand with the King James Bible was on because there would be no sides of the bed we’d curve and spill like tributaries into it into each other all over one another and sweat would bloom where our skin touched mostly everywhere and I’d whisper the words of the Blue Swallow Benediction on the wall like a lullaby chant. Somewhere in another life, I’d say, this happens forever. Somewhere in another life we stay. We are all travelers. From “birth till death,” we travel between the eternities. We are all travelers. From “birth till death,” we travel between the eternities. We are all travelers. From “birth till death,” we travel between the eternities

By Sarah Walsh

April, 22 2019 Tufts Observer 11

I. the walk tiles in the morning are slick with dew or washing and our heels click in time with the metal kegs cheers-ing their rims while collected in the early mist from the front walk of a pub we are quiet, we shiver for the sun has not yet warmed the sunken air plumes are expelled from between lips or nostrils, with hands shoved deep deep into the confidence of pockets we march on II. the clouds a fog closes in on us from all sides and it feels like the only thing in existence is our little stretch of road beneath a big blue bus III. the self I am so many patterns of blue, the sky wraps around my ankles and tucks into my rubber boots, a speckled umbrella swings from two fingers by my knees the rain tickles the tops of my cheeks I am safe in oversized plaid rolled to the elbows and the leaves look up as I pass, splayed on their backs upon pooling, wrinkled pavement I forget where I am going

By Grace Konstantin

12 Tufts Observer April 22, 2019

ART BY JANIE INGRASSIA

STUART MONTGOMERY

JULIANA VEGA SOFIA PRETELL

SOFIA PRETELL

ALICE HICKSON CRISTOBAL PAULINO

JULIANA VEGA

SOFIA PRETELL ALICE HICKSON

PHOTOS BY TATI DOYLE

SOFIA PRETELL

SOFIA PRETELL

PAULA GIL-ORDOÑEZ GOMEZ

Feature

32

Tufts Observer

April 23, 2018

cartoon

NASRIN LIN

April 22, 2019 Tufts Observer 17

OPINION

BEYOND IMPOSTER SYNDROME The Experience oF a Woman of Color in Engineering

By Myisha Majumder

W

hen I was seven years old, my dad drove me to my elementary school at the bright hour of 7 a.m., almost two hours before school began. He parked his car and walked me down a dimly light hallway to the opposite end of the school building, where I entered a room of elementary-aged White boys with their middle-aged White dads. He sat me down in front of a black-and-white checkered board, littered with unfamiliar pieces, and told me to play. That first chess club meeting, I lost every game.

It was my first major experience with failure—I sobbed, trying to wrap my head around what had just happened. When I got home that night, my dad let me cry until I ran out of tears, and then he developed a game plan for me to implement over February break: I was to work tirelessly to master chess so I could go back to chess club and beat everyone.

That was the first game plan my dad made for me—and it was far from the last.

Chess club was my first go at defending myself against privileged White men who assumed I was not capable of picking up the way of the game. That fight is one I still fight today, with a go-to mantra written into my brain: You have to work twice as hard to get half of what they have.

Yet for myself and others, the blunt edges of motivating words aren’t always sharp enough to cut through internalized self-doubt.

This feeling, also known as “imposter syndrome,” is rooted in the notion that one’s success is due only to luck and not one’s own qualifications. People affected by imposter syndrome believe that they are an imposter in their field: someone who has just convinced other people that they are qualified, while they themselves believe 18 Tufts Observer APRIL 22, 2019

they’re really not. The term was first coined by psychologists Dr. Pauline Rose Clance and Dr. Suzanne Imes in a paper published in 1978. They theorized and demonstrated that high-achieving women are the group most impacted by this psychological turmoil. Further research has confirmed that imposter syndrome’s reach extends across all genders, sexual-orientations, races, socio-economic statuses, and more. Psychologist Audrey Ervin claims that now, the main sign of imposter syndrome is simply someone “who isn’t able to internalize and own their successes.”

My first encounter with the term came during my freshman year at Tufts. I was speaking with my sister’s best friend, a Tufts alumna who studied Electrical Engineering, went on to get a high-paying job in the field, and was even encouraged by her company to return to Tufts part time for her Masters Degree in Engineering Management. Despite all of this, she told to me that she felt the impact of imposter syndrome steadily throughout her engineering curriculum. Beyond that, she found it difficult to advocate for herself at work specifically.

Engineers have a tendency to pull away from social issues, judging solely based on objective fact, not subjective opinion. It seemed as though, because of this, engineering firms and companies were supposed to be open to everyone who could think—but, perhaps unsurprisingly, a group of White men living in a bubble had difficulty promoting a woman of color who was equally, if not more, qualified than many White men. Far too many times, I’ve heard women who had the opportunity to pursue higher education explain their success away as them just meeting a diversity quota—either by

financial need, race, or both—not because of their ability. This feeling can continue on throughout their entire careers. But the self-doubt that plagues successful women who fall under other marginalized groups must be rooted in something even deeper than imposter syndrome.

As I began to take more Engineering courses this semester, I found myself becoming more aware of the racial and gender-based disparities in every classroom I walked into. For the entirety of my pre-college education, I grew up as one of the few people of color in the class, but I attributed the lack of diversity to the fact that my public school served a community that was 96 percent White. The sinking pit in my stomach when I’m one of few women of color in the room can’t be reduced to imposter syndrome alone. I don’t just feel as though I don’t belong—I do not belong.

I don’t fit the societal norms of academia.

A private institution like Tufts has no restriction on how many students of color they can accept. But at its core, the higher education system is unwelcoming to those that lack the privileges necessary to even get them in the door.

The sinking pit in my stomach when I’m one of few women of color in the room can’t be reduced to imposter syndrome alone. I don’t just feel as though I don’t belong — I do not belonG.

OPINION

manipulated to further marginalize underrepresented communities. We need more people of color in scientific fields to prevent studies like these from gaining validity. By increasing our presence in this field, we can analyze data from a different perspective and take knowledge production into our own hands. * The game of chess is often used as a metaphor for the game of life—how one should navigate and manipulate their opponent’s weaknesses and own advantages to advance further and further until they reach the top. But women of color—myself included—have been told that by studying traditionally difficult STEM fields, we shouldn’t dream of attaining these achievements. Whether it be via higher education or rising up the ranks at NASA—we are essentially told that by toughing it out for four years against White men, we should let them do the discovering and innovating, while we simply assist.

I owe my strength to the people of color—the women of color—who have fought and continue to fight against this norm, and whose work is too often forgotten because of their complexion. I owe my strength to my own mother and father.

To my mother, an immigrant woman of color, who trained in engineering abroad and got her masters in engineering in the United States, then learned to code C++ immediately after it was invented. To my father, an immigrant man of color, who got his PhD from MIT and went on to teach engineering at other higher education institutions. To my father, for never doubting my capabilities despite being a woman and pushing me to make myself seen and heard in spaces otherwise dominated by White male faces. * While my elementary school classmates spent their February vacations sunning themselves on beach vacations, I was hunched over my kitchen table, playing chess for hours, motivated by a deep pit in my stomach—a pit that still exists to this day. When I returned back to chess club, I beat all of the smug faces that expected me to be an easy win, waiting for the moment at the end of ever y game when I could whisper the gratif ying word: “checkmate.”

FEMALE MALE

For the class of 2022, Tufts has seen an almost equal distribution of women and men in the School of Engineering. In pursuit of gender equity, however, Tufts has failed to actively consider other factors like race in its admissions practices.

Beyond this, Tufts also lacks in representation among faculty of color, both in and out of the STEM field. In both the School of Arts and Sciences and the School of Engineering, faculty is dominated by White men. The School of Engineering is only comprised of 14.9 percent Asian, 1 percent Black and 1 percent Hispanic faculty members. The Engineering faculty is full of accomplished professors, set to inspire the next generation of engineers—but if I can’t see myself reflected among these White men, how can I be inspired as a woman of color?

My fight is not unique—women of color in STEM fields have been doing this work for decades. My first realization of this was only a few years ago, when I sat in my childhood family room, watching Hidden Figures with my parents, sister, and brother-in-law—all of us people of color, all of us engineers. The real-life accomplishments of Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson filled the screen with their photos at the end—and I was sobbing. Their stories affirmed my fight, somehow deepening my sorrow for the Black and Brown lives lost in the pursuit of science. That sorrow extended to the Asian people in STEM, whose accomplishments were simply written off to their race and not their ability. Despite that, these stories gave me even more strength to fight for recognition of not just our work, but our work ethic, passion, and capability.

Furthermore, there is a fundamental need in STEM for people of color, particularly in the application of research. Scientific racism often involves applying research and using it to justify White supremacist ideals. The Bell Curve, written by psychologist Richard J. Herrnstein and political scientist Charles Murray in 1994, argues that low-IQ people are more often found in non-White than White groups, and that policy should reflect that reality. Such an application of supposedly “objective” fact by White men sets a dangerous precedent for how STEM can be

STUDENTS

OTHER BLACK HISPANIC ASIAN WHITE

FACULTY

APRIL 22, 2019 Tufts Observer 19

campus

reclaiming our cannon The narrator of this piece is a group of survivors speaking from the ‘I’ in a single voice.

CW: Sexual assault

I

was first raped almost ten years ago, and again just last semester. The pain is still raw and ever-present; I can barely sleep, eat, handle seeing my rapist around campus, or walk past the place where I was assaulted. So, on the night of April 1, when we painted the cannon green with the words “support survivors” and “believe survivors,” covering the existing red paint with green felt right to me. In Green Dot, Tufts’ bystander intervention program, a red dot represents instances of sexual assault and a green dot represents an act of bystander intervention. I was reclaiming the cannon, a space that I still associate with my rapist, by painting a message of survivor support. That night, for the first time in a long time, I was not trapped in my usual pattern of crashing from exhaustion after being kept awake by vivid and inescapable memories of my most recent assault. For once, I was able to sleep, and I was hopeful.

The next morning, I returned to the cannon, hoping to get a better photo of our paint job in the daylight. Instead, I saw that our message had been painted over with “#MAGA.” My body’s immediate response to reminders of my trauma is to freeze, to dissociate. Seeing “#MAGA” painted in bright red over “support survivors” induced that same feeling, but it felt somehow more existential—more real and threatening than when I encounter something like a triggering scene in a movie. I suddenly felt significantly less safe on Tufts’ campus. As if the culture surrounding sexual assault at this school wasn't bad enough already.

Tufts is not a survivor-friendly environment. When I have disclosed my experiences of sexual assault to my friends and peers, I have often been met with a stunning lack of support, sometimes in the form of complete silence, a disregard for my disclosure, or a complete avoidance of the topic in the future.

Sometimes, it came in the form of guilt, derailing the conversation into me comforting a friend when I had sought them out to comfort me in the first place. Sometimes the lack of support came in the form of blatant ridicule. When I told my friends not to tell a rape joke, I was met with laughter—even from those who knew I was a survivor. Given how often my trauma is treated as

20 Tufts Observer April 22, 2019

a joke, I am disappointed but not surprised that Tufts culture is hostile to survivors. But even knowing this, it was still shocking and triggering to see a message of survivor support ruined by the campaign slogan of our president, a predator we elected despite his admission to sexual assault. The new message was an ideologically driven attack on survivors. Moreover, the problem isn’t limited to Trump—rapists are everywhere on the political spectrum.

I often wonder if this community only believes survivors when it is politically convenient.

This act intensified Tufts’ toxic and hostile environment for survivors. We were under attack. So I skipped class to repaint our message of support. I convinced a friend passing by to skip class and come with me. Others met me there. Some confused and tired students meandered by us as we painted. Sometimes they slowed down to see what we were doing, or even thanked us. But the unsettling feeling remained, a cocktail of anger and sadness and anxiety that would grow and leave me exhausted throughout the day. I skipped my evening class. That night, I had nightmares about my most recent assault.

The incident was widely publicized on social media. Replying to one of the tweets about the cannon, several Tufts alumni posted calls to action for the University. The consensus was that such behavior was disgusting. Many called the event—and the lack of response—“classic Tufts.” For days, the University responded with nothing. Tufts’s lack of immediate response to the defacement of a nonpartisan, non-ideological message of support to survivors of sexual assault contributed to silencing the voices of survivors.

Tufts did not necessarily feel the need to immediately respond, because we managed to catch the issue early and repaint the original message in an effort to protect survivors who otherwise would have seen the defamatory note. We cleaned up the mess. We, the survivors and the allies. But in order to condemn such actions within the community, we needed Tufts to validate our pain, to call out the people who were ignorant enough to disrespect our message to support survivors.

After three days of silence from the administration despite repeated calls for an official university statement, Green Dot met with President Monaco, who told them that the University is

campus

a call to believe and support survivors “working on a response.” It took three days of exposing our pain and frustration online for them to even begin to think about doing anything about it. Must we fight so hard for the smallest shreds of decency? Must the burden of responding and pushing for a university response fall on the survivors, who are the ones most impacted by this incident? This needs to change.

Having everyone wear green for Green Out Day was affirming, but this response is not enough. Unless accompanied by action, it is merely performative allyship. The Green Dot Instagram story shared a video of Tony Monaco wearing green socks and a green tie to that meeting. Tufts sees survivors as nothing more than a prop to make this school appear to be a survivor-friendly community when we really are nothing of that sort—Tufts’ silence is more telling than wearing green accessories.

Tufts’s lack of immediate response to the defacement of a nonpartisan, non-ideological message of support to survivors of sexual assault contributed to silencing the voices of survivors.

The Tufts administration initially declined to comment about what happened. At a senior dinner, I spoke with President Monaco and asked him about a University response. He told me what happened was disrespectful but that the University couldn’t respond to every little thing that happens on campus. Students had already painted over the “#MAGA” message, so there was no explicit action that needed to be taken. The University can’t police free speech, he said, adding that what happened wasn’t a hate crime. He excused himself to get water.

What President Monaco failed to address was the threatening aspect of the message, the unsafe feeling that permeated the community of survivors after it was painted. Instead, the University chose to put the incident into a convenient grey area, ignoring the implications of the message and treating it as a

PHOTOS COURTESY OF TUFTS GREEN DOT

political statement. This felt like an easy out for the University to take in order to avoid scrutiny.

I felt like my pain and trauma had been dismissed all over again. I stood there floundering for words to express myself. I felt like I couldn’t argue the point. This is nothing new to any survivor; I was dismissed first in the moment my rapist ignored my lack of consent, again as I fought to be believed, and now once more as the University spent so long in silence on this issue over taking action to affirm the original message of survivor support. Every time our pain is dismissed, we are forced to fight.

Eventually, ten days after the cannon was painted, an email from Student Life addressed this incident. I had given up on the University by this point and felt little relief from the message of support they had sent too late.

The Tufts administration ultimately failed to take the necessary steps to support us survivors, but the community response helped to soften the blow. Several of my friends reached out to check in with me after seeing the photos of the cannon on social media. One friend offered coffee and a chat after class ended; another text read simply “I saw the tweet—how are you doing?”

These were moments of brightness. I am lucky to have those people in my life.

You do not have to know what it is like to be assaulted in order to show support for survivors. Don’t just post a comment online if you disagree with the “#MAGA” message; your action must go beyond this. Ask us how we would like you to check in, or even if we would like you to check in at all. Do not treat us any differently than your other friends because of our trauma. It is isolating enough to be sexually assaulted, and not checking in with your friends because of a feeling of taboo feels even more isolating. Believe us and do not question our experiences.

But supporting us requires more than just belief and reassurance. Your anger and rhetoric mean nothing unless you take action to make this community less complicit in the culture that allows sexual assault and invalidates our experiences as survivors.

Through these actions, we can make the Tufts community a place where we believe and support survivors and eradicate opposition to supporting survivors of sexual assault. Actions speak so much louder than words.

April 22, 2019 Tufts Observer 21

Arts & culture

The Rise of Billie Eilish

One hot August evening, I joined thousands of other music fans at Grant Park, Chicago and waited for the next act to grace the stage of the Lollapalooza music festival. Eventually, a gray-blue-haired figure in oversized neon clothing walked out and was greeted by the sound of high-pitched teenage shrieks. Despite not being one of the most well-known artists at the festival, the crowd was infatuated, singing along to every word as she jumped around on stage. Her name?

Billie Eilish.

By the time I started listening to her 2017 EP Don’t Smile at Me, Eilish had already made a name for herself in an increasingly competitive music scene. The 17 year-old star could only exist in the age of the internet; she went viral after releasing her first single “Ocean Eyes” on SoundCloud at age 13. Originally, she only posted the song so her dance teacher could hear it, but the recording managed to catch the ears of thousands of fans and multiple record labels. The internetfirst approach paid off; since then, Eilish has grown in popularity with the release of Don’t Smile at Me, and her debut album, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? The album’s immediate success made her the youngest female artist to get a Number One record in the UK, and the first artist born in the 2000s to reach Number One on the Billboard 200 chart. It also became the most pre-saved album on Apple Music of all time. She has become a successful star in an age where an ever-changing culture and constantly-shifting music tastes make longevity seem impossible.

Since the internet has made creating and accessing new music possible instantaneously, almost anyone can become famous based entirely on popularity online rather than industry backing. However, this often makes performers’ fame unpredictable. Someone who has a viral song one day may become irrelevant the next.

22 Tufts Observer April 22, 2019

Already, Eilish has outlasted the potential of being written off as a one-hit wonder by remaining at the forefront of the music scene for the last three years. Her quick rise to stardom has everyone asking who she is and what exactly made her so successful among Generation Z. One explanation is Eilish’s unique and unusual style. She has embraced an aesthetic that mixes a 2013 goth Tumblr blog with Soulja Boy circa 2009. Her Instagram (@wherearetheavocadoes) offers a wide variety of photos depicting Eilish wearing her signature look: oversized t-shirts and shorts, interspersed with images in the style of her latest album’s dark and horror-esque cover. It is unlike anything you would see on the feed of other 17 year-olds, especially that of one with close to 17 million followers. Eilish curates a style that is instantly recognizable but near-impossible to replicate. It’s an American Horror Story episode with a trap beat. In fact, the show just used her song “Six Feet Under” in a teaser for its ninth season. Her aesthetic choices consistently toe the line between badass and just plain bad. First-year Tyler Whitaker, who was a fan of Eilish back when “Ocean Eyes” only existed on Soundcloud, thinks that she crossed this line long ago, saying, “she got famous on social media, and she went off the fucking deep end.”

Eilish and her brother and writing partner Finneas O’Connell frequently tackle different characters in their songs rather than writing from her own perspective. In interviews, she has spoken about how the characters are often people the two make up entirely, but also take after real people in their lives.

The intense topics of her songs, which range from murdering her friends to burning people’s cars, help Eilish stand out against standard pop songs. This technique often makes her seem older than she actually is, making it easy to forget that Eilish won’t be old enough to vote until December.

Despite this aura of adulthood she gives off, Eilish is undeniably a product of our generation.

She talks about

being in love with Justin Bieber as a kid.

Her album samples from arguably one of the best episodes of The Office. Her first single from When We All Fall Asleep took its title from a Sherlock quote. Although it may seem odd that Eilish is only a year younger than current college freshmen, her membership to Gen-Z seems to inform every musical move she makes.

But some say that there’s another element of Eilish’s persona that has brought her so much idolization from thousands of teens. “She’s living the life that a bunch of kids currently in high school want to be living,” Whitaker said. “She is their age, famous, and considered hot. She’s got money to spend, she’s got people that love her that don’t even know her, and she’s got one of the biggest social media followings and what middle schooler or high schooler doesn’t want that right now?”

It’s true—in many ways Eilish has given the angst of our youth a novel twist by writing songs that capture a pain that could only fit on someone’s finsta.

In a generation where social media is of-

Arts & culture

BURy a friend

CW: Mentions of abuse

build a career

By Josie Wagner

ten seen as only celebrating (and exaggerating) the highs of life, this honest transparency speaks to people.

“She is so open about everything,” sophomore Maya Velasquez said. “ I think that what she talks about and how she addresses the fact that you don’t need to be of a certain age to do things or know things or say things.”

Eilish is shouting her pain into the void for the sole reason of writing it down, not because she expects anyone to reply.

Perhaps this is because she simply doesn’t think anyone cares enough to do so. In an interview with NME, Eilish notoriously said, “The world is ending and I honestly don’t understand the law that says you have to be older to vote because they’re going to die soon, and we’ll have to deal with it.” Despite how disheartening this sentiment might sound, in

ART BY AMY TONG

many ways it does accurately reflect the fears of a generation that stands to earn less than their parents and wrestle with the disastrous effects of climate change.

Even though she has gained a somewhat mythic status among Gen-Z music fans, Eilish has still broken some of the cardinal “rules” of the generation; some aspects of her behavior have crossed a line into problematic territory. Last June, many called Eilish out after she posted a memorial tribute to rapper XXXTentacion, who was charged with aggravated battery of a pregnant woman and domestic battery by strangulation before his death. She, like many other celebrities, seemed to ignore these realities, and later wrote and performed a tribute song to him. When asked about her decision by the New York Times, Eilish simply said that she should be able to mourn her friend, and didn’t mention anything about the abuse charges.

More recently, her song “wish u were gay” ran into controversy after she was accused of queerbaiting—a term used to describe the actions of artists who lead fans to believe their content contains queer representation when, in reality, it doesn’t. While many fans initially thought the song title was referencing a woman and Eilish was potentially coming out, she later revealed that the song was about a man who she wished was gay to explain his lack of interest in her.

Besides seeing this sentiment coming off as arrogant, many also accused Eilish of using someone else’s sexuality for her own gain.

Others argue that, though she may seem mature beyond her years, Eilish is still just a 17 year-old and thus should be given the space to grow and realize the problems with her behavior. However, even following backlash from her fanbase, she still has not issued an apology.

It seems odd that a singer from a generation that has put so much stake into “cancelling” artists has yet to apologize for her problematic behavior. Furthermore, Generation Z might just be the queerest generation yet, and undeniably has been a vital part of the #MeToo movement. It

is hard to say how much responsibility a 17 year-old with such a large platform should hold, and at what point they deserve to be “cancelled.” But it is undeniable that Eilish has gone against a standard that her own generation has set: apologizing for actions that are deemed controversial or “problematic.” And, in spite of it, she has retained her popularity.

No matter what you think of her, there is no denying that Billie Eilish has redefined teen stardom. She makes it obvious that she is the one in control of her narrative; everything from her clothes to her visuals to her lyrics and production are fully under her agency. As sophomore Danny Gur put it, “she’s representative of a talented young person who doesn’t fit the mold of [an artist] that is produced by these large entertainment conglomerates.”

Truly, Eilish is light years away from the bubblegum Disney and Nickelodeonrun pop stars of the 2000s. Former teen pop icons like Miley Cyrus and Selena Gomez had much of their careers manufactured by industries prior to breaking away and crafting their own personas. This was once a fairly standard path for many rising pop stars, but Eilish has defied the norm by deciding who she is for herself. In an age where decisions that greatly affect the lives of young people are being made by elected officials they may not have voted for, Eilish’s command of her own music is a refreshing change for her fans .

In sophmore Harry Binder’s words, “She’s clearly doing her own thing.”

There seems to be a new wave forming in pop, one filled with stars who are content to let the internet be the main determinant of their popularity, and Eilish is riding its crest. As Binder said, “she’s the new norm.”

april 22, 2019 Tufts Observer 23

opinon

Building

Cultures

of

Consent

By Malaika Gabra, Paula Gil-Ordoñez Gomez, Jennifer Kim, Han Lee, & Benjamin Cole

A

ction for Sexual Assault Prevention (ASAP) was formed in 2013 when the US Department of Education found Tufts University to be in violation of Title IX, a federal law that prohibits discrimination on the “basis of sex… under any education program or activity.” Tufts was failing to appropriately handle sexual assault cases on campus—cases were ignored and known perpetrators were not punished and allowed to graduate while survivors felt forced to leave campus for their own safety. Tufts’ institutional failures in supporting survivors led to the #JustSaySorry campaign of 2016, where survivors of sexual assault at Tufts and on campuses across the country burned college paraphernalia in a symbolic demonstration to demand apologies from the universities that had failed them. The campaign was started by former Tufts student Wagatwe Wanjuki. After reporting her assault in 2009, Wanjuki was forced out of Tufts when her grades began to suffer in the wake of her assault and Tufts’ continuous failure to respond to her report. Her story is just one of countless instances in which Tufts grossly mishandled a case of sexual assault. Still, the University did not begin allocating resources to sexual assault prevention until recently, once they were forced to by the federal government in order to meet the standards of Title IX. 24 Tufts Observer APRIL 22, 2019

Since 2016, the Tufts administration has made some positive strides to address these failures, namely creating the Center for Awareness, Resources, and Education (CARE) office—a resource center for survivors—and establishing a protocol for responding to assault reports in a timely fashion through the Office for Equal Opportunity (OEO). However, Tufts seems to have grown complacent since these changes were made. Survivors are still met with skepticism and still re-traumatized in disciplinary hearings. It is not enough for Tufts to meet the bare minimum in survivor response just to satisfy legal requirements. Due to these failures, it is essential that we as students have a say in determining how Tufts should handle sexual misconduct on our campus. This is the reason that ASAP was formed.

Since its inception, ASAP has created a powerful community through our work on campus. We work with student organizations on campus who struggle with perpetration by facilitating workshops on responding to disclosures—a term used to describe a survivor coming forward about their assault—as well as bystander intervention. These workshops are arduous processes that require significant time and personal reflection from the parties involved, but ultimately strengthen a group’s commitment to creating a safe

culture within their spaces. Every group’s needs are unique, and we do our best to accommodate individual concerns. The Tufts Beelzebubs, for example, is a group we work with often, particularly after the initiation of new members. We begin our combined perpetration and bystander intervention workshop by getting a feel of members’ familiarity with consent and intervention, before launching into a discussion of the measures that can be taken when faced with perpetration among their members. We follow similar protocols for other organizations, but allow the flexibility to tailor to each specific circumstance.

ASAP ultimately does not decide how student organizations handle a perpetrator within their membership; rather, we offer a range of potential responses for the organization to discuss. Some may choose to exile a perpetrator while others may restrict them from attending parties or other events. What we stress most here is that perpetrators need support too, including check-ins or counseling options in order to ensure that they don’t assault someone again. To do nothing at all is the worst possible response. Some organizations may request a perpetration workshop in response a particular issue within their group; others, like the Bubs, request workshops each semester after the integration of new members. These workshops offer

OPINION

student organizations the resources necessary to decide and uphold the standards of their community.

ASAP is divided into four groups: survivor support, workshops, events, and a newly formed men’s group: ASAP by Tufts Men (ASAPtm). Survivor support holds weekly intentional spaces for survivors of all identities and experiences to exist in a supportive community. At institutions like Tufts, survivor-only spaces are incredibly few and far between, and to that end, incredibly important for survivors who fail to receive impactful resources ro response from the University itself.

Beyond the bystander and perpetration workshops previously described, the workshop subgroup also runs programming on how to respond to survivorship in one’s community. The intended goal of all workshops is for participants to not only identify perpetration when it occurs, but to be empowered to create an individualized Code of Conduct for their fraternity, sports team, acapella group, or any other organization going forward. Codes of conduct establish a clear definition of perpetration and its repercussions within the context of each community. Central to process is the belief that the best way college students can be held accountable for assault is by their own peers and social groups, especially when lacking administrative support. Social groups have immense power to create positive cultures of consent and lasting systems of accountability in a way that no institutional system like Title IX or the OEO currently is.

While the survivor support and workshop subgroups target specific communities, the events subgroup hosts campus-wide workshops, screenings, and discussions with the goal of educating the Tufts community about the prevalence of sexual violence on our campus and beyond. Recent events include a panel discussing the intersection of sexual violence and the law, documentary screenings of The Hunting Ground and Surviving R. Kelly, and Tufts Dining Workers Speakout II: Survivors Speak, where dining workers shared stories of sexual harassment and assault in the workplace to fight for better protections against these occurrences in the midst of contract negotiations with the administration. The branch also orga-

nized special events for Sex Health Week where survivors and their partners could engage in an intentional discussion on how to have healthy sex after a sexual assault.

Finally, the ASAPtm group consists of male-identifying individuals who meet weekly to discuss how we are taught to be men, what those lessons encourage, and the toxic masculinity that these lessons could result in if left unchecked. ASAPtm also runs its own workshops, events, and curriculum with support from the ASAP executive board, specifically dedicated to exploring topics of masculinity. ASAPtm recognizes that men, as a privileged social group, are not traditionally called upon to analyze their own behavior. In response, we actively create spaces in which men can explore together what it means to be a “man,” and re-examine the forms in which masculinity takes shape. We hope that by

it is essential that we as students have a say in determining how Tufts should handle sexual misconduct on our campus. critically discussing toxic masculinity and naming healthier alternatives, we can uncover and disrupt harmful actions and become better supporters for the non-cis men in our lives.

In addition to our regular semester programing, ASAP’s largest and perhaps most well-known annual event is It Happens Here (IHH). IHH offers a platform for survivors to share their narratives with the wider Tufts community. Survivors can choose to submit narratives anonymously and have their piece read by a volunteer. These volunteers are selected intentionally with respect to factors like race, gender, and sexual identity, which the submitter has the option to indicate before the event. Alternatively, survivors can choose to read their narrative themselves.

IHH started at Middlebury College in 2011 and came to Tufts in April of 2014. We hope that this event can continue to uplift and empower the voices of those who have been robbed of their agency. However, it is important to note that many survivors are unable to submit for a variety of reasons, which we acknowledge in our opening and closing statements. Survivorship does not look the same for everyone, and while IHH can provide healing for some individuals, it may not be the right avenue for others.

The narratives told at the event are often brutal and honest vignettes of the lasting impact of sexual violence and trauma, and a crucial and powerful reminder that sexual assault still occurs on our campus.

Additionally, the event allows allies to feel the real, lasting effects of trauma.

Listening to narratives creates a deeper understanding the impact of assault and reaffirms ally’s commitment to ending sexual violence at Tufts and beyond. It is ASAP’s hope that IHH can create a circle of affirmation within our community that we hope allows for personal growth for each participant and attendee, as well as campus-wide growth as the culture slowly shifts towards more believing, more loving, and more care.

Over the past five years, ASAP has evolved, growing into an organization that hosts bi-weekly survivor spaces and runs more than 10 workshops and events throughout the year. ASAP is a crucial institution at Tufts because of the significant contributions we’ve made to the community by creating more dialogue on campus around personal responsibility, accountability, and consent. We’ve identified champions within sports, greek life, and club communities that can partner with ASAP and bring important conversations and codes of conduct to the forefront of their own organizations.

And through this work, we’ve engaged more people in the conversation around assault and consent.

To non-survivors, we ask: what are you doing in your communities and in your life to address rape culture and embrace the dialogue around believing and supporting survivors? And to survivors, we say: we see you and we believe you.

To both, know this: above all, we are here to help.

APRIL 22, 2019 Tufts Observer 25

campus

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ufts University, like most institutions of higher education, prides itself on equity and diversity. However, in a study published by the Eos Foundation in September of last year, Tufts ranked 87th out of 93 in a report on gender parity.

The Eos Foundation, established by Andrea Silbert in 2007, was created with a mission to develop and sustain equality in various institutions, including higher education. They launched the Women’s Power Gap Initiative in order to bring attention to the extensive gender inequality that exists among colleges. The Women’s Power Gap Initiative then published a report ranking all Massachusetts colleges and universities in terms of number of women compared to men in leadership positions.

It defines the women’s power gap as “the difference between the percentage of men and women in leadership positions [such as deans, administrators, provosts, board of trustees, etc].”

The study examined the disparity between the number of women and men filling leadership positions within the 20172018 school year from 93 institutions of higher education in Massachusetts, including Tufts. While the study does not account for race due to lack of available data, it notes that women of color make up a significantly smaller number of leadership positions compared to their White counterparts. The report states “progress for women of color is minimal… Data on women of diverse racial/ethnic backgrounds is extremely difficult to gather.

Women of color lead only five of the institutions in our study.”

The report found that Tufts is in need of “Urgent Attention” in its attention to gender parity in hiring. The report summarizes Tufts’ institutional failings that qualify it for this status, stating: “The institution has never had a female president, their board chair is a man, and their board and deans of degree-granting programs are predominantly male. The institution’s EVP [Executive Vice President] is a woman. Women comprise 40 percent of the most highly compensated professionals.” In contrast, the schools that were ranked under the highest category, 26 Tufts Observer April 22, 2019

“Satisfactory,” are women’s colleges like Smith College, Mount Holyoke College, and Wellesley College.

Judy Neufeld (A’05), a consultant with Eos, expressed her own concerns following the release of this data. “I was surprised to see Tufts come near last in the rankings,” she said. “I thought it was odd because in my experience as a former Jumbo, I saw a lot more women in leadership positions when I was a student.”

The Eos Foundation compared data between 2008 and 2018, where it saw a negative progression of gender parity at Tufts, accrediting what Neufeld had remembered in terms of more leadership in 2005. In regards to Deans across all schools, Tufts has gone from having 44 percent representation of women in 2008 to 29.5 percent in 2018. In the same decade, Tufts’s senior leadership team, which includes provosts, Deans of degree-granting programs, and the Executive Vice President, decreased from 60 to 40 percent women.

In recent news, Mary Pat McMahon, the Dean of Student Affairs for the Schools of Arts and Sciences and Engineering, has announced she will be leaving Tufts to assume the role of Vice Provost and Vice President of Campus Life at Duke University. It is our responsibility as community members to urge the administration to be cognizant of the increasing need for varied representation—by gender and race—not only in filling her position, but in filling other positions of power going forward. Even for positions where the percentages of women have not dramatically decreased, elected positions have increased, while the number of women filling those positions has remained stagnant. In other words, women are not being intentionally hired.

At the schools noted in the study, women represent 57 percent of all students

and earn the majority of doctoral degrees, yet they only hold 31 percent of all college presidencies. The report asked: “Why does such gender disparity in leadership exist in a field where women have been excelling for decades?” In many ways, the pipeline is full. The stage is set for women to take on powerful positions. Women have degrees, and they are applying and making it into the final applicant pool, but why are they not chosen for the position?

According to the Eos Foundation’s Diversity Snapshot Report, unconscious bias could be a primary reason.They define this term as “social stereotypes about certain groups of people that form outside of our own conscious awareness.”

The same report stated that out of the last eight state university presidential searches in Massachusetts, “women represented 39 percent of all finalists considered by the local university boards.”

Even though women were present within the qualified candidate pool, “not a single school selected a woman for any of those eight positions.” By extension, Tufts may engage with diverse candidates during the application process, but does not actually follow through or do inclusive work in its hires. Much of this gap in interviewing and hiring is due to clear unconscious biases that exist in minority hiring.

So, what do we do about unjust hiring processes? How can we as a student body and community pressure university lead-

campus

By Iyra Chandra and Katherine Wang

ers to intentionally hire more women in high-level administrative positions?

After the report’s release, the Tufts Daily published an article shedding light on this issue. A few weeks after the article came out, the Tufts Community Union Senate passed a resolution calling on Tufts to achieve gender parity in university leadership. The resolution also urged administrators to undergo unconscious bias training and prioritize the issue of gender parity. At the time of publication, the Tufts administration has not yet responded to this resolution.

The Eos Foundation has now launched the Gender and Race Accountability Demanded Equally (GRADE) campaign, a student-led initiative geared towards engaging students to work with the administration and the student body to spread information and promote their mission. The campaign started a chapter at Tufts this year and is working to increase awareness of Tufts’ low ranking in gender parity and voice more students’ opinions on why we should demand equal gender representation in institutional positions of high authority.

Diversity is not just beneficial, but a necessity for any institution. With a male

ART BY BRIGID CAWLEY

Tufts's leadership team has decreased from 60 to 40 percent women since 2008.

CEO, there will always be inevitable blind spots that exist in advocating for women, particularly women of color. A male CEO cannot attend to the needs of all employees without a balanced team who are actively advocating for their own needs. The gender parity report authors warn that, “It is never enough to have just one group control so much power, influence, and wealth; society collectively needs diversity.”

Neufeld emphasized that Tufts needs to prioritize diversity in its hiring practices. “I believe that in order to create diverse teams, you must be intentional in building them and supporting women and people of color to stay in those roles and grow into new ones,” she said. “I don't know if that is currently happening [at Tufts].”

As students, it is our responsibility to both urge the administration to acknowledge the gap in gender parity at Tufts and to actively seek out ways that we can make

this a priority in the future of the university. Sophomore Grant Gebetsberger, one of the co-authors of the gender parity resolution, feels strongly that this call to action is crucial at this time in Tufts’ history. “Progress is impossible without intentionality; ignorance and inaction are more to blame than malice for underrepresentation in leadership within our institutions locally and across the country,” he said. “If we want our leadership to reflect our diverse reality, it requires intentionality and pressure on those who have the power to make it happen."

April 22, 2019 Tufts Observer 27

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a woman possessed

By Sara Barkouli

28 Tufts Observer April 22, 2019

PHOTOS BY KELSEY TROLLINGER

I

woke up one day to find a demon sleeping next to me. Mom and Dad dismiss it as hormones. But they do not see my demon. In the morning I leave him like a lover. I try not to look back. I lock the doors, I bar the windows. But somehow his darkness always finds its way back.

I couldn’t have been older than seven when I had my first attack. I remember sitting on the couch, watching oversaturated animated characters float across the TV screen. Suddenly I started shaking as if I swallowed a mug of lightning bolts.

The world shifted in and out of focus as my mind buzzed with a million different thoughts. What was this unhinged feeling and was I just nervous for something and did I eat something weird earlier that day and maybe it was all in my head and and and I was dying. This was going to kill me—I was convinced of that fact. I began shaking so violently that I kicked a bowl of soup out of my mother’s hands. Barely able to get the words out from between gulps of air, I quietly asked my parents to drive me to the hospital. The diagnosis fell heavy: anxiety disorder.

Calmed by Xanax, I lie on my bed while the full moon watches over me. I was a woman possessed. Attacks still call to me in hushed whispers. They are waiting for me with open arms and sharp razors. Like thieves, they are always looking for the easiest way in.

Ever since that first panic attack, my anxiety has lingered in varying degrees of severity. But it has never been worse than one summer when I was a teenager. I was working at a summer camp teaching math, reading, and writing skills to elementary and middle school kids. For the month and

voices

a half that I worked there, my heart was so full. But for a month and a half, when I got home from work, the dark thoughts in my head consumed me. It started with a small seed that eventually grew. Every.

Single. Night.

I called in “sick” almost every morning.

“Sorry, not feeling too great today!

Will be in around noon.”

How could I explain to my boss that I was a different person at night from the bubbly camp counselor she knew during the day?

For me, the disorder centered on the idea of death. Every ache in my head meant that I had a brain tumor. Every crick in my neck meant meningitis. I could not drive my car without calling my mom on speakerphone. I would talk to her about what I had done that day, the homework piling up, anything else in an attempt to distract me from the obvious fact that I was going to crash and die before getting home. Mental illness convinces you that your irrational thoughts are the only logical conclusion.

I started going to therapy. Immediately, it seemed, things were improving. I remember driving my car without calling my mom, still hyperventilating the whole ride, but feeling like I had climbed Mount Everest by the time I got home, out of breath and glowing with pride. The buzzing in my mind finally slowed down and my life was no longer slipping through my hands like sand through a sieve. It was a false victory. I soon fell into the worst depression I have ever experienced. I was doomed to feel this way for the rest of my life, only existing in the liminal spaces in between anxiety attacks, in the breath

before an exhale. In the heavy quiet of a room after the party is over, in the darkness of the horizon the instant before a downpour.

Anxiety is like an animal that is never satiated; it is dumb like a child, wild and growing and never willing to forgive. It is feeling someone follow you down a dark sidewalk but turning around to find your own shadow. Like an asymmetrical rock I hold in my hands, like a plant that has suddenly decided to bloom. I am swirling around the drain of life. In the morning I leave him like a lover. I try not to look back. I lock the doors, I bar the windows.

Finally, over time, therapy helped.

I started to deconstruct my thoughts, to realize that they had no bearing on what could or would actually happen to me. I do not even want to imagine where my mental health would be without my therapist. Still, I find myself mourning for the life I could have had without anxiety. Sometimes I feel it like a missing appendage—all the time that could have been spent with family, with friends, fully present.

Today I can barely remember the last time I had an anxiety attack—something I never thought I would have the privilege of saying.

I know I have achieved some sort of victory, but some battles are worse than others. I still deal with the overwhelming darkness that always sits on my shoulders, the heavy burden of being a host to my grief. Some days are fullblown wars. Mental illness is not a battle that can be folded and put away neatly. But there is triumph in not fighting some of the battles, in laying down my weapons and realizing how I feel will always pass. There is triumph in asking for help. There is triumph in just getting through another day.

ART BY LAURA WOLFE

April 22, 2019 Tufts Observer 29

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