December 2016 by Counterpoint Magazine

COUNTERPOINT the wellesley college journal of campus life december 2016 volume 47 issue 4

ACROSS 4. An enormous carnivorous bat that is said to inhabit the rainforests of Java in Indonesia. 9. The small island known for lemurs and the Man-Eating Tree. 10. Also called the swamp cabbage man, swamp ape, stink ape, Florida Bigfoot, Louisiana Bigfoot, myakka ape, swampsquatch, and myakka skunk ape, or maybe just a bear that rolled in some really smelly mud. 11. Not all snowmen are Abominable. 12. The Bigfoot of the American South, also a delicious South Asian dumpling. 17. An Algonquian cannibalistic cryptid that the Supernatural boys hunted in the first season. 18. French, as seen on Season 5 of Teen Wolf. 20. The Wyoming legislature has considered bills to make this cryptid the state’s official mythological creature. 22. The name of the Norwegian lake where Selma might be found. 23. The cryptid from the next town over.

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counterpoint / december 2016

E D I TO R I A L S TA F F

cryptids 8^(

DOWN 1. This buggy legendary creature is only found in West Virginian folklore. 2. A gaelic fish-dog with magical fur that will eat you. 3. SNL (Season 42 Episode 8) went on the hunt for this alum. 5 “YOU NAMED MY BABY AFTER THE LOCH NESS MONSTER?!?!” 6. China just thought they had blue tigers for a while? 7. The Wampanoag folklore cryptid co-opted by J.K. Rowling because colonialism. 8. The verdant home state of an infamous Pigman. 13. Spanish goat-sucker. 14. The Mongolian Death Worm is alleged to live in this desert. If you have travel plans, be careful, one touch can cause instant death and tremendous pain. 15. Alleged home of the devil–and his hockey team. 16. The magic French dragon that has all the powers and was believed to survive biblical floods. 19. Kelpies are shape-shifting water-horses that pop out of lakes on this island to trick you into drowning yourself. 21. Thunderbirds are cryptids found in the North American Southwest. In Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, the thunderbird’s name was ______.

Charlotte Yu ’17 Olivia Funderburg ’18

Editors-inChief Managing Editor Features Editor Staff Editors

Images: Sophia Sun ’18 (cover), 100photos.time.com (left)

CROSSWORD

Allyson Larcom ’17 Roz Rea ’19 Urvashi Singh ’17 Nina-Marie Amadeo ’18 Lara Brennan ’18 Natassja Haught ’18 Alexandra Cronin ’19 Samantha English ’19 Kelechi Alfred-Igbokwe ’19 Lydia MacKay ’19 Tiffani Ren ’19 Sarah White ’19 Madeline Wood ’19 Kimberly Burton ’20 Sabrina Cadiz ’20 Virginia Faust ’20 Elizabeth Gaidimas ’20 Francesca Gazzolo ’20

D E S I G N S TA F F Midori Yang ’19 Roz Rea ’19 Jessica Maciuch ’20

Layout Editors

B U S I N E S S S TA F F Treasurer

COUNTERPOINT

THE WELLESLEY COLLEGE JOURNAL OF CAMPUS LIFE DECEMBER 2016 Volume 47 / Issue 4

CAMPUS LIFE WAA, ET AL.

REGARDING ASIAN AMERICAN STUDIES

HUZAIFA EJAZ

THANKS OBAMA SOFC.

ELIZABETH GAIDIMAS

AFTER A SEMESTER

A R T S & C U LT U R E ELIZABETH TAFT, SAMANTHA ENGLISH

A VERY UNFORTUNATE ARTICLE

POLITICS MOLLY NYLEN

(EFFECTIVELY) GETTING SHIT DONE

IZZY LABBE

WHAT I WANT MY FATHER TO KNOW ABOUT MISOGYNY

Kelechi Alfred-Igbokwe ’19

C O N T R I BU TO R S

Molly Hoyer ’18, Molly Nylen ’18, Elizabeth Taft ’18, Samantha English ’19, Elizabeth Gaidimas ’20, Huzaifa Ejaz ’20, Izzy Labbe ’20, Rachael Labes ’20

TRUSTEES Hanna Day-Tenerowicz ’16, Cecilia Nowell ’16, Oset Babur ’15, Alison Lanier ’15, Kristina Costa ’09, Kara Hadge ’08, Edward Summers MIT ’08

SUBMISSIONS The views expressed in Counterpoint do not necessarily reflect the views of the staff. Counterpoint invites all members of the Wellesley community to submit articles, letters, and art. Email submissions to ofunderb@wellesley.edu and cyu3@wellesley. edu. Counterpoint encourages cooperation between writers and editors but reserves the right to edit all submissions for length and clarity.

IDENTITY RACHAEL LABES

10 THINGS I KNOW TO BE TRUE

MOLLY HOYER

NOBODY TOLD ME

F E AT U R E S COUNTERPOINT STAFF

CROSSWORD: CRYPTIDS

COUNTERPOINT STAFF

POLL: WEATHER PHENOMENA

counterpoint / december 2016

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CAMPUS LIFE

Regarding Asian American Studies Dear Wellesley, We need to talk about Asian American Studies. In 2013, Asian American Studies (AAS) was established as a minor under the American Studies department. Three years after its inception, AAS still has no budget, no administrative assistant, and no signs that AAS will have a permanent professor soon. The program has had two visiting professors who were only on one to two year contracts. Next year, a postdoctoral fellow will be joining AAS, but they too will leave after two years. Every year, the College accepts applications for tenure-track lines from various departments and programs. Every year, AAS submits an application–but its applications are denied, because they “lack student initiative.” This year, Wellesley Asian Alliance is advocating for AAS’s application to show the college there is undeniable support by the Wellesley student body for a tenuretrack position in AAS. Last month, we circulated a survey and petition concerning Asian American Studies and South Asia Studies. We received a total of 624 responses from all class years, alums, Davis Scholars, and one teaching assistant. Members of Wellesley Asian Alliance (WAA) and fellow concerned students have met with and will continue to meet with the Provost, Deans, and the ACAS (Advisory Committee on Academic Staffing) to advocate for AAS’s application for a tenure-track position. ACAS told us that final decisions are made near the end of the 2017 spring semester. We want to pressure them as they deliberate. We urgently advocate for Wellesley to show its support to AAS, because we feel page 4

the program is stunted by the College’s continued lack of commitment to it. This semester, there was only one AAS course, AMST 151 Asian American Experience, though there was a large enrollment (forty-three students). Next semester, there are just two AAS courses being offered, AMST 222 / PSYC 222 Asian American Psychology and AMST 212 Korean American Literature and Culture. How can Wellesley support a minor when there are so few classes available? We need a tenure-track professor who would guarantee four AAS courses per year. Mentorship and community building are key to supporting students’ academic careers. However, the lack of permanent faculty hinders the growth of Wellesley’s Asian / Asian American community and AAS minors. In addition to having few courses in the future to choose from, in the 2017-2018 school year, Professor Yoon Lee and Professor Stephen Chen, who teach popular AAS courses, are both going on sabbatical. Without a permanent professor in the program, we lack courses to take as well as valuable academic and personal mentorship. While the postdoctoral fellow, who will be selected by the end of this school year, will start teaching next fall, they are another temporary professor. They do not solve AAS’s big challenges: lack of mentorship and continuity within the program. Wellesley deserves a permanent tenure-track Asian Americanist who can both teach AAS courses and provide support for Asian American students. Learning about Asian American history and culture is critical to the health and well-being of Asian Americans on campus. People of color and immigrants who do not have the opportunity to

counterpoint / december 2016

learn about their own history struggle with identity formation. Research shows a link between poor identity formation and mental health problems, including depression and suicidal ideation. Asian American women aged 18 to 24 have the nation’s second highest suicide rate among women in this age group (National Center for Health Statistics, 2012). For us, this is not merely a statistic, but a reality that affects us personally. Wellesley has a responsibility to support academic, mental, and emotional well-being of its Asian American students, and must offer them the opportunity to learn about their own history and culture through courses. We must remember that more than 20% of Wellesley students identify as Asian American–and this number does not include international students. We cannot stay under-resourced any longer. Hiring a tenure-track Asian Americanist is a concrete step that Wellesley can take to support its Asian / Asian American population. In addition to having a limited number of AAS courses, courses currently available do not reflect the full diversity of the Asian American communities, often neglecting South and Southeast Asian narratives. When we asked for students to suggest Asian American courses offered at other colleges that they would like to take, we received over thirty suggestions, ranging from Asian Americans in Politics to South Asian and Southeast Asian Diaspora. There is clear student demand for diverse AAS courses that already exist at other institutions. Hiring a tenure-track Asian Americanist would be the first step and would demonstrate Wellesley’s commitment to building a stronger program.

Closing Remarks Wellesley College is a traditionally women’s college with a unique commitment to empowering and advancing the education of marginalized groups. The College’s mission requires that it take tangible action to demonstrate a commitment to Asian / Asian American students and Asian American Studies. Moreover, we are at a critical juncture in American history, as our current racist and xenophobic President-elect will likely hold office for the next four years. Critical ethnic studies are opportunities for us to examine race, ethnicity, and power. As an institution, Wellesley has a duty to develop its ethnic studies programs to nurture its students to become change agents who can respond effectively to our sociopolitical issues. WAA and concerned Wellesley students earnestly seek a permanent tenured Asian Americanist on campus who can ensure more AAS classes are offered throughout the year at Wellesley and provide mentorship and continuity for AAS and students minoring in the program. In addition, AAS can be a great source of pride for Wellesley College. We echo President Paula Johnson’s recent open letter in the New York Times, in which she writes that Wellesley “embrace[s] difference and work[s] to assure that all Wellesley students have an equal opportunity to flourish. [Wellesley] stands for equity and justice, for the pursuit of knowledge that is based in fact, and for civil discourse that is inclusive while challenging in its rigor.” This is the Wellesley we know and stand for. This Wellesley will support the stability and growth of its Asian American Studies. Wellesley, the fight for ethnic studies has always relied on student initiative and action. We thank you for your support and urge you to continue this conversation. Respectfully, Wellesley Asian Alliance and Concerned Wellesley College students

Results from Our Petition Do you support having more Asian-American Studies classes on campus? (624 responses)

Out of all 624 students who answered, all respondents supported having more Asian American Studies classes, and 45% of the respondents (281 students) did not identify as Asian American. Have you taken any Asian-American Studies classes thus far? (624 responses)

83.5% of respondents (522 students) have taken or want to take Asian American Studies classes. We need the administration to address and validate the demands from this large percentage of the Wellesley community. AAS is vital on Wellesley College’s mission of the liberal arts and intersectionality. Current students have expressed so in the following quotations: • “‘No history, no self. Know history, know self.’”–Class of ’18 • “People need the opportunity to find their identities.”–Class of ’20 • “We want to be part of a generation of change.”–Class of ’19 • “It’s a shame to see that society’s Asian and Asian-American invisibility is perpetuated at Wellesley college. Invisibility is not a superpower.”–Class of ’19 • “As a graduating senior, I was disheartened to find no South Asian Studies classes to take my last semester of college. It made me feel a little more invisible on campus as a South Asian student.”–Class of ’17 • “As a Vietnamese American, I feel that it is so important that we become more inclusive about South East Asian communities in our discussions pertaining to the ‘Asian American’ experience. The model minority myth that leaves the South East Asian population in the United States largely ignored is despicable.” –Class of ’20 • “With this election, we have seen why Ethnic Studies and AAS is more and more critical.”–Class of ’19 • “I spent all four years of my time at Wellesley fighting for Asian American Studies. But Wellesley didn’t give me that knowledge, I had to take it. Wellesley should be supporting students as they grow in their identities and their voices, not knocking them down.”–Class of ’08 • “As an alum who advocated strongly for Asian American Studies, it is ridiculous to hear that this is the state it is in now. We need it now more than ever in the wake of this new President-elect.”–Class of ’16 counterpoint / december 2016 page 5

CAMPUS LIFE

Thanks Obama SOFC.

After a Semester BY ELIZABETH GAIDIMAS

BY HUZAIFA EJAZ

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must know where to stop. Do NOT proceed to explain how you’re also a part of SOFC. Mayday. Abort mission. Yell “she doesn’t even go here” and point to yourself. Do not make eye-contact for there is a good chance there is pity or contempt there. And you should do this only because your intention is pure: this individual means something to you. You are concerned with maintaining the beautiful friendship you have. All you’ve ever wanted is to buy them flowers without immediately following up with a text detailing your Venmo handle. In other words: you care about the person you’re interacting with and don’t want them to immediately assume that wreaking havoc in people’s lives brings you pleasure. That’s all. Is that all SOFC does, though? you wonder. Other things that could be classified either as “existential crises” or “butter-chicken withdrawal symptoms” wander into your mind, one after another. The answer depends entirely on how you see it and when your budget last allowed such extravagance. Ah yes, you have encountered a budget problem of your own amidst this intellectual foray. Only a few words come to mind: Thanks, Obama SOFC. But as you continue to reflect on SOFC’s existence (and simultaneously your own), a few other things seem to ring a bell. Your mind races back to the day your roommate sent a text

counterpoint / december 2016

inquiring where you were because last they had seen you, you were headed to a SOFC meeting. You also remember you could not respond to said text until well into the night because you were still there. You remember every application being brought to a vote. You remember the defenses and rebuttals as well as the eventual deferring to the constitution. Perhaps that is the sacred text that commands the cruelty they exhibit. Or perhaps SOFC is just another branch of the College Government; consisting of roommates, acquaintances and friends who wholeheartedly support your causes and try their very best to remain fair at the same time. You also recall the backlash (or should I say bank-lash) after the decisions are announced. You remember sending disappointing news to admirable people who deserve better. You remember the disappointment on their face when they confront you about the decision and you remember Magic! inquiring Why you gotta be so rude? Don’t you know I’m human, too? In your head, the table of doom and the exalted thrones of cruelty now convert to your average Lulu furniture—and SOFC members turn into people you ought to be proud to work with. Some of your existential confusion has been abated because you remember hoping someone, perhaps one from among the privileged deities who did receive full funding, would one day say: thanks, SOFC. Huzaifa Ejaz ’20 (hejaz@wellesley.edu) is hosting a coming-out party next semester. Venue and time TBD.

I Images: theodessyonline.com (left), slate.com (right)

he heartless have seated themselves around the table of doom, each one on a throne of cruelty. Your fate, as well as those of others dear to you, rests before their eyes. You anxiously anticipate the enduring pain with which their Machiavellian schemes will leave you with. Have they no fear of karma or an afterlife? Or do they serve as an important reminder that the world is unjust and life hurts? These are all valid questions, but the most urgent of them all is: will SOFC grant us the funding we requested this semester?! Swerve. Joining the Student Organizations Funding Committee as a first-year has turned out to be an interesting experience. What I have learned is that you can honorably mention all that you are involved with on campus if someone inquires, b u t y o u

n September, I wrote an article about the differences and difficulties of being a first-year and a returning student at the same time. Now it’s December, and I’ve made it way past the point I did last year. I’m close to finishing the semester. It would take something cataclysmic to stop me now. That’s not to say that this whole semester was easy. It definitely was not. I was overwhelmed at times trying to balance classes, a social life, and self-care. It took me a lot longer than I’d like to admit to get to focus on the self-care part. That one’s still a work in progress. I’m bad at going to bed when I know I should. I know I should go to bed by midnight during the week but a lot of the time I’m up later for no good reason. I definitely need to work on eating better as well. I should probably eat slightly less pizza than I’m eating now. Still, I did some good work this semester. A lot of good work, actually. I made it to most of my classes. I’ve written essays for my writing class and created digital stories for my education seminar. Plus, I actually had some of that done ahead of the due date and was able to turn it in early. I don’t know if my grades will be the best, but that’s what shadow grading is for. I know what works and what doesn’t work for me now. For example, I learned that I’m definitely more of a night owl—so my one-hundred level language class is always a struggle first thing in the morning. That will be hard next semester too. But my schedule for next semester is more balanced. No more hellish Tuesdays where I’m either in class or in the library from 8:50-4:15.

I’m proud of the work I’ve done. I probably could have done a better job on some of it, but I worked to the best of my ability at that moment on everything. That’s an important distinction and one that I’m very glad to have learned. I’ve realized over the course of this semester that I am smart enough. I can do it. I’ve also realized that it’s okay to take one day to sleep when my brain is being awful and I’m super anxious and depressed. The trick is not letting that one day turn into a million days. That I can do. I know the next seven semesters won’t be easy, but I know I can handle them. I handled this semester. There are two sayings I’ve come up with for when I think I’ve hit a wall: “I got this,” and, “This is tough but Gators (my nickname) are tougher.” It took a lot of hard work, but I’ve made it to the end of the semester. It’s so weird to be almost done. I have one actual final exam. Everything else is final projects and papers due on the last day of classes. I’m proud of myself, and I hope my friends and family at home will be too. I actually made it. Nothing can stop me now. Elizabeth Gaidimas ’20 (egaidima@ wellesley.edu) is a book enthusiast who doesn’t stop trying. All those stories that say nothing is impossible: they’re true.

counterpoint / december 2016

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ART & CULTURE

A VERY UNFORTUNATE ARTICLE Content warnings: mention of child abuse, sexual assault, death

ear Reader, You are in a restaurant called the Anxious Clown, and a man is sitting in front of you, interviewing you for a job you do not want and are never going to get. You stare at a painting of the infamous Virginian Wolfsnake on the wall and try not to think of the sonnet folded in your pocket. A waiter approaches your table, wearing a red nose and a look of despair. His name is Larry, at least according to his tag, but you know that clowns are never to be trusted. He places two glasses of parsley soda in front of you even though you asked for root beer. “I’m sorry,” Larry says, interrupting your loud interviewer. “I didn’t realize this was a sad occasion.” Your interviewer looks up at him in annoyance. “What are you talking about? I already told you, we’ll have two CheerUp Cheeseburgers.” You, however, meet the clown’s eyes. This is the moment you have been waiting for. “The world is quiet here.” Larry hands you an envelope, which you immediately rip open. Normally it is extremely rude to ignore your job interviewer, but sometimes a situation calls for rudeness. The file, thick and dusty, holds a script for the movie Zombies in the Snow, a number of tear-stained letters, a burned napkin from a restaurant called Cafe Salmonella, thirteen crumbled newspaper articles, a manuscript of a novel, and a photograph of three children in black and white. A girl and a boy and page 8

a baby are frozen on the paper, with pleasant-enough facial features and eyes wide in horror. The photographer casts a shadow on their faces. But before you can open the file, the room explodes. You run and rip the snake portrait off the wall. It reveals a doorway. You open it, grab the horse from the table next to you, and disappear into the passageway as the Anxious Clown drowns in sand. Do we have your attention? Has the man standing behind you stopped reading over your shoulder? Good. Here’s what we really had to say: If you have ever been a child, you know that adults rarely listen to children. And if you are an adult, you may not listen to us (though we have not been considered children for some time). Here is the thing, though. Stories never grow up. Books are always sitting on a shelf, waiting to be opened for the first or one-thousandth time. Sometimes they sit on a shelf for more than a decade after publication and long after the rest of the world has moved on, until an executive at a certain television production company dusts them off. Sometimes you find the story before those executives, or before your best friend, or before your enemies, and sometimes you discover them much later than you would have liked. But certain stories will wait for you, or they will find you. No matter how happy or terribly, mind-numbingly sad they are, the stories will be there, waiting to be read, perhaps in a street library that they know you will walk past on the way home from the beach one summer afternoon. All thirteen

counterpoint / december 2016

of them, lingering. We are talking, of course, about Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. If you are familiar with these books, we’re sorry for reminding you of them. If you are not, please take this opportunity to flip to the crossword. Lemony Snicket—taxi driver, rhetorician, and all-around enigma – tells the sorrowful tales of the three Baudelaire children. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire are orphaned by a suspicious fire and handed off to Count Olaf, a bad actor and a worse man. The children must use their unique talents to escape Olaf time and time again as they try to unravel the mysteries their parents left behind. Snicket follows the Baudelaire children from misfortune to misery as they are forced into a number of unpleasant places, including a lumber mill, a hospital, and the bottom of an elevator shaft. Meanwhile, through coded messages and dedications to dearly departed Beatrice, Snicket hints at his own mysterious intentions in a mysterious world involving a mysterious organization. Written by accordionistturned-author Daniel Handler under the pen name Lemony Snicket, this series is important for its absurdist take on real tragedy. Though the tone of the novels is incredibly dark, the books are also witty, whimsical, and ludicrous. Handler includes literary references, farcical details, and tough philosophical questions in Unfortunate Events, creating a postmodernist hellscape for his target audience: middle grade readers. Like the Baudelaires themselves, these books are endlessly clever. Unfortunate

Image: Brett Helquist

B Y E L I Z A B E T H TA F T A N D S A M A N T H A E N G L I S H

Events is an ode to literary history, and any book lover will spot countless references throughout the entire series. Most obviously, the ever-coughing Mr. Poe and his sons Edgar and Albert are an allusion to a certain Gothic poet. As seen in hypnotist Georgina Orwell and a brief cameo from Clarissa Dalloway, literary references both subtle and blatant abound. The moniker Montgomery Montgomery recalls Major Major from Catch 22 and Humbert Humbert from Lolita. Villainously fashionable Esmé Squalor is a reference to J.D. Salinger’s short story. Hugo the hunchback, Prufrock the preparatory school, an entire opening chapter dedicated to The Road Less Traveled—the list goes on and on. On a narrative level, the story of three Baudelaire children calls on the timehonored tradition of the orphan novel. From Jane Eyre and Oliver Twist to Matilda and Harry Potter, young protagonists are orphaned or neglected, but nevertheless survive. Our central characters share traits with their literary forerunners: in many ways, Violet Baudelaire, an overprotective eldest child who risks everything to care for her younger siblings, resembles Tess Durbeyfield of Thomas Hardy’s classic Tess of the D’Urbervilles. Similarly, the solace and independence Klaus Baudelaire finds in his love of books recalls Jane Eyre’s own empowerment through story. (Sunny Baudelaire, the biting baby, may be the first orphan protagonist to climb up an elevator shaft with her teeth, though notify the nearest VFD member if we’ve forgotten a certain recruit.) But, from the very beginning, Snicket, unlike so many other authors, does not gloss over the horrors of orphanhood. Villainous Count Olaf inflicts physical and emotional abuse on the Baudelaires, terrorizing the children in his attempts to steal their fortune. In the first book alone, appropriately named The Bad Beginning,

he strikes Klaus across the face; he locks Sunny in a birdcage; and he threatens to sexually abuse Violet, a reference a child reader might not catch but an adult one certainly does. Though the children are taken from his guardianship at the end of the first novel, Olaf stalks the children from guardian to guardian for thirteen books, scheming to take the Baudelaire fortune for his own. These novels are dark in their portrayal of how abused children are silenced. Snicket’s adult characters are absurd caricatures of the real people who put children in danger everyday. Panaphobe Aunt Josephine, who cares for the Baudelaires in The Wide Window, is willing to sacrifice the children to save her own skin; in The Ersatz Elevator, good-hearted Jerome Squalor refuses to help the Baudelaires because he fears confrontation. Even the Baudelaires’ most decent guardian, Uncle Monty, does not listen to the children when they attempt to point out Count Olaf in disguise, leading to Monty’s own demise. Snicket himself, a bystander to the abuse inflicted on the Baudelaires, is an example of how even well-meaning people can be villainous when they refuse to intervene on behalf of the vulnerable. More importantly, perhaps, the series emphasizes the importance of listening to children and treating them as equals. Underestimated and uncared for, the Baudelaire children escape horrors and live to tell the tale— but their survival is thanks to their own invented, researched, or bitten ingenuity rather than the “help” of the inept adults around them. But what makes the series unique is its blend of tragedy and farce. As all of the above is happening, our characters find themselves in situations that are as bizarre as they are frightening. Consider the scene in The Hostile Hospital where Esmé Squalor chases the children wearing literal

counterpoint / december 2016

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ART & CULTURE

Esmé viciously stabbed the floor of the Library of Records with each step, and occasionally the stilettos stuck, so the wicked woman had to pause and yank them out of the floor, which explained why her footsteps were so odd and tottering. These shoes happened to be the absolute latest fashion, but the Baudelaires had more important things to do than leaf through magazines describing what was in and what was out, so they could only stare at Esmé’s shoes and wonder why she was wearing footwear that was so violent and impractical.

Despite the hilarity of the situation, the stakes are real: Olaf and his associates have promised to kill the children, and there is no doubt of their genuine malice. The reader knows Esmé could take off those heels and attack at any moment. Esmé is a threat–but a ridiculous, funny threat. Of course, the Baudelaires escape, and in the very next scene Klaus and Sunny dress up as doctors - a disguise that goes undetected by all around them. Indeed, in the next installment, Sunny wears a wig that covers her whole body and pretends to be “Chabo the Wolf Baby,” a disguise that, again, goes unnoticed. Need we say more? However, the comedy of Unfortunate Events never undermines the sophistication of the novels. In some children’s series, the main characters never seem to age, remaining stagnant in a timeless limbo for books after books. Just as they never grow older, they also never grow as people. The Baudelaires age over the series, but more significantly, they also develop a sense of (a)morality. While they are innocent in the early installments, they become increasingly implicated in treachery as the series progresses, veering

towards moral ambiguity. A few of the Baudelaires’ actions in the final books could even be called, to use their own word, villainous.* Indeed, the schism that divides the mysterious VFD is not clearcut. We consistently sympathize with the Baudelaires, but Snicket’s world is a morally gray one. As the series progresses, the Baudelaire children eventually learn that nobility and villainy are relative, the line between being a firefighter and fire-starter is thin and, at a certain point, conventional morality is irrelevant: the children must learn both to survive and to settle for being “noble enough.” Furthermore, Violet, Klaus, and Sunny come to understand near the end of their story that they cannot escape the dangers of the world, whether that danger be a terrible actor or something even more horrid. As they tell the selfish Ishmael in the final book, “We are respecting our parents’ wishes [...] they didn’t want to shelter us from the world’s treacheries. They wanted us to survive them.” And survive them they do.** Truly, there is too much to analyze about these books. So much that we literally cannot fit our ardent opinions into this very long article (we might have to write a thesis someday). Here is what we will say in closing (which is, of course, not the end)–we consider these books literature. One of us read this series as a small child; the other only recently read them for the first time as an adult. We still both passionately adore them because these novels are timeless in their messages. Through Unfortunate Events, children and adults alike see that the world is dangerous, lonely, and morally trying, but it is not hopeless. No matter how many fires burn, no matter how many boats sink, no matter how many children are

counterpoint / december 2016

B Y M O L LY N Y L E N

This article was written in response to last month’s “Getting Shit Done” Content warning: mentions of physical and sexual violence against marginalized communities

Elizabeth Taft ’18 (etaft2) and Samantha English ’19 (senglis2) don’t want you to find the coded message in this article. MESSAGE: VFD recruitment in bird ossuary in a fortnight bring sugar bowl

*Remember the time the Baudelaires burned down a hotel? (If not, it happens near the end of Book Twelve.) **Maybe. (See Chapter Fourteen.) page 10

(Effectively) Getting Shit Done

left parentless, there are always stories and libraries and knowledge to pursue. There is never, truly, a beginning or an end to the story in front of you. Even when you close the book in your hands, the story continues. There is always, somehow, an after. P.S. The world is quiet here.

Image: Brett Helquist (left), alp.org (right)

stiletto heels—shoes with stiletto knives for heels:

POLITICS

his is not meant to be a personal attack against the author herself. Rather, I am critiquing the views expressed in her article, which are shared by many liberals on Wellesley’s campus. First of all, the author addresses this piece to her fellow white women, telling us “we’re screwed,” as if 53% of white women did not vote for Donald Trump and cheer him on during his acceptance speech. We as white women must recognize that we were complicit in electing Trump. Oppression does not “force us to unite,” because many white women have much to gain from Trump’s election, especially straight, cis, and wealthy white women. The author of this article claims that the only way to “get shit done” is through action within the confines of our political system and not outside of it. She sees violent protests as ineffective, though she understands their appeal. Instead, she believes that “when they go low,” we should “go high” by not resisting the oppression forced upon us by those in power. Instead, we should be begging our oppressors to protect our rights, hoping that they’ll decide to answer our pleas out of the kindness of their hearts. I think this is largely ineffective, due to the fact that we have been asking our oppressors to treat us with kindness for thousands of years and it has been largely ineffective. Slavery did not end with letters to politicians; it ended with rightfully violent uprisings against violent slave owners and their supporters. LGBTQ+

rights were not born out of asking straight people nicely for legal protections; they were born out of the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot, Stonewall, and other acts of necessary violence against police who beat, raped, and killed LGBTQ+ people regularly. Rights for racial minorities were not attained by asking white people nicely to treat them like human beings; they were born out of protests, some nonviolent, others violent, against police, Klansmen, neo-Nazis, and other hateful, racist groups of people. Even today, police brutality against black and brown bodies abounds, hate crimes against LGBTQ+ people continue, and Islamophobic violence increases. Working “within the system” has not helped these groups in the past and it will not help them now. Unless oppressive institutions such as the police and prisons are abolished, we will never be truly liberated. For example, the prison industrial complex was created in order to exploit black and brown bodies for labor and profit. Reform will not stop that oppression. Instead, reform will only marginally mitigate black and brown people’s suffering within that institution. Similarly, pleading with straight white cis men for our rights in a system they created will not free us from the confines of the patriarchy; it will only give us a conditional sigh of relief as our basic rights are protected for another two or four years, the overturning of these rights always possible. The view that people of color, women,

LGBTQ+ people, Muslims, and other minorities simply haven’t begged enough, or written enough letters, or made enough calls to straight white cis male politicians is both condescending and ignorant; we’ve been begging to be seen and treated as humans for millennia, and it still hasn’t worked, nor will it ever truly work. I believe that the only way we will effectively “get shit done” is to organize and support movements that seek to abolish oppressive institutions, rather than work within them. Black and Pink, The Audre Lorde Project, and Critical Resistance are a few of the many movements striving toward the abolition of systems of injustice. I encourage you to support these movements in the wake of the election. In the words of Audre Lorde, “The master’s tools will not dismantle the master’s house.” Molly Nylen ’18 (mnylen@wellesley.edu) is disillusioned with neoliberalism and impatiently awaits its downfall.

counterpoint / december 2016

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POLITICS

what I want my father to know about misogyny Content warnings: mention of sexual assault, eating disorders, Trump

got a text from my mom today— well, actually a screenshot of a series of texts she had exchanged with my father about the definition of the word “misogyny” and its pertinence in the Ted Bundy case. He was confused about the definition of misogyny, writing, “I’m just trying to figure out what the heck that word means… I’m confused because it seems to mean everything from rudeness to murder, depending on who is using it.” Ignoring the fact that I may be unique in having the occasional family feud regarding serial killers and gender, I feel like this is a situation many people from my circumstance have to come to terms with eventually: having a middle-aged

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white father who means well but fumbles through the varying consequences of privilege. And, like others before me, I am faced with the same plight: how do you make someone who raised you and did his best to instill proper social norms and cultural literacy in you understand that he is actually the one who doesn’t understand how it all works? How do you get a nearly 50-year-old man who comes from a time in which parents used corporal punishment and made their kids trudge to school through the snow “uphill both ways” to understand why trigger warnings are helpful, or why safe spaces are beneficial to mental health and physical wellbeing? The truth is, I can’t make him understand the vast array of privilege that he holds and the kaleidoscope of

counterpoint / december 2016

circumstances that are different from our own. This is, of course, because I hold my own privileges—as a white person, a straight person, a thin person, an ablebodied person, a person who’s never been seriously limited by financial restraints, and the many other circumstances that determine how I get to experience the world. However, there is one way in which I am not privileged, and that’s in my gender. And wasn’t that the point? That my father wanted so desperately to understand how misogyny worked, what it meant. That, at least, I can try to make clear for him. What I want my father to know about misogyny is that I experience it, and my mother experiences it, and all the women in his life and beyond experience it, every day for our entire lives. From the

Image: etsy.com/shop/LucyBirdy (left), goooq.com (right)

BY IZZY LABBE

moment we are wrapped in a pink blanket shortly after birth, we become subject to gender roles that teach us our place in society—as someone’s wife or mother or daughter, instead of our own person; as a domestic slave; or as a woman who experiences harassment, limitations, and unequal pay in the workforce. We are brainwashed into the goal of attaining impossible standards of beauty that evade us our entire lives, degrading our selfesteem, and driving us to wear makeup, to get plastic surgery, and to develop eating disorders. When we hit a certain age we are cast aside as unfuckable, and therefore virtually worthless; the women who do not conform to the sexual norms set up by our society are fetishized, demonized, or just cast off as unimportant. We are sexualized from birth. We are told that when boys are mean to us it’s because they like us, setting us up for a lifetime of normalizing abusive behavior. We grow up in a rape culture in which we are told that we run the risk of being sexually assaulted if we dress a certain way, that it’s our fault when we are abused because of how much we had to drink or what we decided to wear; a culture in which a rapist gets less prison time than a woman who kills her abuser. The women we see on television are stereotyped as pretty but brainless or smart but sexless; representation is completely skewed towards thin white women, leaving out most women of color and fat women, not to mention LGBTQ+ women. We are called shrewd or shrill when we speak out; we are called bitches when we express our opinions. Online we are attacked by trolls who tell us that rape jokes are hilarious and that if we don’t find them funny it’s our problem. And, of course, we live in a society in which the most experienced female public servant in history lost a presidential election to a man who has never held political office, who blatantly lies and manipulates, and who has bragged about sexually assaulting

women. But it’s not all men. I guess that’s why I’m writing this— because of the results of the Presidential election. When Hillary lost the thing that hurt the most for me was trying to conceive of how we would tell children about this, what sorts of precedents this sets for them. That a man who is everything we teach our children not to be can ascend to the highest political office in the United States. The 2016 election has, to some extent, revealed a new facet of misogyny for my generation. In another way, though, it perhaps just reaffirmed the patriarchal system that the women’s liberation movement has been trying to dismantle for centuries. And I have a very hard time listening to my father tell me that things will be fine when I know that things will not be fine for people like me and every other group that does not hold the same privileges he does. I love my father so much that it brings tears to my eyes when I think of a time when he won’t be in my life. At times, though, I find myself on an opposite shore, desperately sifting the sands of experience through my fingers and trying to find a way to make him understand the many multifaceted identities that are at a disadvantage, while knowing that he is across the vast sea, looking at it all as just a pile of sand. I may not ever be able to get him to understand how society is structured to systematically oppress marginalized groups, and how that is not only his problem but everyone’s problem. At least, I hope that by familiarizing him with something that actively limits me, he will be able to see a different perspective. I hope that he will someday find the strength to turn white guilt from resentment to action. Izzy Labbe ’20 (ilabbe@wellesley.edu) is fond of films from the 70s about vengeful Italian families, which make her feel better about her own (blessedly infrequent) family feuds. counterpoint / december 2016

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IDENTITY

Content warnings: self harm, mention of substance abuse, death, sexual assault, and purging.

1. I am a natural blonde. My white skin, blue eyes, and long strawberry blonde hair are parts of me that I look at and frown. At 13 years old, my arms would wrap around me as I stared down at my pale skin, wondering why I couldn’t be tanner like my fellow Florida friends. I grew up to realize how ironic that would have been. 2. I am a Scorpio. I used to love the stars. I would stay up late at night making wishes and watching them die. By the time the light reaches my eyes and my wish comes true, my beloved stars have combusted into oblivion. 3. I am an American. To be proud to be an American is to be proud of a country I do not understand, especially today. 4. I am scared of dying. I lay awake at night picturing the many ways my body can rot. I pick at my pale white knuckles to peel away enough skin to eventually find my heart and keep it beating. I don’t know how to live in a world without my mom, and I cry when I force myself to remember that she will die too. 5. I have never been in a relationship. I’ve never had someone tell me they love me or look at me like I’m their everything, and I don’t know if I ever will. My thoughts consist of fairytale ideas of romance that I page 14

Nobody Told Me I

BY RACHAEL LABES

know will never come true. I cower away from anything resembling commitment. I have never been in a relationship. 6. My drink of choice is vodka. I used to hate the way it burned as it slid down my throat, but I’ve learned it hurts more on the way back out. In junior year, I pressed my cheek against the cool ceramic floor and pulled my dirty blonde hair back far enough to forget the feeling of being touched. To forget anything at all. 7. My favorite animal is a Komodo dragon. Their poisonous tongues reach out and kill animals ten times their size. They travel in groups to slowly, patiently bring down their prey. I envy them. 8. I am selfish. I have trouble congratulating others on success because I want it for myself, but I know I’m not good enough and I know I don’t deserve it. I am selfish. I rationalize my judgemental thoughts, chalking up my bad behavior to being “young”or “free.” I used to slip Victoria’s Secret underwear into my purse and smile at the cashier as I walked out. I would slide my hands around the wheel of my ’99 Honda Civic and press my foot down while pushing my fuzzy conscience back, convincing myself I was fine to drive. 9. I want to change the world. I lie awake thinking about people I’ve never met in places I’ve never been and wonder how to touch them. I don’t know how to make my voice unique and powerful and I

counterpoint / december 2016

don’t know how to reach my hands out far enough to save everyone. I know I never can. 10. I have hate inside me. I know it’s there underneath my kindness and friendships. I laugh at jokes I shouldn’t. I hate myself but know somewhere inside me I hate someone else more. My favorite animals, my astrology, my dreams, my goals, and the color of my skin are not enough to erase the anger. I fill myself up with my drink of choice, but it’s not enough to displace the hate. And no matter how far I stick my fingers it never comes up. It lives somewhere inside my intestines, I feel it rip through me and I hear it grumble, but I can usually keep it quiet and content. 11. I lied. I said I only knew ten things but I know one more. I have love inside me. I love watching the trees change color in the fall, I love cookie dough ice cream, I love dogs and watching old terrible Disney movies. I love old friends and new friends. I love poetry and pinky promises. I love ghost stories. I love. Many things are changing around me, but there are eleven things I know to be true.

Rachael Labes ’20 (rlabes@wellesley.edu) may or may not be a Math major.

Image: redbubble.net (left), pinterest.com, weheartit.com(right)

10 things I know to be true

IDENTITY

keep trying to say, “There’s an edge to the cold” in Arabic. So far, I’ve had no luck. It’s the kind of cold that slips in under your skin. Somewhere, at some point—I still don’t know exactly when—the invisible sheet of ice that I now constantly feel around me quietly infiltrated my body. I can feel it in my feet, when they refuse to warm up under the covers. I can see it under my fingernails, which turn various shades of purple during class. Growing up, my hands and feet were always cold. So were my mom’s. In fact, I knew a few people whose extremities were always cold, people who, in general, felt the chill a little bit more than everyone else. But it was fine. I was used to it, being a little too familiar with the cold. Then I got to Wellesley. On a whim, I decided to try novice crew, even though ballet and jazz had been my primary form of exercise from ages 4 to 18. I vaguely remembered someone once telling me that I had “the right body” for crew, and I figured it couldn’t hurt to try. What nobody told me was how many burpees I would have to do along the way, how many blisters my hands would suffer through, or how much time I would spend on an erg. More importantly, nobody told me that my teammates would become not just my friends but my family. Nobody told me that a girl from Miami who laughed at something I said one morning would become one of my biggest cheerleaders, or that her smile would light up my day. Nobody told me that another former ballerina would give me a hug every morning at 5:15 a.m., or that she would be there for me when my heart broke for the first time and I cried for hours in her

B Y M O L LY H OY E R

room. Nobody told me that the group of seemingly chronic procrastinators sitting in the Beebe common room every evening would inspire and motivate me to keep going when the work seemed like it would never end. Nobody told me that this team would fill me with warmth from head to toe. But now, even in Morocco, I’m shivering in class. Everyone else is relatively fine—maybe a little chilly, but nothing a good scarf or sweater couldn’t fix—and I’m sitting in my chair wearing a sweater with two shirts underneath and

a scarf around my neck, blowing hot air into my hands. Maybe I’m so cold because my body still thinks that it is summer. Maybe I’m shivering in sixty-degree weather because I’m not working out regularly or at the level that I normally do. But maybe, just maybe, I’ll find that when I’m reunited with my family, there isn’t an edge to the cold anymore. Molly Hoyer ’18 just bought a lovely, thick wool sweater.

counterpoint / december 2016

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POLL

weather phenomena OTHER

TSUNAMI

SUNSHINE

DROUGHT

OVERCAST

WILDFIRE

THUNDERSTORMS AVA L A N C H E 25

O T H E R R E S P O N S E S : "*sarah palin voice*: I'm a Maverick" • " a CUMulonimbus cloud lmao"

• " A light snow" • " A little rain but I love rain" • " a tsunami on fire rushing toward the shore of a major populous area and also there are sharks in the tidal wave and I forgot to mention that there is also an avalanche rushing down the mountain toward aforementioned populous area and everybody is trapped between an on-fire tsunami with sharks and an avalanche and the only escape is the fact that I will be home in two weeks" • " A wildfire on fire with just the hint of sunshine when there's wine" • "All of the above" • "APOCOLYPSE?" • "Bees?" • "Blood rain" • "Cloudy with a chance of meatballs" • "Dirty thunderstorm - when there's lightening in the cloud from a volcano" • "drizzle (comforting and dreary in turns)" • "dumpster fire" • "Earthquake" • "El Niño" • "eye of the hurricane, one wrong step and I'm gone" • "eye of the motherfucking hurricane" • "fire sharknado" • "Fire Tornado" • "Flash Flood" • "Flooding (help me! i'm drowning!)" • "hurricane" • "I'm a wanderess//I'm a one night stand//Don't belong to no city//Don't belong to no man//I'm the violence in the pouring rain//I'm a hurricane" • "If only the tsunami can blow away my homework, then I would be able to answer sunshine..." • "impending nor'easter" • "Intense fog" • "Just fucking everything" • "Kelvin–Helmholtz instability bc who knows whats going on anymore" • "Literally all of the above" • "mist" • "Non-aqueous rain" • "overcast interspersed with sunshine" • "Pretty much all weather conditions at least once everyday" • "Sandstorm by Darude" • "Sandstorm: I can't see a way out of it." • "Scattered Showers" • "Sharknado" • "Sharknado, but every time they say shark it gets faster" • "Sleet" • "sunshower" • "Sunshowers - excited to leave Wellesley but dampened by all the impending work" • "The 6 months of perpetual rain on the West Coast of Africa" • "the apocalypse" • "The Day After Tomorrow" • "The Four Furries of the Apocalypse" • "the nothingness from Never Ending Story" • "The plague of locusts God sent to punish Egypt" • "this is so extra, roz" to which Roz is speechless in response; she did not need to be dragged like that. • "Tornado" • "Tropical Storm" • "U think it's only gonna be a little drizzle but find out it's a monsoon and you forgot your umbrella but remember u dont even have one :'(" • "Volcanic ash storm" • "Whirlpool" • "Wintry Mix"

Image: trekareth.com

As we approach reading period and dreaded finals, Counterpoint wants to know: which weather phenomenon best embodies your mental state at the end of the semester? As always there is an other option in case none of these fit you!

BLIZZARD