Woroni Edition 5 2021 by Woroni

discomfort

woroni team

content

Clara Ho Elinor Johnston-Leek Carys Fisser Virginia Plas Liah Naidoo Julain Juhae Zoe Crowston Oscar Warren Arabella Ritchie Jacinta Chen Sein Minn Khant Oo

radio

Elijah Lazarus Bec Donald-Wilson Fergus Sherwood Rucha Tathavadkar Davis Evans Olivia Adams Gabrielle Karov Alex An Phoebe Barnes Eric Rattray

managing George Keleher

Rose Dixon Campbell Aleyn Silva Chetha Nawana Andy Yin Ashley Davies Sabrina Tse Anne-Kate Braithwaite Sisana Lazarus Karomina Kocimska Zak Knight Sai Campbell

art

Yige Xu Natasha Tareen Eliza Williams Maddy Brown Xuming Du Madelene Watson Beth O’Sullivan Navita Wijeratne Jessica Mcleod-Yu

news

Ronan Skyring Giselle Laszok Sasha Personeni Juliette Baxter Kristine Giam Fiona Ballentine Julian Brazier Alexander Lane Thomas Burnett Sam O’Connor

contents NEWS

CREATIVE

ANU Students Take Action Against Poor Rental Conditions

August

ANU Alumni Frustrated at Bishop’s Plea for Donations

Red.

34 35

Stay Still

B&G SR’s Protest ‘Unacceptable’ Conditions

Foreign Objects

The Word

8 COMMENT

CAMPUS

It’s All in Your Head

Word on the Street

The Reality of Digital Disconnection

Insomnia Chronicles

The Discomfort of Instagram:

Notification: Screen Time Up 400% This Week Ick City

Shout out to my ex

15 17

DISCOVERY In the Name of Science

20 22

Who is Science really for?

Ego and Redemption

Peanuts and Trigger Warnings

Not your China Doll: On the Hypersexualisation of Asian Women

The Uncomfortable Reality of a

Never Have I Ever... Felt Uncomfortable with Cultural Misrepresentation

A Connect-The-Dots Drawing 28

The Olympics the World Wanted and Tokyo 30

CULTURE

Who Gets to come to ANU?

Didn’t

The Song of Achilles: A Hero’s Legacy of

Haircuts and Existential Angst

Post-COVID world

Harmless or Harmful

on My Face

Happier than Ever: Billie’s Truth Racial Gaslighting

note from the editor If we were playing the gameshow ‘Only Connect’, you would get these words from me: Spring, Thursdays, StuPol and the ANU School of Art. The day before Friday is not quite the end of the week, but close enough for you to make weekend plans. It’s like Spring, the season of ‘almost’. September brings rebirth, but expelling the child inside that is now rearing its head is no more pleasant the second time around just because of an added prefix. Midday on Thursdays and at this time of the year, it’s the small things that trip you up like hay fever, not knowing which day you can hang up laundry or running out of milk. It gives me the same itch as Term 3 at the ANU. ’Woroni hates you’ was a satirical article published in the paper on the 1st of March, 1998: “What is it that compels someone into student politics? Apparently the factors seem to include way, way too much time on one’s hands [and] a wardrobe full of knitted sweaters … Please, please, please get lives.” It seems like they have since then, this year we almost had an uncontested Presidential candidate. The ANU School of Art & Design was one of the last Australian institutions to offer a full suite of workshops. Now, I sit in a Zoom breakout room with a sculpture major every week to learn Adobe Rush. Walking past the now defunct Silversmithing Workshop, I wonder why we even come to campus anymore except maybe to go to the gym. Would it be different if there were more CASS representatives who didn’t study politics? With that, I’ll run the timer for you to connect those four words. Vy Tsan, Deputy Editor-in-Chief

Saad Khalid Radio Editor

Vy Tsan Deputy Editor in Chief

Matthew Donlan Editor in Chief

EDITORS Lily Pang Content Editor

Sian Williams Art Editor Liam Taylor TV Editor

Ben Rowley Managing Editor

Charlotte Ward News Editor

ARTWORK: Navita Wijeratne

news

anu students take action against poor rental conditions JULIETTE BAXTER Students continually meet fierce competition for rental properties in Canberra, where the vacancy rate is at a low of 0.7%. As a result, students often end up accepting offers for houses in poor condition and face ongoing maintenance and safety concerns. Some students have voiced their concerns to their landlords or real estate agents, with some even going higher to the tribunal level.

people at ACAT were very helpful and easy to deal with – it’s just sad that with the landlord we were left with no other choice!” April’s house has experienced other safety hazards. This includes raw sewage pumping into their backyard, the failure of the landlord to clear overhanging branches which then fell onto a powerline, and a ceiling lamp falling in a bedroom.

April* is a first time renter, whose share house is pursuing legal action after the collapse of their deck in February, under the weight of ten people. Fortunately, no one was injured in the incident, but the real estate agent neglected to repair the deck for six months.

Image supplied.

Image Supplied

In June, April and her housemates went to the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal (ACAT), where the landlord tried to place blame on the tenants for the deck’s collapse, to avoid a rent reduction. After a second hearing in August, the tenants finally got a “10% retrospective rent reduction” and a “lump sum payment for the breach of quiet enjoyment.”

Millie’s* share house was ravaged by black mould earlier this year. All four walls of the bathroom grew black mould as a result of the “private landlord not putting in an extractor fan.” The mould then spread into two bedrooms, “growing on our clothes and furniture.” Millie explains “we reported it to our private landlord who never really offered us much help” though she did “eventually reduce our rent but we later decided to mutually break the lease.”

April explains that pursuing action through ACAT “required many hours of work,” but she is ultimately, “glad we moved forward with it and the

6. The problems didn’t stop there, and the housemates “had to get a mould cleaner in to deep clean our personal belongings.” Like April’s house, Millie and her housemates are considering going to tribunal, on the advice of LegalAid, to get back their bond.

it and found mould in the wardrobe that got into jackets.” Since personally removing the mould, Abby has been “sleeping better and not feeling as run down.” However, as Abby laments, “now it’s just constant maintenance because it keeps growing back.”

Image supplied.

Image supplied. Ethan’s* house similarly encountered “the nightmare of dealing with a private lister.” Ethan and his housemates were urgently looking for a new rental in inner Canberra’s competitive market and unknowingly signed an illegitimate lease and sent a month’s rent in advance. Recognising the lack of professionalism from the private landlord, the renters decided to withdraw their lease. They did not move into the property and “never even got the keys.” Despite initial promises to return their money, the landlord refused to return their deposit and threatened to ask for more if they went to ACAT. Ethan and his sharehouse sought legal advice and introduced their case to the tribunal. Ethan explains that “after 6 months of stressful and time costly legal proceedings, hearings, and our money still held, we were finally successful.” Like Millie, Abby’s* house has confronted consistent mould problems in her rental property. Abby’s room is next to the kitchen, and “the windows are constantly damp, so are the walls.” The tenants have “had to replace furniture because of

Erin*, too, constantly battles mould in her house. The housemates have “gone through two litres of vinegar cleaning mould off the walls.” One of her housemates has a damp, black mould patch “as big as two pillows” in his bedroom. After reporting the mould issue to their landlord, a tradesman came to inspect and claimed there was no mould and would not attend to the problem. Nevertheless, Erin’s share house has still asked for a lease renewal due to Canberra’s terrible rental market. Students are often faced with poor housing conditions with potential health threats, and also an unwillingness from landlords to fix problems as they arise, preferring to just replace tenants as demand remains high. Private landlords can be especially difficult to hold to account. Yet, through legal processes, young renters can achieve justice for their hardships. For students with mould issues specifically, legal aid has a detailed fact sheet. *Names have been changed for the privacy of the students.

ARTWORK: Jessica McLeod-Yu

anu alumni frustrated at bishop’s plea for donations KRISTEN LI GIAM

In an email sent to ANU Alumni, ANU Chancellor the Hon Julie Bishop asked them to donate to the Kambri Scholars Program. This follows the revelation that the University spent $800K on Bishop’s Perth Office.

frustration at Bishop’s plea for alumni funds. He questions if “anyone else think[s] it’s a bit dodgy that a boomer who got her degree for free is now emailing people who graduated with big HECS debts and asking [them] for money?”.

The Kambri Scholars Program aims to “provide transformative opportunities for future generations of Indigenous Australians”. The ANU will also be matching such donations “dollar to dollar”.

West also cited Bishop’s role in the Greensill Capital incident as a source of anger, stating that “perhaps instead of hassling graduates for donations, the Chancellor could chuck in some of the cash she pocketed while working for the disgraced Greensill Capital, misusing her government contacts to shill for their ponzi scheme”.

Dr Ashley Norris, an ANU alumnus (19992003), told Woroni that “[Julie’s] request… that [he] should contribute more of [his] own money towards the ANU bank account is both offensive and laughable”. According to Norris’ recollection of his time at university, “Bishop took active steps against the best interest of university students in particular, and the ANU in general ” in relation to the relaxation of quotas for full-fee-paying students. He further expressed his frustration, questioning “[w]hy on earth the ANU has chosen to make this … woman their figurehead is beyond belief”. Nick West, another ANU Alumnus who studied at ANU from 1999-2005, expressed similar

In response, an ANU Spokesperson told Woroni “our Chancellor, the Hon Julie Bishop has contacted ANU Alumni to seek support for [the Kambri Scholar Program. Additionally, “The University regularly informs our alumni community – who know firsthand the power and potential of an ANU education – about important programs like this and which they are encouraged to contribute to if they choose.” The Kambri Scholar Program has already attained $145,000 from 482 donors, of which $120,000 go towards the Program.

ARTWORK: Maddy Brown

b&g srs protest ‘unacceptable’ conditions CHARLOTTE WARD

Senior Residents (SRs) at Burton & Garran Hall (B&G) are protesting against an ‘unacceptable’ level of risk imposed on them to monitor and enforce COVID-19 restrictions at the residence. On 17th August, SRs met with Woroni to discuss their concerns regarding the ANU, and the lack of support provided to ‘front-line workers’.

at a high risk. Despite coming into contact with numerous students and potential close contacts, SRs are denied proper PPE gear. One SR compared the duties they were being required to carry out to those of a frontline quarantine worker and stated that “even then, quarantine workers receive better protection and support”.

The main concerns include a lack of pastoral support from ANU staff, an ‘unacceptable level of personal risk’, potential breaches of ACT Health directives, and a lack of academic support.

SRs also raised concerns that the duty shifts may be in direct violation of ACT Health directives. In response to these concerns, they were told that their work was held as permissible as they were acting as “good Samaritans”.

SRs told Woroni that they raised these concerns on Friday and were informed that they were no longer obligated to undertake these duties. However, on Saturday the SRs were required to deliver food to residents again. A major concern the SRs raised was the lack of systems in place at B&G should there be a COVID-19 outbreak at the ANU. According to one SR, the ANU had informed them that they had plans in place if the campus were to shut down, however SRs didn’t believe that the ANU’s procedure was sufficient. In protest of the ‘inadequate’ treatment, some B&G SRs have refused to undertake their duty shifts, claiming that these shifts put them

Many SRs expressed concern that they are receiving little to no academic support. Two SRs stated that they were unable to receive extensions on tests, despite working full-day shifts delivering meals to students. The SRs plan to write an open letter to the ANU, demanding to be pulled from the front-line of COVID-19 enforcement. In response to these concerns, an ANU Spokesperson stated that it is “extremely grateful to those SRs who provided immediate assistance and made sure that their fellow residents received these supplies”.

ARTWORK: Navita Wijeratne

campus

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ARTWORK: Maddy Brown

word on the street NICKO WYNDHAM AND KAROLINA KOCIMSKA

“What has brought you discomfort this week?” Being put on the spot. Georgia, 22. My hangover. Diba, 21. Monday’s protest in Kambri, the sexual assault one. Grace, 20.

The cold mornings and the university’s lack of response to student voices, such as the protest. Anna, 22. We played footy yesterday and didn’t score a goal. It was a discomforting situation. Ben, 21. WCF. Doug, 22.

I just walked into maths and they were doing equivalent class and I had no idea how to do them. Blake, 23.

I’m behind on uni. Annalise, 23.

The housing market. Ali, 23.

There is not enough time in the day to get up to date with lectures. Maliha, 20.

The weather (laughs). Sophia, 22.

My new job role. Nakiya, 23. COVID. Alekander, 20. COVID. My brother is in Sydney and the people living above him have COVID. Ka’yil, 21. A shoulder injury. Sasha, 37.

Assignment deadline. David, 19. Instability with COVID and the absence of a predictable future. Sushi, 22.

My lecture. Ruby, 20. I had to walk all the way to the School of Art and Design, which stressed me out as I was late. It’s further than you think. Molly, 20. ANU’s lack of action on SASH. Ellen, 20. I had a yeast infection this week. Grace, 21.

Going into a tutorial unprepared and finding out it’s harder than expected. Charlotte, 22.

ARTWORK: Yige Xu

insomnia chronicles JESS LIAO On the discomfort of sleepless nights & on making peace I’m an insomniac. It took me a long time to admit it to myself. I’ve just struggled with sleep every now and then, I’d say. Or, I’m a light sleeper and it just takes me longer than normal people to be able to fall asleep. I realised that those words were phrases I’d been using for over a decade. I’d pick my cuticles until they bled, sitting on my hands, and fidgeting on the blue plastic seats.

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12. “Here’s a prescription for diazepam. They’re highly addictive, and we have an entire generation addicted to them. It should knock you out in 30 minutes.” The doctor peered at me through thick rimmed glasses on the brink of his nose, scrawling away on a piece of paper. I’m definitely an insomniac. I went to the discount pharmacy, handed the slip across the counter, and picked up my medication. To my joy, the diazepam didn’t even work. A by-product of insomnia is that it gives you plenty of time to lie there and think. Here are some musings I’ve had to – and am still trying to – learn as I try to make peace with my insomnia: I don’t need to stay up all night as a way of punishing myself. And if I do have a bad night, I don’t need to punish myself during it. A few years ago, my actions would have spoken exactly the opposite. I used to have a crippling, deeply ingrained view that overworking myself would be a way to validate my own sense of worthiness. It would be noble to work three times as hard, to have five more hours of the evening to do more work. I was trained that way from childhood, and I was addicted. I knew staying up all night would harm my body and I would feel the after-effects of a sleepless night the next morning. If I’m putting my body through this, I thought, then I might as well make use of the time by working till my eyes dry out and I begin to feel nauseous. As I’ve made peace with my unhealthy obsession with working, I realised that it’s okay to lay there and sit with my thoughts. It’s okay – even if it’s 3:30am onin an anxious night filled with shuffling my pillow to the other side and moving my weighted blanket to cradle me in the right positions – to get up and make a cup of chamomile tea. Insomnia will make you feel awful, in physical and mental ways. It makes me feel more out of control and it affects the way I see myself. I’ve prided myself on being high functioning; and when insomnia takes reign, it distresses me so much because it debilitates my sense of self. In my mind, a highfunctioning person goes to bed around 10 or 11pm, sleeps a sturdy eight hours and wakes up no later than 8:30am. A green juice and a morning flow of

yoga would also be ideal. If I woke up at midday, I would wake abruptly and with instant pangs of guilt. It took a visit to the psychologist for her to tell me “It’s not morally wrong to have a different sleep cycle to others – like, shift workers. They’re not wrong in the slightest for having to sleep through the day or have different patterns of sleep. It just looks different.” Insomnia is hard and uncomfortable, but it’s also not the worst. It does mean the day ahead is more daunting and far harder. It does mean I can’t concentrate as much, and I won’t be able to check off as many tasks as I would have liked to. But I’ll get through the day okay and at the end of it I’ll still have done the one or two most important things that I needed to get done. Sometimes it’s okay to disappoint others. I’m a chronic people pleaser. Insomnia has meant I’ve had to cancel countless hangouts with people, miss a few appointments and struggle to make it in time for a 9am tutorial. I’ve been late to all sorts of things because of it. But people are generally kinder and more forgiving than I am on myself. They will lend a hand of grace and it reminds me that I’m finite and I can’t do it all; that I’m human. On the other hand, I’ve been able to master the skill of getting out of the house in a matter of 7 minutes. In high school I would sit on the toilet, brush my hair with my left hand and my teeth with my right hand. All whilst my toast was in the toaster and the kettle was boiling away. Maybe I’ve finished a book about the history of humanity at 2am, a crime thriller by 4 and by 7:30 in the morning, I’ve probably learnt how to sew. I was a blur of delirious sleeplessness. I don’t mean to glamourise or romanticise it, not in the slightest. I mean that I’ve come to make peace with it and my lack of control over it. Sometimes, no matter how good of a night routine I have and how well I’ve practiced “sleep hygiene,” insomnia might just be out of my hands. Making peace with the discomfort of insomnia has been the first step forward. No matter how many bad nights in a row, I still am hopeful that maybe tonight will be an okay one. If not, then I know it will still be okay – but just in a different way.

ARTWORK: Beth O’Sullivan

notification: screen time up 400% this week BY SOPHIE QUOYLE As unassuming as it sounds, Lorde’s ‘Solar Power’ prompted me to take another look at my relationship with social media. “Can you reach me? No, you can’t.” struck a chord with me for some reason. Maybe it was something about how liberated Lorde’s response sounded. Or maybe it was just the countless times I’d heard the phrase on TikTok before it clicked. Generally, I consider myself to be overwhelmingly self-aware of my actions, but why doesn’t this extend to how I consume social media? I know none of this is revolutionary. It seems most students have some bone to pick with Instagram or Facebook, or even Flora. Maybe it’s how the Facebook notifications change the longer you go without being active. Maybe it’s the way TikTok algorithms adapt to give

you more of that desired frog content. Maybe it’s the satisfaction of being included in someone’s ‘Close Friends’ Instagram story. Maybe it’s the need to show your Spotify friends just how cool your music taste is. Oh, what’s my favourite band? The Red Hot Chili Peppers, you probably haven’t heard of them. Despite this we still talk about wanting to live off-the-grid as goat farmers in Nepal or changing our names and fleeing to a foreign countryside (thank you, Mamma Mia). We have an implicit desire to cut off contact with everyone we know largely because we feel too connected. No wonder then that mental health concerns are so rife within us Gen-Zers. A lot of what we do online seems to be becoming more politicised.

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14. The choice of liking someone’s status update or simply ignoring it suggests something about our character. It suggests something about how sociable, supportive, or attentive we are in a way that watching TV or listening to music does not. We can never be passive in using social media and we can never escape it. There’s an unwritten understanding that we are always available online. We are forever being monitored by our peers beyond the working day. The monitoring and judgement (whether benign, malign, or indifferent) exists in something as simple as someone tagging you in a bit-too-personal meme about your drunk habits or latest shopping addiction. As a college student, everything on social media is amplified. From the never-ending “Who didn’t flush the toilet?” messages in floor group chats to the niche college Facebook pages that clog up my Feed, there is always something being waved in your face. These are things that I, for the most part, do not need to read and don’t receive any benefit from reading. However, you never know when that small gold nugget of instant gratification comes along – whether for you it’s a new job opportunity at Moose, DJ Sue performing in Kambri, or sign-ups for the next instalment of ACT Landcare for Singles. But that’s just what they are: nuggets. There’s no pot of gold when you’ve scrolled through all your followed accounts’ stories or liked pages’ feeds. Just the empty feeling that you’ve just wasted hours of your day. There’s no personal gain from seeing wannabe influencers from high school tagging Mr Winston in every post when you could be studying at the library or bulking at the gym. Yet you do it again anyway after a five-minute studying stint. Sometimes you’ll even go through your Tumblr and Pinterest accounts, created during and not updated since the days of year eight visual arts to avoid cycling through Facebook and Instagram. Similarly, sure, reading The Sydney Morning Herald may be my preferred way of consuming the news. That doesn’t mean I’m immune to reading the virtue signalling Instagram infographics. I find that sometimes they are actually insightful, other times less so (notably the constant sharing of infographics from the recent Israel-Palestine conflict to one’s story).

They’re digestible and to be deployed liberally in a woke university environment where everyone’s opinions are taken as gospel. That, I think, is another problem with social media. We think we need to have an opinion on every current issue even after reading a summary of or completing an introductory course on a complex, ongoing issue. No, I don’t want to hear finance major Harry talk about feminism in the neoliberal age. Social media allows people’s voices to be heard when, in reality, their opinion is frankly unhelpful. Sometimes it’s more productive to just sit back, relax, and enjoy an episode or two of Puberty Blues. The week after moving into college after semester or term break always puts things into perspective. Following last term’s break, my screen time went up about 400% (what was I doing on my phone?). Suddenly, everything becomes urgent. “Do you want to grab lunch in 20 minutes?” “Can I come grab your [insert standard stationery item]. My essay’s due in 10!” Or even those Facebook posts that (innocently) say “tag your friend and if they don’t reply in 10 minutes, they owe you [insert food item/dollar amount.” Even when I desperately need to finish something, I can’t make myself put my phone away or even turn on Do Not Disturb. It’s a monster beyond FOMO. In writing this, I don’t intend to stop using social media altogether. There are definitely many positives associated with staying connected to an extent. I think I am mainly hoping to remind myself to be more critical and thoughtful about my social media usage and begin to understand where the gratification originates and replace it with rewarding alternatives. I encourage you to do the same.

ARTWORK: Navita Wijeratne

ick city ANONYMOUS Relationship ‘icks’. We all have them and we all hate them. There is nothing more disappointing than suddenly being repulsed by the person you’re seeing. A simple mannerism, the way they dance or their favourite catchphrase. All these things that we fail to overlook because of that deep gut feeling we get. The thoughts you can’t get out of your head, telling you that this one thing is the reason this person cannot be your soulmate. In a Cosmopolitan article, relationship counsellor and psychologist at Relate, Gurpreet Singh, described ‘The Ick’ as being “different to just doubting whether you want to be with somebody”. It’s this involuntary, unconscious, cringe-inducing reaction which is causing our generation to struggle with developing meaningful romantic relationships. But the thing about getting ‘The Ick’ is that you can’t shake it off. It acts as a constant reminder in whatever relationship you’re in. You begin to question whether you really like this person, or you think you like them. It happens all the time. You could be raving about the most perfect person you went out with to your friends and the next day the way they eat their food is reason enough to not see them anymore. It sounds insane, but for some people it’s a real dealbreaker. And that’s the problem with getting ‘The Ick’. It’s never anything fundamentally disconcerting. It’s just that feeling of discomfort you can’t articulate. It’s like your whole body suddenly rejects the person that you held in your arms days before. You can’t help but wince every time they say or do something that makes you cringe. It sounds harsh, and it is a little, but what else are you supposed to do when this feeling is so persistent that you can’t turn a blind eye. Storytime: Once upon a time, not very long ago, I was seeing this guy. I never really thought it would turn into something serious but apparently he had different ideas. Anyway, he loved hand holding and pecks in public. Honestly there is nothing I despise more than PDA. Every time he’d reach

for my hand my mind would start racing. ‘What if people see me? Are they judging us right now?’ Every fibre of my being was wishing to disintegrate. I simply wanted to disappear. But how do you politely ask a kind and charming boy to just leave you alone? This wasn’t even the first time I’ve felt this sensation. The first date I ever went on; this boy gave me flowers. In a public place. Right before we went bowling. So cute and romantic *cue the awwwws*. No. I was utterly discomfited, and I felt guilty for being so. But I can’t help the fact that these things that should make me blush and give me butterflies literally make me want to throw up. So why do we feel this way? Is there any logical explanation? Psychologists believe it to be our way of sabotaging things that seem ‘good on paper’ (bodyandsoul.com). Getting ‘The Ick’ from someone you really like can be heart-breaking. (It wasn’t in my case, but some people are more emotionally equipped than I am, so each to their own). You wish you could switch off your mind and stop the feeling, because you believe that you really like this person. Especially if you are prone to getting ‘The Ick’ within the first few dates; how will you ever be with someone if you’re always nit-picking over tiny details? It can take a huge toll on your mental health as you begin to question your own personality. Is your superiority complex getting the best of you or are you just protecting your fragile heart? Those of us with a pedantic personality may be so predisposed to the uneasiness that comes along with getting ‘The Ick’, that you no longer feel bothered by it. You may become so accustomed to the feeling of discomfort that you acknowledge your distaste in your significant other with a sigh of acceptance. Or maybe you feel overwhelmed with regret? These are all valid reactions in visitors of Ick City. The place where you decide what you want to do with your emotions; admit you’ve got a bad case of ‘The Ick’ and leave, or stay and contemplate your ability (or lack thereof) to settle into the discomfort.

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ARTWORK: Jessica Mcleod-Yu

ARTWORK: Natasha Tareen

haircuts and existential angst ROSE DIXON-CAMPBELL

Before we get into the meat of this article I do not want to bore you too much in this introduction with the specifics of what is really a very mundane story, so I’ll be brief. I went to the hairdressers for a trim and highlights and when I arrived at the salon the stylist asked me an explosive question: “What will we be doing with your hair today?” Like I said, I went in simply for a trim and some highlights. However, when she asked me this it struck me that I could request just about anything from this woman and she would carry it out on my hair.

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18. The myriad of possibilities fluttered about in my mind’s eye and a trim and highlights was the most boring and arbitrary option by far. I could go neon green, or fully bald, or I could add extensions going down to my ankles. I could radically change my appearance immediately. I would likely not be unrecognisable after one trip to the hairdressers, but if I wanted to, I could continue with these transformations until I was. As I sat in that pleather chair staring myself down in the mirror, a head floating above a black smock, I was violently confronted by the level of free will I actually possess over my appearance. There are any number of businesses I could waltz into that could reconfigure my physical presentation. As an adult with a disposable income there is virtually no region of my body which is not modifiable. Should I so desire I could render myself unrecognisable to my own mother and die with a nearly entirely different body to the one I was born with. I imagine myself as a corpse with a split tongue, implants all over, covered head to toe in tattoos and piercings, some limbs choicely amputated, dyed eyeballs, and big bling surgically installed globally. If in my lifetime I had decided black lungs were fashionable, I would smoke 20 cigarette packs a day to get that chargrilled look. Indeed, maybe at some point I was troubled by the amount of ribs I had and elected to snap off a couple or more. Whatever your aesthetic preference is, it’s probably achievable in 2021. Never in human history have we had as much agency over our appearance as we enjoy now. That’s not to say body modification is an entirely novel concept. Ink and scar tattoos, piercings, hair styling and skin bleaching and tanning have been things that various sects of humanity have known for much longer than we present day humans have known nose jobs and ab implants. Body modification has historically been a cultural rather than an aesthetic practice. Since at least 8700BC humans in Africa and the Americas have stretched out their lower lip and inserted a plate in a process aptly titled ‘lip plating’ – the lip plating trend is generally the bigger the hole, the bigger the plate, the more ornate the plate, the better! In a similar fashion foot binding was en vogue for Chinese women dating back to the Song dynasty in the 10th century. Additionally, the earliest evidence of

scarification (deliberate wounding of the dermis and epidermis to create scars) dates back to 8000 BC and it’s a practice which was only recently ceased in certain cultures, and continues to this day in others. Clearly ancient humans have always taken creative liberties in defining their appearances but throughout their lifetimes they would still fundamentally look the same. Modern humanity is not so constrained. Not only can we do every ancient practice of body modification listed above simultaneously, we can do so much more with an ease, efficiency and safety not enjoyed by our ancestors. What I learned when contemplating how I should direct my hairdresser is that I am my own maker. Like a god, I create myself. The body I was born with may bear no resemblance whatsoever to the body I will die with, such is my personal freedom. Whatever my will may be, I can carry it out on my physical form. My potential to present however I want to is limited only by my imagination and boldness. These are privileged statements of course and it would be remiss of me to ignore how some do struggle to curate themselves as they wish to be. As an able-bodied, conventional looking cisgender woman I face nearly no practical barriers in creating the physical form I wish to inhabit. The same cannot be said for someone seeking more profound treatments. However, modern science is increasingly revising these treatments and surgeries to be more effective and more accessible. In time we will all be sculptors with the tools and prowess to carve and mould our physical embodiments. For now, I got the trim and highlights.

ARTWORK: Navita Wijeratne

discovery

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Natasha Tareen

who gets to come to anu? SAI CAMPBELL & ANNA-KATE BRAITHWAITE

ANU proudly presents itself as Australia’s ‘National’ University and the recent unveiling of the ANU 2025 plan declares that its student body will aim to “reflect the full diversity of modern day Australia”. The data, however, presents a different picture. Coming to ANU is contingent on being admitted and, perhaps more significantly, having the financial means to support your study. The National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education reports that presently, around 4% of domestic students come from the lowest socioeconomic quartile, compared to the average of around 10% in the Group of Eight (G8) and 16% nationally. This figure has barely budged for over a decade and consistently puts ANU squarely at the bottom. ANU’s 2020 Access and Participation Plan states that “talent, realised or potential, will be the only threshold for joining our community as a student” yet our talented low-SES students simply aren’t getting here - so who actually gets to come to ANU?

Educational inequalities are evident in

Australia starting from preschooling through to university. Social class and geographical location should have no correlation with innate intelligence, yet in Australia these factors are major determinants of an individuals’ likelihood of attaining a tertiary qualification. Whether it is through accessing ‘better’ schooling, extensive tutoring or having the support to stay in the secondary education system to finish Year 12, socioeconomic status is a major determinant of students’ success. The chance of achieving a higher ATAR falls swiftly with one’s socioeconomic position. In 2019, just 1.3 percent of the lowest SES quartile achieved an ATAR over 90, whilst the top SES quartile saw 9.4 percent of students achieve an ATAR over 90. Examining what we define as ‘talent’ may also reveal subtle obstacles for low-SES students in accessing tertiary education. An interesting question that arises is whether ‘community service’ requirements might quietly complicate applications for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. The obvious reasons are that schools in low-SES areas have fewer resources and support available to assist students in extracurricular pursuits.

21. Australia has the largest gap in the shortage of teachers between disadvantaged and advantaged schools amongst all OECD countries. Furthermore, disadvantaged schools have fewer resources such as books and lab equipment and report less student engagement, poorer professional development for teaching staff and more. These material and social disadvantages, compounded with the effect of socioeconomic status on academic achievement, could seriously hamper these students’ ability to make competitive applications to university according to current admission standards. The current system is, however, generous and activities such as paid employment or caregiver responsibilities do meet the current requirements. Overall, students from low-SES backgrounds who make it to university fare similar retention rates to their more advantaged peers. There is no question, thus, that these students are equally - if not more capable and ‘talented’ than students from any other socioeconomic group. The issue is removing the cultural and economic barriers to their participation in the tertiary education system. The most obvious obstacle is financial. Whilst the aforementioned material and social disadvantages might not materially impede admission to ANU - especially considering the availability of bonus ATAR points to account for the effects of these circumstances - the more realistic barrier is funding your education. This is more relevant for students from outside of Canberra who make up a sizable portion of the ANU’s student body. The ANU offers around 169 undergraduate student scholarships of which 57 consider financial hardship or socioeconomic status. Many of these scholarships, however, appear to be less than adequate for the typical college resident. As an example, the Australian National Scholarship, at $8000 per annum, falls painfully short of the average cost of $20,000 per annum for a catered college. Living at college also provides access to pastoral care and friend networks which are critical for many students moving interstate for the first time and, often, alone. When we examine purely ‘merit’-based scholarships, we find two categories: those that are quantitatively assessed and those that are qualitatively assessed. One of the most generous ‘quantitative’ scholarships, the National University Scholarship, which is awarded to students who

achieve an ATAR above 99.90 barely covers more than 50% of a typical catered college’s annual rent. Ignoring the aforementioned disparities in academic attainment amongst socioeconomic groups, even falling in the top 0.01% of students in your state appears to hardly qualify you for substantial financial support. Furthermore, bonus points frequently do not count towards eligibility for the most generous of these quantitative scholarships, limiting the range of financial aid available for particular students. Talent, of course, is not just measured by your ATAR. Qualitative scholarships thus, in theory, aim to identify deserving young people who possess characteristics that are deemed ‘meritorious’. This is a difficult area to discuss as it has been argued previously that ‘talent’ is often, coincidentally we suppose, a function of one’s socioeconomic status. This could be through access to an abundance of extracurriculars, special research programs, academic tutoring, scholarship coaching and more - all of which is facilitated by financial advantage. Interview questions such as ‘What have your parents contributed to Australia?’ could potentially be seen as preferencing a certain type of young Australian that isn’t compatible with the reality of many individuals from minority backgrounds. We therefore see that the material and cultural disadvantages as touched on before can, and do, tangibly impact the likelihood of these students obtaining competitive scholarships. ANU, as Australia’s ‘National’ University, must be more proactive if it is to build a student body that truly “reflects the full diversity of a modern day Australia”. Acknowledging the barriers that low-SES students might face in admissions and scholarships is key to building pathways to allow for equal access, regardless of socioeconomic status. This could entail reconsidering how we define ‘talent’ to incorporate criteria that does not indirectly favour students from a particular financial background. Furthermore, there may be a need to establish more scholarships that target and effectively support low-SES students over the course of their degree programs and for which equity is the primary qualifying factor. We should aspire to a student body that represents the full breadth and diversity of wider Australian society - a university that serves all must be open to all.

22.

ARTWORK: Eliza Williams

in the name of science PATRICK GLEESON

Science says jump. Science says sit. Science says turn right. Now left. Got you! I didn’t say Science says. Science is easy to spot in the media – usually flaunted right in the title. It’s much harder, however, to identify its significance. Even in good faith, the communication of scientific views is often ambiguous or misleading, and our willingness to accept them without concern for context offers broadcasters a disconcerting influence over the choices we make. I do not wish to dramatise the issue – there are certainly more pressing problems to solve. Nonetheless, our misperceptions and biases towards science are worth addressing, especially when their impact can be easily reduced. What is science? The word ‘science’ serves two roles. Often it is a label for a diverse group of disciplines. When I say I study science, there’s a reasonable chance that I undertake lab-work, dabble in mathematics, and spend time analysing data. Stereotyped or not, the label has a remarkably positive reputation in pop culture and the public eye. This sweeping reputation blurs the word’s more subtle function for differentiating reputable information. Science is invoked daily as a stamp of credibility: trust me, it’s science. Indeed, standards for reliability are baked into the dictionary definition

of the term. Such standards, however, are not built into our perceptions, and we often rely heavily on science’s public image while forgetting that we might not be hearing the whole story. The power of science If a friend of mine claims to have travelled from the future, I will laugh and let her know that I’ve just returned from Mars. However, there are several ways she can gain my trust; next week’s winning lottery ticket would be a good start. At the heart of science lies society’s most rigorous and robust criteria for when to consider information reliable and upholding them in the search for new information is its core business. This method – the scientific method – is science’s most important development. We begin with an experiment. Claims must be supported by evidence, which must be obtained by repeatable means. Resulting theories must make falsifiable predictions, and have these predictions observed. Over time, this leads to accurate information. Eventually the preservation of reliability must extend beyond the experimental bubble because results must be communicated – we can’t run every test for ourselves. Scientific claims necessarily become separated from their data and methodology because it is neither feasible nor immediately helpful to include them for the public. As a result, the criteria for trust shift from raw evidence to reputable credentials and the further we travel from the source, the more reliant we become on media credibility.

23. Unfortunately, differences in scientific reliability are naturally obscured in mass publication, because better results don’t necessarily sound more reliable at face value; consider the effect of clickbait on article popularity. Moreover, success after success has charged the word science with a concerning authority of its own. We frequently hear ‘studies show; nine out of ten scientists agree’; or even just ‘science’ says. These phrases aren’t malicious, but a moment of rational thought makes clear that without further context, they also provide little credibility. Which studies? Which scientists? Most importantly, who disagrees? Since we can’t ask every journalist to conduct a comprehensive review of scientific literature, we should be aware that such claims are vulnerable to cherry picking – the use of one-sided evidence, whether unintentional or deliberate. This is problematic due to the subconscious belief that ‘what you see is all there is’. I emphasise that misperception requires neither flawed research nor failure of the press; the significance of scientific claims is always context dependent. On the other hand, self-reflection suggests that we are inclined to ascribe weight to such claims even without contextual details.

stop mentally inserting ‘Dr.’ in front of ‘Science’, and start actively looking for reliability instead.

In the advertising realm, it is well known that a lab coat confers authority even to an actor on TV. One of my favourite oxymoronic phrases is ‘scientifically proven’, because science cannot prove – only support or contradict – illustrating the tendency to inflate the certainty of results. Finally, nine out of ten scientists will recommend This Brand of Toothpaste if you pick the right ten scientists.

As always, check the original source, and see if there is more than one. Finally, remember that ‘Dr. Science’ is just a figment of your imagination.

Dr. Science Our biases can be neatly summarised as the presence of a certain fictitious character running around in our heads: ‘Dr. Science’. Incidentally, a satirical ’80s radio programme by a similar name made fun of a related impression. Our subconscious assumptions about science are: 1. Science is automatically credible – after all, it’s got a PhD. 2. Science is unanimous – it’s just ‘Dr. Science’, not ‘Dr. Science and friends’. Like news, not all science is equal, and the media naturally makes it difficult to differentiate. The ‘credibility by default’ needs to be contested. We certainly shouldn’t just reject science but we need to

Our final issue, of scientific consensus, deserves a section to itself. There is a misperception of unanimity within the scientific community – that ‘the’ scientific view exists. This is the insidious problem with claims such as ‘science says chocolate’ is good for you – it hides the fact that science also says chocolate is bad. Science moves forward on average, but not necessarily in a straight line. Each new result presents the latest, not the greatest, of findings. In such a large body, even a little diversity can lead to different versions of the truth. The voice of a single scientist is good, but not enough, and we must seek the most widely supported results. Strategies Here are some simple suggestions. First, consider the scale of claims: ‘900 out of 1000 scientists’ is more reliable than ‘9 out of 10’. Try looking elsewhere for reports on the same topic, and search in neutral terms – think ‘health effects of chocolate’ rather than ‘why chocolate is good for you.’

Conclusion Scientists don’t want their claims to be accepted without question; they want readers to think critically, avoid inflating discoveries, and make scientific effort worthwhile by helping credible results rise to the top. This commentary is not new, and I am not unbiased. I am a single individual, I study science, and I certainly haven’t done enough research into scientific misperceptions. Nevertheless, I hope this makes you more aware of potential pitfalls next time ‘science says’.

24.

ARTWORK: Maddy Brown

Who is science really for? INTERVIEWED BY SAI CAMPBELL

An interview with Azure Hermes from the National Centre for Indigenous Genomics. Woroni sat down with Ms. Azure Hermes from the National Centre for Indigenous Genomics (NCIG) to examine the way science has historically exploited and overlooked vulnerable groups such as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Science as a field must become cognizant of the uncomfortable reality that its benefits are not distributed equally. There have been many historical harms that have been dealt against Indigenous communities both here in Australia and abroad. Sai will be discussing with Azure the role of the NCIG in ensuring that the Indigenous voice is heard in genomics research here in Australia. Sai: Thank you for taking the time to sit down with me today. In this issue we are examining the idea of discomfort and it is pretty uncomfortable to realise that science often exploits and overlooks so many groups, particularly when we look at the treatment of Indigenous Australians. Azure: Thank you - Aboriginal people will say that they feel like the most researched group of

people in the world because they feel like there’s constantly people coming in and wanting to do some form of research. And yet when you look at genomics, we’re the most underrepresented population in the world! S: Would you like to tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do? A: My name is Azure Hermes. I’m a Gimuy Walubara Yidinj woman from Cairns, Queensland. My family are the traditional owners of Cairns. I have two jobs here at NCIG - I’m the Deputy Director, but I’m also the Community Engagement Coordinator. S: Can you tell us more about NCIG and how it came to be? A: NCIG has a historical collection of blood samples. We have over 7,000 from 35 different communities across Australia. The collection that we have is actually part of a worldwide study of about 200,000 samples. In the 1990s, the university put a

25. complete moratorium over the samples because they were not collected via informed consent. A consultative committee of predominant indigenous Australians was then put together which created a list of eight recommendations surrounding this collection’s use. The three main ones were: (1) Create a national centre to look after the samples, which is NCIG. (2) Have an Indigenous majority governance board to be the caretakers of those samples. (3) Actively seek out all 7,000 people not even just to talk about consent, but to talk about what’s next – for example, is it okay for us to keep these samples? If it’s not okay, what should happen to them? Can they be disposed of here in Canberra or do we need to take them back to country for repatriation? My job is to find 7,000 people across Australia and to have that conversation about what to do with these samples. NCIG’s primary goal is to create a repository to use these samples for medical research. Australia has a large focus on closing the gap [between Indigenous and non-Indigenous health outcomes] and in order to do that we need to consider genomics. Another aim is to ensure that community can start dictating the type of research that’s important to them rather than researchers telling them what’s necessary. S: Could you elaborate a little bit more on what informed consent really means or how that might play out in the field? A: We don’t just go into [the] community and do a two week stint and give people their $20 food card or fuel voucher or whatever it is, and then disappear with the samples. So, it could take anywhere up to twelve months before we even take one consent. It’s a lot of going in and having a chat, letting people know all the benefits of genomic data and DNA, but also talking to people about the negative things that could come from this. As an example, Indigenous people take the line of our father so if I get a sample and suddenly I find out that my father’s not my father, my whole identity changes. That’s a big deal for indigenous people. There’s also the media and politicians who could use DNA as a way of determining who’s Aboriginal and who’s not, or what percentage makes one Aboriginal and what doesn’t. S: What have been some of the consequences of not gaining informed consent in the past?

A: Back in the nineties there was the Human Genome Diversity project, or the “vampire project”, and the idea was that they were going to be sampling from all over the world. They just forgot to tell Aboriginal people that. They popped into communities thinking that they could just start taking samples and there was [a] huge uproar. The project eventually was scrapped and they didn’t receive any samples from Australia. It really set back Indigenous genomics by 10 years. What’s also interesting about Indigenous communities these days is that they aren’t saying that they don’t want to be a part of research. They understand that being a part of these sorts of studies is beneficial. But what they’re basically saying is that we don’t want you coming in and we don’t want you just taking our sample, our stories[, or] our intellectual property and then disappearing. They go write their papers and then suddenly they’re becoming the subject matter expert about our genome and our story. S: Why would people give consent in these projects? A: There’s a whole stack of reasons they would say no. But people will say yes for two reasons: the first is that people really see their sample as their legacy. This is something that they’re able to leave future generations in the hopes that they’ll have a bit of understanding about diseases and medications. And then the other is that people are just sick and tired of going to funerals of loved ones and friends that are dying from preventable illnesses and diseases. S: Thank you so much for telling us about your work! A: Thank you. We don’t have any very many Indigenous people that are working [in] this genomic space but we’ve got a lot of great allies. What we’d really like to see now is for Indigenous students who are studying science here at ANU that might already be in their second and third year to reach out to NCIG to see if this is a potential area that they’re interested in and how we might support students to take the lead and to start moving into the space. The more Indigenous people we’ve got in this area, the less scary it is for our mob back in [the] community.

26.

ARTWORK: Xuming Du

The uncomfortable reality of a post-COVID world SAI CAMPBELL

The roll-out of vaccines in Australia appears to signal the end of the COVID-19 pandemic as millions flock to get their jab of AstraZeneca or Pfizer. There is, however, a more sordid global reality as the ugly face of vaccine inequity has begun to re-emerge. Vaccine inequity describes the unequal global distribution of vaccines as wealthier countries enjoy ample access, while poorer nations flounder.

27. Presently, the immunisation effort has been carried out with great success in several wealthy nations. Whilst efforts spearheaded by the World Health Organization (WHO), such as COVAX, do aim to reduce vaccine inequity, WHO has been required to issue a moratorium on the purchase and distribution of booster shots which are additional shots of a vaccine intended to address waning immunity. This mandate has been largely ignored by many wealthier countries who have already begun to initiate booster programs. This decision, as urgently communicated by WHO, means that much needed vaccine supplies are redirected from many poorer nations with largely unvaccinated populations to countries that may already even have more than half of their population vaccinated. This is problematic for two reasons. The first is the glaringly obvious injustice of withholding life saving vaccines for some of the world’s most vulnerable peoples. For example, as of 8th August 2021, only 0.68 percent of Nigeria’s population is fully vaccinated against COVID-19 while 61.31% of Canada’s population enjoys complete immunity. Broadly, around 1% of the world’s poorest nations are vaccinated in stark contrast to the global average of 25 percent. Secondly, while many of the wealthiest nations have argued they have a prerogative to protect their own citizens, this course of action ultimately lengthens the timeline of the pandemic and harms their populations by allowing large groups of unvaccinated people to persist. This creates reservoirs for the virus that will lead to dangerous mutations. This, in effect, could potentially negate national immunization efforts by wealthier countries as we have already seen with the emergence of the Delta variant, amongst others. The need for booster shots has not yet been supported by solid scientific evidence. Many nations are still frantically rushing to procure their supply of boosters to allay fears of a resurgence of cases with the appearance of novel variants such as the Delta variant in India and Gamma variant in Brazil. We might expect to see more variants materialize as large proportions of the population remain unvaccinated and lax containment measures are in place.

There is therefore an urgent need to bring in vaccine supplies to low-income countries. As of August 2021, high- and middle-income countries have received around 80 percent of the world’s vaccine supply so far, even though they represent less than half of the world’s population. The WHO has called for wealthier nations to withhold rolling out booster programs until at least September 2021 in hopes of ensuring at least 10 percent of the world’s population is vaccinated by that point. Time and time again global crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic have disproportionately inflicted immense harm on the world’s poor whose only fault seems to be being born in the wrong country. Even if we are to see the end of this virus at some point in the future, the vaccine inequity disaster has demonstrated that the least privileged will continue to bear the brunt of international issues. Furthermore, the climate crisis has continued to quietly brew in the background of global news coverage. Once again, poorer nations stand to see much of their progress in lifting people out of poverty reversed as the climate crisis, compounded by COVID-19, has stripped them of critical human and material capital. There is no room for selfishness in addressing problems of international scale as this virus has well-demonstrated. We must ensure that we are motivated not only by compassion, but simple common sense as we fight our way through this pandemic. We can only expect to see more viruses and other crises emerge in the future and a genuine concern and awareness of the world’s most vulnerable must underpin our actions.

28.

ARTWORK: Navita Wijeratne

peanuts and trigger warnings ANGUS PADLEY

CW: PTSD, SASH, Trauma Although this article argues for a different approach, it is Woroni Policy to include content warnings. However, I (the author) do not want such warnings to discourage anyone from reading ahead. As this article will advise, if readers find that they are experiencing severe emotional reactions from the discussion of these topics, then they should seek professional therapeutic advice. Until the mid-1990s, peanut allergies were rare amongst children, with only about every four in one thousand children being susceptible. However, by mid-2008, this number had almost quadrupled to fourteen in every one thousand kids. As Johnathan Haidt recalls in his book The Coddling of the American Mind, the response of his son’s preschool, and most schools worldwide, was to ban peanut products. Just to be extra safe, some schools banned products with any traces of peanuts or tree nuts at all. The result? The rate of peanut allergies increased further still. As it would turn out, if a child’s immune system is never exposed to peanuts their bodies will be unable to cope with exposure

to even the smallest traces of peanut particles. Researchers would later find that early exposure to peanut products dramatically reduced the chances of a child developing the allergy. Now, organisations such as Allergy and Anaphylaxis Australia do not promote peanut bans at schools. What Haidt describes here is an example of an ‘antifragile’ system. An antifragile system is any system that strengthens from exposure to manageable shocks; first described by Nissan Taleb in his book The Black Swan. Our immune systems, our muscles, our bones, and, as Haidt explains in Coddling, our minds are also antifragile. In an antifragile system, overprotection leads to a positive feedback loop in which the ‘cure’ becomes the primary cause of the disease. If an antifragile system is never taken out of its comfort zone, it begins to weaken to the point where it can barely handle even the mildest of uncomfortable experiences. Particularly at universities, the assumption that humans are fragile (instead of antifragile) appears to be growing in popularity. A common manifestation of this is the modern university’s implementation of ‘trigger warnings’ and ‘safe spaces.

29. These measures are designed to protect traumatised students from stimuli that may cause them anxiety or other negative emotions. However, such measures go completely against the advice of the vast majority of the psychological literature. Richard McNally, a Harvard Psychology Academic, argued in a New York Times article in 2016 that “trigger warnings are counter-therapeutic because they encourage avoidance of reminders of trauma, and avoidance maintains PTSD”. Instead, he advises that students who experience severe emotional reactions from course material to “prioritise their mental health and obtain evidence-based, cognitive-behavioural therapies… these therapies involve gradual, systematic exposure to traumatic memories until their capacity to trigger distress diminishes.” Exposing oneself to manageable anxious situations is considered so important to recovery, that some therapists advise their patients to avoid anti-anxiety medication during treatment for trauma (as Haidt outlines in Coddling). The assumption of human fragility is also harming our ability to think critically about certain uncomfortable topics. Jeannie Suk Gerson of Harvard Law School stated in a 2014 New Yorker article that students are becoming increasingly anxious about classroom discussion and are often encouraged by the university administration and other students not to participate if it makes them feel uncomfortable. Gerson wrote “asking students to challenge each other in discussions of rape law has become so difficult that teachers are starting to give up on the subject… if the topics of sexual assault were to leave the law-school classroom, it would be a tremendous loss—above all to victims of sexual assault.” In Australia, Dr Short and Dr Lane wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald in 2016 that the same-sex-marriage plebiscite should not take place because the public debate of gay rights would harm the mental health of members of the LGBTQI community. In 2016, on the Canadian News program The Agenda, trans rights activists refused to defend their own views on national television because they deemed that debating the rights of trans people to be harmful. However, not only would refusing to engage in such discussions to protect the emotions of listeners make them emotionally worse-off in the long run (given antifragility), but it also fails to realise that the majority of issues worth discussing

will necessarily make someone feel uncomfortable. For example, it could equally be argued that the same-sex-marriage plebiscite made fundamentalist Christians uncomfortable given that their identity and worldview had been brought into question. However, exposing these individuals to potential flaws in their beliefs may have ultimately changed their understanding for the better. Without public debate, their arguments could not be publicly debunked. After all, not engaging in discussion isn’t going to change the minds of people who already disagree with you. This also applies to personal matters. Discussing with your partner that you wish to end the relationship is going to make everyone involved uncomfortable, however, such a discussion is necessary to achieve a happier future. The process of updating our understanding of the world is generally uncomfortable. After all, the realisation that we were wrong destroys (at least part of) the vision of the world we had previously established and requires us to relearn things we once thought were true. Such proposed restrictions on public discourse also come at a massive cost to society. Human beings are naturally biased creatures. We ourselves cannot fully confirm the soundness of our arguments without bringing in third parties to find the flaws and inconsistencies that we may have overlooked. If we refuse to engage in debate or refuse to allow others to criticise certain ideas, we risk holding flawed beliefs which may end up harming ourselves and others. No single person, or group of people, can determine which ideas we should dogmatically believe because it is exactly our own biases that may be preventing us from realising why such ideas might be wrong. Ultimately, freedom of speech is not just a right; it is the very mechanism that allows society to avoid tyranny and to pursue the truth. If we wish to grow—if we wish to develop ourselves into smarter, more competent, and more confident human beings— we must explore the experiences which lie beyond our comfort zones. Uncomfortable situations are not objects to avoid, but challenges to overcome so that we can emerge better people on the other side. Such exploration is ultimately what makes life worthwhile and meaningful.

30.

ARTWORK: Yige Xu

the olympics the world wanted and tokyo didn’t ZAK KNIGHT

A jack of all trades and master of none, Zak’s column ‘Two Cents and Counting’ will take a look at current affairs and student life, hoping to give you some conversation topics a little left of centre. Tokyo 2020/21 demonstrated that the Olympics truly is the show that must go on. Despite the pandemic and dwindling support from the Japanese people, we have seen the 32nd instalment of the sporting event meant to unify the world. Of course, with the games shrouded in this much controversy, could Tokyo ever live up to this lofty aim? Or even one of its core principles, upholding athlete safety? Continuing in spite of devastating events is not a new phenomenon for the Olympics.

The only iterations of the games to have been cancelled were in 1916, 1940 and 1944. This was all due to the world wars, and multiple games have gone ahead in the face of trying circumstances. The 1968 Mexico City games were held after government forces opened fire on student protests, killing many. The 1972 Munich games still went ahead after two Israeli athletes were taken hostage, and, at Antwerp 1920, the competition was staged even with the threat of the Spanish Flu. So then, will Tokyo be remembered as the games that shouldn’t have gone ahead, or just like many Olympics before it, will the feats of Olympians overshadow what was going on outside the arena?

31. In terms of the competition itself, there were questions over how the five-year cycle between Olympics would affect the athletes’ training preparations. There were additional questions over the impact a lack of crowds would have on athlete performance. These questions were answered emphatically and the impact would be minimal. A touch over 11, 000 athletes competed across 33 different sports, including the four new additions of sport climbing, skateboarding, surfing and karate, and records tumbled. The track was exceptionally quick, we witnessed an Italian male, Lamont Marcell Jacobs, win the one hundred metres for the first time. Elaine Thompson-Herah confirmed herself as the successor to Bolt’s Jamaican sprinting throne. The elusive 46-second barrier was finally breached in the 400m, by Karsten Warholm, and there were a myriad of other memorable performances. Australia was electric in the pool, especially Emma McKeon, whose efforts landed her as our most decorated Olympian and the Boomers finally won a medal. Yet only time will tell whether these and all the other incredible achievements justify the sacrifices of the host city. Behind the superhuman athleticism, there was vocal dissent from health experts and the Japanese population at large. Many saw the games as simply the International Olympic Committee (IOC) putting a payday above the wellbeing of Japan and the competing athletes. To put in perspective just how turbulent Japan’s recent circumstances have been, it is helpful to reflect on the last time Tokyo was the host city in 1964. Back then the games received mass support. It was painted as an opportunity for Japan to return to the international stage following the events of World War II and to demonstrate that they were a modern and peaceful power. The games also acted as a catalyst for Tokyo’s transformation into the modern, concrete metropolis we know today. Thousands of new buildings, subway routes and bullet trains were constructed for the arrival of the world. It was also the first time an Olympics was broadcasted in colour, albeit only in Japan for the opening and closing ceremonies. The title of the first Olympics to be broadcast live and in colour around the globe in its entirety would be reserved for 1968 in Mexico City. Nonetheless, the ‘64 games were seen as the start of an era where a young population could propel Japan and themselves to prosperity and prominence.

Fast forward to the current day and Japan has achieved many of the goals it aspired to last time the Olympics graced its shores. It is now a respected political force on the world stage, albeit one that is currently in a period of stagnation. Those over the age of 65 now make up 28 percent of the population, compared to just six percent in 1964. A shrinking economy has rendered one in seven Japanese children living below the poverty line, and the effects of the 2011 Fukushima disaster still linger. Shinzo Abe’s (Japanese Prime Minister at the time) Olympic bid was initially sold as being representative of a nation overcoming these issues. However, as the games drew closer and global anticipation spiked, Tokyoites and Japan at large increasingly began to withdraw their support. The nuclear clean-up of the Fukushima reactors is not being dealt with appropriately and there is a good case to say that government spending should have been directed towards those in need, rather than towards an international showpiece. To add salt to the wound, the games were also held against the backdrop of a six-month coronavirus case high in Tokyo. Although the decision on whether the games should be cancelled was in the hands of the IOC and not the Japanese government, it raised a further issue in and of itself. Add to this the nigh on nil benefits from tourism, as well as a 29.1 billion Australian dollar economic loss and you have the perfect storm for justified discontent. From a global perspective then, it might be argued that the Olympics came as a welcome distraction. It reminded us of what can be achieved in the face of difficult circumstances. From an athlete perspective, many performed just as they’d hoped, whilst those disappointed have only to wait three more years before they can do it all again in Paris. But personally, I can’t help but wonder how the social and public health effects from these games, both direct and indirect, will be viewed when we reflect in years to come. However, I guess, as always, hindsight is 2020.

32.

ARTWORK: Navita Wijeratne

creative

Touch me My rib cage in furs Filled with beating instruments And tiny trinkets That hold breath and vigour So soft and jagged All at once pleading And pushing away

SISANA LAZARUS

foreign objects

ARTWORK: Maddy Brown

Hear the blood rush Journeying from my brain The slow burn Dancing with each pulse Revelling at every pause and return Into every pocket Of this grand vessel That is me

33.

34.

ARTWORK: Maddy Watson

august SISANA LAZARUS A little pain is ordinary I knew that before I met you It was sharp And thin But I’d had worse injections You are the key To being richer and fuller The first night we spent together My back ached And I had chills Then I was the warmest I had ever been And the sweat from my body was salty Like I was swimming in tears But with you I get to live You broke my early burial Pulled me from the casket and held me tight You sent the mourners away And killed the Reaper You told me I should thank you And thank you I shall Now you live within me Deep in my blood You thump at my heart And make my teeth chatter You unmarked my grave Soon The power that you give me Will feel as ordinary As the day we met

ARTWORK: Eliza Williams

red. AUDREY DAVIS

Red riding hood asks me To run into the dark woods to see Beautiful things. She offers me her hand I take it, hesitating, for a reason I don’t understand We trudge up the dark, bramble choked path Life in this part of the forest seems scarce She catches me when I fall She looks in my eyes and tells me that she can see around my heart surrounds a wall Something feels wrong, I anticipate an attack I really wish I could turn back But enchanted by the lilt of her laugh I keep walking down the brambling path She warns me of the wolves And of wild creatures with horns and hooves She tells me that I should fear And that I should keep her near I look into her eyes As she tells me all along I am who she despised I am confused so I take her hand Shaking, trembling where I stand I’m too far into the woods to escape I couldn’t tell under her red cape I shouldn’t have grabbed the hand, I should have run Red riding hood was the wolf all along

35.

ARTWORK: Jessica McLeod-Yu

I don’t want to dance. Knowing his eyes will meet my own feasting on me with such an insatiable hunger. How does he know that my body will fill his pit?

LUCY SORENSEN

Next will come the soft patter of his sneakers, conveniently stopping next to mine. Followed by his arms, snaking around to fumble against my shoulders, hair, waist, thighs.

stay still

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Our lips will touch gently at first. His hand will softly brush against my cheek. Slowly, softly, gently, mild. Grazing, down, down, down. I hate when he touches me. When he asks if he can take off my top, my bra, my pants… Is this okay? He asks as if I could say no. Instead I stay still, because I don’t really feel like dancing.

ARTWORK: ARTWORK:Natasha NatashaTareen Tareen

the word KIERAN KNOX

The air is warm. It borders on hot. Your breath does not fog, rather, it pushes the air. Fat, corpulent, droplets seem to visibly move before sluggishly sliding into a thick plane before you. Your steed’s flanks glisten, wet-heat as it heaves. It carried you from across the horizon. This place is not what you expected. Empty grassland. Flat, pressed down by other’s steeds as they trample across this world. Flat is a paltry descriptor. It is not flat in the same way a plate, a book, a screen is flat. Those are flat by design. Flat by choice. Their shape did not scream out as it was pressed, subjected to pressures titanic or cruel. These grasslands echo with the memory of resistance. A spirit of rebellion which did not succeed.

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38. There. A fire flickers in the distance. Vague smudges cluster about it, obscuring the fire’s edge. The flames leap into the sky, and are lost. The clouds, they are gone. In their place, a single pillar of smoke rolls. To your eyes, it looks like the underside of a woollen blanket. You cannot smell it, so tightly have you placed your helm upon your head. Second-mouths breathe the air in, choking so you may breathe freely. Still, it is stifling. Your eyes, though, are unobstructed. The smoke is red and orange, yellow and black. It does not look like a wood fire, a forest fire, a jungle fire. It resembles burnt skin, stretching, tearing, cooling to burnt black. You walk. A plodding step, after a plodding step. The ground below your boots is wet, somehow. The surface crackles, ice upon a lake breaking beneath a rock, paper curled into a ball, drought wrought lips opening to taste a drop of water. Below the crackle, your step sinks. Rancid milk, heavy with clumps surrounding your feet. Decaying meat, a refuge for roaches and maggots. Every heavy step precedes a lingering lift, as the ground refuses to let you go. A mouth stuck to a teat, fighting to return. Churned mud, aching to remember, to keep, a footprint. Still, you have time. In the distance, the fire grows. It resolves, a simple campfire. Figures crouch around it. They bear its wrath. As you crouch beside them, as they shuffle minutely to let you in, you sweat. The fire is insatiable. They throw dry sticks into its waiting mouth. The wood barely lasts a minute, releasing a sigh as it dissolves into nothing. They are also heavily cloaked. Helms, masks, hoods fashioned tightly around features. Their secondmouths noisily churn through the acrid air. Their bodies are bulky, hiding equipment to survive this dying place. They are hot. You feel it. Everyone here is melting, sweat sticking to the back of necks, clogging points where fabric bends around skin. It’s in everyone’s eyes, pouring down to tickle the tips of noses. It bathes your chests, your backs, it collects in the recesses of your groins and thighs. No one moves, though. Comfort is not the goal here. A man crouches at the head of the fire. There is no head technically, but everyone who has gathered here keeps their distance from him. He has no helm, and his bald pate is wet, his ears a bright red as his body struggles to throw away this warmth.

A scarf covers his mouth, and nose. At its edges, faint gold and black lines can be seen. They seem to wave slightly, trying, in vain, to reach his eyes. Those are blue. They are the only cold thing this world has to offer. Some others have left their steeds closer than you. They noisily cool themselves, silversweat collecting on their hooves, their wings, their hands. They only add to the claustrophobia, here, a sensation brought about by temperature rather than architecture. The man grunts. He will start speaking. He pulls his scarf down, revealing a thing. He has no jaw nor throat; it was ripped away. The sides of the wound still glistened wetly. They are ragged and loose. The wound reminds you of paint, congealing into long and bumpy strips. Beneath his remaining upper teeth, nestling in the hollow of his oesophagus, the thing sits. It is Golden City in origin. It is a wet, organic-like vocal box of gold chased through by lines of black marble. It is a golden slug, vines growing off from it to wind their way across the man. It is a parasite, suckling at the man’s blood. It is a sign of God, a creature of His which roams the Golden City. It is alien technology, hidden beyond a trans-dimensional gate which we should never have broken. It is a demon, and it feasts on sin. “I went to the Golden City,” the man says. His voice is perfect, beautiful even. Deep as ancient trees, clear as spring-water. You detest it. Every word he says causes the thing to quiver. You cannot tell if it is in ecstasy, pain, disgust, or arousal. Yet you are fascinated, as it translates this dead man’s gurgles to speech. “I saw the towers, the laneways, the homes, the palaces,” he continued, turning to look at you all, the thing swaying fatly with his head. “I walked into the Worship, saw the corpse of Gabriel atop His throne. It was empty.” Everyone nods, you as well. All who gather here have seen the Golden City, walked its pristine halls, traced the contours of its architecture. Everyone here has seen the corpse of Gabriel, last of the Seraphim, atop the empty throne of God. Empty. Abandoned. Derelict.

39. “Like you, I asked a single question.” The man breathes in deeply. That awful remnant of divinity sinks into his wound, before ballooning out like a frog’s sac. “Why?” You nod. Why indeed. It is now the most dangerous word in existence. Who would want to know why God left, abdicated His throne? The answer could never satisfy the pain. Beside you, one of the others shudders. It takes you a moment, but you recognize the rise and fall of their shoulders as sobbing. “Why?” he repeats. “Beneath Gabriel, we found a shape.” Now there is hunger. You hear faint clicks, whirring, the movement of gears and steel. Some of the others are recording this, penning it within the void of their helmets or masks. You listen, an ancient method with no record but memory. “Even now, I struggle to remember or describe it.” The man lifts his head to the sky, and you can see him, imagine him. He struggles beneath the weight of a great wing attached to a lidless eye of burning light. He pushes pinions, and feathers from his path to look upon the throne of a departed father. It is perfect in its construction, except for a single blemish too small to have been meant for the Servants. It was meant for you. “I will tell you what it looked like,” he says, returning to stare at the people who had travelled so far to this burning world. He speaks and you listen. It was a glass perched on a branch a length of glue spread between two fingers Dust fallen from hair a chair bent backwards in pain the throat, gulping, drowning, in thirst it was curved at its beginnings, like serpents aching to meet straight in its middle, a spear at its ends, it bled, ink fallen upon thick paper machines, pumping endlessly A word “It was a word,” he says reverently. You nod, you understand. “I will speak it now, and you will carry it with you, wherever you wish.” He spoke.

Lightning ate Thunder swallowed by a sea the roar of a wave the pop of eardrums a child cries out rattling of cans bristles on a brush skins rubbing skin buzz of faulty wiring holes in a dress The man lies on the hot ground. His mouth is a blackened mess, the parasite, the thing reduced to charcoal. His remaining teeth are ash, his lip is seared. “Jesus. He looks like he ate a grenade.” You do not look at who spoke. No one does. You leave. The others do as well. You climb atop your steed, watch as its skull closes around, and its engines fire blue-heat upon the ashen world. You climb into the sky, and race beyond the confines of this worthless world. You remember the Word he spoke. What a word. Even he barely understood it. Its meaning, its depth, its complexity, its use. You will. As space, the stars, the burning world, fade away, you close your eyes and remember what he said. It was impossible, no human tongue could pronounce. No vocal cords could create it. You will have it. You will dispel this… discomfort. You will answer that dreadful question of why. Why did you leave us? Why do you hate us? Why don’t you want us? Where have you gone? Why won’t you come back? Why?

40.

ARTWORK: Navita Wijeratne

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ARTWORK: Xuming Du

it’s all in your head MATTHEW DONLAN

I’ve lived with anxiety all my life, and occasionally it’ll come up in conversation. Often, after I mention I have anxiety, people who have no experience of it ask what it’s like. Well, that’s very hard to articulate. How do you explain a pervasive feeling to someone with a completely different experience to you? Before I attempt to answer this, let me first address something. Please, for the love of all that is holy, never tell someone with anxiety (or any mental health related matter) that it is ‘all in their head.’ This is the single most infuriating thing you can say. It’s like telling someone with a broken hand, ‘don’t worry about it, it’s all in your arm.’ I know! That’s the issue! It’s not the location of the problem I need diagnosing, it’s the problem itself I need resolved.

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42. So let me try to explain what is going on ‘in my head.’ It’s hard to know where to begin because my anxiety has always been there, and it has always been changing. A quick comparison I go to is the experience of getting stage fright: palms sweating like Niagara Falls and Cirque Du Soleil rehearsing in your guts. At least for me, these bodily reactions are just a small part of the experience. When they happen, it’s opposite to the normal circumstances. I am most calm right before a presentation, job interview or exam. I am most nervous when I’m grocery shopping or about to meet with friends. I once saw someone say that anxiety was like having conspiracy theories about yourself that only you believe. This begins to go deeper to my experience. For me, the questions running through my head while in public often sound like a cheesy voiceover from a teen rom-com. Are people looking at me? Why are people looking at me? Is there something wrong with my face, my hair, my clothes? Am I in the right place? Why am I here? My eyes dart from person to person as I work out how to make my time in public as short as possible. What is the fastest route I can take around Aldi? When are the quietest times? These thoughts though aren’t often as overt as I’ve made them here. It’s more like the feelings attached to the worst-case scenarios of the answers that permeate my mind. It’s the feeling that something is wrong that you don’t know about. It’s the feeling that everyone has seen something you are blind to. It’s the feeling that you aren’t in on the joke, and the joke is about you. You’re detached, isolated, different from everyone else. You squirm in your spot, hoping the attention shifts to someone else. Being in public is not just being ‘out of your comfort zone,’ it’s standing in the middle of No Man’s Land. But instead of bullets and bombs, it’s glances and thoughts. Then there are the night-time thoughts. These come to me right before going to sleep. They jolt me awake in a panic, prolonging my fall into my dreams. For example, an all so joyful train of thought I once had posed the question: what would happen if you got a call right now telling you your parents were dead? So begins the hypothetical exercise. How would I get home? Who would I tell? What would happen to my assignments? Can I just leave my work? How much will this cost? How

will I react when I get home? What will happen to our dog? How do I tell my parents’ family? On it goes until my brain tires itself from these mental gymnastics, eventually succumbing to the safety of sleep. Of course, throughout that I became more panicked. I try to distract myself, to tell myself that things are okay now. Then a new question appears; what if all my friends don’t actually like me but instead talk to me out of sympathy? It begins again. And then there’s the existentialism. The hyper self-awareness that isn’t based on honesty but on layer upon layer of self-projection. Questioning my values, my place in this world, the meaning I derive from everything I do. Asking if what you’re doing is the right thing for your future. Why aren’t you trying harder? Always digging to find who I truly am beneath the masks I wear in public and the masks I wear for myself. This quickly turns to cynicism and apathy before my mind clicks back to ‘normal mode’. Each of these parts of my anxiety begin to point towards my experience. But unlike those reading this without anxiety, it doesn’t just end at the next paragraph. For me, it will always exist. The thoughts coming to the front of my brain before I can stop them. Suddenly grieving for a lost family member who is still alive in the real world. Avoiding social settings because of the number of people, but then sitting alone knowing you’re missing out. Living with anxiety isn’t fun. It’s prodding and probing. It provokes your insecurities. It makes sure you’re never fully comfortable where you are. But that’s not to say that life isn’t fun, it’s just that anxiety gets in the way. And all this… this is just the surface of my experience, but I know it is not an experience unique to me. I’ve seen online more and more people willing to talk about their experiences with anxiety. Granted, it’s occasionally in a selfdeprecating way but there’s also more genuine story-sharing. I take a strange sort of comfort in knowing that I’m not the only one. I’d never want to inflict this experience on others, but to know there are other people experiencing this is comforting. Perhaps it’s one of the only comforts in what is otherwise a very uncomfortable experience.

ARTWORK: Jessica McLeod-Yu

the reality of digital disconnection JESSICA LIU

I think I’m lonely.

I said this realisation out loud one afternoon on video call with a friend in Sydney. It was a very strange thing to come to terms with and as such, was something I’d only just realised I’d been pushing back against for quite some time now. This statement of mine was spectacularly constructed given that I was—ironically—in the presence of company when I said it. I was entirely midconversation with a close friend I’d known for six or seven years. This does, however, shed some light on the nature of loneliness, that one doesn’t actually have to be alone in order to feel lonely. This fact had eluded me for so long and was one of the reasons I’d rejected attaching such a sentiment to

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44. myself. I had all these wonderful people in my life, so how could I possibly have been feeling lonely? I suppose like most horror stories of the 2020s, it begins with the pandemic and the jolting shift into isolation. The second ironic element of my revelation on call with my Sydney friend was that, yes, I was talking to them, but I was also so far away from them too. I guess one of the beauties of technology is that I could feel so close to a friend without having to be close in proximity at all, which is a luxury we’ve not always had in the past. Shifting my life online amidst the pandemic lockdown, I was almost excited. Little old introverted me was relieved at the reduced amount of interaction and was very pleased at being able to watch all my lectures from bed each day. But the bemusing thing about technology is that it cultivates a false sense of being connected. Our computers and phones can bring anybody we could ever want to us at the drop of a hat. It becomes impossible then, to let loneliness materialise for even a second before we push it aside. But this was certainly too good to be true. Texting hides the faces of my friends, pre-recorded lecturers don’t know if I interrupt them to watch Netflix reruns. Not to mention that any live call always falls victim to slow internet or technical delays. You dropped out for a moment there— What did you say?— She crawled under the—and ran for— —it was absolutely hilarious. Wait who was he again?— —oh, don’t worry about it. I think the loneliness that has been bred out of isolation and the digital age is a peculiar one. It’s incredibly sly and misleading but above all, immensely uncomfortable, more so than I think any other type of loneliness is. Its discomfort comes from the jarring sensation of watching the world put on its brave face and tell everyone that things are as they should be, and still feeling as if they’re not. The university is still running as it should. You can still keep in touch with others as you should, so what could possibly be wrong, right? Another distinguishable aspect of technology is that it is rife with distraction. So confused about what I was feeling, I turned

frequently to the wonders of social media’s instant gratification as a form of escapism. Sitting in the discomfort of my disconnectedness was too difficult, too challenging. I think a part of me had become worried that I was to blame for my loneliness, that if everything else was functioning as normal, my unsettling, disjointed feelings must be because of me. I wanted to confront that idea even less than the actual feelings themselves, and so I buried myself headfirst into the digital space instead. I’m lucky that I discussed all of this with my friend when I did. Together we came to realise that it was entirely possible to feel lonely and separated from other people even if one is not literally alone. Loneliness comes from a lack of connection. It was no wonder I’d begun to feel this way after I’d realised that most of my interaction with anyone for the past year had been held through a screen without any real substance behind it. It’s also a deeply emotional experience, and it’s that emotional kick that differentiates loneliness from simply being alone. In the end though, I’m glad that I sat with my discomfort long enough that afternoon to decipher what was going on. It’s still difficult to find human connection in real tangible ways but it’s easier now to realise that my loneliness was a completely normal reaction to the alienating experience of living for so long through a digital medium. I’m lucky that now I can go for coffee with many of my friends again, that Hancock Library can feel me writing deep within its walls and that I can exist outside of my screen once more. There are only so many chances that we get to truly connect with the people around us, to listen to them and to have them listen back. By admitting to our discomforts, to our loneliness, we begin to tell other people I feel the same way as you do. And if that’s the case, well then, we can never truly be alone, can we?

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the discomfort of instagram: harmless or harmful? HANNAH AHERN Oh, the joy of the Instagram scroll. I’m as guilty as anyone when it comes to scrolling the app whenever I get a chance. I do it as a studybreak, I do it whenever I’m waiting for something (my morning coffee, my dog while he runs around at the park, the light rail before it arrives at the station) and I do it whenever I’m bored. Whenever someone, usually my boyfriend, catches me doing it and asks why I have been on it for the past 10 minutes, I usually respond with something that feels undeniably true at the time: “I just love it!”. But how much do we really love it? The posting, the scrolling, the clicking, the all-encompassing glow of our own eerie hypnotisation… Suddenly, I’m not sure of the answer. So many of us dedicate hours of our lives to it. But do we really love it? Or is there something else, something slightly more uncomfortable, going on? Knee-deep in one of my favourite lunchtime scrolls, I asked myself this question. At first, I justify the scrolling. As a fashion-lover, I get to follow stylists and gain inspiration for my own wardrobe. As a locked-down Sydney-sider, I get to see what my friends are up to in far away places and instantly feel more connected. As a ritual poster, I get to collect memories of all my favourite moments, forming a visual diary from the past eight years of my life I wouldn’t have the pleasure of looking back through otherwise. But then I see the flip-slide and slowly the ick starts to settle in. Over the years I’ve had it, I’ve seen and also experienced the emotions Instagram thrives off: comparison, jealousy and most of all, FOMO (the well-known ‘fear of missing out’). I often notice myself comparing my life to my feed, shamelessly full of influencers, stylists

and other fabulously famous people. I do it with an underlying awareness of the dangerous practise I’m engaging in, yet I can’t stop. I’m completely hooked. My eyes glaze over the edited, perfectly curated photos and I envy them all the same. I love this! I want more! I tell myself, as I flick to the next post. I’m in a wonderland of aesthetic lies and I don’t even mind. The posts are like candybars for my brain. Deliciously addictive, I have no intent on stopping until the whole damn chocolate box is gone. Yet I’d be lying if I said this ritual, like all bad habits, was one that didn’t come without consequences. I have noticed there has been a definitive shift within me in the years I’ve spent on the app, and not a good one at that. I have begun questioning myself more, I’ve gained insecurities I never used to have (thank you outdated yet everpresent beauty standards) and I found myself desperately coveting other people’s lives. I had become so enthralled in others’ reality that I had completely forgotten the value of my own. And all the while, I’d been engaging in an activity I thought was a harmless and joyful pastime. I thought that those little hits of dopamine were priceless. But I was beginning to realise this wasn’t the case. I can’t lie and say this realisation has made me stop using Instagram completely. Perhaps one day it will. But for now, when I sit-down for my lunchtime scroll, I am simply conscious. I see the images for what they are: more art than reality. I’ve begun to build a protective layer around myself when I indulge in the electronic haze that I know too well. My old mindless scroll has become mindful, even if it is a little uncomfortable.

46. ARTWORK: Jessica McLeod-Yu

Shout

ARTWORK: Rose Dixon-Cambpell 47.

Out To My Ex

shout out to my ex COLLATED BY ROSE DIXON-CAMPBELL

CW: Stalking, SASH, PTSD “Stop trying to be friendly! Accept the distance! We were best friends for a long time after we broke up but I hate who you’ve become and I need you out of my life.” “Are you fucking serious? You told me you were gay. I hung out with you and dedicated my time to you and then you had the fucking nerve to go and get with my boyfriend. I even told you he was a shitbag but no… you just needed to. You fucking bitch.”

“It didn’t make me feel very sexy or wanted when you said that you would fuck any girl who came up to you and asked for it. You would be surprised to know that that did not make me feel special.” “We were only together for 2 months but somehow you managed to give me 3 UTIs. Please for the sake of women everywhere wash your hands.”

“Hey mate. You suck. You were unbelievably racist towards me. You stayed friends with my ex when you knew he had abused me. Thanks for making me sleep in the same room as him, that totally didn’t trigger my PTSD or anything. You knew I was so sick I was dying and you made me feel like garbage the whole time. I had to cut off my best friend because she chose you over me. You lied to me about being a drug dealer and a drug addict and I had to find all that out from another friend. Your dick is tiny and you’re terrible in bed. After 3 years you never once complimented me on the way I looked, which seems shallow, but I genuinely didn’t believe you were attracted to me. This isn’t even the full laundry list of shitty things you did. Seeing you around campus makes me feel sick and growing out your hair is definitely not a look that suits you. I know you won’t read this but I hope your new girlfriend dumps your ass before she wastes years of her life like I did.” “You’re not logical, you just repress your emotions. Go to therapy.”

48. “I can’t believe you are a psychologist yet somehow had no idea that breaking up over text message after I had just finished the final exam of my degree was going to hurt me. Then you decided to string me along as friends before slyly unfriending me on Facebook and saying nothing. Honestly you need to get therapy before you are allowed to give it out to anyone else. Also screw you for breaking my heart.” “No one likes confrontation, some people just choose to deal with their shit.” “Hey man, fuck you! Like, straight up. You literally made me feel so unsafe I thought you’d put cameras in my bedroom and were constantly monitoring me given the amount of times you would ‘run into me’ and know exactly what was on my schedule. Hey, remember that one time you chased me up the stairs? How did you even find me? Why did you keep coming when it was clear I was not interested in having a conversation with you? Me saying I thought you ‘seemed lovely’ to a mutual friend based on first impressions really made you so hard you had to disregard any sort of concerns I might have for you basically harassing me? Also, how the fuck does that indicate I would be interested in more than a friendship with you? I had literally never had a substantive conversation with you. The way you act[ed] in front of other people made it so difficult for them to see how truly fucked up you are. You’re the reason I left Canberra, but I guess you wouldn’t realise how violated you made me feel because of your fat narcissism. You are genuinely the rudest and weirdest person I have ever met. Sincerely, you know who.”

“I faked it every time.”

“Do you ever sit and think about how shit it must be for me to have to see you every day? To share my friends with you, to eat in the same kitchen, and study in the same room. You knew I had to keep living with you after what you did and you did it anyway. You knew I would have to eventually forgive you too. Maybe that was your grand plan all along: fuck me over and trap me in my own home, or has none of this even crossed your mind? I don’t know what’s worse, being manipulated or being forgotten by you.” “You publicly dropped me but what you didn’t know was I had already secretly realised you were toxic whilst chatting to my cat in my bathtub

MONTHS ago.” “To my ex-best friend who emotionally abused me for 4 months at the end of Year 12, fuck you for never telling me what you were so mad about, for trying to isolate my friends from me, for spreading gossip behind my back and for acting the victim and attempting to force me to apologize. Fuck you for making yourself the victim after I came out to you about my newly diagnosed depression and anxiety disorders. Fuck you for expecting me to grovel at your feet while you put zero effort into the friendship. Fuck you for not giving me closure and bringing up the issue a year later, still victimising yourself into hell. Fuck you for abusing me while acting the victim and weaponizing your large friendship circle against me. Fuck you for telling everyone but me about the issue and then for it ending up being as minor as it was. Fuck you for ruining me for so long that I question all my friendships daily. I’m healing right now but I would still punch you in the face.”

“You smell like milk.”

“The funny thing is I thought my ex and I really loved each other. But I only understand love truly now. I hope I never lose her. I was thinking about how many drunken nights we’ve had where she told me things and I told her things, and I felt infinitely safe. I feel so safe with her and I’ve never felt this safe. I genuinely trust her. And every time I tell her she can trust me, I mean it. I never meant it with him. It’s so nice to have this.

Six months later… And then I lost her.

What a plot twist. I felt so much security and then plummeted so far down. I really loved you and our friendship. And it hurts me now looking back on it and realising you were toxic. That you were the exact kind of person I was trying to avoid. I put my trust in the wrong place. I thought you were the cure, but you were the disease. You spread through me so insidiously. I can’t believe I thought you were nourishing and good for me. But you were tearing me apart. The casual lies, the snark comments, and your inflated sense of superiority are all memories that make me feel sick now. I’m glad I ended things. It’s easier without you in my life. Your mental health and emotions controlled me. You’re not a nice person. This ordeal taught me what symptoms of toxicity to look out for.”

ARTWORK: Eliza Williams

the song of achilles: a hero’s legacy of ego and redemption SABRINA TSE “When he died, all things swift and beautiful and bright would be buried with him.”

even Plato will defend that the two were lovers by choice and nothing less.

The legacy of epics are more than just the songs of heroes; they represent their deaths, sacrifices and tragedy. With the denotation of classicism also comes a golden standard of timeless, unspoken beauty. Madeline Miller crafts exactly that in her 2011 release of The Song of Achilles. This novel is more than well-deserving of its continuous praise and reception as a modern classic. Miller provides a mythological retelling of the Greek hero Achilles and his legend in the Trojan War. According to the Fates, Achilles is prophesied to become his generation’s greatest warrior. In a later prophecy, it is also foretold that he will die in Troy after the Trojan prince, Hector is killed. Whilst this is a tale of the epic, of kings and heroes and war, it is also a story of the human condition. Miller’s poetic novel is narrated by Patroclus, a figure historically depicted as Achilles’ lifelong companion and friend. However,

“What has Hector ever done to me?”

Even prior to reading this novel, the circulating admiration afforded to The Song of Achilles could not be overlooked. Miller writes in intimate and lyrical prose, setting up a radiant and flirtatious Grecian backdrop to Achilles’ home, Pthia. It is here that we follow a story of two young boys, curious and coy about each other. What makes this novel so elegant is the precious recollections of intimacies between Achilles and Patroclus; the talk of miraculous pink feet and petal-veined hands, of quick wit and mouths carved by Cupid’s bow. “We were like gods, at the dawning of the world, and our joy was so bright we could see nothing else but the other.”

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50. Miller’s conception of Achilles is dissimilar to the rage-fuelled warrior in Homer’s The Illiad. Patroclus presents his version of Achilles to us. We meet Achilles from his boyhood, shining with youthful innocence and honesty. He is a graceful and kind prince who eats figs, takes up lyre lessons and goes to train by himself, lest he hurt his peers. We see him as a young boy immune to the ego of man. A child who seizes his own identity as it comes to him. A boy of five, then twelve, thirteen and sixteen. We see his fearlessness, his dignity and quick wit. Through Patroclus, we witness their mutual yearning and growing love for each other. In their youth and uncertainty, it is a beautiful thing. But just as they are two best friends and two companions, they are also two men and two lovers. We are reminded of the boys’ lack of agency, both in society and in the hands of the Fates. Just as quickly and beautifully as Miller paints their childhood, their positions in the Trojan War manifest. As Achilles grows in age and strength, so too does his pride and power. The backdrop of war and violence are a weight determined by the Fates, and the temptation of eternal glory consumes Achilles. We are forced to watch his loyalty and laughter crumble into something hard and heedless; because in all the songs that muse of epic tales, it is ultimately the hero’s tragedy that becomes the hum of the chorus.

“Name one hero who was happy.”

Achilles’ conception of immutability, athletic godliness and self-sacrifice is pertinently reflected in the 2020 Olympics. The delayed international games where the world’s best athletes competed against each other was broadcasted onto our recommended list and ‘For You’ pages in the latter half of this year. The scorching summer sun of the northern hemisphere was not all too dissimilar to the beaches of Troy. Our consistent watching, cheering and critiquing of the figures on screen occupied a consistent two and a half weeks of our time. As international athletes, they had surely trained relentlessly to prove their individual worth to the world. For us, their identity is ensnared by the proud arms of their mother country. However, as we have seen with the Russian Olympic Committee, athletes stand on the dais to claim their title as individuals. There are harddrawn expectations to surpass the bar of success,

to prove their inhuman-human athleticism. Like Achilles, their prospective epic is watered down to a short performance of their talent. The tireless hours and early rises and missed birthdays go unspoken. Mental health is ushered aside for a glory built on the backbone of pain and ruthlessness. Only the image of perfection is acceptably etched into the gold of victory. “You crave the applause yet hate the attention, then miss it, your act is a ruse. It is empty, Achilles, so end it all now, it’s a pointless resistance for you.” Achilles was tortured by the image of himself above, in the eyes of the Gods, and on the horizon, on the tongues of future generations stretching beyond the sea. By ignoring his vulnerability as a man estranged by the identity of his ego, he proved that pride was his own Achilles’ heel. But unlike the destiny of the Greek Fates, our 2021 Olympians have proven that there are many aspects to self-sacrifice. We watched the Greatest of All Time gymnast, Simone Biles, withdraw from her team finals. International pressure for a flawless show were reminders of the many ways in which media has commodified art and talent. Biles proved that athletes, now akin to entertainers, do not owe us a spectacle. She was courageous enough to break our image of athletic immutability. By doing so, she has reminded us not to letto not let the weight of pride become our own generation’s Achilles’ heel. “How the most dangerous thing is to love, how you will heal, and you’ll rise above. Crowned by an overture bold and beyond, ah, it’s more courageous to overcome.” Patroclus asked Achilles to compromise. He begged and cried but ultimately, uncompromising pride won. Hence, as we look at the hero that we remember today as Achilles, it is not his legacy of musical aptitude or boyish compassion that first comes to mind. Instead, history has fossilised the rage and grief of a fallen soldier. Quotations derive from the novel The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller and the song Achilles Come Down by Gang of Youths.

ARTWORK: Navita Wijeratne

culture

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52.

ARTWORK: Yige Xu

not your china doll: on the hypersexualisation of asian women YIGE XU

CW: racism, sexism, hate crimes, sexual violence, rape, death, pornography Five months ago, a twenty-one-year-old white male gunman drove to a strip mall in the northern Atlanta suburbs and entered Young’s Asian Massage parlour, where he killed four people, two of them Asian women. After leaving he headed south, killing four more Asian women at a pair of spas situated across the street from each other. When he was apprehended he was on route to Florida, where he had planned to continue his shooting rampage. I’m sure we all remember the sheriff’s words in infamy. The murderer’s actions were the result of “a really bad day.” The disbelief as these senseless massacres were chalked up to a “sex addiction.” He wanted to “eliminate” his “temptations”. He was just “fed up”. Seeing this headline I felt a mess of rage, paranoia, hurt and grief. But exhaustion came out on top. To say the year that had passed had been an

uncertain one for all would be an understatement. But for the Asian diaspora, 2020 was also one of endurance. We armoured ourselves just to step outside, to face the inevitable stream of slurs hurled by strangers, politicians, and friends alike. Reported incidents of hate crimes against Asians surged parallel to COVID cases. I was plunged into reflection, wanting to understand my place in the world as a Chinese-Australian woman, to prescribe reason to a reality that felt unexplainable. Fast forward to a year later, March 16, 2021. That white supremacist, justified in his murder. His voiceless victims, dehumanised. The hypersexualisation of Asian women, especially East and South-East Asian (ESEA) women, lies within the nexus of intersecting racism, white supremacy, misogyny, and Orientalism. Our ‘othering’ can be traced to 18thcentury colonialism, where the term ‘yellow fever’ first originated.

53. Asian bodies were objectified as ornaments in appropriated 19th century art, observed on museum walls as framed objects of desire. The image of the geisha was popularised, cementing the enduring idea of the Asian woman as exotic and submissive. She is your ‘china doll’, dainty and beautiful. Lacking autonomy. She is servile – the perfect mail-orderbride-turned-housewife. Yet simultaneously she is the ‘dragon lady’, hyper-sexual, a temptress. The rhetoric of Asia as a place to dominate was reinforced with U.S. military occupation of Asia in the last century. To control the land, to subjugate the people. To participate in the sex industry, or to rape. To dehumanise, objectify, fetishize. This idea that Asian women’s bodies exist solely for white male pleasure continues to pervade our cultural consciousness. The women who work in service-based sectors – massage parlours, spas, nail salons – exist outside the ‘model minority’. These places are seedy, they immediately connote sex. The workers are migrants, and therefore easy, inexpensive, disposable. Media representations of Asian women have long served to simultaneously reflect, and uphold this ideal; that our sole function is to satisfy the white, male gaze. Kim, the Vietnamese protagonist in the musical-turned-movie Miss Saigon, is a bargirl and a prostitute who falls in love with an American GI. Recall the notorious line we’re all familiar with in Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket; “Me so horny. Me love you long time.” Lucy Liu plays the archetypal ‘Dragon Lady’ in Charlie’s Angels, Kill Bill, and Payback – sexually promiscuous and violent. And what happened to Cho Chang after The Half-Blood Prince? “You and Cho just… Sort of fell apart, yeah.” Contemporary media has hugely perpetuated our hypersexualisation. ‘Japanese’, ‘hentai’, ‘Korean’, and ‘Asian’ were four of the top six most searched for terms on Pornhub in 2019. Enduring tropes like the ‘schoolgirl’ exist alongside new terms like ‘koreaboo’, in the wake of the K-pop industry’s boom, to infantilise and sexualise ESEA women. On dating apps, constant subjection to demeaning fetishization is the norm. I am exhausted, as I have had to reflect. I have had to remember the old man stopping me in my school uniform at Coles, to insist on “just how

beautiful” I was. “No, but really, you’re gorgeous,” he said, touching my arm. I was 12. On a family trip to Thailand three years later, I was approached by another older white man. The conversation was much the same. “How old are you?” he asked. After emphasising the fact that I was only 15, he replied, winking, “What a shame. Maybe next year, then.” All these experiences made me highly uncomfortable in the moment, but I lacked the vocabulary to truly understand why. They seemed like compliments on the surface. If so, I should say ‘thank you’. I did. Now I recognise just how much weight these comments hold. This is the lived experience of Asian women. The physical, emotional, and psychological burdens that we bear as we try to navigate the relationship between our intersecting racial and gender identity, and our perception as the ‘object’. We suffer racial depersonalisation, as we realise our interchangeability; that we are not valued for who we are but for what we have come to represent. The line between a ‘type’ and fetishization is rice-paper thin. Do they like me for who I am, or have they already reduced me to a stereotype? Isn’t it ironic that we feel shame whenever a part of our bodies is appraised by a stranger? We don’t speak up about our own discomfort, as there is only so much space the public is willing to allow for Asian stories. But this can’t continue to happen. I am fed up with having to smile and say thank you to ‘compliments’ while the red burn of discomfort crawls up my throat. I am fed up with feeling powerless in my own body. I am fed up with being fed up. We must work to defetishize society’s views, or violence will continue to happen. Alternative narratives are needed to build solidarity within Asian groups, and with other racialised people. We need allies to recognise our stories. Pay attention. Call out your mates. Intervene if you see hate happening. Educate others. Make space for us. Letting things stay how they are can literally cost us our lives.

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ARTWORK: Natasha Tareen

never have i ever… felt uncomfortable with cultural misrepresentation BY ANONYMOUS

‘Too whitewashed for the brown kids and too brown for the white kids.’ My whole life, that one sentence has controlled me. It’s the first thought that comes to mind whenever I try to cement new relationships in new environments. If the social anxiety is really peaking, my inner monologue enlightens me with these: be funny so you fit in. Be kinder so they like you. Smile but don’t try too hard. Make selfdeprecating jokes about your culture if you have to. You can feel guilty later, make friends first.

55. It sounds bad, trust me, I know. But that’s what it feels like to be uncomfortable in your own skin. To hate the thickness of your hair or the way your under-eyes are darker than the rest. To hate the way you’d have to smell your clothes before leaving the house or pretending to like spices and the cricket just because “you’re brown”. At least that’s how I used to feel. After coming to terms with the attacks on Black, Indigenous, People of Colour (BIPOC) over the past year, as well as embracing lots of Rupi Kaur poetry, I’ve started to appreciate my identity a little more. The thing is though, you can’t really display your personality without people’s judgement being clouded by the stereotypes they consume through the media. The amalgamation of Asian culture doesn’t highlight the diversity or differences in Southeast Asian countries. You can’t make an Indian girl the star of a show and expect every other brown girl to act the same. While I am eternally grateful for the increase in cultural representation in the media, especially in TV shows, I can’t help but disapprove of the exaggerated accents and predictability. Or maybe it’s only predictable because I’ve had the same experiences. Either way, shows like Indian Matchmaking and Never Have I Ever prevent a wider audience from actually taking the time to understand the hardships of everyday people. We laugh at the ridiculousness of Indian Matchmaking, whilst being simultaneously horrified. We find comedic relief in Devi Vishwakumar’s (Never Have I Ever) life, forgetting that the pressure she feels from her family is very real. As much as I appreciate the efforts of icons such as Mindy Kaling and Lang Fisher (creators of Never Have I Ever), who no doubt should be praised for working towards breaking down Asian stereotypes in Hollywood, I still can’t help but hate the fact that I can relate to Devi so much. I understand how this little rant can be seen as more of a ‘me problem’ than anything else. I mean, how can my insecurity about a culture I should be proud of mean anything to anyone else? Should I just let it go and be grateful that my non-BIPOC friends find my life entertaining in an absurd way? The fact that they continue to be dumbfounded by the fact that I can live in another state for university but was never allowed to go on sleepovers. Or are still shocked that my parents

don’t speak to me in English at home and cackle when my accent accidently slips out. Maybe I don’t hate that I relate to Devi as much as I am jealous of the fact that she is the perfect Indian character who is easily forgiven when she makes a mistake. For those of you confused about who Devi is, she’s the star of Netflix’s Never Have I Ever. The show follows the life of her high school experience as an Indian American Tamil girl who has to deal with her grief (following her father’s passing), Indian identity and school life, whilst balancing her relationships with her overbearing mother, extended family and school friends. She is symbolic of every brown parent’s worst nightmare. To be clear, I speak from experience when saying that every brown parent’s worst nightmare is finding out that their daughter secretly kisses boys, drinks alcohol and goes out past 10pm. Devi is safe from murder in the first degree by being an A Grade student and playing classical music. However, not every brown kid can be a child prodigy and not every brown kid can have successful doctor parents. So even though I appreciate my white friends for enjoying a show that reveals so much about an Indian girl’s home life that I’ve tried so hard to keep hidden, I can’t be content knowing while Devi and I are similar in some respects, her life depicted on screen is very different from my everyday reality. One thing we can agree on however, is the grave sense of guilt you feel when your parents reveal their disappointment in you. That feeling of being torn between screaming THIS IS WHO I AM and crying behind your bedroom door overhearing hushed conversations about how your parents believe they failed in raising you. It’s the trying to accept your background whilst assimilating into the world you were brought up in which pulls you apart. How can I make my family proud and be a normal teenager? Obviously, this sense of family expectation and pressure is not mutually exclusive with being Asian, but it’s something you can never shake away, no matter how hard you try. Coming to terms with that is what makes accepting yourself in your purest form one of the most discomforting things to do.

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ARTWORK: Xuming Du

a connect-the-dots drawing on my face KAROLINA KOCIMSKA

Acne fucking sucks. Being 21 with acne is not where I imagined myself as a teenager. I tried to find comfort in the hope that I would grow out of it, that my hormones would settle, and that my skin would look like an adult’s. Well, I have been a proper adult for 3 years and my skin still sucks. Coming to uni in my first year was especially hard because wherever I looked most people seemed to have skin that was clear and settled. In high school acne was just a fact of life for everyone except a lucky few. I felt somewhat normal even when red cystic dots would pop up on my face every night. It was definitely a shock to the system, moving into a college and sitting in classes and seeing so much nice skin. My skin got really bad a few weeks into first year and I saw the GP about it. I shared my insecurity and distress and he reassuringly said, “everyone is just on medication, that’s all”. I started taking the pill, antibiotics, and using a topical cream. My skin stabilised and after one and a half years on the pill I thought I’d come off it and see what happens.

57. Everything was okay until I moved back to Canberra after a year of living back home. After two months the inconvenient red dots started popping up again. My skin care routine was impeccable. I was drinking water, sleeping, and eating my 2 and 5 every day. I tried several different creams and antibiotics. Nothing worked. No matter how hard I tried every morning I would wake up with a red ‘connect the dots’ drawn across my face. Knowing that I would have to leave the house and go sit in Marie Reay while looking like a 15-year-old really made it hard to get out of bed. While getting dressed in the morning I would look at myself in the mirror and just feel any sense of selfconfidence I had left seep out from my body, leaving me empty. I wanted to hide. Experiencing such a significant and prolonged acne breakout, especially after having relatively nice skin for over a year, has been incredibly difficult. The state of my skin was leaving me debilitated. I would skip the gym, reschedule coffees, and sit in the removed corners of Chifley Library in hopes of not being seen. Every time I looked at or spoke with someone I could feel my skin burning with the anxiety that all they were noticing was the acne. Why is my physical appearance bothering me so much? Why am I putting so much emphasis on looking like a proper full adult? I have just turned 21, and the word ‘woman’ is not something that comes to mind when I think of myself. I’ve had people call me a woman, but I haven’t felt well described by the term. ‘Girl’ also feels wrong. I am in this liminal mental space where I know I’m no longer a girl, but I don’t see myself as a convincing woman. Am I simply a young woman? What does that even mean? How can I be a woman when I have the face of a 15-year-old? The acne just exacerbates these unsettled thoughts about my identity. I feel like I won’t be taken seriously as a university student, at work, or just out in the world. It feels as if the acne delegitimizes me as a person, one that can’t even sort her skin out. Proper full adults don’t have acne, Meghan Markle doesn’t have acne, and neither do most people walking down Uni Ave.

Rationally, I know this is not the case and that acne is a very common skin condition that people of all ages experience. My friends repeat these words to me for comfort and I know what they are saying is true, but all I want when I wake up every morning is clear skin. I don’t want to have my mood ruined to the point of tears because of some red dots on my face. It brings me great discomfort knowing that something like my skin - which my friends remind me “doesn’t really matter” - can have such an effect on my self-confidence. I thought I was past insecurities and that I was comfortable enough in myself that my appearance was in a perpetual state of being a non-issue. Apparently not. Acne has made me question some ideas that I didn’t even realise I held. Why do I only feel worthy of love and affection when I ‘look good’? I almost told the person I’d been seeing to resume dating me in a few months when my skin had cleared up. I’ve been confronted with the knowledge that, without realising, I have put so much of my self-worth into my physical appearance. Which I remember specifically not wanting to do. I’ve had “don’t judge a book by it’s cover” repeated to me and by me since I was a kid but it turns out all I’ve been doing is continuously judging myself. If I deprived myself of experiences whenever I felt my appearance wasn’t up to scratch, I would very rarely leave the house. I know this. Rationally I can see this. But it takes several minutes of repeating this to myself before I can head out the front door. I guess I’m 21, an adult woman, with acne. Typing this out now is uncomfortable, but good news is that I haven’t skipped the gym or any social events recently. All I can really do is accept my skin and deny it the power to derail my life. After all, perfect skin is not a prerequisite for life.

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ARTWORK: Maddy Watson

happier than ever: billie’s truth. CHETHA NAWANA

19. 162. 7. 15. 88.

These numbers can summarise the complexity that is global music phenomenon Billie Eilish into five simple facts. She is 19 years old. She has been nominated for 162 awards. She won 7 Grammy Awards. Her music has been streamed over 15.5 billion times. And she has 88.3 million followers on Instagram. However, as we know from experience, with fame and wealth comes hardship that is unbearable for many celebrities; let alone a 19-year-old who, like everyone else, must deal with issues surrounding body image, high expectations and heartbreak. Described by Forbes magazine as having a “fuck you attitude”, Eilish doesn’t alter her personality to fit the image of a ‘perfect teen pop singer’. She speaks her truth and that’s what makes people uncomfortable. The fact that they cannot stop her from exposing society’s flaws, specifically in the entertainment industry. She does “what [she] wants, when [she’s] wanting to” and that’s what makes her worth watching. Eilish has discarded her black hair, neon green roots and baggy Gucci clothing for 1940s Hol-

lywood inspired blonde curls and custom corsets. Her Happier Than Ever era farewells the themes of night terrors, self-harm and unrequited love present in WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO? Instead, Happier Than Ever explores stardom and heartbreak. Eilish’s realisation that worldwide acclaim is not all that it seems has been a topic of rumination for many young stars before her. Take a 22-year-old Taylor Swift singing ‘The Lucky One’. With a bright and upbeat intro, she sings: “New to town with a made up name in the Angel City / Chasing fortune and fame / And the camera flashes, make it look like a dream.” As the song proceeds, listeners become aware that these so-called ‘lucky ones’ are trapped in a world fuelled by the opinions of others. The same message is reflected in ‘Getting Older’, the vulnerable introductory track of Eilish’s album. As Eilish’s whisper-like voice sings over a steady synth beat, her quiet tone is juxtaposed against haunting lyrics describing her new life in the spotlight.

59. 59. “Things I once enjoyed / Just keep me employed now”

“If I wear what is comfortable, I am not a woman / If I shed the layers, I’m a slut”

Happier Than Ever speaks to Eilish’s fearlessness. While others may sugar-coat the truth about exploitation in the music industry, Eilish tackles it head on. In ‘Your Power’, she describes the story of a young girl being manipulated by an older man. “She was sleepin’ in your clothes / But now she’s got to get to class”

“We make assumptions about people based on their size”

“Will you only feel bad when they find out?”

“I thought that I was special / You made me feel like it was my fault, you were the devil” It’s in lyrics as poignant as these that Eilish’s following, predominantly young women, relate to with heavy hearts. When commenting on ‘Your Power’, Eilish frustratingly notes that she doesn’t “know one woman who hasn’t been taken advantage of”. The fact that this sort of behaviour has become “way too normalised” deepens her irritation. However, these feelings of anger towards an industry which capitalises on the success of young people has allowed the world to reflect on the truth behind the lyrics of Eilish’s sophomore album. A fan favourite from Happier Than Ever is the spoken interlude, ‘Not My Responsibility’. First appearing in March 2020 as a short film interval during her Where Do We Go? World Tour, ‘Not My Responsibility’ now has over 34 million views on YouTube. The short film, made by and starring Eilish, is captivating. It’s supposed to seduce her audience, whilst simultaneously keeping them out. It’s Eilish’s way of reclaiming her body and flaunting “there is a body underneath these clothes and you don’t get to see it. Isn’t that a shame?” It’s personally distressing to know that it is the professional duty of adult men to follow a teenage girl around as she is on her way to her brother’s house in a tank top. The body shaming which followed prompted the release of ‘Not My Responsibility’. “Nothing I do goes unseen / So while I feel your stares, your disapproval or your sigh of relief / If I lived by them, I’d never be able to move”

“We decide what they’re worth”

Hence, Eilish’s Happier Than Ever era proudly challenges the objectification of women in the music industry. The controversy surrounding Eilish’s switch from baggy clothing to corsets is absurd. She hid her body because she didn’t want to be sexualised. She was 17 when her first album debuted. She proved to the world that you don’t need to wear a mini skirt if you don’t want to. She won seven Grammy Awards and was still criticised. The nit-picky criticism continues. Why? Is it because she autonomously decided that as a 19-year-old she did want to wear lingerie on the cover of British Vogue? So be it. Eilish should not be criticised for posing in haute couture catsuits. Instead, we should reflect on the perverted and patriarchal standards which defined her clothing as political and of public interest. So, a round of applause to the global sensation that is Billie Eilish. The sentiment that there is ‘no winning for women’ in the music industry is far from disappearing. However, Eilish’s album’s exposure of double standards is refreshing. A change in clothing cannot and should not take away from the fact that Eilish is an exceptional artist. We waste too much energy concerned about people’s perceptions of us. So, in the words of one of our generation’s greatest role models, “fuck it - if you feel like you look good, you look good” (Billie Eilish, 2020).

60.

ARTWORK: Maddy Watson

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62.

ARTWORK: Aleyn Silva

ARTWORK: Beth O’Sullivan

racial gaslighting ALEYN SILVA

CW: Racial violence and racism

One day I sat down on my computer and tried to research something I was feeling. Something a friend had said seemed a bit… Racist? But people were trying to convince me it wasn’t. Something felt gaslight-y? Could those two things even happen at the same time? As I researched, I had the strangest sense of déjà vu. Experiences, off-handed comments, and memories of denial of racism flashed before my eyes. Until that moment, I hadn’t realised there was a term describing what I and other BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour) had been experiencing for years. Racial gaslighting. After finding how deeply embedded it is into our society, I felt like it was important to highlight it.

Firstly, what is gaslighting?

The term gaslighting originates from the 1944 film, Gaslight. Gregory Anton, played by Charles Boyer, uses manipulative techniques to convince his wife, Paula, played by Ingrid Bergman, that she is losing her sanity. Heirlooms disappear and reappear, paintings go missing and are found in strange locations, and the gaslights flicker. Paula tells Gregory of these events, to which Gregory tells her that it is a symptom of her madness or that she is imagining the situation. Gaslighting is a strategy often utilised by narcissists and abusers to manipulate someone into thinking that their version of the truth is wrong or imagined. It is often used by the perpetrator in order to deflect accountability from their actions.

A definition provided by Psychology Today defines gaslighting as: “a tactic in which a person or entity, in order to gain more power, makes a victim question their reality.” What is racial gaslighting? What does it look like? Racial gaslighting is a form of covert racism and refers to the intersection between racism and emotional abuse. It involves a person who is from a privileged race using manipulation tactics against BIPOC. A 2019 article by Angelique M. Davis & Rose Ernst titled Racial gaslighting defines it as “the political, social, economic and cultural process that perpetuates and normalises a white supremacist reality through pathologising those who resist.” Metro UK refers to racial gaslighting as a “convenient tactic used to derail accusations of racism and shift the scrutiny onto the accuser– forcing them to question and re-assess their own response to the racism, rather than the racism itself.” And from my experiences, this is utterly true. By placing all the blame for racism onto the victim, the people who had perpetuated racism seemed to believe they were devoid of blame. Fellow BIPOC Tori Mojuetan explained to me that racial gaslighting operates so effectively on victims because it is often committed by somebody you trust. “It could be your best friend or someone you’ve known for years,” she said. Whilst it often stems from people being racist, Mojuetan described that “Some do it out of a sense of discomfort and not wanting to see the world as being ‘mean’. To avoid tackling the complexity of the issue, they lie to themselves.” Mojuetan outlined that the perpetuation of racial gaslighting also stems from people feeling uncomfortable taking accountability for doing something wrong. “When you think you can never do anything bad, you will defend that view – and essentially gaslight yourself.” But whether racial gaslighting stems from discomfort, an inability to admit one’s own mistakes or racism, Mojuetan stated: “It does not negate that BIPOC people should not be experiencing trauma and harm.”

63.

64. Forms of racial gaslighting include shifting the blame onto the victim instead of the racist incident or manipulating someone’s memory of events. It could be your friend forcing you to code switch whenever you’re around them. Racial gaslighting also includes telling someone they are mentally unwell for calling out racism or that they are imagining racism. In summary, racial gaslighting is a tactic to control how someone else perceives racism – thereby enforcing systemic structures of racism. An example may be telling BIPOC that their experience of racism was not racism, didn’t happen or is not offensive. Chido Nyakuengama, BIPOC officer for the Australian National University (ANU), explained that racial gaslighting manipulates BIPOC into thinking they are “comparatively fine and that therefore there is not a problem at all.” However, Nyakuengama has found “that’s not true. When BIPOC disclose racism to me, they often preface with things like: ‘this isn’t that bad’, ‘I don’t know if this counts’, ‘I’ve experienced worse than this’, ‘I shouldn’t waste your time with this.’” Nyakuengama outlines that what follows is “a blatant disclosure of racism that had deeply affected them and I try to convince them of the validity of their experience.” A BIPOC friend of mine, who will be referred to as Anonymous, told me about their lived experience of racism and racial gaslighting that occurred within an ANU residence. “My residential hall, like many others here at ANU, suffers from a lack of diversity of many kinds. I had begun to notice that all the people of colour would be seated together at mealtimes.” Writer Jacquelyn Ogorchukwu Iyamah @ ogorchukwuu explains: “When BIPOC share their experience with racism or confront someone about their racist behavio[u]r, the immediate reaction of the perpetrator is to question the victim’s experience, memory, or reality.” Likewise, when Anonymous raised that the segregation in the dining hall was potentially due to racism, the perpetrators reacted by questioning Anonymous’ lived experience and reality. Anonymous was told that “there were just ‘cultural differences’ and that it was the people of colour who were purposely congregating.” So, Anonymous decided to test this theory by choosing a seat at an empty table and seeing if the claims

they had been told were true – was this segregation due to BIPOC choosing to sit together? Anonymous found that “No one else sat next to me. They would see me and just walk past. I had never felt more unseen.” Anonymous and fellow BIPOC reflected on why fellow residents had been rude to them. They realised “it was because of the colour of our skin. That hurt to see. We noticed that once two people of colour sat together on a table, no one else would join them.” In conclusion, what Anonymous raised was ignored, responsibility was shifted away from the perpetrators, and the racial segregation within the dining hall continued. Advice for BIPOC Nyakuengama shared that: “I want every BIPOC to know that if you think something was racist, it was. If you think it’s not that bad, it is that bad. If you think that you shouldn’t even be talking about it, you should. The bottom line is that if something has upset you deeply, and it has referenced your race, nationality, skin colour, language, physical features, or racial stereotypes, then it is racist. I have never thought that a BIPOC telling me their experiences isn’t racist, and I don’t think I ever will.” I also found this advice provided by Iyamah very helpful: “1. Do not let anyone tell you how to feel about something they have never had to experience in their body. 2. Do not exhaust yourself arguing with someone who is more concerned about not being called racist, than simply doing the work to be antiracist. 3. Do not spend any time trying to prove why something is racist. Your experience is your expertise.” I’d like to finish off with a quote from one of my BIPOC friends who recently went through her own reckoning with racism on campus. “Calling out racism is an act of love. I do it when I have hope that the situation/context/person could change, and I personally do really hope that WE can change, but I’m tired. When I called out racism or racist discrimination, I became the problem. That’s gaslighting.” I really hope there’ll be change too. I’d love to openly share my life experiences without being racially gaslit.

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We would like to acknowledge the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people, who are the traditional custodians of the land on which Woroni is created. We pay respects to Elders past, present and emerging. We acknowledge that the name Woroni was taken from the Wadi Wadi Nation without permission, and we are striving to do better for future reconciliation.

Woroni Edition 5 2021

Articles inside

on My Face

Happier than Ever: Billie’s Truth

with Cultural Misrepresentation

Hypersexualisation of Asian Women Never Have I Ever... Felt Uncomfortable

Shout out to my ex

The Song of Achilles: A Hero’s Legacy of Ego and Redemption

The Reality of Digital Disconnection The Discomfort of Instagram:

The Word

It’s All in Your Head

Harmless or Harmful

Stay Still

Red

Peanuts and Trigger Warnings The Olympics the World Wanted and Tokyo

August

Foreign Objects

Who is Science really for?

Didn’t

Post-COVID world

In the Name of Science

Who Gets to come to ANU?

Ick City

Insomnia Chronicles

ANU Alumni Frustrated at Bishop’s Plea for Donations

This Week

ANU Students Take Action Against Poor Rental Conditions

Haircuts and Existential Angst

B&G SR’s Protest ‘Unacceptable’ Conditions