Newspapers / Meredith College Student Newspaper / March 20, 2013, edition 1 / Page 8
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OPINION Opposed to Ally Week AJ Thompson Near the end of Spring Break, I received an email about Meredith having an Ally week. As a queer person actively involved in the fight against queer oppression, Ally week is a kick in the shins. Queer people do not like ally week. Queer people do not want ally week. yUly week is a chance for straight people to feel good about themselves in our names; for straight people to pat other straight people on the backs and say “good job” while queers are yet again left on the sidelines. Imagine if there were such a thing as Not-Murderer week, in which all the people who somehow managed to not commit murder in their lifetimes were awarded, “Good job, people!” The award givers would say, “Con gratulations on not brutally murdering someone!” The concept is the same. Ally week rewards straight and cisgender people for meeting basic standards of human decency by not being bigoted towards queer people. It’s a clever ruse meant to imply that straight people are thinking about queer people, without actually dedi cating a week to queer people. In fact. Ally week is yet another event dedi cated to - wait for it - the privileged straight and cisgender people of the school! Where is our week for queer students? When do we start talking about all the queer kids who have been forced to live on the streets because their bigoted parents turned them out? When do we talk about the queer peo ple put in jail for defending themselves from queerphobic attackers? When do we talk about the fact that Meredith is a “women’s college” that trans*women are forbidden from attending, while trans* men walk freely about the cam pus? How about the suicides, the job layoffs, the lack of positive representa tion in media, the rampant ignorance that so often goes unchallenged here on campus and el^where? I am queer, and I am maddeningly opposed to the very idea of Ally week. These “allies” could never in their entire lives do more for queer people than queer people do for themselves. Can Women Have It All? According to Slaughter, No. Avery Dubuque, contributing writer This year’s graduation commence ment speaker, Ann-Marie Slaughter, Princeton University professor and former director of policy planning for the State Department, is known for not only supporting her family by being a good mother but also being one of the most powerful women in the United States. In her usual work week, she not only taught at Princeton but also presented over fifty speeches, wrote numerous articles, and worked for the State Department. So when she wrote the article “Why Women Can’t Have It All,” her readers were shocked; for a powerful woman with a dream career and a family to tell others that they can’t have it all seemed hypocriti cal. After reading through the article, the realistic approach of being a full time mother and working two full time jobs just proved Slaughter’s point of women trying to further themselves and balance a family being a futile ap proach. Slaughter explained her workday very simply—waking up at five in the morning to get to work at seven and not go home until around seven or eight at night. Shopping at businesses only open 9-5 in the week was simply out of the question. Cleaning the house and other duties were put off until the weekend. With her hectic work life, time with her two sons was very lim ited and wasn’t often enough for her liking. After almost two years of work ing like this. Slaughter had to make a decision: work and continue to be a successful businesswoman, or spend time to create a successful family and home life. After two years of working for the State Department, Slaughter shocked her coworkers and left to be with her family, explaining she didn’t have the option to do both. Going on to explain her reason ing, Slaughter’s article discussed how people tried different rationales to get her to keep her job. Finding the perfect husband who helps raise the kids or having a boss that understands being a full-time parent as well as a worker were other’s approaches to her di lemma. Her reasoning for these argu ments couldn’t be more precise; even having the perfect husband and the perfect boss does not change the desire to be a good mother and be with your family. Slaughter explains how the women who try for a big career and a nice fam ily life end up losing in the end. Society is against women who want to balance spending time with family and those who want to advance their careers to the highest possible path. Even with understanding bosses and husbands, there is not enough time in the day to balance a work schedule and a home schedule. Unless women fight for the change to be able to balance both, we can’t have it all. This space is empty because we need your opinion. Write to us herald @ email. meredith.edu Correction In the February 27,2013 issue of The Meredith Herald, the “Russian Meteorite Mystery” piece was written collaboratively by Amanda White and Monique Kreisman.
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