Black girls matter Black girls can’t count on their own safety — not even in classrooms
I think I’m supposed to be outraged. My blood should probably be boiling at a video filmed by a classmate of the teenage girl at Spring Valley High, who was dragged from her chair and pinned down by a police officer in her classroom. Instead, it hurt me. She did not threaten anyone and did not have a weapon. The discussion around the incident has been focused on the excessive force used by the police, not the fact that there was an...
Bloody politics Tampons are a human right — they should be free
By: Suzy Flader As of July 1, Canadians no longer have to pay federal tax on menstrual hygiene products. This decision came in response to an online petition titled “No Tax for Tampons,” which received over 75,000 signatures. While items like wedding cakes and cocktail cherries had gone untaxed in Canada, necessary menstrual hygiene products have been unfairly subjected to a five percent “luxury” tax. By removing the luxury tax from...
Down with corporate feminism Feminism is not the radical notion that women are customers
Last week, a video about body image appeared on my Twitter feed. “Fact: 97 percent of women have an ‘I hate my body moment’ every day” begins the clip. “That’s a lot of women looking in the mirror, wanting to change something.” The film goes on to call for women to love themselves, a message that I can get behind. Here is the issue: the video was an ad for Special K cereal. In the past few years I’ve noticed a rise of “corporate...
A need, not a want What the recent ratification of the Women and Gender Equity Network tells us about the struggle for gender equity on our campus
By: Ruchika Gothoskar With a unanimous vote resulting in the ratification of MSU Women and Gender Equity Network as a fully operating service on March 22, it was clear that many students wanted to see the further success of WGEN. However, in 2015, this is the first time that McMaster University has successfully passed a motion that made a women’s centre a definite on-campus possibility for students. Historically, women’s centres have...
Empowering Muslim women The importance of female Muslim representation in professional fields
By: Zaynab Al-waadh and Sunia Hassan As young Muslim women, we rarely find ourselves reflected in the careers we want to pursue. Is this because there are no Muslim women who are lawyers, doctors or entrepreneurs? Or is this because we lack the drive to exist in such positions? We refuse to accept either of these ideas. Rather, this lack of visibility is because our existence and achievements in these positions are rarely recognized...
The Selma snub Lack of a Best Director nomination for the film should spark discussion
Film awards have been, and probably always will be, rooted in Hollywood politics. From snubs to last-minute bidding, it seems as though the merit of individual films are often overlooked in favour of marketability. The 2015 Oscar nominations were recently announced and have resulted in many discussions about race relations in Hollywood. Not only were the acting categories all white, many have begun to examine why certain films were...
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