4 - The Michigan Daily - Friday, March 19, 1999
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They never told us it would be so hard to have it all
420 Maynard Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
daily. letters@umich.edu
Edited and managed by
students at the
University of Michigan
HEATHER KAMINS
Editor in Chief
JEFFREY KOSSEFF
DAVID WALLACE
Editorial Page Editors
Unless otherwise noted, unsigned editorials reflect the opinion of the majority of the
Daily's editorial board. All other articles, letters and cartoons do not necessarily reflect
the opinion of The Michigan Daily.
Paper trail
'U' and MSA should reform poster policy
W e're told we have it easier now. They
tell us we can do anything we put our
minds to.
We have special support groups and job
discrimination clauses and sexual harass-
ment lawyers.
Members of
Congress include usw
in their patriotic.
speeches by referring
to "our men and
women in the armed
forces" instead of
just "our boys over
there."
We can beat out
men for jobs and
grades without feel-, Laurie
ing guilty. Mayk
In less than two
months, thousands of She
women will graduate Says
from the University
of Michigan. And we have big plans.
Armed with expensive educations, job
offers and graduate school acceptances,
we'll set off this spring to change the
world. We'll do things our mothers never
had the chance to do, we'll shatter the
glass ceiling - and we won't take no for
an answer.
In fact, "no" is a word we haven't heard
very often on this liberal, equal opportunity
campus. How could a University town with
a female mayor, provost, LSA dean and
U.S. and state representatives be anything
but inviting to bright young women? We've
been treated just like our male classmates
(because we complain if we're not), and we
expect that our careers will parallel, or sur-
pass, theirs.
But PC or not, life's just not that easy.
A few weeks ago, I was chatting away to
my boyfriend about my career plans and
the exciting possibilities of jumping from
this city to that, when he said the magic
words:
"But what about the kids?"
Huh? The kids? What kids? I don't have
any - OH. Uh oh.
In four years, nobody told us the answer
to that question. Heck, nobody even told us
there would be a test.
We've been so busy scratching in our,
planners that it never occurred to us - at
least not many of us - that things just
might not go as scheduled. Chances are
pretty good that there will be another per-
son, a partner, in the picture. And kids
don't raise themselves. At least, they
shouldn't.
Although recent studies have given work-
ing women the green light by concluding
that quality time is more important than
quantity of time spent with their children,
there's no doubt that family life shakes up a
career, and vice versa. A recent New York
Times article explored the lives of women
in medicine and cited studies that show
women doctors are more likely to work
fewer hours and pass up chances at
demanding practice partnerships or man-
agement positions because of the time com-
mitment required. And so at a time when
female doctors are both highly respected
and in demand, the question seems to no
longer be of whether women can reach the
top in their field, but whether they will
choose to do so.
I remember a male friend in high school
telling me that he would gladly stay home
and raise the children if his wife wanted to
pursue a demanding career outside the
home. At the time, it seemed like the perfect
romantic solution: Mr. Mom for the
Millennium.
I wonder whether he'd say the same thing
today, after four years of midterms and all-
nighters and Career Planning and
Placement. Perhaps he would, but his solu-
tion is certainly not everyone's answer.
It's unlikely that women would ever allow
my friend with his apron and carpool to
become the norm. Aside from those bitter
enough to think that our husbands should
pay for our grandmothers' sacrifices, many
of us want to be the caregiver in our house-
holds, or we at least want to play an equal
share in this role. As much as some of us try
to fight them, we have natural maternal
instincts. We coo at babies, our male friends
cry in our presence but not in their bud-
dies', and we have the urge to brush off lint
from strangers in suits.
I once found myself in the middle of a
busy newsroom, ironing a colleague's shirt
for an interview. Why? Because I was there
and it needed to be done. Had I ever seen
any of my male predecessors attempt such a
thing ? I assure you, no.
Journalist Cokie Roberts wrote a simple
yet amazingly insightful book called "We
are Our Mothers' Daughters," in which she
describes the relationships of women in her
family and how each generation effortlessly
assumes the roles of the previous genera-
tion. She maintains that although profes-
sional expectations have changed for
women, personal ones have not.
What we probably will be facing in our
post-graduation lives is a world of two-
career households, expanded private and
federal funding for daycare, long days and
unnaturally brief nights of sleep. Can we
have it all? Maybe, but this world is going
to require something we haven't had a lot of
practice in, thus far: compromise.
-Laurie Mayk can be reached over
e-mail at ljmayk@umich.edu.
0
0
nybody with at least one class in
Angell or Mason halls has surely
noticed the recent proliferation of posters
and advertisements for candidates seeking
election to the Michigan Student Assembly.
The names and faces of MSA hopefuls -
printed on these ubiquitous, multi-colored
pieces of paper - have become a kind of
wallpaper plastered over every blank sur-
face available. In fact, every night around
midnight or 4 a.m., University custodians
restore these walls to their original poster-
less condition by taking down every flyer in
the building. It has become a cat-and-
mouse game between Angell Hall building
management and the zealous candidates
who seek name and face recognition by
putting new posters back on the walls as
soon as the old ones have been taken down.
The race to put these flyers back on the
walls indicates a kind of good-natured spir-
it of competition among MSA candidates
- and the custodians who remove them on
.a nightly basis are only doing their jobs.
This election season sport, however, has
some casualties.
One of these is the paper supply. As parts
of an institution that claims to value envi-
ronmental consciousness, both the candi-
dates and the administration should make
attempts to cut down on the waste that the
activities of posting and then removing the
MSA posters produce. By throwing away
all of these flyers, Angell Hall building
management is needlessly wasting untold
amounts of paper. It is not as if the candi-
dates are forbidden to tack up their ads, they
are simply told - through the actions of the
custodians - that if they want to campaign
in this way they need to print up new
posters every day. While some MSA candi-
dates may enjoy the challenge that this pro-
vides, it is not sufficient to justify the waste
that it generates or the trees that it sacri-
fices. A more environment-friendly solu-
tion to this problem - one that would allow
the custodians to do their jobs and the can-
didates to retain their campaign strategies
-- would be to save the posters that are
removed and allow the candidates to put
them back up the next day if they choose.
One other solution would be for the
University to allow campaign posters to
remain on the walls for one week before the
election. Since candidates will only scram-
ble to put up new posters at this most cru-
cial time of the election season, it makes lit-
tle sense to keep removing the posters each
night.
Other possible advantages to these solu-
tions would be economic. Making these
posters can be very expensive and having
to repeat the process every day until the
elections can be prohibitively so. Students
who do not have the financial resources to
spend half their savings at Kinko's making
eye-catching campaign posters are at a
decided disadvantage if they want to run
for MSA. While it is possible to seek elec-
tion without blanketing Angell Hall with
advertisements, given the current cam-
paign environment, it would seem unwise
not to if one wanted a legitimate chance to
win. The ability of a student to successful-
ly campaign for MSA should not be deter-
mined by economic factors, already a dis-
tressing feature of national and local
American political campaigns.
It would be unreasonable to deny MSA
candidates the opportunity to campaign in
public spaces --- such is their First
Amendment right. But in order to decrease
the waste produced by these campaigns and
the economic strains that they put on poten-
tial candidates, MSA and the University
should come up with some solutions that
satisfy both their needs. Rather than turn-
ing Angell and Mason Halls into battle-
fields between candidates and custodians,
the University and MSA should get togeth-
er to ensure that this building is kept as an
environmentally sound and economical
forum for MSA's election season political
discourse.
0
Tom Hayden doesn't live here anymore
By Jeffrey Kosseff
Daily Editorial Page Editor
More than 25 students spent a second
night in University President Lee
Bollinger's office, protesting sweatshop
labor in third-world countries that produce
Michigan apparel. I commend these stu-
dents for attempting to bring back the
activist spirit of the '60s. Sweatshop labor
must be stopped, and a sit-in is an effective
way of reaching the University administra-
tion. This sit-in, however, pales in compar-
ison to the activism of the Vietnam era,
simply because less students are involved.
Times have changed, and most students
simply are not interested in changing the
world. Hopefully, more students will take
an active interest in SOLE's cause.
Bollinger is being incredibly reasonable
with the protesters by allowing them to
camp out in his office and not having the
Department of Public Safety remove them.
By allowing the members of Students
Organizing for Labor and Economic
Equality to throw a sleep-over party -
complete with take-out food and dancing
- in his office, Bollinger demonstrates
that he is a really cool person. He is not
"the man." He understands what it is like to
believe in something.
The SOLE members are comparable to
Tom Hayden and the other college students
who drafted the Port Huron Statement,
which began the Students for a Democratic
Society. SDS was the nationwide organiza-
tion that was responsible for Vietnam War
protests on college campuses. Like the pro-
testers of the '60s, many of the SOLE coor-
dinators never had to suffer the effects of
the foreign atrocities they protest. In the
Port Huron Statement, Hayden and compa-
ny wrote that the SDS members are "people
of this generation, bred in at least modest
comfort, housed now in universities, look-
ing uncomfortably to the world we inherit."
SOLE members, unlike most students on
this campus, care about the world beyond
Ann Arbor.
The SOLE members are doing what
they can to stop atrocities from occurring.
The University is the largest producer of
collegiate apparel, so if it asks for a living
wage, many other universities may follow.
The sit-in is the most extreme form of
peaceful protest possible.
SOLE, however, is not a duplicate of
SDS. Hayden and six other SDS members
comprised the Chicago Seven, a group of
protesters who were beaten by police offi-
cers and arrested at the 1968 Democratic
Convention in Chicago. They suffered tear
gas and beatings for their cause. SOLE
members are eating pizza and having dance
parties in Bollinger's suite of offices. This
does not make SDS a more noble group.
SOLE's actions have been much more rea-
sonable than those of SDS, because SOLE
has stayed within the law. SOLE demon-
strates that violence and law-breaking is
not the most effective way to get a point
across.
Although daily bomb threats, tear
gassings and 2,000-person rallies are no
longer present on college campuses nation-
wide, SOLE has proven that SDS's mes-
sage is still alive. It is appropriate to
remember the conclusion of the Port Huron
Statement, which stated that "as students,
for a democratic society, we are committed
to stimulating this kind of social move-
ment, this kind of vision and program in
campus and community across the country.
If we appear to seek the unattainable, it has
been said, then let it be known that we do so
to avoid the unimaginable."
-Jeffrey Kosseff can be reached over
e-mail atjkosseff)umich.edu.
R ND I NG(TrHE NB
0
CHIP CULLEN
Dry cleaning
MSU Greeks should not ban alcohol
ollowing 30 days of a campus-wide
suspension of all activities, the Greek
system at Michigan State University will
soon meet to decide, among other issues,
whether to ban all alcohol from MSU chap-
ter houses. Michigan State's Interfraternity
Council and Panhellenic Association have
come to such drastic discussions as a result
of incidents on campus and at the national
level. While it's important to recognize
these issues, going dry is not the solution.
On Thursday, Feb. 12, MSU's Greek
chapters voted 27-2 to impose a moratori-
um on all social events for a 30-day period.
The purpose of this universal suspension
was to allow their Greeks to decide how to
fix the damaged relationship the Greek sys-
"tem had with the university and the city of
East Lansing. Now that the moratorium has
ended, they'll discuss the possibility of
going dry.
It is an option that should not even be
considered by Michigan State's IFC and
Panhel. These buildings are student resi-
dences, and many of their inhabitants are of
legal age to purchase and consume alco-
holic beverages. By forcing chapter houses
to go dry, such residents will be denied a
right that their non-Greek counterparts are
allowed to practice unchecked. IFC and
Pnhel do not have the power to regulate or
ban perfectly legal actions by their mem-
ty parties, such as taxi service, sober mem-
bers, set chapter moral codes and guest
lists, will likely not be practiced by hosts of
house parties. Meanwhile, party noise once
kept within the walls of huge houses will
cause all sorts of problems when the cele-
brations move to crowded neighborhoods.
For Greeks, and everyone else on campus,
the parties are best left inside the compara-
tively controlled chapter houses.
For IFC and Panhel, dry housing would
strike an insurmountable blow to the entire
Greek system. While going dry may tem-
porarily appease some university and city
officials, such an action could only pro-
vide grounds to kick chapters off campus.
A chapter may, on its own accord, choose
to go dry, but it is not up to IFC or Panhel
to make that decision for them. It is doubt-
ful any chapter forced into such an ultima-
tum would respect it. As parties become
virtually impossible to be held at a chapter
house, membership will likely drop signif-
icantly. Eventually, chapters would possi-
bly lose their charters or their members.
By signing such a bylaw into IFC's consti-
tution, the Greek system will be critically
injured.
Although this conference is taking place
in East Lansing and not Ann Arbor, its
importance is universal for every Greek
chapter and college campus in the country.
GEO supporters
deserve thanks
To THE DAILY:
The Graduate Employees Organization
has at last reached a tentative agreement with
the administration in our current contract
negotiations. The final days of negotiations
produced substantial progress on all the unre-
solved issues, including wages, fair GSI work
assignments and International GSI training
compensation. Pending ratification of this
agreement by the full GEO membership,
thesenegotiations for the eleventh contract
between GEO and the regents of the
University of Michigan will be finished.
On behalf of GEO, I would like to thank
all the supportive faculty, students, staff,
campus and local unions, and community
members for all their help and encourage-
ment during the long five months of negoti-
ations. The Michigan Student Assembly and
the Students Organizing for Labor and
Economic Equality have been particularly
strong in their support of our collective bar-
gaining efforts, and we thank them in par-
ticular. We especially appreciate everyone
who actively supported our walkout, includ-
ing professors and lecturers who canceled
their classes, andeundergraduates who
stayed home or joined our picket lines. We
recognize that the walkout placed many fac-
ulty and students in a difficult position and
the expression of solidarity from many of
you was incredible.
We would also like to acknowledge
Provost Nancy Cantor, who was ready to
engage in reasonable negotiation. GEO
thanks her for helping to keep negotiations
moving and for her commitment to improv-
ing the quality of life of graduate employees.
GEO is pleased to reach this agreement
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- ( 1. " 1. c JL Gl ( 4 t-K9 -
movie promotes stereotypes," 3/17/99) to the
upcoming animated adaptation of Rodgers &
Hammerstein's "The King And I." I would
like to call attention to the fact that this film is
not the only one of its kind. Many other ani-
mated films have perpetuated, among other
issues, chauvinism and racism in addition to
the oversimplification and blatant alteration of
classic literature and mythology.
In our culture's beloved Disney films,
we continually see heroines described as
"strong," yet what they seek is not personal
success or a greater understanding of life. In
every example, they quest for the "ever-nec-
essary" attentions of a man. While love is
certainly an important aspect of life, it is an
injustice to poison the minds of young girls
across America into believing in the same
old societal standard that a woman
absolutely needs a man to be complete.
For that matter, why does Disney (along
with Mattel and a score of other companies)
draw its heroines in unrealistic proportions?
The. vnnn flignev fansof tndco'uil well
Hamlet who forgives his uncle and restores
peace to Denmark? If a story is considered
too dark for an audience of children, Disney
should leave it alone. Go make some egali-
tarian fables, Michael Eisner!
A. LAUREN BARNETTr0
MUSIC SOPHOMORE
IFS should not
replace disks
TO THE DAILY:
In response to "IFS is a reliable way to
store files," (3/15/99) is it really that much
more reliable than saving to a disk? It's a great
tragedy when your paper is due in one hour
and you discover after getting on a campus
computer that the network is down - and you
are not able to retrieve the document you've
hipn n ri nn n for mi intlpc's houm.