4A - Thursday, December 6, 2012 The Michigan Daily - michiganclaily.com 4A - Thursday, December 6, 2012 The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 tothedaily@michigandaily.com TIMOTHY RABB JOSEPH LICHTERMAN and ADRIENNE ROBERTS ANDREW WEINER EDITOR IN CHIEF EDITORIAL PAGE EDITORS MANAGING EDITOR Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily's editorial board. All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors. FROM T PED~lY Don't allow open season for private sellers This week, a House-passed bill is up for discussion in the Michigan Senate that eliminates background checks and licensure for buyers of privately sold guns. Though the nationally licensed gun dealers still would fill out the routine paper- work, House Bill 5225 would eliminate these prerequisites for buy- ers purchasing from private sellers - in person or online. Michigan's current model is not the most effective at preventing and solving crimes, but this law would make purchasing guns even easier while increasing the difficulty of tracking down criminals. Our country needs a stricter and more organized form of gun control - Michigan is no exception. With the passage of this law, we would not only be ignoring this need, but taking a step in the opposite direction. Et tu, feminists? Don't let Katy Perry's pyro- bosoms fool you - this fire-. work is no bra burner. Last Fri- day, Perry was x awarded the title of Billboard's Woman of the Year, narrowly beating out Octo-j mom and that lady down the MELANIE street who hands KRUVELIS out pennies on Halloween. And as her first offi- cial piece of Queen 2012 business, the singer of "Ur So Gay" just wanted to get her politics straight. "I'm not a feminist," Perry said in her acceptance speech, "but I do believe in the strength of women." Thanks for the qualifier,Katy. Perry.isn't alone in her tm-no- Feminazi-but-hey,-equality! stance. Carla Bruni, the former first lady of France, recently drew flak for her own statements about the current state of women's liberation. "we don't need feminists in my generation," Bruni said in a Decem- ber 2012 interview with the French edition of Vogue magazine. The ex- premiere dame continued, sayingthat she loves family life, doing the same thing every day, and all the other splendors of the "bourgeois lifestyle." Ergo, she can't be a feminist. Sigh. Et tu, Bruni? Now, before I overfeed the Inter- net trolls, let me be clear - it's OK if you're not a feminist. There's noth- ing inherently wrong with Perry kissing off the feminist label, or Bruni's snub of the movement all together. But when you moderate your rejection of feminism with this nebulous "strength of women" bit, you get the sense that maybe, just maybe, Perry actually does support the tenets of the women's movement. She just doesn't like the stigma that comes along with it. In other words, when you reject feminism, you've got to realize that you're rejecting more than andro- cide and braless anarchy. You're rejecting an ideology that says, at its core, women should live on equal terms with men. Ironically enough, this aver- sion, or meh attitude, toward femi- nism reinforces the need for it. Or at least, the need for a better understanding of what it means to be a feminist. Because if the ques- tion is "who's afraid of the big bad 'F-word' ", these days the answer is, well, pretty much everyone. Why are these women backing away from feminism? Or better yet, why does any statement praising gender equality have to be qualified with a "but seriously, feminists are so annoying"? For that answer and a migraine, we turnto Suzanne Venker. On Nov. 26, Fox News published her editorial "The War on Men," which claimed that the real victim in the battle of the sexes is guys. In her piece,Venker threw up the caucasi--, I mean, white flag, asking women to "surrender to their nature." In other words, be a lady and would you please quit it with the feminist pop- pycock? It's ... unsightly. Venker's logic goes somethinglike this: Women are angry today. Which means they look like feminists. Which means they aren't women. Oh yeah, and we're all going to die alone. See that? That link between femi- nism and unqualified, unwomanly anger? While Venker and others color this link as a causal relation- ship, it only takes about 15 minutes in a Statistics 250 lecture to realize just how baseless that claim is. Femi- nism is not the ideology of the angry lady mobs. To borrow from histo- rian Cheris Kramarae, feminism is "the radical notion that women are human beings." Connecting this idea to mass castration is a vast totaliza- tion of the theory. And a really crap- py one at that. Take, for instance, feminist lit- erature. Sure, Barnes and Noble might put "The Feminine Mystique" in the same section as "The SCUM Manifesto." But does that mean that Betty Friedan, the author of "Mys- tique," wanted to eradicate all men as per the manifesto? Probably not. Just like Tyler Perry doesn't repre- sent all black filmmakers, "SCUM" author valerie Solanas doesn't rep- resent all feminist writers. Pointing at the extremes and shouting "Look, I found feminism!" undermines the real intent of the movement - which again, is that women should be judged as individuals, rather than a product of their gender. But maybe you're like Bruni. Maybe you think we don't need this dated ideology anymore. After all, women made incredible strides in the last year alone. In November's election, 20 women earned seats in the Senate - the highest number of female seats in U.S. history. But simple subtraction revealsthat 80 percentofsenators are male. These numbers are even more startling in the boardroom. In 2012, only 4.2 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs were women - a number CNN called "a milestone." And returning back to Bruni's France, I doubt Olympe de Gouges would be impressed by the cur- rent state of women in the so-called country of human rights. 'Surrender' to gender roles? I don't think so. In response to Bruni's comments, French female senator Laurence Rossignol tweeted, "As long as I get asked whether I'm the senator's assistant, the next generation will need feminism." Then there was the 2011 French initiative Action Relooking, where a handful of "lucky" unemployed French women get a government-sponsored make- over, to help them "look prettier" for job interviews. And that's not even mentioning worldwide struggles for women's rights among racial, LGBT and socioeconomic lines. Which, for a self-proclaimed gay rights activist like Perry, might be of interest. So what's so bad about feminism? Maybe we don't like owning up to the fact that there's still work to do. Social progress isn't moving as fast as Apple cranks out iPhones - and yeah, that's a little bit scary. But rejecting a philosophy based on the outliers doesn't get us anywhere. If you accept the idea that men and women are equal in value, if you accept the notion that women should be judged as people and not a gender, then to nuance Jeff Foxworthy - well, you just might be a feminist. - Melanie Kruvelis can be reached at melkruv@umich.edu. One of the major arguments for the bill is that the current system is expensive to main- tain and that this money could be put to bet- ter use. Supporters say that with the federal restrictions already in place, the money spent on the state system is a redundant waste. How- ever, statistics show that almost half the gun sales in Michigan are transacted through pri- vate sellers, and documentation for these sales would no longer be required. The police argue that these records are sometimes the key factor in finding and prosecuting criminal suspects. The claims that funding is being squandered on this system crudely discount the urgency of bringing a violent criminal to justice. The faith in the competency of the federal gun control system as a catchall for criminals is misplaced. In numerous instances, such as the Aurora shootings, people with criminal intent purchased guns at federally registered stores. The problem is that background checks only question the existence of mental illness or a criminal record. Underlying mental stability or intentions for purchase aren't considered relevant. But even with these gaps in the sys- tem, a flawed paper trail is still better than none at all. In Indiana, where a similar bill was passed into law, buying a gun is as easy as pick- ing one from a gun show. Our country is quickly being singled out for its resistance to gun control. In other countries such as Canada, the United King- dom and Australia, most firearms are banned outright. Civilians who wish to purchase a gun must prove a genuine need to do so and usually must prove they are trained in han- dling the weapon. Although the data con- necting restrictive gun laws to fewer violent crimes is inconclusive, the call for stricter gun control is not only logical, but also is sup- ported throughout the world. The state senate should not pass this pro- posed law. Relaxing gun control is the exact opposite of what needs to be done and the pas- sage of this law could lead to further attempts to weaken the system. The federal system itself must be strengthened so that people like James Eagan Holmes no longer slip through the cracks. Many countries have already real- ized the dangers behind the free sale of hand- guns and have taken appropriate measures. It's time we follow their lead. 0 Take me home tonight EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS Kaan Avdan, Sharik Bashir, Barry Belmont, Eli Cahan, Jesse Klein, Melanie Kruvelis, Maura Levine, Patrick Maillet, Jasmine McNenny, Harsha Nahata, Timothy Rabb, Adrienne Roberts, Vanessa Rychlinski, Paul Sherman, Sarah Skaluba, Michael Spaeth, Gus Turner, Derek Wolfe JESSE KLEIN | lWt POlNT1 Crowd- souCin bias On Dec. 5, John Bracken, founder of the Knight News Challenge, heard pitches by envi- ronmental journalism students in North Quad as part of the class's Pitchfest event. The Knight Foundation works to engage communities and foster journalistic innovation. The pitches I heard while attending this conference focused on engaging consum- ers with news by allowing them to respond as reporters. Two groups pitched ideas for a web site and smart phone application com- bination that would allow readers to search for specific topics, organize their web pages with desirable information and upload their own videos, pictures or articles for commu- nal benefit. The idea was meant to direct- ly employ the reader and make use of the instantaneous nature of the Internet to com- pile news from every possible source. They wanted average citizens to be responding to and creating their own news reports. Newspapers are dying. None of the ideas I heard talked about print articles - it was all about the Internet. It was about engaging readers online, not with a physical paper. The Knight Foundation asks for innovation because new ideas are needed to keep the newspaper industry alive. When news is so freely and abundantly accessible online, it's difficult for pricey print publications to compete. However, everyone knows the inherent risks of online news - namely, the limited means we have to check the credibility of a news arti- cle. People trust The New York Times or The Washington Post as valid sources for national and economic news, but only trust Yahoo News when it comes to Kate Middleton's pregnancy. High-ranking papers are trusted to have good reporters, strong fact-checkers and careful editing. Citizen uploads are not, which is why forums like Reddit are purposed for entertain- ment, not as news sources. On-the-spot video and photo reader uploads are priceless and informative during a natural disaster; however, this could easily be abused in day-to-day life, decreasing the credibility of the website. As a journalist, of course I want news- papers - whether online or print - to survive, but I don't think crowd-sourcing reporting is the way to keep readers interested. Readers like to be part of the conversation. Comments sections and letters to the editor prove the desire for readers to have a voice in their news, but these submissions are often either biased or downright false. One of the judges for the Knight News Challenge, Steve Dorsey, vice president of research and development at the Detroit Media Partnership, said "it is frustrating that (The New York Times) reporters can't respond to (online) comments that are false." Newspaper policy often forbids report- ers from chiming in the comments section, meaning a lot of what you see in comments could be misleading or downright false. By using citizen uploads as their primary news source, the reader will be engaged, but not as well informed. The pieces aren't prop- erly edited or provided by someone trained in journalism. While this doesn't necessar- ily mean their reporting is misrepresenting facts, it does mean that I, along with others, have less faith in it. Newspapers are the place people go to become informed by an unbiased teacher on important issues. While it's foolish to think that any news story is completely unbiased, editors and writers make a concerted effort to maintain objectivity. Citizen uploads don't receive the same profes- sional scrutiny. Soon, there may be no resource for people to educate themselves and make their own opinions because no article will be trusted' to be presenting the truth. And that will be the final nail in the newspaper's coffin. Jesse Klein is an LSA sophomore. J so a Nov. 19 e-mail to Yale Uni- versity faculty, Dean Mary Miller discouraged the practice of administer- ing take-home examinations to students. Accord- ing to "Miller discourages take-K home finals," published last Wednesdayinthe Yale Daily News, SARAH Miller's e-mail, ROHAN prompted by the recent Harvard University cheating scandal, primar- ily underscores the time burden of take-home tests. "We try to help faculty members think about the zero sum of student time," Miller writes, acknowledging that without the time-cap of an in- class exam, take-home tests often take students much longerto complete. In late August, reports surfaced alleging that up to 125 Harvard stu- dents cheated on a take-home gov- ernment final, collaborating with one another on essay questions and thereby violating exam protocol. As the school decides how it will pro- ceed, the controversial scandal con- tinues to raise questions over the legitimacy of take-home exams. With finals fast approaching, the concerns raised by Miller's e-mail, as well as by the Harvard scandal, resound strongly within our own community here at the University, where take-home examinations are frequently administered. Miller's nod to the Harvard cheating scandal seems to consid- er take-home exams an avoidable opportunity for students to cheat. Ostensibly confirming her concerns, a recent study on college cheating finds thatcheating on written work - a common component of take-home tests - occurs at a much higher rate than cheating on traditional exams. In a poll of more than 64,000 undergraduates, 24 percent of stu- dents admitted to "receiving unper- mitted help from someone on an assignment" and 42 percent admit- ted to "working with others on an assignmentwhen asked for individu- al work." By contrast, only 8 percent of those polled about in-class exams admitted to "using (unauthorized) crib/cheat notes" and 9 percent to "copying from another student on a test/exam with their knowledge." The potential for increased cheat- ing - though a legitimate concern - shouldn't determine the future of effective and fairly administered take-home exams. As University of Michigan students, we ascribe to an honor code that "prohibits all forms of academic dishonesty and miscon- duct."Thoughexampolicies willvary according to professor and class, our obligation to the University's honor code remains unchanged. A test for- mat should not be altered to antici- pate potential violations of that code. In addition to allowing for the increased possibility of cheating, Miller contends that take-home exams can place additional stress on students as an undue time burden. Here at the University, midterms and finals are usually allotted for a length of time roughly equivalent to the given class period. So, for a 90-minute lecture class, the final is normally 90 to 120 minutes long. Without an enforced timeframe, take-home exams sometimes ask students for an amount of work which would vastly exceed the allot- ted in-class time. Additionally, even if a take-home test does not demand work that nec- essarily exceeds its would-be in-class time limit, diligent students will often work overtime on the heavily weighted exam. Asa result, the take- home exams cuts into time students might use to prepare for other finals. However, when one considers the countless amount of time students spend preparing for an in-class exam, a take-home test may actually pose less of a time burden. By allow- ing a student to complete the work on his own time, take-homes can even alleviate student stress. Potential cheating can't nullify take- home exams. Furthermore, some privilege the take-home format over traditional exams, deeming them more effective at measuring a student's command of material. Prof. Scott Lyons, for example, views take-home exams as useful indicators of a student's prac- tical grasp of class material. "I consider take-home essay exams to be an important part of my larger assessment arsenal," Lyons said. "My exams ask students what they know and my essay assignments ask them to do something interesting or use- ful with that knowledge ... the take- home exam serves as a kind of bridge betweenthose two differenttasks." By specifying an appropriate word count and providing instructions that reflectreasonable expectations, Lyons ensures his take-home exams do not unfairly burden his students. Taking into accountthese preventativeguide- lines, there is certainly room, and per- haps necessity, for take-home exams at the University. - Sarah Rohan can be reached at shrohan@umich.edu. INTERESTED IN CAMPUS ISSUES? POLITICS? SEX, DRUGS AND ROCK'N'ROLL? Check out The Michigan Daily's editorial board meetings. Every Monday and Thursday at 6pm, the Daily's opinion staff meets to discuss both University and national affairs and write editorials. E-mail opinioneditors@michigandaily.com to join in the debate.