Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
5 — Friday, January 9, 2015
E
very winter, I ask myself the
same question: Why do I live
in this godforsaken icebox?
In the morning,
after
pushing
snooze
at
least
twice, eventually
I make the insane
decision to trade my toasty cloud of
a bed for the arctic atmosphere that
is my apartment. A morning shower
means at least a 15-minute commit-
ment to the blow dryer, a time com-
mitment which would have doubled
had it not been for my five-inch trim
in October. Walking to class with wet
hair is not an option; I learned this
when I spent most of 2012 sneezing
and sniffling through class. Bundling
up in January and February usually
means leggings before jeans, at least
two pairs of socks, waterproof hiking
boots, three layers of shirts, a head-
band, gloves, scarf and the grand
finale, a three-year-old down parka
that is starting to lose feathers. Most
days, I don’t even look good. Makeup,
styling and further delays aside, it
takes me — a self-proclaimed low-
maintenance girl — about 45 minutes
to get ready in a frosty morning. Get-
ting ready to go to the bar on a Thurs-
day night, well, that’s a completely
different animal.
We all know the drill, and if you’re
new to Michigan and under the
impression that November was the
peak of our icy damnation, do your-
self a favor and invest in some Smart-
Wool socks while they’re probably on
sale. People like to say that women
and men are equal, but let’s get real.
If you’re a girl, you should prob-
ably buy yourself two pairs, because
you’re probably colder. The average
American woman is 92 percent as tall
as the average man, and weighs just
85.5 percent as much. Statistically
we’re shorter, smaller and surprise:
have longer hair.
The additional tax we pay as
women isn’t limited to an extra
10-minute blow dry and an extra
pair of socks. Forget makeup, nail
polish and the cost differences of
our clothing; in order for women to
uphold societal standards of femi-
ninity, the cost is significant. Five
products are the main culprits of
this microeconomic division of the
sexes: razor blades, conditioner,
tampons, Midol and bras. Of course,
men use conditioner and razors, but
generally in much smaller quantities
(as I’ll explain).
A wise woman once said, “Some-
body wrote in that book that I’m
lying about being a virgin, ’cause I
use super-jumbo tampons, but I can’t
help it if I’ve got a heavy flow and a
wide-set vagina!” She makes a good
point. This does, however, mean that
she’s a member of the female popula-
tion. An 18 pack of Playtex Sport tam-
pons at CVS costs $5.49: 30.5 cents
each. At a rate of four per day for four
days a month, the total monthly tam-
pon cost for women comes to a mod-
est $4.88. Cramps? That’ll cost you.
Midol sells for $8.38 for a pack of 24,
34.9 cents each. Two per day for four
days out of the month comes to $2.79.
Having your period every month?
$7.67. Being a woman? Priceless.
I firmly believe that men and
women are intellectually equal; how-
ever, men don’t have boobs. Victoria’s
Secret sells bras for over $50 a piece,
but as an Economics major, I can’t
stomach dropping that much know-
ing they cost about four dollars to
manufacture. In order to maintain
as conservative an estimate as pos-
sible, I picked out my favorite bra by
Gilligan & O’Malley, which goes for
$16.99 on Target.com. If you’re a girl,
you know that
these
stretch
out
and
don’t
last forever, so
two
bras
per
year is a frugal
expenditure on
bras. Since we’re
calculating
the
extra cost on a
monthly
basis,
this
means
women
are
spending $2.83 on bras monthly. Not
bad, right?
Next, there’s everything that goes
on inside the shower. I grew up with
two younger brothers, who often
accused me of using up all of the
hot water. I typically ignored their
complaints; I was older, smarter, a
girl, and therefore entitled to use
more water than them. I asked my
brothers how much conditioner
they used. RJ, who’s 18, poured out
about one teaspoon. My 16-year-old
brother denied using conditioner
whatsoever, ran into the basement,
and got back to his friends on Xbox
live. At CVS, I picked out a seeming-
ly gender-neutral and cost-efficient
conditioner, Garnier Fructis. The
bottle costs $4.79 for 13.5 fluid ounc-
es, which comes to an average cost
of six cents per day for my brother
and 18 cents per day for me. Nick-
els and dimes, but still a difference
of 300 percent. On a monthly basis,
women are spending $3.60 more on
conditioner than men.
We all know razors for both men
and women are overpriced. Worse
than that, they never go on sale.
Before going and taking an inven-
tory of CVS, I was under the impres-
sion that women paid significantly
more for razors. As I compared basic
three blade razors for men and
women, I realized I was wrong. An
eight pack of Gillette Venus Classic
for women costs $23.79 each, and
an eight pack of Gillette Match 3 for
men costs $22.99. Each razor costs a
woman $2.97, and a man $2.87. Just
a slight difference, right? Not when
you account for the differences in
total surface area women and men
are expected to shave, prescribed
by gender norms. For men, from the
nose down to the chin until the ears,
and the entire area of the front half
of the neck, this came to 435.5 cm^2.
For women, accounting for average
surface area of two thighs, calves and
armpits, this number was 7,323.08
cm. Not only are we paying 10 cents
more for a similar razor, we have to
shave 16 to 17 times more surface
area than our male counterparts.
Let’s assume
that
women
shave a third as
often
as
men.
Let’s
say
the
average
man
spends
$22.99
per
year
on
razors,
switch-
ing once every
month
and
a
half. This means
that women who
shave even one-third as much as men
are spending 5.6 times as much for
the same quality of shave, an annual
fee which comes out to $133.224.
Monthly, this means a woman would
spend $9.20 more than men on
razors alone.
Accounting for just five basic
and necessary products, it’s clear
that from a cost-of-living per-
spective, men and women are not
equal. I’m not talking about fash-
ionable clothes, makeup or a girls’
nights out. For the bare-minimum
hygiene, it costs the average woman
approximately $23.30 more per
month to live than the average man.
Guys, next time you’re at Charley’s
with your female colleague, consid-
er these baseline costs that she has
to endure. If she’s wearing makeup,
a stylish outfit or four-inch heels,
the differential expands. Maybe
next time, instead of splitting the
bill for that fishbowl, you pay that
$15. Plus tax.
— Lauren Richmond can be
reached at lericho@umich.edu.
Why you should still buy her a
drink at the bar
LAUREN
RICHMOND
Home for the holidays
O
n
my
first
flight
home
from
Michigan in December 2011, my
stomach bubbled with a familiar
Pancheros
burrito
and
knots of excitement wound
themselves tighter as I flew
closer to my at-the-time
long-distance
boyfriend.
Sophomore year, I felt the
relief of being done with a semester that I
finally enjoyed and belted delayed laughs
as a result of the talent show at Detroit
Metropolitan Wayne County Airport. Junior
year, the flight took off for San Francisco
and I played Alt-J’s An Awesome Wave on
repeat as I prematurely fantasized about
my semester that was about to take place
in Madrid while drifting in and out of sleep
on the plane home. This year, however, was
different; it was calm and platonic. Although
it’s the last time I will be making this flight
home for such a brief time, it felt tranquil
and I felt accustomed to the typical waves
of nausea and excitement that one associates
with coming home, wherever that may be and
whatever that may mean.
There’s this weird thing that happens when
you are dropped off at college. You watch as
your parents cascade down 5th Bartlett as
the heavy blue metal door slams in your face
and you think to yourself,
“What
now?”
Presum-
ably, you have been caged
in your house for a strong
18 years and all of sudden
you are let loose. Maybe
it’s just my closest friends
and me, but I felt con-
fused. For lack of a bet-
ter word or psychological
term, I embarked on the
biggest identity crisis of
my life upon seeing that
dorm room door crash in my face. The process
of coming home and the nostalgia of the holi-
days only exacerbate this reminiscent feeling
about my first day on campus and serve as a
pivotal point to understand one’s growth.
It’s difficult to tell someone to embrace
these times. To embrace the awkward hugs
that you face in your local supermarket or the
run-ins with your mom’s friends at her holi-
day parties, but these moments of discomfort
are essential and inevitably shift through
your college formation. These encounters
give us something to laugh about and learn
from when you are finally 21 and can sit
around the bar ordering tequila shots with
three guys you took Calculus with six years
ago. It’s not that everything is entirely normal
or comfortable now, but there’s a certain reas-
surance in the fact that life continues upon its
meandering and ever-changing path. The dis-
comfort and fluctuations are normalized and
you began to feel more and more prepared for
what’s next even as the future gets more and
more expansive.
Now, in the depths of my senior year Win-
ter Break, I see home as a different place. I
recognize that where I am today was not by
fault, and is much accredited to my time at the
University.
At a bar the other night, I spoke with a guy
in my graduating class from high school that
had been crowned the biggest clown in our
grade. He was that macho man who showed
little emotion. This year, he told me he was
into writing and screenplays. He reminisced
about the time his babysitter thought he was
sleeping and he stayed up watching “Silence
of the Lambs,” consequently crying himself
to sleep. He didn’t stop smiling as we prom-
enaded around the saloon looking at old cou-
ples rekindling flames, or more, often-new,
love interests emerging from the woodwork.
I am reminded to leave room for change.
At Christmas dinner, my friend Laura spoke
to me about her friends who had developed
eating disorders and their strange relation-
ships with food while at college. I told her I
remembered those times. After my freshman
year 20-pound extravaganza and my work-
outaholic sophomore year, I was ebbing into
a normal relationship once again with food
and my body image. Not to say these feelings
won’t emerge again, but I feel at ease with my
ability to take the turns as they come.
On the way home from skiing in Lake Tahoe,
I was discussing an encoun-
ter I had with a friend to
my dad. He thought for a
second and asked me if I
remembered the first page
of the Great Gatsby. He has
been reciting it for years,
but reminded me again,
“In my younger and more
vulnerable years my father
gave me some advice that
I’ve been turning over in
my mind ever since. ‘When-
ever you feel like criticizing any one,’ he told
me, ‘just remember that all the people in this
world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve
had.’ ” Sometimes it takes the simple repetition
of sacred words.
The holidays, fortunate or not, bring back
shadows of the past. This year my dog wasn’t
dressed in her holiday garb and our dear-
est family friend wasn’t cutting coffee cake
in the kitchen, but we did have a new recipe
for garlic mashed potatoes and one young
child joined us at the kid’s Christmas table.
Remember the time is now. Remember this
as hard as you can, and as you hold on to the
present moment it lightens the holiday shad-
ows as you remind yourself that now is not
forever. What is now the present will next
year be a memory. We will continue to won-
der who we were and are, but this knowledge
that the undulations of emotions and inevi-
table growth are persistent keep us thinking
as the new years roll through.
— Dani Vignos can be reached
at dvignos@umich.edu.
T
he
#BlackLivesMatter
movement has taken over
social, national and inter-
national media in
recent
months.
Fueled by trag-
ic
vignettes
of
police
brutality
against
presum-
ably
innocent
African
Ameri-
cans, the move-
ment is “rooted in
the
experiences
of Black people in
this country who
actively resist (our) de-humaniza-
tion,” and “is a call to action and a
response to the virulent anti-Black
racism that permeates our society.”
The movement’s official media
outlets have striven to make clear
that all Black lives matter by call-
ing attention to the rampant sys-
temic injustices facing those Black
individuals whose racial identi-
ties exist in conjunction with their
sexual and gender identities, as
well as their status within disabled,
incarcerated or immigrant com-
munities. In vying for societal and
judicial equality in this country,
a movement which stresses the
importance of solidarity across the
spectrum of all personal identities
serves as an example of what mod-
ern activism should be: inclusive
and empathetic to the plights of
similarly affected individuals.
In a December 26, 2014 op-ed in
The Advocate magazine, freelance
writer Randy Roberts Potts touch-
es upon this idea by attempting to
draw parallels between the #Black-
LivesMatter
and
past
LGBTQ
rights movements. Potts calls for
solidarity across movements, dis-
cussing how riots in Ferguson and
subsequent rallies nationwide are
reminiscent of the 1969 Stonewall
riots. In these riots, LGBT-iden-
tifying individuals fought against
police forces conducting an unso-
licited raid on the Stonewall Inn—a
hub of sorts for impoverished and
struggling LGBT youth in New
York City’s Greenwich Village.
Stonewall served as a catalyst
for the queer-rights activism of
the 20th century and today, much
in the same way, Potts says, that
the recent happenings in Fergu-
son have reignited a national dis-
cussion on racial politics and the
unequal treatment of minority
populations. In his closing remarks
on the topic, Potts suggests that
respect be given to a movement rel-
ative to its importance in the public
eye at a particular moment in his-
tory: “All lives matter,” he says, “but
our focus must center on whichever
lives, in our own
time, in our own
moment, matter
least.”
In
other
words, activists
must
practice
solidarity
for
similarly-rooted
causes
under
the pretense of
equity; provide
the most ener-
gy to the most pressing of issues,
only moving on to other problems
once the most urgent matters have
been dealt with. It’s a logical plan
of action—at least for trauma sur-
geons. In the fight against social
inequality, however, letting alone
a seemingly small internal bleed in
favor of a wound perceived as more
threatening could prove to be fatal
for the entire, commonly shared
cause.
Why should combating social
injustice be a matter of precedent in
line with particular events? When a
group of people who have been sub-
jugated into second-class citizenry
experience a particularly unsettling
event—as is the case with Ferguson,
as was the case with Stonewall—
others should empathize and act
for the larger cause of social, politi-
cal and economic equality for all
groups. They should act not only
against the wrongs made against the
group directly affected, but also act
in protest of a system which allows
that wrong to occur to any minor-
ity group, regardless of color, creed,
sexuality or gender.
Through my eyes, the reaction
to the many instances of failures
in the justice system pertaining
to Black individuals over the past
months should serve as an oppor-
tunity for the nation to reevaluate
its handling of all crimes rooted
in hate and social injustice. This
reevaluation should be made in
consideration
of
the
Black
population and
their
specific
needs, but also
in consideration
of other subju-
gated
minor-
ity groups in
this nation who
have
experi-
enced
similar
wrongs
as
a
result of their ascribed statuses.
All lives matter. Michael Brown’s
life mattered just as much as the
lives of Eric Garner, Larry King,
and Brisenia Flores. This being
said, combating social injustice
should be a fight not based in equi-
ty. Rather, it should be a sweeping
act in which all victims of social
inequality in this country can par-
take and empathize, come together
in solidarity and appeal for equality
for all downtrodden groups for all
time, not merely at a point in time
which is most convenient for one
group or another.
— Austin Davis can be reached
ataustchan@umich.edu.
All lives matter
Combating social
injustice should be
a fight not based in
equity.
It’s clear that from
the cost-of-living
perspective, men and
women are not equal.
DANI
VIGNOS
AUSTIN
DAVIS
The holidays,
fortunate or not,
bring back shadows
of the past.
— U.S. President Barack Obama during his speech to Wayne County citizens on the
resurgence of the American auto industry Wednesday afternoon.
“
NOTABLE QUOTABLE
One thing is for sure — we may not
all root for the Lions, but America is
rooting for Detroit.”
Do you constantly start politcal
debates during family gatherings?
Do your friends roll their eyes
every time you open your mouth
to voice your opinions?
Come to Editboard on Monday and
Wednesday nights at 6 p.m., where instead of
ostracizing you for your annoying ideas, we
will embrace them!
If you are interested in learning more, please email
opinion opinioneditors@michigandaily.com