N
o, it’s not about the NFL
playoffs. It’s about the
one other, non-flu patho-
gen
infecting
college campus-
es across the
nation:
sexual
assault.
Since
the beginning of
the school year,
sexual assaults
on campus have
received ample
attention,
par-
ticularly at plac-
es like Columbia
University and
the
University
of Virginia. Emma Sulkowicz, a
senior
at
Columbia
(colloqui-
ally known as “mattress girl”), has
served as the face for these issues
through her performance piece
Carry That Weight.
This has been a complicated
time for me as a spectator, given
that I have known Emma since
kindergarten. Emma was, in my
experience, hardly a shy or dainty
girl. During the day, she was smart
beyond belief, funny and easy to
talk to. At night, Emma was just as
bravely forward with some of my
friends as she was with the telling
of her story to the country. She was
never a pushover. So, in the midst
of all of her publicity (largely in
September), I never doubted she
was telling the truth. But I did
wonder one thing: how could this
happen to her, of all people?
Confusion seems to be a hall-
mark of many sexual assault
cases. Confusion is present before,
during and after the act. Confu-
sion seems to be a consequence of
an initial incongruence between
the two sides that led to what
could even be interpreted as non-
consensual sex. In my experience,
consensual sex is tremendously
unconfusing — there aren’t really
that many confounding factors
when you are taking each other’s
clothes off. So the very concept
of rape resonates with confusion,
typically about far more than
“what happened in the room.”
In the effort to alleviate some
of this confusion, scientists have
conducted studies to try to analyze
sexual assault with probabilities
and quantifications. For example,
19 percent of female students in
college experienced completed or
attempted sexual assault during
their time on campus. Similarly,
female students who experienced
sexual assault prior to college were
eight times more likely to experi-
ence it again during college. Fur-
thermore, female students who
have “reported getting drunk since
entering college” are 1.7 times more
likely to be the victims of sexual
assault, with fraternity men being
the most likely perpetrators.
But what do these numbers
really mean, or rather, what are we
to make of them? Don’t spend time
drinking at fraternities? Don’t go to
college in the first place?
These are coarse interpreta-
tions of an extraordinarily sensi-
tive question. Sexual assault is not
a “disease” itself; it cannot be van-
quished with comparative effec-
tiveness studies and rehabilitation
regimens. It is, rather, a symptom
of a much larger malignancy.
On Tuesday morning, The New
York Times sought to address this
broader malignancy in an article
titled “Sorority Anti-Rape Idea:
Drinking on Own Turf.” Amidst
a comprehensive profiling of
recent sexual assault cases, the
author, Alan Schwarz, explores
a suggestion to have drinking
occur in the sorority houses
themselves.
Female
students
interviewed detailed the role
of a “home-court advantage” at
Greek parties, the importance of
“ownership of the social scene,”
analogizing host fraternities to
“hunting grounds.” Thus, the
suggestion to have sororities
host parties.
However, from where I sit,
this suggestion would only intro-
duce more issues. The benefit to
being a visitor (in the Greek con-
text, but also more broadly) is
that, if uncomfortable, you can
leave. Though there are dangers
off-campus late at night, reliable
taxi and bus service, coupled with
walking in a group, mitigate these
issues. There is much power in
the ability to leave on a moment’s
notice. On the contrary, opening
your own house up to others makes
this “escape plan” far more compli-
cated. A closed door in your own
house is equally dangerous to that
of another’s, with the caveat that
you have nowhere else to go.
No. I think that the deeper
issue to be explored here has to
do with the male-female relation-
ships, interactions and expecta-
tions in the campus context. It’s
less tangible than an address on a
Facebook event.
I was recently asked by one of
my friends when the last time I had
“sober sex” was. He was surprised
by my answer — he hadn’t done it
since high school. Another friend
asked what he should “do with” a
girl he was interested in. I suggest-
ed he take her on a date. He laughed
at me. A third friend shared his
internal debate on whether or not
to ask a girl to be “exclusive.” He
resolved it was better not to.
I believe that these are the
products of the larger relationship
problem.
Relationships
are
complex, convoluted and opaque.
This, in my mind, is the malignancy.
To put it simply: I just don’t
think guys and girls know each
other well enough nor intimately
enough. When you know someone
intimately, you know whether
they’re
being
blunt,
versus
sarcastic, versus sassy. When you
know someone intimately, you
know whether they’re squirming
in discomfort, writhing in pain or
just ticklish. When you do not, you
don’t know how to tell someone
you’re scared, uncomfortable and
need to go home. When you do not,
you don’t know how to read the
signs, and you don’t know how to
give them.
Mandating
comprehensive
sexual assault education for
all entering college students,
including
the
detailed
narratives and experiences of
survivors,
would
supplement
this more intimate education.
The current feeble attempts at
sexual assault education lack
the detail, strength and emotion
of testimony. The combination
would serve to make the signs
more clear and to clarify some of
the insidious confusion.
I am still confused about what
happened to Emma. There are
no clear answers, nor immediate
solutions. But I do hope that
she, as with other victims (male
or female), can recover a sense
of normality in time. And I
do hope that he, as with other
perpetrators (male or female),
can get to know the objects of his
desire better in the future. But,
that way, they might become more
than objects; they might become
living, breathing, feeling partners.
That way, when they say “yes,”
explicitly or implicitly, he might
be able to hear them.
Or too, when they say “no.”
— Eli Cahan can be reached
at emcahan@umich.edu.
Edvinas Berzanskis, Claire Bryan, Regan Detwiler,
Devin Eggert, David Harris, Rachel John, Jordyn Kay,
Aarica Marsh, Victoria Noble, Michael Paul, Allison Raeck,
Melissa Scholke, Michael Schramm, Matthew Seligman,
Mary Kate Winn, Jenny Wang, Derek Wolfe
EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS
The 42nd anniversary of Roe
v. Wade marks a bittersweet
time of reflection for us as abor-
tion rights activists.
Although Roe v. Wade is
widely celebrated as a ground-
breaking United States Supreme
Court decision, it set a surpris-
ingly weak precedent for abortion
rights. In 1970, Jane Roe sued the
district attorney of Dallas based
on the premise that her inability
to receive a legal abortion in the
state of Texas violated her person-
al liberty. She claimed that this
liberty was embodied in the due
process clause of the 14th Amend-
ment, and that the “penumbras”
of the Bill of Rights recognized,
to some extent, a right to sexual
and reproductive privacy. The
Supreme Court did not uphold
this logic.
Instead, former Justice Harry
Blackmun’s
majority
opinion
ruled that before fetal viability,
“the abortion decision … must
be left to the medical judgment
of the pregnant woman’s attend-
ing physician.” (“Viability” is
the stage in pregnancy where a
fetus is capable of surviving out-
side of the womb, usually 24 to
28 weeks, or in the Court’s lan-
guage, the end of the second tri-
mester.) This ruling was based
on the Court’s interpretation of
the First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth
and 14th Amendments, as well as
precedents set in previous cases
such as Griswold v. Connecti-
cut that, together, established a
right to privacy. However, after
fetal viability, weighing a “com-
pelling” interest in fetal life
against the right to privacy is a
decision left to individual states.
What are the problems here?
To start, the focus on the right
to privacy allowed the Court to
construct a rationale that rec-
ognized the legality of first and
second-trimester abortions but
failed to provide for accessibil-
ity. Before Roe v. Wade, those
who could afford to travel to
one of the 17 states where abor-
tion laws were liberalized and
those who could achieve consent
from a physician to receive abor-
tions due to health concerns (the
majority of whom were wealthy,
white women) already had access
to abortion. Thus, the Roe v.
Wade decision did not sufficient-
ly address the underlying issues
of socioeconomic status (often
stratified along racial lines) in
abortion access because it hardly
addressed the issues of accessi-
bility and affordability.
The fact that the Supreme
Court justified a woman’s right
to limited bodily autonomy with
a judicially created right to pri-
vacy and the right of physicians
to practice medicine freely bar-
ring a compelling state interest —
instead of following Roe’s initial
argument that women possess a
fundamental liberty in choosing
whether to carry a pregnancy to
term — is additionally problem-
atic. If the Court had focused on
recognizing the humanity and
basic freedom of women, rather
than the constitutional politics
of privacy in healthcare, abortion
rights in the United States might
be much stronger today.
Instead, abortion rights have
been under attack for decades.
Roe v. Wade set a weak prec-
edent, but it is the only national
precedent that we have, and even
this fragile foundation is being
chipped away by today’s legisla-
tures at both state and national
levels. New bills are passed every
year that place restrictions on
abortion clinics and decrease
funding opportunities, further
reducing accessibility. For exam-
ple, last year in Michigan, a law
was passed that requires individ-
uals who may become pregnant to
buy an insurance rider specifical-
ly for abortion, effectively forcing
planning for an unplanned preg-
nancy. In addition, the U.S. House
of Representatives is debating
legislation right now to ban abor-
tion after 20 weeks of pregnancy,
and to set nationally mandated
abortion clinic restrictions that
would place costly constraints
on abortion providers, essentially
reversing the basic premise of Roe
v. Wade.
Forty-two years after Roe
v. Wade, many people remain
unable to secure safe, legal abor-
tions due to economic constraints
not accounted for in the decision.
In effect, abortion is rendered a
privilege, not a right. It is clear
that the work of activists in repro-
ductive freedom is as important
now as ever.
Claire Taigman is an
LSA sophomore.
CLAIRE TAIGMAN | VIEWPOINT
Reflecting on Roe v. Wade
S
ince the film’s release last
week, Clint Eastwood’s
“American Sniper” has
been the con-
sistent
topic
of
debate
amongst
Hol-
lywood
chat-
ter throughout
online
plat-
forms. “Ameri-
can
Sniper”
chronicles
the adulthood
of U.S. Navy
SEAL
Chris
Kyle,
played
by
Bradley
Cooper, as he became known as
one of the most lethal snipers in
American history throughout
his four combat tours in Iraq.
Directed by Clint Eastwood, the
film was based on Kyle’s best-
selling 2012 autobiography of the
same name.
Although the movie ranked
No. 1 this past weekend, gross-
ing more than $105 million at the
box office and setting an open-
ing weekend record as the top-
grossing Oscar nominee ever,
appreciation and praise of the
film has not been unanimous.
Film director Michael Moore,
who famously criticized the Iraq
War in his 2003 Oscar accep-
tance speech, is now expressing
his views via Twitter, calling
snipers “cowards.” On Janu-
ary 18, Moore tweeted, “My
uncle killed by sniper in WW2.
We were taught snipers were
cowards. Will shoot u in the
back. Snipers aren’t heroes. And
invaders r worse.” A few hours
later he followed up, tweeting,
“But if you’re on the roof of your
home defending it from invaders
who’ve come 7K miles, you are
not a sniper, u are brave, u are
a neighbor.”
Seth Rogan, the director of
the recent cinematic contro-
versy “The Interview,” also
tweeted that the film reminded
him of the faux-Nazi propagan-
da film that Quentin Tarantino
featured in his film “Inglouri-
ous Basterds,” in which a Ger-
man sniper talks about how he
picked off 200 Allied soldiers
from a clock tower. He later
amended his opinion, writing,
“I just said something ‘kinda
reminded’ me of something else.
I actually liked ‘American Snip-
er.’ It just reminded me of the
Tarantino scene.”
More
recently,
journalist
Karen Zacharias wrote an edi-
torial for CNN titled, “Why I
refuse to see ‘American Sniper,’
” expressing concern that the
film may be glorifying or mis-
representing war. She claims,
however, that her reluctance
has nothing to do with Michael
Moore’s flippant assertion that
snipers are cowards, countering
that she was always taught that
cowards are those who refuse to
serve their country.
Zacharias writes, “When my
father died there were no crowds
gathered at Cowboys Stadium,
no JumboTron displaying pic-
tures of the family man my
father was, and no front-page
stories. There was just a broken
family feeling very abandoned by
an ungrateful nation.” She con-
cludes, “Hollywood has a way of
fictionalizing war, of making it
all about ‘us’ and ‘them’… I have
traveled to my father’s battlefield
in Vietnam and I have befriend-
ed Vietnamese who lost even
more than I did during the war. I
have learned there is no ‘us’ and
‘them.’ There is only ‘us.’ ”
While I respect Zacharias’
personal reasons for abstain-
ing from viewing the film, I felt
as though the arguments she
cites in her piece are not entirely
applicable to “American Sniper.”
Chris Kyle had no intention or
expectation of a crowd gather-
ing at Cowboys Stadium in his
honor or a 200-mile procession
— and that is exactly the point.
Rather, “American Sniper” tells
the crucial, very real story of a
man grappling with his role in
the Iraqi war.
In fact, when asked by Time
magazine’s Belinda Luscombe
why he originally wrote the
novel, Kyle explained that he
wanted to write about “not the
sacrifices that the military mem-
bers make, but the sacrifices
that their families have to go
through, about the single moth-
ers now raising their children …
then also stories about my guys
that deserve to be out there. They
didn’t get the Medal of Honor
so you don’t know about them,
but they died heroes and people
should know about them.” Both
in his live interviews and as por-
trayed by Bradley Cooper in the
film, Chris Kyle honorably emu-
lates humility, dedication and
a life and heart of service — an
inspiring, humanistic example of
conduct that is able to resonate
with the majority of the feature’s
audience.
I was personally both enter-
tained
and
enlightened
by
“American Sniper,” leaving the
theater wanting to communicate
the importance of Chris Kyle,
his story and the film. What I
appreciated the most about the
film was its alarming ability to
be apolitical. The piece makes no
statement about the folly of war,
nor does it glamorize or glorify
it. “American Sniper” is simply
Kyle’s story, from the moment
he decides to enlist to when he
returns home permanently. It
does not attempt to suggest what
should have been done overseas
or what was being done over-
seas; it solely presents the real-
ity of the war for a single soldier
and from his point of view.
Ultimately, “American Sniper”
is truly a great American war
story, and what I believe may
quickly become a classic. The
power of the film comes not from
its underlying commentary — and
I am irritated that critics may be
attempting to fabricate some —
but instead from its simplicity
and focus. The strength of Chris
Kyle’s tale lies in its resonant por-
trayal of a man struggling with
his responsibilities to his God,
his country and his young fam-
ily, and how those contrasting
responsibilities riddle him with
internal tensions. It is not neces-
sarily a story about snipers, vio-
lence or war, but one about how
we may fare when faced with such
imminent pressures.
— Lauren McCarthy can be
reached at laurmc@umich.edu.
An American classic
LAUREN
MCCARTHY
Home-court advantage
ELI
CAHAN
I
t’s a simple drive to get to
the airport. Head down
State Street, take I-94 East
to
exit
198
and follow the
signs.
Many
Michigan stu-
dents
with
cars on cam-
pus are used
to the drive,
picking up and
dropping
off
friends
visit-
ing from home
or recent grad-
uates return-
ing for a visit.
I found myself making this
trip again last week for the lat-
ter reason. Maybe because it
was dark and calm on the free-
way, or maybe because it’s my
senior year, hence everything
is sentimental, but I found
myself thinking about the trip as
more than just a quick drive to
the airport.
“Experienced
driver”
isn’t
something I would be comfort-
able putting on my resume; I
would rather be in the passen-
ger seat — navigating via Google
Maps — than sitting behind the
wheel. In fact, I am pretty sure I
drove about 10 percent of the rec-
ommended 50 hours of driving I
was supposed to complete before
my driver’s test. I passed the test
just days before my senior year
began because my brother was
leaving for college, forcing me
to find an alternate way to get
to school.
My arsenal of excuses I use to
avoid driving range from frugal-
ity (I’d rather spend money on
clothes than on gas) to forgetful-
ness (occasionally I will “forget”
to bring my glasses to the car). If
I am being honest, I even claim
my 5-foot-tall frame is simply
too short to see above the wheel
of some cars (I’m looking at you,
Honda Prius).
But on this particular eve-
ning, I thought about freshman
year, when I anxiously headed
to the airport to pick up my
high-school boyfriend. Google
Maps was cued up on my cell
phone and laptop, and I forced
my brother to tell me the direc-
tions over and over until I knew
them better than the answers to
my Econ 101 exam. I sat in the
car, took a deep breath, checked
my mirrors twice and headed
toward the freeway.
Even though I knew the exit
I was supposed to take to get to
the airport, I still panicked as I
passed the sign for Willow Run
Airport. Was this where I was
supposed to turn off? Had it been
20 miles already? How could
there be two airports in such a
small stretch of road? Without
Siri’s soothing voice telling me
to continue on I-94 East, I may
not have made it that day.
Last week, though, I passed
the sign for Willow Run Airport
and laughed to myself, thinking
of the stress this silly sign had
caused me my freshman year.
Why had my anxiety about driv-
ing to the airport dissipated? It
was still the same sign, the same
car and the same drive. The cir-
cumstances hadn’t changed — I
had changed.
Some argue college is a time
to get out of your comfort zone,
but I think college expanded
my comfort zone. I came here
as little more than a high school
student who had just gotten her
license the year before. I went to
school in state, following in my
father and brother’s footsteps
at the University of Michigan.
I arrived on campus thinking I
could learn a lot from my new
environment, but acknowledg-
ing Ann Arbor was definitely
well within my comfort zone.
But then things changed. I
made new friends who came
from backgrounds I had never
encountered in my northern
Michigan hometown. I learned
from professors who held views
on issues I hadn’t even consid-
ered because they just hadn’t
occurred to me. I spent a semes-
ter in Washington, D.C., a city
more than 100 times the size of
the place where I grew up. And
somewhere in that timeframe,
I learned to drive to the airport
without getting nervous.
In four months I’ll be moving
to Washington, D.C., a city filled
with a metro system, reliable
buses, a steady stream of taxis
and a climate that makes walk-
ing a real possibility for most of
the year. Realistically, I won’t
own a car for at least five years.
But there are other things to be
stressed about as I transition
from the “bubble” of college to
the “real world.”
I’ll find a job and learn to
budget wisely in a city like D.C.
while on a public service salary.
I’ll apartment hunt with some-
one I don’t know and be nervous
about whether or not they’ll
leave their dishes in the sink. I’ll
balance work life with activi-
ties I love, like running, reading
and visiting new restaurants.
And I’ll negotiate leaving my
college friendships, events and
experiences that have so won-
derfully tugged at the outline of
my comfort zone until I couldn’t
see many of the boundaries I set
for myself in high school. I have
faith, though, that within a few
years these things will be mind-
less tasks—daily operations not
even worth much thought. Post-
graduate life will push against
the outline of my comfort zone
yet again.
While I still might hesitate to
sign myself up for a cross-country
road trip, I can confidently drive
myself from Ann Arbor to wher-
ever I need to go. And while I
might not be excited to leave my
college days behind this spring,
I know heading to the next big
thing is within my comfort zone,
thanks to my time in Ann Arbor.
— Katie Koziara can be reached
at kkoziara@umich.edu.
Mapping my comfort zone
KATIE
KOZIARA
Want to read about the new Queer In Action section?
Check out page 3A.
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Opinion
4A — Thursday, January 22, 2015