Opinion

JENNIFER CALFAS

EDITOR IN CHIEF

AARICA MARSH 

and DEREK WOLFE 

EDITORIAL PAGE EDITORS

LEV FACHER

MANAGING EDITOR

420 Maynard St. 

Ann Arbor, MI 48109

 tothedaily@michigandaily.com

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the University of Michigan since 1890.

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.

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4A — Thursday, February 12, 2015

W

omen are taught to be 
disgusted by their bodi-
ly functions. They are 

taught not to burp, 
fart or hiccup in 
public. When men 
experience 
natu-

ral cycles of the 
human body that 
occur throughout 
the day, farts are 
often funny, burps 
are loud and spit-
ting shows a sign 
of true manliness. 
In a human body, 
the same two acts 
can be received in completely dichoto-
mous ways depending on gender.

A more subtle yet arguably more 

destructive societal construction that 
distinguishes the sexes is the percep-
tion of personal genitalia. I began 
the article with the discrepancies 
between reaction to bodily functions 
because it is often much easier to con-
ceive how these differences have been 
constructed by our male-dominant 
culture. However, the general idoliza-
tion of the penis and revulsion of the 
vagina begins at an early age and car-
ries all the way into adulthood.

Often, when a little boy plays with 

his penis, he is “adjusting it.” When a 
little girl touches her vagina, nearby 
adults laugh in discomfort and scold 
her to stop. Boys in middle school draw 
penises all over the walls and on each 
other’s faces. Girls in middle school 
pretend vaginas don’t exist. Kids in 
high school join the “pen15” club. Girls 
in high school don’t even learn about 
the clitoris in basic sexed.

When you or a woman you know 

first experienced her period, was it 
a moment of acceptance and peace, 
or was it a weird secret that people 
around her whispered about? Was 
putting in a tampon the first time you 
explored your own vagina? Was it the 
first time you felt acceptable doing so?

We are taught to be disgusted by 

the blood coming out of our bodies. 
We are told to hide our tampons on 
the way to the bathroom so passersbys 
won’t dare know we have to stick cot-
ton up our canals to absorb the blood. 
We are taught to shame girls who are 
experiencing that time of the month 
by asking if their emotions are being 
influenced by PMS.

We are taught that we must stick 

a plastic applicator up our vaginas to 
insert a dry piece of cotton into our 
vaginal canals so that we don’t have to 
touch anything that might be “gross.”

Well, here’s the truth: your body is not 

gross. It is natural and real. Your vagina 
is not a secret. If boys can draw penises 
on the walls, we can create vagina sculp-
tures to display in the art school.

It’s time for a revolution, and the 

revolution has arrived — DivaCups, 
MoonCups, Ruby Cups. They’re all the 
same, and they’re here to stay. Men-
strual cups are a blood-catchment 
system that is inserted into the vagina 
and rests below the cervix. A person 
simply empties the cup of blood into 
the toilet when it is full, and boils the 
cup at the end of her cycle. The cup can 
be reused for up to 10 years.

Why is this so amazing? First of all, 

menstrual cups are much healthier for 
your body. They don’t have chemicals 
or perfumes, they avoid dryness by 
catching your menstrual flow rather 
than absorbing it, and there is no risk 

for toxic shock syndrome because they 
are made out of 100 percent medi-
cal silicone. Plastics and chemicals in 
pads and tampons can cause unwant-
ed problems. The cup can be worn for 
up to 12 hours, and therefore allows for 
much more constant physical activity 
and traveling comfort.

Secondly, the cost savings with diva 

cups are incredible. In one year if you 
spend around $100 on tampons, then 
in 10 years you are saving $1000 (some 
simple math)!

Third, landfills are benefitting so 

much from the menstrual cup revolu-
tion. In one woman’s lifetime, she will 
use around 12,000 tampons or pads, 
all of which (hopefully) end up in 
landfills. Ruby-cup.com estimates that 
about four diva cups in one’s lifetime 
can equate to about 12,000 tampons. 
They also report that about 170,000 
plastic tampon applicators are found 
along U.S. coastlines in a single year, 
each of which takes about 500 years to 
break down.

Ruby Cup is a special brand of men-

strual cup that works a bit like TOMS 
Shoes: buy one, give one to a schoolgirl 
in a developing country. This means 
that she has more flexibility to go to 
school all year round, stay healthy and 
contribute to her society. Girl by girl, 
we can change the world.

The menstrual cup revolution can 

remodel our relationships with our 
vaginas, our blood, our earth and, 
most importantly, ourselves. We are 
reclaiming our rights to our bod-
ies and our blood. The cup may seem 
small, but it’s changing the flow.

— Maris Harmon can be 

reached at marhar@umich.edu.

The Diva Cup revolution

Claire Bryan, Regan Detwiler, Aarica Marsh, 

Victoria Noble, Michael Paul, Allison Raeck, Melissa 

Scholke, Michael Schramm, Matthew Seligman, 

Linh Vu, Mary Kate Winn, Jenny Wang, Derek Wolfe

EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

L

ast Friday, U.S. Supreme 
Court Justice Ruth Bader 
Ginsburg answered ques-

tions from com-
mentators 
at 

Hill 
Auditorium 

during the Uni-
versity’s 
annual 

Tanner 
Lecture 

on Human Val-
ues. The audito-
rium was packed 
to capacity, with 
thousands 
of 

political 
nerds 

drooling in their 
seats simply for 
getting the chance to lay eyes on the 
“Notorious R.B.G.”

R.B.G. 
has 
been 
celebrated 

across the country for the past few 
decades as a monumental leader 
in the women’s rights movement. 
Her popularity has been elevated 
to that of a classic cultural icon 
among America’s youth. Affection-
ately nicknamed Notorious R.B.G. 
(a moniker inspired by deceased 
rapper Notorious B.I.G.), Ginsburg 
has entered the minds and hearts 
of thousands of young nerds across 
the nation, becoming an iconic 
leader in the battle for equality 
among all human beings.

During the lecture, Ginsburg 

spoke about several topics including 
law, women’s rights, professional-
ism, famous SCOTUS cases and giv-
ing advice how to best help others.

With all eyes glued to her small, 

shockingly 
fashionable 
81-year-

old frame, Ginsburg noted, “If you 
think of yourself as a professional, 
well you’re not just going to get a 
job so you can turn over a buck … 
You’ve got a skill, and you can earn 
a living from it. But if you think 
of yourself as a true professional 
armed with a skill, you could help 
someone who is less fortunate.”

Even before Ginsburg began work-

ing in the public sphere, she embod-
ied this sentiment. When she began 
law school in 1956, she was one of 
nine women in her class of over 500 
students. She graduated at the top 
of her class in 1959 from Columbia 

Law School after attending Harvard 
Law for her first two years. However, 
gaining employment after excelling 
in law school was nearly impossible 
for our beloved idol. Ginsburg men-
tioned during her speech that there 
“weren’t many legal employers who 
were willing to take on a woman.”

R.B.G. was eventually offered 

a position as a law clerk. After her 
initial struggle in the workforce, 
Ginsburg steadily built an admirable 
career as a law professional and an 
advocate for human rights — specifi-
cally gender rights.

Her list of accomplishments is 

almost unnerving. She taught at the 
Rutgers University Law School. She 
became the director for the Ameri-
can Civil Liberties Union’s Wom-
en’s Rights Project, winning five of 
the six cases she argued before the 
Supreme Court. She was the first 
tenured female professor at Colum-
bia Law School. She was appointed 
to the District of Columbia’s U.S. 
Court of Appeals by President 
Jimmy Carter and wrote more than 
300 opinions for the court. And in 
1993 — the year I was born — Presi-
dent Bill Clinton nominated Gins-
burg to replace SCOTUS Justice 
Byron White. After her confirma-
tion, she became the second female 
justice in our nation’s history.

R.B.G.’s 
popularity 
began 
to 

increase after her ferocious dissents 
in the affirmative action case, Fisher 
v. University of Texas at Austin, and 
the voting rights case, Shelby County 
v. Holder. When alternatives to affir-
mative action were offered during 
oral arguments, Ginsburg famously 
responded in her dissent with, “only 
an ostrich could regard the suppos-
edly race-neutral alternatives as 
race-unconscious.”

Shortly after the dissents were 

released in June 2014, New York Uni-
versity law student Shana Knizhnik 
created the “Notorious R.B.G.” tum-
blr, propelling Ginsburg to Internet 
immortality among America’s young, 
tech-savvy demographic.

The creation of this tumblr 

turned into something devoted 
R.B.G. fanatics have only dreamed 

about since 1993. A Jan. 6 post from 
the site summarizes this notion 
and Ginsburg’s year in two simple 
sentences (emphasis mine): “This 
year, the Notorious R.B.G. had 
heart surgery, celebrated her 81st 
birthday, and served her 21st year 
on the Supreme Court of the United 
States. But most of all, 2014 was the 
year that everyone realized that she 
is a total badass.”

In 2003, only nine percent of 

respondents in a poll by FindLaw.
com were able to identify Ginsburg 
as a Supreme Court justice; in 2012, 
that number increased to 13 per-
cent. It’s safe to say that in 2015, 
more Americans (especially more 
young Americans) are able to iden-
tify R.B.G. as a Supreme Court jus-
tice and a passionate advocate for 
human rights.

But is it really accurate to deem 

Ginsburg “notorious?”

According to Merriam-Webster 

online, the definition of notorious 
is “generally known and talked of; 
especially: widely and unfavorably 
known.”

Oxford dictionary online has a 

similar definition for notorious: 
“famous or well known, typically for 
some bad quality or deed.”

The nickname “Notorious R.B.G.” 

is funny, amusing and clever, yet, 
it’s not actually a good description 
of Ginsburg, her work or her ideol-
ogy. While Ginsburg dissenters may 
deem her “notorious” for her liberal 
beliefs about human rights, in my 
book she is anything but.

Ginsburg is renowned, esteemed, 

illustrious, 
astounding, 
influen-

tial, preeminent — but she is never, 
 

ever notorious.

In everything she has done, Gins-

burg has worked for the betterment 
of humankind. She is an incred-
ible person, and I can only hope to 
accomplish a mere sliver of the good 
that she has done in the world.

For now, I will follow Ginsburg’s 

parting advice: “Pursue — whatever 
it is — your passion.”

 
— Aarica Marsh can be 

reached at aaricama@umich.edu.

Not exactly ‘notorious’

AARICA 
MARSH

Investing in your future

O

ur country’s income inequality is sim-
ply colossal. The top three percent of 
wealthy families own 54 percent of 

our wealth. The top 10 per-
cent owns 85 percent of our 
wealth. This unequal dis-
tribution has been growing 
since the late 1990s.

We can all agree that 

income inequality sucks, but 
that isn’t going to get us any-
where. We need to talk about 
initiatives that each of us can 
begin to help bridge the gap 
between the wealthy and the 
rest of us.

While a variety of fac-

tors meld together to create a person’s wealth, 
one of the most influential and unused tactics 
involves good stock investment. The wealthi-
est 10 percent own 81 to 94 percent of financial 
assets — stocks being one of them.

I’m sure you’ve heard that investing in 

stocks is a wise decision, but not until you 
understand the mechanics behind compound-
ing interest do you realize how crucial invest-
ment in your 20s can be.

To make sure we’re all on the same page 

with definitions, interest is the amount of 
money you receive for letting someone bor-
row your money. A lot of financial institutions 
provide interest — including stocks, bonds and 
banks. Let’s take banks as an example. If you 
put your money in a bank, you’re doing them a 
favor by giving them money. They actually use 
this money to invest in other projects to make 
money. To reward you, they provide compen-
sation by depositing a fraction of your account 
holdings. This compensation is the interest 
that is added into your account.

However, not all financial institutions pro-

vide the same interest rates, and some institu-
tions provide interest that’s pitifully low. Banks, 
for example, have historically only provided a 
0.17 percentage annual average. That means 
you’d only make 17 cents per year for every $100 
you have deposited in the bank.

Stock averages are much greater. Though 

the stock market is extremely volatile, it aver-
ages a six to seven percent interest rate per 
year. This is the highest average return of all 
forms of investment.

It’s in this percentage change that you could 

become a millionaire while depositing around 
one-tenth of that money.

The key lies in the idea of compounding 

interest for long periods of time. Compound-
ing interest is similar to the idea of regular 
interest except that your interest accrues 
interest in the next year. Let’s use stock 
returns to elaborate on this. Say that you 
invest in a stock that costs $100 and, with 
interest, it increases by the average seven per-
cent to $107. Then, if your stock rises by seven 
percent in the following year, it’ll be worth 
$114.49. Notice that the increase in the price 

was 49 cents more than the first year. That’s 
due to the fact that the seven percent interest 
in the second period applied the seven-dollar 
increase in the first period.

Now, this may not seem like a significant 

amount of money, but over decades of time, it 
is. If at age 20 you invested $1,000 in a stock, 
it grew by the average compound interest rate, 
and you took the money out when you were 
50 years old, you would have $7,612.26. If you 
pulled it out at age 60, you would have almost 
$15,000. That’s almost 15 times the amount of 
money you originally invested.

Let’s make it clear that this isn’t a get-rich-

quick scheme. Compound interest requires 
decades of time to invest, but think of how 
revolutionary this could be for people with 
low income.

Saving $1,000 in a year only requires putting 

$83.33 away each month. That can be difficult 
for those living on a low yearly income, but it’s 
possible for almost anyone.

If you saved $1,000 every year in your 20s 

and 30s, you’re estimated to end up retiring 
in your 60s with slightly more than a quarter-
million dollars. And if you want to invest more 
money, you have the ability to retire with even 
more money.

Having this nest egg leads to an infinite 

amount of possibilities. You could allow the 
stocks to continue gaining value each year 
and sell off the extra value, allowing your-
self a multi-thousand dollar endowment each 
year. You can use the money as a retirement 
account to have a financially sound retire-
ment. You can will your children some of the 
money and allow them to spend what they 
want and invest the rest.

Now, this process isn’t as easy as picking a 

stock and waiting 40 years. The stock market is 
extremely volatile, and investing in bad stocks 
could lead to you losing a lot of money. If you’re 
going to invest, you need to put a lot of time 
into understanding the process and identifying 
valuable stocks.

But the time is worth it. It’s the way for 

the single mother putting $50 in her savings 
account to take control of her and her child’s 
financial future. It’s how the 20-year-old flip-
ping burgers at McDonald’s has a chance at a 
secure future.

So go on Amazon and buy a highly regarded 

beginner’s investment book. Take advantage of 
online websites dedicated to helping investors. 
Ask friends for advice on getting into invest-
ment, and tell other friends about the power of 
compound interest. Research companies until 
you find ones you want to invest in. Invest, 
invest, invest.

Don’t avoid the stock market because you 

don’t know much about it. Though it’s not an 
immediate remedy for poverty, it’s the system 
that can diminish it.

— Michael Schramm can be reached 

at mschramm@umich.edu.

Reconsider the honor code 
 
 

TO THE DAILY: 

I graduated from this University in 1995, 

and during my years on this campus, the stu-
dent body protested the implementation of 
the Statement of Student Rights and Respon-
sibilities (SSRR), which the administration 
had introduced via a mass mailing to students 
in the spring of 1992. Of those students who 
voted in the November 1992 Michigan Student 
Assembly elections, 86 percent voted against 
the SSRR; sadly, the Regents implemented it 
the very day after those elections.

Monday’s announcement by Central Stu-

dent Government about creating task force to 
look into drafting an “honor code” to supple-
ment the SSRR surprised me. Now, as I did 
then, I have to ask, “Why?” Aren’t there local 
and state laws against what the fraternities and 
sororities in question did? Don’t they have gov-
ernments (the Interfraternity Council for fra-

ternities and the Panhellenic Association for 
sororities)? Don’t those fraternities and sorori-
ties themselves already have honor codes that 
apply to all chapters across the country? And 
why are University student leaders interested 
in the very sort of “in loco parentis” utopian 
stuff that their early-1990s Michigan Student 
Assembly counterparts were fighting and vot-
ing against?

I am well aware that students at this Univer-

sity, as at other colleges and universities world-
wide, are at this crossroads. They are adults, 
but at the same time, they are just beginning 
to learn about life in the real world. However, 
there are already laws in place for those who 
do not behave responsibly. Therefore, I implore 
CSG’s leadership to reconsider their decision to 
look into creating yet another “honor code.”

 

Mark Rabinowitz
1995 Alum

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