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
Edited and managed by students at
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, October 8, 2015
Avoidance and tales of adulthood
M
y pedometer is an opti-
mist. It always says that
I am running, when in
reality
I
just
walk very quick-
ly. While I know
this should have
no effect on my
day, it hurts to
have the application on my phone
telling me another way in which I
am a failure. To its movement-sens-
ing technology, I appear to be the
world’s slowest runner.
The point is not the many ways
in which I fail or my actual running
speed, but to ask myself: Why am
I always in such a hurry? While I
have a schedule full of classes, work
and meetings, so does every other
student at the University. Yet, it is
only some students who walk like
someone trying to race a bicycle,
outrun adulthood or perform some
more difficult feat.
I am almost always 15 minutes
early to class. I don’t know why. I
think I am worried that I will for-
get where I am going or I will for-
get my homework and have to give
myself enough time to run back and
retrieve it. Neither of these things
has ever happened. I use the extra
time to walk across the Diag and
back or take a lap around the MLB.
When I am at home with my fami-
ly, we go on walks down the dirt road
we live on. Since I can remember, I
have found myself at least 20 strides
ahead of the pack (a small pack,
that is). During walks, my (hilari-
ous) dad often shouts up to me to
ask how the weather is. Sometimes,
after turning around to stick out my
tongue, I reassure myself that I like
to stretch my legs with the fast pace.
Other times, I reassure myself that I
like the space between us to think.
And when I’m not doing that, as my
(brilliant) twin sister hustles to stay
beside me, I tell myself I just have to
beat her at this one thing.
But
that
(obviously
insane)
determination does not exist for me
here. I do not have a person to irra-
tionally compete against, nor is it
that difficult to find a place to think
(well, it is a
little). And that
excuse
about
short legs? I am
5-foot-4;
my
legs stretch eas-
ily, they have to
stretch to reach
the ground as I
get out of bed in
the morning.
Then
why
am I in a hurry
at home? Why
would anyone be in a hurry in the
Upper Peninsula of Michigan? There
is not much reason to rush; life there
is slow and patient. I would say I
am racing to leave, but that would
be hurtful, slightly untrue and
would not explain the issue here. I
think the best way I could describe
what I was trying to do was a joke I
made earlier. Maybe I try to outrun
adulthood, like maybe if I run more
quickly then it cannot touch me.
This is something I see students, as
well as other members of the Univer-
sity community, try to do every day.
Everyone has coping mechanisms.
People oversleep or never sleep. They
bury themselves in Netflix. They
drink way too much. The other day,
some friends of mine from high school
drove the eight hours to Ann Arbor
just to go to the Briarwood Mall, walk
around the Diag and leave. On Mon-
day, my friend Haley told me, eagerly
yet firmly, that time does not exist. I
avoid adulthood by walking quickly,
because if I am always moving, always
between destinations, I am nowhere.
You cannot be an adult if you are
nowhere, Haley convinced herself.
But now that I can identify the
problem, I can admit a worse fate than
the denial of adulthood: accepting it.
The other day, one of my classmates
asked my Spanish
teacher how old
he was, and my
teacher sucked in
his cheeks before
bashfully admit-
ting, 24 (but it
was in Spanish,
so make sure you
read it “veinticu-
atro”). Then he
said he felt old. I
wanted to shake
him, to tell him
he was young, so close to my age
that if we were dogs we would be the
same. I wanted to tell him to slow
his embrace of responsibility and he
should stay and explore with us, but
I am not that good at speaking Span-
ish and he already thinks I am odd.
Something I have been realizing as
I get older is that no one ever knows
what they are doing. Yeah, think of
that next time you get into a car with
your parents or have surgery or ask
your GSI a question. It is scary. But,
it also puts us all on a similar level.
Not to say you are smarter than your
professors or Donald Trump (yes,
in this case), but I want you to know
that adulthood is not something you
have to run away from or run toward.
When you cross its path, acknowl-
edge that it means very little and
walk calmly beside it.
— Payton Luokkala can be
reached at payluokk@umich.edu.
Claire Bryan, Regan Detwiler, Ben Keller,
Payton Luokkala, Aarica Marsh, Victoria
Noble, Anna Polumbo-Levy, Melissa Scholke,
Michael Schramm, Stephanie Trierweiler,
Mary Kate Winn, Derek Wolfe
EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS
PAYTON
LUOKKALA
— University President Mark Schlissel to reporters about the future of Greek life after
speaking at the Detroit Economic Club on Tuesday afternoon.
“
NOTABLE QUOTABLE
Unless … the students
themselves moderate some of
the risky behavior … they may
naturally wither and people
may want to stop joining
(fraternities and sororities).”
When you cross
adulthood’s path,
acknowledge that it
means very little.
O
n Sept. 30, Congress passed
an emergency bill to keep
the government running for
another 10 weeks.
If this bill had not
passed,
federal
agencies
would
have run out of
money
within
seven hours. Even
more
disturb-
ingly, more than
half of Congres-
sional
Repub-
licans
voted
against
this
bill in an effort
to end federal
funding for Planned Parenthood.
Contention over federal fund-
ing for Planned Parenthood and
the deficit were among the possible
factors that contributed to House
Speaker John Boehner’s decision to
step down from his position, which
he announced on Sept. 25.
He has expressed a strong sense
of commitment to addressing our
government’s budget deficiencies
before he leaves Congress. Boehner
said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on
Sept. 27, “I don’t want to leave my
successor a dirty barn. I want to
clean the barn up a bit before the
next person gets there.” This indi-
cates that he will most likely push
for a resolution to strengthen the
standing of our nation’s finances.
However, on Oct. 1, Secretary of
the Treasury Jacob Lew wrote in a
letter to Boehner that we may face
a dire debt crisis by November 5
— in spite of the emergency resolu-
tion. Lew proclaimed in the letter:
“Without sufficient cash, it would be
impossible for the United States of
America to meet all of its obligations
for the first time in our history.”
He went on to explain that reach-
ing the legal debt ceiling of $18.1
trillion would result in the U.S.
government having $30 billion in
working capital.
These
factors
suggest
that
Speaker Boehner’s efforts to clean
out “the barn” are paramount to
our country’s future. The govern-
ment shutdown of 2013, launched
by House Republicans in response
to failed efforts to repeal or amend
the Affordable Care Act, damaged
our economy. According to Stan-
dard & Poor’s, the 2013 federal
shutdown cost the government $24
billion and reduced fourth-quarter
GDP growth by about 0.6 percent.
Despite the fact the government
shut down in 2013, and may do so
again in the near future, recent
congressional sessions have not
brought about the results to ensure
long-term fiscal stability. If voters
do not demand change for the stra-
tegic diminishment of debt, our
generation will fully experience
the consequences.
Indeed, as of Oct. 4, the U.S.
national debt loomed above $18 tril-
lion, the debt per citizen greater
than $57,100 and the debt per tax-
payer greater than $154,400. These
numbers hint at a future of oppres-
sive financial burdens — burdens
that these politicians probably will
not live to experience. But these are
burdens that we will deal with when
foreign creditors, including the Chi-
nese and Japanese governments,
demand payments. At the very least,
this could mean diminished access
to Social Security, Medicare and
other federal government services
that we will continue to pay for.
In terms of national debt, China
and Japan each hold more than $1
trillion of our national securities.
China seeks to hold our treasur-
ies to peg its currency, the yuan, to
our dollar. This helps the Chinese
government lower the value of
the yuan, making China’s exports
more competitive in the foreign
economy. The lower value of the
yuan is a contributing factor in
the decisions of many U.S.-based
corporations to outsource manu-
facturing jobs to China, damaging
the U.S. economy and workforce.
Japan also buys U.S. treasuries to
devalue their currency to enhance
the attractiveness of their exports,
such as cars, in American and
other foreign marketplaces. These
governments are being proactive
in their support of production sec-
tors of their economies, while our
government unsustainably spends
abroad and neglects economic
development at home.
Owing money to the Chinese gov-
ernment is concerning, considering
that hackers sponsored by the Chi-
nese government procured millions
of records of U.S. federal government
employees. Additionally, the National
Security Agency revealed that there
have been nearly 700 successful
hacking attempts by the Chinese gov-
ernment in the last five years aimed
at U.S. corporations and individuals.
This encroachment upon the cyber
security of Americans connected to
the government and national finan-
cial engines is not a good sign. The
Chinese government has established
leverage for future financial interac-
tions with the United States.
Evidently, the current status quo
of borrowing and spending cannot be
maintained. The time has come for
Congress to take farsighted action
to avoid these debt crises and loom-
ing government shutdowns, thereby
ensuring stability for our generation.
— Ashley Austin can be reached
at agracea@umich.edu.
A
t first glance, Carly Fiorina seems like a
great role model for female leadership.
She’s forceful and unapologetic, and her
shining presence against the
backdrop of male candidates
hints at a future of equal
gender representation in the
government. She’s running
the campaign I wish Hillary
Clinton would run, exuding
a “no-nonsense business-
woman” vibe while convey-
ing passion and sincerity in
her causes. And she’s quick,
too — her concise but sharp
response at the most recent
Republican debate obliter-
ated Trump’s misogynistic remark and left me
cheering at my TV. Erin Gloria Ryan, managing
editor of Jezebel, tweeted it best: “Carly Fiorina is
an ice-cold shade queen debate princess and I’m
in love with and terrified of her.”
It’s during these fleeting moments that I
find myself drawn to Fiorina. I picture her in
the Oval Office with her feet up on a desk, a
badass lady president kicking butt and tak-
ing names. However, all it takes is for her to
begin discussing her platform, and the spell
is broken.
Fiorina’s
policies
unequivocally
hurt
women, especially those of lower socioeco-
nomic status and women of color. She’s led
the assault against Planned Parenthood and
openly opposes the Affordable Care Act,
increased regulation of an equal wage, feder-
ally mandated paid leave and the federal mini-
mum wage — all issues that disproportionately
impact women — yet repeatedly claims to
have our best interests in mind. Though Fio-
rina’s encouragements for women to lean in
and lead sound empowering on the surface,
her failure to support concrete policies that
enable women to do so ultimately make her
feminist doctrine hollow.
I don’t doubt that Fiorina meets the most
basic definition of a feminist: someone who
believes in equal rights for men and women.
But, when digging deeper, I’ve found that
Fiorina’s calls for equality and empower-
ment are unsubstantiated.
Fiorina’s definition of feminism, one that
she articulated in a piece published in June
titled “Redefining Feminism: The State of
Women in America,” is unconventional at
best and detrimental to the cause at worst.
Though Fiorina’s definition of a feminist — “a
woman who lives the life she chooses” — may
sound uplifting on the surface, it rests upon
entirely misguided principles. Fiorina’s prop-
osition is narrow-minded because it fails to
take into account the many obstacles Ameri-
can women face today. Some women aren’t
in a position where they can make the best
choices for themselves, and sometimes those
choices are simply not easy to make.
Through no fault of their own, some women
are forced to make incredibly difficult deci-
sions that are unique to their gender, and the
government has the ability to help support
women through these decisions. The Family
and Medical Insurance Leave Act, for example,
does exactly that, by ensuring women have
some income during family or medical leave.
Paid leave is instrumental in helping women
balance work and family, and mothers who take
paid leave are more likely to stay in the work-
force after a pregnancy. This job security helps
soften the blow of the classic career vs. family
dilemma many women face, and allows moth-
ers to stay on track for promotions and leader-
ship positions even while pregnant. Simply put,
guaranteed paid leave helps increase the num-
ber of women both in the workforce at large and
in leadership positions — something that Fio-
rina herself says is a good thing in her column.
Why then does Fiorina oppose a paid maternity
leave requirement?
When Fiorina calls for the gutting of Planned
Parenthood’s federal funding, an organiza-
tion that provides 2.7 million women and men
affordable, reliable health care, she’s threaten-
ing many women’s ability to take care of them-
selves. When Fiorina claims that programs like
SNAP (food stamps) “make it so difficult to
strive for more,” when in reality, the program
improves the long-term health outcomes of
children, she’s threatening many women’s abil-
ity to care for their families. If Fiorina really
thinks that feminism is all about women mak-
ing their own choices, why do her policies rob
us of the opportunity to do so?
But even though Fiorina is a hypocrite, I still
feel oddly drawn to her, constantly pivoting from
fascination back to repulsion. Her clear articula-
tion of her views is refreshing; it’s unfortunate
that the views themselves fail to support women.
Though she fits certain dimensions of what we
envision as a feminist leader, until Fiorina com-
mits to empowering and supporting all women
through policy, she’s holding us back. It’s not that
feminism is some elite club, or that the movement
has become too “ideological,” like Fiorina claims.
It’s that in order to be a feminist, you have to
actively work to empower women. Fiorina’s poli-
cies do the opposite.
— Anne Katz can be reached
at amkatz@umich.edu.
Indebted for freedom
Fiorina the faux-feminist
ASHLEY
AUSTIN
ANNE
KATZ
E-mail gabriElla at gabsmEy@umich.Edu
GABRIELLA MEYER