I 

got a job offer the other 
day and since then, I’ve 
been thinking about how 

annoying it will be that I’ll 
probably have to start shaving 
my armpits again. Since all the 
communist 
lesbian 
farmers 

in this town who want to put 
taco trucks everywhere have 
radicalized me, I’ve disowned 
razors and burned all my bras. 
I’m 
half 
joking: 
Sometimes 

I shave my legs because my 
leggings pull on my leg hair 
and it feels like when you leave 
your hair in a ponytail for too 
long, and sometimes I wear a 
bra because my shirt is made of 
mesh and there’s only so much 
nipple I’m willing to expose to 
my Spanish class.

For the most part though, 

no one really bothers me about 
my hair and boobs while I’m in 
school — which they shouldn’t 
because fuck them, I’m not here 
for their evaluations of my body.

But when I got my job offer, 

I realized I’d have to enter the 
sexist labor market that can 
in fact legally tell me what to 
do with my body hair, boobs, 
makeup, etc. and punish me if I 
don’t comply (i.e. fire me).

Maybe I was wrong, though, 

so I Googled something like 
“Is it legal for an employer to 
make you shave your legs?” and 
came across this gem of a Yahoo 
Answers page. I generally try 
to avoid Yahoo Answers and 
comments sections everywhere, 
but I think that sometimes we 
have a responsibility to sift 

through the muck of these 
relatively 
anonymous 
online 

forums because it can be a good 
place to access peoples’ (and 
by 
extension, 
our 
culture’s) 

unfiltered attitudes, assumptions 
and biases.

So, the situation: The original 

poster, Ashley K., is asking a 
question for a woman friend who 
works at Sears and apparently 
was told by her boss that she 
either needs to shave her legs 
or not show her legs at work. 
Ashley K. asks the people of 
Yahoo Answers (from now on 
referred to as the POYA) if this 
“ultimatum” is legal or if it 
constitutes some kind of gender 
discrimination. Ashley K. also 
makes it clear that she doesn’t 
give a shit about your opinions 
on women shaving or not shaving 
their legs; she just wants to know 
the legal stuff.

The POYA predictably give her 

their opinions instead of pointing 
her to the website of, say, the 
Equal Employment Opportunity 
Commission. The POYA say, 
yes, requiring women to shave 
their legs for work is definitely 
legal, since no, it’s not a matter 
of gender discrimination, it’s a 
matter of “hygiene” and “dress 
codes.” We’ve accepted that 
men and women have different 
“appearance 
standards,” 
and 

hey, men have to shave their 
beards so yeah, obviously ladies 
need to shave their legs. And if 
she’s really gonna complain so 
much about it, “she can always 
find another job.” 

The POYA argue that a dress 

code/hygiene 
standard 
that 

requires 
women 
employees 

to shave their legs does not 

constitute gender discrimination 
because such a rule merely 
reflects our social understanding 
of the proper ways for women 
and men to present and conduct 
themselves in public.

Though 
the 
POYA 
aren’t 

especially 
eloquent, 
they’ve 

actually 
synthesized 
pretty 

well the outcome of the 1989 
Supreme Court ruling in Price 
Waterhouse v. Hopkins. In Price 
Waterhouse, the Supreme Court 
ruled that gender stereotyping is 
a form of sex discrimination and 
is therefore illegal. The issue in 
the case was that Ann Hopkins 
was denied partnership at her 
accounting firm because in an 
evaluation of her work, men in 
charge of her wrote that she was 
too “macho” and suggested she 
take “a course in charm school.” 

So, while employers can’t say 

and do explicitly sexist stuff 
like that anymore, what sexism 
they’re legally allowed to enforce 
through dress codes is a bit 
murkier. The Workplace Fairness 
organization 
claims 
that 
in 

the vein of Price Waterhouse, 
if a woman employee who 
wears pants or does something 
else 
gender-bending 
faces 

discrimination, she might have a 
case of sex discrimination based 
on gender stereotyping.

But, the same website also 

says that the ruling in Price 
Waterhouse has not prevented 
employers from having different 
dress codes for men and women. 

4 — Tuesday, September 20, 2016
Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

LAURA SCHINAGLE

Managing Editor

420 Maynard St. 

Ann Arbor, MI 48109

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SHOHAM GEVA

Editor in Chief

CLAIRE BRYAN 

and REGAN DETWILER 

Editorial Page Editors

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.

Carolyn Ayaub
Claire Bryan

Regan Detwiler
Caitlin Heenan
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Ben Keller

Minsoo Kim

Payton Luokkala

Kit Maher

Madeline Nowicki
Anna Polumbo-Levy 

Jason Rowland

Lauren Schandevel

Kevin Sweitzer

Rebecca Tarnopol

Ashley Tjhung

Stephanie Trierweiler

EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

Embracing the alt-right

Weaving words together 

O

ur 
country, 
like 
any 

other, 
experiences 

horribly tragic events 

that redefine our history — tragic 
events that imprint themselves 
into the minds of every American 
and go on to influence policy 
decisions years afterward. The 
resulting 
aftermath 
of 
these 

events is often met 
with 
temporary 

panic and confusion. 
Despite 
these 

feelings being brief, 
as a society we seek 
out specific answers 
and 
facts 
about 

such events hoping 
to 
prevent 
such 

heinous acts from 
happening 
again. 

From 
establishing 

investigative 
congressional 

commissions 
that 
use 
every 

resource available within the 
country, to increasing funding for 
our already massive intelligence 
and defense departments, we go 
to unbelievable lengths to seek 
actual truths.

Yet these searches for truth 

among the rubble are often 
plagued with fringe members 
of society not just questioning, 
but completely denying verified 
factual 
evidence. 
Conspiracy 

theorists 
construct 
fantastical 

positions 
and 
unverifiable 

stories that they believe reveal 
the actual “truth.” For example, 
after the tragedy of Sept. 11, they 
capitalized on the disaster and 
began searching for false evidence 
in the pursuit of discovering some 
massive 
conspiracy 
the 
U.S. 

government 
had 
orchestrated. 

Sept. 11 served as the leading 
story for which these theorists 
achieved moderate levels of fame 
with their nearly hysterical rants 
and positions — positions that 
went on for 15 years, buttressed by 
even more heinous and ridiculous 
theories that incorporated the 
same racist and nationalistic 

themes as before. All 
during this time, their 
online presence helped 
form 
and 
organize 

segments of the “alt-
right,” solidifying their 
place on the furthest 
right end of American 
politics. 
Thankfully, 

their fact-free tirades 
are accepted only by 
a mere sliver of our 
population. They stayed 

on the fringes of accepted political 
discourse, and they and their 
followers are rightly categorized 
as conspiracy theorists.

Today, 
conspiracy 
theorists 

use these events as excuses to 
scream their racist and nativist 
positions barely hidden under 
the unbelievable theories they 
construct. Their community is 
stricken with white nationalism, 
xenophobia, 
anti-Semitism 

and 
a 
crippling 
degree 
of 

blind chauvinism. Within our 
hyperconnected digital world, 
their 
deplorable 
rhetoric 
is 

so easily transmitted to the 
misinformed 
and 
misled 
in 

order to grow their support. 
Most recently, these conspiracy 
theorists 
have 
gained 
new 

supporters from the uppermost 
levels of presidential politics.

The 
arrival 
of 
the 
15th 

anniversary of Sept. 11 runs 
in 
tandem 
with 
Republican 

nominee 
Donald 
Trump’s 

campaign’s embrace of groups 
that believe the tragic events of 
9/11 were orchestrated by the 
U.S. government. The campaign 
has brought these disturbing, 
factually inept, racist, right-
wing 
populist 
groups 
into 

presidential politics as sources 
of truth and fact.

It is important to see how 

this specific niche of ultra-right-
wing American politics has been 
accepted as verifiable sources. 
As noted by The Rachel Maddow 
Show on Sept. 8, Donald Trump 
has been using infowars.com, 
(a popular conspiracy theorist 
website 
calling 
for 
a 
revolt 

against the so-called “New World 
Order”) not only as a source 
of factual reporting, but as an 
accredited media outlet in which 
he has conducted interviews 
and embraced the leaders of 
these fact-free, white nationalist 
websites. Trump’s campaign has 
validated these fringe groups of 
extreme reactionaries as factual 
sources of news. Groups that 
were rightly shunned for their 
deplorable rhetoric and ridiculous 
theories 
now 
apparently 
are 

sources of fact for a major party 
nominee seeking election to the 
most powerful position in the 
country. Unsurprisingly, Trump 
has become the unifying member 
of the alt-right movement. His 
campaign has been built on attacks 
against the media, intellectualism, 
elites, 
immigrants, 
minorities 

and liberals, and this has finally 
come to head with the gathering 

of these collective conspiracy 
theorists supporting him.

What is so disturbing is that 

Republican leaders continue to 
support this campaign, which 
has now reached new levels 
of insanity by embracing and 
continuing to use conspiracy 
theorist 
websites 
as 
factual 

news. The Trump campaign 
has praised the leaders of these 
right-wing, 
fact-free 
groups. 

These are leaders who believe 
that the Clinton family murders 
their adversaries, believe the 
shootings of Aurora, Sandy Hook 
and Orlando were orchestrated 
by the government simply to 
enact more gun control and 
believe the U.S. military has 
“weather weapons” that it uses 
against its citizens. The current 
presidential nominee of the 
Republican Party is using a 
website that believes juice boxes 
are lined with chemicals that 
can make your children gay as a 
factual source of news.

This terrifying reality is what 

the Republican Party has chosen. 
This is their candidate, and the 
lack of disavowal of his abnormal 
presidential 
campaign 
reveals 

the consequences of the intense 
partisanship within our country. 
The embracement of the alt-right 
and conspiracy theorists from the 
Trump campaign is yet another of 
the countless examples of Trump 
campaign’s ineptitude — and why 
Trump is truly dangerous to the 
future of our country.

EMILY WOLFE | CONTACT EMILY AT EWOLFE @UMICH.EDU

MICHAEL MORDARSKI | COLUMN

Readers are encouraged to submit 

letters to the editor and op-eds. 
Letters should be fewer than 300 
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CONTRIBUTE TO THE CONVERSATION

Michael Mordarski can be reached 

at mmordars@umich.edu

MICHAEL

MORDARSKI

ISAIAH ZEAVIN-MOSS | COLUMN

Dress codes are sexist

CLARISSA DONNELLY-DEROVEN | COLUMN

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Clarissa Donnelly-DeRoven can be 

reached at cedon@umich.edu

L

ast night, a friend of 
mine 
told 
me 
about 

quipu, the system used 

by the Incas to keep track of 
numerical information. Quipus, 
also known as “talking knots,” 
are made up of thousands of 
knotted strings, which, when 
examined 
by 
a 

contemporary judge 
or 
clerk, 
reveal 

certain 
financial 

information. 
Quipucamayocs, 
or 

quipu 
specialists, 

were like a modern-
day accountant or 
stenographer 
— 

recording what they 
saw around them.

This conversation 

triggered 
a 
series 

of questions for me. Most 
prominently: What does our 
culture 
lose 
from 
having 

information at our fingertips 
at all times? Is there something 
to be gained in needing to 
knot together pieces of fabric 
to, 
for 
example, 
calculate 

certain statistics? Why has 
contemporary society chosen 
to 
move 
in 
the 
direction 

of 
making 
information, 

pertaining 
to 
essentially 

any subject, instantaneously 
available?

It seems that today’s world 

gears itself toward eliminating 
the amount of irretrievable 
material out there — questions 
we do not know how to answer. 
Our world eliminates questions 
that, when posed, we have 
nothing to hold or point to as 
the correct response. What’s 
the capital of Djibouti? What’s 
489 x 333? 162,837. I look the 
question up; I answer it based 
on what my phone tells me, 
then, in a way, I feel as if I know 
the answer, as if I am the one 
feeding the information to the 
world. 

But 
what 
happens 
with 

so-called irretrievable answers? 
Questions about which we can 
only deliberate and discuss, 
guess at and witness? Instances 
where we don’t just look up 
an answer force us to talk to 
one another, to put our own 
theories and ideas to the test 
of the community — the people 
with 
whom 
we 
surround 

ourselves. And this is why we 
make friends in the first place! 
To have people in our lives with 
whom we can shape our own 
perspectives. Because we need 
other people to do this. We 
cannot do this, any of this, on 
our own.

But instead of acknowledging 

and embracing this fact — it’s a 

beautiful thing to recognize 
one’s place within a community 
where 
every 
member 
feels 

a vibrant, pulsing need for 
everybody else — we isolate 
ourselves 
into 
our 
own 

machines, 
away 
from 
each 

other and away from our own 

working, conscious 
minds. Sitting in a 
lecture taking notes 
on my computer, I 
am an automaton, 
typing 
the 
words 

the 
professor 

says 
without 

consideration. 
Shouldn’t we talk 
about the topics we 
are learning about 
to each other as we 
learn about them?

In so many of my classes, we 

talk about the importance of 
considering who is telling the 
story, and which narrative we 
are supposed to believe as fact. 
In my field of American Studies, 
we believe no singular narrative 
can be called objectively true. 
Instead, we piece together ideas 
from literature, film, music, 
theater, commercials, etc. to 
get a sense of how people and 
entire communities described 
a certain moment or place. How 
these ideas stacked up against 
each other, how they clashed 
and fought and played and 
agreed with each other. And 
then we go from there, to form 
our own beliefs — constantly 
checking 
ourselves 
and 

checking the notions provided 
to us by scholars, authors and 
artists alike.

In 
a 
study 
published 

in 
Psychological 
Science, 

social 
psychology 
graduate 

student 
Pam 
A. 
Muller 

and Associate Professor of 
Cognitive Psychology Daniel 
M. 
Oppenheimer, 
found 

that 
the 
process 
of 
using 

computers solely to take notes 
— even without other alerts and 
windows popping up — results 
in shallower processing. There 
is something gained by taking 
notes 
by 
hand, 
especially 

when we rephrase the words 
of our professor into our own. 
By doing this, we check our 
professor and run their ideas 
through our own filter. This 
combination — their minds 
with ours — produces what we 
learn.

The 
emphasis 
on 
blind, 

instant 
knowledge 
extends 

to how we consume political 
coverage as well. Every day, 
we 
read 
headlines 
about 

new 
speeches 
presidential 

candidates give, trading barbs 

and insults and, rarely, new 
policy proposals. We discard 
the candidates’ histories as 
archaic 
and 
outdated 
and 

irrelevant, opting instead to 
consider who they are today, 
right now. And here, once again, 
we are not meant to question 
these figures or to question 
the system. We are meant to 
consume it all, automatons, 
stuck 
with 
two 
candidates 

whom a heavy majority of us 
believe to be corrupt.

From peers and colleagues 

and pundits alike, I often hear 
the following political mode of 
thought: I really wish things 
could be better in this way, 
but that’s unrealistic, so, they 
can’t improve, so I have to 
vote for Clinton/Trump. And 
nothing frustrates me more. 
Because this mindset operates 
under the belief that “we, the 
people” have no power, that our 
votes do not impact anything, 
that we and the system are 
somehow 
separate 
entities. 

That we are nothing more than 
spectators packed into the Big 
House, cheering and booing 
and yelling, unable to actually 
impact what we witness.

If we all got together in 

forums and discussions and 
all heard ourselves describing 
the world with this defeatist 
logic, we would soon discover 
we do have power, and if we 
all actually want to change the 
world for the better, we have 
the means to do it. In Greece, 
the current ruling political 
party was founded in 2004, and 
polled around 4 percent for the 
first few years of its existence — 
the Green Party in the United 
States polls at this same figure 
today.

Change 
happens 
quickly 

and abruptly if we provide the 
space for it. But that space will 
only come if we engage each 
other and hear each other. And 
by “hear each other,” I don’t 
mean to type verbatim each 
other’s words. Because this is 
not learning.

Instead, we ought to weave 

together, like the Incas, all of 
the ideas that we ourselves 
have, along with those that 
we consume. And as we knit, 
we can add our own flair and 
flavor to the project, no doubt 
fundamentally influenced by 
those around us, but ultimately 
creating an ideology uniquely 
our own.

ISAIAH 

ZEAVIN-MOSS

Isaiah Zeavin-Moss can be reached 

at izeavinm@umich.edu

Early fall: when the weather’s too nice 

to help ease social tension

CLARISSA 

DONNELLY-DEROVEN