Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4— Friday, March 9, 2018

Emma Chang
Joel Danilewitz

Samantha Goldstein

Elena Hubbell
Emily Huhman
Tara Jayaram

Jeremy Kaplan

Sarah Khan

Lucas Maiman

Magdalena Mihaylova

Ellery Rosenzweig

Jason Rowland

Anu Roy-Chaudhury

Alex Satola
Ali Safawi

 Ashley Zhang

Demand an end to gun violence

A generational look at feminism

Gun violence is happening 

right in front of us — to our 
friends 
and 
families 
across 

the nation — at a rate that is 
unmatched within the developed 
world. Now, it is in the hands of 
private citizens to change the 
culture of guns for our country. 
As we have seen time and time 
again, Congress alone cannot be 
trusted to change gun laws in 
any significant way. Should the 
national and political cultures 
surrounding guns shift, Congress 
will be more likely to enact gun 
reform laws that will hold the 
possibility of tangible change. 
These cultural shifts begins with 
us.

The 
struggle 
to 
change 

culture and policy has gained 
new life since the Parkland 
shooting. Currently, Parkland 
student activism has led to 
speeches, candlelight vigils and 
preparation drills about their 
experiences and the grieving 
process. Their conversation has 
drawn the attention of major 
national news sources like CNN, 
NBC’s “Meet the Press” and 
The New York Times. Using 
these platforms, the students 
are calling into question where 
our country’s priorities lie: Do 
we care more about protecting 
our guns or protecting the safety 
of our young people? Partially 
because of their efforts, major 
retailers have united to distance 
themselves from the NRA and 
institute higher age requirements 
for purchasing guns. For instance, 
Dick’s Sporting Goods, Walmart, 

Kroger Co. and L.L.Bean have 
all responded to the students’ 
activism by publicly stating they 
will no longer sell firearms or 
ammunition to people under the 
age of 21.

At this point, as the Stoneman 

Douglas students have already 
so powerfully shown, we need 
to rely on ourselves and our 
ability to take action, not just the 
government, to institute moral 
and tangible change. However, 
if gun culture is changed, we 
are hopeful that government at 
both the state and federal level 
will institute the much needed 
reform that a significant number 
of people, including many of the 
Parkland survivors, support.

Some 
might 
find 
it 

challenging, if not impossible, to 
reverse the culture of firearms 
that is so heavily embraced in 
this country. However, there 
is precedence for widespread 
cultural shifts in the United 
States; the demise of smoking’s 
popularity in the late 20th 
century shows that large-scale 
culture changes can occur.

We at The Daily also find 

the extreme influence of the 
NRA in the political sphere 
another extensive barrier to 
preventing 
school 
shootings 

and gun violence. According to 
The New York Times, senatorial 
heavyweights such as Marco 
Rubio, Rob Portman and Tom 
Cotton have received more than 
$3.3 million, $3 million and $1.9 
million dollars from the NRA 
since they began their political 

careers. Even without the NRA’s 
monetary 
influence, 
which 

extends to many more elected 
officials, the group’s impact is 
still highly potent due to their 
ability to mobilize their members 
to vote for the candidates they 
endorse. If you are as concerned 
about the influence the NRA has 
in our electoral politics as we are, 
we encourage you to vote and to 
make sure your peers do as well. 
The surest way to change gun 
policy is to remove the elected 
officials from office who are so 
intertwined with the NRA.

The 
importance 
of 

changing 
gun 
laws 
cannot 

be overstated. Gun violence 
has become normalized and 
even desensitized because of 
its prevalence, especially in a 
generation that has grown up 
seeing the frequency of these 
shootings. This frequency and 
subsequent media cycles and 
political debate has become 
all too familiar. But for us as 
college students, inaction could 
be a matter of life or death. We 
have an obligation to ourselves, 
our 
communities 
and 
our 

nation to change gun culture 
as well as to replace the elected 
officials enabling the NRA to 
dictate public policy and hold 
America hostage to its views. 
We, at The Daily, encourage 
our readers to take part in 
the ongoing student activism 
by contacting their elected 
officials to demand reform and 
to vote in the 2018 midterms 
and beyond.

HANNAH HARSHE | COLUMN

“

We are going to be the kids 
you read about in textbooks!”

This is the proclamation 

of Emma Gonzalez, a senior 
at Marjory Stoneman Douglas 
High School and a survivor of the 
Parkland, Fla. massacre. Within 
four days of the tragic death of 
her classmates, Gonzalez, along 
with several classmates, organized 
a campaign called Never Again 
MSD and a nationwide protest 
called March For Our Lives. Their 
petition, which calls for stricter 
background checks for gun buyers, 
has almost 150,000 signatures.

If 
America 
has 
learned 

anything in 2018, it is to never 
underestimate 
the 
power 
of 

Generation Z.

I kept this in mind when 

choosing whom I wanted to feature 
in my column on International 
Women’s Day. The holiday was 
adopted by the United Nations 
in 1975, and it only takes a quick 
Google search to learn about it 
from a public figure like Emma 
Watson or Hillary Clinton. But, as 
is the case with too many pertinent 
issues, we don’t often hear from 
young people on this topic. In the 
spirit of reversing this habit, I had 
the privilege of speaking with two 
intelligent and powerful young 
women.

Brianna Harshe is a 12-year-

old student-athlete. She plays club 
soccer, and spends most of her time 
either training or doing homework. 
She also happens to be my sister. I 
was able to interview her via phone 
on her way to soccer training on 
Monday.

Harshe was unfamiliar with 

International Women’s Day before 
I mentioned it, but, based on the 
name, she surmises, “It’s a day for 
women and what they do for the 
world because they didn’t get as 
much respect in the past.”

She is quick to note the 

discrepancies 
when 
it 
comes 

to gender representation in the 

educational system: “We learn 
about women mostly because 
they’re women and not really 
because of what they did. We 
learn about men because of what 
they did.” According to a study 
by PLOS One, three out of four 
scientists depicted in primary 
school textbooks are men. A 
UNESCO report released on 
International Women’s Day in 2016 
notes that gender bias is persistent 
in 
textbooks 
worldwide, 
and 

this sabotages “girls’ motivation, 
participation and achievement in 
school.”

Harshe says that her role 

model is Carli Lloyd, because, “She 
was one of the first female soccer 
players to get respect.” Lloyd was 
an American soccer player, a two-
time Olympic gold medalist, a FIFA 
Women’s World Cup champion and 
the FIFA Women’s Player of the 
Year in 2015 and 2016. She is also a 
fantastic public figure to admire on 
International Women’s Day.

In 2016, Lloyd, along with four 

teammates on the US Women’s 
National Team, filed a wage 
discrimination complaint against 
U.S. Soccer Federation. In her 
op-ed for the New York Times, she 
explained, “If I were a male soccer 
player who won a World Cup for 
the United States, my bonus would 
be $390,000. Because I am a female 
soccer player, the bonus I got for 
our World Cup victory last summer 
was $75,000.” Lloyd may be one of 
the first female soccer players to 
earn the respect that she has, and 
yet she knows she has a long way to 
go in order to gain the respect that 
male soccer players have. Someday 
Harshe may be a professional 
soccer player and thanks to role 
models like Lloyd, Harshe will 
know that she is worthy of the same 
salary as her male counterparts.

The other student I spoke with 

is Riley Shaughnessy, who is 13 
years old. In addition to running 
cross-country 
for 
her 
middle 

school, Shaughnessy is a member of 
the National Junior Honor Society. 
I am a friend of her older sister, so 
I had the privilege of interviewing 
her over the phone after she got out 
of school on Monday.

Shaughnessy 
has 
also 

noted the problem of gender 
representation in school, and has 
taken initiative to change it: “I try 
to learn about (men and women) 
equally, but other people don’t. 
Other kids sometimes make guys 
higher. I think there are a lot more 
guys in history, but I don’t think 
that’s very fair.”

In 
just 
10 
short 
years, 

Shaughnessy 
and 
her 
peers 

will be entering the workforce. 
Shaughnessy envisions that by the 
time she enters the workforce, the 
world will be much more gender 
equitable. “I don’t think there will 
be as many stay-at-home moms,” 
she says. “And there will be more 
stay-at-home dads.”

This is a complex, and likely 

accurate, assertion. Stay-at-home 
motherhood, in and of itself, is 
in no way shameful, however, 
mothers are often driven to stay 
at home not because of their 
personal choice, but because of 
cultural norms and office policies 
that deem men more worthy of the 
workplace. Similarly, fathers often 
feel as though staying at home 
instead of pursuing a career is a 
sign of weakness. A truly gender 
equitable world would allow 
mothers and fathers to determine 
whether they want to stay at home 
based on personal circumstance, 
not based simply on gender.

Hannah Harshe can be reached at 

hharshe@umich.edu.

I

n the University of Michigan’s 
Angell 
Hall 
Auditorium 

A, 
the 
mirthless 
drone 

of a college student not much 
older than myself is discussing 
bystander intervention. Or at least, 
he’s describing it. He imbues the 
lecture with so little care that the 
other young men surrounding him 
are just as disengaged, as though 
he were talking about the most 
inconsequential of problems.

For a council that has been 

under scrutiny in recent months, 
the Interfraternity Council has 
visibly done little that actually 
exhibits their commitment to 
ending sexual assault within Greek 
life.

Kinesiology senior Cass Bouse-

Eaton is ready to see this change. 
Bouse-Eaton is one of the leaders 
of the Panhellenic Peer Educator 
program, originally created by 
U-M alumni Alyssa Gorenberg 
and Eileen Enright to educate 
and prevent sexual misconduct 
within the Greek community. 
Now, with over 100 members 
across all 17 sororities within the 
Panhellenic Association, they are 
deeply impacting with programs 
such as the Panhel Speak Out, 
where survivors from all councils 
were invited to speak about their 
experiences within the community.

Bouse-Eaton, 
who 
helped 

organize the Speak Out alongside 
creator Ally Cohen, an LSA senior, 
is already beginning to see the 
indelible mark PPE is making. She 
spoke with me about her goals with 
the Speak Out, describing how she 
attended the annual Sexual Assault 
and Prevention and Awareness 
Center Speak Out in spring 2015 
and was incredibly moved. Being 
a recent survivor at that time, she 
said that Speak Out made her feel 
empowered, heard and cared for in 
a way she hadn’t felt within a large 
group setting on campus.

Furthermore, 
she 
believed 

the experience of survivors in 
the Greek life community could 
differ from the general population, 
and wanted to create a space 
for both survivors to share their 
experiences and allies to give their 
support.

This is something she would 

like to see expand to other councils 
and recognizes the strides IFC has 
made in recent months. However, 
she has called on them to get these 
programs off the ground, saying, 
“IFC is making great strides on 
beginning a program that will 
work for their council, but needs 
more manpower and volunteers to 

get off the ground.”

However, even if IFC has tried 

to repair itself, these attempts 
have not manifested after the self-
imposed ban.

Since the suspension imposed 

on social programming by IFC 
there have been regulations placed 
on what alcohol can be provided by 
fraternities at mixers and parties. 
Though they have made several 
attempts at rectifying the excessive 
hospitalizations that occurred last 
year little has been done to change 
the culture of sexual assault and 
misogyny that has been fostered.

Between 
2015 
and 
2016, 

there were 88 sexual misconduct 
allegations 
reported 
against 

fraternities 
on 
campus. 
The 

suspension was, as explained by 
Alex Mayhan, former executive 
vice president of IFC, meant 
to launch a period where the 
members of the board would 
begin “assessing our policies and 
practices and developing a formal 
plan going forward.”

Yet 
on 
issues 
of 
sexual 

misconduct and violence, the 
members of IFC have shown little 
effort in reforming the bare-bone 
system erected to stagnate this 
kind of behavior. They should be 
making more bold strides towards 
making fraternities safer, just as 
Panhel has done to raise awareness 
of sexual assault. 

Prior 
to 
the 
suspension, 

associate members of fraternities 
attended 
mandatory 
IFC-led 

programming and Change It Up!, a 
session offered by the University’s 
Office of Diversity, Equity and 
Inclusion Training and Education 
to bring, as their website describes, 
“bystander 
intervention 
skills 

to the University of Michigan 
community for the purpose of 
building inclusive, respectful and 
safe communities.”

Yet some students see these 

kinds of programs as insufficient. 
I spoke with LSA freshman Noah 
Kalishman, who is currently an 
associate member of my fraternity. 
We both attended the functions, 
and neither of us was impressed 
with 
the 
execution 
of 
such 

programming.

Kalishman 
described 
how 

the IFC program and Change It 
Up! demonstrated a clear lack of 
interest on both the University 
and IFC’s behalf in halting the 
sanction of rape culture within 
Greek life. He stated plainly that, 
“these programs are terrible … No 
one wants to get lectured at for an 
hour … They are simply things that 

the University does to say that they 
taught us, when in reality they are 
terrible and ineffective”.

And, though Bouse-Eaton was 

not as critical of these events, to 
some extent she agrees, saying, 
“Providing the information is so 
important, but just as vital is the 
integration of this information into 
the culture of each sisterhood and 
brotherhood, which only happens 
through continued conversation.”

Such attitudes have even forced 

certain fraternities to take sexual 
assault prevention education into 
their own hands. In the fraternity 
Kalishman is currently joining, 
he 
described 
how 
attending 

the Panhellenic Speak Out was 
mandated by the chapter itself so 
that new members could gauge 
the effects of sexual misconduct, 
especially within Greek life.

Kalishman was laudatory of the 

Speak Out, which he felt was both 
deeply moving and galvanizing, 
saying, “(The Speak Out) made 
me think about things that I have 
seen in my time at Michigan … 
It illustrated that anyone in the 
community could become a victim 
of sexual assault.” He felt that in 
the future, programming should 
“emulate that of the Speak Out.”

He was hesitant on making 

the programming a mandatory, 
implying that it may cause people 
to dread attending. However, that 
does not mean there are ways for 
IFC to test out more personalized 
approaches. 
As 
Bouse-Eaton 

described, there are pilot programs 
the Office of Greek Life and SAPAC 
are launching to encourage more 
open discourse on sexual assault 
within Greek life.

But, as Bouse-Eaton explained, 

IFC cannot rely on Panhel to do 
the work for them. It’s time for 
IFC to step up in clamping down 
on assault within Greek life. To 
do so, perhaps it’s time IFC made 
a visible step towards emulating 
programs such as PPE and the 
Speak Out.

And in the meantime, Bouse-

Eaton says, “Keep talking with 
your brothers, with your friends 
in 
sororities, 
and 
do 
some 

examination of both yourself and 
your chapters. That’s how true 
culture change starts.”

Note: 
Cass 
Bouse-Eaton’s 

personal views don’t necessarily 
reflect those of the Office of Greek 
Life or the National Panhellenic 
Conference.

Panhel supports what IFC hasn’t

JOEL DANILEWITZ | COLUMN

Joel Danilewitz can be reached at 

joeldan@umich.edu.

DAYTON HARE

Managing Editor

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CARLY BREHENDT | CONTACT AT CARBEHR@UMICH.EDU. 

FROM THE DAILY

T

he Parkland, Fla. massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School 
and the more recent shooting at Central Michigan University have 
renewed the cycle of heated political debate and media discussion 

surrounding gun control in the United States. For members of the National 
Rifle Association and others, the salience of the issue of safety in and around 
school grounds provides an avenue to push for an increase in armed security. 
However, we at The Michigan Daily believe that the wave of gun violence that 
plagues our nation directly results from the alarming leniency of gun laws 
within the United States and the culture that surrounds the NRA and the 
political power the lobbying group wields. Despite the devastating trends of 
gun violence, we are optimistic that light can be brought to the issue and that 
meaningful reform is possible.

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

