Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4 — Tuesday, January 29, 2019

“

Thank you for sharing,” the 
class would say in robotic 
unison. 
The 
disgruntled 

student would then 
proceed to sit down 
back in the circle 
and await the next 
brave soul to share 
their feelings aloud 
with the class.

Yes, 
this 
was 

how 
we 
spent 

every 
Wednesday 

afternoon 
in 
my 

fourth-grade 
classroom. 
Sitting 

cross-legged on the faded navy 
carpet by the windows, we, at 
the young age of 10, became 
accustomed to bearing ourselves 
and our feelings in a way that 
many 
college 
students, 
and 

beyond, are incapable of. We 
would sit and practice this open 
form of emotional expression 
and receive an automated but 
valuable sense of validation from 
our peers.

As I eventually graduated 

past this judgment-free haven, 
I grew to understand that this 
candidness about how we feel 
is frowned upon. We live in 
a society in which emotional 
expression is a sign of being 
incapable, 
or 
something 

burdensome for those around us. 
We are expected to operate under 
a guise of happiness and positivity 
and feel obligated to apologize 
for anything else. Personally, I 
have become so accustomed to 
following my emotional tangents 
with the phrase, “I am so sorry,” 
instead of taking the time to 
acknowledge how I actually feel.

As 
college 
students, 
this 

detrimental 
attitude 
toward 

showing 
emotion 
has 
been 

amplified by the hyper-connected, 
high-stress 
environment 
we 

find ourselves in. We are always 

expected to be prepared and 
pleasant and to put our best face 
forward. We are expected to 

operate as young adults 
— assertive, driven and 
willing — and failing to 
be anything but would 
deem us incapable. This 
amalgamation of great 
pressure and societal 
expectation has created 
a stigma around being 
anything but one who 
operates on a solely 
positive autopilot.

Has 
emotional 

expression become synonymous 
with 
weakness? 
Yes. 

Wholeheartedly, I would argue 
that it has. What if we were to say 
that we actually were not okay 
when someone asked? Would we 
become initially embarrassed 
for stepping into taboo territory, 
or immediately apologize? What 
if crying became something to 
be proud of? What if it became 
an emotional release instead of 
a sign of vulnerability? This is 
not something there is a general 
cure-all for, as it evidently has 
larger 
societal 
implications. 

This fear of being vulnerable 
exists in all avenues of my life.

The other night, a friend of 

mine broke down with tears 
welling in her eyes because of 
the pressure she feels regarding 
what she wants to do with her 
life. Instead of allowing herself 
to wallow and then begin the 
process of validating her feelings, 
she 
apologized 
to 
me, 
the 

consoler. In class, coincidentally 
on the same day, my professor 
shared an anecdote about how 
a presidential hopeful in the 
past faced dismal numbers after 
being crucified in the press 
for allegedly crying during a 
public address on an incredibly 
personal subject. This reticence 

to show how we feel due to fear 
of breaking social norms or 
facing societal ridicule has taken 
a toll on our collective emotional 
wellbeing.

As a new semester takes hold 

— accompanied by stressors 
and pressures old and familiar 
— I bring a personal challenge 
to the table. Despite believing 
New Year’s resolutions to be 
absolutely pointless, I find 
now to be the time more than 
ever to work toward individual 
change. I challenge myself to be 
okay with discomfort; to allow 
myself to be upset; to show 
that maybe I am not always the 
passionate, attentive individual 
that students at the University 
of Michigan are expected to be. 
Yes, crying in the UGLi may be 
considered taboo, but so what? 
Sometimes I do not have the will 
to keep everything all zipped 
up — waiting to be expressed 
in a grand, incredibly private, 
outpouring of stale emotion. I 
challenge myself to challenge 
those around me as well.

I am not going to blatantly 

share how I feel to anyone 
I meet, but work to become 
comfortable with the discomfort 
and break the mold that society 
sees fit for us. I want to change 
the 
conversation 
around 

expressing how we feel, from 
something that is considered a 
weakness to just something. I 
want to change the conversation 
from every second thought 
being inherently apologetic, to 
accepting. I challenge us all to 
shift the dialogue surrounding 
emotional vulnerability from an 
“I’m sorry,” to a “Thank you for 
sharing,” as that’s how it should 
be.

Thank you for sharing

Samantha Szuhaj can be reached at 

szuhajs@umich.edu.

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
Sam Weinberger

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Managing Editor

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EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

Widen the scope of sexual education

M

y sophomore year of 

high school, a guest 

speaker came to talk 

to us in our health class. She put a 

Hershey’s Kiss on each of our desks 

and told us that we could eat it 

whenever we wanted: now, later, or 

even with lunch! At this juncture, I 

opened mine up and popped it right 

into my mouth. She then proceeded 

to show us a PowerPoint detailing 

various STIs and how each of them 

could ruin our lives, how having 

multiple sexual partners would 

increase our risk of contracting 

an STI tenfold and how condoms 

were not 100 percent guaranteed 

to work, so why would we even 

be thinking about sex outside 

of marriage? Processing all this 

information, my classmates and 

I packed up our things to head 

to our next block. As I put my 

notebook back into my bag, she 

left us these parting words: “Oh, 

and for those of you who didn’t 

eat that Hershey’s Kiss just yet: 

Doesn’t it feel good to wait?”

Not to be dramatic, but 

thinking about that makes me 

feel terrible to this day. That 

little spiel — the little comment 

about 
the 
Hershey’s 
Kiss 
I 

couldn’t keep myself from eating 
— made up the entirety of my 

high school sex education. I was 

15 at an all-girls Catholic school 

who barely interacted with any 

boys. I wasn’t “sexually active” 

and 
was 
probably 
nowhere 

near ready to be, but I still felt 

disgusting and guilty for having 

eaten that Hershey’s Kiss and 

for not waiting. There are a lot 

of things that I loved about my 

high school, but it was Catholic 

and 
predominantly 
pro-life, 

which made it near impossible 

to talk about sex, sexuality and 

reproductive 
rights 
without 

sparking 
great 
controversy 

among the militantly pro-life 

crowd. And in this current time 

period, I wish I had received 

a little more guidance. I wish 

I 
could 
have 
had 
guidance 

when navigating the world of 

contraception. I wish I could 

have had an adult to talk to 

whom I trusted, someone who 

had told me that I didn’t need to 

be ashamed of my body and my 

choices; someone to hold my hand 

and walk me through the process; 

someone who could give me an 

honest and frank education. I 

wish I had someone with me 

at Planned Parenthood when I 

started crying while trying to 

get birth control because I was 

overwhelmed and I had no idea 

what my options were or what 

to do. I am eternally grateful to 

the friend who came with me to 

Walgreens the morning I had to 

purchase Plan B, but I wish I had 

a grown-up I trusted to tell me 

that what I was doing was OK.

Having such a limited scope 

when it comes to sex education 

makes it difficult to really parse 

out the nuances that come up 

when we discuss reproductive 

rights. For instance, the guest 

speaker did insinuate to us that 

Planned Parenthood was lying 

to us, that there was no point in 

going to them for birth control 

or contraceptives because those 

were 
immoral, 
and 
besides, 

they 
provide 
abortions. 
She 

neglected to tell us about the 

litany of services provided other 

than abortion, even aside from 

contraceptives, and how the federal 

funding they receive doesn’t even 

pay for abortions. She told us life 

begins at conception, but there was 

no discussion of how a fetus doesn’t 

even feel pain until 20 to 26 weeks 

into a pregnancy and the complexity 

of ethics surrounding personhood. 

She cheerfully assumed that we 

all had the eventual intention of 

becoming wives and mothers, 

without 
mentioning 
that 

abortions are statistically safer 

than carrying to term, and the 

maternal mortality rate in the 

U.S. is rising. In retrospect, it 

was odd for her to claim moral 

authority on behalf of the church 

when we could talk about how 

women terminating pregnancies 

without 
moral 
condemnation 

was incredibly common for a 

great deal of human history. 

By not providing us with the 

information we need to make 

crucial 
decisions 
about 
our 

bodies — indeed, our health — 

the guest speaker my high school 

hired to handle our sex education 

was essentially telling us she 

didn’t trust us. She didn’t trust 

us with facts, and she didn’t trust 

us to use those facts to make 

informed decisions about our 

bodies.

As further efforts to restrict 

abortion 
are 
made 
by 
the 

government at the federal, state 

and local levels, it becomes clear 

the guest speaker is not the only 

one with the trust issue, but our 

nation as a whole is having trouble 

trusting women. It seems as though 

reproductive rights are constantly 

under attack, and women are 

often shamed and judged under 

the guise of concern. When we 

examine frankly how women’s 

behavior is policed, it reveals the 

true patriarchal (and oftentimes 

racist and classist) nature of 

how we view women and their 

sexual behavior. If the concern 

was about the loss of fertilized 

eggs, then why do we not see 

more pro-life activists talking 

about and investing in attempts 

to prevent miscarriages? This 

is already an under-discussed 

issue, yet about 15-25 percent of 

recognized pregnancies end in 

miscarriage. When data show 

that access to comprehensive sex 

education 
and 
contraceptives 

decreases abortion rates, why 

does 
the 
pro-life 
movement 

insist on abstinence-only sex 

education and limiting access 

to contraceptives? To me, this 

serves to solely to police the 

behavior 
of 
women 
and 
to 

punish them for not adhering 

to arbitrary standards of sexual 

purity.

Why 
is 
society 
unable 

to trust women as rational, 

thoughtful, responsible moral 

agents, 
perfectly 
capable 
of 

weighing the moral decision 

of what to do when and while 

they’re pregnant? Using abortion 

laws and abstinence-only sex 

education to police women and 

their bodies prevents us from 

having open, honest discussions 

about the health and well-being 

of women and their families. 

If we truly want reproductive 

justice, we need to shift the 

conversations 
we’re 
having 

about 
women 
and 
abortion 

from controlling, policing and 

judging to fact-based and honest 

conversations, and we need to 

start with young women.

My 
younger 
sister 
is 
a 

sophomore in high school now 

and she’s probably going to take 

a health class very similar to the 

one I took. The thought of her 

going out into a world where her 

reproductive rights are called 

into question; where she is so 

utterly without a clue that she, 

too, starts crying at Planned 

Parenthood 
because 
no 
one 

ever taught her how to be the 

authority on her own body. We 

need to trust women to be the 

authorities of their own bodies, 

but we need to give them the 

language, the confidence, the 

knowledge and the education 

to do so. Speak to young women 

candidly 
about 
their 
bodies 

and their reproductive choices. 

Maybe then we can prevent at 

least one more girl from having 

a nervous breakdown at Planned 

Parenthood and from having 

Hershey’s Kisses ruined for her 

forever.

Caroline Llanes can be reached at 

cmllanes@umich.edu.

CAROLINE LLANES | COLUMN

SAMANTHA SZUHAJ | COLUMN

DANA PIERANGELI | COLUMN

As we march towards equality

W

aking 
up 
the 

morning after the 
2016 
presidential 

election 
and 

hearing 
that 

Donald Trump won 
was heartbreaking. 
I had just started 
getting ready for 
school 
when 
my 

mom, 
whom 
I 

have 
never 
seen 

up before I leave 
except 
to 
get 
a 

first day of school 
picture, 
knocked 

on my door. She didn’t even 
have to say anything for me 
to know what happened. I 
walked into the other room 
and hugged my younger sister, 
then I slowly began physically 
and mentally preparing for 
school. I was scared. I had 
been following the election, I 
knew what Trump said about 
people of color, the LGBTQ 
community and women. I 
knew Trump’s lack of respect 
and how harmful it could 
be with his new position of 
authority. I was scared for my 
friends, for my country and 
for myself.

But 
then 
a 
miracle 

happened. 
The 
day 
after 

Trump’s 
inauguration, 

protesters took to the streets 
of 
Washington 
D.C., 
and 

an estimated 4 million all 
across the U.S. joined in. 
Even other countries joined 
in the fight: There were 261 
marches all over the world 
from Antarctica to Zimbabwe. 
It 
was 
likely 
the 
largest 

single-day protest in history. 
People from all walks of life, 
all races, all ethnicities, all 
hometowns and all genders 
came together to protest this 
man who has done nothing 
but belittle and disrespect 
the people he is supposed to 
serve. People from all over the 
world told the new president 
this 
behavior 
would 
not 

stand and that there would 
be pushback against anything 
unpresidential.

And push back we did. 

Every year since Trump was 
elected, the Women’s March 
has 
paraded 
through 
the 

streets, working to make the 
world a better place, even 
with Trump trying to make 
it worse. Jan. 19, 2019 marked 
the third annual Women’s 

March. The Women’s March is 
not just a women’s issue. With 
the 
vast 
intersectionality 

present in such a 
large 
movement, 

it 
has 
taken 
on 

broader challenges 
and issues plaguing 
America. Signs and 
protests from the 
march covered all 
kinds 
of 
issues, 

from LGBTQ and 
disability rights to 
immigration issues. 
While 
admittedly 

lower in attendance than the 
previous two, the fact that it’s 
still happening is a triumph in 
itself.

The march even withstood 

some 
of 
its 
leadership 

crumbling. There has been 
much debate in recent months 
between some of the New 
York leaders of the march 
over what the main goals 

and who the main leaders 
are going to be. There have 
been disagreements on the 
leadership selection. While 
Tamika Mallory, a Black gun 
control activist and Carmen 
Perez, 
a 
criminal 
justice 

reform activist, were selected 
to 
run 
the 
march, 
many 

pitched for having Vanessa 
Wruble, 
a 
white 
Jewish 

woman, front the movement. 
Mallory and Perez believe 
that women of color should be 
fronting the Women’s March 
because they have long been in 
the shadow of white feminists, 
while Wruble wants to work 
alongside them because they 
all fight for the same cause. 
These 
disagreements 
led 

to Wruble splitting off and 
creating her own movement 
and march called “March 
On.” Many were also angered 
and considered not marching 
when it came out that Mallory 
praised 
Louis 
Farrakhan, 

a 
well-known 
anti-Semitic 

leader of the Nation of Islam. 
The 
organization 
issued 

statements denouncing anti-
Semitism, but Mallory has 
not revoked her support of 
Farrakhan. 
However, 
most 

decided 
the 
movement 
is 

bigger than Mallory, Wruble 
or any discord among their 
leaders and came to show 
their support for a cause they 
believe in either way, leading 
to a small but successful 
statement.

Some protests are still 

scheduled to happen. Ann 
Arbor has its own “Women 
March On for Justice” on 
March 16 from 2 to 4 p.m. in the 
Diag. Plenty of protests have 
taken place at the University 
of Michigan, many of which 
involved 
women’s 
rights. 

Like many others all over 
the world, Ann Arbor held its 
own Women’s March on Jan. 
21, 2017, in solidarity with 
the march in Washington, 
D.C. While the protest in Ann 
Arbor this year will not be on 
the same day, it will have the 
same message: We will stand 
together to make this world a 
better place.

Despite the demoralization 

in 
having 
a 
despicable 

president, the past few years 
have 
led 
to 
astronomical 

gains for women. Hundreds 
of women have run for office, 
stood 
up 
against 
sexual 

assault, registered to vote 
and fought injustice. Right 
now we have more women in 
Congress than ever before — 
many of whom are women of 
color. The Women’s March is 
a physical manifestation of 
the changing times. Women 
are gaining ground politically 
and socially, and however 
difficult the road to equality 
may be, it will pay off in 
the end. Though with split 
leadership, 
the 
cause 
has 

been more difficult to define, 
we all want the same thing 
in the end: equality for all. I 
hope when the next election’s 
results are announced, I will 
be proud of who our country 
has chosen, and I think the 
courage women have shown 
through these marches will 
get us there.

Dana Pierangeli can be reached at 

dmpier@umich.edu.

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national, state and campus affairs.

DANA

PIERANGELI

The Women’s 

March is a physical 

manifestation of 

the changing times

SAMANTHA

SZUHAJ

And in this current 
time, I wish I had 
received a little 
more guidance

