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Thursday, May 23, 2019
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
OPINION
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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.
CASSANDRA MANSUETTI
Editor in Chief
EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS
W
hen are we adults? It’s
something a lot of
people disagree about,
and there really isn’t one set
answer as different freedoms are
enabled at different ages.
Let’s look at the ages for distinct
privileges in Michigan. You can
get an unrestricted license once
you turn 17. However, would that
really count as adulthood? You
still can’t vote — that comes at 18
(please register at vote.gov), like
the ability to be sent off to war
and pay taxes. Most people would
probably say adulthood starts
here, but the problem with that is
two-fold. First, we have all taken
introductory classes with 18-year-
olds, and it’s not very controversial
to claim that they don’t, for the
most part, carry themselves like
adults. The second problem with
adulthood at 18 is that you still
can’t legally drink in the U.S.,
and the nationwide tobacco age
is headed here as well. Would 21
then be a fair adulthood age? I
don’t think so, and it’s because
there are two more ages worth
examining: 11 and 14.
In 1997, Nathaniel Abraham
shot and killed Ronnie Greene
outside
a
party
in
Pontiac,
Michigan.
He
was
convicted
as an adult but sentenced as a
juvenile and was released upon
turning 21. He was 11 years old
when he shot Greene. This is not
a unique case — Michigan’s laws
have favored sentencing those 14
and above to lifetime sentences
in the case of murder as well as
similar crimes. This might be too
common in Michigan. According
to MLive, one in 10 prisoners
serving mandatory life sentences
were 14 to 17 at the time of their
crime, and 31 percent of juvenile
lifers did not commit the actual
homicide. In addition, 69 percent
of the juvenile lifers are Black.
Obviously,
there
are
racial
issues that must be addressed in a
conscious manner, but this gets at
something much deeper. Different
castes of people are infantilized or
over-matured depending on who
they are and oftentimes where
in society they come from. There
are two examples — one more
age-based and one more racially-
based.
From the standpoint of age, it
is somewhat absurd that there is
a general societal expectation that
people become adults at 18 given
how many freedoms you still lack.
One clear manifestation of this
is how much more structured
high school is (both academically
and otherwise) than a typical
university. The change is pretty
drastic, and I do find it somewhat
amusing
that
students
who
weren’t allowed to use their phone
in class seven months prior are
expected to manage much of their
life on their own.
From a racial standpoint, it
seems
that
oftentimes
Black
people are unfairly made to appear
older, and that comes across in
a number of ways. There’s the
choice of media to use mugshots
of Black kids and senior portraits
of white kids that make one group
appear older and more deserving
of punishment. Famously, there
was a very different response to
the crack crises of the ’80s and
’90s (culturally, politically and
otherwise) than the opioid crisis
of today which is seemingly
racially motivated.
There should be one age for
adulthood that is applied in a more
equitable manner, and applied
to
everything
and
everyone.
If you allow 18-year-olds who
serve in the armed forces certain
privileges not granted to others,
it becomes clear that this is more
virtue signaling than it is a serious
attempt at legislating. Similarly,
there is no reason to have such
tough laws regarding minors —
there is no reason the age where it
is legal to try someone as an adult
in Michigan could not be raised
to a more reasonable one. This
could address racial imbalances,
like lifetime sentences given to
minors. If the age that we want
to assign adulthood to is 18, then
on your 18th birthday, you should
be allowed to drink, light one
up, fire a gun, mail your ballot in
and then, when you inevitably
get arrested for the racket you
cause by disturbing the peace,
you should be tried as an adult,
but not a moment before you’re
18. Although this might not
completely address the racial
issue, holding all minors to the
same standard might start to
change societal perceptions of
people.
ANIK JOSHI | COLUMN
Anik Joshi can be reached at
anikj@umich.edu.
Towards a unified theory of adulthood
OLIVIA TURANO | COLUMN
Feminists, enough about men. Let’s talk about women
I
am a proud feminist, supporting
political, economic and social
equality regardless of gender that
has been absent for, really, all of time. I
too wake up some mornings fighting
the desire to throw on my pink pussy
Women’s March hat, slap a new “Pro-
Women, Pro-Life” frame on my Face-
book profile picture, tweet “men are
trash” and check “crush the patriarchy”
off the “Feminist with a To-Do List”
to-do list I bought for $10 at a feminist
boutique before moving on with my life.
Much of the recent outcry against
far-right abortion legislation has been
because men — usually white, straight
and wealthy — continue to craft laws
that are not only incredibly restric-
tive, but also ignore basic female biol-
ogy and public opinion. Alabama’s new
bill, which passed with the votes of 25
white, male senators, effectively bans
abortion at six weeks — earlier than
many women even know they are preg-
nant — and criminalizes abortion, even
in cases of rape, where a woman and
doctor performing an abortion face a
stronger penalty than a rapist.
Almost 50 years after Roe v. Wade,
we are still fighting for even the most
basic access to women’s reproductive
health. Feminists are quick to turn on
men and, to be fair, the vitriol against
them isn’t exactly unwarranted. The
patriarchy has reigned for too long, and
women have had enough.
But, in order to truly tackle the “femi-
nist agenda,” we can’t continue to blame
our oppression entirely on the patri-
archy and our patriarchs. We need to
talk about, perhaps, feminism’s primary
obstacle today: white women.
I am from the Upper West Side of
New York City, which houses a less
affluent but still fortunate breed of
white New Yorkers. Moving from New
York City to Ann Arbor — another
upper-middle class, white, liberal haven
— it was initially hard to conceptualize
that, despite the persistence of gen-
der inequality across America, white
women, broadly speaking, are not
allies of other marginalized groups.
Amidst a flurry of condemnation
towards the 25 male state senators
attempting to control and legislate
women’s bodies through the new abor-
tion ban in Alabama, there is a smaller
group pointing out that white women
remain complicit in promoting these
laws — women like Alabama state Rep.
Terri Collins, who sponsored the bill,
and Governor Kay Ivey, who signed it
into law. While the law may be legally
unenforceable due to Roe v. Wade’s
federal legalization of abortion, this
law was passed with the intention of
challenging that decision, emboldened
by the Trump-era right — and women
played a role.
This is part of a much bigger issue. In
the 2016 presidential election, 53 per-
cent of white women voted for Trump.
By contrast, 94 percent of Black women
and 69 percent of Latinas voted for Hill-
ary. Even more surprisingly, this wasn’t
a unique 2016 nightmare phenomenon.
In fact, this followed a consistent pat-
tern of white women supporting the
GOP nominee, as they did in the 2004,
2008 and 2012 elections.
In the 2018 midterm elections, white
women followed other demographic
groups in moving towards the left,
but only slightly. 49 percent of white
women voted Republican. Meanwhile,
92 percent of Black women supported
Democrats.
You may be asking why I am so freely
implying the association between being
a feminist and voting for Democrats.
Feminism is not confined to Demo-
crats — in fact, feminism is undeniably
stronger when it transcends party
lines. Feminism should and can be
for everyone. However, as long as the
goals of feminism are supported by the
left and largely neglected by the right,
when white women cast their votes for
Republicans they are shielded by the
privilege of their skin color.
While white women walk through
the streets each day carrying the soci-
etal implications of what it means to
be female, we are also protected by the
privilege that being white grants. White
women stand at a crossroads of being
female and white, and when they cast a
vote, they must choose where their pri-
orities lie. And while externally many
of us may wear shirts that proclaim
“the future is female,” we often fail to
address our fellow white women who
identify with their race before their
gender.
More often than not in our current
political climate, voting Republican is a
privilege not all are afforded. In fact, 42
percent of women who had abortions
in 2014 were under the poverty line.
Wealthy white women will always be
able to find a way to get an abortion if
they need one. But for those with weak-
er economic prospects, the attempted
new legislation is devastating.
Until we, as feminists — and espe-
cially as white feminists — hold white
women accountable for failing to pri-
oritize women’s issues in their votes,
feminism will fail to truly take root
in policy. Without the support of the
most wealthy and powerful women
in America, feminism falls short. Fair-
weather feminism is no longer enough
for white women. Feminism needs
your full support, now more than
ever.
Olivia Turano can be reached at
turanoo@umich.edu.