Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4A — Wednesday, November 13, 2019

Alanna Berger
Zack Blumberg
Emily Considine
Emma Chang
Joel Danilewitz

Emily Huhman
Krystal Hur
Ethan Kessler
Magdalena Mihaylova
Michael Russo

Timothy Spurlin
Miles Stephenson
Nicholas Tomaino
Joel Weiner
Erin White 

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AND JOEL DANILEWITZ
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Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of The Daily’s Editorial Board. 
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EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

BRITTANY BOWMAN | COLUMN

Being progressively all-female

MARISA WRIGHT | COLUMN

JOSHUA KIM | COLUMN

They wrote the book on #MeToo

Buybacks are not the solution

W

hat do we do with 
art made by bad 
men? This is the 
question many people asked in 
the aftermath of the #MeToo 
movement. 
We 
collectively 
turned our attention not to 
the court cases filed by U.S. 
attorneys 
and 
victims 
of 
these bad men’s violent and 
often illegal behavior, nor 
to the systems that enabled 
their predatory behavior to 
go unpunished for decades, 
but to the movies, TV shows, 
books, albums, journalism and 
poetry they made. What are 
we to do? Discard our fave’s 
stand-up special or hit record? 
We chose to simultaneously 
turn away from the survivors 
looking us in the eye, the 
gutsy 
and 
courageous 
women who came forward to 
recount how these bad men 
sexually violated them, from 
workplace 
harassment 
to 
rape. Instead, we asked what 
all this meant for us. Is it OK 
to listen to that song or watch 
that movie? Am I still allowed 
to read that book or stream 
that podcast? Is it unethical 
to call an Uber or shop at 
Barnes & Noble? 
In 
a 
way, 
this 
is 
understandable. How could 
we not? Our entire world 
is constructed out of an 
androcratic order, by the work 
of men who sit untouched on 
thrones of power. If we had 
to discard their work, what 
would we have left? 
In some realms, practically 
nothing.
Almost two years after 
the initial reporting that led 
to the #MeToo movement — 
the original phrase coined 
by 
activist 
Tarana 
Burke 
— we’re getting a peek at a 
world in which predatory 
men are not emboldened, and 
those courageous enough to 
challenge their power are not 
silenced. 
“She Said” was published on 
Sept. 10, 2019. The book was 
written by New York Times 
journalists Jodi Kantor and 
Megan Twohey who detailed 
their 
reporting 
on 
movie 
producer Harvey Weinstein’s 
sexual misconduct and Prof. 
Christine 
Blasey 
Ford’s 
Senate testimony. Two weeks 
later, “Know My Name” was 
published, 
revealing 
the 
identity of Chanel Miller, who 
was raped by Brock Turner. 
Turner 
was 
infamously 

sentenced to only six months 
in jail after being convicted of 
three counts of sexual assault. 
Until the book’s publication, 
Miller had only been publicly 
identified as Emily Doe, and 
was known for the powerful 
victim statement she made at 
Turner’s sentencing hearing. 
On Oct. 15, “Catch and Kill,” 
written 
by 
Ronan 
Farrow 
and detailing his reporting 
on Weinstein and how NBC 
executives tried to kill the 
story, was also published. 
Each of these books is 
distinct, 
offering 
different 
perspectives 
of 
the 
same 
gruesome, 
complex 
system 
in which powerful men are 
protected and empowered to 
violate women. “She Said,” 
written in the third person, 
offers an extensive probe into 
exactly how men like Harvey 
Weinstein were protected by 
secretive 
settlements 
paid 
for by their employers, severe 
nondisclosure 
agreements 
and 
aggressive 
lawyers. 
These lawyers include include 
Lisa Bloom, who proclaims 
herself a feminist advocate. 
Contrastingly, Ronan Farrow’s 
“Catch and Kill” reads like 
a spy novel, illustrating just 
how 
cloak-and-dagger 
his 
reporting process was, from 
being 
followed 
by 
former 
Mossad 
agents 
to 
being 
warned to get a gun. “Know 
My 
Name,” 
though, 
is 
a 
tender, stunning book written 
by a gifted writer about the 
interiority of being a survivor, 
as well as undergoing Turner’s 
rape trial and living publicly 
as Emily Doe. 
Yet, together, the trio join 
as one refrain, melodious in 
its force and efficacy. For 
decades, women, as survivors 
of gender-based violence from 
intimate partner violence to 
sexual assault, have written 
about how men have violently 
and illegally violated them. 
And in many cases, women 
continue to be silenced. This 
is precisely why these books 
are so important. 
It is important to note 
that these books are a part 
of a long tradition of women 
writing about sexual traumas 
from more recent books like 
“Not That Bad,” edited by 
Roxane Gay, “Indelible in 
the 
Hippocampus,” 
edited 
by Shelly Oria and “Nobody’s 
Victim,” by Carrie Goldberg, 
to older works such as the 

1994 National Book Award 
for 
Nonfiction 
finalist 
“Strange Justice: The Selling 
of Clarence Thomas” by Jill 
Abramson and Jane Mayer. 
Abramson and Mayer’s work is 
particularly relevant today for 
detailing the mishandling of 
Anita Hill’s testimony during 
Clarence 
Thomas’s 
U.S. 
Supreme Court nomination 
hearings by the Senate — 
and, 
in 
particular, 
then-
Senate Judiciary Committee 
chairman Joe Biden.
“She 
Said” 
and 
“Catch 
and Kill” are journalistic in 
nature. All three of these 
books pick up the work of 
past generations of women 
— second- and third-wave 
feminists 
who 
attended 
consciousness-raising groups 
and women’s liberation rallies 
and in turn pushed forward 
progress for generations of 
women after them. These 
books exist as monuments to 
their progress and painful 
reminders of the work still to 
be done. 
All of these books are — or 
at least should be — required 
reading. While I am prone to 
eye rolling and groaning when 
a man whines about #MeToo 
going too far or laments the 
suddenly-terminated careers 
of bad men as if they have 
been mortally wounded, I am 
receptive to what New York 
Magazine journalist Rebecca 
Traister explains as men who 
will inevitably be penalized 
for behavior that was once 
socially tolerated but is no 
longer accepted in 2019. With 
#MeToo, we are changing 
the rules in the middle of the 
game. There are some men 
raised to understand certain 
behaviors as common and 
accepted (though it should be 
noted Weinstein was probably 
never raised to believe rape 
was OK) who find that those 
same behaviors are no longer 
acceptable and might actually 
be punishable. 
For these men, and for the 
boys growing up in the next 
generation, 
the 
would-be 
Brock Turners and Harvey 
Weinsteins 
of 
the 
world, 
these books are an essential 
roadmap to a world in which 
they are not owed sex and 
access to women’s bodies by 
virtue of their rights as men.

Marisa Wright can be reached at 

marisadw@umich.edu.

O

n Oct. 27, a shooting 
near 
Greenville, 
Texas, left two dead 
and at least 14 injured. Maybe 
it’s just a stroke of callousness, 
but is anyone really surprised 
at 
this 
point? 
If 
anyone 
was going to be surprised 
by anything regarding this 
mass shooting, it would be 
that more people didn’t fall 
victim. In October 2017, a 
shooting at a music festival 
in Las Vegas took the lives of 
58 people and injured almost 
500 others. In February 2018, 
17 Marjory Stoneman Douglas 
High School students and 
staff died at the hands of a 
deranged killer, marking one 
of the most traumatic times 
in modern American history. 
This year, on Aug. 3 and Aug. 
4, 22 people died and 24 were 
injured in a shooting in El 
Paso, Texas, and nine people 
died and 27 were injured in a 
shooting in Dayton, Ohio. Also 
this year, in Odessa, Texas, 
on Sept. 1, seven people were 
killed and 22 were injured. 
How 
can 
anyone 
be 
surprised? 
It’s 
not 
that 
people don’t care for the 
lives lost. Quite the opposite. 
People have been caring, but 
nothing has been done to 
address the clear epidemic of 
mass shootings in America. 
The issue of guns has been 
stuck in legislative gridlock. 
Democrats continue to beg 
for stronger, more stringent 
gun 
control. 
Republicans 
argue guns are an ingrained 
aspect of American history. 
Instead of defaulting to the 
ever-present straw manning 
that dominates the current 
political landscape, it’s time 
to take an honest look at 
both sides of the gun control 
debate, and in particular, the 
proposal of a gun buyback.
Some argue that if guns 

were removed from American 
society, criminals would use 
other means to endanger 
the innocent. That might be 
true on an individual scale, 
but not so true on a national 
one. After the shooting in 
El Paso, former Democratic 
presidential candidate Beto 
O’Rourke spoke passionately 
about gun reform, proposing 
a national buyback program. 
Most people on both sides 
of the aisle point to the 
Australian buyback program 
of 
1996. 
Progressives 
point to the fact that after 
the 
buyback, 
Australian 
homicide 
plummeted. 
However, conservatives look 
to the fact that the homicide 
rate actually spiked shortly 
after the buyback and then 
declined at a similar rate to 
before the buyback. 
At this point, a buyback 
program 
doesn’t 
look 
to 
significantly 
affect 
the 
number of homicides on a 
national scale. If there could 
be 
any 
association 
made 
with homicides, it wouldn’t 
be with guns, but rather 
with the eras in which these 
homicides 
were 
occuring. 
Homicides spiked in the U.S. 
during the late 1990s, but 
in the 2000s subsequently 
declined with no comparable 
national gun control reform 
to that of Australia. 
Additionally, some argue 
the overabundance of guns 
in America is a contributing 
factor to the current gun 
crisis. At first, it would 
seem that way. Admittedly, 
America has an obsession 
with 
guns. 
There 
are 
currently more guns than 
there are people in the U.S. 
Think 
about 
that. 
When 
looking 
at 
that 
statistic, 
any sensible person would 
think the prevalence of guns 

would have an undeniable 
link 
to 
gun 
violence 
in 
America. But it doesn’t. In 
data published by the FBI 
listing the number of guns 
and events of gun violence 
per year in 2010, they found 
that the data establishing the 
connection 
between 
guns 
and gun-murder rate exhibits 
an R-squared value of 0.0031. 
This suggests the possibility 
of correlation between gun 
murder and gun possession is 
close to none. 
Obviously, 
the 
biggest 
issue with guns is their 
capacity to kill. In the Dayton 
shooting, the shooter was 
able to kill nine people just 
in 32 seconds before being 
neutralized by authorities. 
In 
10 
minutes, 
58 
were 
dead during the Las Vegas 
shooting. With the removal 
of 
guns 
from 
American 
society, surely threats to the 
public could be minimized. 
On the other hand, guns give 
the people the right to defend 
themselves against threats. 
Over time, gun purchases 
have skyrocketed, but certain 
types of gun-related crime 
have plummeted. Enshrined 
in the Constitution, arms 
are an afforded right, and 
the only way to remove guns 
as such would be through 
near impossible bipartisan 
support. Even more so, such 
a 
constitutional 
shakeup 
would continue to destabilize 
the current political space. 
The solution, as of now, is 
not clear, and it’s asinine 
to suggest that one broad 
buyback 
program 
would 
solve anything regarding the 
expansive crisis that involves 
guns, 
mental 
health 
and 
culture.

Joshua Kim can be reached at 

joshica@umich.edu.

O

f the three campus tours 
I took prior to enrolling 
at the University of 
Michigan, the most memorable 
highlight from each trip up 
to Ann Arbor was the Martha 
Cook 
Residence 
Hall. 
The 
tour guides I had as a high 
schooler emphasized how this 
building was the embodiment 
of pure feminine class at the 
University and one of the only 
all-female dormitories left. As 
a result, I’ve had this magical 
ideal of the women who live in 
Martha Cook cemented as old-
fashioned, proper students who 
have mandatory tea times and 
cannot speak to boys past 10 
p.m. 
Attending my first ever Friday 
teatime, I realized the stark 
inaccuracy of my assumptions 
about 
these 
women. 
Many 
sported U-M Computer Science 
or Biology T-shirts, and I saw 
an M-Boxing backpack. I also 
heard chats about Ross classes 
and biological anthropology 
lectures. The atmosphere of 
Martha Cook is welcoming, 
and immediately when you 
walk into Martha Cook, you are 
greeted by the sweet smells of 
delectable baked goods set out 
in the main hall and the warm 
smiles on everyone’s faces. 
On your right, there is the 
magnificent Red Room with 
deep, soft, red carpet and the 
larger-than-life-size 
portrait 
of Martha Cook herself. The 
Sparking Room connects the 
Red and Gold Rooms, where 
men from the Law Quad used 
to wait on their ladies and chat 
in the late hours of the early 
1900s. Under the high-arching 
ceilings of the Gold Room, 
everyone sits together on sofas, 
armchairs or on the floor at the 
feet of their friends, sipping 
on Friday tea. The century-old 
books and records showcased 
in each of these rooms are 
telling of the vast history the 
building possesses. Beautiful 
woodwork of the early 20th 
century envelopes each room, 
and 
the 
white, 
geometric 
ceilings declare they’ve heard a 
hundred years of conversation 
beneath them. 
Over 
the 
past 
century, 
Martha 
Cook 
has 
housed 
countless women who have 
contributed 
much 
to 
the 
University. Reflecting on the 
100th-anniversary celebration 

of Martha Cook in 2015, I 
wondered just what it meant 
for the three all-female dorms 
on campus to be just that: 
all-female. 
The 
exclusivity 
raises potential quarrels, and I 
questioned what this may mean 
for nonbinary or transgender 
students wanting to live in 
non-coed dorms. Researching 
gender-inclusive 
housing 
at 
Michigan, I found a partnership 
between the University and 
the Spectrum Center called 
the Gender Inclusive Living 
Experience. GILE is located 
in East Quad, and students of 
any gender are allowed to be a 
part of the community. Upon 
joining GILE, residents agree 
to respect and use desired 
names and pronouns, value all 
social identities, support each 
other and commit to expanding 
inclusivity, among other things. 
This program is especially 
great for first-year students, 
allowing a family environment 
where everyone is accepting 
and aware — something that 
can be incorporated into the 
rest of their undergraduate 
experience. 
However, 
GILE 
is one of the only residential 
programs 
on 
campus 
that 
exists to fully emulate gender-
inclusivity 
and 
deconstruct 
the binary nature of gender. 
Even more so, if students who 
identify with the residents of 
GILE want a non-coed dorm, 
there are currently no options 
for 
them. 
Consequently, 
Martha Cooks’s board has held 
recent discussions of what 
being an all-female dorm on 
Michigan’s campus means and 
how the definition of gender 
may need to change in order to 
be more inclusive for nonbinary 
and transgender students.
University housing has made 
a push in the right direction for 
inclusive restrooms and coed 
halls, but accessibility can be 
difficult to navigate. While it 
really sucks having to go up to 
the third floor of the Shapiro 
Undergraduate 
Library 
to 
find a restroom, it sucks way 
more when there isn’t a single 
gender-inclusive restroom in 
the entire building. The “dear 
colleague” letter in 2016 from 
the 
Obama 
administration 
pushed 
residential 
colleges 
and universities to provide 
adequate 
housing 
for 
transgender 
students 
or 

potentially risk losing federal 
funding. The policies are not 
just for transgender student 
accommodations, 
but 
they 
also push for the negation of 
the gender-binary in general, 
with 
university 
housing 
and 
communal 
situations. 
Thinking back to our own 
room-assignment application 
process prior to freshman 
year, 
many 
students 
were 
only allowed to select same-
sex roommates. These “dear 
colleague” 
policies 
also 
work to help siblings who 
want to live together, gay 
students wanting to live with 
heterosexual friends of the 
opposite 
gender 
and 
even 
friend 
groups 
comfortable 
with mixed-gender dormitory 
situations. 
Though there are select 
residential 
programs 
on 
campus 
that 
are 
strictly 
gender-inclusive, the goal is to 
make each residential program 
on campus welcoming and 
safe for all students. Housing 
policies 
and 
traditional 
practices 
on 
campus 
that 
assume students are either 
rigidly male or female fail 
to represent nonbinary and 
transgender students. College 
administrators, 
housing 
applications and residential 
board members must adopt 
procedures 
that 
recognize 
diverse 
gender 
identities, 
expressions and transitions. 
Applications 
that 
solely 
ask if a student is male or 
female fail to recognize the 
inherent and full complexity 
of gender identity, but they 
also 
miss 
the 
opportunity 
to 
provide 
sufficient 
data 
for 
roommate 
assignments 
and comprehensive comfort. 
Addressing 
gender-inclusive 
issues 
and 
beginning 
to 
welcome transgender students 
would 
effectively 
work 
to 
strengthen 
the 
history 
of 
powerful 
women 
within 
the 
residences’ 
halls. 
For 
this 
reason, 
Martha 
Cook 
certainly appears to be moving 
in the right direction, and 
the 
powerful, 
progressive 
women in this dormitory act 
to consolidate the process 
and verify the importance of 
gender inclusiveness. 

Brittany Bowman can be reached 

at babowm@umich.edu.

MADISON COPLEY | CONTACT CARTOONIST AT MICOPLEY@UMICH.EDU

