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(04/23/10 3:28am)
When Phyllis Schlafly spoke on campus last Monday, I expected an interesting and relevant critique of modern feminism. As a proud Republican myself, I was interested in the point of view of a fellow female conservative.I should have known better. Instead, I was disappointed that yet another member of my political party just doesn’t get it.The word “feminism” is scary to many. Young women these days are often hesitant to self-identify as feminists. The stereotype of bra-burning, baby-killing man-eaters comes to mind.Viewing feminism that way is simply perpetuating a vicious, offensive and incorrect stereotype.So, what is modern feminism about? No nutshell summary could do it justice. In part, feminism is about changing norms that present barriers to women’s achievement.As one example, while women account for nearly half of managerial and professional positions, they make up only about 12 percent of corporate officers and less than 5 percent of top corporate earners. So despite what appears to be a guarantee of equality in U.S. legislation, in practice, something else is getting in the way.Equal access is often confused with equal opportunity. While the ability to secure a job is the same, societal pressures, status privileges and social norms are quite different and favor men.Enforcing quotas is not the answer. But perhaps the answer is in increasing the flexibility of the workday — for both sexes. Or acting to change the norm that a woman should be the primary caregiver for the children, even if that means she must become a super-mother.This is just a small frame through which to view a larger movement. Both young women — and men too — should not be scared to self-identify as feminists. It’s a mistake to believe that we all can’t benefit from this movement.
(01/29/10 4:56am)
The introduction of gender equality legislation in 1972 changed the landscape of collegiate sports. Title IX was a groundbreaking attempt to ensure that women would have the same opportunities as men, academically and athletically. Its success was paramount to the advancement of women’s rights in the United States.But it has also had an unfortunate side effect — the elimination of men’s teams in order to achieve Title IX compliance. Since Title IX was enacted, more than 400 men’s sports teams have been cut nationally, including previously successful teams. This is not to say that Title IX forces schools to eliminate programs, nor does it mean that women have more opportunities than men. The complex bill and the U.S. Department of Education’s subsequent regulations ensure both genders have equal opportunities when it comes to travel, equipment, facilities and so forth. And many of the regulations are based on participation at large, not the number of programs themselves.Many of the issues with Title IX at the collegiate level are found in football. From a numbers standpoint, big football programs count for many of men’s athletic opportunities.There is no comparable women’s sport to football in terms of participants. Thus, most schools offer more women’s sports to compensate; at UNC, there are 14 women’s sports and only 12 for men. Schools deserve the right to treat revenue-generating sports, such as football and basketball, at their own discretion regardless of gender participation. After all, UNC football made nearly $10 million in profit last year alone. And a lot of that money goes to fund UNC athletics — both men’s and women’s sports.Sports that make up the foundation of funding for entire athletic departments should be discounted from the Title IX formula. These sports help ensure that both men and women will have the opportunity to play on sports teams in the first place.If regulations allowed us to maximize opportunity and satisfy everyone’s interest by providing a few more opportunities to revenue-generating sports, athletic programs across the country would be able to offer a greater variety of sports to men and women.It’s worth the trade. Contact Meredith at mere@unc.edu.
(01/22/10 4:21am)
Textbook prices are out of control.In the 2006-07 academic year, students paid an average of about $700 for textbooks. That’s more than triple the proposed tuition increase for the 2010-11 school year for in-state students at UNC.Textbook prices have skyrocketed over the past two decades at double the rate of inflation.But here’s what puzzles me: Our student body has been exceptionally vocal about tuition hikes — but not the increasing cost of textbooks.A major villain in all of this is the “new edition.” A good example of this on our campus is the infamous media law textbook pack. Students taking the course must pay $90 for two new books just about every semester.This can make sense from an academic content standpoint. Laws and information are always changing in the field of media, and thus constant updating is usually always necessary.This, of course, thrills publishers who are looking for any way to weasel a few extra dollars out of our pockets.But here’s where we can really fight back.E-reader devices, such as the Amazon Kindle, are a brilliant way to combat high prices.For a reasonable startup cost, students could purchase one of these readers and pay a very small fee to download their books every semester.But students can’t do it alone. We need our professors, who ultimately can really help us save a lot of money. Professors can do this by actively seeking out textbooks that have an e-reader edition available for purchase.It’s a simple matter of supply and demand. Early calls for e-reader textbooks led three major publishers to begin to offer textbooks through the Kindle.E-readers are also environmentally friendly. Estimates predict e-book sales will prevent 5.27 billion kilograms of carbon dioxide emissions in 2012.The e-reader might not be right for everyone. Some people prefer books to e-readers for highlighting purposes, and others might just prefer physical books.But a cost-conscious student could save about a semester’s worth of in-state tuition by switching to e-readers.E-readers are the future of college textbooks. UNC should get with the times.
(01/21/10 4:58am)
The issue: A student government program provides night owls with a pair of trained “SafeWalkers” to escort them home upon request. The program was designed to improve campus safety by keeping students from walking alone at night. Is this new initiative really needed?
(11/30/09 4:18am)
I’ve had a bone to pick with businesses that offer unpaid and not-for-credit internships for some time now.
So you can imagine my dismay upon reading a recent New York Times article preaching the value of such positions and how companies pressed for cash are increasingly relying on interns to do work for free.
The unpaid internship is one of the biggest swindles out there for college students today.
The promise of a “one-of-a-kind experience” is often left unfulfilled. Menial office tasks and the occasional chat with an executive often constitute an entire summer. In the end, students usually receive a letter of recommendation from a lower-level supervisor. It’s hardly worth a summer of volunteering, in my opinion.
More importantly, however, these positions perpetuate a cycle of socioeconomic discrimination.
While many employers deem internships a prerequisite for a salaried position, many students — especially those paying off student loans or funding their own education — can’t afford to work for free.
And often, landing another job on top of a full-time unpaid internship isn’t an option. Thus, employers are in effect denying these hardworking and often exceptionally qualified individuals who simply don’t have a means to fund such a job.
The problem of unpaid internships speaks more to the companies that participate than to the interns themselves.
I know firsthand the difficulties associated with unpaid internships. When I could no longer afford travel expenses to drive back and forth from Raleigh twice a week, I approached my employer.
Fortunately, my boss made the internship cost neutral by covering all of my travel costs.
But others are not so lucky.
A good example of this is the internship program with the U.S. Congress. Only a handful of offices fairly compensate their interns.
However, the vast majority of Congressional offices expect students to move across the country, live in an area where the cost of living is much higher and work full-time for free.
On top of that, many of the opportunities are not legitimate experiences in government.
Giving Capitol tours and sealing envelopes for eight hours a day doesn’t really constitute what it’s really like to work on the Hill.
There are a few business that really do offer great work experience for their unpaid interns.
The chance to shadow executives, work on crucial projects or the opportunity to have work published can really pay off in the long run, especially if the duration of the internship was part of a trial run before a permanent position.
But these companies will never get all of the qualified applicants they seek when their employees are not compensated fairly for their valuable work.
After all, when interns are treated like permanent employees and are expected to produce the same quality work product, they deserve fair compensation.
It’s unfair and exploitative for companies to rely heavily on unpaid college student interns. Clearly, something is amiss when McDonald’s pays its lowest-level employees more to flip burgers than a business pays an intern to produce valuable work product.
So when applying for internships this summer, I urge students to avoid selling themselves short by taking a job that pays less than they’re worth.
And don’t let anyone fool you — your work is valuable. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have hired you in the first place.
(10/07/09 3:57am)
Since 1795, students of the University of North Carolina have aggressively used First Amendment rights and frequently petitioned our school for redress of grievances. And our unique public university perspective on state action and prior restraint has often encouraged debate on what exactly qualifies as the abridgement of speech on our campus.The ongoing Youth for Western Civilization debacle has shed more light on the subject. We’ve seen the good, the bad and the ugly as this issue has run its course.But perhaps the best part of it all was the civil discussion last Thursday between Nikhil Patel and Haley Koch. Though they “agreed to disagree” on the issue of the abridgement of speech, the free flow of ideas allowed the audience to choose for itself whose argument was strongest.It is in precisely this manner that the marketplace of ideas is allowed to flourish. After all, that is what a liberal arts university is all about — learning how to discover the truth. Lessons in free speech can be hard to learn. After all, many of us have disagreed with two conservative campus speakers, former U.S. Reps. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., and Virgil Goode, R-Va. But no one can legally deny these people the right to speak at UNC. It is best for ideas to be heard and discussed. As Greg Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, lectured last Thursday, it is best to invite people with whom we disagree to campus and force them to argue their side. It often shows how weak their positions truly are.It is not our job to choose what political speech can or cannot be heard on campus. We cannot forget the dark days of the 1963 Speaker Ban Law, when a conservative state general assembly forbade communists and those supporting the overthrow of the government from speaking on campus.It was the efforts of then-student leaders — who sued the school and won — that ensured we can discuss controversial issues on campus today.There are ideas we like and ideas with which we vehemently disagree. But at our great University, these ideas become lessons of tolerance, patience and, ultimately, lessons in the freedom to decide for ourselves.