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Posts published in “Opinions”

What Smith Doesn’t Understand About Diversity

This article was originally published in the October 2024 print edition. What does true diversity look like in an era of systemic inequality? At a recent Smith College training conference, I encountered a reminder of the work that still lies ahead. The conference focused on refining our leadership skills, but what struck me as most compelling was the presentation of a “power wheel” that ranked marginalized identities based on their proximity to power. This graphic illustrated a profoundly outdated and two-dimensional understanding of diversity, reducing complex experiences to a hierarchy defined by race, class, sexuality and more.

Why Colleges Should Prioritize Self-Defense Training?

In a Study of Women, Gender and Sexuality seminar, Gender and Violence, taught by Professor Carrie Baker during the fall of 2024, a discussion on self-defense classes highlighted the availability — or lack thereof — of such resources at Smith. As early as the turn of the twentieth century, self-defense, particularly physical training, emerged as a means of personal and political empowerment for women.

Saturday Nights Off the PVTA

Saturday night; raucous laughter and the clipped, rapid sound of footsteps, accompanied by a flash of headlights as the PVTA B43 passes by my first-floor window. It’s 9:30 p.m. and I am holed inside my room, blue light radiating from my computer screen and burning the words from my Gender, Law and Policy reading onto the backs of my retinas.