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Posts published in “Opinions”

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.

Trash Talk: Sustainability and the Need for Outdoor Receptacles at Smith

During my first week on the Smith College campus, I was struck by the absence of outdoor trash cans. When I had something to throw out, there was nowhere to put it. I began to look for them, and after three weeks of searching, I only found a singular trash can outside of the bookstore — one that, as far as I could tell, wasn’t affiliated with the college.

‘The Snowman’: Reliving the Magic of Winters Past

Recently, I forced my girlfriend through the ordeal that any number of my friends, partners and casual acquaintances have been subjected to in the past — a showing of the 1982 classic “The Snowman.” Based on a picture book of the same name, “The Snowman” is a hand-illustrated silent short film accompanied by an original symphonic score. All aspects which my willing or unwilling viewers have no doubt found riveting. Not to mention that it inflicts more emotional damage than any children’s Christmas movie has a right to. Call it my artistic appreciation (or early onset depression) but its bittersweet mood is one of the many reasons it was my favorite film as a child.