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Show OPINIONS A6 By Nicola Pritchett Females are more than just bodies CLAIMING UNIFICATION, UNDER NO UNIFIED DEMANDS. Asst. Hex Editor missnicolajudith@gmail.com I was first formally introduced to the Occupy movement at a panel held by the UVU Philosophy Club last year. I sat in the back row of the library auditorium, genuinely shocked by what I was hearing. Professors and activists preached about the resurgence of socialism, avoiding consensus, and even revolution. At one point a girl next to me leaned over to her friend and whispered, "anarchy." Since then, the movement has become a fixation of mine The more I am exposed to Occupy, the more passionately I oppose it. Today, while I gathered and synthesized information for this article, I even felt afraid. I look through photos of the protestors, and I read their signs and I can't help but feel confused. I find many of their objectives and much of their moral reasoning not only flawed, but at complete odds with what I believe to be true. The Occupy movement has come to be a manifestation of serious faults that I find in our generation. I've tried to organize my opposition by explaining the top five reasons I will not be joining the Occupy Wall Street movement and illustrated those reasons with the text of real signs held by the protestors themselves. "All our grievances are connected." "You are the 99%." "Hey Wall Street, suck my debt." "Shoot sperm, not bullets." It's difficult to write about flaws in the movement because there is no cohesive whole to critique. The movement is based on the idea of the 99 percent versus the one percent. They include everyone. They claim to be an army of the middle and lower classes, and yet these many groups cannot be bound into one force, one solution. I believe that scattered, leaderless groups invite unintended control. In some ways, Occupy has become an enormous party for the fringe groups of society. I see more and more interviews with Occupiers who are camped out in parks to score weed and hang out with friends rent free. I also see posters diminishing the weight of the serious topics originally addressed by Occupy, with sarcasm and childish humor. The same movement that quotes Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi, also waves signs saying "1% Y U no pay taxes?" "Eat the Rich." "All of my heroes kill cops." Anything bearing a hammer and sickle In the early 20th century, my great-grandfather fought against and then fled from Russia's communist movement, which has been described as an extension of socialism. He came to America, because it was (and I truly believe, still is) a place where a man can earn a living by the merits of his own work. Socialism at its best is the idea of equality, of everyone being able to make it in life. Yet, the definition of socialism states: "Economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods. A system of society or group living in which there is no private property." I don't want this for myself, and I don't want it for my country. Socialism is about a collective, a kind of grey middle ground where everyone is okay. Capitalism promotes competition, something that forces men to work hard to earn their living. Many of the protestors involved with Occupy will tell you that they aspire to create a more peaceful, loving world. They call for an end to war and brotherly love and yet they vandalize buildings, spit at policemen, and hold signs urging bankers to jump from high-rises to their deaths. "Throw me a bone, pay my tuition." "Housing is a human right." I do not respect every man equally, nor do I think every man deserves the same respect. Every human deserves exactly what they're worth, what they've earned. Without the process of work and reciprocity, rewards have no value. Entitlement destroys the ideals of achievement and halts progress. If reward is handed out without work, there is no incentive to move the world forward or to go above and beyond. Sex talk, part 2: The premarital exam From sex ed in schools to sex ed before marriage By Vanessa Fraga Perkins Managing Editor fraga.vai7@gmail.com In my last article, I focused on the importance of sexual education and the need for it in our public schools. While discussing the issue of sexual education, I also wanted to explore the phenomenon of premarital exams. A premarital exam generally happens before a woman gets married and is not very common outside of Utah. In other states, a premarital exam is a blood test. In Utah, it can include a full pelvic exam and a Q-and-A portion, where both women and men are encouraged to bring whatever questions they may have to the table. Each exam is different depending on the doctor, but this is the general format. Having questions before entering a sexual relationship for the first time is perfectly natural. I'm curious to know, however, if some of the questions that couples have are, indeed, questions that may have been answered in a sex education course in school that was more inclusive than abstinence only. When I started my "Sex Ed" article journey, I thought I knew exactly how I felt about sexual education in schools and in pre marital exams I had drawn the conclusion that premarital exams were specific to Utah because kids and teenagers weren't learning important information See SEX TALK, A7 Letter from the Editor-in-Chief Numbers never lie We have gone way out on a limb this year in several areas in hopes of providing cutting edge and relevant material to the student body that you all look forward to reading. While these changes may not appeal to all readers, it appears that the overwhelming majority of you love what we are doing. I'm not much of a numbers guy, but being a sports junkie, I can appreciate some good stats. Some of the most compelling stats I've seen related to our paper, prove that more of you are reading our publication than ever before. Over the summer months (June, July and August), we have increased our online readership by 20 percent this year over that same period last year. This September was an even more dramatic jump, with our website seeing a ginormous 50 percent rise in readership from 2011-2012. And for our old school readers that prefer to hold an actual paper, we have put 40 percent more in your hands. We have shoved our way into first place in the state for public universities as well. Of all readers of student papers in the state, we grab a 35 percent share. Second place goes to Utah State with 31.43 percent followed distantly by the University of Utah at 20.81 percent and Southern Utah University with 12.75 percent. We have made a conscious effort to focus on stories that relate to us as students, but that hasn't always meant covering on campus activities. Although I may love sports, nothing creates more intense passion for me than politics, so this year couldn't have come at a better time for me personally to be involved with the Review. I have a gut feeling that many of you feel these issues are hitting very close to home as much as I am. This election season is going to be a fun ride, no matter which way it turns. With a candidate that has ties to Utah and especially in this valley, we have tried to give you the coverage of this election you are looking for. And we haven't waited to put out just one issue close to the election to do it. I have been following these two candidates very closely for nearly two years, and if you are like me, you want coverage you can relate to while being informed along the way to help you make an educated vote come November. If I'm not mistaken, that is what independent and unbiased reporting should do. We have also taken a very different direction with our design. We were a little unsure how it would be received, but ever since USA Today changed their design (which looks very similar), most doubters have come on board. If you are interested in what USA Today thinks is coming for the newspaper industry, I highly recommend you read their September 14, 2012 issue, especially their special section entitled USA Tomorrow. We are so thankful that you are making us a part of your school year and we earnestly seek your opinion and ask that you contact us and let us know how you think we are doing. We understand that we have a lot of responsibility, mostly to you, our readers and we humbly ask that you help us to make our publication one that others look to emulate. If there is something specifically you feel is detracting to that goal, please email, call, Tweet, text or even stop by our office (SC 206). Our stats may be skyrocketing this year, and we hope that we have a little bit to do with that, but we all know that this is really your paper. It only will be a success if you read it. With so many of you participating in our process, only two words come to mind Thank you. Jonathan Boldt ET■,.9 F. uvu 35% suu 13% O usu 31% *Dune." 0 UofU 21% ‘eveee'll, Altomm replace them wit roe replacetheh the --dPp.7" linean:' . hag we don't R:abm"Pf ;U r.e'n:I::a t e l ad ir l ra fees have o $25 P:gue $80 atesman eerse thee4pu etbeeg lisheereeodt P-h'e •tel site /1-Kltahell *Graphic reflects percentage of all public university newspaper web traffic n nee E O G n Stop basing everything you think you know about a woman by her clothes By Faith Heaton Jolley Asst. Opinions Editor faithmjm5@gmail.com This past week, a local high school had a controversy involving their homecoming dance and a dress code. Long story short, around 20 girls were sent home from the dance because their dresses were "too short," according to the dress code. However, the controversy came because some of the girls claimed that other girls with dresses the same length were let into the dance. The girls decided to protest by wearing their dresses to school the following Monday and they declared that the dress code was too ambiguous. The local news made a big hullabaloo about it, but the real issue was almost missed. It isn't so much a matter of teenagers being rebellious or about the length of dresses. The issue is that with situations and reactions like this, girls and women across the world are taught that they are nothing more than a body and if they show too much of that body, they become a danger to society. Now, I'm not trying to come off as a crazy bra-burning feminist here, and I do support modesty as part of my own personal standards. But, why is modesty always such a big emphasis for women and not men? Don't both sexes have secret, private parts that shouldn't be exposed? And, these girls weren't exposing any of those secret, private parts with their dresses-not even close in fact! The bias and contradiction against women in the fashion world is astounding. Designers make skimpy clothes to assist women in feeling "confident, free and sexy" according to the advertisements. But then when the women fall into the advertising traps and wear such clothing, others cry foul and say that women are unfit and assisting in the decay of societal standards because of the way they dress. Society objectifies women by creating dresses without sleeves and that are two inches above the knee, but then all hell breaks loose when the women actually wear those dresses and it makes the woman socially unacceptable. Is anyone else seeing the contradiction here? This is the type of circular reasoning that resulted in the girls (who are good students in school) being shunned from their own social function and left to feel that their appearance has more importance than who they are as a person. How does wearing a dress that exposes your shoulders and two inches above the knee bring down the walls of morale and chastity in society? I will tell you how; Society allows it to by the way they emphasize petty things like dress, over important characteristics like behavior. Administrators decide to tell girls that they are unfit, improper and a menace to society if they wear that type of dress to a dance. That is the message that was sent to those girls. One news article out of dozens hit this issue on the head. Two researchers, Lexie and Lindsay Kite were interviewed by KSL. com about their work that they have done in the field of body image and the objectification of women. The sisters have received Ph.D.'s on the topic and had a few things to say regarding this particular case. "We believe that by empowering girls to see themselves as more than just bodies, they will then make correct decisions for themselves," said Lindsay Kite. "This standard teaches girls that they're just bodies and everyone is looking at them and not themselves being able to make appropriate decisions. We want to reframe that conversation by teaching girls that they're more than just bodies to be looked at. We can teach them that they can live and be and do great things." That is the point that I also wanted to emphasize with this argument. Stop making such a big deal about what a woman does and doesn't wear. It is the same ridiculous message that is being sent as when people say, "Well if a woman is dressed slutty and provocative, then she is asking to get raped." (I have actually heard people say that and it infuriated and disgusted me.) We need to reframe how we look at men and women and instead of focusing so much on what they wear, focus more on what they say and do. |