If I were to ask whether women and men are equal here at Manhattanville, most students’ first response would be yes. “Of course,” they would say, “women and men have the same rights.” They would point to the fact that women are predominant at Manhattanville, with a ratio of 60% female students versus 40% male students. Men and women have the possibility to study the same subjects, join the same clubs, and participate in the same activities. There are no structural restrictions for women at Manhattanville. On paper at least there is total equality between men and women. Yet if you scratch below the surface, these general facts don’t take into account the full reality.

After spending two years at college, it is quite clear that men and women do not possess the same rights in regards to their sexual behavior. The prevailing attitude is that men are entitled to and even respected for displaying a casual attitude to sex and objectifying women in the process. They are the dominant species on campus, particularly if they play on a sports team, and they get away with irresponsible sexual behavior. In fact, they are often applauded for that behavior. In this regard, there is no equality between men and women at Manhattanville.

A classic example is a woman who sleeps with several men from the same sports team who comes to be considered a “slut,” or to put it in sports lingo, a “hockey puck.” She becomes an object for the team’s pleasure and later is often times mocked and teased.Yet, those same males, the ones who slept with the woman, are above reproach. They have the right to “share” the same woman between themselves without being looked down upon. All the fault lies with the woman and none with the men. They are looked up to, and she is looked down upon. Where is the social justice and equality in this equation?

Ironically, this demeaning attitude to women is not only ingrained in men but in women as well. Other women will also look down on the “hockey pucks,” claiming that these girls should know better than to put themselves in that kind of situation.

Men are entitled to be sexually promiscuous and women aren’t. This idea is accepted by the majority of society and by the majority of the students here at Manhattanville. Again, where is the equality?

It would be hard to call this patriarchal system fair. The point here isn’t to defend promiscuity, but if it’s wrong for a woman to be promiscuous it should be equally wrong for a man. Why doesn’t anyone turn the focus to the men and look down on them? Why is the finger always pointed towards the women? Why is she the irresponsible one and not the man? Why is the woman left to stand alone and be held accountable while the man is able to hide within the collective male pack and not take any individual accountability for his actions? If men and women had equal rights, these types of situations would not exist.

So what is to be done? Most people are aware of the situation, yet they do nothing to prevent it, falling right back into sexual patriarchy. Students should not just become aware of the situation, but start reacting. Change never comes about by waiting for someone else to change, but only when we ourselves change our attitude.

Let’s take a trip back in time forty years ago to the year 1970 and look at what the world was like back then. If we managed to accomplish this I’m sure all of us would be stunned to see how different things were and would be amazed at how people lived their lives. It’s certain that a majority of you reading this are picturing an age before the advent of the internet, when no computers, cell phones, or ipods existed- the Stone Age essentially. Well, technically you’re right, but this isn’t what I’m trying to get at. During this period when Disco was emerging and short shorts were all the rage, nature was being degraded to such a level that instead of saying “Mother Earth” Minnewaska Park people were sarcastically muttering “Mother-in-law filth”. This was a time when polluted rivers (one of which actually caught fire), smog filled skies tainted with lead from gasoline, and mass deforestation were commonplace. Eventually, when people began to have their fill of this corrupted world, there were talks about what could be done to improve it, and this is where Earth Day came in handy. A U.S. Senator had the brilliant idea of creating a holiday based on raising people’s environmental awareness; and the first Earth Day occurred on Apr. 22, 1970.

As we already know, this unusual holiday quickly took root and became highly successful, not because of religious or national events, but because of a global crisis. The world was put into peril by us through our thoughtless actions, and it was solely up to us to correct it. As the famous environmentalist and philosopher Henry David Thoreau once noted: “What’s the use of a house if you haven’t got a tolerable planet to put it on.” Back before the “Green” movement gained momentum a house certainly wasn’t much use on account of the rampant pollution. But luckily through years and years of remediation the earth in many (but not all) respects has become much cleaner, mainly through newly implanted laws, recycling, and a myriad of other programs that transformed the earth from a cesspool into a more pristine place. Despite this cleanup, many problems still exist and a greater effort will be required in the future to correct it. And we must act quickly if we want to avoid having our cities and towns along the coast inundated, due to global warming. If we continue to journey down the path we’re on right now and keep increasing our environmental awareness however, it is almost certain our negative actions will be undone and destruction will be averted; but that’s assuming though that the world doesn’t end in 2012 first, so I guess we’ll just have to wait to see!

It’s pretty amazing though to think about how far we have come since the advent of Earth Day, and in the last ten years alone things have drastically changed. At the arrival of the millennium the word “green” was hardly heard anywhere, but now anytime the T.V. is turned on every commercial is using the word ten times in a minute. And within the last few months the packing of SunChips has been made out of plant-based material that’s completely biodegradeable.

It’s almost unimaginable to think where we’ll be a decade from now. Who knows, we could be eating our meals off of edible plates made from vegetables. I’m sure Homer Simpson would have a field day with this- an all you can eat buffet of dinnerware…. hmm but on second thought maybe not, considering it would be healthy, I suppose it would have to be smothered in butter first.

Regardless of what new techniques we implement, it’s a certainty that we’ll have changed a great deal- hopefully for the better. Things may constantly change, as they always do, but this will not happen if we don’t change ourselves first.

This holiday which was celebrated for the first time forty years ago has helped us along. Today, here at Manhattanville the college offers a little known degree in Environmental Studies. And while most people tend to stay away from courses that deal with environmental science in the fear that they’re too hard; believe me, as long as you make a conscious effort to learn and understand the fundamentals of ecology and sustainability, you will not only find yourself receiving good grades, but you will look at the world in a different way, and will realize it’s not all about consumption and modernization. As an Environmental Studies major, I strongly advise each student to take at least one course that teaches about some sort of environmental policy. However, if you really are against taking a science class, I still highly recommend increasing your awareness either by joining some club that relates to it, one such being ACT on campus, or simply just by spending some time outdoors. Why not take a hike? There are plenty of places to go around Westchester and if you’re really daring you may feel compelled to do a section of the 2,179 mile long Appalachian Trail which stretches from Georgia to Maine, and can be reached in less than an hour from here. The point I’m trying to make is that you should do something to help make the environmental situations at hand known and cared about. The smallest of things can make a big difference, just like Earth Day. In the beginning it was paid little attention to, but now look at it. So in conclusion, if we truly want to make an effective change, we have to first shift our attitudes and actions in order to obtain it- and that’s what this holiday preaches.

Something to think about: “If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.” -Thoreau

There is a growing level of global violence against women. As they increasingly form the backbone of the world economy, they are subject to structural violence of state-led “development” programs, i.e. sweatshop factories, trafficking and the personal violence of rape and sexual abuse. Femicide describes the massive rape and violence against women in the Congo (where 200,000-300,000 rapes have been reported), female genital mutilation that affects 100 million women Africa, dowry murders in India, killings of hundreds of women on the Mexican border, increasing levels of trafficking, and sex tourism. One in four women in the US has been subject to rape or attempted
rape.

Mville Students and faculty are organizing to publicize the global position of women through presentations at Bedford Women’s Prison on March 5, and in a presentation on the Mville campus on March 12. They are members of a recently formed campus group called the Coalition on Violence against Women that seeks to study and to educate about the situation of women both in the US and globally.

During the group’s presentations, Megan Angley presented on the global issue of violence, focusing on many aspects of violence against women including the topics of femicide, domestic violence and sexual violence. She discussed violence against women in five regions areas of the world: the United States, Mexico, Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Middle East, and Asia.

Christina Calbos discussed CEDAW, the UN Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women that has been signed by more than a hundred countries, although noticeably not the US. She described when and how this declaration was written, whether it has benefited women globally, and its implication for women and explain why the US has not ratified the convention, and what it will take to ratify it in the future Barbara Gonzalez discussed the issue of specific problems that face African women that make it far less connectable to the western world. Gender stereotypes act as a barrier to any type of progressive behavior in society. This hinders the African woman’s ability to move forward in life.

Anneka Preston describes many different modes of women’s empowerment: institutional, local, educational, and economic level Through the use of different development techniques, these organizations, nations, individuals, and methods have all tried to incorporate women into the globalization discourse. One successful case of empowerment is micro credit.

Prof . Peter Bell cited a recent study by Kristof & WuDunn entitled Half the Sky that documented the high levels of violence, discrimination and violation
of human rights against women globally. His research suggests that women hold up not half, but two-thirds of the sky. The economies of Thailand and Cambodia are built largely on the backs of women. The question for the 21st century is how might women enjoy full human rights, and how might their economic power be translated into social and political
empowerment?

The relevance of Black History month is something that wanes as the world becomes smaller—smaller in the expansion of communications around the world and the compression of biases through whole truths.

Black history month was something needed, as are all expressions of cultural identity to give fair foundation for the ladder of black accomplishment to lean upon.

In this great country there are truths that have been endowed to all men, but the recognition for the achievements that advanced this nation agriculturally, industrially,and culturally were caged away and left to starve.

This month is a tool of pride, a tool used that is similar to all groups of men who strive to leave a legacy for the children that they sow.

The need of black history month or the need to teach a more complete world history without the constraints of racism, is to include a fair detail of all people who have bettered this nation, a nation connected by the founding documents.

Not only concentrating on those who spoke and marched but those who wielded new inventions, planted new hopes, connected scars of the body that deemed impossible, and nurtured children who would later sit in these integrated classes to learn this complete history that was so desperately needed.