Fresh Perspectives Vol. 13 2020 Edition

VOLUME 13 2020 EDITION

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TABLE OF CONTENTS EDITORS’ WELCOME............................................................................................... 4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .......................................................................................... 4 INCIDENTS NEAR AT HAND ................................................................................... 5 Adolescent Indifference ...................................................................................................6 Theodore Gonzales Dancing through Perspective ...........................................................................................8 Dakota Jackson The Journey is the Destination .......................................................................................11 Alice Hedensjö Domestic Violence and Stigmas: You CAN Stop the Beat .............................................14 Molly Olsen MATTERS CIVIC AND NATIONWIDE ..................................................................23 Marching Band and Color Guard: Where Musician Meets Athlete .................................24 Alyssa Cortez Stop Playing Video Games?...........................................................................................26 Truong L. Q. Nguyen Are You Even American if You Don’t Eat Meat? ..........................................................29 Hayden Rodriguez The Stephen Curry Effect ..............................................................................................36 Jacob Foy Just Not Ready...............................................................................................................43 Rianna O’Neill Why We Can’t Decide What to do With Our Whores ....................................................50 Nicolle Medak Pro-Conservation, Anti-Idiot..........................................................................................57 Kortney Shaw CLOSE-UP ON GRAFFITI ........................................................................................66 Scribbling on the Walls..................................................................................................67 Colin Heacook Stay on the Street ...........................................................................................................75 Sean Healey FAR-REACHING AFFAIRS ......................................................................................81 The Shelter of Dogs and Cats in Japan ...........................................................................82 Tamaki Sawai

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Korean Comfort Women: What is Justice?.....................................................................84 Tyara Pouncie Genetics and Athleticism in Marathon Runners .............................................................89 Troy Oshimo Engineering Pandora’s Box ...........................................................................................93 Georgina Lancaster MEET THE WRITERS ............................................................................................ 101 MEET THE EDITORS ............................................................................................ 105

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EDITORS’ WELCOME We are pleased to introduce our thirteenth issue of Fresh Perspectives. Once again, we solicited essays from our first-year writing courses, covering a range of topics and approaches. Because these writers are relatively new to the academy, we do not expect disciplinary mastery. Our goal is to provide a venue for dissemination of ideas by our first-year students, who may still be learning the nuances of academic discourse yet who have compelling things to say and who offer, in the words of our title, “fresh perspectives.” Promising student essays were nominated by the students’ instructors and underwent a full editorial process by our interns. You will notice a wide range of views here, some of them perhaps contradictory; these pieces represent the opinions of the writers alone and are not necessarily endorsed (nor denounced) by HPU, the College of Liberal Arts, the Department of English and Applied Linguistics, or the editors.

Rather than selecting pieces that toe any particular “party line,” we have attempted—in the spirit of academic freedom—to present a range of perspectives, some of which may be proactive. This is fitting for a first-year writing program that emphasizes argumentation. Whether you agree, disagree, or have a complex reaction, we hope you will enjoy hearing from the newest members of our HPU ohana!

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The editors and contributors would like to acknowledge the support of the following people: Allison Gough, Dean, College of Liberal Arts Laurie Leach, Associate Dean, College of Liberal Arts Joan Ishaque, Assistant to the Dean Chriss Alavazo, HPU Web Services David Falgout, Faculty Editor Brianne Aguigui, Editorial Intern Kelsey Ann Arreza, Editorial Intern Infinity Jimenez, Editorial Intern Alanna Noel Solomon, Editorial Intern Lorraine Jimenez, Cover Design Nominating Instructors: Chadia Chambers-Samadi David Falgout Tad Matsunaga Caitlin Yamamoto

Contributing Artists: Sean Healey Kathryn Lau Tyara Pouncie

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INCIDENTS NEAR AT HAND

Nalo Suns by Kathryn Lau

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Adolescent Indifference

By Theodore Gonzales Throughout my nineteen years on this earth, my life has been quite tame. There has not been much I can look back on and reflect on my wrong doings. I have been fortunate enough to exclude myself in the most awkward and uncomfortable circumstances that I have encountered.

Being reclusive or reserved is partly the reason; however, I believe it is mainly how I handle most of the obstacles I encounter. If there is a time where I can avoid making a mistake that will put me in an uncomfortable position, I will usually turn the other way. Do not get me wrong; I am a firm believer that, in order to grow and prosper, one needs to make mistakes. However, the mistakes that I am referring to are the more blatant “no-shit” mistakes that are made unintentionally. For example, a fatal accident from not checking your blindside while driving and burning your hand on the stove when you clearly see the stove is set on high, these are labeled as “no-shit” mistakes.

Sometimes however, you can go about your day and be prepared for any ridiculous predicament you may face and still somehow lose. Life has a way of throwing oddballs at you, and there are not many ways you can bypass it. This is where my cautiousness becomes my adversary in my lifetime quest for self-improvement. Since I am not used to embarrassing myself and making obvious mistakes, I inadvertently fail at recovering from it when something ends up happening.

The story that I share is where I had little to no control over, and it sometimes keeps me up at night. However, this is not one of the worst ones. It’s centered around my job in the broad neighborhood of Waikiki. This event happened two summers ago… Most of my days were spent working at a vending company that manages a handful of laundromats all throughout Waikiki. It was an easy job when you are not dealing with deranged people that live on the streets. There are some of those people that wander into the laundromats to wash their clothes with spare change and mind to themselves. Then there are others who loiter and spend their time exclaiming their twisted thoughts out loud inside the laundromats. I am instructed to tell those people to vacate the premise, for obvious reasons, and it never gets easier. I have learned two things from doing this. First, I never want to become crazy to where I enter a room and have everyone silently judge me and avoid eye contact. Second, my newfound appreciation for social workers.

Perhaps my least favorite part of the job was the soapbox deliveries. This was a routine that I had gotten far too familiar with. On the crowded streets, I dreaded the walk of shame, as it quickly became a mundane task. One day, there was an urgent need for soap; however, the shirt which I wore while I worked behind the scenes in the office had holes on the bottom of it due to the holes on the bottom of my buttoned-up shirt. I was hinted with a spread of disastrous intent. It was the shirt which I wore while I worked behind the scenes in the office; however, there was an urgent need for soap that day. I became self-conscious as I walked on the sidewalk in an oversized buttoned-up aloha shirt with tears and holes on the bottom. As I hauled the dolly full of soap, I began to realize that I looked like the crazy deranged character that I feared becoming.

The fear bled into my judgment and I became increasingly paranoid. I thought every passerby was looking at me in a weird way. This thought stayed with me as I approached the crosswalk.

Waiting for the crosswalk sign to go from hand to figure gave me enough time to calm down. I came to the realization that I was near my destination a half a block away. I gained composure to

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the point where I was able to reassure myself that no one was looking at me and it was all in my head.

Just a half a block more.

Once the crosswalk sign turned from a red hand into a white figure, I took my foot off the crosswalk and onto black granite road. The moment my foot hit the black concrete, I noticed an inescapable obstacle. On the opposite side of the crosswalk was a group of girls who looked like they stepped right out of a magazine. My paranoia kicked back into full throttle as I tried my very best to cover my shirt by pushing the dolly in front of me. In the eight steps that I counted, all was going well. There was some relief knowing they did not make any eye contact with me.

Finally, walking past, I celebrated my small victory until I stepped on a soapbox coming from my dolly.

15 seconds, a trail of unused soap cartons was following behind me and the dolly that I was pushing. 10 seconds, I noticed the girl’s eyes were following the trail back to its source. It was a moment stopped in time as my eyes contacted theirs as we all collectively realized my mistake. 8 seconds, one of the girls started to pick up the soap carton, shortening the trail as I let go of the dolly to meet her in the middle. 5 seconds, I grabbed the recovered soap cartons from her hands and proceeded to say the most awkward “thank you” in history. 3 seconds, I noticed the tape holding the bottom of the soap box broke off which resulted in the soap carton trail, like an open wound, more contents spilled out. Red hand.

It was too late, and I tried my best to grab the box from underneath and hauled it to the other side of the crosswalk. I was overstaying my welcome on the crosswalk, and I realized the drivers were my audience throughout the whole thing. I could tell they were getting impatient with my attempts of recovery. It was only until some driver in a semi pickup truck honked his horn in frustration at me. I reached the other side and took a glance over to the opposite side of the crosswalk. The girls were on the other side looking at me as if I was another deranged, mentally handicapped individual roaming the streets. I completed my long 15-minute journey feeling defeated along with a story to tell my coworkers.

Two years have passed since that event. I had a fair amount to think about it, and I concluded that it was an unavoidable entity. I supposed I could say the only take-home message that I got from the ordeal is about the event itself. Some things in life, like death, heartbreak, soapboxes breaking in the middle of the street, and age, are unavoidable. It is something that is used for telling a semi-interesting story, which, in the end, that is what an embarrassing moment in one’s life becomes, a story.

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Dancing Through Perspective

By Dakota Jackson As soon as the music starts, your body begins to contort in ways most people would deem impossible. Every eight count is performed with the utmost inner musicality and precision because your body has been trained for years to do just that. Your senses heighten with every pop of the staccato beat and crescendo in every note, the expressions on your face shifting between joy to sorrow. Now, imagine this miraculous feeling with a partner. Each move and grasp is a shift of not only power, but intimacy. In an instant, your foot slides forward and your partner’s steps back, and you become intoxicated by the rhythm as you find yourself moving along to every beat of the metronome. Eyes locked in an unwavering gaze, you build a bridge of fluid body motions with your partner as your two figures merge together and perform as one.

“Theory of the Dérive” describes the main purpose of a dérive as providing an opportunity for “individuals to forget about their current obligations and motives in order to allow themselves to become attracted to the terrain and types of interactions we experience” (Debord 2). In other words, the objective of a dérive is to provide a person with a new perspective on life. To stray away from the everyday routine and find life’s hidden morals in a new setting. For my dérive experience, my friend and I gathered our essential items and dove deeper into the inner parts of Chinatown, to a dance studio for a night class. Completing my dérive unearthed a newfound appreciation in me towards an extraordinary type of dancing. Today, hip-hop, jazz, and ballet are commonly known styles of dancing because of the fun students of these schools of dance often find in them, but I discovered a discipline of dance new to me that is equally enticing as those other styles: partner dancing.

Most people are intimidated by the idea of partner dancing because of how personal and intimate this style of dancing is. When growing up, partner dancing always features in my favorite cartoons and movies as a symbol of romance and yearning for one another. All-time Disney classics such as Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty showed the princess being drawn into the prince’s embrace as they ballroom-danced with nothing but admiration and glee in their eyes. Partner dancing does not only exist in the shows and movies we watch, but in real life as well—at that highly-anticipated eighth grade dance, at weddings, at prom. Whenever a slow song came on everyone swayed with their significant other because it was the natural and socially correct thing to do.

However, the romantic aesthetic aside, I have noticed that the idea of partner dancing has been clouded with the concept of it solely being an expression of affection. Although some people may do partner dances with a friend and know there is not a feeling of attraction between them, there is still a sort of stigma surrounding the style of dancing. Some people may find it awkward or uncomfortable to look someone in the eyes while dancing, or even being in such close proximity to another person. From personal experience, I could not even look my partner in the eyes without giggling at their face or completely dropping my head so my eyes were glued to my feet, at first. Through this experience, however, I learned that the golden rule of partner dancing is to build a connection with your partner through trust and honesty. Overcoming the hectic stage of awkwardness and humility is the first step to running like a well-oiled machine. The problem that arises in most people’s situations, which I discovered on my dérive, is that they do not allow

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themselves to overcome the uneasy and tense feeling of dancing with someone else for the first time. This is primarily because of the underlying belief that partner dancing is only for amorous occasions rather than just different styles of dance.

Another fallacy I stumbled across is the assumption that partner dancing is not as intricate or interesting as more commonly known styles of dancing such as modern, tap, or hip-hop. Partner dancing is primarily about body control, timing, and cohesion. As I was learning how to properly dance with a partner, I noticed that I never stood with perfect posture. At some point of dancing I would either slouch over, or my frame would completely bend over to accommodate my partner’s shorter height. Continuing, I also realized that much of choreography heavily rests on the timing of your body's movements. If you want to spin your partner, you cannot either slow or hasten your choreography prior to the spin, because every part of your eight count flows in a rhythm to allow correct achievement of that motion.

Furthermore, cohesion is the cherry on top of mastering the beginning steps of partner dancing.

Understanding the rhythmic coding of your partner’s steps and body motions, and matching them in your own, creates a pair of people that twine together as a perfect unit rather than as two dysfunctionally joined individuals. In relation to learning new things, many people have had to overcome many obstacles standing in their way. For instance, when learning how to ride a bike, a child has to be able to balance on their own before they'll ever be able to fully ride the bicycle.

Every time they fall down or lunge over, sheer willpower helps them to get up again and mount that bicycle until they can successfully ride. With this knowledge, I noticed that me taking the time to indulge myself in this style of dancing, and the elbow grease to learn it well, worked out in my favor. When I first started partner dancing during my dérive, I was under heavy amounts of stress because I couldn’t pick up the steps on the first try. Every time I would step on my partner’s toe or drop my frame, I would dust myself off and try again because I told myself not to quit. Although I wasn’t the perfect lead, my partner reassured me that it was okay to make mistakes because every person is not perfect. With that message in mind, I built more courage for myself to keep trying the eight counts even if I fumbled a few times. My dérive taught me that perseverance is such a crucial character trait. Being in an environment that challenged my skills as a dancer made me realize that I am a person who struggles with conflict; however, accompanying every mistake were more paths toward improvement rather than disappointment.

Rather than drowning in doubt, one should dip curious toes into unfamiliar waters and explore areas previously unknown in one's individual comfort zone.

Throughout my dérive, I noticed that the complexity and structure behind the art of partner dancing is exclusively based off of executing movements with an individual who can complement your dancing styles, and vice versa. While flowing across the dance studio floor with my partner, I sensed myself becoming aware of the true nature of partner dancing. Allowing myself to become immersed in the technique of dance, I felt myself rejuvenating my own comprehension of the discipline. Acknowledging every relevé or chassé of our movements, my mind spiraled into a deeper connection in the dance. Each eight count is comprised of different body movements and a variety of physical expressions that cause the dancer to sway gracefully with the motions. Supported by emotion and physical exertion, partner dancing dual-wields the swords of passion and expressiveness when it comes to performance and characterization.

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In order to comprehend the overall value of the unknown beauty that is dual dancing, individuals must surrender themselves totally to its embrace. When you allow yourself to move away from the rules and goals you set for your own comfort, you may expose yourself to the unfolding of opportunities and areas of expertise previously undisclosed. Partner dancing is a gem, hidden away by society's standards of romance, (re)definitions of dance, and dancing as art. Growing up as a dancer who primarily focused on the expression of individuality and use of my own form, I never encountered the beast that is relying on another's figure. As a result of this, my dérive unlocked a new part of me and broke down my biases towards practices like dual dancing.

Altogether, this dérive taught me that partner dancing is an approach to dancing that everyone can—perhaps should—acquire. Although it is quite difficult in the beginning, with practice and self-discipline, partner dancing is more than possible to master.

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The Journey is the Destination

By Alice Hedensjö My dad always told me teasingly, “The journey is the destination,” whenever I asked how many more hours we had to sail until we reached shore. Those words made me mad as I had no control and I must have to challenge my patience. Growing up, I always put an achievement pressure on myself, education, sports, and gaining the most experiences. I wanted to get there, to reach my ultimate self, and I wanted it to happen fast. After achieving perfect grades, scholarships, and a beach bum body, in my late teens I started to lose sense of where I was heading. Guy Debord, a French philosopher, stated that one can break free from a constraining life pattern by completing a so-called dérive. He explains the concept as follows: “In a dérive one or more persons during a certain period drop their relations, their work, their leisure activities, and all their other usual motives for movement and action, and let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find there” (Debord 2). This paper is about a dérive where I navigated around Ala Wai Boat harbor. Beforehand, I had no idea this event was going to turn out as a metaphor, realizing the truth in my dad's expression. My dérive proved to me that not until stress and expectations are released do we start to find value in all kinds of experiences that may appear – in a moment, in a day, or even in life.

Time is extremely valuable in society, especially in an urban capitalistic environment where everyone is expected to be constantly productive. At work, we get paid for the time we sacrificed. If we decide to make a good deed, such as volunteering at a beach cleanup, we get appreciated; I would say, even more than the actual plastic we pick up, for the time we choose to offer to this particular issue. Since we regard time as a currency that should be distributed carefully, it underlies the reason why we get irritated when the bus is late or when we get lost. It is directly relatable to our reaction when having to pay for an unexpected bill; we feel deceived. I had a goal with my dérive, to make it into something exciting or surprising, so I did not have to waste my Friday afternoon. I heard someone talking about a regatta on Friday nights. So I thought, maybe, if I end up at the right place at the right time, I could be invited to join a crew and sail away with them. That would turn my dérive into a perfect story, I thought. However, on my way to the harbor, where my dérive was going to start, I turned seaward from Kalakaua Avenue and ended up on a backstreet. The street was almost empty. My grandpa’s advice given to me years ago echoed in my mind, “to observe how the busiest streets are almost always accompanied by deserted ones.” A sight on the left hand side of the street interrupted my thought. Three ladies were standing in a doorway, all wearing bright red dresses; they were talking to a single man, and above them was a sign in neon loops, “Club and naked lady.” Every city has its shadow, I thought. Meanwhile, I walked faster as I did not want to waste time.

Naturally, ahead of a planned event, we tend to make up expectations in our minds of how it is going to turn out. Combined with our will to economize with time, those expectations are subjected to become unachievable. For example, consider overrated New Year’s Eve parties. We have this picture in our mind of how they should turn out. Afterwards, even if the party was an overall success, it is likely to be encountered by the feeling that something was missing. It was around half past six when I finally arrived at the harbor, where my dérive was going to start. The sun was burning and my clothes were all sticky on my skin. “Let's do this,” I told myself. I walked clockwise around the harbor and took note of what I observed. Abandon boat… plastic

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trash in the water… another abandon boat… more trash in the water… a sunburned man with long rastas. That man was coming from somewhere, I turned my head and looked at the direction he had appeared and saw it, a boat with a crew that was about to rig sails! This was my chance!

If I started to chat with them, letting them know I had enough sailing experience, they could potentially invite me to join their crew, and my dérive could reach its full potential. I changed course and started to walk towards the dock where the boat was moored. As I got closer to the rigging boat, something started to crimp in my chest. The boat was already full of crewmembers.

They would probably think I am strange asking to join them, or I would just put them and myself in an awkward situation if they had to refuse me. I was almost there when suddenly a dog from another dock started to bark at me. I jumped due to the surprise, and that was all it took for me to turn back around. I felt abject, foolish, and disappointed. My dérive was nothing but a failure, as it had not lived up to my high expectations.

Time and expectations are the two fundamentals that control our “usual motives for movement and action” (Debord 2); those are factors that cause the tunnel vision we too often use when passing through life. I have friends that contend that their life does not mean anything right now; all that matters is their accomplished success in five years. In their mind they just see a small few goals: succeeding with their career, finishing their education, or just simply getting rich. If at the moment they are depressed, stressed out, or unhealthy, they would not care. After my mishap of making my dérive into something supreme, I did not go straight back home. Instead, I sat down on a rock on a small beach just next to the harbor. The sunset created a magical light over the ocean, and small glassy waves, in a satisfying order, were slowly rolling into the beach. Behind me, a family was gathered and shared some food from an aluminum container. In front of me in the sand, a pair, on their first date, I assumed, were practicing pop-ups on their boards; the female was instructing the male. In the shallow water, a little girl was paddling on top of her tiny surfboard whilst a child that seemed to be her little brother watched her amazed by the shoreline.

In this particular moment, time did not seem to make sense, because, regardless of what was in the past or will be in the future, these people were just enjoying their being. They all seemed to be captured by the moment, just like me. Suddenly it hit me right there, sitting on the rock: the purpose of a dérive is not at all about experiencing something extraordinary! It is simply about going beyond your normal sense of time and letting expectations go. Some may argue that lacking a strong mindset and sense of purpose only results in unproductiveness, laziness, and may form the foundation for a drug or alcohol abuse. To some extent, yes, it is crucial to have dreams and goals in order to make a good living and find meaning in life. However, to regard life as a sprint with a finish line is unhealthy, simply because there is no finish line. Reaching something we have striven for makes us satisfied for a short while, but sooner or later we set up new goals, new visions, and it all starts over again. Kenneth Burke, an American philosopher, argued that humans’ attempt to constantly reach a more perfect state of being is based on our ability to imagine a reality different from that in which we find ourselves. Human beings are, as he expresses it, “rotten with perfection” (Burke 18). In the end, all we have is one life; is it not a great waste of time to pass it all in a rush?

During my dérive navigating around Ala Wai harbor, I realized that time is often regarded as something to get through, in order to reach a certain goal or vision that lives up to our expectations. The concept of “wasting time” encourage us not to spend time on – according to us – unnecessary things. Sometimes we unavoidably have to, however, such as waiting for a late

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bus or finding our way from being lost, and these occasions make us feel irritated or even deceived. If it was not for my dérive that Friday afternoon, I would probably never had ended up on a backstreet that made me think of my wise grandpa, reflecting on the underground city.

Neither would I have spent the sunset on that small beach where everybody seemed to live for the moment. Probably, I would not – at least in a very long time – had recalled my dad's teasing words, “Alice, the journey is our destination.”

WORKS CITED Burke, Kenneth. Language as Symbolic Action. London: 1966, University of California Press.

Debord, Guy. Theory of the Dérive. Paris: 1956.

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Domestic Violence and Stigmas: You CAN Stop The “Beat�

By Molly Olsen Domestic violence is an issue that affects millions of people in the United States each year, but is rarely brought to public attention. It has always been a complicated subject, both inside and outside of the courtroom. The question that will be addressed in this essay is: why is domestic violence still such a big issue in the United States, including in Hawai'i, and what can be done to remedy the problem? There has always been a tension between the people who believe that domestic violence has no place in the court system and should be taken care of in the home and those that think that it should be treated like any other crime and be handled by the court. These sides both have unique viewpoints that shows the underlying assumptions for both parties pertaining to views on domestic violence and where it stems from. The first side assumes that domestic violence stems from personal conflict, so it should be handled as such. The other side claims that domestic violence is a matter of the court because, at its core, it is violent and a danger to society. Another question that will be addressed is whether leaving a relationship is a viable option for victims of domestic violence, or if it is too dangerous for the majority of them to do so.

One side argues that, with the services available to victims, it is now safer and easier than ever to leave a relationship. The other side argues that it is not as easy, as there are other factors involved. To address this difficult argument, historical and cultural significance will be researched to find how domestic violence shaped world culture and attitudes towards women.

The first point of the paper will include looking into the formation of laws throughout history.

Then this essay will look at current statistics of domestic violence to find out how widespread the issue is. After looking into current statistics, I will look into the effects of the "Me Too" movement on domestic violence to see if it has any positive or negative effects on the wellbeing of domestic violence victims. Here is where the presence of victim blaming in the community, as well as in the justice system itself, will be included. From there, the viability of the option for survivors to leave a destructive relationship will be addressed with an interview from the Director of Victims Services of Honolulu County, Hawai'i. Lastly, the argument of whether domestic violence is a matter of the court or a private matter will be discussed. After all of the evidence is laid out, the solution of better education for the public to dispel the stigma that surrounds the issue will be presented. The idea of better education will be backed up by studies that link higher education to lower violence rates. After that point, a plan for domestic violence education will be proposed and will show that this issue must be handled differently in opposing cultures. All of the evidence will create the conclusion that the issue of domestic violence is one that is perpetuated by a stigma that is as old as time itself and must be combated with better education on stigmas surrounding domestic violence and how such matters should be handled.

To find out why domestic violence is such a difficult subject in both the eyes of the law and the public, the history of the subject must be examined. Domestic violence has roots as far back as ancient times, as domestic violence seems to be old as written language itself. The earliest example of domestic violence being condoned in official law is in The Code of Hammurabi – the oldest set of laws known to exist. This code is a telling example of the pro-domestic violence ideology that was the norm for most societies for thousands of years. One of the laws states that,

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"A wife is to be subservient to her husband and that he could inflict punishment on any member of his household for any transgression" ("Law Code of Hammurabi"). This code gave a husband the right to discipline his wife and children how he sees fit without intervention from law enforcement, and also allowed a man to execute his wife and her partner if she is caught cheating ("Law Code of Hammurabi"). These laws, and dozens of others like them, are scattered throughout The Code of Hammurabi and are very telling of what the mindset towards domestic violence was at the time. The Code of Hammurabi is only one of the many examples of written law condoning and even promoting domestic violence as a way to properly "handle" one's family. These laws were considered to be standard at the time they were put into place, but why?

Why was it deemed acceptable to abuse women and children throughout history?

For centuries, women and children were considered the property of men, with little to no individual rights or protections. Women had more rights as to how they were punished, rather than if they were punished at all. The most notable and extreme documentation of this comes from the late 1700s, in the history of the still-popular phrase "rule of thumb." Even though the phrase now relates to common sense or something everyone should know, its origins are much darker. According to "Revisiting the Rule of Thumb" by Susan A. Lentz, who has a PhD in History and lectures on the subject of domestic violence towards women throughout history at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, the term "rule of thumb" was coined by Sir Francis Butler, an English Judge who in 1782 used the phrase as a rule that "permitted American husbands to correct their wives with rods no bigger than their thumb" (10). This means that a man was allowed to beat his wife, as long as the instrument he uses to commit the act is smaller than the width of his thumb. The rule was often used in court cases as well as a standard in most homes. Shockingly, that rule was even a law in many states, one of them being Mississippi; as stated by Lentz, "Mississippi is commonly regarded as the first state to recognize the rule of thumb in its common law. In 1824, the Mississippi Supreme Court acknowledged that [while] a husband did not have an "unlimited license" to commit assault and battery on his wife... [they] did not reject the husband's authority to beat his wife" (Lentz 12). Mississippi was the first state to apply the "rule of thumb" law, and therefore take away the few rights that women had at the time. After Mississippi passed the law, many states either followed suit or passed a similar law (Lentz 18). An example of a similar, but admittedly less harsh, version of a law legalizing domestic violence is that of a law passed in 1874 in North Carolina prohibiting the whipping of one's wife, but otherwise referring to domestic violence as a family matter (Lentz 11). These are just two examples of laws that have taken away the fundamental rights of people in the past, but that is not the case now in an era of feminism and equal rights movements, right? Wrong. There are still many states that have laws that either support domestic violence or refer to a woman being the property of a man. For example, in Arkansas it is legal for a man to beat his wife, but only once a month, and in Los Angeles a man can legally beat his wife with a leather strap as long as it is less than 2 inches wide ("Weird Laws"). All of this shows that even though we as a society are moving towards equality, there are still remains of a largely patriarchal society, in everything from laws that are in place, to a simple saying that at first seems to be harmless.

Since domestic violence has such an impact on the history of the U.S., it would be easy to assume that this type of violence has been eliminated in the country, but that is not the case. In fact, according to the National Domestic Violence Hotline, "1 in 4 women (24.3%) and 1 in 7 men (13.8%) aged 18 and older in the United States have been the victim of severe physical

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violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime" ("Statistics"). This means that over 63 million people in the U.S. alone have experienced some sort of domestic violence in their lifetime. It should also be noted that the source reports that more than one in four women and one in ten men have experienced unwanted sexual touch in their adult lives ("Statistics"). These shocking numbers do not include the number of victims who choose not to speak out about their assault, for reasons of fear or shame. These numbers are bound to rise significantly in the coming years, as more survivors of sexual and domestic violence continue to speak out about their experiences.

This observation is evident in the recent success of the "Me Too" movement. The "Me Too" movement is a movement that started in 2017 as a hashtag on the social media website Twitter, where survivors of sexual violence began to speak out against their abusers and demand the justice that they were denied. The previously mentioned movement has been significant in the entertainment business, which has notably been dominated by men who force themselves on young women. The movement and others like it have brought to light just how prevalent rape culture and violence against women are in this day and age.

So, where does domestic violence fit into all of this? It does not, and that is the point. While survivors of sexual violence are being pulled into the spotlight, their oppressors are still ultimately quieting domestic violence survivors. There is still a stigma surrounding domestic violence that it is a private issue that should be taken care of behind closed doors. One might ask, what is the difference between domestic and sexual violence that creates this stigma? The answer is relationships. With most sexual violence that was being reported through the "Me Too" movement, the abuser is often someone who the victim has not known for very long, and therefore they do not have an established relationship. On the other hand, most, if not all, domestic violence cases happen within established relationships. This detail is essential because, in cases without that element of an established relationship, people are more sympathetic to victims because there is a thought process of there being no way the victim could have seen the violence coming. In contrast, in cases with a relationship, people are more likely to blame the victim because they should have "seen it coming." They are also blamed for being in their relationship in the first place because people question why they would stay in the relationship to begin with.

Victim blaming is a huge problem in domestic violence, both in court and out. There seems to be a stigma that if a victim is staying in an abusive relationship, it must be because there is something wrong with the victim. This issue was brought to light in an interview that I had the opportunity to conduct on April 1st, 2019, with Dennis Dunn, Director of Victim Witness Services for the Honolulu County Prosecuting Attorney. DunnĘťs position means that his job is to provide specialized services to victims and witnesses of violent crime related to domestic violence who are going through the criminal justice system. Dunn has been working in this department since 1979, which means he has 40 years of experience within the field. When asked about his thoughts on victim blaming and how it works, Dunn says, "We see it all the time. I think that there is a tendency for us to be judgmental... I think, at its core, victim blaming is essentially a safety mechanism for us to be able to separate ourselves from a [crime] that has occurred" (Dunn). This shows that victim blaming is more than just finding somewhere to place blame for the abuse; it is a way for someone to remove the humanity from the instance of abuse.

Being able to do this helps a person further convince themselves that there is no way that they

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could ever find themselves in a similar situation to that of the victim. Since the blamer is convinced that they could never be in the same position as the victim, they create this stigma that perpetuates the idea that there is something wrong with the victim, or that they are weak. The behavior mentioned is dangerous for the victim because the stigma further alienates them and makes them feel as if they are alone in their struggles.

Dunn then speaks on this type of blame within the court system. "We often see [blame] in the jury [...] for a domestic violence case, all but two women decided to [vote] not guilty because they did not like the victim" (Dunn). DunnĘťs statement shows just how quick a jury can be to make a decision, even when they are only paying attention to the personality of the victim or defendant, rather than the facts of the case. This brings up a whole other side of blame, one with the mindset of thinking someone deserves to experience domestic violence because they are annoying or have a less than desirable personality. The type of attitude mentioned above can lead to dire consequences, as the victim may not receive the proper ruling that the law would otherwise demand.

This stigma comes not only from the jury but also from other professionals within the legal system. Evidence of stigma coming from professionals is shown in the article "How Can We End the Stigma Surrounding Domestic and Sexual Violence? A Modified Delphi Study with National Advocacy Leaders." There are three authors for this publication, Christine Murray, Allison Crowe & Whitney Akers. All three of them are professors of psychology at the University of North Carolina who have dedicated their work to studying the relationship between romantic violence and psychology. This article completes a Delphi study, a study that surveys experts in the field at hand to find common ground, to show just how prevalent stigma towards victims in domestic violence cases can be. They asked ten professionals how true they found a set of statements to be, on a scale from one to seven (Akers et al. 278). When addressing stigma from legal personnel in domestic violence cases, they asked the experts to rate the statement, "Even when victims and survivors seek help, the stigma can still often come from practitioners, the justice system, or social service system" (Akers et al. 278). The median response on a scale from one to seven, seven being that they completely agree, was 6.75 (Akers et al. 278). This means that the average response deemed this statement to be at least mostly true. If this statement is true, that means that many victims may feel that they cannot reach out to a person that is meant to help them. The article then presents another statement that was evaluated, this statement being: "CPS workers can be very harsh on DV survivors and remove their children because s/he did not leave the relationship as quickly as possible" (Akers et al. 278). This statement was met with a median response of six out of seven from the panel of experts. Much like the previous statement, this one insinuates that victims have reason to avoid seeking help, due to fear of shame related to their experiences. These points in the article bring up the worry that the professionals that work in the services that are meant to support victims are actually making these victims feel even more isolated in their experiences. To put it simply, the very people who are supposed to help these victims are hurting them more than anything.

However, with the subject of victim blaming comes the question: why wouldn't a person just leave an abusive relationship? This the most common argument against the validity of domestic violence issues. The logic behind this argument seems to be sound on a basic level; if someone were being hurt in a relationship, it would make sense for them to leave that situation. In this

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modern era, there are hundreds if not thousands of services in the United States alone that are in place to help victims leave, and there are more laws now than ever that protect victims from their abusers. Not only are there many programs in place to help victims, most of these resources are easily accessible via a quick Internet search. In fact, many of these websites have built-in safety measures that enable a person to quickly exit the webpage without leaving a record of the website on the computer being used. All of the evidence points to the fact that leaving a violent relationship should be easier than it has ever been, but it is not. The reasons why it is not easy range from socioeconomic difficulties, like sharing a home and income, to pressures from society to "stick it out." But, by far, the most common reason why victims find it hard to leave is fear.

When I asked Dunn why he thinks victims are scared to report domestic violence crimes he said, "itĘťs embarrassing...for many victims there is a fear that they have, sometimes because they have been specifically told that if [they] ever call the police, there will be physical threats" (Dunn).

Dunn shows that, while it is technically easier for victims to leave relationships because of the resources, it is extremely dangerous for some women to leave a situation because of the physical threat to their safety. While much of the fear comes from the threat of physical safety, some of it also comes from fear of being ostracized by their community and breaking up their families.

When asked about this, Dunn remarked, "Women are often charged with the responsibility of caring for the welfare of the family; if the family is falling apart, regardless of whether its because of his violence or not, its [their] fault... it goes back to the use of victim-blaming as a coping mechanism for people outside of the situation" (Dunn). DunnĘťs statement proves that the fear that victims associate with reporting a crime is validated by the culture of victim blaming that has been constructed around the issue of domestic violence. All of this evidence makes the argument of "why can you not just leave?" seem incredibly juvenile and shows that the issue is much more complex than that.

Another argument that is often brought up when speaking about how to deal with domestic violence conflict is: "It is a private matter and should be handled behind closed doors." This argument is the most common, especially when someone is making the case that a dispute should be handled outside of the court. To many, this makes sense because, for most domestic violence cases, the conflict is initiated by a private argument or a series of them that escalated to a more intense situation where law enforcement ended up being involved. The logic for this argument is: the situation started privately, and therefore it should end that way as well. The flaw in this style of argument is that it fails to address the fact that domestic violence is often just that, violent.

When Dunn was asked his opinions on the matter, he compared views on domestic violence to those on other crimes: "We donĘťt consider other types of violence or even other types of crime to just be a private matter... I think that some of it goes back to patriarchal views [on] women and children and that historically our laws have reflected that" (Dunn). Dunn brings up this point to show how biased our legal system can be. His view brings up the point that people are much more likely to report a fight if it is between two men than if it is between both a man and a woman who seem to be in some sort of relationship. This is because people view a public fight between two members of the same gender as a public issue that must be handled by law, but, because of the systematic oppression placed on women by patriarchal laws, they view a fight between a man and a woman to be a private issue, and they do not believe that they have any right in the situation to alert authorities. This is not to say that people hold these views

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fundamentally, but they have been ingrained into their minds by cultural norms, such as women being the weaker sex or being too emotional. The problem is not with any one person, but with an entire culture that has glorified the mistreatment of women for hundreds of years.

With all of the evidence that has been presented, the question of what do to do about the issue comes to the forefront. With the issues of stigma and victim blaming, the most important tool that can be used is education. Education is the best weapon against ignorance, which at its heart is the source of both of these issues. This concept is shown in the article "The Impact of Education and Occupation on Domestic Violence in Saudi Arabia" by Mohammed S. Shiraz, a gender studies and communication professor at Umm al-Qura University, in Makkah, Saudi Arabia. The article conclusively shows a connection between better education and less violence towards women. The study surveyed 917 Saudi women and found that: "[T]he output of Pearson's product-moment correlation coefficient showed a strong negative correlation between the two variables... indicating that as the years of education increased, the level of domestic violence against females decreased" (Shiraz 340). This direct correlation shows that, the more education a person receives, the less likely they are to engage in or be affected by domestic violence. To be fair, this study focused on education level rather than education on victim blaming or other stigmas, but it can be assumed that, with the proper type of education, levels of both stigma and actual domestic violence crimes would decrease.

Evidence of education and victim blaming in domestic violence having some sort of connection can be found in the article "Intimate partner violence against women and victim-blaming attitudes among Europeans" by Enrique Gracia, a professor of social psychology with a concentration in violent behaviors at the University of Valencia in Spain. The article states, "In the 2010 survey, people asked whether womenʝs provocative behavior was a cause of domestic violence against women. [the percentage] that agreed with this statement averaged 52% and [the percentage] ranged from 33% to 86% across [27] countries� (Gracia 380). The aforementioned shows that, on average, at least half of the people surveyed actively participate in victim blaming in relation to domestic violence. That statistic shows that victim blaming is not just a major problem in the United States; it’s a problem in many other places as well. Gracia also shows that the highest levels of victim blaming come from lower-income countries such as Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia, while many of the lower levels come from more wealthy countries such as Spain and Sweden (Gracia 380). With this information, it can be assumed that the countries with lower overall income also have lower overall education rates, and therefore there is a strong possibility that there could be a connection between better education in general and lower rates of domestic violence stigma.

Both of the previous assumptions are supported by another article called "Motivating Perpetrators of Domestic and Family Violence to Engage in Behavior Change: The Role of Fatherhood", by Silke Meyer, an expert in criminology, victimology, and social work. This article suggests that with the education of historically abusive people, fathers, the abusers are more likely to be motivated to change their ways. Meyer says, "[T]he majority voiced a strong desire to see their children grow up and have a meaningful relationship with their offspring" (Meyer 99). This shows that many times abusive parents want what is best for their kids, but lack the knowledge on how to improve their behaviors. All of the presented evidence suggests that a better attitude towards domestic violence is achievable through the education of the public.

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So it has been proven that better education is needed to eliminate both domestic violence and the stigma that surrounds it, but what kind of education is needed? Is it just better education in general, or should it be education on these specific issues in domestic violence? The answer depends on where the education is implemented. For example, if the area of question is the United States, it can be assumed that basic education is not the problem, so, in that case, the main focus would be in educating the public on domestic violence issues specifically. The best and easiest way to do this would be through the public school system. Domestic and sexual violence topics should be integrated into the health classes that are already in place in most school districts in the United States. This would be a fairly simple and cost-effective way to educate American youth on the dangers of domestic violence and how to handle situations that involve it.

These programs would include how to identify both stigma and domestic violence, how and when it is appropriate to intervene, and how to support victims in their time of need. A program like this would be implemented as a section of health and wellness education and would help to alleviate the stigma that is connected to speaking on the issue. However, in countries that hold a less progressive ideology, it may be effective to implement more advanced overall education that is available to as many people as possible, as it has been shown that higher levels of education do often lead to lower levels of domestic violence, victim-blaming, and other stigmas towards the topic. As these societies become more educated, it might be possible to begin to implement similar education plans to those that were previously mentioned. Both of these plans are equal in importance when looking at the overall "big picture" when it comes to domestic violence and preventing it from affecting future generations.

This essay began by exploring the history of domestic violence to see just how far back it goes. It was found that laws promoting domestic violence date back to the oldest known written set of laws, those by Hammurabi. These laws began a long tradition of the suffering of women at the hands of domestic violence. The findings from The Code of Hammurabi were supported by Susan LentzĘťs article; the popular term "the rule of thumb," even though it seems to be a quite simple phrase, has a darker history than one could ever imagine. The phrase originates from the notion that it was legally and socially acceptable for a man to beat his wife with an instrument that is the same size or smaller than the width of his thumb. Lentz showed that the oppression of women is sewn into even the simplest of phrases that people use every day without knowing the horror that they stem from. While both of these pieces of evidence showed that domestic violence was an issue in the distant past, they failed to show the extent to which domestic violence affects society today. Statistics from The National Domestic Violence Hotline found that over 63 million people in the U.S. have experienced some sort of domestic or sexual violence ("Statistics"), which helps to prove that domestic violence is, in fact, a problem that many people face today. Then the effect of the "Me Too" movement on domestic violence victims was also explored. The case was made that, while the movement is good for the overall movement towards the equality of women, it does very little to help victims of domestic violence because of the widespread culture of stigma and victim blaming.

Up until this point, none of the research presented clearly identified what victim blaming is and why it happens. These questions were clearly addressed in an interview that I conducted with Dennis Dunn, the Director of Victim Witness Services for the Honolulu County Prosecuting Attorney. This interview reveals that victim blaming can be considered a form of "safety mechanism" (Dunn) that allows a person to separate themselves from an instance of violence that

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they find uncomfortable. The interview with Dunn also touches on the concept of juries unknowingly using victim-blaming tactics unfairly in a court of law. Then the concept of victim blaming by legal professionals was brought to light. An article by Murray, Akers, and Crowe used a Delphi study to prove the existence of victim blaming and stigma within the legal system.

Then the question of “If domestic violence is happening in a relationship, why doesn't the victim just leave?” comes to light. While there are valid arguments to support this way of thinking, such as increased protection and more resources available than ever before for victims, leaving a relationship is never as easy as one may think. There are many reasons why a victim cannot leave a situation, as mentioned in the interview with Dunn. These include financial stability, fear of being ostracized by their community, and threats of physical violence. The next argument addressed was that this type of conflict is a personal matter. This argument was defended by the idea that these conflicts often begin as private fights, so they should be resolved as such. The aforementioned argument was countered by the interview with Dunn, claiming that other crimes are not considered to be private, so domestic violence should not be considered as much.

After compelling evidence from historical records, current domestic violence and education statistics, personal statements from domestic violence experts, and studies on stigma within the justice system, all of these sources seem to point towards the same solution, which is education.

If proper education is given to the public, domestic violence rates will more than likely decrease dramatically. This is supported by three separate studies by Shiraz, Gracia, and Meyer, respectively. All of them showed in different ways that higher education effectively combats domestic violence trends. After this, a few ideas of better education in the form of both public awareness and overall improved academics is presented. These ideas were shown as ways to tackle these issues both in countries with a more progressive worldview and those without such a worldview. All of this being said, domestic violence is an issue that, if left unchecked, will continue to affect millions of people each year and will lead to the further oppression of women.

This can be easily combated with public education on all aspects of the subject, and, if done well, it can easily save the lives of billions of victims. To put it concisely, education is power, and power is change.

WORKS CITED Akers, Whitney et al. “How Can We End the Stigma Surrounding Domestic and Sexual Violence? A Modified Delphi Study with National Advocacy Leaders.” Journal of Family Violence, vol. 31, no. 3, Apr. 2016, pp. 271–287. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1007/s10896-015-9768-9.

Dunn, Dennis. Personal Interview. April, 1, 2019 Gracia, Enrique. "Intimate partner violence against women and victim-blaming attitudes among Europeans." Bulletin of the World Health Organization, May 2014, p. 380. Academic OneFile, doi: 10.2471/BLT.13.131391 “Law Code of Hammurabi (1780 B.C.).” Law Code of Hammurabi

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Lentz, Susan A. Revisiting the Rule of Thumb, Women & Criminal Justice, pp. 9-27 1999, doi: 10.1300/J012v10n02_02 Meyer, Silke. “Motivating Perpetrators of Domestic and Family Violence to Engage in Behaviour Change: The Role of Fatherhood.” Child & Family Social Work, vol. 23, no.

1, Feb. 2018, pp. 97–104. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1111/cfs.12388.

“Odd State Laws.” Harford.edu Shiraz, Mohammed S. “The Impact of Education and Occupation on Domestic Violence in Saudi Arabia.” International Journal of Social Welfare, vol. 25, no. 4, Oct. 2016, pp. 339– 346. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1111/ijsw.12214.

“Statistics.” The National Domestic Violence Hotline, www.thehotline.org/resources/statistics/.

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MATTERS CIVIC AND NATIONWIDE

Illusions by Tyara Pouncie

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Marching Band and Color Guard: Where Musician Meets Athlete

By Alyssa Cortez For many, “Friday night lights” is a common phrase used to describe a Friday evening spent watching athletes perform competitively on the field. This term is usually associated with more widely known sports, such as football and soccer; however, band enthusiasts argue that the significance of “Friday night lights” is more than the blood, sweat, and tears of conventional sport athletes. This phrase can also be applied to lesser-known sports, such as marching band and color guard. This places a question mark on athleticism. What defines a sport? According to the Oxford Dictionary, a sport is defined as “an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment.” Because marching band and color guard are activities that involve physical exertion and skill, teamoriented competitions and entertainment should be considered sports.

An activity is defined as a sport when it involves physical exertion and skill. Athletes are encouraged to push themselves to their physical limits to perform better in their sport. For instance, runners train by running on a routine basis and exerting physical effort by forcing their bodies to keep pace despite the lactic acid buildup in their muscles. Skill is defined as “the ability to do something well.” Runners are constantly striving to overcome their physical challenges by practicing the sport appropriately through technique, enduring physical discomfort, and exerting physical effort to maintain and increase their pace. Unlike running, marching band and color guard are often criticized as an activity for people who are too physically unfit to undertake a sport; however, marching band and color guard are arguably more physically demanding than some sports, such as darts and bowling, which require little to no cardiovascular endurance.

Elements of physical exertion and skill are prevalent in both marching band and color guard.

Like athletes from widely known sports, marching band and color guard members physically exert themselves in preparation for their season. The marching band demonstrates physical exertion by marching across the field, in tempo to music up to 200 beats per minute while blowing steady airflow into their heavy instruments, keeping their upper-bodies completely parallel to the sidelines while maintaining precise ranks, files, and diagonals. Color guard members exert their bodies through continual reps of jazz-running and dancing across the field, maneuvering and tossing six-foot flags, rifles, and sabres into the air within a certain number of counts. These physically-demanding and highly aerobic tasks, which exercise the upper and lower body, are repeatedly rehearsed throughout marching band and color guard practices. Skill is critical in marching band and color guard because without proper technique a simple mistake could cause serious injuries. A musician may make a wrong turn during a movement and collide with another, or a color guard member could hurt themselves and others by incorrectly tossing or catching their equipment.

An activity is defined as a sport if it involves an individual or team competing against others.

Marching band and color guard match this criterion because marching band and color guard competitions are held at high school and professional levels. At various high school levels, marching bands and color guards compete both state and nationwide. In professional levels, elite marching bands, color guards, or drum corps from North America compete over the course of three months in the annual Drum Corps International Tour and world championships.

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A misconception that people have regarding color guard and marching band is that judges fail to evaluate athleticism in marching band and color guard competitions. For that reason, people believe that marching band and color guard are not sports. However, in these competitive events, the marching band and color guard perform their show and are evaluated in specific areas including visual performance. Visual performance judges assess the band’s ability to march, stay in step, and keep form. They judge the color guard’s coordination, synchronization, and execution of dance and equipment. Athleticism involves strength, fitness, and agility, which are three areas that pertain to marching band and color guard activities. The ability to march, stay in step, and keep form while carrying heavy instruments requires physical strength, fitness, and agility. In addition, the color guard’s coordination and synchronization are aspects of agility.

Meanwhile, the color guard’s execution of dance and use of equipment demonstrates physical strength and fitness.

Lastly, a sport is defined as an activity that involves recreational purpose, self-enjoyment, or entertainment. Athletes engage in sports because they enjoy them. Likewise, crowds attend sporting events because they find sports to be entertaining. Marching band and color guard fit this criterion because band and color guard members exert physical effort and compete against others because they enjoy the sport. Some believe that marching band and color guard are not considered sports due to the lack of viewership. Although marching band and color guard do not have as many fans as internationally favored sports like soccer and football, marching band and color guard competitions garner audiences throughout North America. Like other sports, marching band and color guard have their own major league called “The Drum Corps International” (DCI), which amassed “an estimated 330,000 spectators who attended 107 live events on the DCI Summer Tour in 2015,” while “tens of thousands of additional fans visited movie theaters throughout the United States and enjoyed viewing events in real-time on their personal computers and mobile devices,” according to “Attendance records set across 2015 Drum Corps International Tour” (Weber, par. 2).

From scorching summer practices to late-night Saturday competitions, the sport of marching and color guard consumes many throughout the nation. The physicality, competitive nature, and enjoyment derived from marching band and color guard determine its role in athleticism.

Because marching band and color guard meet all three criteria that determine a sport, the emphasis of “Friday night lights,” a phrase used for conventional sporting events, is redefined.

Hopefully, this revelation shifts our eyes from the football team to the marching band halftime show. Despite several doubts placed on the physicality and popularity of marching band and color guard, the activities that they entail and their relatively large fanbase prove that marching band and color guard are sports, and members of marching band and color guard are athletes.

After all, these musicians and performers work just as hard pushing their minds and bodies to their limits for the sake of achieving a fun and competitive season.

WORKS CITED Weber, Chris. “Attendance records set across 2015 Drum Corps International Tour.”

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Stop Playing Violent Video Games?

By Truong Lam Quang Nguyen Claimed as a major cause of shooting cases in the United States, violent video games are conversative topics of discussion in terms of political issues in a particular way and social problems in a general way. Whether or not they are the direct factors causing violent behavior, that is a big concern for everyone, especially those who live either permanently or temporarily in the US or those who live all over the world. Should everyone stop playing violent video games?

Advocates of violent video games claim that those games help people develop various skills, such as strategic thinking, memory, creativity, and problem solving. In addition to enhancing several skills for humans, violent video games are the avenues for expressing safely in a controlled way. On the other hand, people who are against violent video games demonstrate that there are huge problems caused by those games, including causing addiction and triggering aggressive behavior.

People who are in favor of violent video games believe that those games are very useful to help players acquire new skills and are the avenues for expressing feelings. First of all, according to what Kathlyn Hulick has learned from research, she states that researchers found playing video games as a team can improve communication skills and resourcefulness, as well as speed up reflexes (Hulick, 2017). Moreover, the major techniques to win violent video games are mostly based on players’ quick reactions. Due to that, players can learn how to adapt to any situation quickly. That is extremely necessary for pursuing a career in the future. Second, playing violent video games is a good way to relieve stress in a controlled and safe way. They have the capability for helping people forget about stress and express their emotions easily in the virtual and controlled world without any judgement from others directly. According to a study at the University of Kentucky, video games are protected forms of expression because those games represent all the aspects of an art form (Salamanca, 2005). “They may look like universes full of gothic architecture, labyrinthine tunnels, and grotesque characters, but in fact they are electronic representations of such things, much like paintings, movies, or TV shows� (Salamanca, 2005).

Violent video games provide players the entire free space for doing anything they want without any restrictions. Therefore, they are the avenues for expression of emotions.

Advocates of violent video games claim that those games help people in terms of developing new skills as well as feeling expressions. However, those are not always true and can be refuted easily, since what players are doing in video games is associated with what they are doing in the virtual world. Everything is probably not real, so what they may learn from playing violent video games are definitely inapplicable in reality. There are tons of different ways to acquire new skills that are more rewarding and harmless, such as participating in outdoor activities or attending extracurricular activities at school; moreover, video games are not really the right way for expressing feelings. Video games trigger negative emotions, so when a person who is upset about something plays violent video games, the images and actions in those games will make them think more aggressively about their problems; regarding that, they are more likely to do something which is really bad to solve their problems. Playing violent video games is being under pressure of winning games and being the champion; this will develop stress to the higher level and then develop to depression and anxiety. Because of those reasons, the arguments which are in favor of violent video games are not really valid.

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Opponents of playing violent video games point out some huge problems caused by those games.

Firstly, all kinds of video games have the possibility of making gamers become addicted.

Addiction can be considered as a severe impact of playing video games, but not all people who play video games might become addicted. Nevertheless, most video games are designed to make players become addicted easily, and, once people end up playing them, they cannot stop playing and it is going to be their daily routine. According to Flanagan, playing video games is noted easily by the brain because video game features are attractive to the brain, and they adjust specific parts of the human brain, then the closed link between the brain and video games is established because information about the games is locked (Flanagan, 2014). It seems to be difficult for children to abandon playing games, and eventually this leads to a lack of control.

Recently, Sparks and Jaeger reported that the World Health Organization listed addiction caused by video games as a brain dysfunction (Sparks, 2019). The effects of addiction are exceedingly serious. In addition to causing addiction, playing violent video games has a close bond with aggressive and violent behavior. California law defines “violent video game” in 150 words as, in part, “a video game in which the range of options available to a player includes killing, maiming, dismembering, or sexually assaulting an image of a human being.” Those images trigger aggression and violence. According to the report of Achieng, there is a particular example about an unlawful killing case caused by playing violent video games, which is “Two step-brothers opened fire, motivated by Grand Theft auto” (Achieng, 2017). That incident led to the death and injuries of people who live close by. That is really terrible. As we can see, bad violent video games affect human behavior in aggressive ways.

There are several limitations for the arguments of people who are in favor of violent video games. That makes the perspectives of other sides become stronger and more reliable. As everyone knows, addiction is an obvious effect caused by video games. The essence of every video game in general, and violent video games in particular, is to engage players and draw their attention for the games they play. Hence, abandoning violent video games is absolutely not easy.

Even though not all people who play violent video games become addicted, the majority of them do. Even though not all gamers have violent behavior after playing violent video games, most do. Therefore, stopping violent video games is the best way for a long-term solution to avoid those negative impacts.

As mentioned in the essay, beside the positives of violent video games, the negative sides of them are much more serious and affect human life in an utterly bad way. Addiction to video games and violent behavior are the fears of everyone in modern life. They are all the potential impacts which violent video games may bring about. We are in need of further research to have enough evidence to think further about the future of violent video games. Should those games be banned completely in all the US? That question needs to be responded to as soon as possible.

Hopefully, more research about violent video games will be processed to provide people with clearer viewpoints of violent video games in daily life.

REFERENCES Achieng, V. (2017, June 27). 15 Bizarre Deaths Caused By Video Games. The Clever. Retrieved from https://www.theclever.com/15-bizarre-deaths-caused-by-video-games/.

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Flanagan, J. (2014, February 2). The psychology of video game addiction. The Week. Retrieved from https://theweek.com/articles/451660/psychology-video-game-addiction.

Hulick, K. (2017, September 27). Video games level up life skills. Retrieved from https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/video-games-level-life-skills.

Salamanca, E. P. (2005). Video Games as a Protected Form of Expression, 40 Ga. L. Rev. 153.

Sparks, H., & Jaeger, M. (2019, May 28). Video game addiction is officially a mental health disorder. New York Post. Retrieved from https://nypost.com/2019/05/28/video-gameaddiction-is-officially-a-mental-health-disorder/

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Are You Even American If You Don’t Eat Meat?

By Hayden Rodriguez Climate change due to global warming is perhaps one of the most intensely debated and highly controversial topics of debate that we hear about today. This broad term refers to various environmental effects, such as record-high global temperatures leading to sea level rises, melting polar ice, ocean acidification, widespread drought, and more. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) defines it as the long-term change in the average weather patterns that have come to define Earth’s local, regional, and global climates (“Overview: Weather”).

However, what exactly is the supposed cause of climate change? Well, environmental activists claim that humans are the biggest culprits and that the amount of evidence supporting this assertion is only growing. An excess amount of dangerous greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide and methane, have been released and accumulated in the atmosphere as a result of human activities. This causes radiation from the sun that would normally bounce off the earth's surface and back out into space to remain inside of our atmosphere, thus creating a rise in the planet's average temperature. These gases come from many different human activities, the most commonly known one being the burning of fossil fuels. However, the United States Environmental Protection Agency states that a staggering nearly ten percent does not come directly from humans, but instead from agriculture (“Sources of Greenhouse”). Livestock production from the meat industry has accounted for a very large portion of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and, as of recent, has prompted a generation of people to become plant-based and stop consuming meat or meat products completely. However, even with this cultural shift that we see towards a plant-based lifestyle, many people continue to stick to their ways and choose to consume meat, especially in the United States. In an article by BBC news, they highlight this by showing just how much meat the average American consumes, over 125 kilograms per year (Ritchie 1). So the question is: why do Americans cling so strongly to their meats? And, for that matter, how did the United States become a nation of carnivores in the first place? It is not common knowledge, but America’s infatuation with eating meat can be traced all the way back to the country's colonial roots. Studies from various psychological research specialists show that the reason Americans cling so strongly to meat today can be found in the way that meat has been marketed to the public over time. Americans consume meat so much because it is seen as something masculine, or as something we are entitled to, and because of the dissociation of animal welfare.

Looking back at history, most cultures did not consume meat regularly. In a video featuring Maureen Ogle, a historian with a Ph.D. in American History, she discusses how for most civilizations that meat was seen as a celebratory food that was eaten on special occasions if eaten at all (“America’s Love Affair”). Prior to the American colonies being formed in Britain, land was scarce and only the people who were wealthy enough to own land were the people who were able to eat meat regularly (“America’s Love Affair”). Because of this, meat was seen as a sign of wealth because unlike today, where you can just go to the grocery store and purchase meat, you only had access to it if you owned grazing land for livestock (“America’s Love Affair”). So, when the thirteen colonies were first established, American settlers saw an abundance of land that they had never seen before, and, as the expansion out west began, the land seemed endless and people started staking their claims. Soon almost every American owned land and was producing livestock from it. Then with new technologies and transportation systems, the

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distribution of meat to stores became effortless and thus the prices of meat were so low that it became affordable to most everyone (“America’s Love Affair”). Meat was no longer a food consumed only by the wealthy. In America, anyone could have access to affordable meat whenever they wanted. This created a sense of entitlement that would play into the larger picture of why Americans love meat so much.

Masculinity and entitlement often go hand and hand when it comes to the reasons that people consume so much meat. Some would think that these two ideas are collinear in wealthy demographics; however, studies will show that they can be more strongly correlated to ideals that are ingrained into the American demographic instead. In a study conducted by Dr. Hank Rothgerber, a psychology professor at Bellarmine University, he interviewed both male and female undergraduate students at the university analyzing how people specifically in Western culture justify their consumption of meat products. He points out how men typically justify their consumption of meat with how meat is masculine and even states, “Meat is linked with masculinity because it elevates male power” (Rothgerber 365). Fast food corporations such as McDonald’s and Burger King even advertise how “real men” eat meat, often portraying the image of a muscular man biting down into a juicy burger (Rothgerber 364). He then says how meat consumption has long been a symbol of manliness and power by relating it to British war campaigns where they would attribute their success to their intake of meat, whereas their opponents practiced mostly vegetable based diets (Rothgerber 365). Additionally, in the study he finds out specifically what men and women claim justifies their consumption of animals. After the study concluded he stated, In line with predictions, men expressed more favorable attitudes towards eating meat, denied animal suffering, believed that animals were in a lower hierarchy than humans, provided religious and health justifications for consuming animals, and believed that it was human destiny to eat meat. (Rothgerber 366) However, when it came to the females in the study, their thoughts on the justification of eating meat consisted more of avoiding the idea. They reported dissociation from the thought of animal suffering instead of attempting to justify their habits (Rothgerber 366). Even though the results gathered from the females differed greatly from the results of the men, the study highlighted the issue. The issue of how in America there is an unapologetic sense of entitlement and masculinity that is the driving idea behind why Americans consume so much meat compared to the rest of the world.

Additionally, this same type of entitled mindset can be seen in developing countries other than the United States. In an article by Christopher Delgado, an advisor for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, he discusses how the consumption of meat is on the rise in developing countries. The extent of this can be seen when Delgado states, “From the beginning of the 1970s to the middle of the 1990s, consumption of meat in developing countries increased by seventy million metric tons” (Delgado 3907S). This is more than triple the increase that occurred in already developed countries. So why do people in developing countries feel the need to start eating more meat? Well, when looking at per-capita meat consumption among different countries, there is a clear correlation between them and the per capita income for those countries. The trend seen here is that as people in developing countries are becoming wealthier

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and societies are becoming more industrialized, and along with this shift comes an increased demand for meat. It is an odd occurrence that just because people are becoming economically wealthier, it is driving up the demand for meat in these countries; however, it can be attributed to an entire change of mindset that is occurring in these nations. As industry grows and people become more financially well off, the lifestyles of these people change and shift towards a Westernized life, similar to that of Americans. The perceptions of meat by these people have changed because of this change of mindsets. They go from seeing meat as something that is somewhat scarce and of value, to being something that is an unlimited resource and that they always have access to. In developing countries, the entire mentality of meat consumption is changing where these countries are becoming industrialized and as a result are adopting the same sense of entitlement to meat that is seen in the United States.

Another ideal that allows Americans to consume massive amounts of meat is the dissociation of the feelings of animals. One of the central reasons that lead many people to adopt vegetarianism is because they are concerned with the way that animals are treated in the meat industry. There are also the people who enjoy eating meat even though they feel bad for the way the animals feel and the way they are treated. This is what is called the “meat paradox,” and it is defined by Steve Loughnan, an Australian psychologist from the University of Melbourne, as “The psychological conflict between people’s dietary preference for meat and their moral response to animal suffering” (Shaw 1). So what kind of things determine whether or not people feel bad about eating animals? In a study led by the same Australian psychologist, Loughnan, people were asked to rank thirty-two animals on their willingness to eat them and the animals’ mental capacity. The animals that people had less bad feelings about eating were the ones that they also rated as being “less mindful,” as they caused the least amount of disgust (Loughnan et al. 1).

This supports one of his statements claiming, “If perceived pain sensitivity partially underlies moral concern, reducing animals’ capacity to suffer might facilitate eating them” (Loughnan et al. 2). In the same study, they asked people to consider how much moral concern people had for one specific animal as an example. When asked about how much moral concern they had when it came to the tree kangaroo, they had significantly less concern when they were later told that the kangaroo was a normal food animal to the local people in Papua, New Guinea. This suggests that people felt bad at the thought of eating the kangaroo, but, once they learned that it was regularly eaten as a food item, they dissociated the moral concern they had for it. When they were asked about their concern for cows and lambs, they were unconcerned because they immediately thought of them as lesser-minded animals. After analyzing the results of the study, Loughnan says, “We found that participants who had recently consumed beef, but not nuts, restricted their moral concern for animals and rated the cow as less capable of suffering” (Loughnan et al. 3).

When people are under the impression that an animal is eaten regularly, they are able to easily pretend that the animal doesn’t feel or that their feelings are insignificant. This reinforces the idea that people have a sense of entitlement when it comes to eating meat. Americans are able to get past the meat paradox by these means. Once an animal is labeled as food, people justify its death with the fact that it is just food and that we are entitled to it because that's just the way things are.

Another factor that plays part in meat consumption are socio-demographic factors. In a collaborative research study led by Patricia Guenther, a research professor at the University of Utah, data was collected in order to cross analyze the different rates of meat consumption across

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different subpopulations such as ethnicity, income, geographic location, and gender. There were a couple of notable findings that can be highlighted from the study. Guenther states one of these findings, “Women and children were slightly more likely to have consumed chicken than were men”(Guenther et al. 2). This is significant because it demonstrates how men are more inclined to eat red meat specifically as opposed to women, which can be credited to how the consumption of red meat is more strongly associated with being “manly” than other types of meat. For many masculine men, eating a steak or a burger is empowering to their image, which is why they consume more beef on average than women do. Guenther states another one of her findings as, “Individuals with higher than average beef consumption include those living in the Midwest, those in households with no young children, Mexican- Americans and non-Hispanic blacks”(Guenther et al. 2). This is key, as it highlights how machismo culture and an elevated sense of masculinity in Hispanic cultures play into their consumption of meat. Machismo culture is a term used to describe this elevated sense of masculinity in Hispanic men. In Mexican culture, young men are raised with the idea that they must be strong and masculine simply because they are male. In a report written by Lizette Ojeda and Brandy Pina Watson, two psychology professors from Texas A&M University and Texas Tech University, they examined the roles and effects that machismo culture plays in the well being of Mexican-American college students. The authors state, “Mexican American men are developing a sense of masculinity and must negotiate an inherent authority given to men by their heritage culture with the arguably more egalitarian gender role attitudes of white American men” (Ojeda and Pina Watson 377). This predominant set of traditional male values means that even though Americans in general exhibit strong masculine qualities, Mexican-Americans generally have even stronger masculine qualities than other subcultures. These masculine qualities in Mexican-American cultures are ultimately related to the fact that beef consumption is higher in this demographic as previously stated by Guenther (Guenther et al. 2). Overall, the reason that men, in general, consume more red meat than women is that masculinity is associated with red meat consumption. Therefore, the reason that MexicanAmerican men eat more red meat than other men is because of their increased sense of masculinity from the machismo of Hispanic culture.

While discussing masculinity, another topic of interest is often thrown into the conversation, gender roles in the United States. Gender roles in the United States have existed long before the cultural shift towards being plant-based, that we see today. However, America is not the only country where gender roles exist. Plenty of other male-dominated societies have an inherent imbalance between male and female roles in society and in the household. Many cultures place men as the dominant gender above women because of religious reasons or cultural practices. So, how and when were gender roles formed in the United States? In a book written by Katherine J. Parkin, a history professor at Monmouth University who specializes in gender studies and consumerism, Food is Love, Food Advertising and Gender Roles in Modern America, she discusses the psychology behind gender roles in modern America and how food advertising has played a role in the development of gender roles that we see today. In her book, she explains how advertisers manipulate the roles of both men and women through the use of several key marketing strategies. The first of these was the idea that women belong in the kitchen and that they show their love for their families by preparing food for them. The next related to pride in one’s nation and can be seen when Parkin says, “Advertisers also made connections between food and national identity, suggesting that a woman could demonstrate her family’s national loyalty by buying ostensibly patriotic foods” (9). To put it more simply, a woman could display

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their family’s identity or even show that they were of a higher social class by selecting food items that were considered items that the upper classes of society consumed. The most influential advertising strategy that Parkin highlights is how men are portrayed in food advertising. In advertisements with men in them, they are pictured as masculine and dominant and suggest that women are servants and that they should cater to the needs of their husbands and children. These same advertisements also suggested that men are entitled to certain things, which is supported when the Parkin says, “Not fulfilling men’s desires for food could make men angry, with dire consequences for women” (125). Parkin refers to how the perceived right to have meals prepared for them came solely on the fact that they are male and even refers to the man’s role in food as “an entitled authority figure” (126). Advertisers are able to get women to align with these roles by using the insecurities of women, portraying that, if men were happy with their meals, then they would have happy, loving marriages, and, oppositely, if men were not satisfied, then it would make men angry, resulting in conflict for the woman. One food advertiser even comically used the advertising pitch, “How many frozen meals can a man eat before icicles form on his heart?”, as a way to add pressure for women to cook homemade meals (Parkin 137). These advertising strategies are what has shaped the gender roles in America and is also what has led to a sense of entitlement within men. Men feel as if they are entitled to having meals made for them when they come home from work. Consequently, this same sense of entitlement is what convinces men in their own minds that they deserve the right to consume meat because they are a man.

Even with all the research and evidence that shows why masculinity, entitlement, and the dissociation of animal feelings in the United States are the leading causes as to why Americans consume so much meat, some might try to argue that these statements are false. Some would say the reason that the United States eats the amount of meat that we do is because there is so much land in the country used for agricultural purposes, basing their arguments off the fact that the United States is one of the leaders in the world of agriculture. Therefore, we just have more livestock animals than everyone else. While all of this has some truth to it, it is not enough to overshadow the case that has already been presented. While the United States sits third on the list when it comes to usable land for agriculture, behind only China and India, this information bears little meaning when cross examined with the actual amount of meat that other countries around the world are consuming. The United States sits atop the list of top meat-eating nations in the world, with a staggering 97 kilograms consumed a year per capita (Smith 1), with countries like Australia and Argentina coming in not far behind. But, where do China and India, the other two leaders in agricultural land, rank? They come in nowhere near the top. In fact, they don’t even break the list for the top ten meat-consuming countries in the world. So, with the top two countries on the planet in terms of land for agriculture eating such a minuscule amount of meat per capita, the argument that the amount of agricultural land that a nation has bears any correlation to the amount of meat that it consumes doesn’t hold up well at all. Additionally, the fact that a country like Uruguay is on the list of top meat-consuming countries at number four, even though it is roughly the size of the state of South Carolina, only strengthens the argument that land size matters insignificantly when it comes to per capita meat consumption. The amount of meat that the United States consumes is far more clearly dependent on the mentality of the individuals and how we perceive the feelings of animals.

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With all of the research presented on why Americans are so infatuated with eating meat and how they became the way they are, it is hard to ignore the conclusions made. Beginning when the colonists arrived, America found a lust for eating meat that has only grown with time. It evolved into a feeling of entitlement and masculinity that is obtained from biting down into a piece of meat. It is the essence of what makes an American feel like a “real man”. A similar effect can even be seen in developing countries as they grow and become more Westernized like the United States and, as a result, adopt a sense of entitlement to eat meat as well. Then, we saw how the dissociation of animal feelings allows Americans to justify eating animals and how it stems from a feeling of entitlement. Then we examined meat preferences across demographics to highlight how men are more inclined to eat red meat because it is more strongly associated with masculinity, also how Hispanic culture demonstrates this same concept through the machismo mentality. Then the psychology of food advertising in America was analyzed to see how it played a pivotal role in creating the current gender roles in American society and, more importantly, the masculinity of men in the United States. Lastly, the topic of the amount of agricultural land as it relates to meat consumption was discussed, and the two are very loosely related. Even with the massive cultural shift occurring all over the planet as more and more people switch over to plant-based diets, there is plenty of reason as to why Americans remain so attached to their carnivorous ways. It all is correlated with the way that people in the United States are wired psychologically. People in the United States will not stop eating meat because of the way that meat has been advertised for years. Americans are simply too masculine, entitled, and unconcerned with animal welfare to ever stop eating meat.

WORKS CITED “America's Love Affair With Meat, Explained.” YouTube, Grist, 3 Aug. 2015, www.youtube.com/watch?v=lS1AkRwni00.

Delgado, Christopher. “Animal Source Foods to Improve Micronutrient Nutrition and Human Function in Developing Countries” International Food Policy Research Institute. 2006 “Sources of Greenhouse Gas Emissions.” United States Environmental Protection Agency. 13 Sept. 2019. www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions.

Guenther, Patricia & Jensen, Helen & Batres-Marquez, S & Chen, Chun-Fu. (2005).

Sociodemographic, Knowledge, and Attitudinal Factors Related to Meat Consumption in the United States. Journal of the American Dietetic Association. 105. 1266-74.

10.1016/j.jada.2005.05.014.

Loughnan, Steve & Bastian, Brock & Haslam, Nick. (2014). The Psychology of Eating Animals.

Current Directions in Psychological Science. 23. 104-108. 10.1177/0963721414525781.

“Overview: Weather, Global Warming and Climate Change.” National Aeronautics and Space Administration. climate.nasa.gov/resources/global-warming-vs-climate-change/

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Ojeda, L., Piña-Watson, B., & Gonzalez, G. (2016). The role of social class, ethnocultural adaptation, and masculinity ideology on Mexican American college men’s wellbeing. Psychology of Men & Masculinity, 17(4), 373–379. doi.org/10.1037/men0000023 Parkin, Katherine. Food is Love, Food Advertising and Gender Roles in Modern America.

University of Pennsylvania Press. 2006.

Ritchie, Hannah. “Which Countries Eat the Most Meat?” BBC News, BBC, 4 Feb. 2019. www.bbc.com/news/health-47057341.

Rothgerber, H. (2013). Real men don’t eat (vegetable) quiche: Masculinity and the justification of meat consumption. Psychology of Men & Masculinity, 14(4), 363– 375. doi.org/10.1037/a0030379 Shaw, Julia. “What the 'Meat Paradox' Reveals about Moral Decision Making.” BBC, 6 Feb. 2019, www.bbc.com/future/article/20190206-what-the-meat-paradox-reveals-about-moraldecision-making.

Smith, Rob. “These Are The Countries That Eat The Most Meat.” World Economic Forum, Aug. 2018, www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/08/these-countries-eat-the-most-meat-03bdf469f40a-41e3-ade7-fe4ddb2a709a/.

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The Stephen Curry Effect

By Jacob Foy In business, sports, and life, society often gets very comfortable with the way things are.

Members become ignorant to the possibility of something greater until that something greater is shown to us by someone willing to break the mold. These pioneers are often met with some resistance by those who were particularly attached to the comfort of the way things were. If this so-called ‘new and improved’ way of doing things is a fad, then they will often fade away easily and things return to what they were and shortly people will forget what happened. However, if this brave individual, or group of people, is strong enough to outweigh the naysayers, then it will completely shift the way people view what was, and is, considered possible. The most fitting label put on these individuals is the descriptive noun “disrupters.” An example of some disrupters in the business industry would be Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp, the founders of Uber, since they completely disrupted the taxi industry. Colin Cowherd, a sports commentator and analyst, spoke of this on his podcast “The Herd.” When speaking about multiple disrupters he mentioned Uber for transportation industry, as well as the other examples of business disruptors (Cowherd). Another component of Cowherd’s podcast was in regards to the influence of disruptors in the sporting lens. Cowherd states that for the game of basketball this ‘disrupter’ came in the form of a boy from Charlotte, North Carolina, with all the odds stacked against him.

This man is Stephen Curry, a member of the Golden State Warriors within the National Basketball Association. Cowherd goes on in the podcast to make the case that Steph Curry is the greatest disrupter in sports history, when simply looking at the way the game is played.

Although, this does not take into account social, cultural or political changes made through sport. Curry came into the NBA for the 2009-2010 season as the 7th pick in the draft out of Davidson College. It took a mere three seasons of Curry being in the league for him to stimulate one of the greatest phenomena ever seen in basketball and arguably sports, an effect I have named: The Stephen Curry Effect.

Wardell Stephen Curry was born on March 14th, 1988 in Akron, Ohio to parents Sonya and Dell Curry. Curry was bred from athletic pedigree with his father being an NBA basketball player for the Charlotte Hornets, Toronto Raptors, Utah Jazz, Cleveland Cavaliers, and the Milwaukee Bucks. His Mother was also a collegiate volleyball player at Virginia Tech and was All Conference in her junior year. Curry spent most of his childhood playing a variety of sports like most children, but as he got to high school age he naturally gravitated to basketball. Most of his young life Steph lived and played basketball in Charlotte, NC with a two-year stint in Toronto when Dell was playing for Toronto. As a result, the majority of his High School basketball was played at Charlotte Christian School. In his three years there Stephen was named to the AllConference and All State teams (Ott). Curry dreamed to play at Virginia Tech, his father’s alma mater. Although this dream of Curry’s did not come in the way he had hoped considering he was only offered a walk-on spot. After planning to meet with the head coach of Virginia Tech, Curry came to his own conclusion and said, “Turns out, Virginia Tech was only meeting with me as — well, I wouldn’t say a favor to my dad, like he would ever ask for that or anything. But it was more like: a courtesy? A walk-on spot for the legend’s son? I’d have to pay my own way” (Curry). Steph Curry now had the decision to accept this walk-on spot and begin paving his way

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there, or go a separate route. Steph Curry made the decision to walk a separate path of his own and not follow his father, and instead deciding to attend Davidson College under Coach Bob McKillop. Curry went on to have three successful seasons under Coach McKillop at Davidson.

His three seasons with the Wildcats saw three NCAA tournament berths including, in 2008, advancing to the Elite Eight where they went down to the eventual champions Kansas Jayhawks.

Curry declared for the NBA draft after his Junior season where he was selected 7th in the draft by the Golden State Warriors (Ott). The Stephen Curry Effect could be viewed at a statistical and analytical level in terms of how he changed the game. However, this paper will look into the mind of Curry in order to reveal the discovery of a ground breaking mental approach to sport that very few, especially in basketball, have ever achieved.

When Stephen Curry entered the league, almost everyone was unaware that he would completely revolutionize the way the game was played in only a very short span of time.

Standing at six-foot-three inches and a ‘buck-eighty,’ he wasn’t exactly the prototype for an elite NBA basketball player. Despite this, after only 4 seasons in the NBA, Stephen Curry established himself as one of the greatest three-point shooters in league history by breaking the record for most three-pointers made in a season with two-hundred and seventy-two threes made. Steph Curry was able to establish himself in his talent of shooting, and ultimately researchers at Columbia University within the department of mechanical engineering were able to conclude that “the 3-point shooting technique of Stephen Curry, [makes him] one of the most prominent 3-point shooters in the NBA” (Jin et al.). Displaying this conclusion further, he did this again in 2014-15 with 286 threes and then again in 2015-16 with a staggering 402 three pointers. In just eleven seasons in the NBA Steph has won the season MVP twice, made six all NBA teams, lead the league in scoring and steals for a season, and has won 3 NBA Championships (Ott). Not to mention, he was the best player and leader of arguably the greatest team to ever step on an NBA court as they went 73-9 for the season and broke the previous record of the most wins in a season by Michael Jordan who led the Chicago Bulls.

This essay sets out to define, explain and analyze the effect that Stephen Curry has made on the game of basketball since entering the NBA. However, the deeper that you go into all of Curry’s achievements and look at the butterfly affect he has created which has, and will continue to, shape the modern game, there is one glaringly obvious question that presents itself. What drives him continue to play? He has seemingly achieved all of the greatest accomplishments possible in the game and won just as much as anybody has in his 11 seasons in the NBA. He has beaten everybody there is to beat, and has won on the biggest stage basketball has to offer. This brings to question the game that he is he really trying to win. His drive can no longer be concluded as simply winning. If that was the case, then he has achieved it; there would be nothing left for him to do. Curry’s own dad explains the never-ending goal of his son by saying, ‘“Steph’s bar is so high that I don’t know if anything he does is ever enough”’(Stein). With such a high bar set, it is difficult to see how winning can be seen as his only objective. It is my strong belief that Curry is no longer searching for titles and accolades, but rather has completely immersed himself in the hunt to win the game within himself. This ‘game’ is played within all people in all facets of life, not just sport. Almost all people are unaware of their own game going on inside their head and therefore fall victim to the barriers and distractions created by one’s own mind. Inherently, the game played within is often lost and restrains people from reaching their full potential and attaining the most enjoyment they can out of whatever they’re doing. This essay will unpack

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some of the different “games” that people play and the different barriers and challenges that they bring up. In doing this I also hope to uncover Curry’s (possible) game he plays within himself and in the process find a game that is fulfilling and worth playing for all.

The “Inner Game” is a term coined by Timothy Gallway, who was a nationally ranked tennis players as a High School student, Captain of his Harvard Tennis team, and after went on to be an instructor in Monterey, California after his college career (Gallwey). It was here while teaching that Gallwey discovered the mental constraints put on people by themselves when playing sport or really just learning and performing any skill. The realizations that Gallwey made as a tennis instructor about the clutter of overthinking, angst, doubt, fear, and battered self-image led him to research the “Inner Games” people play. While writing his book The Inner Game of Tennis, he wanted to find out what created these feelings and thoughts in people’s minds and why people allow their thoughts to limit them from reaching peak performance. Many of these games have ‘sub-games’ within them depending what type of achievements people are striving for.

Many sportsmen and sportswomen alike, whether amateur or professional, encounter the same challenges when it comes to mental clutter, confidence, frustration and other negative emotions that come about with sport. Due to the complexity and fear of these silent dream killers, very little has been done in terms of learning how to combat them. As a result, almost everyone is fully aware of these things and yet very little is given to people in terms of a practical approach on how to improve their mental state and consequently perform at their best. As Gallwey mentions, people are left with arbitrary clichés that do little to solve the problem such as, “You have to be confident and possess the will to win otherwise you’ll always be a loser” (4). When we take these statements to be true, we begin to introduce doubt and fear into the mind, “Fear increases as our sense of our competence decreases. Therefore, if we can lessen our self doubt, our fear automatically wanes” (Gallwey 48). To combat this perceived fear and reinforce to ourselves that we have control over our minds, we like to turn to technical instruction as a way of trying to boost our ego by labeling it a tangible and fixable problem through technique. The root of this is something that Gallwey has labelled as “Self 1.” Self 1 is our instructional, critical, conscious mind that is highly egotistical. It wants to give instructions to the body so that when an action is successful it can reward itself with accolades and praise. However, when there is failure or difficulty performing a task, Self 1 likes to put the blame on the unconscious mind, referred to by Gallwey as “Self 2.” This unconscious self also involves the nervous and muscular systems that actually perform all of the physical tasks we ask it to do. It is an incredible system that has total recall; once a skill is learned, it is never lost. The only thing that impedes Self 2 from being able to perform at its absolute best is interference from Self 1(Gallwey 17-22).

The egotistical side of our mind, because of its never ending need to be able to explain the actions we take, likes to set out a purpose or reason for which we are doing something. In Gallwey’s book, he breaks these down under the title of “Games People Play on the Court.” The first game that people play is called “Good-o,” and its general aim is to achieve a level of excellence within their given sport or pursuit. People who are motivated to prove their competency play this type of game. Gallwey goes on to break down the game of “Good-o” into subgames: “Perfect-o” and “Compete-o.” There are many other games that people play, but in this instance the game of “Good-o” and its subgames are highly applicable (Gallwey 104-106).

These games can be mixed, and often are, by many athletes both elite and recreational. All of

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these games offer different motives, obstacles and goals. Broadly speaking, the aims for these “Inner Games,” can be reduced down to two things: the pursuit of excellence and the pursuit of victory. The motives seem somewhat obvious: the desire to prove oneself, whether it be to themselves or others, and the desire to be at the top of the proverbial food chain. Both of these games present internal and external obstacles that feed into Self 1’s ego. The game of “Perfect-o” inherently has its obstacles as one’s struggle to attain the unreachable goal of perfection leads to continuous failure. Gallwey defines the internal obstacle as “Self-Criticism for not being as close to perfection as one would like, leading to discouragement, compulsively trying too hard and the self-doubt that made you think you had anything to prove anything in the first place” (104).

Many athletes are wired in such a way that no level of skill or amount of winning will ever satisfy their Self 1 needs, and it can be seen in the anguish on their face each time they encounter a perceived failure. The Inner Game of “Compete-o” provides a huge obstacle; one can never beat everybody at everything, forever. Gallwey states in his book the internal obstacle provided by “Compete-o”: “The mind’s preoccupation with comparing oneself with others, thus preventing spontaneous action; thoughts of inferiority alternating with superiority, depending on the competition; fear of defeat”(105). It is obvious to see when somebody is playing this game.

As the match draws tighter or the realization of possible defeat sets in, the muscles tighten, and the thoughtless, fluidity of their technique begins to waver. They become jerky and openly agitated with themselves after every error. It’s ironic how the very aim of the game going on inside their head is what leads to their ultimate defeat.

Surely, the pursuit of perfection and victory are not bad motives. Why not strive to be the absolute best you can be? What is wrong with wanting to beat everyone you play against?

Gallwey addresses this issue when talking more specifically about a “Self 1” in the chapter, “Quieting Self 1.” What happens when one is striving to achieve a certain level of excellence or beat an opponent is that Self 1 is invited to make judgments. If one doesn’t execute a skill to their standards, then Self 1 will jump in and label Self 2 and its actions as ‘bad’. If you are playing the game of “Compete-o,” then any loss, no matter how well you played or how skilled the opponent, is seen as a failure or ‘bad’. These initial judgments made by Self 1 lead to its attempt to solve the problem in order to feed its ego. A flurry of instruction about technique and execution bombard one’s mind and begin to cloud what were once clear thoughts. In an attempt to execute these instructions, individuals begin to try too hard, which results in the muscles tightening, the loss of fluidity, and negation of any spontaneous reaction. The key to attaining peak performance is quieting Self 1 and focusing on what is happening in the present time (Gallwey 84-91). Awareness of the feel of the game, the rhythm of what is happening, or even just having a relaxed focus on a detailed part of the ball, target, or court will help to quiet the mind. All of these things are in the present time and do not need any judgment, just awareness.

This technique will help to un-clutter one’s mind and allow Self 2 to take over and restore the fluidity and effortlessness of which it is capable (Gallway 14-32).

Positive self-talk is an idea that has been at the forefront of traditional sports psychology for a great deal of time. In an article written by Alla V. Tovares about athlete self-talk, she addresses the different voices that athletes use to have dialogue with themselves during competition. Selftalk between an athlete’s ‘Self 1 and Self 2’ is defined by sports psychologists as “dialogue [in which] the individual interprets feelings and perceptions, regulates and changes evaluations and convictions, and gives him/herself instructions and reinforcement” (Tovares 262). The article

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addresses the use of dialogue as a way for an athlete to create their own “athletic identity” (Tovares 261). Tovares asserts that her analysis of self-talk implies that “Privileging strong and/or controlling voices and marginalising weak and/or irrational voices” (Tovares 273). In another source referred to by Tovares and written by Gordin, she suggests positive effects of self talk and its effect on anxiety levels by saying, “Keeping an inner dialogue during athletic performance is an effective strategy for managing anxiety”(261). This technique of self-talk and positive affirmation is a technique adopted by many in the sporting world and can often be seen in the facial expressions of athletes. They hope to encourage more of the action that they just performed and believe that by affirming themselves they see that what they did was good; it will help them repeat their actions.

The theory behind the positive self-talk technique is solid and would seem to be very logical if one wanted to repeat their good performance. However, this is not always the case as once again it invites the judgmental and egotistical mind to make judgments. Gallwey speaks about the idea of positive self-talk and warns against it: “Positive hypnotism as a substitute for negative hypnotism may appear at least to have short range benefits, but I have always found that the honeymoon ends all too soon”(27). From personal experience I find this to be true, as my efforts to try and repeat what Self 1 has labeled as ‘good’ often lead to trying too hard, over-instruction, over-tightness, and the destructive spiral begins again. They key to keeping judgment out of the picture is being aware of the present and learning how to focus the mind. Gallwey speaks of methods by which one can improve their focus in the chapter titled “Concentration: Learning to Focus” (82). The mind cannot simply ‘shut off,’ but rather its focus just needs to be repositioned, “To still the mind one must learn to put it somewhere. It cannot just be let go; it must be focused” (Gallwey 83). Techniques can be used, similar to that of meditation, which will bring the mind to what is happening in the present and provide the mind with a narrow point of focus.

Feeling, seeing, and hearing are all focus points that can help to eliminate judgmental thoughts and help an athlete to concentrate on the ‘now’.

When learning of the games that go on in athletes’ minds, I find myself constantly trying to assess what game Curry could be playing. Shooting the basketball and playing at such elite levels cannot be done with mental clutter. It is obvious to see, through the freedom, fearlessness, and confidence with which he plays, that he is a master of quieting Self 1 and focusing the mind. So what game does Curry play? It will probably remain unknown by all, including Curry himself, as he is most likely unaware that he is playing it. It is strange to think what must go on inside the mind of another, let alone in one of the greatest sportsmen in the world. I believe strongly, however, that Curry has blended multiple Inner Games into a unique one of his own. Curry plays the game I have named “Best-o.” His aim in this game is to perform at his absolute best in every season, game, and moment by extinguishing the barriers and challenges that are presented within oneself. He does not have a specific goal of making shots or winning games, but rather has an intent focus on controlling the factors needed to get there. That includes dissolving all mental clutter and doubt, and allowing oneself to realize that the challenge presented in front of you is a great opportunity. Notice this game does not have specific goals of achieving tangible feats, as these are not always within somebody’s control. The skill of the opposition, injury, and teammates all play into victory, and all of these our outside of individual control. He is simply taking on the challenge of reaching his absolute potential through his chosen profession, a game that he loves. Now that is a game worth playing.

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WORKS CITED Curry, Stephen. “Underrated: By Stephen Curry.” The Players' Tribune, 9 Jan. 2019, www.theplayerstribune.com/en-us/articles/stephen-curry-underrated.

Gallwey, Timothy. “What Is the Inner Game?” The Inner Game, Inner Game Inc., 2019, theinnergame.com.

Gallwey, Timothy. The Inner Game of Tennis: The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance. Random House Trade Paperbacks, 1974.

Jin, Brian, et al. “Dynamic Analysis and Optimization of Stephen Curry’s 3-Point Shot.”

Department of Mechanical Engineering, Columbia University in the City of New York, Dec. 2016.

Ott, Tim. “Stephen Curry.” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 10 Sept.

2019, www.biography.com/athlete/stephen-curry.

Stein, Marc. “Stephen Curry, Fully in the Swing.” The New York Times, 21 May 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/05/21/sports/stephen-curry-golden-state-warriors.html.

Tovares, Alla V. “Managing the Voices: Athlete Self-Talk as a Dialogic Process.” Journal of Language and Social Psychology, vol. 3, no. 29, 2010, pp. 261–277.

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Aloha ‘Oe Under the Moonlight by Sean Healey

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Just Not Ready

By Rianna O’Neill When you think of a virgin, what is the first thought that pops into your mind? A prude who is too scared and innocent to try anything? A naive girl who just teases boys but never goes all the way? On the other hand, what comes to mind when you hear of a girl who already had sex? A slut who deserves all the name calling because she followed the pressure of hooking up?

According to Merriam-Webster, a virgin is described as “an unmarried woman devoted to religion” or “an absolutely chaste young woman.” These descriptions of a virgin are used throughout society and reveal how the idea of virginity is only thought about when a woman is in the picture. Women are the main demographic who are affected by this limiting term that society created to see if individuals engaged in sexual activity. Academic articles about virginity beliefs through religion and first-time experiences, along with the help of interviews from individuals who were affected by the idea of virginity, help solidify my argument. With these present-day stories in corroboration with the view of virginity, it is evident that virginity is a social construct brought on by society that is used to pressure women to decide whether or not to wait until marriage or engage in the “hookup” culture, which forces women to deal with the social repercussions of either decision that may include undermining religious standards and morals, such as the ideas of virginity as a gift, a stigma, or a learning process.

Since there is no definite meaning of virginity, Laura Carpenter, a professor at Vanderbilt, reveals how those in society interpret it in three different ways: as gift, stigma, or learning process. Many who engage in having sex never truly know if they should consider themselves a virgin or not because there are different aspects of having sex: such as vaginal, anal, or oral.

With that being said, Carpenter’s article “The Meaning and Experience of Virginity Loss,” delves into why individuals interpret virginity in three different ways and how it influences their experience of sex. Carpenter did a case-study of 61 men and women to see how they perceive virginity loss. Within the study, Carpenter interviewed a woman named Danielle; she describes how she “saw virginity as a highly valuable gift, due to its nonrenewable nature and the sense that it was part of the self that would be forfeited on giving” (Carpenter 351). Through Danielle’s interpretation of virginity loss, she indicates how having sex for the first time was an action that was serious to her, along with other women who were stuck in the social pressure of being chaste or being promiscuous. Therefore, women were in the middle of a dilemma in which their idea of virginity being a gift clouded their initial thoughts of sex, where they were scared to engage in premarital sex because they were not sure if there was enough love and commitment in the relationship to take it to a deeper level, which in their minds would then lead to marriage.

Along with virginity being seen as a gift, there is a stigma that individuals carried around with them for still being considered “pure.” For some, the idea of being a virgin and carrying around that stigma terrified them because they felt as though they were powerless, due to the “possibility that others will identify and expose their stigma, sanction them for it, and even confer new stigmas on them” (Carpenter 353). Instead of trying to protect or to keep their virginity safe like a gift, there are some who feel stuck in the pressure from society where they do not know if they should be okay with the fact that people know they are a virgin or be scared that those around them can point fingers and make jokes about how they have no sexual experience. Ergo, this emphasize the linkage between stigmas and virginity regarding women. In most cases, it is the 43

woman who feels powerless when hearing that society has learned of their virginity because it gives men the power to name-call and make advances at her, in hopes that they can be the one to “win,” where they take her virginity, which then leads to the third interpretation of virginity loss – seeing it as a learning process.

Both sexes who believed in this interpretation thought of losing one’s virginity almost like a right of passage from childhood to adulthood, where they believed through losing their virginity they would gain knowledge that could better their lives (Carpenter 353). According to Carpenter’s case-study, approximately two times the amount of women compared to men thought of this concept of virginity loss as a stepping stone to reach adulthood (353). For a woman to think in order to benefit more in life, it is better to have sex to gain experience and knowledge is absolutely bemusing. Why should a woman’s actions make society question her ability to have everyday knowledge as a man would? There is no way a woman’s ability to complete everyday tasks is lessened due to her sexual status or not. If she is a virgin, her role as a worker or girlfriend is not exemplified through her “innocence”; the same goes for if she has premarital sex. If a woman is not a virgin, her capability to complete her work and still complete the role of a good girlfriend is not devalued due to the number of partners she had in the past or what she has done with them. To let society put a woman’s worth into question due to what she has or has not done reveals that the problem is rooted within the people around us, which can particularly be seen within the hymen myth that causes young girls to question themselves.

“If your hymen is torn, that means you are not a virgin anymore!” This misconception about sex creates problems within society because it gives individuals the power to decide whether or not a woman is a virgin depending on how “intact” her hymen is, when in actuality the hymen is “a fold of mucous membrane partly closing the orifice of the vagina” that does not always break or tear (Merriam Webster). Through this idea of the hymen tearing and bleeding during a woman’s first time having sex comes the slang term “popping cherries.” This saying shows how the misconception of the hymen is just an adaptation of the social construct created to devalue a woman and her morals. In the video Adam Ruins Sex, comedian Adam Conover pokes fun at the real thoughts society has towards women when they engage in sex. In Conover’s video, he states how “52% of sexually active teenage women had intact hymens,” disproving the incorrect societal norm thrown at women’s faces when sex is brought up (1:48-1:53). Since sex is the main factor of being a virgin or not, the hymen myth adds to the notion that virginity is a social construct that is used to influence the actions of women and to belittle them for the decisions they make. The status of a woman’s hymen, whether it be if she has engaged in sex or not, does not allow society to determine her “eligibility” of being a virgin. In addition, the hymen myth is a misinterpretation of what goes on in a woman’s body while having sex and its meaning, which clearly shows the social construct of it. Society does not care about the actual science behind what a hymen is and its job within a woman’s body, they only care about the interpretation of it because it then allows for them to make women decide what choice to make. Do they have sex because their hymen is already torn so in the eyes of society they are not a virgin, or do they remain abstinent even with the hymen myth because they do not feel ready to engage in sex? For many, society’s views overtake their religious morals so they fall into the pressure and let it define who they truly are.

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Through the evolution of society, the ideas of virginity in religions such as Christianity have remained relatively constant, where young girls and women are supposed to be seen as pure so they can be fit for marriage. The article “Evangelicalism and Sexual Morality,” written by Kailla Edger, a counselor at Integrity Counseling and Coaching, explains how Evangelical Christians see virginity as “something to be protected and valued” until marriage, or the consequence of sexual immorality would “range anywhere from disappointing God, to having marriage problems, to completely ruining one’s life via drugs, prostitution, becoming a sexual predator, or a tragic death” (Edger 164). Under God’s watchful eye, individuals were taught to idolize the idea that virginity was the one key that could keep them “pure,” where they would live a happy life that would not have a negative effect on their marriage or their morality. To Evangelical Christians, this idea of virginity connected more with young girls and women compared to men because they were always being taught that premarital sex would make them unfit as a bride because they were no longer “pure” for their husband. To further prove how this ideology on virginity was directed towards girls and women, Linda Klein reveals to Terry Gross, an interviewer for National Public Radio, about what it was like as a 13-year-old to be a part of the Evangelical Purity Movement. According to Klein, the church engraved in their minds that “if you are pure — non-sexual to whatever extent is the requirement — before marriage, then you will have a perfect, blissful highly sexual life after marriage. You will please your husband. He will never leave you. He will never cheat on you because you will be such a sexual delight for him” (Gross). Through present day proof of how the church conditioned young girls to act and think about sex, it is evident how they believed premarital sex was bad; however, they never took into account the negative effects that would come when always thinking that they were responsible for the sexual thoughts and feelings men had, as well as always doing everything right [dress appropriate, talk, and act] so they would not entice men and give them the wrong idea of being “impure” (Gross). With that being said, the ideas of virginity for boys and men were never talked about, where it pushed girls and women to stick to the idea of having to be a virgin and to never engage in sinful activities until marriage so they live the happy life they worked so hard for. With Linda’s response, it is always stated that “he,” meaning a man, would never do sinful things to a woman if she was a virgin until marriage; however, did society not see the problem with the gender roles placed on both sexes?

Between the 1980s-90s, when the Evangelical Purity Movement became less popular, more eyes in society opened up to how gender roles, brought on by virginity, trapped young girls and women to act “the right way” so they would not be chastised, whereas boys and men were always given a pass when they acted out of character. Michael Wiederman, a biomedical sciences professor at the University of South Carolina, explained in his article, “The Gendered Nature of Sexual Scripts,” the thought of sexual gender roles were exemplified due to the fact that he was able to reveal the differences on how boys and girls viewed sex and pleasure.

According to Wiederman, “boys and girls are given two different sets of messages regarding their own genitals” at such a young age; so when they get older, these messages manifest into what they consciously believe is the right and wrong way to act towards sex (Wiederman 497).

With that being said, men do not understand the social repercussions women face when speaking out about virginity, as they were always taught that they had more freedom in being open about their sexual experiences. Hence, the thought was put into the minds of women that they can get pregnant and would be looked down upon in society if women had sex out of wedlock; however, for males, they know they can pass by without scrutiny if they have premarital sex because they 45

were always told that their “sexual activity is goal-oriented and motivated by bodily pleasure for its own sake” (Wiederman 498). This solidifies the double standards set forth in society due to the different ways girls and boys were taught about sexual pleasure when growing up.

Furthermore, this emphasizes how women are more likely to be slut-shamed and judged by their actions when those around them in their community learn about their sexual experiences that occur before marriage. This is mostly because society puts a negative connotation around a nonvirgin woman and believes her “impurities” will hinder her. On the other hand, this proves how men will receive a congratulatory pat on the back from their “bros” because their sexual experiences have been put up on a pedestal, as if it is a game they play within society to continuously “get with” another girl. The concept that “virginity is about establishing paternity and about using women’s sexuality as a commodity” correlates to how “the notion has always been deeply entrenched in patriarchy and male ownership,” as is discussed in Jessica Valenti’s book The Purity Myth (22). This proves how virginity is an idea that is used to devalue women due to the fact that it has nothing to do with a woman’s ability to do everyday tasks, but it has everything to do with revealing to the community how it is the man who gains benefits from a woman being a virgin.

Within society today, it has been heard that the idea of being a virgin is unimportant and there has been no social pressure established that makes women feel as though they need to act a certain way so they are not looked down upon. Looking at the religious viewpoint of virginity, they always pushed the concept of abstinence on women so they can accomplish the “American Dream” of achieving a happy life and stable marriage; however, those religious leaders never looked closely at how there were no societal pressures that stopped a woman from living her best life. Furthermore, the belief that a woman must maintain abstinence until marriage no longer had value because it became clear that being a virgin had no benefits. In comparison to who had premarital sex and one who waited until marriage, there was no social, health, or financial gains.

In contrast to this thought that there has been no pressure created by the society for a woman to remain pure through her virginity, one must take a closer look at the notion established before the Women’s Movement, in which women were forced by society to keep their sexual nature hidden or to make sure they did not give up their virginity for fun. Professors from the Psychology Department at Trent University help disprove the concept that society does not create pressures for a woman to stay a virgin until marriage in their article, “Development of the Virginity Beliefs Scale.” They state how men are given the ability to make sexual advances towards individuals, whereas women are supposed to be the “gatekeeper” for their sexuality, revealing how society did create a pressure that forced women to be protective of their virginity when men wanted to try to “pop their cherries” (Erikkson and Humphreys 109). Hence, women feel as though they must be conscious of how they act towards men who try to engage in sexual activities with them because those in society have given virgin women the title “gatekeeper,” in hopes of keeping their purity safe until it is the correct time. Moreover, the changes seen from the Women’s Movement in how they were able to act within society shows how there were pressures at first that affected women. According to an NYU professor and a Ph.D. candidate in Sociology, Paula England and Jonathan Bearak respectively, they state in their article the differing attitudes individuals have towards the idea of “hooking up.” They bring up the point that “these changes arose from structural and cultural changes that promoted secularization and individualism, and which manifest in casual sex among young adults,” illustrating how there were societal norms that put women in a corner, where they could not act openly about their 46

sexual pleasures; however, as society evolved and women started fighting for their independence and their individualism, it led them to be okay with promiscuity (Bearak and England 1328).

There have been social pressures about virginity towards women while growing up and to this day it still occurs, but it is now evolving towards the “hookup culture”.

As men and women started associating themselves together at social gatherings, it led to the interest between the youths that would have a lasting impact on their lives, mostly prevalent within their college years. For some, this new belief of “hookup culture” is unheard of; therefore the meaning of “hookup” is when two individuals casually have sexual encounters with each other in a non-romantic way, such as vaginal intercourse, oral, or kissing. In regards to this culture, the article “The Rise of Hookup Sexual Culture on American College Campuses” reveals how this newfound culture still adds social pressure on individuals to engage in sex or not, especially if they come into college as a virgin. An Associate Professor of Sociology, Lisa Wade, “students who do not hook up can end up being socially isolated, while students who do engage in this way are forced to operate by a dysfunctional set of rules.” Those who engage in this idea of “hookups” are still stuck in the societal norms established that put stressors on whether or not it is a good idea to maintain one's virginity or not. Hence, it is imperative that an individual is not urged to act a certain way because others in society will judge them, which is mostly seen with women who are open about being involved in the “hookup culture.” To add to this point, four professors who have a Ph.D. in the field of psychology and addiction explain the feelings a woman typically has after she has engaged in hooking-up with a non-romantic partner, where “regret is more likely to be related to feelings of shame or being used” (Napper et al. 767), thus proving how their article “Assessing the Personal Negative Impacts of Hooking up” correlates to the concept that virginity is a social construct that is used to harm a woman’s self-image due to the pressures they feel in trying to fit in with society. Hooking up has a direct relationship to virginity because individuals feel as though they will be left out by society if they do not engage in the activity of casual sex, to the point of being judged for being a prude when in actuality women are the ones being judged for having more than one sexual partner.

In conclusion, society has pushed women into believing there is a right and a wrong way to go about their virginity. The right way is seen as being “pure” and waiting until marriage to engage in sexual activities, whereas the wrong way is to have premarital sex. Due to this ideology, virginity has evolved into a social construct that creates added pressure in a woman’s life where she must decide to stay a virgin or be promiscuous and engage in hooking up, which goes against religious and moral beliefs. Religious aspects play a huge role in how women act because they do not want to go against the beliefs they grew up with as well as tarnish their morals for an experience that may mean nothing in the long run. Furthermore, the establishment of double standards within society continuously adds a barrier around women where they are seen as less of a person for being experimental with sexual activities compared to male-counterparts who are given high praise for their sex stories. In addition, women feel influenced to be a part of the hookup culture because society forces them to decide what stance they want to take on their sex status – lose it and hook up with others or hold it and wait for the right one. One of the key sources I used that demonstrates how virginity is a social construct for women is seen from Michael Wiederman’s academic article about the different views society has on both males and females. Wiederman’s statements solidify how society judges women much more harshly than males when they had sex and others hear of this encounter. In addition, Lisa Wade’s article about 47

how the hookup culture is another key source, as it emphasizes the notion that, besides being pressured to remain a virgin until marriage, those in society try to push the idea of “hooking up” on women so they engage in the same activities the rest of society does.

For this reason, it is important that girls do not feel constrained to make decisions about their sex life based off of the judgment of others. If they feel as though they want to rebel against religious viewpoints and engage in the hookup culture, there should be no one standing in their way. What a woman does with her body should not be scrutinized by those around them, because at the end of the day it is her choice to engage in whatever sexual activity she wants. No one should be able to decide what is morally the right way to act, as everyone has grown up in a different environment where their beliefs vary. Just because there may be a universal definition of a virgin, that does not allow for society to entrap women into thinking they must act a certain way.

Just as with the glass-ceiling concept that constrains women from achieving success at work, an intangible barrier must not be put up to try to mold all women to act “pure” until marriage.

WORKS CITED "Adam Ruins Sex." Youtube, uploaded by Adam Conover, truTV, 7 Dec. 2015, www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ikXim4wevc. Accessed 7 Apr. 2019.

Carpenter, Laura M. "Gender and the Meaning and Experience of Virginity Loss in the Contemporary United States." Gender and Society, vol. 16, no. 3, June 2002, pp. 345-65.

JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3081783?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents. Accessed 4 Apr. 2019.

Edger, Kailla. "Evangelicalism, Sexual Morality, and Sexual Addiction: Opposing Views and Continued Conflicts." Journal of Religion and Health, vol. 51, no. 1, Mar. 2012, pp. 16278. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/s10943-010-9338-7. Accessed 30 Mar. 2019.

England, Paula, and Jonathan Bearak. "The Sexual Double Standard and Gender Differences in Attitudes toward Casual Sex among U.S. University Students." Demographic Research, vol. 30, 29 Apr. 2014, pp. 1327-38. Demographic Research, DOI:10.4054/DemRes.2014.30.46. Accessed 1 Apr. 2019.

Eriksson, Jonas, and Terry P. Humphreys. "Development of the Virginity Beliefs Scale." Journal of Sex and Research, vol. 51, no. 1, Jan. 2014, pp. 107-20. EBSCO Academic Search Premier, DOI:10.1080/00224499.2012.724475. Accessed 31 Mar. 2019.

Gross, Terry. "Memoirist: Evangelical Purity Movement Sees Women's Bodies as a 'Threat.'"

National Public Radio, 18 Sept. 2018, www.npr.org/2018/09/18/648737143/memoiristevangelical-purity-movement-sees-womens-bodies-as-a-threat. Accessed 30 Mar. 2019.

"Hymen." Merriam-Webster, www.merriamwebster.com/dictionary/hymen?utm_campaign=sd&utm_medium=serp&utm_source=jso nld. Accessed 7 Apr. 2019.

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Napper, Lucy E., et al. "Assessing the Personal Negative Impacts of Hooking up Experienced by College Students: Gender Differences and Mental Health." Journal of Sex Research, vol.

53, no. 7, 7 Oct. 2015, pp. 766-75. The National Center for Biotechnology Information, doi:10.1080/00224499.2015.1065951. Accessed 1 Apr. 2019.

Valenti, Jessica. The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity Is Hurting Young Women. Berkeley, Seal Press, 2009.

"Virgin." Merriam-Webster, 1828, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/virgin. Accessed 8 Apr. 2019.

Wade, Lisa. "The Rise of Hookup Sexual Culture on American College Campuses." Scholars Strategy Network, 25 Aug. 2017, scholars.org/brief/rise-hookup-sexual-culture-americancollege-campuses. Accessed 1 Apr. 2019.

Wiederman, Michael W. "The Gendered Nature of Sexual Scripts." The Family Journal: Counseling and Therapy for Couples and Families, vol. 13, no. 4, Oct. 2005, pp. 496502. EBSCO Academic Search Premier, DOI:10.1177/1066480705278729. Accessed 31 Mar. 2019.

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Why Can't We Decide What to Do with Our Whores?

Nicolle Medak The decriminalization of sex work has been an ongoing debate for some time. Some forms of sexual labor, such as stripping and pornography, are legal; so why does prostitution not fall under those protections as well? Many people who support decriminalization that believe that, since other forms of sex work are already legal, prostitution should be too. They also believe that legalization would create safer working environments for prostitutes. These "pro-hookers" seek the legalization of prostitution in order to regulate the industry and make it safer. In contrast, people who are for continued criminalization see prostitution as a crime against women that robs them of their humanity. They also believe that, if prostitution were to be legalized, it would increase human trafficking. Such "anti-hookers" see legalization as allowing sex trafficking to occur and normalizing inappropriate behavior in public. Opponents of legalization emphasize that many prostitutes are forced into their profession and legalization could just empower pimps even further. In response to pro-legalization beliefs regarding other forms of sex work that are already legalized, anti-hookers say that regulation would be almost impossible to actually implement. Any policies that were made would just encourage an increase in the industry and create new spaces for prostitution to exist, as well as repercussions for society, such as increased drug use. However, pro-hookers believe that a change of policy, if done correctly, could eliminate both the issues of human trafficking and forced prostitution, but they also acknowledge that the legalization of prostitution would also introduce issues of morality, religious norms, and political values that would make policy creation and implementation difficult. Sex work is a complex activity and the debate over its legalization is hardly new. Opponents of decriminalization say it is an exploitative industry that preys on the weak. But many activists and academics say decriminalization would help protect sex workers and would even be a public health benefit. While it may seem that policymakers just cannot decide what to do about prostitution, it is much more complex than that. Both "pro-hookers" and "anti-hookers" fail to realize that both of their arguments need to be recognized in the issue because the decriminalization of prostitution is multifaceted. We can’t decide what to do with our whores because both sides of the argument have valuable points. The creation of policies for legal prostitution is difficult to achieve because pro-legalization and anti-legalization both hold arguments that must be addressed about human rights, public health, and the economy.

Prostitution is "the act or practice of engaging in promiscuous sexual relations especially for money" (Merriam-Webster, 2017). Nowhere in this definition does it specify whether prostitution is voluntary or involuntary. Using sex as a form of labor is a human rights issue only if the transaction is involuntary. Involuntary forms of prostitution carried out through a pimp or other form of boss are what lead to the designation of prostitution as a human rights issue.

However, when prostitution is voluntary, it becomes a form of sexual empowerment. Voluntary prostitution should not be seen any differently than consenting adults engaging in intercourse.

The language of whore, slut, prostitute, hooker, etc. emphasizes the moral marginality in sex work. According to Jacqueline M. Davies (2015), a professor of Gender Studies and Philosophy at Queen’s University, Ontario, "While these terms are often used to insult, oppress or condemn, others use these terms to resist moral marginalization or social and political oppression" (p.3). As early as 1985, delegates at the First World Whores’ Congress in Amsterdam launched the International Committee for Prostitutes’ Rights and produced the World Charter for Prostitutes’ 50

Rights. A more modern example of reclaiming terms commonly used to oppress or condemn is the newer feminist movement on slut-shaming that wants women to take back the words previously used to define their promiscuity, such as “slut,” and own the words in a new way that does not reflect a negative view on their sexuality. This is encapsulated by the "Slut Walks," a Canada-born phenomenon that went global. This movement began with a protest against victimblaming language, when a Toronto police constable spoke at a York University safety forum in January 2011, having reportedly said that women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized. Organizers of that event were quoted as saying that the group "wants to reclaim the definition of ‘slut’ as someone who is in control of their own sexuality" and to "push the idea that nobody is worthy of any kind of violence, whether you enjoy sex or not" (Davies, 2015, p.3). One participant explained her involvement as a "protest against sexual violence; in favor of sex positivity and sexual empowerment" (Davies, 2015, p.3). Those who support the legalization of voluntary forms of prostitution have the same idea in mind: when sex work is voluntary, then the worker is owning their body as a form of sexual empowerment.

In contrast, radical feminists, as defined by Davies (2015), share sex radicals’ resistance to patriarchal constructions of sex and gender and resist the objectification of women and sexual commodification, but critique sex work within patriarchal family relations ( p. 5). In other words, the legalization of prostitution in a radical feminist’s eyes is seen as a way for our patriarchal society and the market of prostitution to continue to oppress women because it would further allow women to be sexually objectified by being seen as for purchase. Additionally, Prabha Kotiswaran, a feminist author from King’s College in London, claims that the harms of sex work are irreparable, collapsing all forms of sex work, whether voluntary or not, into sexual servitude and slavery. However, this radical feminist view of women being exploited objects for sale has been a powerful trope in public policy debates. Having people view prostitutes as hopeless victims is a powerful way to provoke people to want to end the harm done by prostitution; yet, from this perspective, ending it is only thought of in terms of getting rid of prostitution completely, which is impossible.

Legalization is also considered a public health and safety issue due to the stigma that prostitution promotes unsafe sex practices and dangerous living conditions for women. While it makes logical sense that people 'sleeping around' are more likely to carry sexually transmitted infections (STIs), in areas where prostitution was legalized and regulated the rates of STIs declined.

Rebecca Hayes-Smith and Zahra Shekarkhar (2010), professors of Sociology at Central Michigan University and University of Florida, Gainesville, respectively, state: There is a substantial body of peer reviewed published studies suggesting that the empowerment, organization, and unionization of sex workers can be an effective HIV prevention strategy and can reduce the other harms associated with sex work, including violence, police harassment, unwanted pregnancy, and the number of underage sex workers. ( p. 6) If the decriminalization of prostitution creates an effective strategy for STI prevention, it not only reduces the possible harm to the prostitute, but also increases public safety with fewer STIs being circulated. Hayes-Smith and Shekarkhar (2010) also note that "in Nevada, where prostitution is legalized in certain counties, research has found that the laws are written to protect 51

all those involved. Specifically, finding safety to be a main concern of the brothel owners, employees and state law enforcement officials" (p. 6). Some of the mechanisms typically in place in these brothels include: specific guidelines for the negotiation process between worker and customer, call buttons and audio room monitoring, adherence to health regulations such as mandatory condom use, and routine testing for STIs and HIV (Hayes and Shekarhkar, 2010, p.

7). This is supported by the findings of a team lead by members of the faculty of the Public Health and Policy department of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, with researchers from the UK, the US, Canada, and Kenya: "Repressive policing of sex workers was associated with increased risk of sexual/physical violence from clients or other parties [...], HIV/STI [...], and condomless sex" (Platt et al., 2018, p. 2). Regulated brothels provide a much safer working environment for both prostitutes and their johns. They provide the safest and most hygienic outlet for paid sexual labor because they bring a level of public scrutiny, official regulation, and bureaucracy into prostitution. Furthermore, a research team from the University of Queensland found that, in Australia, after the legalization of prostitution, there was a "clear over-arching trend over time for increased rates of condom use with commercial partners, and this directly reduces the risk of sexually transmitted infections among sex workers and clients" (Seib, Dunne, Fischer, and Najman, 2010, p.2). This further supports that legal commercial sex practices promote safer sex and reduce STI rates.

In addition to the decriminalization of prostitution as a public health and safety issue, it is important to note the decline in rape that occurs when sex work is legalized. Scott Cunningham and Manisha Shah (2014), researchers for the National Bureau of Economic Research, studied decriminalization of indoor prostitution (as opposed to street work) in Rhode Island and found that decriminalization increased the size of the indoor market. However, they also found that decriminalization reduced both forcible rape offenses and gonorrhea incidence for the overall population. Their synthetic control model found 824 fewer reported rape offenses (31 percent decrease) and 1,035 fewer cases of female gonorrhea (39 percent decrease) from 2004 to 2009 (p. 21). While the legalization increased the market of indoor prostitution, it created a sharp decline in public health and safety concerns such as STDs and rape charges. Riccardo Ciacci and Maria M. Sviatschi (2016), professors of Economics at Comillas Pontifical University in Madrid and Princeton University, respectively, explain the decline in rape charges as being "mostly driven by potential sex offenders that become customers of indoor prostitution establishments " (p.14). It is believed that potential sexual assault and rape perpetrators patronize indoor prostitution establishments, such as brothels, instead of engaging in sex crimes. In observation, many perpetrators of sex crimes carry out crimes due to 'perverted' desires that they feel they could not engage in, in a normalized environment. If the perverts of the world sought out prostitutes rather than victims to play out their fantasies, then there could be a decline in rape incidences.

However, opponents of decriminalization view sex work as a way to enhance, encourage, and increase human trafficking. Phil Hubbard, Roger Matthews, and Jane Scoular (2008), scholars on feminism and gender studies from universities across the UK, state, "It is estimated that somewhere between 400,00 and 1,000,000 people are trafficked globally annually, with a significant- but ultimately immeasurable- number ending up in prostitution" (p. 4). With a large amount of people that have been trafficked sent into the sex trade, it is understandable that the two have become intertwined in the public consciousness. This is also tied into the identification 52

of trafficking as a significant by-product of the thickening of global networks, with the growth of transnational criminal networks, a negative impact created by the expansion of globalization arising from economic, political, and social transnational linkages. Due to the rise in globalization, trafficking is now seen more as a security issue than a moral one, with the emergence of the 'white slave trade' triggering multiple initiatives intended to protect sovereign spaces. Hubbard, et al. (2008) argue that "the violation of the body of the trafficked sex worker has become emblematic of the violation of the state’s boundaries, reinforcing fears about the erosion of national and [regional] security" ( p. 5). In this regard, nations in the EU have created core objectives to maintain and develop an area of freedom, security, and justice with appropriate measures with respect to external border controls, asylum, immigration, and the prevention and combating of crime. Consequently, while not all prostitutes are trafficked, the conflation of exploitation and prostitution in policy discourse has ensured that prostitution and trafficking law have now become inseparable.

Furthermore, the desire to curb the growth of prostitution has led some law enforcement agencies to attempt to suppress the industry in more urban settings. Hubbard, et al. (2008) describe "how law enforcement encouraged the clustering of street prostitution in inner city areas where it became more-or-less accepted by residents" (p.9). However, in England, recent community safety initiatives have encouraged the displacement of such sex work, with officially sanctioned street watch campaigns targeting both prostitutes and their clients. In such instances, campaigners have justified their actions with reference to nuisances they associate with street prostitution, including discarded condoms, late night noise, and the propositioning of nonprostitute women. The issue of prostitution has begun to reach beyond law enforcement and erupt into community-based actions meant to eradicate the industry from neighborhoods. The actions taken reflect a view that street prostitution is not compatible with residential land use.

The Coordinated Prostitution Policy in England states, "We fail our communities if we simply accept the existence of street prostitution." However, response from critics of the policy argues that in its attempt to create safer communities by reducing both the supply and demand for street prostitution, the government is developing policy that consolidates moral authoritarianism and is making the women involved responsible without addressing the problems leading to routes into prostitution (Hubbard et al., 2008, p.9). Crackdowns on prostitution, whether by law enforcement agencies or community groups, does not guarantee the eradication of the industry.

With a crackdown on human trafficking as a means to decrease prostitution, there has been an increase in "new spaces" in which sex work takes place. Hubbard, et al. mapped geographies of prostitution in different jurisdictions, shedding some light on the impacts of prostitution policy.

For example, in Amsterdam, after brothels became legal with a licensing system, the numbers of working girls did not add up. "There were between 8,000 and 10,000 sex workers in Amsterdam before the repeal of brothel laws, but only 1500 or so now work in licensed brothels and clubs" (Hubbard et al., 2008, p. 12). This suggests a major growth in indoor work in unregulated brothels, as well as street work. Additionally, given the number of prostitutes who lack the financial resources to set up their own business, or do not wish to work in licensed (and taxed) spaces, it is unsurprising that Amsterdam’s brothel repeal impacted the growth of the unregulated sector. Similarly, in Stockholm, police reports show that street prostitution has dropped by more than two-thirds since 1999. Yet there is little evidence of street sex work seen by police or health and anti-trafficking projects, suggesting the prostitutes have been displaced elsewhere (Hubbard 53

et al., 2008, p. 12). This further suggests there has been a rise in "hidden" prostitution. Hubbard, et al. (2008) claim these "hidden" forms are most present in the increase of internet advertising for escorts, in pornographic magazines, and via networks of taxi drivers (2008, p.12). In England and Wales, there is a recurring theme of rigorous enforcement spawning new spaces for sex work to take place. Hubbard, et al. (2008) found that: Prostitution is increasingly visible in its traditional street forms, with clients using contact magazines to locate sex workers off-street or frequenting the few remaining sites where sex workers furtively solicit for business where there remains a strong connection between prostitution and local drug markets. p. 13) While crackdowns may be seen as a way to halt human trafficking and stop the exploitation of women, which are vital to a nations security and safety, it does not mean that they will put an end to sex work and its vast industry that continues to expand. Moreover, another important trend in the expansion of sex work is that sex can now be bought and sold online, a space subject to little regulation. The idea of online sex work may seem like a good direction to pursue because it may be safer than street prostitution.; however, it makes the women more visible as sexual objects and grants clients more anonymity. Hubbard et al. (2008) argue that the internet has fully privatized men’s viewing of and access to pornography, sex shows, prostitution, and voyeurism. This increased privacy and anonymity gives men more protection from social stigma and legal repercussions, which may facilitate further sexual exploitation of women (p. 13). Given this data, it must be acknowledged that both forms of trying to control and handle prostitution, legalization and crackdowns, still lead to an increase in the industry in the form of new spaces for sex work, which maintain its prevalence in society.

Prostitution is also a difficult topic to create policy on due to the economics of the sex industry.

For those who wish to eradicate prostitution completely and 'rescue' women from the industry, it is recognized that a government must create a type of welfare program to help the former workers. In Canada, the implementation of the Nordic model requires that those formerly stigmatized as prostitutes are "not only to be rescued with social programs but also conceptually rehabilitated as victims" (Davies, 2015, p.6). Critics are quick to wonder about the efficacy of the Canadian government’s $20 million rescue program, as well as about the impact of discursively replacing the stigmatized identity of the prostitute with that of the victim, given that even under a new law most of the things that used to get suspected prostitutes in trouble with the law will still get those forced into prostitution in trouble with the law. Ultimately, in a legal system that still criminalizes prostitution, a $20 million rescue program undermines the whole ideal that prostitutes are victims that must be rescued from pimps and perverts. On the other hand, another economic implication that makes it difficult to create policies on prostitution is the income that the sex industry brings in. In America, it is believed that the sex trade is a multi-billion-dollar industry. In 2007, a government-sponsored report looked at several major U.S. cities and found that sex work brings in around $290 million a year in Atlanta alone (The Hustle, 2019).

Additionally, other cities throughout America that have a large underground sex industry include Atlanta, Miami, Washington D.C., Dallas, Denver, San Diego and Seattle (The Hustle 2014).

With the large revenue stream that sex work brings in, it is understandably difficult to know what the industry would look like if prostitution was legalized across the United States. The best example of these circumstances in the US now would be in Nevada, where brothels are legal in 54

certain counties. Economist Allison Schrager (2019) found when investigating the workings of the Nevada brothel industry that hiring a sex worker in a legal Nevada brothel is 300% more expensive, on average, than paying for sex work in areas where it has not been legalized (p. 9). It is believed that the increase in cost is due to the fact that workers and customers pay for the safety and health checks of a brothel, the worker in a sense paying more in taxes and the time to receive health checks, and the customer for the work of the prostitute. Being a multi-billiondollar industry even while criminalized, and even more profitable when legalized and regulated, legal prostitution could become a large revenue source that would signifcantly benefit a nation's economy. If sex laborers in brothels got a regular paycheck just like everyone else, they would have to pay income taxes as well, allowing a source of money previously not regulated to generate tax revenue for other government spending. Therefore, from an economic standpoint, the difficulty in legalizing prostitution largely depends on one’s view of prostitutes; those who see sex workers as needing rescue and welfare may not want to even to have their taxes raised in order to pay for the program, whereas those who view sex work as simply business see the possible economic benefits of a legal industry.

After extensive research, there seem to be three main reasons why we do not know how to deal with our whores and find it difficult to create and implement prostitution policy. The first is the human rights issue that prostitution presents, mostly due to the issue that, while many prostitutes are forced into the industry, many are not. Forced labor is a human rights issue, but a transaction between two consenting adults is not. With these two different categories of prostitution, it is difficult to create a policy that could protect the former without harming the latter. The second issue, of public safety, is also two-fold, addressing both national security and public health. As a matter of security, prostitution is seen as a facilitator of human trafficking that encourages the international crime networks of the world. However, as a matter of public health, the legalization of prostitution has also been known to reduce rates of sexually transmitted infections as well as rape charges. Economics is the third complication in creating policy on sex work. From the perspective that all prostitutes are victims to be saved with social welfare programs, taxes would need to be raised and the nation's budget would have to be readjusted in order to allocate funds for such programs. Yet, if legalized, with the sex industry being so large, it would bring in massive amounts of tax revenue and revitalize the economy. These conflicting views and complicating factors do not allow people to agree on what to actually do, and make it difficult for governments to create policy on prostitution.. Research like that done by Davies, Hayes-Smith and Shekarkhar, and Hubbard et al. must be acknowledged for their contributions on the complex and multifaceted issue of policy creation for prostitution. However, since it is impossible to get completely accurate data on prostitution and the sex industry due to its current status of illegality, all research conducted and presented may have unexplored implications, as will all further research until there is legalization. Factors including morality and ethics, religious sexual norms, and political values remain unaddressed, and must also be researched further to truly find out why we cannot decide what to do with our whores.

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REFERENCES Ciacci, R., & Sviatschi, M. M., (2017). The effect of indoor prostitution on sex crime: Evidence from New York City. CATO Institute, 70. Retrieved from https://www.cato.org/publications/research-briefs-economic-policy/effect-indoorprostitution-sex-crimes-evidence-new-york Cunningham, S., & Shah, M., (2018). Decriminalizing indoor prostitution: Implications for sexual violence and public health. The Review of Economic Studies, 85(3), 1683-1715.

Retrieved from https://www.nber.org/papers/w20281 Davies, J. M. (2015). The criminalization of sexual commerce in Canada: Context and concepts for critical analysis. Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality, 24(2), 78–91. https://doi.org/10.3138/cjhs.242-A9 Hayes-Smith, R., & Shekarkhar, Z. (2010). Why is prostitution criminalized? An alternative viewpoint on the construction of sex work. Contemporary Justice Review, 13(1), 43–55. https://doi.org/10.1080/10282580903549201 Hubbard, P., Matthews, R., & Scoular, J. (2008). Regulating sex work in the EU: Prostitute women and the new spaces of exclusion. Gender, Place & Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography, 15(2), 137–152. https://doi.org/10.1080/09663690701863232 The Hustle: Economics of the Underground Commercial Sex Economy. (2014). Urban Institute.

Available at http://apps.urban.org/features/theHustle/index.html Kotiswaran, P. (2014). Beyond the allures of criminalization: Rethinking the regulation of sex work in India. Criminology & Criminal Justice: An International Journal, 14(5), 565– 579. https://doi.org/10.1177/1748895814542533 Merriam-Webster Dictionary. (2017). Prostitution. https://www.merriamwebster.com/dictionary/prostitution Platt, L., Grenfell, P., Meiksin, R., Elmes, J., Sherman, S. G., Sanders, T., … Crago, A.-L. (2018). Associations between sex work laws and sex workers’ health: A systematic review and meta-analysis of quantitative and qualitative studies. PLoS Medicine, 15(12), 1–54. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1002680 Schrager, A. (2019). An Economist Walks Into a Brothel: And Other Unexpected Places to Understand Risk. Portfolio.

Seib, C., Dunne, M. P., Fischer, J., & Najman, J. M. (2010). Commercial sexual practices before and after legalization in Australia. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 39(4), 979–989. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-008-9458-2

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Pro-Conservation, Anti-Idiot

By Kortney Shaw Hunting dates back centuries ago and has served as a way to provide food, clothing, tools, and shelter for people—but it has also been seen as cold-blooded murder. On one side, many people are very dependent on hunting for resources, and believe that hunting is one of the best ways of wildlife management and environmental conservation. For example, many indigenous peoples who grew up hunting consider it to be a part of their religion and culture, finding it to be a natural process in their lives. Another factor that plays into this is, for people who live far out in the boonies hunting may be their only means of putting food on the table and clothes on their backs. However, on the other side of things, some people believe it is inhumane and straight-up murder, and believe that everyone can just buy meat and clothing at the store, or just cut meat from your diet completely. For instance, the organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) believes that hunting is a huge factor in species extinction and is just a violent form of entertainment (“Hunting”). In addition to this, a lot of vegans want to save the environment and animals, but think hunters are disrupting ecological systems by invading natural habitats. With these two sides butting heads constantly like two rams fighting for a female, the question is: which side truly has the best interests of the environment and wildlife in mind?

Throughout this paper, I will discuss some of the ecological benefits of hunting, specifically in Alaska, as described by Alaska’s Department of Fish and Game (ADFG) and other nonprofit hunting organizations, as well as review statistics on how much money hunters contribute towards conservation. Most people only see hunting as negative, as just killing innocent animals; however, I view it as an incredible opportunity to provide for my family and experience the true circle of life up close and personal. Because some view hunting as a life-demeaning and threatening activity, detractors do not think of what good it truly brings to the lives of both animals and humans, only what they believe is wrong with it. Hunting is a way of life, not murder.

While hunting is important for subsistence and survival as well as being a sport, it is also a religion, culture, tradition, and heritage that has been passed down for many generations dating back to roughly 2.5 million years ago. Edward Arnett, a leading scientist in resource management and conservation, and Rob Southwick, a leader in fish and wildlife economics, say “It seems obvious that hunting was an integral part of cultures and societies through evolutionary time. For some ancient cultures, hunting was considered divine in origin, was widely used as an educational tool, and also frequently served as a way for men to achieve prominence and promotion” (Arnett and Southwick 2-3). In today’s modern hunting world, it is not a way to establish social position, but more so a way to gain a deeper understanding and connection with nature, family, and friends. “Hunting provides a powerful connection to the outdoors and does so in unique ways not available in other outdoor connections. Hunting requires individuals to become intimately knowledgeable of the landscapes, habitats, and species they hunt” (Arnett and Southwick 3). With that being said, this makes hunting a culture and religion within itself because no matter what state or family a hunter comes from, we all share common goals and values. We respect the land and wildlife we are ever so lucky to be an integral part of, respect the guidelines implemented to preserve the environment and game for future years, and respect the other hunters in the field. This is reinforced by the role of hunting a great educational tool.

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Hunting traditions are often passed down within families; older generations deliberately teach skills to younger generations preparing them for either subsistence and/or recreational hunting purposes. In addition, individuals often seek out friendships with other hunters; thus, hunting promotes social cohesion within families and across extended social networks and generations. (Arnett and Southwick 3-4) Typically while out in the field, you will see hunters of all ages and genders, showing how diverse a group the hunting community is and the importance of these traditions. Grandparent, to parent, to child: this is a part of what hunters believe and who they are. It is what I believe in and how I define myself; it is my heritage and culture, so why is it socially acceptable to look down upon who I am as a hunter, and hunters in general, whereas society accepts the ideologies and identities of anti-hunters? Hypocritical, isn’t it?

Anti-hunting ideologies accepted by society today often include veganism, vegetarianism, and pescatarianism, many of whom are typically the ones calling hunters killers. Theresa Vail, an avid hunter, wrote an article posted to the National Rifle Association (NRA) website, stating, “The anti-hunters want us to understand their viewpoints and perspective, while at the same time wishing ill upon us and our families for choosing to participate in something they disagree with” (Vail). Where is the equity in this? I understand that everyone has different viewpoints and beliefs, and, while I may not agree with them, I still show them respect and diplomacy. However, despite this courtesy, hunters still get hateful comments thrown in our faces by anti-hunters who wish we would shoot ourselves in the face or get eaten by a pack of wolves (Vail). Aren’t they the ones who are supposed to be against cruelty and violence? Is telling us to kill ourselves not cruel or violent? Forrest Wood, founder of Ranger Boats and the world’s largest tournamentfishing organization,the FLW Tour, claims that“while hunting does entail killing, hunting is not the same as killing. For example, if one goes out into the pasture and shoots a domestic cow, one has not gone hunting. One has killed an animal, but one has not hunted” (Wood 82). If antihunters want to label us as killers, we could do the same right back by saying that “vegetarians are responsible for the deaths of countless wild animals. The land on which their fruits and vegetables are grown is stripped of its wildlife habitat” (Wood 86). Identifying as an anti-hunter is not the problem in itself, but, in doing so, one agrees with anti-conservationist, wildlifeendangering practices, and portrays a lack of care for the sustainability of the environment and its inhabitants.

Over time, for many, hunting has evolved into a leisure activity rather than a necessity; however, for a lot of northern cultures, it is still necessary. Despite what these populations who depend on hunting for survival say, PETA voices a different opinion, claiming, “Hunting might have been necessary for human survival in prehistoric times, but today most hunters stalk and kill animals merely for the thrill of it” (“Hunting”). However, according to the ADFG, “For most rural Alaska Residents, subsistence hunting is critical to their nutrition, food security, and economic stability [...] and is considered as a part of the normal routine of work” (“Subsistence Hunting”).

Hunting in not just a thrill, as PETA—as my dad likes to call it, People Eating Tasty Animals— states. Hunting is critical to our survival, economic stability, food security, and nutrition just as ADFG says, especially in Alaskan cities and villages that are so remote that they only have small gas-station-sized convenience stores as their main source for grocery shopping. Think about where your pork, chicken, and beef comes from. They were all once living, eating, breathing 58

creatures just as caribou, moose, and elk are, so what’s the difference? The only difference is that those who buy meat from the grocers don’t know how their meat was cured or can’t even pronounce what it was injected with, while hunters know exactly how and where their meat was processed. Vegans and vegetarians only want to consume food that's 100% organic, wholesome, and hormone-free, right? Well, the meat produced by game hunting provides just that. In addition to unhealthy and limited selection in Alaskan stores, all of the food has to be shipped out to these villages, making it extremely hard and expensive for the residents to survive. For example, on the northernmost tip of Alaska, according to journalist Mark Frauenfelder, the city of Barrow rates a single gallon of milk at ten dollars and half—not whole, but half—of a watermelon at thirty-seven dollars, not including tax (Frauenfelder). U.S. Fish & Wildlife Alaska, states “This indigenous knowledge [hunting] continues to be essential as wild-caught foods are healthier, fresher, and considerably more affordable for people in remote Alaska than any store-bought food” (qtd. in Medium). These reasons are exactly why a lot of people, including myself, see hunting as a way of life and opportunity for us to provide for our family now and for years to come, as well as saving our wallets from weekly trips to the grocery store.

While hunting helps maintain human survival, it also helps maintain wildlife populations at appropriate levels and helps ensure they are sustainable from one generation to the next, as well as preserving the land’s environment. To maintain and preserve the wildlife populations and their habitats, hunting is used as a game management tool to ensure the number of animals in a population is at or below the habitat’s carrying capacity, protecting both from damage that could be done. The Pennsylvania Hunter Education Course says, “A wildlife manager’s task is similar to a rancher’s. Just as a rancher limits the number of animals in a cattle herd to a level that the habitat can tolerate, wildlife managers try to keep the number of animals in balance with their habitat” (“The Wildlife Manager’s Role”). In addition, wildlife and conservation specialists continuously monitor the birth and death rate of various species, along with the condition of their habitat, to determine the hunting regulations to be set, and if there needs to be further wildlife management practices to conserve them. A great example of this is, again, in Alaska, where “only 17 of its 1,073 vertebrate species are federally listed as Threatened or Endangered (T&E), one of the lowest numbers of listed species among the states” (“Our Wealth Maintained” 4).

About 88% of the state has been set aside and designated to protect conservation units ranging from national parks, sanctuaries, and refuges with a heavy emphasis on landscape and species conservation in recreation areas, marine parks, state forests, and preserves. With this kind of protection, conserving nongame wildlife is just as important as conserving game because “nongame species are an integral part of every Alaskan ecosystem and many are also important for traditional subsistence purposes: Along with plants, nongame species form the foundation of the food chain that produces Alaska’s wealth of harvestable resources” (“Our Wealth Maintained” 7). Some examples are pollination by bumblebees and flies in the Arctic, which many of the plants benefit from, which in turn is critical for caribou and moose, as well as “the sand lance populations that feed beluga whales, seabirds, and young halibut; invertebrates that nourish trout and salmon; and voles that sustain owls and furbearers” (“Our Maintained Wealth” 7). The Alaska Constitution, Statute Title 16, directs the commissioner of the ADFG to “manage, protect, maintain, improve, and extend the fish, game, and aquatic plant resources of the state in the interest of the economy and general well-being of the state” (“Our Wealth Maintained” 41).

This gives the ADFG the ability and power to set the guidelines and laws for hunting needed to help conserve or manage the environment and game by “inventorying and monitoring 59

populations, researching health parameters and other aspects of biology, protecting public access, monitoring and rehabilitating habitat, determining sustained yield, actively managing populations, and participating with DNR in review and issuance of water rights” (“Our Wealth Maintained” 41). This only goes to show that we hunters, as well as the whole state of Alaska, care about the preservation of our wildlife and environment deeply, and only want to see it thrive.

Despite hunters' best efforts at conserving our land's resources now, it must be acknowledged that there was a time, in the 1800s, where unregulated commercial hunting and widespread habitat degradation took a huge toll on a variety of species, giving the hunters of today a bad reputation. According to ADFG writers Riley Woodford and Amy Pinney, “By the 1930s, whitetailed deer, wild turkey, beaver and many species of waterfowl were among the animals that were fast disappearing” (Woodford and Pinney), causing Americans to realize what impacts human activities could have on wildlife. To address this problem, Congress was asked to impose an additional tax on guns and ammunition to help fund wildlife conservation, creating the Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act, commonly referred to as the Pittman-Robertson Act (Woodford and Pinney). This has provided a more than generous amount of revenue to state fish and wildlife agencies, especially in Alaska where this money is vital to the wildlife management program. “Conserving wildlife habitat includes protecting Alaska’s 12 refuges, three sanctuaries, and 17 critical habitat areas, which amount to more than 3.2 million acres of prime habitat. In other cases, Pittman-Robertson funding helps set aside land in conservation status to protect wildlife habitat in perpetuity” (Woodford and Pinney). Ryan Zinke, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Interior, announced that more than $1.1 billion was collected for sportsmen and conservation for the fiscal year of 2018, of which $51.05 million went to the state of Alaska. He states: For nearly eighty years, states have been able to fund important conservation initiatives thanks to the more than $20 billion that has generated nationwide. Every time a firearm, fishing pole, hook, bullet, motor boat or boat fuel is sold, part of that cost goes to fund conservation. The best way to increase funding for conservation and sportsmen access is to increase the number of hunters and anglers in our woods and waters. The American conservation model has been replicated all over the world because it works. (Press Releases) In addition to this funding, according to the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation (RMEF), a conservation and pro-hunting organization, hunters contribute $796 billion towards conservation through licenses, permits, and fees annually ("RMEF"). In 2018, according to the ADFG, Alaska alone generated $6.8 million through resident hunting and fishing licenses, $18.2 million through non-resident hunting and fishing licenses, $128 thousand through resident big game tags, $6.8 million through non-resident big game tags, $596 thousand through resident commercial licenses, $2.6 million through non-resident commercial licenses, and hundreds of thousands more dollars through duck stamps, duplicate licenses, and professional licenses for taxidermy, fur dealer, and game mammal and reptile farms, producing over $39 million (“License Statistics”). One hundred percent of these proceeds go toward conservation and restoration and, by law, cannot be used for anything other than state fisheries and wildlife conservation programs.

Again, hunters play a vital role in conservation, with funding from licenses, permits, and fees 60

being just one of the important pieces of the conservation puzzle. Another important piece of the puzzle is membership fees for conservation organizations, and hunters donate $440 million dollars every year to groups whose efforts are focused on conserving wildlife and their habitats, such as the RMEF ("Rocky"). However, regardless of how much money we contribute to conservation yearly, the number of hunters every year is declining, and this is expected to accelerate over the next decade. Kristyn Brady, Media Relations and Communications Director of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, states, “While the number of people participating in fishing and wildlife watching is up, participation in hunting dropped by about 2 million people. Total expenditures by hunters also declined 29 percent from 2011 to 2016, from $36.3 billion to $25.6 billion” (Brady). Young people are not as invested in hunting as they used to be due to increased urbanization, and Netflix, no doubt. This is creating “significant ripple effects on not only the key federal funding models that support conservation of fish and wildlife but also the base of support for our public lands and thoughtful natural resources policy” (Brady). Despite the decline of levels of hunters today, hunting will never go extinct, but those who say they love wildlife and the environment and believe this decline in hunters is better for both are wrong. The amount of money hunters bring in annually toward wildlife and conservation is critically important for the health and well-being of the environment, as well as the sustainability of both the nutrients and wildlife population for future years.

Even though hunting grants a considerable amount of conservation funds and benefits to the wildlife and environment, I can understand why people have these misconceptions about hunting, especially if they are simply uneducated and do not understand the true value behind the practice. Besides a lack of knowledge, another factor that goes into misconceptions on the subject is media portrayals of hunting. For example, PETA does a great job at creating those heart-wrenching commercials of homeless dogs and cats with one eye and three legs to get people to donate to their organization that make even me, a “heartless” hunter, tear up. However, creating these tragic commercials and articles baits people like bears to not only donate but also believe in the organization’s values, even if not all of their information is true. True or false: “This unnecessary, violent form of “entertainment” [hunting] rips animal families apart and leaves countless animals orphaned or badly injured when hunters miss their targets” (“Hunting”)? False! For example, when a moose calf is merely a year to a year and a half old, its mother chases it away herself so she can begin breeding again. It is clearly written by the ADFG that “You MAY NOT take black or brown/grizzly bear cubs or sows [female bears] accompanied by cubs” (“2018-2019 Alaska Hunting Regulations” 2). While PETA’s false shots against hunting may seem to make quite compelling arguments, they do not have much real data or statistics to prove them to be true. To further illustrate, one article written by PETA as to why sport hunting is cruel and unnecessary includes only these four points: the pain and suffering animals go through, how nature takes care of its own, canned cruelty, and—the biggest one— other victims like pets, humans, and livestock (“Hunting”). They only have four reasons as to why hunting is cruel, when you would think they would have a whole novel filled with issues, given how much disapproval hunters receive over it. They state, “Hunting accidents destroy property and injure or kill horses, cows, dogs, cats, hikers, and other hunters. According to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, thousands of injuries are attributed to hunting in the U.S. every year” (“Hunting”). To make this more accurate, it would make sense if they included the exact statistics in these findings, but, as I said before, these organizations (and their followers) are uneducated. Now, there is no denying that hunting accidents do occur, but they do not 61

happen by firearm as often as PETA thinks. According to Doris Lin, Director of Legal Affairs for the Animal Protection League of New Jersey, “In an average year, fewer than 1,000 people in the US and Canada are accidentally shot by hunters, and of these, fewer than 75 are fatalities. In many cases, these fatalities are self-inflicted by hunters who trip, fall, or have other accidents that cause them to shoot themselves with their own weapons” (Lin). Although these accidents do happen, “Fatality numbers have improved somewhat in recent years, thanks to extensive hunter education programs available in most states” (Lin), which brings us to our next point of discussion: the guidelines, laws, and regulations hunters must go through to make their hunting excursion the safest it can be. While I understand the views PETA presents and am influenced by the type of sob stories they push to the public, for the time being their accusations are not entirely true, and they mislead the public to believe that hunting has no guidelines that regulate it.

As hunting evolved, so did the legalities, regulations, guidelines, and laws that play an important role in the management and conservation aspect of wildlife and the environment. According to the ADFG, “[Alaska's] hunter education course provides training in firearms safety, wildlife conservation, and respect for our natural resources, landowners, and other hunters. Graduates receive a lifetime certification recognized by all states, Canadian provinces, and Mexico” (“Alaska Hunter Education Course”). This certification acts as a prerequisite for hunters under the age of 18 and, in many areas of Alaska, is required to legally hunt there, as well as to purchase any type of game license within another state. These education courses shows that those who hunt are required to be well-educated in the field, and they are not all messing around just for the sport of it. They understand the true responsibility of hunting and know that their contributions, their service, and their help are much needed. Being educated is the first regulation that goes into hunting; the next is making sure you are planning a legal hunt. The ADFG says hunters should ask themselves these questions while planning a hunt to ensure its legality: Who is going to hunt? (Are you a resident, nonresident, nonresident alien, youth hunter, or a disabled hunter?) Where do you plan to hunt? (Which unit, which subunit? Is your hunt in a restricted area?) How are you going to hunt? (Are there weapons restrictions or access restrictions?) What species do you want to hunt? (Is there an open season for that species in the area you wish to hunt?) When do you plan to hunt? (Seasons) What is the legal animal? (Bull, cow, horn, or antler restrictions?). (2018-2019 Alaska Hunting Regulations 7) If the hunt is legal, the next step is applying for a hunting license. Residents of Alaska under the age of 18 do not need a license, but hunters between the ages 18-59 are required to have one.

Hunters age 60 or above get issued a free permanent ID. “In addition to a license, all hunters must carry any required harvest tickets, permits, locking-tag(s) and duck stamps while hunting” (“2018-2019 Alaska Hunting Regulations” 9). Harvest tickets are required in general season hunts for caribou, deer, moose, and sheep in all units, as well as black bear in certain units.

Whether an animal was taken or not, it is mandatory that the harvest tickets are returned to the ADFG so they can keep track of animal populations and better manage the game. Permits are also required to be carried in the field and are issued when the hunter demand is higher than a game population can sustain, restricting harvest. There are five main kinds of permits that can be issued: drawing permits, where the hunters put down a nonrefundable application fee and are 62

awarded by random lottery; registration permits, where hunts have specific boundaries, granted on a first-come-first-serve basis; targeted permits, similar to registration permits but requiring hunters to apply only during a specific time; Tier I permits, where subsistence hunts are limited to residents only; and Tier II permits, where hunts are held when there is not enough game to satisfy all subsistence needs and hunters have to clarify their dependency for their livelihood, and community hunts are established to accommodate traditional subsistence hunting practices and create group rather than individual bag limits (“2018-2019 Alaska Hunting Regulations” 15).

Bag limits are issued to help sustain game populations, establishing the maximum number of animals of any one game species a person may take during a regulatory year. With the numerous regulations and requirements that go towards applying for the different kinds of licenses, tags, and permits, hunting is not a simple killing spree. It requires a lot of planning and groundwork before one can actually go out on excursions.

In addition to these necessary authorizations, there are restrictions as to how and what one can and cannot hunt. For example, in Alaska, no hunter may engage in: shooting on, from, or across the drivable surface of any constructed road or highway, driving, herding, harassing, or molesting game with any motorized vehicle such as an aircraft, airboat, snowmachine, motordriven boat, etc.; using a helicopter for hunting or for transporting hunters, hunting gear, game meat, trophies, or any equipment used; or using a motor-driven boat or motorized land vehicle, unless the motor has been shut off and the progress from the motor’s power has ceased, to pursue or retrieve game (“2018-2019 Alaska Hunting Regulations” 18). In addition to these and many more restrictions on hunting activities, there are meat salvaging rules that must be followed when harvesting an animal. For example, for a big game harvest to be legal, the hunter must take all of the neck meat, all of the chest meat (brisket), all of the meat of the rib, front quarters as far as the distal joint of the radius-ulna (knee), hindquarters as far as the distal joint of the tibia-fibula (hock), and all of the meat along the backbone between the front and hindquarters (backstraps and tenderloins). Failing to do so is an extremely serious offense punishable by a fine of up to $10,000 and 1 year in jail (“2018-2019 Alaska Hunting Regulations” 22). On top of that, species to species there are certain regulations hunters must meet to ensure a legal hunt. For instance, the most sought out big game animal is the moose, and, along with meat salvaging laws, hunters must follow regulations that restrict the harvest of bull moose to a specific antler size or configuration. Depending on the specific hunt, for the majority of moose to be legal, they must have at least a 50-inch antler spread or have three or four brow tines on either side. A hunter obviously can’t just go up to a moose and measure their antlers, so while glassing (looking for game with binoculars), one must be absolutely sure they are greater than 50 inches or have the appropriate brow tine count, making them more difficult to identify and legally shoot. The other option is an antler configuration of one antler on either side that is a spike (one point) or fork (two points). In either case, the hunter must possess the knowledge of the state’s definition of what constitutes a point. These regulations also typically prevent the hunter from taking long shots as it is difficult enough to properly identify at close range.

People die, animals die, and the environment dies. It’s all a part of the circle of life, and playing the game that is hunting is much like the game of dominos. People affect the game population, which affects the environment, which effects both humans and wildlife, all positively or negatively. Whether one wants to believe it or not, the result of these statistics on how much funding hunters raise annually towards conservation and wildlife organizations, and how many 63

laws, regulations, and restrictions go into hunting, prove that hunters are always doing what’s best for the sustainability of the wildlife and environment. If we did not, then we would not spend millions upon millions of dollars on conservation every year or implement so many rules and regulations to protect game populations. The revenue hunters bring in is unlike any other organization or group, so, without us, what would happen to these wildlife and conservation organizations that we pour our heart and souls into? Would they disintegrate as fast as our dying species are? Hopefully, the world will never have to bear this catastrophe. We do what we do because we care and we want to see the wildlife and environment thrive for future generations.

Furthermore, the many resources available from the ADFG and other hunting organizations further prove how hunting is not only beneficial to humans who live off of the land and animals but also highly beneficial to sustain their populations and kingdom that we walk upon. While hunting does involve killing, it does not make us hunters cold-blooded killers. We are predators, and nature’s ultimate predator wasn’t created to prowl the grocery store. No matter how you identify, as hunter, vegan, vegetarian, or pescatarian, you are a predator, and predators hunt to survive. By restricting predators from their nature is like telling a bear to become a deer or for a deer to become a tree, which we all know will never happen. As insane as we may think you are, we still respect your crazy beliefs as an anti-hunter liberal vegan. We may not believe them, but at least we respect your opinions and identity, and all we ask is the same sort of respect for our “crazy” opinions and identity. Hunting is our lives and is in our blood, so before labeling us as murderers, try being informed instead of just opinionated.

WORKS CITED “2018-2019 Alaska Hunting Regulations.” Alaska Department of Fish and Game, www.adfg.alaska.gov/static/regulations/wildliferegulations/pdfs/general.pdf.

“Alaska's Age-Old Hunting and Fishing Traditions, Hands-on in 2017.” Medium, 31 Oct. 2017, medium.com/usfws/alaskas-age-old-hunting-and-fishing-traditions-hands-on-in-2017fbada3de8ca6.

Arnett, Edward B., and Rob Southwick. "Economic and social benefits of hunting in North America." International Journal of Environmental Studies, vol. 72, no. 5, 2015, pp. 734745.

Brady, Kristyn. “A Confirmed Decline in Hunter Participation Should Be a Call to Action for Sportsmen.” Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, 7 Sept. 2017, www.trcp.org/2017/09/07/confirmed-decline-hunter-participation-call-action-sportsmen/.

Frauenfelder, Mark. “Tour of an Insanely Expensive Supermarket in Barrow, Alaska Where 1/2 a Watermelon Is $37.” Boing Boing, 5 Dec. 2017, boingboing.net/2017/12/05/tour-of- aninsanely-expensive.html.

“Hunter Education Course.” Alaska Department of Fish and Game, www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm? adfg=huntered.basichunter.

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“Hunting.” PETA, 20 Aug. 2015, www.peta.org/issues/animals-in-entertainment/cruel-sports/ hunting/.

“License Statistics.” Alaska Department of Fish and Game, 17 Jan. 2019, www.adfg.alaska.gov/ index.cfm%3Fadfg%3Dlicensevendors.statistics.

Lin, Doris. “How Many People Are Accidentally Shot by Hunters Each Year?” ThoughtCo, 3 Jan. 2019, www.thoughtco.com/hunting-accident-rates-127877.

“Our Wealth Maintained: A Strategy for Conserving Alaska’s Diverse Wildlife and Fish Resources.” Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Apr. 2006, www.adfg.alaska.gov/ static/species/wildlife_action_plan/cwcs_main_text_combined.pdf.

"The Wildlife Manager's Role | PA." HunterEd.com, www.huntered.com/pennsylvania/studyGuide/The-Wildlife-Managers-Role/201039_700092095/.

"Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation > Washington > Loowit." Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, www.rmef.org/Washington/Loowit.aspx "RMEF Celebrates Conservation On National Hunting And Fishing Day." Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, 26. Sept. 2013, www.rmef.org/NewsandMedia/PressRoom/NewsReleases/ RMEFCelebratesConservationonNationalHuntingandFishingDay.aspx “Secretary Zinke Announces More Than $1.1 Billion for Sportsmen & Conservation.” U.S. Department of the Interior, 20 Mar. 2018, www.doi.gov/pressreleases/secretary-zinkeannounces-more-that-11-billion-sportsmen-conservation.

“Subsistence Hunting.” Alaska Department of Fish and Game, www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=subsistence.hunting.

Vail, Theresa. “How to Talk to Anti-Hunters.” NRA Blog, National Rifle Association, 7 Apr. 2016, www.nrablog.com/articles/2016/4/how-to-talk-to-anti-hunters/.

Wood, Forrest. “Hunter's Evaluation of Anti-Hunting Arguments.” The Delights and Dilemmas of Hunting: The Hunting versus Anti-Hunting Debate, University Press of America, Inc., 1997, pp. 82–86. Woodford, Riley, and Amy Pinney. “Hunters Supporting Conservation.” Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Jan. 2012, www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=wildlifenews. view_article&articles_id=542.

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CLOSE UP ON GRAFFITI

Waimanu Street via Mauka Ewa Wing by Kathryn Lau

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Scribbling on the Wall

By Colin Heacook Surrounded by darkness you stare into the only source of the light radiating throughout the room—the television. On channel after channel, you are subjected to images of distress, pain, and loss, fed lie after lie of someone else’s truth. You think to yourself that tonight is the night that you do something about the bullshit social injustice seen within the media of today! Without hesitation you grab your bag of weapons, and head out the door. Slowly and methodically, you make your way through the city under the cover of darkness, like a thief in the night. Finally, you reach your destination: a blank wall, an empty canvas begging for the touch of an artist. A place where your truth can be seen and felt by all. Reaching into your bag you draw the first of many weapons to be used this night, and, with the shake of a can, your tale begins to unfold. Hours later, with fingertips covered in a plethora of colors and paint still wet, you quickly make your escape, knowing Big Brother won't like the message you just spread to the populace. You’re an outcast, a rebel; you’re a street artist spreading your message through a medium that is often deemed as vandalism.

Graffiti is considered to be a form of art by many individuals in our society. The creators of this art, and individuals who are pro-graffiti, I will often refer to as "taggers." Their idea is supported by a survey conducted by YouGov, an international internet-based market research and data analytics firm. Within their study, they discovered that fifty percent of Americans found graffiti to be socially acceptable and sixty-nine percent deemed it as a form of art (Jordan). However, according to government officials, graffiti is defined as an "unauthorized drawing, inscription, figure, or mark of any type intentionally created by paint, ink, chalk, dye, or similar substances" (“2010 Hawai'i Code”). Those who are opposed to graffiti or street art I will often refer to as "shadows." These two groups continually battle one another on graffiti’s place within society.

Through the illicit medium of street art, the silenced voices of the oppressed and exhausted common people can be heard by the dominant few of society; by these means an artist’s alter-ego is forged into a visual voice of the people echoing throughout a city.

Critical to establish before continuing this discussion is the difference between the terms graffiti and street art. The definition of these terms is crucial, considering that some individuals may associate one term with the definition of another, and therefore have a complete misconception of what is being discussed. If one were to look up "graffiti" it would be defined as "usually unauthorized writing or drawing on a public surface" (Merriam-Webster). This definition coincides with the definiton in the Hawai'i Penal Code given above and is generally how shadows, especially government officials, would describe graffiti. However, graffiti and graffiti artists are described in a different light by Will Ellsworth-Jones, author of the book Banksy: The Man Behind the Wall, as well as chief reporter and New York correspondent for UK newspaper The Sunday Times. He relates the essence of graffiti, "to put it in academic terms, ‘graffiti artists are modern day calligraphers. [Graffiti] is characterized by the redefinition of the alphabet and its metamorphosis into one of indecipherable chaos" (Ellsworth-Jones 41). His definition is a reminder that the majority of those within the subculture associated with graffiti typically only use words or letters when composing their artwork. To further support the claim of graffiti being only associated with the written word, Lindsey Bates focuses attention on Cedar Lewisohn, author of Street Art: A Revolution, and how he defines graffiti writing as "a very specific 67

aesthetic: it’s about the tag, it’s about graphic form, it’s about reaching different locations," ultimately concluding that "graffiti is, and always has been, about the written letter (Bates 4, 56).

This is perhaps the most righteous definition of graffiti and graffiti artists, for it adds depth into the true nature of graffiti, instead of the generic, criminalized definition provided by the shadows of society.

In contrast to graffiti we have street art or murals, which on its own is as different as much as it is relatively similar to graffiti. Bellarmine University undergraduate Camille Lannert defined street art as: the type of graffiti frequently associated with graffiti art, otherwise known as a mural.

The artists creating street art are referred to as muralists. Some muralists might identify with a pseudonym, but it is not represented in their art like it is in graffiti art. While still illegal, unless commissioned, street art is much more socially acceptable and somewhat desired in certain situations. Street art is easier for the public to understand, enabling a higher likelihood of favorable societal response or acceptance. (48) This definition shows that, although different and more socially acceptable, street art does draw its roots from graffiti in the aspect that it is still done illegally in public areas without consent— occasionally. The social acceptance that is being referred to is better illustrated by Sondra Bacharach, an associate professor of philosophy at Victoria University Wellington in New Zealand. Her article "Street Art and Consent" gives a glimpse of this acceptance, with her claim that: Street artists present an alternative way of experiencing the space around us and conceptualizing the role of public space. Rather than a purely utilitarian space through which one is forced to trudge to get from one activity to another, a bleak and impersonal environment devoid of meaning that is completely unrelated to one’s own world, these artists re-conceive the public realm as one that is itself worthy of inhabiting, experiencing and enjoying […] street art often reflects the values, ambitions and aspirations of the community in which it appears. (Bacharach) In other words, people of society essentially tolerate street art due to its ability to visually display the core values of a community in a dark, dreary, and often at times 'plain' world, a quality not typically ascribed to graffiti.

Throughout every major urban area of the United States, even the world, people of society are surrounded by graffiti. Some theorize that the rise of this art form came about in ancient times, and today's iteration can be traced back to "prehistoric etchings and cave paintings [that] are indicative of humankind’s efforts to communicate, using symbols to represent landmarks or tribal boundaries. These petroglyphs are found worldwide, dating as far back as 40,000 years" (McDonald, qtd. in Bates 24). This demonstrates humans' innate desire to communicate to those surrounding them. When anyone is referring to graffiti, they are typically talking about its current modern-day form, which is attributed to two individuals in the 1960s, Darryl "Cornbread" McCray of Philadelphia and an artist known as Taki 183, from New York. It is through the use of their nicknames, either given to them or self-proclaimed as a form of self68

identity, that they spread across their neighborhoods with spray paint to be recognized by everyone for their creative modes of communication: the signature or name represented in graffiti art embodies that artist’s identity and is their alter ego…issues related to the concept of self, such as self-esteem or identity, are addressed by the artist through the development of their alter ego. This alter ego not only aids in the identification of the self, but it also reveals how a graffiti artist earns respect and maintains their credibility as a graffiti artist. (Lannert 51) This sense of self or alternate persona assisted in the shaping of the graffiti artists of today.

Through their tagging with the unique personal signature of a graffiti artist, they perpetuated the art form in urban areas of the United States ("A History"). Even with the enormous contribution these two artists made to this form of art, something else would push graffiti further into the lime-light of society—hip-hop culture. The idea of graffiti’s merger within the hip-hop culture is noted by Ivor Miller, a cultural historian and lecturer at the University of Calabar in Nigeria. In the embrace of the hip-hop culture of the 1970s graffiti found a home as one of the 'core elements' of hip-hop, with one graffiti artist interviewed saying: I feel that when hip-hop came to the downtown commercial world, when they started doing rap shows at the Roxy and Danceteria, and art shows in galleries like the Fun Gallery, writing [graffiti] became linked to hip-hop music as a backdrop. Groups like Blondie, Malcolm Maclaren, and Afrika Bambaata’s Soulsonic Force recorded music videos with paintings, and films like Wild Style, Style Wars and Beat Street created connections between the forms. (Miller 165) Afrika Bambaataa, creator of the Zulu Nation and leader of the hip-hop movement, elaborates further on graffiti’s adoption into the hip-hop culture, saying, "The Zulu Nation considers the elements of hip-hop to be ‘MC-ing (Rapping), DJ-ing, Writing (Aerosol Art), several dance forms (which include Breaking, Up-Rocking, Popping, and Locking) and the element which holds the rest together: Knowledge" (qtd. in Miller 164). Graffiti's involvement with this subculture movement became a voice for the impoverished and neglected in American society.

Hip-hop’s adoption of the urban art and its indirect relation to criminal activity has contributed to the negative reputation hip-hop has in the public consciousness .

The dominant minority of society would have the masses of the community believe that street art and graffiti are one and the same. This ideal has become the 'truth' for shadows and others of the like, mainly due to the art forms being associated with gang or criminal activity. New York City’s Police Department outlines how law enforcement view graffiti in their jurisdiction with their statement that gangs and their subculture use graffiti as a way to claim territory or communicate with other gangs in the community ("Combating Graffiti" 3). This tends to be true primarily in the way that graffiti is simply about the written word and rather than extravagant murals that one imagines when discussing street art. However, even in such cases, graffiti’s association with gang culture is still limited to racial profiling of those with lower social status.

Alex Alonso, a professor of Chicano and Latino Studies, refutes the idea that gang graffiti is supposedly limited to the African-American hoods and Latino barrios within metropolitan areas of the United States (Alonso 14). This narrow-minded way of thinking leads some to believe that 69

Black and Latino gang members are solely responsible for the graffiti or street art throughout the urban areas of America. Individuals who do use graffiti as a medium within a criminal aspect of gang subculture are but a small fraction of America's street artists. "At a national level, it has been estimated that…ten percent [of graffiti] is gang-related" (Leskys 1), suggesting that the majority of street art or graffiti has nothing to do with criminal activity and thus is demeaned just because it is considered unsightly by the shadows of society.

The shadows opposed to street art and graffiti argue not only that it promotes gang violence, but also that it is costly to the government. Often when wandering about metropolitan areas, random blotches of various colors of paint attempting to cover up street art can be seen. Many people think it is as simple as opening a cheap bucket of paint to cover up graffiti, but this is actually far from the truth. Leskys, in his report for the EPA, states that "at the national level, the costs associated with graffiti vary widely and have been estimated to be as high as fifteen to eighteen billion dollars. A report published by the U.S. Department of Justice estimated that twelve billion a year is spent to clean up graffiti nationally" (3). With this amount of money being spent annually by the government to clean up non-commissioned street art and graffiti, it is no wonder why that shadows are so greatly opposed to the continued presence of this art in public spaces.

Regardless of the opposition's outlook on street art, it is still widely accepted as a form of art by society. The ability of taggers to see street art in a better light than shadows do is perhaps due to the messages often displayed within these murals: While society is under the state of one-sided informational conversation with advertisements, street art creates a dialogue with capitalist system and government censure of message delivery systems. It is not only about mass media, it is also about outdoors communications, such as billboards, leaflets, printed announcements, etc. Most of street art messages are about questioning the mainstream ideologies of consumerism, autocracy, "fake" democracy, politics, etc. (Baratashvili 3).

Street artists are able to create a visual conversation with the populace, bringing to light issues that the dominant few of our society may be trying to keep hidden in the dark. Perhaps the most well-known street artist to bring hot issues into the spotlight of society through his work is Banksy. Banksy gained his notoriety mainly from a piece painted on the Western Bank Wall in Israel, although he had previously completed controversial works of art in other places around the world (Moluh). His street art is known to address some of the many issues plaguing society, such as politics, moral boundaries, peace, and sexuality—to name a few. Possibly the greatest thing about this street artist is his willingness to push boundaries and make people take notice of their surroundings through the messages hidden within his artwork.

Although Banksy’s work is inspirational to many around the globe, one street artist’s work that is an example of inducing real change in society is none other than Kais al-Hilali from Libya.

Foreign correspondent Janine di Giovanni highlights his achievements in her essay "In a Land of Silence," describing al-Hilali as "an impoverished thirty-four-year old street artist and sign painter [who] used his brushes and paint to boost the momentum of the revolution" (di Giovanni). Al-Hilali taunted and harassed Gaddafi, former prime minister of Libya, through his art inspiring others to join the revolution (di Giovanni). Al-Hilali's revolutionary street art can still be seen today, depicting this political movement that further strengthened the people’s 70

against Gaddafi. In the ultimate sacrifice, al-Hilali was killed by Gaddafi loyalists for his art, yet he became a voice for the common people of Libya, which eventually lead to the downfall of Gaddafi atthe hands of his own people. This proves the awesome power of the spray can—street art.

But surely the messages spread through street art could possibly be spread through a different way or medium, right? Society may see individuals continuously spreading their own messages of protest for the causes they believe in. However, such protests by those making reference to 'touchy subjects' tend to be quashed by those against them. The beauty in the power that a street artist possesses is their ability "to comment on social issues or even make nonsensical joke-like statements, without any fear of reproach (Lewisohn qtd. in Baratashvili 3). Due to many street artists' anonymity, they have the luxury of being able to speak out on issues that many within our society are afraid openly to voice their opinions about in fear of retaliation by those in authority.

Thus, in essence, street art is capable of becoming a visual voice for the people of the world.

After sorting through countless scholarly articles, criminal statistics, and the writings of selfproclaimed art enthusiasts, I decided there was better way to gain insight on the graffiti and street art subcultures, namely by actually interviewing an artist. Reaching out through various networks I was able to land an interview with a local Hawaiian graffiti artist, Kepzer (See Fig. 1 below for an example of his art.).

Figure 1. Graffiti by Kepzer.

He is affiliated with a graffiti tagging crew called Rude Boyz Crew, or RB Crew. Forget all the armchair academics who claim to be subject matter experts on graffiti or street art. This is an individual who has a Ph.D. in the subculture, 'cause, well, he lives it! You can’t get more real than that! By interviewing Kepzer, I wanted to obtain a more true understanding of how an artist 71

sees the differences between graffiti and street art, if any. The way Kepzer put it, "graffiti and street artists are like two different pieces of fruit, it’s still considered fruit but just a different kind of fruit," basically reiterating that, while they are similar, both forms are representing something different from one another. He described how graffiti was more about boosting the graffiti artists’ ego and that it is driven by a rush, thrill, or addiction that he feels when tagging. When asked about which one was more socially accepted by society, he responded that he believes that street art is more for the people while graffiti is more for those immersed within the subculture (Kepzer). This supports Ellsworth-Jones' claim that "to understand graffiti you need to decode it and without the code you are lost" (41) and confirmed that those unfamiliar with graffiti, who do not understand it, are rarely able to appreciate the hidden meaning within the art being displayed.

Street art to Kepzer is also more accepted by the public because it is often either a clear message to our society about political issues, social injustices, history, culture, or something beautiful that breaks up the dullness of grey city buildings (Kepzer). The interview ended with me feeling more enlightened, like a curtain being lifted, and being able to view graffiti and street art in a new light.

Digesting everything that I discovered in my research, I was able to formulate my own opinion on the issues of graffiti and street art. Personally, I do think graffiti should remain illegal, mainly due to the fact that it is almost selfish, in the sense that it is all about one’s ego, and has nothing to contribute to society as a whole. On top of that, if one does not know the ins and outs of graffiti writing, then they are not going to be able to truly understand what the hell is being said.

This results in a broad perception of the graffiti throughout our urban environment as simply unsightly, because most of the public just don’t get the message. Now, when I look at street art my perspective is slightly different. I do see myself siding with the shadows on occasion, mainly due to my own belief that an individual shouldn’t just be allowed to go throwing up murals wherever they want. To counter this dilemma, however, I think that a street artist that has permission or gets commissioned to present a meaningful piece of art within a city can help brighten up the darkness of our world. The greatest beauty I see in street art is best articulated by one artist interviewed by Miller: "This movement is something that broke negative barriers and created unity. It was a call for unity – even amongst people who weren’t writers" (29). The real power of street art and its artists is the ability to cross all barriers within our society and to be able to unite people together instead of being divided. Also, street art programs have been shown to provide socio-emotional benefits for those who participate in them, as well as a positive sense of community within the neighborhoods where they operate (DeAngelis). Street art, when invited, can be forged into a positive outlet for the community, bringing about change and unity.

After going through the city bolting down alleyways under the cover of darkness, you come to the realization that you have completed your goal. As a street artist, you used your many weapons to illustrate not only your own thoughts and beliefs, but perhaps those of the community that surrounds you as well. Hoping to spark a change in the hearts and minds of those who follow blindly the path laid before them, your art demonstrates to the dominant few of society that your voice will be heard. For you, a street artist, are the rebellious voice of the commoners of society, a visual voice for all.

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WORKS CITED "2010 Hawai'i Code: Division 5. Crimes and Criminal Proceedings 37. Hawai'i Penal Code 708.

“Offenses Against Property Rights." Justia Law, law.justia.com/codes/hawaii/2010/division5/title37/chapter708/708-823-6/ "A History of Graffiti – The 60’s and 70’s." Spray Planet, 16 Aug. 2018, sprayplanet.com/blogs/news/a-history-of-graffiti-the-60s-and-70s.

Alonso, Alex. "Urban Graffiti on the City Landscape." Western Geography Graduate Conference, 14 February 1998, San Diego State University, 14. University of Southern California asu.edu/courses/aph294/total-readings/alonso%20--%20urbangraffiti.pdf Bacharach, Sondra. "Street Art and Consent." The British Journal of Aesthetics, vol. 55, no. 4.

October 2015, 481-495, academic.oup.com/bjaesthetics/article/55/4/481/2195110 Banksy. Untitled. London, United Kingdom. West Bank, Israel. banksy.co.uk. Web. 20 April 2019.

Baratashvili, Teimuraz. "The Message of Street Art – Street Art as Commodity and Communication Tool." 2013, Gazi University, academia.edu/4747660/The_Message_of_Street_Art__Street_Art_as_Commodity_and_Communications_Tool Bates, Lindsey. "Bombing, Tagging, Writing: An Analysis of the Significance of Graffiti and Street Art." [Masters Thesis]. University of Pennsylvania Scholarly Commons, vol. 4, no.

56, 2014, repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1552&context=hp_theses "Combating Graffiti: Reclaiming the Public Spaces of New York." New York City Police Department, nyc.gov/html/nypd/downloads/pdf/anti_graffiti/Combating_Graffiti.pdf DeAngelis, Tori. "Connecting Through the Arts." Monitor on Psychology, vol. 45, no. 6, June 2014. apa.org/monitor/2014/06/arts-connecting di Giovanni, Janine. "In a Land of Silence." The Barnes & Noble Review. Barnes and Noble Booksellers, Inc., 22 Sept. 2011.

Ellsworth-Jones, Will. Banksy: The Man Behind the Wall. St. Martin's Press, 2012.

"Graffiti." Merriam-Webster Dictionary, 2019. merriam-webster.com/dictionary/graffiti. al-Hilali, Kais. Libya Booting Gaddafi. 2011, africacartoons.com/tag/kais-al-hilali/.

Jordan, William. "Is all Graffiti Vandalism?" YouGov, 30 April 2014. yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2014/05/01/graffiti-is-an-artform-say-public

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Kepzer. Personal Interview. 3 April 2019.

Lannert, Camille. "The Perpetuation of Graffiti Art Subculture." Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research, vol. 1, 2015, digitalcommons.butler.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1009&context=bjur Leskys, Algirdas. "Establishing Graffiti Emissions as a Nonpoint Source Sector." United States Environmental Protection Agency, 2010, www3.epa.gov/ttn/chief/conference/ei19/session7/leskys.pdf Miller, Ivor L. Aerosol Kingdom: Subway Painters Of New York City. University Press of Mississippi, 2002.

74

Stay On the Street

By Sean Healey Graffiti, street art; similar yet very different. Street art and graffiti have been mixed and jumbled into the same category and cut up and sold to the highest bidder. The industry that perpetuates the creation and sale of these high price point pieces of art are changing the ecosystem that revolves around it. They are changing what is fine art in relation to street art, and graffiti. To help differentiate between the forms of art the Encyclopedia Britannica has a good base definition to start: “Graffiti, form of visual communication, usually illegal, involving the unauthorized marking of public space by an individual or group” (Decker). Boz Schurr, an art teacher at Kamehameha Schools and a practicing illustrator and muralist painter, commented on what street art is, saying, “Street art or mural art is a sanctioned or commissioned piece of work, that is meant to be there” (Schurr). In this essay much of the information given will also be from a variety of academic sources. An example of one source is the Columbia Journalism School, showing the struggle between graffiti and street art. Using examples from different cities and countries, this paper will go over the change in perception of street art and graffiti, differentiate between the two forms, and then discuss how the industry has negatively affected the creation of the art. I hope by outlining the issues at hand between street art and graffiti this essay will present how the two are similar yet how they are at odds with one another. The mediums in question will be according to how they have changed and how the art industry has affected them, changing our perception of what is good and what is bad.

One of the industries to note in the past few years is the automotive industry, as it has been in the public eye as of late. The recent publicity is for using art without permission of the artist, so we can look to Detroit for and example and how Mercedes Benz is filing a lawsuit against local artists to use the graffiti in photos without giving credit or royalties to the artists. The artists in question are Daniel Bombardier, James “Dabls” Lewis, Jeff Soto, and Maxx Gramajo. The artists created street art on local Detroit buildings in sanctioned spaces. Mercedes Benz created an ad for their vehicle using the art in the background and then filing a copyright claim to the art, inferring that Mercedes Benz owns the right to the image without purchasing the work or the rights to use the work. This is an example of a shake down attempt by Mercedes Benz to utilize street art to promote a brand image, an example of an industry using street art to create buzz.

This showcases the public interest in the use of the art, yet at the same time showing the blatant disrespect to the artists who created the images. The murals have been painted in the famous Eastern Market located in the city of Detroit as a way to beautify the city. An article by Machael Zhang, writing for PetaPixel, says, “The murals had been painted as part of the Murals in the Market program, an effort to beautify Detroit” (Zhang). Using local artists is a method to create art in a more drab area and a way to bring back ownership to the community to support business in and around the Eastern Market. The goal is to have commissioned artwork that each artist maintains intellectual right to that beautifies the community. The issue is not the use of the art, but the disregard to the people who created it. Like many things that happen surrounding small art, life goes on and the next thing happens.

Shortly after this incident with Mercedes Benz, the whole issue was forgotten about and everything went back to normal. This occurrence of stolen art goes much further than just the use of street art in advertisements. It is seen in the super-wealthy purchasing one-of-a-kind artwork 75

and hiding it from the world as a status symbol. Artists like Banksy, whose identity is unknown to the public, would be labeled a graffiti artist whose style is a public protest through the use of graffiti art. Banksy's work has sometimes been removed from the walls they were painted on to convey a message about the area they were left in. Then they were put up for auction by the highest bidder, and sold in the United States and the UK to those who can afford them. A portion of the creation of graffiti is that it is accessible to the public, and in this case to fight for an idea.

The images have been removed from the area they were intended to stay in. One could say that this removes the message within the image; Banksy has gone and is simultaneously taken away in the act of taking and selling the work, and this has made the work become based around greed in art. Banksy once created an image that was encased in a frame and put it up for auction, when it was sold the image began going through a paper shredder built into the frame. This was to show how the art is supposed to be temporary and that it is not meant to be put up for auction.

The interesting part of the destruction of the art is that it has increased the value. Many have speculated that Banksy is not a single person but a group of people, or rather a group of people who understand the art industry. The group speculated about consisted of art curators, going around creating graffiti in the guise of social messages but in fact just using it to create profit and cause inflation.

The people who work in the art industry have shown that they care for the craft and not so much the profit, while some view the change as good and some bad. Boz Schurr lands in the middle.

Boz Schurr is an art teacher at Kamehameha on the island of Oahu, who I have interviewed to get a more in-person idea on the topic. Other than being a teacher, she is also a practicing artist, having done multiple murals around the island (See Fig. 1 below for an example of her mural art.).

Figure 1. Mural art by Boz Schurr, showcasing her ability to beautify an area through art.

Her insight into the topic is a good representation of a part of the industry. Boz became an artist thanks to her parents being supportive of the talent and creativity that she had. Her upbringing had a larger role in her creating street art. Her first mural was done at a YMCA that she worked 76

for when she was 17. Boz was a lifeguard at the YMCA and worked in the kids’ area of the gym.

There was a blue carpet wall in the pool room that was very dark and drab. Boz had a boss that proposed the idea to have her create a mural in the pool area to change the feeling in the room.

Boz and her father created a mural of cute brightly colored whales to brighten the room. Boz said, “it was made to make the space safer, for the kids.” This was the start of her career in the street art genre. Boz defines graffiti as “something that is done illegally and without sanction.”

To the opposite of that street art is sanctioned or commissioned legal work. Boz explained that “graffiti is like pissing wherever you want to,” explaining that it is not really art, just vandalism (Schurr). She then goes on to explain how street art can be used in a positive way by helping a community take back a space, or to even just breathe light into an old one. The issue Boz states is that art, like Banksy said, is created for what would appear to be profit; this has popularized the art form but changed what we think is good.

There are examples of graffiti artists going from vandalism to the legal side of the street. In the day and age we live, social media is a massive influence on the art that we consume day to day.

The artist Colette Miller, who is known for her painting of wings, started off as a graffiti artist.

The image of her wings was done with no sanction and illegally, yet it is repainted all over. Soon after her image was picked up on social media it went viral. The idea of her art never changed though; she always wanted it to be clear. The Los Angeles Times quotes Miller as saying, “I know people are trying to make money off my art, but the goal of the wings is to remind people that we are angels of the earth.” Miller is quoted in the same article as saying “I’d rather work with permission and be sanctioned” (Spacek). This shows that, when it comes to the art, she would rather do it the legal way. Miller is a good example of how graffiti is in the same family of art as street art. However one can go from the other, when it comes to a message, it doesn’t matter about legality. This opportunity benefits the artist by giving them a means to make a profit off work that otherwise would be done for free.

The issue between graffiti and street art has been going on for some time now, from Chicago limiting spray can sales in the 80s, to creating space for artists to create on a sanctioned wall.

Since the beginning of graffiti and then into the genre of street art, there are always groups that have issues. Alan Ehrenhalt, writing for governing.com, has a piece that mixes the two art forms into one, which states, “In April, a federal judge in New York city awarded $6.75 million to 21 graffiti artist in Queens whose works had been painted over without warning on a cluster of buildings being prepared for development.” Ehrenhalt talks about this graffiti as a win, since the artist got their money. Yet graffiti is not sanctioned and this was. It is more along the line of street art. At the end of the day the street art was painted over for development. The business in control of the property took art that was sanctioned and legal and just painted over it. This skews the difference between street art and graffiti. In a way, it is giving big businesses the opportunity to destroy art and dump the bill on the city. This issue is further discussed Danielle Crinnion and published by Boston College Law Review: There are also artists who fall into a middle ground by not confining themselves to illegal or legal works or by working only on non-commercialized projects, whether legal or illegal.57 Street artists can create legal works without commercialization by painting on “free walls,” or “legal walls.” 58 Building owners and communities have donatedlegal walls for writers to create murals. (Crinnion) 77

This depicts that there are some artists out there who cling to the form of graffiti yet practice in a legal space, non-commercialized yet still falling in line with commercial street art. The article talks on issues of copyright when creating public works, giving the concept that the style of art is what is copyrighted, giving an intellectual copyright to the artist based on the idea that he or she is creating art to beautify an area. These ideas of copywriting the markings of an artist and not the whole image goes back to an idea talked about earlier, the issue with Mercedes Benz using art in their Instagram campaign.

This interest in street art some would call the “Banksy Effect,” a term that came from the article “The Banksy Effect” written by Lexxa Brenner and published by Harvard International Review; in other words, an artist could be one person or could be a group of people. The concentration on Banksy art also indicates that street art that has a message of justice somewhere baked into it.

This social message is what popularized the work, as well as the central mystery: who is Banksy? But with this change in perception of street art, it also changed the landscape. The landscape that is being changed is the social acceptance of street art as a fine art. The article “The Banksy Effect” states, “Bansky’s art then appears to be about change in the art world as well as in societal and political spheres, bridging the gap between ‘fine art’ and the art of the streets” (Brenner).

This being the case, it would be assumed that Banksy is changing the progress of art. Yet, since the introduction of Banksy, the form has devolved into a sales pitch. Fine art and marketing have always been one and the same. Looking back to the Catholic Church, the example I think of is the painting done by Michelangelo. The painting in question is The Last Judgment; in the painting you see groups of people going from one side to the other. The painting was made as a way to essentially advertise the church. With no television and no radio, what other way is there to influence someone’s opinion? Through painting, make it big, making it tell a story, and making them feel guilty, sell the church. In that era, church was big business, and it could be argued today that it is still just as big a business. The Banksy Effect is using this same idea, using what people know is bad to influence their decision. The difference between the Catholic Church and Banksy is that one is strictly about money and the other is only indirectly about money. If you were wondering, Banksy is directly about money. Having a message is not an issue and being a voice for a group of people is not a bad thing. Even making a profit from it is not bad; it just all feels a bit dirty: an individual who has not given their identity yet is able to profit off work made in a public space. Artists like Boz Schurr are unsure whether it is one person or a group of people. She is understanding of the work and the influence it had on the street art community. She does go to say though that Shepard Fairey is arguably a better example to look to for a higher influence street artist.

With all the different artists out there and the benefits to the artwork that businesses have on it, there is a major issue with it. When you incorporate business into art it can take away the creativity that is found within it. There are many artists that refuse to incorporate anything commercial into their work. This is not for all artists; for example, Shepard Fairey has become famous for publishing his work. Fairey is the creator of the iconic images found on the Obey clothing that was most popular from 2014 to 2017. The images still carry a message, yet they leave the viewer buying something for the image and not so much the message. The phrase I think of is “It looks cool” as the reason why people buy it. There is nothing wrong with finding a 78

way to make a profit off artwork. Yet, commercialization in street art could create change in it for the worse. Artists like Banksy, who are arguably the most notable in the genre, are looked at as a trend setter or “cool.” Yet, artists like Boz Schurr are not very happy with the way the form has gone because of Banksy. They argue it takes away from the medium and makes it more about the money. Obviously there are good things about being able to profit from the art that one makes, but the issue is giving in to profit at the loss of creative freedom. Art is about expression, and, with the inclusion of big businesses, it is possible to see a decline in creative freedoms in the genre of street art. There is nothing wrong with being able to live off of your artwork; it is the dream of every artist to make a living from creating. Although, the thing to remember is creativity should not be for sale. Companies that look to use street art in a commercial form hinder the art from seeing itself as it should be made. Street art is a great art form for revitalizing communities and making areas seem more comfortable and safe. If that safety has businesses settling around it, all the better. Let us attempt not to let business artificially create this feeling though, thus taking a safe space for a community and creating a watering hole for predators to encroach on.

WORKS CITED Adams, Guy. “The World's Biggest Gallery: How Street Art Became Big Business.” The Independent, Independent Digital News and Media, 27 Oct. 2011.

Brenner Lexa, The Banksy Effect, Revolutionizing Humanitarian Protest Art, Harvard International Review Decker, Scott H., and Glen D. Curry. “Graffiti.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 7 Dec. 2017.

Danielle Crinnion, An argument for trademark protection for street art, Boston college law review.

Ehrenhalt, Alan. “Why Some Cities Want Graffiti.” Governing, July 2018.

“Graffiti Grievance: When Street Artists and Big Brands Clash.” BBC Arts, BBC, 12 Dec. 2018.

Greenspan, Elizabeth. “When Street Art Meets High Finance.” The New Yorker, The New Yorker, 19 June 2017.

Lu, Seres. “Global.” Graffiti vs. Street Art, Columbia Journalism School, www.columbia.edu/~sl3731/graffitiART/.

Lexa Brenner, “The Banksy Effect, Revolutionizing Humanitarian Protest Art,” Harvard International Review.

Pownall, Augusta. “Banksy's Shredded Painting Authenticated as Original Artwork.” Dezeen, Dezeen, 19 Oct. 2018.

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Schurr, Boz. Personal Interview. October 23 2019.

Spacek, Flemming, Rachel, Jack. “In the Era of Instagram, Businesses Use Street Art to Attract Customers.” Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 14 Oct. 2017.

Zhang, Michael. “Mercedes Sues Artists Over Right to Include Murals in Instagram Photos.”

PetaPixel, 10 Apr. 2019.

80

FAR-REACHING AFFAIRS

Ka Wa‘a o Lawai‘a by Sean Healey

81

The Shelter of Dogs and Cats in Japan

By Tamaki Sawai Do you know that over one hundred thousand dogs and cats are taken to the shelters, and almost half of them are killed every year in Japan? People throw their animals away outside, and they become stray dogs and cats. Then people who find them take them to the shelters because people do not want stray animals to walk around in the cities. Although the number of deaths are decreasing year by year, because the number of adoptions at shelters are increasing, it is still hard to save every innocent life. Killing stray animals at the shelters in Japan is a problem because the shelters cannot take care of stray animals any more due to cost, and especially because aggressive dogs and cats are not adopted. This can be solved by fundraising for shelters and especially by creating better services for adopting stray animals using social networking services.

In Japan, each prefecture has shelters for stray dogs and cats. According to Japanese Ministry of the Environment statistics, “38,511 dogs and 26,967 cats are taken to the shelters. 29,955 dogs and 34,854 cats are adopted by the new owners or returned to the original owners. However, 8,362 dogs and 34,854 cats were killed in 2017” (Japanese Ministry of the Environment, 2018).

Usually, animals are killed by poison gas in a sealed box, and the cadavers are burned in the same box after dogs and cats die. However, since young puppies and kittens breathe shallowly, they might be burned before they die. This means that such puppies and kittens will die in agony.

The shelters don’t want to kill dogs and cats anymore. However, they cannot afford to save all of the stray animals because they do not have enough money to take care of them. “In general, it takes about 230 dollars per a month to take care of a dog or cat including feeding costs and equipment costs” (Takeda & Tanaka, 2018). Moreover, it costs more to manage the shelters than to let dogs and cats take vaccines for infectious diseases. The Animal Protection Management Law was updated in 2006, and this says, “Promotion of national animal welfare and management initiatives, a comprehensive and systematic approach from a point of long-term perspective, building collaborative relationships between stakeholders, and establishing a foundation to support the implementation of measures” (Japanese Ministry of the Environment, 2006). The Japanese government began to present subsidies to each prefecture, and the prefectures divided this among the shelters. However, it is still not enough to cover all costs.

Furthermore, even saving stray dogs and cats at the shelter is not the final goal. It is necessary to find new owners who will adopt the animals as their family. Most shelters always call up the new owners of stray dogs and cats, and some shelters hold adopting events regularly. However, people tend to hesitate having older animals because they prefer to adopt puppies and kittens at the pet shop that will be alive for much longer than the old stray dogs and cats at the shelters.

Also, stray animals that were hurt by humans could be very aggressive because they are scared and refuse to communicate with humans. Such aggressive dogs and cats are often not able to be adopted. Then, these aggressive stray animals, without new owners, will be killed because the shelters cannot keep them anymore.

Though it is still hard to change the situation, the issues that should be solved are very clear: the management of shelter costs and the number of adoptions. To make such a frustrating situation better to save the lives of stray dogs and cats, we can work on fundraising for the shelters. If the 82

shelters can afford to feed stray animals, then the dogs and cats have more opportunities to become adopted because they can stay in the shelters longer. Moreover, it enables people to build more shelters to make more room for stray animals, so that it is possible to take care of dogs and cats in a much more healthy way. Sometimes staying in small room with too many dogs or cats could be a cause of infectious disease. For instance, even if only one dog is sick, the shelter will kill every dog in the same room. This is because the disease will transmit to the other dogs, if they are not treated with medicine. Also, it is difficult to find the first sick dog since the shelter staff members check their health by looking at the dog’s excreta. The shelters kill all dogs in the same room because the cost to treat them individually is high. That is why fundraising for the shelters helps to solve such problems.

Additionally, creating better services for adopting stray dogs and cats is extremely helpful.

Although, many shelters already have held adoption events, they are still little known. Also, even if only a few people know about adopting of stray dogs and cats, most of them have a negative image, such as that stray dogs and cats are dangerous, dirty, and too old. So, it is necessary to spread positive information about the shelters and the adoption process. To achieve this, social networking services will be very helpful, particularly because it is able to raise awareness effectively and casually. Furthermore, it supports the new owners after they adopt stray dogs and cats by chatting with shelter staff, finding useful information about having animals, and joining the community of other owners. These are perhaps most helpful to encourage adoption by easing new owners’ nerves.

It is definitely possible to save lives of stray animals by fundraising for shelters and creating better services for adoption using social networking services. The problem of killing stray dogs and cats at the shelters in Japan has to be solved as soon as possible. To improve the current frustrating situation caused by the cost issue and the adopting issue, we need to remind people that every life is equal, and we should think about this problem very seriously.

REFERENCES Japanese ministry of the environment. (2018). Statistics. Retrieved from https://www.env.go.jp/nature/dobutsu/aigo/2_data/statistics/dog-cat.html.

Japanese ministry of the environment. (2006). Basic guidelines for comprehensively promoting measures for animal welfare and management. https://www.env.go.jp/nature/dobutsu/aigo/2_data/laws/guideline_h25.pdf Takeda M, Tanaka I. (2018). How do we solve it? Killing dogs and cats. Retrieved from https://www.nhk.or.jp/gendai/articles/4090/index.html

83

Korean Comfort Women: What is Justice

By Tyara Pouncie There's a young girl walking around the markets of Seoul with her mother in tow, enjoying the day. Although the flowers are blooming, the uniforms of the Japanese soldiers stand out the most. While walking, the young girl sees the men in uniform harass women and beat citizens, and clutches to her mother tighter. Soon enough the soldier makes eye contact with the young girl and they are targeted. Japanese soldiers, while colonized in Korea, constantly terrorized the citizens and forcefully scouted out the women, particularly young girls who were able, unmarried, and of age to work for the Japanese government, or so they were told. This was just one of the few ways the Japanese gained their ranks of comfort women. The term “comfort women” stems from the fact that these women, who were forcibly enlisted into this powerless positon, were subjected to sexual slavery, unlivible coonditions, and vernereal diseases in order to “comfort” and ease the stress of the Japanese military men. This topic has ravaged Korean and Japanese politics following the decades after Korea's freedom from colonization due to the fact that the existence of these camps were relentlessly denied by the Japanese government until sufficient evidence like personal testimonies were able to be brought up. Minimal amounts of work has been done by the government to attempt to appease the women for their suffering, but to many of these women enough has yet to be done. After evaluating different points of view of the situation, it can be shown that the Japanese generally think that their actions and reactions to the topic of comfort women are justified.

The topic of Korean comfort women in Japan can be seen as taboo due to the fact that it reflects Japan's poor side and dark history. The Japanese government tried their hardest to clean up behind themselves when the war was over by burning the camps and, to no surprise, denying their existence. There are also various members of local and central government that argue that none of the women were forced, and they rationalize the concept of these camps. As explained in an article named “Comfort Women: Japan Still in Denial” by an organization who specializes in women's rights and being outspoken towards them, the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, indeed, the Japanese authorities are still denying the existence of sexual slavery, as demonstrated by the recent regrettable comments given in the media by the mayor of Osaka (Toru Hashimoto). He claimed that this system of sexual exploitation was necessary and that no one has proved that force was used against the “comfort women.” Comments like these showcase the general opinion of the Japanese regarding this topic due to the fact that the positions of power like mayor are directly elected. Another factor that leads the Japanese to not recognize what they have done is ethically and morally wrong is that they have done it before.

What caused comfort stations to be so normalized during the entirety of WWII was the first incident of Nanking, also known as the Nanking Massacre, wherein Japanese soldiers took over the Chinese capital Nanking and proceeded to kill about 50,000 male civilians and rape about 20,000 women of all ages (Mullen, 2010). With that mindset going rampant through the time period and even in current times, it’s possible that the Japanese will never truly be able to understand that their actions greatly affected thousands of women and families.

To continue, the efforts of the Japanese government that have been made to appease these women of their eternal suffering have been very futile. Since they do not properly recognize the terror done to these women, they only make simple attempts to silence them. The first action 84

they did to serve these women some justice was to recognize and apologize for the previously denied existence of the camps in July of 1992. Even that apology couldn't be accepted because it came from Chief Cabinet Secretary Koichi Kato, instead of from the Emperor, and it was still denying the situation with bluffers around the topic in the apology, such as with the statement: “The Government again would like to express its sincere apology and remorse to all those who have suffered indescribable hardship as so-called ‘wartime comfort women’” (Kato, 1992). Just by adding the term “so-called” it can be immediately implied that it’s not a sincere apology at all and is still jumping around the topic because the term hasn’t been accepted into the mindset of the government as real. Then, only after receiving more complaints and there being multiple protests by women, they created a fund in 1995 called “The Asian Women’s Fund.” This fund attempted to pay each victim about $20,000 in cash and another $30,000 for their medical and welfare support (Min, 2003). Many women took offense to this and thought it set Japan back even further. The victims felt like they were being paid off to shut up and that no real remorse was behind this fund. Some accepted due to the fact that they just wanted to put the situation behind them, but mainly most were opposed to accepting it. Kim Soo-Ja, a 70-year-old survivor stated, It is more important to get a sincere apology than simply to get monetary compensation. I am not merchandise that can be traded for money. Even if they give me Japan as a whole, they cannot compensate for my lifelong suffering. I will never accept money from the Asian Women’s Fund. The Japanese government should make a sincere apology and directly compensate me. (Min, 2003) The trials and tribulations the responsible government is going through to put out fake understanding towards the comfort women’s suffering is only riling them up more and making them demand that more sincere energy go into these so-called apologies.

Moreover, it’s not only the Japanese view on the situation that makes it so frustrating; it is also their view on colonization. Japan colonized Korea for nearly 35 years; the people were seen as cattle, overworked to benefit the motherland. The colonized peoples were never seen as Japanese citizens by the government, so it made taking the women and using them as sex slaves just as justifiable. In the article, “Korean ‘Comfort Women’: The Intersection of Colonial Power, Gender, and Class,” written by Pyong Gap Min, a professor of Sociology and the director of the research center for the Korean Community at Queens College, he goes into depth about how the Japanese government had thought it to be smart to use certain women from particular countries (Korea and Taiwan) because it wouldn’t be breaking international laws. “Japan had ratified the International Convention for the suppression of white slave traffic (1910) and the International Convention for the suppression of traffic in women and children (1921). However, it exercised its prerogative, under article 11 of the 1921 convention, to declare that neither of the colonies would be included in the scope of the convention” (Min, 2003). The Japanese skillfully planned out their execution of comfort stations. As ignorant as they come off, there is no true possible way that the Japanese aren’t aware of their greatest war crimes against women. They used the power that they had above the powerless people and ran with it. Many victims who lived through it and suffered through it are well aware of how being colonized by them had led them to their fate. One woman named Park Ok-Sun stated, “We were taken to the military brothel by the Japanese military mainly because our country, colonized by Japan, was not strong enough to 85

protect us. Therefore, this is not our individual problem, but our nation’s problem” (Min, 2003).

With that statement, it shows that everyone seems to understand why the Japanese may be so fickle with their apologies. Korea was colonized, and that’s a good enough reason for the government and even some victims try to justify their experience with that knowledge as well.

Furthermore, it’s hard for Japan to sympathize with the victims and fully grasp their pain, but, if the government properly heard these hurt women and attempted to understand them, it's possible that they could all reach a mutual agreement and stand with each other. Hearing the stories from the mouths of these women themselves personally should be more than enough to make the government or even the Emperor want to give a proper apology. The accounts that some of these told are utterly horrifying, and, if there was an ounce of humanity in the listener, they would want to appease their suffering. As read in a digital museum for “The Comfort Women Issue and the Asian Women's Fund,” a Korean ‘comfort woman’ describes one of her first experiences in a war brothel, and its anything but pleasing. “Soldiers came to my room, but I resisted with all my might. The first soldier wasn't drunk and when he tried to rip my clothes off, I shouted "No!" and he left. The second soldier was drunk. He waved a knife at me and threatened to kill me if I didn't do what he said. But I didn't care if I died, and in the end he stabbed me. Here (she pointed to her chest)” (Kaneda, 1998). Disturbing events like this, where victim’s, in this case – Kimiko Kaneda’s, life was put into critical danger and she was given no type of choice in the matter, should not be a great debate on whether or not an apology should be given. It was not the government directly hurting her, but it was subordinates of the government who inflicted this unmanageable pain to her soul. It is the government's responsibility to apologize for their employees' mistakes. Not only did these women go through psychological and physical abuse, they were also subjected to drug abuse. The Japanese kept these cattle of women up and running by forcefully distributing opium into their systems. A woman named Chung Seowoon came forward in an animated interview with director Jun-ki Kim named “Herstory: Comfort women,” and she explained how the soldiers forcefully injected the opium and got her addicted. “Then, the soldiers injected me with opium. So, I became addicted” (Kim, 2014). Her road to recovery wasn’t the best due to the fact that she was suddenly thrown back into Korean society where she didn’t have any family, didn’t feel accepted, was struggling with a drug addiction, while carrying the great burden of her past on her back. She spent months getting over the addiction she didn’t ask for. The different experiences all these women had affected them in the long run. Many lost wombs, had vernal diseases, couldn’t get married when they moved back due to shame, and were even shamed into silence. Thousands of women lost their voice, home, family, and life due to the irresponsible actions of the Imperial army and government. It’s not impossible to see why they would be so frustrated with not getting proper apologies from the very people and government that ruined their lives.

Although the Japanese efforts have been seen and deflected by the victims, the question that pops up is: How do the victims want justice and remorse to be shown? There are various ways that the women want to be appeased. There were some that took the apology, others that took the money, and some who don’t even know what they want. The general compensation that the majority of the victims would like is just a formal apology from the Emperor. He is the voice and face of Japan; getting just one sincere and heartfelt apology from the man himself would kill a lot of the animosity these women hold towards their past and current situations. As a fellow survivor said in an exclusive interview with journalist Josh Smith in Reuters, “Since 1992, I had been asking 86

Japan to make a sincere apology, that is what I want,” Lee said. “I have been doing this for 27 years, it doesn’t matter whether it was raining or snowing, or the weather was cold or hot” (Smith, 2018). It’s heartbreaking to see that even after they have left the past, it still is carried with them in every way in their hearts. The Japanese government needs to recognize that all these women really need is closure. Their wounds of the past are still very open and fresh.

Although it's been a few decades without a closing statement, such as a formal apology that properly addresses this whole movement and expresses sincere regret towards the situation maybe, just maybe these women can come to terms with it a bit easier. A lot of negative energy that surrounds this topic and the women involved could be released with just a few words.

To conclude, it seems to be that the Japanese do not fully understand why these women are burdened with a burning hatred for their country and men. The government rationalizes their military’s actions by going off their history of being able to get away with war crimes like this, their power over colonized people, and their general ignorance to the suffering these women went through. These women are tormented by their past on a daily basis and feel a great sense of disrespect from the Japanese government because they cannot cough up a proper apology towards their suffering. So, it can be said that the Japanese have not properly given comfort women the justice they deserve due to the fact that the attempts made for this reconciliation were systemized and had no real empathy behind it.

REFERENCES “'Comfort Women': Japan Still in Denial.” Women’s International League of Peace and Freedom, WILPF Journal, 14 May 2019, www.wilpf.org/comfort-women-japan-still-indenial/.

Jun, Kim Ki, director. "Herstory" Comfort Women Animation - English. Video. 04:43-04:45, YouTube, 2014, youtu.be/0CmWdrlv3fI. Mullen, Matt., Onion, Amanda., & Sullivan, Missy. Editors. “The Rape of Nanking.”

History.com, A&E Television Networks, 9 Feb. 2010, www.history.com/this-day-inhistory/the-rape-of-nanking.

Min, Pyong Gap. “Korean ‘Comfort Women’: The Intersection of Colonial Power, Gender, and Class.” Gender and Society, University of NYC: Queens College, vol. 17, iss. 6, 1 Dec. 2003, doi: 10.1177/0891243203257584.

“Statement by Chief Cabinet Secretary Koichi Kato on the Issue of the so-Called ‘Wartime Comfort Women’ from the Korean Peninsula.” Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan (MOFA), 6 July. 1992, www.mofa.go.jp/policy/postwar/state9207.html.

Smith, Josh. & Choi, Haejin. “South Korea's Surviving 'Comfort Women' Spend Final Years Seeking Atonement from Japan.” Reuters, Discover Thomson Reuters, 22 Nov. 2018, www.reuters.com/article/us-southkorea-japan-comfortwomen/south-koreas-survivingcomfort-women-spend-final-years-seeking-atonement-from-japan-idUSKCN1NS024.

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“Testimonies of the Victims.” Oral Museum. Asians Women Fund, 1998, www.awf.or.jp/e3/oralhistory-00.html.

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Genetics & Athleticism in Marathon Runners

By Troy Oshimo You decided to get into running, so you get the right gear, the right coach, and you join a training group. You work your ass off for months on end, training everyday, eating a healthy diet, and working on your recovery. You finally think you are ready to run your first marathon and think you can place in the top 10. It’s race day and you run your heart out. When you finish you realize you finished in 100th place and you look at all the other people who beat you. You notice that the majority of them are African or people who look like elite runners. You ask them how they trained to become so fast, and it hits you that they do the same things you do. As you rest in bed that night, you think to yourself: what makes them better than me even though we train the same way?

Becoming a pro-marathoner is a daunting task that many people overlook. People think of running as “It is just running; that's not hard,” or they may have that mindset of “I cannot do it.”

To become a pro-marathoner takes intensive training, nutrition, time management, and most importantly a healthy mental state. It is sad that most people nowadays are lazy, that they do not want to run to class, their car, etc. Another misconception of running is that “You just need to run often to be fast,” but this is again wrong. The most overlooked part of running is the mind.

The key to running fast is to have a strong mind that can tap into the “pain cave” to forget what pain you’re in when running. Most people who resist all this information are lazy and arrogant people that either think they know it all or believe that it is too hard.

Genetics is not the only factor that makes a good marathon runner because there are other factors, such as training, nutrition, mindset, and gear. Although, when you think of a good marathon runner, you may instantly think of an “African.” If genetics is not the only factor, then why are Africans so dominant in marathon running when all elite marathon runners train in the same ways?

To be good at marathon running, the runner needs to learn four things, the first being training.

When you train, you must include the following: workouts on hills that will help on speed and turnover, recovery runs which are easy paced runs where you are able to hold a conversation, and long runs which are close to the distance of an actual marathon, such as running 20 miles on a Saturday. Anybody could do these workouts, but what really helps is training consistently. This means you must run a significant number of miles everyday in order to see improvement in your cardiovascular system. The maximum days a marathon runner can take off is one day a week, and on these days off they try not to do any high paced activity that puts stress on their legs. The reason for this is the legs need to rest to relieve lactic acid build up. One of the two main things to factor into training is the mileage you put on your body each week, and that elite marathon runners will run about 110+ miles in a week.

The second main factor in training is location-based training in high altitude, which is a very overlooked factor when it comes to marathon training. In “Genes and Elite Marathon Running Performance: A Systematic Review” by Moir et al., professors that work at different universities around the world in relevant fields of studies connected to this article, such as sports medicine, life science, chemistry, health and exercise science, stated that “Marathon running is 89

predominantly determined by maxi-mal oxygen uptake (VO2 max), lactate threshold, running economy and oxygen uptake kinetics” (Joyner and Coyle). It has been acknowledged that to reach elite-level performance a synergy of physiological and psychological traits, combined with an optimal environment are required” (Moir 559). In layman’s terms, elite marathon runners train at high altitude in order to increase red blood cell count, which will improve their bodies VO2 max intake (improving efficiency of oxygen used on muscles while running).

Not only is training in a specific altitude a major factor in becoming an elite marathon runner, but nutrition is another major component as well. A test was conducted on elite Ethiopian distance runners on what they eat by Beis et al., all of whom are professors and scientists in the fields of Cardiovascular Science, Medical Science, and Sport Science at the University of Glasgow; They stated that “Breakfast consisted typically of milk, porridge, omelet and bread.

Lunch comprised mainly of vegetable sources such as pasta, rice and lentils, while the meat was served only twice a week and dinner was similar to lunch” (Beis 4). This showed that the most elite runners eat relatively the same foods, such as pasta, oats, meat and vegetables. Protein is used to rebuild muscle tissue, and carbs are used to replenish energy exerted during workouts.

This diet can be considered common among all marathon runners, even the ones who are not elite.

Along with nutrition, mindset is seen as a major factor in becoming an elite marathon runner. In “East African Running Dominance: What is Behind it?”, an article by Bruce Hamilton, Sports Medicine scientist at an Australian Institute of Sport, he noted: Triandis (cited by Gill 17) described three components to attitudes: cognitive—reflecting beliefs, or knowledge, on a given subject, object, or person; effective—positive or negative feelings towards a subject, object, or person; behavioural—the intended behaviour towards the subject, object, or person. Hence, from a caucasian point of view, a person's cognitive understanding of a group such as East African runners, although not directly predicting behaviour, when combined with other factors such as social situation will certainly influence the person's behavioural pattern. (Hamilton 391) Hamilton is trying to say that an elite marathon runner learns how to cope with pain by using cognitive, affective, and behavioural psychological factors. They are able to enter what is referred to by most runners as the “pain cave.” This is where a runner stores all the physical pain that the body is feeling while running. By tapping into the pain cave, runners are able to keep the high pace that keeps runners running for a longer period of time.

Mindset is also associated with having the right gear. Shoes such as Nike 4%, which supposedly makes any runner run 4% faster, or even wearing lightweight clothing, will improve your time by a fraction of a percent, which makes a difference in the long run. Gear like this may also have a psychological effect on runners, also called “the placebo effect.” However, in “How Biomechanical Improvements in Running Economy Could Break the 2-hour Marathon Barrier,” an article by Hoogkamer et.al, who are researchers, mechanical engineers and integrative physiology scientists or professors at the University of Houston and the University of Boulder Colorado, they state that,

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Heavier shoes increase the metabolic energy needed to run at a specific velocity.

Frederick et al. [25] systematically added mass to shoes and found that the rate of oxygen consumption increased approximately 1% for each 100 g of mass added to each shoe.

Subsequent studies have confirmed the 1% rule at running velocities up to 3.5 m/s [20, 26]. However, Frederick et al. [25] suggested that adding 100 g per shoe had \1% effect (0.75%) at the fastest velocities tested (4.88 m/s). (Hoogkamer 1747) In fact, having the right gear will not only increase running performance, but it will also reduce the chances of injuries that plague distance runners often. Injuries may include knee pain, achilles pain, or muscle tissue tears. Shoes will slightly boost your running economy, although it is not enough for a runner to really notice the difference. It is, however, enough to affect the time on marathons to be able to run new threshold times, such as breaking the two-hour marathon barrier.

Considering all these factors, the question still persists regarding whether genetics is not the most important factor: why are Africans so dominant in marathon running when all elite marathon runners wear the same gear, train, think, and eat in primarily the same ways? Genetics may not be the only factor that makes an elite marathon runner, but it is the main reason to determine if a marathon runner can make it professionally, along with a strong work ethic. In “Sports Genetics: the PPARA Gene and Athletes' High Ability in Endurance Sports. A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis,” C. Tuvblad, D.A. Forero, and Lopez-Leon said, “Around 66% of the variance in athlete status is explained by genetic factors” (Lopez-Leon et al. 1). Africans grew up in a system where it is easy to train with high-class runners, as there is no payment for coaching for the most part. African’s also have a healthy diet, as many live off of the land. Without a heavy influence of modernization from society, they are able to maintain a strong work ethic and a healthy mindset in order to provide for their families, as running sponsors pay a great deal in Africa.

Hamilton stated, “Proposed factors involved in the success of East African athletes include environmental, genetic endowment, and social development, while the psychological make up of the East African is rarely considered” (Hamilton 391). This was the basis of his article, as he continued to prove that being African already gives you a genetic advantage in distance running because of some factors. Genes in Africans, such as the PPARA gene G/C polymorphism, can make all the difference in why African’s are dominant in distance running.

There are consistent findings that the PPARA gene G/C polymorphism is associated with sports endurance. In addition to our findings, there is evidence that the G allele is associated with increased fatty acid oxidation in skeletal muscles and an increased proportion of type I slow twitch fibres [30]; these fibres use oxygen in a more efficient manner during continuous muscle activity. (Lopez 4) Lopez is saying that endurance athletes have more type I slow twitch than fast twitch fibres, which permits a sustained muscular contraction over a long period of time. Therefore, the GG genotype is correlated with high values of oxygen pulse, emitting a better oxygen intake economy.

Defining what makes a good elite marathon runner is quite difficult to pinpoint because of all the factors involved with running alongside their genetics. Overall, genetics is not the only factor 91

that creates a good marathon runner because there are other factors, such as training, nutrition, mindset, and gear. Training, but more specifically high altitude training, helps improve VO2 max intake and red blood cell count. Nutrition is what helps the recovery process of muscle tension and lactic acid build up after runs. Mindset helps push a runner to their physical boundaries by tapping into the “pain cave.” Lastly, gear helps improve performance by a small percentage by boosting a runners run economy.

All these factors combined symbolize hard work and consistency, which is what every good marathon runner needs regardless of their genetic abilities. If genetics is not the only factor, then why are African’s so dominant in marathon running when all elite marathon runners train the same? To answer this, it is simply a combination of factors, including training, nutrition, mindset and gear, along with having superior genetic running abilities. Africans are often raised to be good marathon runners because of the environment they grew up in. Even with hard work, consistency, and all the other factors, it can be said that it is enough without genetic abilities to become a good marathon runner. Marathon running is not just being physically fit, but it is more about the mental strength in pushing yourself to keep running. In the end, even if you have the most physically fit body for marathon running, if you do not have a strong mindset you will never reach your maximum potential.

WORKS CITED Beis, Lukas Y, et al. “Food and Macronutrient Intake of Elite Ethiopian Distance Runners.”

Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, vol. 8, no. 1, 2011, p. 7., doi:10.1186/1550-2783-8-7.

Hamilton, Bruce. “East African Running Dominance: What Is behind It?” British Journal of Sports Medicine, British Association of Sport and Exercise Medicine, 1 Oct. 2000 .

Hoogkamer, Wouter, et al. “How Biomechanical Improvements in Running Economy Could Break the 2-Hour Marathon Barrier.” SpringerLink, Springer International Publishing, 3 Mar. 2017 .

Lopez-Leon, C Tuvblad, DA Forero. “Sports Genetics: the PPARA Gene and Athletes' High Ability in Endurance Sports. A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.” Biology of Sport, Institute of Sport in Warsaw, Mar. 2016, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4786580/.

Moir, Hannah J., Kemp, Rachael1, Folkerts, Dirk1, Spendiff, Owen, Pavlidis, Cristina, Opara, Elizabeth. “Journal of Sports Science & Medicine.” Sep2019, Vol. 18 Issue 3, p559-568.

10p. Accessed Aug 1 2019. 3 Nov 2019.

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Engineering Pandora’s Box Georgina Lancaster Robots and their uses have become meshed into our everyday lives: recreationally, commercially, and, most prominently, in the military. However, the controversy of whether or not these machines are becoming autonomous has raised concerns over its ethical implications.

Robots are designed in all sorts of unique shapes, sizes, and functions; each posing different ethical issues. Recreational robots are typically used for photography, film, pleasure, etc.

Commercial robots are used by businesses: delivery of goods (Amazon’s drone delivery program), providing surveillance, drilling for natural resources, and they can also be used for exploration. Military robots have been used for surveillance, reconnaissance, remote sensing, and, more alarmingly, warfare. War, which has been interpreted as one of life's many tragic inevitabilities, an irremediable fact of life, now includes robots such as drones, cyclo-copters, and even animal-kingdom-inspired devices, such as Massachusetts Institution of Technology’s famous cheetah robot. According to Stephen Chen, a well-known writer for The South China Morning Post, China has already designed and used “high-tech drones that look and move like real birds” to provide surveillance, particularly in the region of Xinjiang, where a large Muslim population resides as well as borders to several other Muslim-majority countries. Chen discussed that “30 military and government agencies have deployed the birdlike drones and related devices in at least five provinces in recent years” and that the population of Xinjiang has been subjected to heavy surveillance by the central government. These artificial birds have been codenamed “Doves.” This idea, however, has not been limited to China, as other nations have developed robotic birds as well. While using robots to fight wars has a myriad of advantages, such as reducing the unfortunate casualties of human soldiers and constant surveillance, it is vital to recognize the significance of the individual problems and the ethical issues that unfold. One of the many complications that arise is in understanding rules often applied to war: just war theory, a field of dispute about whether or not war can be just, and how the introduction of robots in warfare may violate the theory. Although introducing robots into warfare provides various advantages, and the reliance on technology increases, it seems nearly impossible to avoid deploying them side-by-side with soldiers; it is essential to recognize the ethical issues that arise with the use of autonomous weapons, especially when regarding rules of war in violation of just war theory. Our society needs to become aware and more informed on how war is currently sanitized and defined, as well as how it would change drastically with the inclusion of robots.

Sanitized war is clearly seen in newspapers and on television. The media are the main contributors to this problem and are dangerously effective at sanitizing war coverage.

Additionally, society needs to focus on what would be lost: remorse, responsibility, and humanity itself. Recently, there has been increasing opposition to killer robots, but will that resistance be enough to negotiate a treaty to prohibit autonomous weapons? Will the science fiction of the past become reality in the future?

George Clemenceau, the Prime Minister of France in World War I, stated that “War is a series of disasters which result in a winner,” despite warfare being present in history for thousands of years, amounting to an uncountable number of deaths. For some, the meaning of war is unclear.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines war as, “A state of armed conflict between different countries or different groups within a country.” The requirements to define conflict as “war” change frequently. In 1932, two of the greatest 20th-century influencers sought to find out 93

whether or not war is inevitable. Jeffrey Gordon, a professor of Philosophy at Texas State University analyzed a letter from the two prominent historical figures. In the letter, Albert Einstein questioned psychologist Sigmund Freud, “Is there any way of delivering mankind from the menace of war?”, but Freud did not answer with a definite ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ instead he questioned why they are strongly committed on freeing humankind of war. Gordon posed the question “Why don’t they simply accept it as a tragic inevitability, as another of life’s odious but inescapable facts?”; he continued to explain that “Freud protests the fact of war because it violates the fundamental right of a human being to life” (Gordon). The answer to Einstein’s question is not evident, but what is apparent is that Freud expressed hope and interest in reducing human conflict by becoming unified. Similar to Freud’s interest in the hope of humanity and not rash actions is the creation of just war theory. Just war theory is a proposition designed to ethically evaluate war, which has been used as early as the 5th century by St. Augustine. Just war theory has been controversial for a long time in history among many parties. Despite this, such theories are comprised of two Latin-named characteristics: Jus ad bellum, which examines the motives for war, and the conduct of war, Jus in bello. Heather Widdows, a John Ferguson Professor of Global Ethics, analyzes the theory and states that, in order for a war to be defined as ethical, it must be “1. Waged by a legitimate authority. 2. In a just cause. 3. Waged with the right intention. 4. Have a strong probability of success. 5. Be the last resort. 6. Be proportional”.

Widdows further states that “A war might be ethical but the means unethical, for instance, using landmines, torture, chemicals, and the current debate is concerned with drones” (Widdows). It is unmistakable that the first three examples Widdows provided have caused great devastation in war; however, can the same be assumed for the inclusion of drones and robots? War continues to shift and become more destructive as technology continues to improve.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, believed that “Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind”. John Fitzgerald Kennedy was seemingly up-to-date with the modern (and perhaps futuristic) potential of war (The Library of Congress).

On November 12th, 2017, a video named “Slaughterbots” was uploaded onto YouTube. The video promoted the production of small drones that had multiple abilities, including facialrecognition and explosives. The agile drone was designed to track and kill targeted individuals or groups. Thankfully, the video was fiction. However, Stuart Russell, the developer of the video, a professor at the University of California Berkeley, stressed that this potential in robots and artificial intelligence was not that far away. According to The Economist, “military laboratories around the planet are busy developing small, autonomous robots for use in warfare, both conventional and unconventional” (“Military Robots”). The military has been the greatest ally of robot-funding. The United States Army has contributed over $158.5 million for 1,200 robots weighing less than 165 pounds (“Military Robots”). The robots, called Man-Transportable Robotic System, Increment II, are designed to “detect explosives as well as chemical, biological, radioactive and nuclear threats”, and is planned to be used by late summer 2019. The Army continues to plan for the development of a heavier class of robots (“Military Robots”). It is easy to applaud the capabilities that robots possess which humans do not, and there is no doubt that it is an evolution of warfare. This evolution has ushered fear and worry among countless people, including 26 countries that have enforced a ban on fully autonomous weapons. According to the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, as of April 2018, some of the most prominent countries on the list are Mexico, Brazil, China, Costa Rica, Iraq, and more. China claims that it is calling for a ban, but it is not yet implemented (“Killer Robots”). Obviously absent from the list are the 94

United States, Russia, Israel, France, Germany, South Korea, and the United Kingdom. In order to create a solution to such an ominous problem, society must come together as a whole and ban any further developments in autonomous robotic technology for warfare. South Korea has one of the most advanced autonomous weapons systems yet, and it is currently in use. According to Simon Parkin, a journalist for BBC Future, the robotics soldier’s name is “The Super aEgis II, South Korea’s best-selling automated turret.” It is equipped to recognize, track, and destroy a moving target from a great distance, and is allegedly powerful enough to stop a truck (Parkin).

The United States Air Force has already developed and utilized advanced drones on the battlefield, such as the MQ-9 Reaper. According to Peter Lee, a writer for Business Insider, however, as of right now, the MQ-9 reapers are “actively guided by pilots who have the final decision as to where a bomb or missile is fired.” But, it will not be long until these unmanned drones can decide who to kill without human intervention. It is well known that robots and technology can bring great benefits and strength to society; however, if used with ill intent, it can result in catastrophic destruction. Robotic capabilities are compelling and impressive, but nonetheless continue to raise unsettling fear and danger for countries all over the world.

As Albert Einstein once said, “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” This addresses the uncertainty of war, perhaps even a certain demise. In other words, World War III will be so remarkably devastating that it will result in humanity going back to its origin, hence why it is so crucial to address how killer robots are unethical and can bring great dangers not only onto the battlefield but in many aspects of everyday life. One of the most distinct red flags is that technological leaders and developers of robotics and artificial intelligence have recognized its dangers and have addressed them to the United Nations. Two of the many technological leaders speaking up against the development of autonomous weapons include Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking. Over 116 entrepreneurs signed a letter to the United Nations in protest of autonomous weapons. They stressed the fact that "Once developed, they will permit armed conflict to be fought at a scale greater than ever, and at timescales faster than humans can comprehend” (“Tech Leaders Warn”). It would not be difficult for these weapons of warfare to fall into the hands of those with ill intent. The letter continues with, "These can be weapons of terror, weapons that despots and terrorists use against innocent populations, and weapons hacked to behave in undesirable ways (“Tech Leaders Warn”). According to The Soufan Center, a research and resource forum, The use of drones and other emerging technologies by terrorists and violent non-state actors is not science fiction, nor is it a threat simply to worry about in the future; it is happening already. Counter-terrorism officials will need to keep this issue in perspective and to avoid engaging in threat inflation, while at the same time remaining cognizant of ‘black swan’ events like a terrorist attack combining drones and weapons of mass destruction. The proliferation and advance of new technologies typically outpace the laws and policies designed to govern them. (“IntelBrief: Terrorists”) Massoud Hossaini, a photojournalist for Agence France-Presse and winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize, took a well-known and widely distributed photo that depicts a drone carrying two gas grenades being used in the conflict between insurgents and security forces in Kabul, Afghanistan. After all, it is easier for an engineer to become a terrorist than it is for an engineer

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to become a scientist (“IntelBrief: Terrorists”). The possibility of misconduct with these weapons is dangerous and increasingly possible.

Furthermore, Robert Sparrow, a researcher at the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science, and a professor of Human Bioethics at Monash University, focuses on the ethical issues that emerge with the development of new technology, specifically regarding robots. In one of his essays, “Killer Robots,” he addresses one of the many ethical issues that arise, specifically responsibility and its importance in war. Sparrow evaluates how it would be difficult to place responsibility, as it has been debated, to be held by the programmer, the commanding officer, or even the machine itself. He discusses that, under the principle of jus in bellum, one of the “necessary condition[s] for fighting a just war,” is the requirement that someone needs to be “held responsible for deaths that occur in the course of the war. As this condition cannot be met in relation to deaths caused by an autonomous weapon system it would, therefore, be unethical to deploy such systems in warfare” (Sparrow). It is apparent that there is great uncertainty if anyone can be held responsible for an autonomous weapon committing unlawful acts or war crimes. Responsibility is just one of the ethical issues that surface with the development of such technology. One of the most important characteristics that technology lacks (as of right now) is humanity.

Emotion is one of war’s greatest victims. Paul Scharre, a Director of the Technology and National Security program at the Center for a New American Security, and a former Army Ranger, asked, “If we went to war and no one slept uneasy at night, what does that say about us?”. Scharre’s question is chilling, as it raises questions of what war’s conditions are. In a book called Robot Ethics: The Ethical and Social Implications of Robotics, in Chapter 7, “Killing Made Easy, Ronald Arkin, an American roboticist and robot-ethicist, believes that “a robot cannot feel anger or a desire for revenge, but neither can it feel sympathy, empathy, or remorse” (Lin et al. 121). However, if robots become fully autonomous and can make lethal decisions on their own, as the Campaign Against Killer Robots stresses, “replacing troops with machines could make the decision to go to war easier and shift the burden of conflict even further on to civilians. Fully autonomous weapons would make tragic mistakes with unanticipated consequences that could inflame tensions” (“Killer Robots”). In other words, if no one is worried about human casualties, the decision for declaring war would not be a difficult decision to make.

In addition, the Campaign against Killer Robots states, Fully autonomous weapons would decide who lives and dies, without further human intervention, which crosses a moral threshold. As machines, they would lack the inherently human characteristics such as compassion that are necessary to make complex ethical choices. (“Killer Robots”) Essentially, it boils down to machine capital versus human capital. Ronald Arkin discusses in his essay that, with the inclusion of wartime robots, “the threshold of entry into warfare may be lowered as we will now be risking machines and fewer human soldiers – this could violate the Jus ad Bellum conditions of just warfare.” It is more than understandable that no civilized person wants to see their own soldiers and fellow countrymen die in foreign wars; however, in this case, robots can be utilized as a great defensive weapon. Nevertheless, the number of consequences that result from having a “risk-free” war is something society needs to acknowledge and reflect 96

upon. Fully autonomous weapons lack judgment, emotion, and humanity that is required to evaluate the reasons for an attack, recognizing and classifying an ally, distinguishing a civilian from an enemy, all while comprehending and obeying the laws of war.

Can ethics be programmed into robots, and what are the advantages? Can a moral compass be coded? The definition of morality is diverse, but, for this discussion, morality is defined as “concerned with the principles of right and wrong behavior and the goodness or badness of human character,” as best fits. Ronald Alkin is a significant researcher because he identifies both the advantages of not only ethical robots but also those advantages for killer robots in war, as well as the many disadvantages. In one of Alkin’s many essays and journal articles, “Ethical Robots in Warfare,” he states that “the goal of my research on ethical autonomous systems capable of lethal action is to provide robots with an ethical code that has been already established by humanity” (Arkin 3). He discusses that robots should follow the same Laws of War, as well as Rules of Engagement, that humans do. If robots do not follow these restrictions, they should not be permitted to be on the battlefield. Arkin stresses his research focuses upon ethical military robots, but will all countries follow the Laws of War and program ethical robots? Is Arkin’s confidence, as well as other researchers’ confidence, in robots, ensuring “humanity, proportionality, responsibility, and relative safety … not only for friendly forces” reliable? As technology progresses, can robots be built to “behave” or perform in a more human manner than humans? No doubt, robots can provide numerous benefits to militaries, as they can operate “faster, cheaper, better mission accomplishment, longer range, greater persistence, longer endurance, faster target engagement, and immunity to chemical and biological weapons” (Arkin). One of the many advantages that Arkin promotes, and the military supports, is having robots that can complete and carry out dangerous tasks that normally create great risks to human life, such as diffusing bombs. Interestingly, Arkin and his team were involved in the development of a commercial robot, but it is not the usual robot. This specific example, as well as others, have had emotions engineered into them, such as the robot dog AIBO (Arkin et al).

Arkin’s argument and conviction in the development of ethical robots seem intriguing and relatively promising. Will these technological advances teach robots the difference between right and wrong behavior? Additionally, is morality limited to human behavior? Will all robots be admitted onto the battlefield, or only “ethical” robots, if that? Perhaps the military should restrict robot development, in terms of fully autonomous weapons, in order to defend everyone's safety.

It is not to say that all robots should be prohibited, but, alternatively, robots that are not armed nor fully autonomous.

Although war is unwanted, it repeats itself again and again in history. The approach to fix war repeating itself is unclear and perhaps impossible. Whether or not killer robots will be banned is uncertain. It is evident that the military should consider the consequences of robots and all weapons encompassed in the 21st-century battlefield. Whether or not robots are deployed, it is clear that technology and warfare are evolving. Therefore, society must change our “premade” concepts on war. Kevin Lilley is an editor of Military Times. In his article, he writes about Chris Antal, a former captain in the Army Reserve. Antal states that "We have made war entertainment... We have sanitized killing and condoned extrajudicial assassinations: death by remote control, war made easy without due process”. Antal later wrote that drones (and technology in general) "make killing too easy; and just because we can, does not mean we ought” (Lilley). The United States has had ongoing challenges with technology on the battlefield 97

for quite some time now. According to Peter Singer, a professor of bioethics at Princeton University and journalist for The Syndicalist, in 2013, Barack Obama “promised a change of policy on American drone attacks in Afghanistan” as they had caused casualties among civilians.

Singer believes that robot ethics will not clean up combat, even though the “U.S. military has more than 7,000 unmanned systems in the air (commonly called drones) and another 12,000 on the ground”; ethics coded into robots wouldn’t fix a thing. Robot casualties and uncertain coding are just a small set of the problems that have aisen with robot soldiers. Kelsey Atherton, a military technology writer for The New York Times elaborates on the potential benefits, and, of course, the disadvantages. He discusses that there have been deadly consequences with the introduction of autonomous cars. In Florida there was an incident where a Tesla Model S in autopilot “failed to recognize a tractor-trailer crossing the highway ahead and drove under it, killing the car’s owner” (Atherton). If the autonomous cars distributed worldwide, which are used in everyday life, are making lethal mistakes, it can only be assumed that autonomous robots will as well. It is expected that autonomous military robots will behave in new and unexpected ways, inducing introducing new errors and other problems that are yet unthought. Unfortunately, that is the unpredicted downside of technology.

It remains a complex discussion of whether or not humans should remain in control of lethal weapons. Thankfully, in key countries that determine whether or not these weapons should be admitted onto the battlefield, opposition to fully autonomous robots is strong. To be exact, according to the Campaign Against Killer Robots, there is an ardent 60% opposition in China, 59% in France, 54% in England, and 52% in the United States (“Killer Robots”). In a Conference of Disarmament, the Japanese ambassador of the United Nations said that Japan (a leading country of technology, with extremely sophisticated technological understandings and capabilities) has not developed such weapons and does not plan to do so. Jen Judson, a land warfare reporter for Defense News, highlighted a soldier working alongside a robot in what appears to be, in the published photo, a high-risk mission. According to Human Rights Watch, leading countries such as the United States, China, Israel, South Korea, Russia, and the United Kingdom are moving closer to autonomous weapons systems (“Killer Robots”). It is in the majority of countries’ hopes that everyone will maintain careful control over autonomous conflicts by prohibiting the development of, production of, and use of life-or-death determining robots. Steps toward this would include legislating a ban through national laws, while also creating and obeying an international treaty that all countries must sign. All countries should recognize the importance of the principle of meaningful human control over the use of force and weapons. In addition, any company or organization involved in robotics should pledge to reject the development of killer robots, or any fully autonomous weapon. If these simple conditions to protect humanity cannot be met, then it is in each nation’s best interest to understand the consequences that could emerge.

While introducing robots into the battlefield comes with numerous advantages to militaries, and as the reliance on technology increases as well as we further progress towards technological advancements, it is crucial to understand the various ethical problems that emerge with the introduction of autonomous weapons. It is critical for countries to remain aware of how war is evolving along with technology. This is not to say ‘no’ to robots on the battlefield, as robots can bring unparalleled advantages, but this is a strong reminder that humans should remain in control of lethal actions.

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MEET THE WRITERS Alyssa Cortez is originally from Waipahu, Hawai'i. She is a Business Administration major and aspires to work in Hawai'i’s hospitality and tourism industry. Her favorite thing about living in Hawai'i is experiencing the melting pot of different cultures.

Theodore Gonzales is originally from Oahu and grew up in Kapolei. His intended degree is in Business, and he would love to go into advertising.

His favorite thing about HPU is the size of the classes and how it never feels crowded no matter what class.

Colin Heacook is originally from Delaware. He moved on and off the Hawai'i islands since 2007 until he enlisted in the U.S. Army in 2012, later being stationed in Fort Carson, CO, and eventually moving to Kaneohe, HI for re-enlistment. He left the Army in July of 2018. His major is Diplomacy and Military Studies. He hopes to work for the State Department or Federal Government in intelligence or security. His favorite thing about being back in Hawai'i is being surrounded by family and being able to spend time at the beach whenever possible.

Sean Healey is originally from Detroit Michigan and moved out to Hawai'i during time in the United States Marine Corps. After active duty was over, he decided to stay in Hawai'i with his wife and pursue an undergraduate education in Integrated Multimedia. After completing his degree, he plans on working freelance as a photographer as well as doing marketing. What he enjoys most about Hawai'i is being able to go to the beach at any time. As for Hawai'i Pacific University, his favorite part is all the options that it offers and the support that it gives students.

Alice HedensjĂś is originally from Sweden. She is majoring in Marine Biology, and her goal is to contribute to marine science and educate. Her favorite thing about living in Hawai'i is that she can surf everyday.

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Dakota Jackson is from Chicago, Illinois. He is a Marine Biology major, hoping to create more policies to protect marine wildlife. His favorite thing about being part of HPU is that it has given him many great opportunities, like this!

Georgina Lancaster is originally from sunny Tampa, Florida. Her major is Political Science with a minor in Japanese. She hopes to work in the government and focus on security. Her absolute favorite things about living in Hawai'i are connecting with people from all over the world and the incredible Asian influence.

Nicolle Medak is originally from Los Angeles, California. She is majoring in International Studies with a concentration in International Relations and Security and is minoring in Diplomacy and Military Studies. Her goal is to become a judge on the United Nations International Court of Justice. Her favorite thing about living in Hawai'i is diverse culture.

Truong L. Q. Nguyen is an international student coming from Vietnam.

He is pursuing his Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering. His goal is to be an engineer specializing in robotics and automation. He loves Hawai'i because of the nice hiking places with spectacular views and beautiful beaches.

Molly Olsen is originally from Johnston, South Carolina. She is majoring in Communication Studies and double minoring in Public Administration and Marketing, and she is planning on a career in public administration.

Her favorite thing about Hawai'i is the diversity of culture throughout the islands.

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Rianna O’Neil is from San Diego, California. She is majoring in Criminal Justice, and her career goal is to be an analyst in the FBI. Her favorite things about living in Hawai'i are the fact that she gets to play soccer and attend college with her older brother.

Troy Oshimo is originally from Pomona, California. She is majoring in Elementary Education and hopes to become a Special Education teacher.

Her favorite things about Hawai'i are the beaches (especially Waimea Bay) and the kindness from locals all around the island.

Tyara Pouncie is originally from Miami, Florida. She is majoring in EastWest Humanities with a minor in Studio Art. Her goal is to intertwine the perspectives of different cultures as well as societies and apply it to her art.

Her favorite thing about Hawai'i is the disappearance of the concept of time.

Hayden Rodriguez is originally from Riverside, California. He is majoring in Electrical Engineering, and his goal is to be an electrical engineer for a major government contractor. His favorite thing about living in Hawai'i is eating spam musubis.

Tamaki Sawai is originally from Kanagawa, Japan. Her majors are in English and American Culture (at Aoyama Gakuin University). She hopes to work for a bank after graduation. Her favorite things about living in Hawai'i are chilling on the beach, and eating poke bowls and acai bowls.

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Kortney Shaw is originally from Wasilla, Alaska. She is majoring in Psychology and minoring in Criminal Justice. Her goal is to travel to other countries and help with their mental health care system in anyway she can.

Her favorite thing about living in Hawai'i is the beautiful hikes and views it has to offer.

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MEET THE EDITORS Brianna Aguigui is originally from Fallbrook, California. She is a new English major with a minor in Mathematics, her previous major. She wants to be a teacher in the future while also never giving up her dream as a writer. Her favorite thing about living in Hawai'i is the independence HPU offers, which allows her the ability to grow as an individual in paradise.

Kelsey Ann Arreza is originally from Oahu and grew up in Waipahu. She is majoring in Business Marketing. Her favorite things about HPU are how small it is and how it provides her with great opportunities like working with Fresh Perspectives.

Infinity Jimenez is originally from south Texas. She came to HPU to study Marine Biology in hopes to be able to become a veterinarian later down the line. In her free time she loves to swim in the ocean whenever, wherever she can.

Alanna Noel Solomon is originally from the Seattle-Tacoma area of Washington State. They are double-majoring in TESOL and Integrated Multimedia (and double-minoring in Writing and Gender Studies!), but their career goal is to become an ESL teacher for adult immigrants. Their favorite thing about Hawai'i is how friendly and laid back everyone is.

Dr. David Falgout is a Senior Lecturer of Writing. Originally from New Orleans, he has enjoyed teaching First-Year Writing courses at HPU for over 17 years. He has also taught courses in Philosophy, Religion, and Classics at HPU and at other universities. His favorite thing about HPU is each year having the privilege to meet, study with, and learn from new students from so many different places and backgrounds.

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