Mars Hill Newspaper Vol 19 Issue 8 by Mars Hill Newspaper

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VOLUME VOLUME19,19,ISSUE ISSUE6 8

GRACIOUS FEMINISM

DECEMBER FEBRUARY3, 4,2014 2015

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FEBRUARY 4, 2015

FROM THE EDITOR

Mars’ Hill

7600 Glover Rd. Langley, BC V2Y 1Y1 604 513 2109

THE TEAM

MARS’ HILL

Mars’ Hill is a student publication of Trinity Western University, floated with funds raised by the Student Association. Mars’ Hill seeks to be a professional and relevant student publication, reflecting and challenging the TWU community, while intentionally addressing local, national and international issues.

PETER WOEKEL

MISSION TO MARS

managing editor

tara GORMAN

AMY GOERTZEN

visual editor

This issue has a lot of important terminology. So, I have decided to give you something akin to a crash course.

STEPHANIE REDEKOP

chief copy editor

GENDER

Gender is simply defined as the state of being male or female and is typically used with reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones. It includes the traits of masculinity and femininity, and once again, these traits occur regardless of biology. A person can be biologically female but have mainly masculine traits and vice versa. In short, gender is complicated and complex, having facets that none of us can fully explain.

COLTON MARTIN

layout editor

SIDSEL RICHMOND

illustration editor

GENDER ROLES

Gender roles are both cultural and personal. They instill expectations of how males and females should speak, dress, and interact in a sociological context. As children, we learn these cultural norms and form gender schemas of what is considered quintessentially masculine or feminine. Schemas are the mental categories in which we place objects and concepts that we encounter

ERIK DELANGE

web presence

REESE MARTIN

throughout our lives. We have the schema of a chair, which can be represented in its classical shape or in any alternative form while still remaining a chair so long as it retains a vague resemblance. Although the space for certain schemas in our culture is plentiful, gender remains rigid in what is accepted within its framework. There are colours, clothing, posture, language that are almost always isolated to a certain gender and any variation from this normalcy is seen as an outlier.

PATRIARCHY It is within this rigid framework of gender roles that patriarchy becomes prevalent. Within these gender schemas lies the perceptions that women are weaker than men, that women are predisposed for matters of the home and men are predisposed to matters outside. From these perceptions stems the most influential social system in history. Patriarchy, in short, is a social system in which men hold primary power of political, moral, and economic authority. In this system, the man is the head of both the state and the family while the woman and children are his wards. This political system has been the foundation for both the privilege of the West and the continued oppression of women all over the globe. FEMINISM Feminism is the political move-

ment that advocates for the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes. Historically, feminism has had three waves. The first was the fight for suffrage, the second for social equality, and third, in which we now find ourselves, extends beyond the Western world and looks out to countries where women still face grievous oppression and abuse.

THE BIG PICTURE

Why is this dry information important? These definitions seem to be straight forward. Why, then, are these very definitions privy to some of the most heated and volatile debates in our generation? I believe that the second you enter into the realm of gender, you immediately fall into dangerous territory. If we believe that we are all made unique - that not one person is in quite the same stage of life, has quite the same experiences, or has quite the same dreams and aspirations as another - then we have approximately seven billion gender roles in existence. Gender, patriarchy, and feminism are all concepts that revolve around people, and if there is any evidence to be found in the convoluted and confused mess that is our very own identities, then I believe it is safe to say that there is no simple sociological infrastructure in which we can place any person, let alone the roles they are meant to fill.

The mission of Mars’ Hill, as the official student newspaper of Trinity Western University, is to inform and entertain its readers, cultivate awareness of issues concerning the TWU community and provide a forum for purposeful, constructive discussion among its members in accordance with the Community Covenant, Statement of Faith, and Core Values of the University.

EDITORIAL POLICY

Mars’ Hill encourages submissions and letters to the Editor. Mars’ Hill reserves the right to edit submissions for style, brevity and compatibility with the Mission, Statement of Faith, the Community Community Covenant, and the Core Values of the University. Anonymous authorship of any material may be granted at the discretion of the Editor-in-Chief. Opinions expressed in Mars’ Hill belong to the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the editorial board, Trinity Western University, its officials or its Student Association.

SENIOR EDITORS Tara Gorman Editor-in-Chief

Peter Woekel

Managing Editor

Amy Goertzen Visual Editor

SECTION EDITORS Sarah Grochowski News

Ellen Graham Academy

Mackenzie Cameron Arts & Culture

Connor Ewert Sports

Trevor McMahan Humour

PRODUCTION STAFF Junho Kim

Photo Editor

Sidsel Richmond Illustration Editor

Colton Martin Layout Editor

Stephanie Redekop Chief Copy Editor

OPERATIONS Reese Martin

Advertising & Finance Manager

Erik deLange Web Presence

CONTRIBUTORS David Brynjolfson Erik deLange David Giesbrecht Becky Goertzen Johnny Janzen Ashley Linttell Hannah Marazzi Lindsey Mayhew Andrew Perrin Alexa Raper Kyle Rose Matthew Wigmore

advertising & finance manager

R O F PLY

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BLOONS Home baked cookies Amy’s voice on helium/Everyone’s voice on helium Movie soundtracks

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H ’ S R A M

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SPECIAL THANKS

Kat Grabowski for the team photos

STUDENT MEDIA ADVISOR Loranne Brown

www.marshillonline.com This issue brought to you by a fresh batch of gender rolls.

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What do you envy most about the opposite gender? “Ability to easily ask a girl out.” - Charmaine Viaje

FEBRUARY 4, 2015

NEWS

SARAH GROCHOWSKI

sarah.grochowski@mytwu.ca

Critiquing women’s ministry

lindsey

MAYHEW

Women’s ministry has its place in the Church. A place for women to talk and grow closer to the Lord together will always be something that adds to a healthy church dynamic. However, a recent article gone viral online, entitled “In Which I Write a Letter to Women’s Ministry,” sums up many of the challenges with which our Western culture has presented female Church-goers. The article was written by Abbotsford’s own Sarah Bessey, the renowned author of Jesus Feminist, who took time to speak publicly at one of TWU’s own Gender Cafés. Amid this 2011 article’s recent popularity, women young and old have stood up to express having the same type of ministry experiences. It seems we live in a time where many females feel held back by

an emphasis upon “feminine” activities over unregulated actions of true spiritual discipleship. From my own experience, which includes a small town and a fundamentalist church upbringing, women’s ministry seemed to be marked by the presence of handwritten words, flowery language, and clothing swaps. Church events for women were ones like a “Christmas Café” or marriage conferences. This critique is not a disagreement with these gatherings; in fact, they were often fun and useful events. However, as Bessey and I both agree, they seem to assume a certain type of woman: one who enjoys shopping, who has enough money and time to decorate her home, who is heterosexual, married, and most often a mother – or someone who dreams of being one someday. What about the cause-driven women? What about the childless, barren women? What about the large percentages of the world’s impoverished women? These are the types of questions

Sarah Bessey asks the church and its imbedded culture – and more, what if women’s ministry became solely about Jesus being known and making him known? Can’t the women in our churches be known for ground-shaking events in which prayer made the air crackle and the earth tremble, instead of a place to drink tea and discuss life with light conversation? The reality is that every woman just wants to feel relevant, regardless of her relationship status, career, or the number of children she rears. It’s not bad to hold a women’s ministry with so-called “feminine” qualities, but when Christian women become categorized by such a narrow reputation, Bessey suggests that a problem occurs. Jesus was not safe. All of the infamous women of the Bible were not safe either. Esther went before her king when there was a chance she would have been killed for disobeying. Rahab risked her life to hide spies within her home. Mary could have been stoned to death for perceived adultery, but instead

chose to birth the king of all nations no matter what the risk. When we consider these faithful women in comparison to riskless mugs of tea and flowery invites many ministries rely upon, we reduce the essence of women to something they are not. They are humans, believers in the active world-changing work of God; isn’t it time that our ministries begin to expand their events and showcase this? I want to honestly be able to say that I have gone to a women’s ministry where theology, world events, justice, and many other topics beyond the blandly safe, pink ones were spoken and shared. Let’s do something about this. Let’s dig deeper to consider the historical and theological concepts that lie beneath the covers of our Bibles. Christian women all around the world are hungry for the word of the Bible. Many are even dying for their faith, certainly not needing to worry extensively about their home décor.

Pope’s visit to Philippines

Gender roles harm men too

johnny

JANZEN

JEFFREY BRUNO

During a recent five-day trip to the Philippines, Pope Francis commented on the relevance and importance of the voice of women in our world: “Women have much to tell us in today’s society… sometimes we’re too macho and we don’t leave enough room for women.” This comment came just after a young girl asked the Pope why God allowed bad things to happen to her and other children. In the midst of a largely male crowd, the Pope was moved by the young girl’s words. He then voiced: “she is the only one who has put a question for which there is no answer,” and “was not even able to express it in words but rather tears.” This inclination of Pope Francis’s, towards a church atmosphere where women’s voices

are regarded as equal to men’s stands in contrast to recent news in churches like Seattle’s Mars Hill, which closed its doors last November. Their teaching, led by Mark Driscoll, relied upon an emphasized need for female submissiveness, and was eventually removed for embedded grievances; specifically misogynistic comments on a church message board. It also poses a question: is this “macho-ness” inherent to being a Godly man, or just another facet of our culture’s deep roots in patriarchy? While issues of gender equality are largely about advocating for the rights of women, it is so vital to realize that men need help too. Men in churches like Mars Hill faced the personality-crushing pressure of being increasingly macho and “hard,” with Driscoll saying: “the problem with our churches today is that the lead pastor is some sissy boy who wears cardigan sweaters.” He also criticized the idea that Biblical King David’s sensitive side was essential to his personhood, say-

ing, “he may have played a lyre, but he slaughtered thousands of guys,” as if this makes up for his negative “feminine” traits. This “masculinization” of Christianity represents a manifestation of the world’s cultural preference being masculinity, rather than femininity. Yet, a deeper understanding of Christ and many biblical characters reveals a number of qualities we would typically stereotype as being feminine. David wrote poetry; Jesus revealed emotion and wept in Gethsemane. Christ called us to “turn the other cheek” rather than fight back: culture would absolutely label this the move of a “little girl.” In realizing that feminine qualities exist in biblical characters and the person of Christ, men in the Church ought to be freed to embrace the truest depth of their humanity. Perhaps the few words the Pope said regarding the dominating “macho-ness” of masculinity ought to be something we take into account regarding our own lives.

What do you envy most about the opposite gender? “Guys can pull off a smolder better.” - Uliana

FEBRUARY 4, 2015

Boobs are not news Two objectifying extremes?

sarah

GROCHOWSKI

A message from TWU’s Gender Studies Institute

Founded in 2008, the Gender Studies Institute at TWU is committed to having Christ-affirming conversations about a wide range of issues related to gender and sexuality. The Institute is not only concerned with analyzing gender in the academic sense—as an object of study— but also in terms of lived experience: how we live as gendered beings in the world. So the Institute tries to balance scholarly events that focus on intellectual dialogue, research, and collaboration with informal cafés in which anyone who wants to attend can safely dialogue on such topics as sexual assault, sex trafficking, the place of LGBTQ Christians in the church, women in the military, boyhood, masculinity, and gender and ethnicity. The Institute recognizes that these conversations are often difficult, can be uncomfortable, and do not necessarily lead to simple

answers, even if all of the participants are Christians. But it believes that these facts make it all the more important to have these conversations in which we can examine, theorize, and discuss the relationship between the Christian faith and gendered identities and living. There are 27 faculty from across the disciplines who are members of the Gender Studies Institute and they have published some really exciting research on gender. Their books include: Monika Hilder’s Surprised by the Feminine: A Rereading of C.S. Lewis and Gender, Kelsey Haskett and Holly Faith Nelson’s French Women Authors: The Significance of the Spiritual (1400-2000), and Allyson Jule’s A Beginner’s Guide to Language and Gender. They have also written numerous articles on a whole range of subjects, from Sheryl Reimer-Kirkham’s “Faith

as Social Capital: Diasporic Women Stretching the Rules of Secularized Healthcare Services” to Kevin Schut’s chapter on “Real Men, Real Women, Unreal Games” in his book Of Games and God: A Christian Exploration of Video Games. In 2012, the Institute was thrilled to receive an Award of Recognition from the Canadian Association for the Study of Women in Education for making “an important and sustained contribution to women and education.” Several of the Institute’s members have received scholarships and awards for their work on gender. Dr. Allyson Jule recently received a $25,000.00 SSHRC Connection grant in support of the 8th Annual International Gender and Language Association Conference she coorganized. Dr. Janelle Kwee was the recipient of the 2013 Section

of Women and Psychology Feminist Mentoring Award, which was given to her at the Canadian Psychological Association Annual Convention. And Dr. Sheryl Reimer-Kirkham was recently made a scholar of the Royal Society of Canada for her fine scholarship, some of which deals with issues of gender in relation to healthcare. The Institute believes that it is crucial to help the next generation of students, especially students of faith, understand the role of gender, its structural framework in different countries, the Western perception of gender, and what it means to be human. Therefore, it has established a flexible, multi-disciplinary Gender Studies minor at TWU that can be customized to a student’s specific goals and interests. One of the first students to graduate with a gender studies minor went on to

Gas Prices Bouncing Back?

Oil prices surged by nearly $4 a barrel on January 30, rebounding from a six-year low month. In February, gas prices are predicted to rise; however, some speculate that the increase of the traded cost was merely an end-of-month spike.

Prostitution Act in Germany – Revisited

After legalizing prostitution in 2002, Germany – one of the most liberal countries in the legislation of the sex trade – is re-evaluating the effects of their policy change. With 13 new states joining the European Union, prostitution and human trafficking related instances are on the rise. Facing a life without opportunity and future, many eastern European women head west to find work in the sex industry. Meanwhile, the German Aids Service Organization, the German Women’s Council, and the German Women Lawyers Association all push to criminalize both the supply and demand ends of the industry. Many sex workers say they don’t want to be patronized and criticize “people who talk about them, without talking to them.” The Act continues to be debated by governing authorities.

Hospital Explodes in Mexico City

At least three people died in a massive gas explosion in a maternal hospital explosion in Mexico City. 54 people were injured, including 22 children. An unknown number of people are also trapped and waiting to be rescued.

Strategic Artificial Land Creations

China is constructing five artificial islands in the South China Sea in an effort to secure its territorial claims in the region. These islands will accommodate airstrips that can function as launching points for aerial defense operations in support of Chinese Naval vessels in the southern regions of the country. China is rivaling Taiwan, the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, and their allies in claiming dominance of the maritime region.

complete her M.A. in Nationalism Studies at the University of Edinburgh, where she recently received an award for her thesis on gender-based violence in war. As much as the Institute has accomplished in its short history, it looks forward in hope to ongoing conversations about faith and gendered identities in formal and informal campus settings at TWU. The co-directors of the Institute welcome ideas and input from students; in fact, many of our recent Gender Cafés have been inspired by student requests! If you’d like to talk gender, drop by or send an email to any of the Institute’s co-directors: Dr. Bob Doede (Philosophy), Dr. Robynne Healey (History), Dr. Allyson Jule (Education), or Dr. Holly Faith Nelson (English).

City of Toronto Shelters Vulnerable People

After two fatalities just weeks ago in the cruel Toronto winter conditions, the city opened up more shelter space for the vulnerable homeless women and the LGBTQ citizens within the city. City Councillor Joe Mihevc still continues to push for more space for the city’s homeless. As it currently turns out, one out of every two homeless people will not find shelter, but spend their nights in the cold outdoors.

Forty-five years ago, Britain’s The Sun newspaper printed their first spread of a topless female on page 3. The newspaper’s launchingeditor Rupert Murdoch asserted, “I don’t think it’s immoral or indecent or anything.” Following this brazen addition to the paper, its readers grew from 650,000 to 2.5 million Brits within the span of five years. Eventually, The Sun outsold each of its competitors – but not before people began to disagree with what the nudity on page 3 exemplified for British society. Within two years, the grassroots campaign “No More Page 3” gained the momentum of tens of thousands of men and women, along with the backing of countless organizations like the Scottish Parliament and The Everyday Sexism Project. This alliance believes The Sun’s page 3 nudity conveys a woman’s primary role to be serving men sexually. Last Wednesday, the supporters of No More Page 3 were finally able to celebrate, as The Sun withdrew

one from being lusted after and one from doing the lusting. A common Biblical reference used to teach the importance of modesty is that women can help keep their brothers from “stumbling” into lust. The passage from which this derives says: “If what I eat causes my brother or sister to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause them to fall” (1 Corinth. 8:13). The context of this verse is that meat was being offered to secular idols. Paul the Apostle had freedom to eat this food, because the Spirit led him to understand freedom and that eating physical meat would not upset the God he served with his spiritual heart. Back then, however, some believers had “weak consciences,” which meant they were worried that eating this meat could result in a defiled heart. How does this passage possibly relate to whether a woman dresses to show more or less skin? The use of this verse has many Christians, like Evangelical blogger Rachael Held Evans, voicing an opinion that says included within these modesty-messages are sometimes dangerous underlying

their bare-breasted feature indefinitely. The different perspectives have left us students with questions: Why is it typical for men of the world to showcase their chests but not women? Why did page 3’s bare breasts cause The Sun’s sales to skyrocket? For answers, I suggest a relevant news comparison of secular society with the communities of the Church regarding modesty and women’s bodies. There is a widely held idea that as a Christian woman, clothing choices ought to be modest. We hear about this in youth group lectures and high school clothing restrictions. There have even been news accounts of girls, without giving consent, photoshopped into longer-sleeved shirts for a school’s yearbook. This “purity culture” in both secular and Church realms seems to be an opposition to our Western sex-saturated culture. The more we hear that the majority of men struggle with porn addictions, the more we seem to implement rules and restrictions, unspoken or binding, upon women. We believe that this protects both sexes:

assertions, like that a woman’s body – like meat offered to idols – is accessible for consumption or predominantly sexual. Many have stood alongside her to say that Western churches have forgotten the great strength of men in being able to see a woman’s body as just a body, much like his own. Still, more questions are raised: when we emphasize dressing modestly over every human’s freedom from objectification, are we then assuming that a woman’s exposed body is seen, and now covered, because it is an object of sex? Are women then hiding their God-created bodies in the fabric of self-denial, without ever truly understanding why? As a student of TWU and a Christian woman myself, this writer believes that modesty does assert one’s own humanity in a world where so many believe their worth is tied to an externally attractive and sexual appearance. This is tied to the reason why No More Page 3 campaigned against the removal of nudity; there was a sexually explicit, crude nature to page 3’s photos and tag lines. Yet I still remember: it was after the fall that Adam and Eve covered their own nakedness in shame.

Success in Nova Scotia Law school progress

sarah

GROCHOWSKI

Trinity Western University and all of its continued legal work and perseverance surrounding its proposed law school have paid off this week. The Supreme Court of Nova Scotia ruled against the Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society (NSBS) on Wednesday, after they tried to ban

TWU graduates from practising law in their province. This case’s ruling took less than two months to resolve, with the Justice Jamie Campbell writing, “The extent to which the NSBS members or members of the community are outraged or suffer minority stress because of the law school’s policies does not amount to a grant of jurisdiction over the university.” The reality is that this court battle has never been because of the lack of quality of education or training that Trinity Western University will be able to provide its future lawyers. NSBS’ argument claimed that TWU’s com-

munity covenant, since it adheres to a traditional view of marriage, violates the province’s Human Rights Act by ostensibly “excluding gays and lesbians.” TWU’s President Bob Kuhn and his legal team continue to strive for a private, faith-based law school no matter how much social backlash they have to endure. Involved in the court action this Wednesday was the Attorney General of Canada, the Christian Legal Fellowship, and the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission. Our University’s next legal move is one that will take court action against the Law Society of

Upper Canada in Ontario. In a pluralistic society, religious code of conduct allowances will always be messy and uncomfortable for every involved party, especially the mainstream population. Justice Jamie Campbell concluded just this in his ruling: “For many people in a secular society, religious freedom is worse than inconsequential. It actually gets in the way. It’s the dead hand of the superstitious past reaching out to restrain more important secular values like equality from becoming real equality. A more progressive society, on that view, would not permit any incursions by religion into public life, or

would at least limit those incursions to those by religions that have belief systems and practices that are more consonant with mainstream morality. The discomforting truth is that religions with views that many Canadians find incomprehensible or offensive abound in a liberal and multicultural society. The law protects them and must carve out a place not only where they can exist but flourish.” Trinity Western University continues to both believe in and fight for this carved-out place.

Music Mission Kiev Fights Eastern Ukraine Poverty

Hundreds of volunteers from different parts of the world came together to feed the elderly and provide humanitarian aid in war-torn eastern Ukraine. Among the many relief programs that sprung up within the past few months to address the needs of the ravaged civilians are TWU’s own Wes and Kim Janzen. With their Music Mission Kiev, they have been able to make a monumental impact in the lives of the suffering there. GREGORY REESE

What do you envy most about the opposite gender? “They can use hairspray and not be ashamed.” - Jay Ballett

What do you envy most about the opposite gender? “They can get out of speeding tickets easier.” - Eric Peters

FEBRUARY 4, 2015

ACADEMY

ELLEN GRAHAM

ellen.graham@mytwu.ca

The Ottawa journal: dispatch from David

david BRYNJOLFSON

Who am I? I wear a suit and tie. I work down the street from Parliament. I live in a mansion. Any guesses? Trick question: I am a university student.

Believe me, living like this is not something I am used to. Until now, I spent my days in the suburbs of Vancouver, but here I am in Ottawa. The grocery store is just two blocks away, the downtown core is a couple blocks further. I need to wear long johns for the cold and put on hand cream for the dryness. The weirdest thing about being here is that the sky is cloudless,

and yet if I take off my gloves, my hands freeze. The mansion is new too, although I am already getting used to living there. Twenty of us live in the same house and if some of the rooms were refurnished, another ten could fit as well. Ottawa is becoming a time of self-discovery. When I show my I.D. at Parliament and they let me through the door, I cannot help but feel like I am out of my league. I pretend to belong, and then I feel inauthentic. Then I wonder: inauthentic about what? Who am I? What is my identity? I could describe myself as a Christian, but this does not capture the whole picture. If I were to ask others, I

think many would define me as a serious, academically-inclined student. It is not the sort of label I like, though – and besides, what about when I graduate in April? Who will I be then? If anything, being in Ottawa helps me figure these things out. The community nurtures a sense of belonging, which in turn reminds me that I am so much more than the labels I place on myself could ever imply. I find this deeply valuable; I want my identity to lie in other aspects of what I am, and my experiences here help shape me to be more of what I want to be. In short, I have been learning a lot about life

over the last three weeks, and this feeds my growth. There are other reasons for why being here is valuable. I get to see museums and skate on the canal, I get to learn about politics, I get to try new coffee shops and churches and see life in a new place. Ultimately, though, the most valuable thing has been the self-development. I am not done answering the question of who I am, and I won’t be for a while, but being here gives me a better idea, which is great.

Inherent perspective

ellen GRAHAM

Perspective is one of those things that is intrinsic to humanity, but that no one pays attention to. It’s like breathing; it plays a significant role in your day-to-day life, but you don’t even notice it half the time. Then, when you do notice it, you get really freaked out and start hyperventilating. Maybe perspective isn’t quite as essential to life as breathing, but its influence is up there. Perspective is the way in which we view and interact with our world. It affects the way we think and understand and interpret, and thus determines how we react to our surround-

ings. It is the lens through which we see life. And just like a lens, perspective can differ. Some are crystal clear, while others are smudged. Some are shaded and others are cracked. But regardless of what kind of lens you see out of, perspective is always there, affecting how you react to the world around you. It’s hard to say whether perspective is a positive or negative thing. On the one hand, perspective can be used to create beautiful pieces of art, literature, and music. In these cases, a person’s point of view influences the final product and gives it a unique identity. On the other hand, perspective can have destructive results. Centuries of violence and hurt can attest to this. A misinformed perspective can get passed on from generation

to generation. And as we know all too well, it only takes one charismatic leader to influence an entire nation to horrific consequences. Perspective can be both good and bad. Just like many aspects of human personhood, it is not one thing or the other. Because of its ambiguous nature, it is important to be aware of the influence that perspective can have in our life. Just like breathing, our perspective seems normal to us; it is such a natural part of life that we can ignore it and let it go on autopilot. This is where the trouble lies. If we are unaware of our own point of view, we are also unaware of the hurt that we may be inflicting unconsciously. Perspective is a beautiful thing that can also cause a multitude of hurts. Yet I think

it is possible overcome the bad and focus on the wonderful aspects of perspective; the key is to be aware. Know that you have a perspective that’s influencing you. Know that your perspective may not be the whole picture. Know that others’ perspectives may be vastly different from your own. Lastly, know that by learning about other perspectives, you can come to better understand your own and offset the ignorance and closed-mindedness that can lead to twisted and darkened perspectives. Perspective is essential to human personhood. Because we can’t live without it, we often ignore it, which can lead to problems. In order to counteract this, it is important that we be aware of, educated about, and open to the various points of view that colour our world.

What do you envy most about the opposite gender? “Being able to wear sweatpants all the time.” - Alexis Krieg

Reexamining Patriarchy by Alexa Raper

I find myself with an interesting stance in approaching the subject of patriarchy. For starters, I am an individual who is passionate about strong male leadership for its value to society and the Church; however, I am also a competitive female who will jump at any opportunity to show that I can “keep up with the boys” and has a strong desire to pastor a church one day. In light of this position, I have found myself personally divided in many ways about the arguments surrounding the concept of patriarchy. Recently, I have come to recognize that patriarchy isn’t the greatest of all evils and has actually greatly benefited the development of society. In the following, I wish to present the reality of what patriarchy is, its biblical contingency, and how it functions within our culture today. It is best to start by simply clarifying what patriarchy is. Essentially, patriarchy is a system of society or government where men hold the predominant power. The word “power” can hold the connotation of authority, control, or supremacy; but it can also be attributed to strength, capability, or responsibility. The framework for patriarchy was developed out of two innate characteristics of creation: biology and environment. In the beginning, humanity was concerned with one basic task: survival. For humanity to survive and continue inhabiting the earth, it needed food, shelter, water, and offspring. It is a reality of this world that the original attainment of food required hard physical labour, usually in the form of hunting or farming. Due to the innate disposition and physical capabilities that men possess, it made more sense for them to be the providers for their families. There was also a general desire to continue the human race and a substantial lack of birth control, so women were needed to be the baby-makers and caregivers. There was no way that a woman who was nine months pregnant was going to spend her days trekking through the wilderness hunting animals. It would have been next to impossible. Therefore, it became common for the women to take care of things at home. Out of the basic concept of survival, “roles” between men and women began to distinguish themselves. The natural contributions of men and women to mankind’s survival carried through thousands of years of advancement, continually being remolded to fit their corresponding eras. A series of natural successions have led to the societal structures we see all around us today. When looking at the role of patriarchy in our society today, many choose to approach this topic Biblically, as there are several passages that refer to the relationship between men and women. An often-quoted verse in support of patriarchal society is Genesis 3:16b: “Yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.” Yet there is one key feature to be noted at this point that holds value throughout the rest of in the entire Biblical narrative: God is addressing Eve post-fall. At this point, sin has entered the world, man has turned away from God, and God’s intended world has been

corrupted. This is the new reality of mankind, and from this point on, God bestows what is best for his people’s survival in this corrupted state. Pre-fall, in the perfect garden state, there is nothing that lends itself towards a patriarchal ideal. This ruling of a man over a woman was a reality that became present after the fall as sin entered into the world, and humanity was faced with a new reality outside of God’s idyllic creation. Today the idea of patriarchy is often considered interchangeable with the oppression of women. It is a common historical fact that men in positions of power have taken advantage of women from their socially-elevated appointments; yet patriarchy itself is not the evil it has been made out to be. Have women been oppressed by men in a position of power over the years? Absolutely. Have they also been given food, protection, and benefitted from the developments of men in power? You bet they have. There is a lot of good that has come out of the framework of patriarchy that is often too easily forgotten. The concept of patriarchy isn’t innately bad; it’s the corruption of its application. Yes, men have taken advantage of their innate abilities and used them to oppress women, but they have also used their power to support the survival of mankind. Our culture is at in interesting new position when it comes to survival. In the biological sense, men and women haven’t really changed, but the environment around them has; in light of mankind’s progress, and particularly the technological revolution, men are no longer the sole providers. Women have the ability to make a living and attain basic necessities for survival even while they are nine months pregnant. Our society is being faced with a new reality where men’s and women’s roles can, to a certain extent, be amalgamated. Whatever your view on this matter may be, the current reality is that society no longer functions in a purely natural state. In examining the history of patriarchy in its truest form, it becomes clear that it is not the greatest of all evils. It began as a natural method for mankind’s survival in a world that is separated from God. It was a biologicallyinitiated approach to survival that originated from the environment that humanity found itself faced with. The natural beginning of a patriarchal society had nothing to do with a quest to repress women, but to best aid all of mankind as a whole. Patriarchy may not be the ideal, but we need to recognize that it has played a key role in the development of society. As humanity progressed in their ability to survive, patriarchy took on new identities within advancing societies. Those advancements have brought us to this unchartered state where men and women have greater equality than ever before. It is time for society to re-examine the function of patriarchy within this new age. In this process, the patriarchal system must to be recognized for its contributions as well as its abuses in order to move forward and confront this current environment.

What do you envy most about the opposite gender? “Their clothes are more fashionable.” - Alex Shin

FEBRUARY 4, 2015

Gracious feminism Fighting the connotations surrounding feminism

becky GOERTZEN

When I see the word “feminism,” something inside me just wants to hide. I want to hide from the conversations where I may say the wrong thing or make the wrong point. I want to hide from the negative connotations. One wrong word and I’m a man-hater who desires for women to dominate the world. Our everyday conversations surrounding the word “feminism” are generally characterized by arguments because of misunderstandings and miscommunication. What have we made this word to be in our interactions with one another? Is it a word that brings life, or does it bring chaos? As I look at my own values, I feel strongly that I am a feminist; I believe that men and women should be treated equally. I think that the majority – if not all – of this campus would agree with me on this.

by mercy and loving kindness; it shows warmth and gives respect to all persons. Gracious feminism is a feminism that strives not to be limited by negative connotations. It does not belittle and is more than a Facebook status or a blog post. It means having grace for our friends, families, and even the strangers around us when we talk with them. Because without grace, what do we have? Now, let us not fall into the trap of shutting our mouths. This is obviously not a topic to be quiet about. The key here is not to ignore the problem or stop talking about it, but rather to create dialogue. Instead

The problem is that when someone identifies himself or herself as a feminist, the negative connotations surrounding the word begin to take effect. The presumption is that feminists hate men, look down on stay-at-home mothers, and believe that femininity is weak. Women are unable to call themselves feminists without placing themselves in yet another stereotype in the world’s eyes, and those who do call themselves feminists are treated differently because of it. This is not okay. So what can we do to change? I believe the answer is in the concept of gracious feminism. Grace is characterized

The road to graduation: memories of silverfish

hannah MARAZZI

“Don’t step there, or there. Ooooh, but don’t give him the satisfaction of backing down either,” I mutter with a long-suffering sigh to myself. I adopt a power stance to meet the beady eye of my very unfortunate fifth roommate who dominates the corner of my bathroom. He is our resident silverfish, a wily little insect who has become the bane of my existence. As I stand, staring at the horrible little creature, I reflect on the inextricable connection between silverfish and student housing. And that is when it hits me: one day I will live in a house in which there are no silverfish to be found. Anywhere. And while these years of peeling linoleum floors, leaky faucets, and the aforementioned silverfish have certainly contained challenges and hard lessons to be learned, I am finding upon reflection that they have held their own kind of magic. You see, as I approach graduation, I have begun to realize that there is a certain charm to be found amongst ramen noodles, the countless batches of banana

bread, late night ice-cream runs, and early morning Fort Langley study dates. I joke about the silverfish and ramen noodles, but what really strikes me as graduation barrels towards me is how much I will miss my transformative time here at TWU. It is here on this cam-

“

Part of me fears that after I graduate, I will lose the identity I have gained through these people and through my years at TWU. Yet I know that the person I have become will only be extended as I leave this place.

”

pus that I have really been broken and rebuilt into the person that I am today. Individuals, classes, settings, and groups of people have helped shape certain attributes – a certain tone of laugh, perhaps, softness towards the Holy Spirit,

the courage to answer a question in class, the patience to wait as I attempt to discover my vocation, the wherewithal to dream. I am surrounded by peers with whom I share a kind of collective memory. These friends and colleagues help me to forget my failings and reflect with grace rather than embarrassment on my mistakes. They describe the look on my face when a fundamental internal tectonic plate finally shifts into place, allowing an earthquake of self-discovery of the best kind to take place. Azar Nafisi says, “You get a strange feeling when you’re about to leave a place. Like you’ll not only miss the people you love but you’ll miss the person you are now at this time and this place, because you’ll never be this way ever again.” Nafisi’s words express the language of my heart in this bittersweet season. You see, it is TWU and its people and our Fort Langley study dates and river walks that have made me brave. I will miss my remarkable and delightful people, these dear ones that I have come to love as friends and parts of my gathered family. Part of me fears that after I graduate, I will lose the identity I have gained through these people and through my years at TWU. Yet, I know that the person I have become will only be extended as I

leave this place. I will discover even more delightful people and other cracked linoleum floors on which to balance while adjusting to my new post-TWU reality. Graduation isn’t an end; it’s a

of feminists constantly being limited to defending their beliefs, let us educate the world about how it is changing! Let us encourage the man who is willing to share his feelings, and come alongside both the woman who is fighting for equal pay and the woman who stays home to raise her kids. That way, we are encouraging people to move towards freedom from gender roles and stereotypes. Let’s change our words and our actions when it comes to how we view gender roles. I am fighting for equality because God created both men and women to reflect His image in unique, individual and equal ways. Part of that fight involves allowing grace to be present in our conversations with our peers. Grace does not scold the ignorant, but creates conversation. Grace empowers the weak and humbles the proud. In our conversations, let us step into a gracious feminism, in which both genders can come alongside one another to fight for the true image that God has given us – an image of freedom.

new beginning. For now, however, I creep out of the bathroom, eyes trained on the beady-eyed monster in the corner. My time with the silverfish is not yet over.

What do you envy most about the opposite gender? “They don’t have to make the first move on the first date.” - Kevin Redekop

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FEBRUARY 4, 2015

The happy way to live... After the height of the ex-gay movement, many LGBTQ Christians were left scarred; for many, their inability to change their sexual orientation led to depression and anxiety, torn between a desire for love, belonging, and faith. Enter the Gay Christian Network (GCN). Trying to resolve the tension, they created an inclusive framework where those who saw marriage as not resting upon gender were free to find love and belonging in gay marriage (Side A), and those who saw marriage

as something fixed between a man and a woman resolved to celibacy (Side B). But is this framework really that inclusive? What about gay men and women who don’t affirm same-sex romantic relationships but desire the love, belonging, and parenthood that accompanies a marriage? I had the opportunity to personally ask Justin Lee, co-founder of the GCN, why there seemed to be no room in Side B for LGBTQ Christians who still saw “heterosexual”

marriage as an option. His answer surprised me. After an incredibly sincere explanation of the ex-gay movement and the destruction it caused came example after example of how mixed-orientation marriages from the ex-gay movement seemed to have failed miserably. “Some people make it work,” he noted, “but I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.” I would agree. It seems that most of those who

Ashley Linttell My intuitive response to the premise of this book was negative. Mills argues that gay Christians should just get married anyway? Don’t we know that doesn’t work? Isn’t this just a way of repackaging the ex-gay movement? There are two points that need to be made to distinguish Mills from the ex-gay movement. First, Mills is paradoxically suggesting not that gay Christians attempt to change their sexual orientation, but rather that they live with their sexual desires as they are and participate in a marriage that is not founded on sexuality. He argues that our culture’s glorification of sex in romantic relationships, founded on Rousseau, is not representative of reality, and that companionship, commitment, and service ought to instead be considered the defining features of a marriage. Secondly, it is important to note that Mills is not imposing sexual behaviour on anyone; he recognizes and remains neutral on interpretations of scripture which allow for gay marriage. While he does not actively show his support for such positions, he refrains from denouncing them as ascriptural heresy, as many conservative Christians would be tempted to do. In his book, he is primarily addressing gay Christians who have themselves come to the conclusion that acting on their attractions would be a violation of their religious convictions. It is my opinion that his suggestion of heterosexual marriage for gay Christians is actually an attempt to recognize their humanity and to avoid excluding them from the beneficial institutions of marriage and family. This said, there are many aspects of his work which I consider problematic. First, he does not recognize that both romantic attraction and sexual attraction can be oriented towards specific genders. It is possible, for example, for a person to identify as bisexual, but to want a relationship with only one gender. In asserting that being gay does not prevent men from falling in love with women, Mills fails to consider those whose sexual and romantic orientations are both directed exclusively towards members of their own gender. I would question whether there is a reason for marriage in the absence of both romantic and sexual attraction; it doesn’t seem as though there would be anything to meaningfully distinguish such a marriage from a friendship. Mills is also a little vague about whether he recommends that gay Christians in heterosexual marriages should be sexually active, and to what extent. To me, this seems like a key point, and his inability to provide a satisfactory response to this topic is troubling. If he is asking gay Christians to

be sexually active in heterosexual marriages, he is taking on some of the more serious problems associated with the ex-gay movement. Asking a person to act on sexual desires they do not experience is at best awkward, undesirable, and emotionally trying, and at worst a form of sexual oppression or abuse. If Mills is recommending sexless marriages, he avoids these problems but robs an essential part of marriage. While marriage may not be founded on sex in the way Rousseau saw it, sex has always been associated with marriage, which seems to lack something without it. This also presents a significant challenge for the straight partner. Whether the marriage is sexless or minimally sexual, they are effectively choosing celibacy in their marriage. Although this is not a completely implausible sacrifice to make for someone you really love, it is not insignificant. By choosing to marry someone who is not attracted to them, they are taking on a burden they would not otherwise be required to bear. In a sense, this is the definition of marriage: choosing to take on each other’s burdens when we could as easily choose to live free of them. Who is to say whether it presents a more substantial challenge than any of the other issues inherent in marriage? But the decision to marry must be a conscious and intentional decision. If such a marriage is to work, it is necessary that they go into the marriage without the expectation of their partner’s sexual orientation changing somewhere down the line; such an expectation would lead to resentment and disappointment in the vast majority of cases. There are certain features of Mills’ book which make me doubt its credibility. His choice to address only male homosexuality is a painful oversight, and some of his stylistic choices reveal a clearly conservative bias; for example, his habit of putting “homosexual” and “heterosexual” in quotation marks shows his apparent lack of respect for those concepts. But overall, Mills does address an important issue within the church, and in spite of some of the more obvious problems associated with his view of marriage, I believe his intention to offer an alternative to unwanted celibacy is well-intentioned. Whether or not it is effective must be determined by real couples.

What do you envy most about the opposite gender? “Soft skin, for sure.” - Peter Woekel

entered these ex-gay marriages were hoping for their sexual orientation to change in marriage; those expectations were shattered when their orientation remained the same. So what can we learn from this? Sexual orientation rarely, if ever, changes. However, does that still exclude those in Side B from marriage? Jonathan Mills, author of Love, Covenant, & Meaning, would disagree. Mills argues specifically on the behalf of gay

men who are “routinely defined as incapable of marrying women and raising families” due to their sexual orientation. He prefaces his book as such: “The presence of ‘homosexual’ desires in a man does not make him incapable of marrying and raising a family. Such desires don’t mean he can’t fall in love with a woman. Such desires don’t mean he can’t be a good husband and father. Such desires don’t mean he can’t find marriage and family a meaningful and happy way to live.”

The rest of his book outlines socio-historical reasons why “non-heterosexual” people, specifically men, should not be barred from marriage, critiquing culture and the church along the way. We will be commenting on the argument for a generous spaciousness within Side B following the thought-trails that Mills has already blazed.

Andrew Perrin There are so many questions that this book unearths. First and foremost, the notion of mixed-orientation marriages challenges our cultural assumptions on attraction; is it truly possible to love someone whose gender is not in line with our own sexual orientation? What are the distinctions between emotional, physical, and spiritual attraction, and how does romantic attraction interplay among these factors? How does seeing marriage as an expression of sexuality affect those in the LGBTQ community? I want to start with marriage. Both secular and Christian cultures have upheld the idea of the “sexual being.” It’s hard not to have heard that terminology by now, but where does it come from and how does it influence our view of marriage? Enter JeanJacques Rousseau. This influential thinker from the eighteenth century has radically changed our view of marriage. Essentially, he redefined what it means to be human. In his time, there were three common types of love: Eros (love of higher things), Juno (familial love), and venery (carnal love). Of the three, the search for Eros had defined the human condition. Rousseau, however, viewed this love hierarchy quite differently. To Rousseau, venery was the most foundational love of the family unit, as he saw it binding man and woman together in marriage, as opposed to by covenant. He elevated venery to the same level of importance as Eros, refocusing the foundation of marriage and family from covenant to sexual bond; this ideal, carried out, leads to venereal pleasure as the height of humanity, re: “Take Me to Church.” This well-intentioned thoughtlessness has placed a significant emphasis on the venereal desire between man and wife as the glue that holds marriage together. After this cultural assumption was brought into the light, I was humbled. I needed to rethink my long-standing idea of what romance was. For too long, I had accepted the Romantic milieu without seriously considering what a Godly relationship should be founded on. This conversation has drastically stripped back the layers of assumptions from my eyes, and I hope that opening this dialogue will also provoke you to reconsider the foundations of marriage. These are the questions I now ask. First, with venereal desire as a foun-

dation for marriage, certainly no gay Christians should or even would consider mixed-orientation marriages, right? According to Mills, our brothers and sisters in Christ still do. Mills claims that many gay Christians, regardless of this cultural misvaluing of sexual desire, marry for the purpose of love and belonging. Many of our Christian brothers and sisters want the same closeness and purpose found in being a spouse and parent. Second, if this desire for love and belonging overrides venereal desire, are such marriages façades? No. On the contrary, if entered with proper perspectives, these marriages might even be stronger than marriages built on sexual desire. Mills argues that those whose sexuality is oriented elsewhere may be able to see more clearly the nobility and goodness of their potential spouse, marrying “godly” instead of “gaudy.” It’s funny, but it can be true. And that’s a sad point to make. Third, if marrying for love and belonging is what Mills is arguing for, this final question arises is it truly possible to love someone whose gender is not in line with our own sexual orientation? My answer: Yes. I believe it is possible to truly love anyone with all four of Lewis’s types of loves: affection, friendship, romance, and unconditional love. But how does our sexual orientation factor into our ability to love? I don’t know. But I do know this – I find it hard to believe that the romantic love tied to our physical, emotional, and spiritual attractions to someone is concrete enough to provide a foundation for marriage. For many couples, their covenantal declarations far outlive their attraction to one another. It seems that the only true fit for the foundation of marriage is covenant itself, backed by godly love for the other person you choose to serve for life. So how do we then live? Gay Christians looking for more room on Side B can choose to reject the idea of the “sexual being”; they are choosing beings, made in His image. In line with true Christian discipleship, their soul will exercise authority over their body, not their body over their soul. They can also choose to esteem godliness in others, and can found their marriage-based decisions on such things. And they can join me in the search for the true value of attraction and it’s meaning within relationships. But more than that, collectively as Christians, we can choose to subject every facet of our being to the one who made us.

What do you envy most about the opposite gender? “Peeing sitting down.” - Andrew Richmond

FEBRUARY 4, 2015

CREATIVE A cruel angel’s thesis

Norman’s Journal Entry dated: February 7

Last Friday, Olivia invited me to attend praise chapel. I had not attended praise chapel, nor any other chapel service, since my freshman year. Occasionally, Chris invites me to attend with him, to which I always reply that I do not approve of Dionysian orgy—and since he has taken a Townsend course, he knows exactly what I mean, even if he disagrees. Put simply, chapel combines two things I despise: worship and the gym. Of course, I said none of this to Olivia. Had I anticipated her invitation, I would have invented some lie to have on hand—but I suppose that, in all my scheming, I never foresaw the danger of a chapel invitation. She asked me minutes before worship began, and in my stuttering for an excuse, the single word “yes” dropped out of my mouth and hit the floor, to an echo that only I could hear. She held my hand all the way to the gym, but I felt heavy and as if she was dragging me to my doom. It is a cliché, but I write it anyways: little did I know . . . She planted me on the upper bleachers among growing clusters of students. To my annoyance, Chris spotted us when he entered. He smiled at Olivia and me, but there was a flicker of disdain in his eyes—I knew that he still did not approve of my relationship with her. Since the second semester began, I have not seen him as often as before, though occasionally we share breakfast. Sometimes he tries to open a discussion about unequally-yoked relationships, but I always change the subject or cast him a silencing glare. Chris sat down beside Olivia, as there was already a student on my other side. Before he could speak, greetings and announcements from the blue-matted stage commenced, followed by the worship music. Oh God be my everything Be my delight Be Jesus my glory My soul satisfied I sat/stood there, bored and uncomfortable, singing the words on the screen, debating in my head whether or not I could

get away with merely mouthing them. Occasionally, Olivia turned to me, her head tilted to one side with a quivering mouth and deep rapture in her eyes. I returned her puppy-dog look, assuming the expression I normally exploit when appealing to a professor for a higher grade on a paper. I had to resist snarling at her. Gradually, the worshippers around me felt their way into the music, and began to gently rock and then sway to the rhythm beating out from the band below. Arms began to unfold, and open hands began to clench out into the air, as if God was floating out there patiently to receive them. Olivia was one of these worshippers. But her hand was not limp and gentle like Adam’s in the fresco painting by Michelangelo. No, her hand was tense and grasping outward for that other, nail-pierced one to receive it. I was unnerved to remember that she offers me that same hand to hold whenever we walk together. Her other hand was flat on her heart, her fingers resting at the base of her neck that was craned forward to support a head turned upward towards the ceiling. Her sealed eyes rested on a face completely lax, her mouth closed but her lips not completely sealed. Her entire body swayed back and forth to the rhythm as if she was the plaything of a light breeze—perhaps God’s breath. She was utterly vulnerable— helpless, really. For some reason, this realization terrified me. My hiding place My safe refuge My treasure Lord You are My friend and King Anointed one most holy I looked away from her, but my eyes landed not on a safe, empty space in the gym. All around me, as if swarming, the students swayed to the rhythm, their arms reaching forward into empty space or otherwise spread outward as if for an incoming hug. All—perhaps it was only some, or most, but to me it seemed all— of their eyes were closed, blind, their faces blank like Olivia’s. All these smooth, beautiful, blind faces, devoid of any reason, passion, or focus, seemed to resemble one another in their expressionlessness. All

the faces looked the same. I saw Olivia’s blank face reflected in Chris’ blank face reflected in all the other blank faces; there was not a tinge of identity in any one of them; all their identities had relaxed and dissolved into the rhythm that led them all. I thought: There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. The music seemed to grow louder and louder, and the back-and-forth motions of the luminous bodies seemed to quicken and sharpen and soon were nearly frenetic. I turned to Olivia and realized that if she fell, I would be the only one to catch her, since all the others were just as oblivious as she was. If any of them swayed too far, I would be the only one to catch any one of them. The music now screamed in my ears, and the worshippers seemed to spin around me, all their blank faces and flailing limbs dissolving into suffocating waves, and suddenly I could not breathe. The words projected on the screen became illegible characters, and the music sounded like the noise of a machine on the verge of exploding. I felt trapped. I sat—or stood, I do not know— in the middle of the bleachers, surrounded by worshippers on all sides, the shortest path to the stairs over Olivia and Chris and several others beside them. It was unbearable; all my senses were overwhelmed; I was beside myself, I was losing my self, I could not find my self. I still could not breathe, and the music was unbearably loud and the worshippers were sucking me in. I shot up and charged to the left, barreling over Olivia and then Chris and several other students beside them, the last one sitting next to the stairs only barely leaping out of my wanton path in time. I ran across the gym, and I did not glance back once until I was nearly through the exit door. Chris and Olivia were still there, grasping their shaken bodies, staring at me with shock in their faces. At least I had given them back their identities. The other worshippers were still singing.

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What do you envy most about the opposite gender? “Their clothes are more fashionable.” - Alex Shin

ARTS & CULTURE

FEBRUARY 4, 2015

MACKENZIE CAMERON

mackenzie.cameron@mytwu.ca

When Mort is really Maura

A transgender tale of life with Mapa

mackenzie CAMERON

Watching the Golden Globes earlier this January, I couldn’t help but feel as though I was catching

a piece of important history. Jill Soloway’s new TV series, Transparent, took home the Golden Globe for Best TV Comedy or Musical, as well as Best Actor in a TV Comedy for Jeffrey Tambor’s work as the lead. What makes this show so unusual, so unexpected, and so significant? It’s about a transgendered individual (Mort)

coming out as a female (Maura) to his family and beginning his journey of transformation. Granted, this material has been covered in subplots and storylines since the mid 1980’s, but the representations and portrayals have not been near as real, forefront, and honest as in this new TV series. I have watched half of

the season and what I have seen has completely blown me away with its authenticity, sharp wit, real dialogue, and dry humour. Be warned: this show is not for the faint of heart; there is explicit content that is definitely not for everyone. What I have found is that the treatment of the material is neither idealized nor stereotyped, but rather that Soloway has managed to create a show that blasts open misconceptions and judgments placed upon the trans community by mainstream society. Soloway’s father opened up as transgendered three years ago, and it is this personal story that inspired the TV series. In her acceptance speech, Soloway thanks her mapa (mamma + papa) specifically, saying: “Thank you for coming out, and in doing so, you made a break for freedom, you told your truth, you taught me how to tell my truth and make this show. And

The moment seizes you

erik DELANGE

The film Boyhood ends with this poignant line from Mason’s new friend Nicole: “You know how everyone’s always saying seize the moment? I don’t know, I’m kind of thinking it’s the other way around, you know, like the moment seizes us.” After filming the same film for 12 years, it seems director Richard Linklater thought this delightfully understated sentiment was weighty enough to conclude this epic story and process. And as it turns out, he couldn’t be more right. While it may come across as some sort of esoteric eastern philosophy with very little life application, I think it has profound implications for Christians. The idea that God exists in an eternal present can be found in the writings of Saint Augustine and many others. C.S. Lewis summed it up well when he said that “the present is the moment in which time touches eternity.” It’s this “eternal now” that the Christian has cause to be excited about. In our busy lives we are always switching from regret about the past to worry about the future and because of this, we are distracted from eternity. It is from this idea that we get popular phrases such as “seize the moment”; the idea that the present is all we have and so we ought to, well, be present in it. But Linklater’s insight runs much deeper

here. The idea of seizing the moment puts the emphasis on us, on things that we need to do in order to cultivate any sense of eternal presentness with God. We feel as though we have control over the coming of the presence of God by going out of our way to earn his and others’ favour. Often even our worship sessions, our talking about theology, and our going to church can be human efforts to arrive at God, but the truth of the matter is that it is God who presses in on us – first with his incarnation and now with his Holy Spirit – and oftentimes all we need to do is clear away distractions and idols in order to realize this. So here, Linklater’s words ring true. We do not seize the moment; in fact, most all of our moment-seizing, if done on our own efforts, will come to nothing. The great paradox of faith is that in order to gain everything, we need to not do anything. Once the distractions are stripped away and the should-haves and wouldhaves and could-haves disappear, once we let go of our worldly possessions and the hold that they have on our lives, once we truly lose everything, we find God is there all along in this present moment, seizing us. We cannot seize eternity, we are seized by eternity. Most of us just need to wake up to that reality that is pressing in on us at every present moment. Including this one, right now. Stop reading this article as if it’s going to make you smarter or get you closer to God, and wake up to his presence with you right now.

maybe we’re going to be able to teach the world something about authenticity, and truth, and love.” Speaking with her daughter, Sarah, about the possibility of opening up to other family members, Mort asks her what it was like when she came out to her. Sarah responds that, “It’s like having a baby: one day the baby shows up and you figure it out.” While this is a crude statement to say the least, it certainly makes you think. We’re at a unique point in time where we’ve been handed the infant of very real and very prevalent LGBTQ representations in our culture. This is the time to “figure it out,” to ask big questions, to be fearless in our openness, and to invest in relationships that push our boundaries and sense of awareness. While this new show isn’t perfect – far from it, in fact – it provides an opportunity to start the conversation on what it means to be transparent in the midst of change.

Justlikeawoman Female covers of Bob Dylan songs

Bob Dylan is known his for many talents, but a beautiful singing voice is not one of them. Thank goodness that these women have come to the rescue. Some of Dylan’s more iconic and some of his less iconic songs are covered here with varying degrees of allegiance to his signature style. 1. “Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again” – Cat Power 2. “Highway 61 Revisited” – Karen O & The Million Dollar Bashers 3. “Mississippi” – Sheryl Crow 4. “Make You Feel My Love” – Adele 5. “As I Went Out One Morning” – Mira Billotte 6. “Most of the Time” – Sophie Zelmani 7. “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright” – Joan Baez 8. “Just Like a Woman” – Charlotte Gansbourge & Calexico 9. “Gotta Serve Somebody” – Shirly Caesar

What do you envy most about the opposite gender? “The chance to bear a child.” - Braden Rosenfeld

FEBRUARY 4, 2015

Do women make better nurses?

david GIESBRECHT

Statistically speaking, most nurses are women. I am one of the rare male nurses and I’m totally okay with that; I do not see anything wrong with the gender imbalance in the nursing field. The amount of patience and care it takes to nurse a person through sickness and physical ailment takes a cer-

tain temperament that not everyone has. To enjoy nursing, you need to be able to see individuals in their complex balance of physical, psychological, and spiritual elements, and to have the internal compassion to help them achieve health in one or all of these areas. From what I’ve seen in the world, more girls than guys have this caring potential. I think my male-gender/nursing-temperament combination is relatively uncommon, and that’s okay. Maybe the nursing gender imbalance is the result of cultural gen-

der pressures, maybe it’s not. The reality is that girls are more likely to enter into, and succeed in, the nursing field. Looking at Canadian statistics, 91% of nurses are female, and they’re doing a great job as the primary work force for a world-class medical system! This is not an issue of gender inequality; it is not that men should not be nurses, or that nursing is a female profession, but rather that females are more naturally equipped to fill the nursing niche. The key, for me, is that there must be fair opportunity for those who

ity, she was faced with immediate accusations of “boycotting certain performances,” including Katy Perry’s and Beyoncé’s. So what does one self-persecuted, Southern-belle Christian musician have to do with Beyoncé? The juxtaposition of Beyoncé’s continued influence and Natalie Grant’s call for the Christian community to be wary of such music demonstrates confusion, on both sides, between feminism and women’s self-empowerment. Feminism, at base level, is the advocacy for the equal universal rights of all women. “Bow Down” was Beyoncé’s “coming-out-of-the-closet” moment as a feminist. She had worked with women’s advocacy groups and NGOs before, but this was different. With a refrain from Nigerian Feminist, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichi, about the suppression of females and a rap about hometown patriarchy, Beyoncé was out to make a statement about life for young women. Though she might be the most impactful, blatant, and industrious in her feminist proclamation, artists such as Lady Gaga, Nicki Minaj, and Madonna have also assumed the label of feminist. So in this grand narrative of booty shaking, iTunes crashing, and feminist-birthing, it can be a little disorientating – and, frankly, downright frustrating – to try to grasp these women’s worldviews.

As someone who has been a dedicated member of the Beyhive (that’s what we devout Beyoncé fans unite under), I hope to try and clarify some of the Queen’s objectives for you. Beyoncé was raised in a home in lower-class Houston where she not only witnessed the suppression of women, particularly her mother, but also the ongoing suppression of African-Americans. For her, it didn’t make sense that whites had all the money while blacks did all the work. Beyoncé has become influential in her ability to radiate this message: money does n o t determine one’s ability to dream. If you’re listening to one of her songs and hear the words “H-town” or “Houston Rocket,” she is tapping into an AfricanAmerican, specifically female, transcendence. And transcendence – the ability or act of rising above – really is the key word in

do have the characteristics that would allow them to succeed in the job, regardless of gender. I am a man and I am a great nurse, not because anyone owed me the opportunity based on equality, but because I have a caring temperament and I love bringing people back to health. To me, gender inequality only becomes a reality when individuals are prevented from attempting a career due to their sex, or when people who are not qualified to try a profession are ushered in under the premise of work-force gender balancing (see current police and firefighter hiring trends). Everyone should have equal opportunity to attempt a job, but there should be no guarantee of an equal outcome. Determinations should be based on potential and performance, not on gender. Effective equality will not be achieved by reaching 50/50 gender split in all professions. An interesting extension of this thought would be to consider how nursing roles are represented in popular media from a gender perspective. I don’t watch TV, nor do I generally like a lot of movies, but my perception is that nurse characters are almost always cast as women.

Again, this doesn’t bother me because I can consider the goal of the producers: meet the demands of the target market and gain viewers. Considering that the target market is used to seeing nurses as women, 91% of the time, it makes sense that they would regularly fulfill that expectation in their casting decisions. I’m sure exceptions do exist and male nurses are represented in select cases, but it’s a significant minority, which accurately reflects the statistical reality of the profession. The same argument can be considered for many other minority groups, including, for example, persons of alternative sexuality. Romantic media generally focuses on heterosexual relationships because the target market is primarily heterosexual (> 95%). This does not in any way mean that those of differing sexuality should never be represented in media, but just that it can be expected that most of the time they won’t be; the market is generally more likely to identify with roles cast with those within the statistical majority. The nursing profession is filled with female workers, both in reality and in media, and they’re doing a great job representing the profession.

understanding Beyoncé’s performance technique and mantra. In the same way that Beyoncé was able to emerge with a career she wanted out of a class system dictated by race-difference, her dance moves evoke freedom. Every booty shake, hip thrust, and “drop-it-like-it’s-hot” carries with it the message: “Because I can.” Though “c’est la vie” is contradictory to some people’s biblical principals, that’s not what Beyoncé is asking audiences to consider. There is no doubt that Beyoncé is talented; over 20 Grammy

wins will back that up. But why does she continually win TIME’s Most Influential Person of the Year? Because through her dance moves, performances, videos, and music, she demonstrates that no one should be able to limit another’s ability or potential – black, white, gay, straight, Jew, or Gentile. In a sense, Beyoncé has become the pastor of our generation.

Beloved booty shakes and Beyoncé

matthew WIGMORE

When December 2013 rolled around, the world didn’t know what hit it – literally; iTunes shut down for over 12 hours. To the general population, this would soon be known as the self-titled Beyoncé album. To a select committee of people this album was known beforehand as Project Lily, lily being the color of the iconic “Beyoncé” label on a black background. What does this event prove? That like it or not, Beyoncé’s influence has become uncontrollable. There is a significant voice that “liketh not” this sudden B-studded phenomenon. After she sang “Drunk in Love” with her husband, Jay-Z, at the 2014 Grammys—a performance that had just as much leather-strapped booty as it did sultry vocals—Christian artist and songwriter Natalie Grant, many of whose songs are featured in modern evangelical churches, tweeted: “We left the Grammys early. I’ve many thoughts, most of which are probably better left inside my head. “ Although Grant’s cutely passive comment left some ambigu-

What do you envy most about the opposite gender? “They have art on their bathroom walls.” - Caleb Ropp

15 GREGORY REESE

a conversation on Art & Faith with Robynne Healey

mackenzie CAMERON

Robynne Healey: Often we use gender to mean women. Gender isn’t a synonym for women; both men and women live gendered lives. When I think about gender and the arts, there are three really important things to take note of: there’s the sex of the creator – male or female – and how each defines his or her own gender, but then there’s also the gender within the object or the created. Third is the viewer or listener; that person’s own gender, as well as their interpretation of gender, is always important in the arts. Mars’ Hill: How do you think current gender representations in the arts are shaping our culture, or how have they shaped our culture already? RH: Gender representations are their own coded narratives, and once we sit down and begin to unpack them, we understand them a bit better. However, we tend to avoid the unpacking and operate within these coded narratives without even being aware of them. For instance, Eve comes with a whole bunch of coded narratives. When she appears in a painting, or film, or music, she brings thousands of years of coded, gendered narratives with her. That’s why it’s important to understand the role of gender in the arts: because gender is a critical part of everybody’s life. Living a gendered life is part of being human. When we see so many gendered codes in the arts, it’s an indication of how they’re embedded in the language. Think of a representation of a social convention that doesn’t challenge us or make us uncomfortable. The mother, like June Cleaver from Leave it to Beaver, has it all together; she wears the shirt-dress and has dinner on the table by 5:00. The flapper is different. She troubles

us because we can’t easily categorize her; she’s unpredictable. And in the arts, we see these gendered boundaries being pushed. That’s what art does. Art lives in a space that challenges social conventions, and that’s why people worry about it. The arts have been censored throughout history because their influence is potentially so dangerous, and yet because the arts are a space to imagine, they can be seen as less threatening. The arts do two things: they remind us that we all live gendered lives and they also challenge the gendered lives that we live. In the 1980’s there was a film test called the Bechdel Test created by a feminist cartoonist. In order to pass the Bechdel test, a film has to meet three conditions: (1) there must be two named female characters (2) that have a dialogue together (3) that is not about men. There aren’t many movies that actually pass the Bechdel test; so much of what we think about, so much of how we represent women on screen, is in relationship to men. How many films have two male characters that talk to one another about things other than women? We see that as normal for men. When the Bechdel test came along, we had to acknowledge that it is so normal for us to watch women talk about men that we never question it. That’s why this matters to me and I

think to others who do gender studies. This is how we socialize our young people. You’re socialized by your activities and the world around you – the music you listen to, the TV you watch, the movies you see, that’s all part of your socialization; it’s part of how you set the landscape for what is acceptable and what isn’t acceptable. If you’ve never seen the modeling of two strong female characters with unique identities, lives, hopes, and goals in conversation, then how do you participate in that? Men absolutely get this too! I don’t want to give the impression that men aren’t represented in a gendered way. While stock characters like cowboys, soldiers, and policemen can provide exciting narratives for film, what images are men given on real masculinity? The masculinity that is

shown on screen is often highly contrived. If it’s ever shown in a way that’s not hyper-masculine, it’s challenged. MH: So we’ve talked a lot about what the representations have been like in the past, can you speak to representations that we’ve currently got before us? RH: In the wake of secondwave feminism, many simplistic representations we’ve been talking about have been challenged. We’ve got this multiplicity of gender representations that some people find confusing. I think it’s fabulous because we see gender represented in so many ways, but it can certainly become caricatured. For instance, Lady Gaga is an example of someone who appears over the top. I think she’s trying to use her art to force people to re-think the shallowness of ideas about gender. On the other hand, we also get the feel-good representations of gender that make us want to bake a pie. What is hopeful about representations of gender in the arts now is that they’re so much more complicated; that’s an indication of the way that we are thinking about gender from multiple perspectives and recognizing that we live complicated, gendered lives. I don’t think art can ever be genderless. That doesn’t mean that what the creator expresses is the way that the person consuming it is going to experience it. Creators try to control that by using symbols, but even so, all of us who consume art experience it differently depending on our own gendered experiences, but also depending on where we are in our lives. I’m heading into the stage of my life where I’m getting wrinkles, and so I’m becoming more fascinated

by them. I want to see them as beautiful instead of fighting them, because women have bought into this notion that we have to be eternally youthful and that men become distinguishedGREGORY when REESE they get older. Women just get old. MH: Would you be able to express a hope, or a forecast, or a direction for where the arts are going or where they should go next? RH: I think that once again, it always comes down to the individual creating, the representation being created, and then the viewer or the consumer. I think that for individuals who are members of a gender or sexual minority, the arts have always been an open space. What we’re seeing now is the exploration of those minority characters being created and portrayed. There is an interest because of broader social conversations about sexual minorities, and the arts are that place where we can experience this. This is probably the next frontier. By their very nature, frontiers are temporary things; it’s a space that has been unexplored. And it is now being explored. There’s been an immense shift in the last decade into more widespread acceptance of the performance of the lives of LGBTQ individuals in theatre, on screen, and on television. Exploration seems to start within theatre with its smaller audiences. Once you start getting into film and television, then you’ve moved into the broader culture. I think that’s where we’re at now. We’re at a place where TV shows, movies, and music are wrestling with gender identity and sexual minorities in ways that not only show acceptance, but also inclusion. This has all been very recent. And so for me, the arts are always going to be the frontier where we can investigate and challenge gender norms. It starts in the arts and once it becomes more broadly accepted in mainstream society, the arts are ready for its next challenge, and it’s always been that way. The arts are ready for their next challenge.

What do you envy most about the opposite gender? “That they can get ready quickly in the morning.” - Katelynn Ramage

FEBRUARY 4, 2015

SPORTS

The world cup of hockey

CONNOR EWERT

connor.ewert1@mytwu.ca

The best-on-best tournament is back, but not as you may think

connor EWERT

The World Cup of Hockey is back with a new format and new teams as the NHL seeks to create and sustain the best and most competitive hockey tournament in the world. In the Fall of 2016,

connor EWERT

Mars’ Hill: Why did you choose to come to TWU and become a Spartan? Tyler Heppel: There were four things that I looked for in a university – faith, location, strength of the volleyball program, and quality of education – and I knew I had found them all when I came to Trinity. MH: How did you hear about TWU and the Spartans? TH: I grew up going to the

the hockey world will focus its attention on Toronto as players from Canada, United States, Russia, Sweden, Finland, Czech Republic will battle each other, as well as a Team Europe comprised of players from countries not represented, and a North American Young Stars team, including players from North America aged 23 and younger. Team Europe will be comprised of all-stars from countries

Spartans basketball and volleyball games on the weekend. My family is also very close with the Dean of Business, so I had an idea of what I would get at Trinity. MH: What are some accomplishments you had in high school or prior to becoming a Spartan? Won Provincials and was the top volleyball player in BC for my grad class of 2012. MH: If you could play any other sport other than your Spartan sport, what would it be? Why? TH: Baseball. I just love to throw things fast, so I could see myself being a pitcher. MH: What are you afraid of ? TH: Student loans! MH: What excites or excited you

such as Slovakia, Switzerland, Denmark and Austria. Players on the team could include Anze Kopitar, Zdeno Chara, Jaroslav Halak, Tomas Tatar, and Marian Gaborik. The North American Young Stars team could include players such as Nate MacKinnon, Connor McDavid, Jonathan Drouin, Jack Eichel, and Zachary Fucale. The NHL’s long-term plan includes a North America vs.

about being a Spartan? TH: The team aspect. I love being a part of a big brotherhood. MH: Who is one person in your life that has been a mentor to you? TH: My grandpa. Just seeing how on fire his faith is and how many people his life has affected inspires me. MH: Where do you see yourself when you are done your time here at TWU? TH: I have seen my faith grow so much in the last two years that I have no idea where these next two years will take me spiritually, so the sky is the limit. Physically, these 8 a.m. workouts we are doing might kill me; however, I am getting stronger.

Europe series in 2018 held in Europe, then having an expansive World Cup tournament in 2020, which could feature North American players with an Italian, English, Irish, or German heritage playing in those respective countries. With these plans now in place, it is evident that the likelihood of NHL players traveling to the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea is fall-

Name: Tyler Heppel Birthday: January 8. 1994 Place of Birth/Where are you from? Langley, BC Year of Schooling: Third Year Major/Program: Business Sport/Club/Team: Men’s Volleyball Position: Left side/Right side

What do you envy most about the opposite gender? “They get more attention.” - Naomi

ing, despite many players publicly stating they desperately want to take part in the tournament. Stars such as Steven Stamkos and John Tavares have expressed their strong desire to play in the Olympics. The format of the tournament will be two pools of four teams. Following the round-robin, the top two teams from each pool will move onto the semi-finals, making the early games more meaningful. The final will be a best-ofthree series and it will crown the first winner of the World Cup of Hockey since 2004. The league expects to generate upwards of US $100 million in revenue and will split it 50/50 between the NHL and NHLPA. The winning and runner-up teams will also be compensated, though minimally in comparison to the players playing contracts in the NHL or KHL. The teams will be comprised of 23 players and three goalies. Initial rosters of at least 16 players must be announced before March 1, 2016, and the official rosters by no later than June 1, 2016. This new tournament, though it will most likely take NHL players out of the Olympics, will provide excellent competition for the competing players, and it is a bold move by the NHL that will be reviewed by analysts and fans for the next year until rosters are announced. Though it will take place in Fall 2016, the tournament will be coming close very quickly and will keep hockey fans busy as they debate who will make the rosters and who will be snubbed.

Spartans hockey, track and field take THIS center stage WEEK

kyle ROSE

At Trinity Western University, we are blessed to have multiple competitive sports teams that travel and play at the highest level this country has to offer. The CIS has had the pleasure of hosting great conference action featuring numerous Spartan athletes in various sports, including men’s and women’s basketball and volleyball. All programs have seen great success. However, none stand out more then the recent emergence of men’s hockey and men’s and women’s track and field this year. Track and Field is always an exciting event, and the men’s and women’s Spartans have made a bold statement with Nathan George and Sarah Inglis in their respective events. Inglis made the CIS national championship standard in the 1000m and broke the Spartans record as she finished first overall, with a time of 2:45.94 at the 13th Annual Washington State Open Saturday. In just her second season as a Spartan, Inglis has really proven herself as a high-level athlete. This accomplishment only adds to her already impressive track resume. Nathan George is another Spartan who has been making noise in the CIS. Representing the men, George made the CIS

national championship standard and set a new meet record in the 300m event at the 13th Annual Washington State Open, as he finished first in 34.93 on Saturday. He also helped both the 4x200m and 4x400m teams achieve CIS standards. Both teams finished first in their events, with the 4x200m team clocking a time of 1:29.06 and the 4x400m team crossing the line in 3:19.22. Either way you look at it, George was big all over the Washington State Open last weekend. The third-year runner made a huge impact and the coaching staff are definitely proud of his accomplishments. Another honourable highlight to be mentioned is fifth year Alison Jackson, who recently signed her first professional contract with Twenty16 cycling club. In the summer of 2014, Jackson won the three-day Tour de White Rock Omnium, while also finishing second and sixth in the criteriums and ninth in the road race in the Tour de Delta. Jackson also finished 15th in the Gastown Grand Prix. We here at TWU want to wish Alison Jackson all the best in her future professional career, and we hope she makes a

huge impact as she aims for a spot on Canada’s cycling team for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games! Good luck, Alison! Now, if you thought the Track and Field teams were doing well, here’s a glance at just how amazing your men’s hockey team has been doing! Currently the team holds a dominating record of 14 wins and only 4 losses. They finished their last home weekend of the season last weekend against Eastern Washington. For those of you who have not been following the hockey team, you have truly been missing out on some great BCIHL action. It should be noted that here at Trinity, the men’s hockey team is one of the better programs that this school has to offer and they could really use your support. The team is currently on a six-game winning streak and shows no signs of slowing down. Most of the players, with the exception of Karsten Seidel, are all healthy and ready to play! This men’s hockey team is hungry and show great signs of a championship feature. Loaded with aggressive athletes and hard work, your TWU Spartans indeed have a bright future in their conference.

9.8

IN HISTORY

February 2nd, 1977 Toronto’s Ian Thurnball scored 5 goals, an NHL record for a defenseman February 4th, 1903 Montreal AAA defeat Winn Victorias 2 games to 1 and 1 tie to capture the Stanley Cup February 4th, 1991 The MLB Hall of Fame Board of Directors vote unanimously 12-0 to bar Pete Rose from entering Cooperstown due to gambling on baseball February 5th, 1989 Kareem Abdul-Jabar becomes the first NBA player to reach 38,000 career points February 5th, 1985 and 1993 Christiano Ronaldo and Connor Ewert are born.

Points allowed per game during Seahawks 8-game winning streak that they carried going into last Sunday’s Super Bowl.

Points scored by Cavaliers guard Kyrie Irving, setting the franchise record for most points in a home game. All 8 of LeBron James’ 50-point games were on the road.

20 Number of postseason wins Tom Brady had going into last Sunday’s Super Bowl. That 38 Number of wins by the Atlanta Hawks through their first 46 games. This matches their is more than 21 NFL franchises.

season total from last year.

What do you envy most about the opposite gender? “They don’t have to shave their legs or armpits.” - Isabella McKenna What do you envy most about the opposite gender? “They get more attention.” - Naomi

FEBRUARY 4, 2015

The EMERGENCE of

CANADIAN WOMEN in major SPORTS |

connor EWERT

Women’s sport is growing all around the world and many of the major and most popular athletes in these sports are Canadian. Athletes such as Eugenie Bouchard, Hayley Wickenheiser, Dara Howell, and Sarah Burke are all household names here in Canada and they are some of the most high-profile athletes Canada has ever produced. Women’s sport in Canada, most specifically the Winter extreme sports, was first brought into Canadians’ lives through the life and story of Sarah Burke. Burke was a freestyle skier from Barrie, Ontario. She was a pioneer for women’s skiing not only in general, but for the women’s events included in the Winter X Games held in Aspen and in the Winter Olympics. Burke went on to win five gold medals in the Winter X Games in Women’s SuperPipe. She fought long and hard to have the Wom-

en’s SuperPipe skiing event in the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, but could not convince the IOC. She did, however, play a large role in having the event added for the Winter Games in Sochi in 2014. On January 10, 2013, she was seriously injured while training in Park City, Utah and died of her injuries nine days later. Burke was instrumental in women’s participation in the 2014 Sochi Olympics, and her legacy will be carried on forever. In 2010, Vancouver, Canada was home to the Olympics, and it provided an amazing stage for many Canadian athletes to break out onto the national scene and provide Canadians with pride in their country. The Olympics were very successful for many of Canada’s female athletes, and the Games brought Canada’s attention to how successful our female athletes are. Maelle Ricker won gold in boardercross and Ashleigh McIvor won gold in ski cross. The two-woman bobsleigh gold medal was captured by Kaillie Humphries and Heather Moyse. Christine Nesbitt won gold in speed skating. The two most unforgettable moments were Olym-

pic veteran Clara Hughes capturing the bronze in speed skating and Joannie Rochette winning bronze in figure skating following the tragic death of her mother just days before the event. The women’s hockey team also won gold in 2010 and in 2014, making it four straight gold medals. The 2010 Vancouver Olympics were a coming out party for our female athletes as they set the tone for the following few years in female athletics in Canada. Two years later, Canada participated in the 2012 Summer Olympics in London and adopted yet another women’s team as their own. The women’s soccer team impressed many at the London Games, led by all-time leading scorer Christine Sinclair. In a hard-fought and controversial semi-final against the powerhouse Americans, the Canadians proved to the world that they were competitive and will compete for the tournaments ahead in the World Cup and Olympic Games. Canada settled for bronze at the Games and is now looking forward to hosting the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup, where they are expected by many to push to-

wards another podium finish. The 2014 Games in Sochi were a couple weeks to remember for Canada and their female athletes. Kaillie Humphries and Heather Moyse once again won gold in bobsleigh, and that was just the start of the female athletes breaking out at the Games. Dara Howell won gold in slopestyle and the Dufour-Lapointe sisters took three of the top four spots in moguls. Marielle Thompson took home gold in ski cross. The 2014 Sochi Olympics were regarded as one of the most successful Games for Canadian female athletes, and the future looks bright for many more Games to come. Most recently, one of the most iconic Canadian female athletes has been Eugenie Bouchard. This tennis star is ranked in the top 10 in the world after an amazing season last year. In 2014, Bouchard reached the semi-finals in three of the four major tennis tournaments and made the final in Wimbledon, arguably the most iconic tennis tournament on the planet. This year, she is back on track to have another remarkable

year. She reached the quarters of the Australian Open, the first of the four majors in tennis, but lost to long-time rival Maria Sharapova. Bouchard has burst onto the tennis scene and has a large following of fans, nicknamed “Genie’s Army.” She has also become great friends with The Big Bang Theory star Jim Parsons. Eugenie Bouchard will be a household name in many Canadian’s homes and looks to be one of the world’s brightest female athletes. It is evident that Canada has produced some of the world’s greatest female athletes. From female hockey greats to young rising tennis stars, Canada has been the birthplace for stars and athletes for a long period of time, and it seems now that the world is beginning to realize it. Though the male athletics in Canada get a lot of attention, it is now beginning to shift in a different direction with young winter sports stars, the upcoming FIFA Women’s World Cup, and a potential superstar on the tennis court.

What do you envy most about the opposite gender? “They understand people. Like, actually.” - Jordan Dueck

FEBRUARY 4, 2015

HUMOUR

TREVOR MCMAHAN

trevor.mcmahan@mytwu.ca

Your bi-weekly dose of LOLs and guffaws

MAN VS WOMAN

TUNJI TAYLOR-LEWIS AND CAM THIESSEN

JORDAN KLASSEN

Verbal brawl for gender splendour

It’s true, isn’t it? Anything men can do, women can do better. We females are simply more focused and efficient than our male counterparts. Because this fact may not be immediately evident to the inferior sex, here are several examples of how it manifests in everyday life. Not only do women have the ability to bring life into the world, an ability that few men possess, but they are also focused and efficient about it. Just think about what would happen if a guy tried to outfit the little one. He would more than likely dress a darling girl… IN BLUE. As women, we know that just isn’t right. I mean, even if the man of the house brings home the bacon, who cooks it better? Obviously both have the ability to cook it; however, the woman is going to cook the bacon without getting grease all over the

freshly wiped counter. And she is going to do it in half the time a man could. The F.E.Male (Focused, Efficient Male), although tough, has a soft and tender side as well. We regularly see in un-cited examples of scientific research that men struggle with openness, vulnerability, and gentleness. In contrast, the F.E.Male is deadset on telling you all about her internal issues whether you want to hear about it or not. Although the feminist movement has gotten a bad reputation for their abuse of the few rights women have, there is no good reason for them to hide the truth. It is a fact that women can cook, clean, and dress better than men. So as long as we limit it to these three things, women can do anything better than men.

We thought the superiority of the male sex was so obvious that we wrote this article in list form.

1. Statistically speaking, 100% of women have male biological fathers. 2. Men play football. You know the Seahawks? No women there. 3. Men invented tampons. You’re welcome. 4. IntelliGENT. There’s no “I” in team, and there’s no “lady” in intelligent either. 5. MENstruation, MENopause, WoMAN, MENchies… Coincidence? We think not. 6. Men invented the Pumpkin Spice Latte. What will we think of next??? 7. We can poop sitting down. Jealous? 8. Our nipples don’t offend anyone. Our pectorals need not be censored.

9. There is a man with two penises. There are no women with two penises. If you find her let us know. 10. Men don’t have emotions. 11. Men (probably) invented the infinity scarf. This is (most likely) a true fact. 12. There would be a total of three Taylor Swift songs without men. “Shake It Off ” is not about avoiding bee stings. “Boy bands” are a thing. There are no “girl bands.” Think about it. 13. Seamen can mean two things, but they both involve men. We all see men. 14. All the great men of history were men. 15. Men invented yoga pants. (We admit, the motivations were selfish.) 16. Bob Kuhn is a man. End of conversation.

What do you envy most about the opposite gender? “Ohhhhh, I’m not witty!” - Abbey Middleton

FEBRUARY 4, 2015

DE-CLASSIFIEDS

marshillonline.com/de-classifieds

Mars’ Hill editors reserve the right to edit or reject submissions based on content and/or length. A printed submission does not necessarily reflect an endorsement of any kind, nor does it necessarily reflect the opinions of Mars’ Hill staff , the student association, or that of the University. In fact probably not. Just going pee aka listening to my dormmates poop...I love community!!!!!!!!!!!!

I’m on that new diet where I eat everything and hope for a miracle

When I was attending Langley Fine Arts School, I used to love seeing the huge, decorated Trinity Christmas tree. Why hasn’t it been decorated since I don’t remember when? And while I’m at it, when will we once again see Father, Son, and Holy Ghost fountains all flowing in sync?

Why do famous people only date famous people? Like you are missing out on some amazing people (for example me)

Why can’t fishermen be generous? Because their business makes them sell fish. Women belong in the kitchen Men belong in the kitchen Everyone belongs in the kitchen Kitchen has food I’m taking a break from DeClassifieds.

I LOVE THREE-HOUR GEO LABS IN THE POURING RAIN

Shoutout to TWUSA for getting whipped cream #youtherealmvp

Inconsiderate folks whispering near you while crinkling their food wrappers? Slap those headphones in, and Google a white noise generator! Peace at last!

Watching spiders fighting outside the library window wondering what it would be like to live in a web #justlibrarythoughts

My imagination is bare, unless you bring sock puppets into the equation, then I’m on board!

What did the blanket say when it fell off the bed? “Oh sheet”

I think I just hacked the internets! I got the secret code: VAUM! Says its a security code but I know better

Statistics. The factor that keeps me faithful to Norma

Zombie apocalypse hiding place #1 - Washroom by TWUSA.

*watches T.V 10 hours straight*

Gill Curtis possesses over 65% of Trinity Western’s swag. I have the best RA, she pees with the door open

I am so awkward that when I see someone I just tapdance out of the room and into the wilderness

Dear David Boyd, I think you should take a look at my electrocardiogram because my heart skips a beat every time you answer a question in A&P lab. Sincerely, Girl with Cardiac Arrhythmia

Besides Trinity Goose and Back40 Owl there is another creature lurking in the parking lots of our campus. A LITTLE BABY SQUIRREL!!! It is cute, fluffy and extremely small. Please I beg of you don’t run it over.

So Clark, when are we taking the trip to Chilliwack?

I want to be Anna Demian’s friend so bad.

Sorry you have to read through all of these Colton.

Ajay!!! I will be so sad after you graduate! Thanks for being so nice and caring to everyone you meet regardless of what year they are in, you’re a champ and great TWU citizen. Trinity will miss you greatly! Dear whistling man, no, you’ll be in MY heart.

Jesus is my spirit animal

Dream Works must make a movie about the boy on that moon. Who is he. What is his story. Did he catch the fish?!

“crap”

THE Red Nigh SheVANGELIST

year: 1

age: 18

major: International Studies

height: 5’8 MACKENZIE CAMERON

Age limit (max/min)? I’m not sure what this question means, so if it refers to the max difference in age between me and potential datee, then probably Best pick-up line? Views on courtship? Against it Hometown: Lusaka, Zambia 8 years. “Hey, are you a pizza at a Chinese buffet? BeIdea of a perfect date? Social justice rally.

Denomination: Inter-denominational

Best place for a first kiss?

Fave way to worship God? With a big group of people

Fave Christian (non-worship song)? Reliant K – Let it All Out

cause I’m not feeling it right now, but I see you over there ‘doing you,’ and I appreciate that.”

The war-torn plains of Tajikistan.

How do you know if it’s love?

Domestic talent:

If God presents him to me in a vision (just like Joan of Arc).

Plumbing.

Biggest deal breaker: Must eat the crust of his pizza.

Top quality in a future mate? Swift as a coursing river, mysterious as the dark side of the moon.

Fave Bible verse? Psalm 91:14

Say “Yes” To The LLC. Apply by Feb 15 twu.ca/llc @twu_llc What do you envy most about the opposite gender? “Lululemon leggings.” - Adam Wowchuk