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THE LINE UP EDITORS Editor in Chief Aurola Wedman Alfaro Creative Director Leigh Ann Barnett Managing Editor + Copy Editor Hannah Kueck Social Media Director Madison Green
STAFF Bri Bunker Leslie Douglas Katherine Marquart Caylea Ray
CONTRIBUTORS William Víquez Mora Jaymes Clevenger
ADMINISTRATION Staff Advisor Erica Pefferman
SPECIAL THANKS
School of Design Stephens College President Dianne Lynch
contact
Stephens Life Magazine 1200 E Broadway Columbia, MO 65201 slm.outreach@gmail.com www.slm.stephens.edu /StephensLifeMag @stephens_life
Stephens Life is the award-winning student-run magazine of Stephens College. Opinions expressed are not necessarily the views of the college, students, administration, faculty or staff. Stephens Life strives for accuracy. To report a correction or clarification, please send an email to leibarnett17@sc.stephens.edu
THE LINE UP
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SPRING 2020 TEAM edit or s
Aurola Wedman Alfaro
LEIGH ann BARNETT
HANNAH KUECK
Madison green
s t aff
bri bunker
leslie douglas
katherine marquart
caylea ray
Letter from the Editor
Three years ago, I crossed the bridge. Along with the incoming class of 2017, I walked into the heart of Stephens College’s campus and became a Stephens woman. As a graduating senior, this semester I was going to cross the bridge walking in the opposite direction—a Stephens tradition that symbolizes the closure of the college chapter and the beginning of life beyond Stephens. Like the Crossing of the Bridge Ceremony, senior year is filled with traditions and the celebration of milestones, many of which were canceled or postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In a matter of weeks, our lives changed. The way in which we work, take classes, and interact with our family and friends shifted. Life as we know it was paused. The pandemic brought to light global issues that we’ve been trying to ignore. From unequal access to healthcare to mindless consumption behaviors—we couldn’t continue to turn a blind eye to the issues that were right in front of us. Months before the Stephens Life team shifted our meetings from a classroom to Zoom, we decided to produce the Issues Issue. This edition, dedicated to some of the tribulations our community experiences, is meant to spark conversations and to motivate us to seek improvement and solutions. The stories in this issue address topics like toxic masculinity, mental health, female sexual liberation, sustainable fashion and eating disorders. The team worked on these stories because we believe in their importance, and hope that as a society, we do better—even when we don’t get a global wakeup call. Despite the challenges that this semester brought, I couldn’t be prouder of this issue and of the Stephens Life team. My last issue as editor in chief is not only relevant and beautiful, but it is proof of the drive and talent that our team has. Amidst a pandemic, we had writers who tackled multiple stories, and photographers and illustrators who figured out quarantine-friendly alternatives to our initial ideas. I am constantly inspired by my peers, faculty and leaders at Stephens. Today, I sign off as editor in chief of Stephens Life. My promise to all of you is that I leave you in good company. I know that Stephens Life will continue to cover essential stories and produce breath-taking visuals. Today, I cross the bridge. I can’t wait to see you on the other side. Enjoy, converse & stay curious, Aurola Wedman Alfaro EDITOR IN CHIEF
Stephens Life / Spring 2020 / Issue No. 16
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Re-Imagining Masculinity 6 Why Don’t You Just Eat? 12 Of an Unsound Mind 18 The Demon Formerly Known as procrastination 26 the guilt-free dream closet 32 The jetsons lied 40 children of eve 44 no boys allowed 50
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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Re-imagining Story by Hannah Kueck Photography by Aurola Wedman Alfaro
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“R
eal men don’t cry.” “Boys will be boys.” “Real men don’t talk about fashion.” These -are some of the phrases and regulations men have heard since they were young boys. They’ve been told these remarks so many times, that they’re engraved in their memory. These are the remarks that prevent men from crying after they lose a loved one. These are the remarks that prevent them from wearing the pastel floral shirt they’ve been eyeing at the thrift store because they don’t want to be mislabeled as gay. These are the remarks that men are told as young boys that have pioneered the expression “toxic masculinity.” The American Psychological Association classifies toxic masculinity with four characteristics: stoicism, dominance, aggression, and competitiveness. Psychologist Stephanie Pappas explains that this phenomenon is “psychologically harmful, and that socializing boys to suppress their emotions causes damage that echoes both inwardly and outwardly.”
Although this term isn’t new, it has become more prominent in society since the premiere of Gillette’s advertisement, “We Believe: The Best Men Can Be,” in 2019. In this commercial, “real masculinity” is called into question by commenting on bullying, sexual harassment and the excuses society makes for men, such as “boys will be boys.” The commercial moves on to illustrate how men can abandon these old habits by becoming an ally; by supporting and respecting everyone; and by owning up to their actions and putting an end to the classic excuses.
Marc Baker-Camacho
One of Baker-Camacho’s passions is fashion—he even remembers the moment that he fell in love with the artform. It was 2012: Baker-Camacho saw an advertising campaign for Jeremy Scott’s collaborative streetwear collection with Adidas. This specific campaign featured his favorite rapper, A$AP Rocky who was his prominent inspiration for his personal style. The element that stood out, and inspired BakerCamacho the most was Rocky’s video lookbook that featured the looks for Jeremy Scott’s Fall/Winter collection of the year. “It really opened my eyes. I remember thinking, ‘Wow, that’s something I want to try to do,’” he explains. This dream of curating his own collection remains true to him even today. Baker-Camacho still gets his style inspiration from his favorite musicians, but these inspirations have expanded to everything, even people he sees as he’s
walking the streets of Kansas City. While BakerCamacho still adores streetwear—so much so that he has a room dedicated to storing his collection of sneakers—he has also developed a new love for luxury fashion. “These two separate worlds of streetwear and high fashion, they can be meshed together. It’s like high fashion streetwear,” Baker-Camacho explains. This juxtaposition is Baker-Camacho’s favorite style to experiment with. And it can be seen through his favorite classically clean outfit: a basic t-shirt paired with nice trousers. Baker-Camacho used to enjoy wearing tight clothing that hugged his body. Aside from being uncomfortable physically, the stigmas surrounding this squeezing clothing that only gay men wore these ensembles prevented him from wearing these garments any longer. “People misjudge someone’s sexual preferences simply based on what they wear, and that’s not true.” Because of his interests, many people commonly believe Baker-Camacho is gay. When people discover he’s interested in fashion, they classify him as gay. When they learn he’s intrigued by spiritual practices and meditates daily, they box him in as gay. “Nothing really has a gender,” he explains. Now, he finds these misconceptions amusing. “I’m more unphased as I’ve ever been about anything people think about me,” he explains. He has achieved this state-of-mind by one of the interests people classify him as gay for enjoying: meditation. “I’m a sensitive, emotional person,” Baker-Camacho says, “There’ve been times when I’ve held anger in because I didn’t know what to do with it.” It wasn’t until Baker-Camacho was in his 20s when he discovered what he had been struggling with for so many years is manic-depression. His meditation helps him listen to these emotions and feelings of anger. “Thanks to my meditation, I feel the anger, and rather than repress it, I let it go,” He says. Deep breathing helps him focus his energy on himself—it’s how he’s been able to find those misconceptions of his sexuality amusing. In December 2019, Baker-Camacho woke up to countless missed calls and unopened messages from his brother. His best friend had been shot and killed on Christmas Eve. He credits his ability to be open about his emotions to his late best friend who
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“People still try to look at me and guess what my sexual preference is” –Benton Bally
Benton Bally embraces his masculinity through rings and freshly painted nails.
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encouraged him to speak openly about how he was feeling in the moment, even if they were in a fight. “He was basically my spiritual teacher,” Baker-Camacho explains. He credits his best friend for teaching him so many things: how to embrace your emotions, how to meditate and even Kung-Fu. This devastating loss has helped BakerCamacho value these things even more. He is and always will be a big part of who Baker-Camacho is today. He explains, “I think about him. Every morning. Even when I’m doing my meditation.” Marc Baker-Camacho is a complex man. He dreams of owning his own fashion label, and he’ll tell anyone about this dream. He meditates to resolve his agitated feelings instead of getting into fights. He’s unafraid to embrace his feelings and cry. And he’s everything toxic masculinity isn’t.
Benton Bally
Benton Bally, a 21-year-old college student from Missouri Western State University, describes himself as artistic and expressive. Similar to Baker-Camacho, Bally also has a deep admiration for fashion. Bally’s interest in this artform, however, didn’t develop until his sophomore year of high school, and it all started with a picture of a large pair of pants. “Most of the comments were negative, but there was a small sect of people that said ‘I like the way the lines look on this’ and ‘I like how this drapes,’” he says, “And from there, I started viewing fashion as [an art] form.” Bally’s personal style would be considered more unique when compared to the rest of the men from his small town of Plattsburg, Missouri. With a population of around 2,200 people, this town, and its fashion, are both incredibly rural. “I’m from a small town, so the minute you wear anything different, or you don’t fit the status quo, you get paid attention to,” Bally says. And this is something he avoided, for if he didn’t, his ensemble would become a whole school affair. Bally describes the average ensemble in this community as a t-shirt, blue jeans, a flannel, and a camouflage hat. An ensemble completely different from his go-to outfit, or his “uniform.” This uniform consists of a pair of black or slate gray pants or slacks, his Comme des Garcon converse, and a short-sleeved Hawaiian floral top. Bally explains that “When I
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look at myself, it feels like me” The most crucial element to his outfit, however, are his rings. Bally has been wearing his rings for nearly five years now. Anytime he’s out browsing the local thrift shops, he’s automatically allured to the ring section. Being from a rural town, Bally put off trying some of the looks he’s always wanted to explore because of the mindsets that he was constantly around, and conditioned to have. One of these being earrings. Bally wanted to get his ear pierced, but the comments people made towards him even without this piercing prevented him from finally taking the step to do it. He explains that in his high school, when someone pierced one ear and not the other, they would refer to it as “the gay ear.” “I would get a lot of comments like ‘That’s gay’ and ‘That makes you look drab,’” Bally explains. “There’s nothing negative about being perceived of what your sexual preferences are like, but being labeled something that I wasn’t, especially when it was used disrespectfully and derogatory, it really affected me,” he says. These comments made him feel like an outcast. It affected how he felt about himself, and it took a long time for him to get over these comments. Today, he’s moved past these diminishing comments. He lives boldly and wears whatever he wants to with his singular silver dangling earring in his left ear. Even though he’s out of high school, the mislabeling still follows him. “People still try to look at me and guess what my sexual preference is,” Bally continues, “But I don’t view that as negatively as I might have in the past.” Whether it’s the color he decides to paint his nails, or the single earring he wears in his ear, he’s unapologetically bold in everything he does. As the expression “toxic masculinity” continuously gains popularity, more men are speaking out against it. They’re defying the norms, wearing whatever the hell they want, and talking about their emotions whenever they need to get them off their chest. These men are real men.
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“ Why Don’t You Just
” EAT?
Story by Katherine Marquart Photography by Bri Bunker
A
common image that comes to mind when thinking of someone who has an eating -disorder may be a deathly thin girl that’s desperately trying to look like the models she sees online. While this may be true in some cases, it isn’t a universal experience. It’s so much more than being skinny, and it doesn’t only affect women. It’s not just about not eating, and there aren’t always discernible reasons behind why someone develops an eating disorder. According to the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA), there are actually 11 classified eating disorders. The most common are anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder, and orthorexia. If an individual does not fit into one of these but still has an eating disorder, they can be categorized as Other Specified Feeding or Eating Disorder (OSFED). Someone is considered anorexic if they restrict their caloric intake and will generally have anxiety when it comes to eating. A bulimic person will purge after they eat and will sometimes consume large meals before purging. Someone has a binge eating disorder if they have frequent episodes of consuming a large number of calories. Binge eating is one of the newest categorized eating disorders.
Someone with orthorexia may be so focused on being healthy and eating the right things, they restrict their daily caloric intake, which restricts the number of nutrients their body receives. It can lead to anxiety around food they deem “not healthy.” It is difficult to diagnose someone with orthorexia because wanting to eat healthy is generally not an issue. People with eating disorders usually have cooccurring disorders such as depression, anxiety, or trauma. An issue that can arise during treatment is that not every therapist is equipped to treat these co-occurring disorders. Each person has their own individual struggles, so details of treatment vary. When you are seeking help for an eating disorder, it’s important to find someone who can help you get the best possible treatment. Often treatment can’t just be reliant on one person which is why someone in recovery often has a whole team behind them. A team usually consists of a psychiatrist or counselor, a general practitioner, and a dietitian. Isabelle Bouchard is a dietitian and founder of Bamboo Nutrition. She meets with clients of all ages, each of them having sessions weekly or monthly depending on their needs. With adults, she will discuss
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meal prepping and help create meal plans with them. She finds that with adults living on their own, they often feel isolated, which is why family-based treatment is important. Having that support system is the key to recovery. Elizabeth Hocker is a counselor that helps patients with eating disorders. When describing how someone with an eating disorder might see their body, she says “It’s like looking in a carnival mirror.” To everyone else, their body looks perfectly fine, but their own perception is so warped that they see something else. This is known as body dysmorphia. However, not everyone who has body dysmorphia has an eating disorder—eating disorders are genetic. Even if no one in the family seems to be anorexic, or bulimic, or a binge eater, they could still have a bad relationship with food that, in turn, affects their child, who then develops an eating disorder. A child could grow up seeing their parents talk badly about their own bodies, or there could be an obsession with dieting and eating healthy. That eventually ingrains itself into the child’s head, whether the parent meant to or not. And unfortunately, a lot of the time the parent doesn’t realize what they say affects their child.
Angela Brooks* is bulimic and has been in recovery for 15 years now. Brooks recalls her mother taking diet pills quite often and making comments about Brooks’s body and appearance. Brook’s father abused her at a young age, and her mother did nothing. She felt alone with no one to go to. She became depressed and always had the feeling that people were judging her. This led to her developing an eating disorder. She felt so out of control with her life and believed that purging was the only way she could manage it. By controlling what went in and out of her body, she could regain some of that control. She was eventually diagnosed with OCD as well as depression. Very few of her family members knew she had an eating disorder, and some brushed it off as “vanity” rather than an actual *Names changed upon request of interviewees
“It’s like
looking in a carnival mirror” - Elizabeth Hocker
medical condition. Unfortunately, that is a common misunderstanding. Individuals with eating disorders aren’t just “trying to look pretty.” It’s an illness. In 2005, Brooks was rushed to the hospital. Her heart was failing due to the constant stress self-induced vomiting put on it. She now has a pacemaker. A few years later, she went to an inpatient treatment center. She wanted to get better for her children. Her daughter, Sophie*, was 9 years old. During her stay there, Brooks went through exposure therapy, family therapy, group therapy, and learned healthy coping mechanisms Angela describes recovery as “a never-ending marathon.” Since a young age, Sophie Brooks has struggled with an eating disorder and body image issues. Her close relationship with her mother helped her through it tremendously. Sophie now has a heart tattoo to remind herself that she is beautiful, and her body is strong. Those recovering from an eating disorder never completely lose the urges they felt, but taking it slow and being kind to themselves can make it a little easier.
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Caylea Ray is recovering from anorexia and bulimia. She says her mindset in the thick of her eating disorder was never “I’m trying to lose weight.” She was extremely depressed when she was younger and just stopped eating. “It wasn’t on purpose at all, but then when I started to get out of that depression phase I was thinking ‘Oh I’ve gained all this weight now’ and it freaked me out a lot,” she explains. When she lost all the weight initially, people would give her compliments and it made her feel pretty and important. Then when she began gaining it back, she panicked. She felt like she was no longer getting that positive attention from her body. Along with this, she felt she was losing control over everything in her life. “I don’t even remember hating my body that much, it was more like ‘I have to do this; I have to throw up,’” Ray recalls. And that is often the case with bulimia— it becomes almost robotic. It’s as if the one thing you can control in your life is your body, so you are going to make yourself throw up to regain that control. One day, Ray had enough. She decided that day would be the last time she purged. She realized this would end up killing her. She booked an appointment at a tattoo shop to get that final date tattooed on her right arm. The tattoo artist was hesitant and asked if she was positive that’s what she wanted, but Ray was determined. She thought “I can’t keep doing this to myself. If I have a tattoo on my arm, I won’t do it again.” And she hasn’t. When she was still struggling with her eating disorder, she wanted to look very underweight. Now that she is in recovery, she wants to gain weight and look healthy. She has had her struggles during her process of recovery, but she has a wonderful support system behind her to make sure she stays healthy. It is incredibly hard to point out someone who has an eating disorder. However, if you are worried about someone you know, there are signs you can look for. According to Elizabeth Hocker, “You might notice your friend doesn’t eat with you at lunch, or you might notice your friend picks around certain food items.” They may eat slower, may exercise more, or they might constantly make negative comments
about their body. It’s important to look out for your friends and family, so if you are worried about one of your loved ones, reach out and check up on them. You can visit nationaleatingdisorders.org to learn more about the warning signs, prevention, and treatment of eating disorders.
Nine Truths About
Eating Disorders 1. Many people with eating disorders look healthy, yet may be extremely ill.
2. Families are not to blame, and can be the patients’ and providers’ best allies in treatment. 3. An eating disorder diagnosis is a health crisis that disrupts personal and family functioning. 4. Eating disorders are not choices, but
serious biologically influenced illnesses.
5. Eating disorders affect people of all
genders, ages, races, ethnicities, body shapes and weights, sexual orientations, and socioeconomic statuses.
6. Eating disorders carry an increased risk
for both suicide and medical complications.
7. Genes and environment play important
roles in the development of eating disorders.
8. Genes alone do not predict who will
develop eating disorders.
9. Full recovery from an eating disorder is possible. Early detection and intervention are important.
Produced in collaboration with Dr. Cynthia Bulik, PhD, FAED and the Academy for Eating Disorders
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Of An Unsound Mind “Recovery from schizophrenia, almost never complete, runs the gamut from a level of tolerable to society to one that may not require permanent hospitalization but in fact does not allow even the semblance of normal life. More than any symptom, the defining characteristic of the illness is the profound feeling of incomprehensibility and inaccessibility that sufferers provoke in other people.” – Sylvia Nasar, A Beautiful Mind Story by Madison Green Photography by Madison Green Note: A name in this story was changed upon request of the interviewee. The model pictured is not the subject of the story.
N
o one wants to hear the words, ‘You have schizophrenia.’ We dislike issues, especially one that is a schizophrenic diagnosis. It causes fear that we will be placed in a box with a huge “insane” label on it. The wilds of the schizophrenics. Insanity terrifies us because we are beings that thrive on order and structure. People speak about schizophrenics as people who have lost themselves, they no longer have that spark in their eyes. A psychosis diagnosis sets people apart from others— friends, family. If we have an issue, that issue must have answers. It must have some sort of solution. While searching for answers, it’s easy to forget that psychiatric diagnoses are human constructs. Humans define and determine the diagnoses they give to other humans. We define “issues” so we can determine whether a person has them. A doctor’s diagnostic determination holds great power. Giving someone a diagnosis of schizophrenia will impact how they see themselves, how they interact with friends and family and how the world sees them. A diagnosis provides a framework, a structure, a foundation—it gives us the answer we need when we begin to lose our minds. Hearing the word “schizophrenia” generates a variety of reactions—most negative. We tend to connect “schizophrenia” with “insanity.” We think of straitjackets and mental institutions. Schizophrenia is a mental illness that interferes with a person’s ability to think clearly, manage emotions, make decisions and relate to others. It’s classified as a chronic long-term
psychosis that impairs individual’s ability to distinguish fantasy from reality. It’s an illness of replacement and deletion; it is the elimination of a person, or what we once knew of that person. The mind is taken over and loses the ability to make rational decisions. The five key symptoms of a schizophrenic diagnosis include: delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, disorganized or catatonic behavior, “negative” symptoms, meaning symptoms that diminish, such as a lack of interest or engagement in goal-directed behavior. To be diagnosed, a person must have at least two or more symptoms. Hallucinations, delusions, and disorganized speech must be present. A person diagnosed with schizophrenia experiences thoughts about situations, people, and ideas that are untrue, yet feel real—delusions. They might experience hearing voices of people who are not there, seeing things that others may not be able to see, smelling a strong odor that doesn’t exist, and feeling like something is touching them although nothing is there—hallucinations. Thoughts become overbearing—they seem to be coming from all directions as fast as they can. They find themselves not being able to say exactly what they mean to say. When talking, a simple conversation with another person is a complicated task. Thought disorder. Emotions become confusing, and the way they are expressed changes. Feelings of disconnection and disinterest become prevalent. You may find yourself unable to feel emotions like you did in the past, laughing while telling a sad story, or not feeling anything
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at all, numb, experimenting affective disturbance. The reality is that over 20 million individuals suffer from schizophrenia—it’s one of the most severe illnesses in the world. In the United States, there are over 2.4 million individuals suffering from this illness. Many schizophrenics are homeless, known for committing a variety of crimes, and are incapable of leading “normal” lives. Although this disorder disables some sufferers to the point where they must be placed in mental health facilities because their families cannot handle the burden of caring for them, it does not mean schizophrenia disables each individual equally. Anyone can have a schizophrenia diagnosis, a cashier at Starbucks, a janitor at an elementary school, the editor of a magazine. People who we encounter every day could be going through this. The spark is still in their eye. They are not completely lost. They are just battling something much deeper inside their minds. Those who live successfully with schizophrenia share a background of positive disciplinary factors. Those factors include higher education, a good support system, early diagnosis and treatment, medication obedience, and longer periods of negligible or absent schizophrenic symptoms between episodes. These factors and characteristics are determined by fate, but it has been shown that early human intervention, especially in young schizophrenics, leads to a higher chance of living high-quality functioning lives. Early diagnosis means that tools like therapy, medication, primary care, family education and assistance, cognitive-behavioral therapy, supported employment, and education can be incorporated in the life of a schizophrenic to give them the chance to lead a life of their own. Encouraging schizophrenics to help guide their own treatment is considered a holistic approach to this diagnosis. To manage their diagnosis, a schizophrenic who feels somewhat in control over their spiraling out-of-control mind is particularly important. Jason Hughes*, a 21-year-old barista, battles his schizophrenia diagnosis every day. That’s the thing with schizophrenia—it doesn’t just “go away.” Growing up, Hughes’s loving mother, who works as a psychiatrist, gave him shocking news when he began to question his appearance compared to the appearance of his siblings—he was adopted. Learning this sparked curiosity for Hughes. He wanted to know more about where he came from and who he is. He began asking questions and reaching out to the right people to get the answers to his eager questions. He learned that his biological mother and grandmother were both diagnosed with schizophrenia. “I’m related to a bunch of really crazy, people and I just felt really lonely,” *Name changed upon request of interviewee
Hughes explains. “I feel like I separated myself a lot then it was like, by the way, you actually are pretty separated. It was a stiff reminder that I wasn’t related to anyone here. I didn’t know anybody. I was stuck in the middle and there were people that loved me, but I felt disconnected,” he says. Hughes had to deal with the underlying fear of the possibility of schizophrenia entering his life due to genetics. And then it did.
the consistent laughing was so bad. I couldn’t block it out with music. I could block everything out with music. – Jason hughes “It was kind of scary,” Hughes says of his experience of being diagnosed with schizophrenia. “I have this weird thing about music; I play music all the time. I didn’t talk to anyone in high school because I was constantly attached to these headphones,” he says. “I knew I had a really good coping mechanism with dealing with people by using music. It’s a huge factor in my distraction. Music keeps going, it keeps rotating, it feels refreshed. It’s good to refresh and reset,” he says. Hughes began to struggle with interacting socially with other people. He would feel a massive amount of paranoia interacting with any type of human being. When Hughes experienced any kind of large personal failure, a group of older men who seemed to be far off, as if they were in another room, belly-laughed at him. This deepened Hughes’s humiliation about failing at something. “I got the shit kicked out of me. It was getting worse. I was getting depressed. It was this consistent laughing; it was so bad I couldn’t block it out with music. I could block everything out with music. As long as I had music, I was good. It started to get to a point where I didn’t have a safe place. I didn’t have any defense. I don’t have friends. I don’t have people I can talk to, like ‘Hey, I’m going crazy.’ At this point, I don’t care if you put me in a strait-jacket, help me,” he says. This laughter in his head became louder. It weighed on him. It mocked every failure. He knew he needed to tell someone. Hughes struggled with speaking to someone about what was going on at first; he feared that he was going to get thrown into a mental facility. He struggled to tell his mother that he was hearing voices as it would possibly burden her and cause her to worry. It got to a point where music, Hughes’s one coping mechanism, was not working like it had been. He knew he needed
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People speak about schizophrenics as people who have lost themselves and no longer have a spark in their eyes.
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to speak up about what was going on in his head. At 16, Hughes was officially diagnosed with schizophrenia. The doctor told him he had auditory hallucinations and people paranoia. Hughes was told to call a doctor immediately if he began to have visual hallucinations. “It doesn’t stop. They’re going to keep laughing if you keep fucking up all day. Every day it’s like this permanent pit; it digs itself in. Whenever I am feeling down on myself, sometimes that laughter is a really good reconciliation: Hey, you fucked up. We have got to do something about this,” he explains. Hughes has learned to use the laughing as a tool to remind him to not be lazy. He does his best to not let the laughing get him down and pull him into the all-too-familiar depression. He thinks of the laughing he hears as a way to remind him that he is failing—that he needs to make a change, or they will continue to laugh at him. Hughes tells himself that he doesn’t know any of the men that are laughing at him. He can separate what is and isn’t. He trusts that he will not take action based on what isn’t. Hughes understands that this auditory hallucination is not going to be something that goes away. “Depression is set on very easily from that, but I like to start my day in a reset mode—I don’t have to carry on the strains of yesterday to today,” he says.
“I’m going crazy. At this point, i don’t care if you put me in a strait-jacket, help me.” -jason hughes “I get depressed and it’s like ‘how can I talk to people about this without sounding crazy?’ It’s a lot of separation. It makes you feel alone. You feel like everybody is out to get you—then you really feel alone,” Hughes explains. “It’s absolute loneliness and people paranoia. I want to be around people. I like being around people. But also, I’m scared. I am so used to being alone at this point—I’ve built a habit of it,” he finishes. For Hughes, his people paranoia feels like people are out to get him—that a collective group of individuals are out to hurt him at any point. In his mind, they control the people around him, the people he meets, and even the people he knows. “It’s some terrifying nastiness,” he says. “It’s all set up and they’re all planning and they’re all waiting for you to fuck up, because you’re stupid and you’re going to fuck up. They get to watch everything you do too because you allow these cameras in your life—you’ve allowed everything
in your life. They get to watch everything you do. This is the control. You’re the variable we are going to fuck with,” he explains. For Hughes, once he gets past one paranoia situation, it’s on to the next one, then the next one, and then the next one. He gets peace from it sometimes, when he’s separated from people. He feels the most comfortable one-on-one or alone. Hughes’s schizophrenia diagnosis has taught him everything. It’s taught him how important a rigorous routine is to keep him focused on the positive things about life. Hughes’s diagnosis has forced him to look for ways to make life more positive for him. “There’s a group of people out there trying to hurt me—they also want me to be a better person. It always keeps me at a point of non-laziness. I want to push myself forward because I have to be valuable to society,” he explains. Hughes unfolds his perception on other individuals who are battling schizophrenia: “I don’t know what to tell these people. I don’t know what to tell myself,” he continues, “Because a lot of people don’t have a good head-strong attitude about it. You can’t just force a “go-get-it” attitude into them. You’re going to have some weaknesses—all people have weaknesses. All people have strengths. You’re going to have to find a way to turn yourself to your strengths. I don’t know what else to tell people—it’s a scary thing to deal with, so is a lot of other people’s problems. People with schizophrenia… it’s hard to talk to them, hard to interact with them. I don’t know how to tell people to overcome stuff like this. I found a system that works for me. All people are different,” he says. Unlike Hughes, who has learned ways to manage and adapt to his diagnosis, Nick Corwin, Trish Beeson’s son, has not. Trish Beeson, an English teacher to limited language learners, cares for her 29-year-old schizophrenic son. Beeson explains that her son was diagnosed when he was 22 years old, but looking back, she could see that the symptoms had been going on for a long time. She adopted Corwin from Romania, when he was around 9 months old. Growing up in Cypress, Corwin was active. He was a big skateboarder. He was a big biker. As a teenager, Corwin had a difficult time realizing that there are consequences to his actions— he had low impulse control and was getting in and out of trouble. When he graduated from high school, he had two jobs. “He just couldn’t handle the stress of working suddenly,” Beeson says. “He had a motorcycle accident while he was working, which may have been what triggered [his schizophrenia]. Then he started having a lot of pain in his arms and he didn’t want to go out. It was so hard for him to open doors,” she continues, “My son was always so social, so his friends
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would come to the house. But he never wanted to go out.” Beeson began to research fibromyalgia—which is diagnosed if a person is having widespread pain for over 3 months without any underlying disease. Beeson’s son was diagnosed with fibromyalgia before he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Corwin had been in two motorcycle accidents in a short period of time, and the diagnosis of fibromyalgia made sense to Beeson. The doctor then introduced the idea that Corwin’s pain in his arms might be psychological. The battle of trying to figure out the correct diagnosis for Beeson’s son went on for two years. “He would hardly leave the house,” she explains, “I thought, “I got to get this guy diagnosed.” Mental illness was not very well taken care of in Cypress, so Beeson made the decision to leave behind the rest of her family and take herself and her son back to the U.S. “It was a relief because the weird feeling was to watch him go into this bizarre state—so to hear that it was schizophrenia was like “Oh, okay that explains a lot,” Beeson says.
“It’s so sad to think that this kid who had so much potential, was so charismatic, so popular, so active, can become this person whose teeth are falling out because he won’t take care of himself.” – trish beeson Beeson has had to adapt to living with a son who has schizophrenia. A son whose reality is altered. A son who believes that he is a rich-famous person on “The Truman Show” who supports himself and his mother. A son who believes everyone in the world is watching him. A son who would let homeless people into their home while Beeson would be at work, believing that it was his home and he could have whomever over. A son that would get involved with drugs. A son that became violent at times, breaking mirrors, breaking off the windshield wipers on her car, punching holes in the wall, costing her thousands of dollars in damage. “Even though he can be threatening – he’s still Nick to me, I mean he’s not really Nick, but he is to me, I don’t feel afraid of him because I don’t think he would really do something to me,” explains Beeson. She has battled with deciding between having her son at home under
her care or living in a residential home with others whose realities are also altered. “He destroys all my property which is why he isn’t living here. I can’t have that,” she continues, “when he comes home now, he’ll get to come home every two weeks, and if he screws up then it’s a month, and if he screws up again it could be every 6 months.” Schizophrenia entered Beeson’s life through her son. It taught her that you have no control over life, that you must be flexible and take what comes. “Because what do you do? You can’t disown the kid; you can’t live a normal life when you have the kid. I mean it’s like you just have to say, ‘Okay this is my reality now, and this is how I have to deal with it,” Beeson says. “There are certain things that are going to happen because of what’s going on inside them. They need a lot of crutches. They need a lot of patience. You have to make a decision if you’re going to deal with it constantly like I do,” she continues. “A lot of these people have nobody because their families turned their backs on them years ago. They grew tired of all the antics. You have to make that decision: Are you going to deal with it and have a really hard life because you are choosing to deal with it or are you just going to turn your back?” she says. Those who have never experienced psychosis cannot understand the man screaming on the bus because there’s a shadow following him around all day. They cannot understand the woman who says that she is a reincarnation of God. They cannot understand the broken sentences, the laughing at inapposite times, or the use of different tones of voices to represent a conversation that is only happening in the mind. What one cannot understand, is what scares them the most. Until someone is personally facing schizophrenia, whether it’s through a family member or themselves, they will continue to navigate through life unaware of the different realities people live. Unaware that schizophrenia is more common than one may think and that it’s not always the crazy lady that sits in an all-white room in some hospital all day every day. It’s someone’s son, who grew up with loving parents. It’s someone’s mother, who faced a schizophrenia diagnosis due to genetics. It’s the person standing in the same aisle as you, shopping for groceries, never to see again. It may even be our best friend, who refuses to speak on his diagnosis, fearful that he may be shunned. Until we experience schizophrenia first-hand, it will remain just a label that means someone is out of their mind. It’ll remain a label that puts fear and misunderstanding into us. Maybe not all of us are crazy. Maybe we are. Maybe we just hide it better than others.
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the demon known as procrastination
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(formerly)
Story by Leigh Ann Barnett Photography by Aurola Wedman Alfaro
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.ell me why, if I’ve had two weeks to work on a project, I’m doing 90% of the work the night before it’s due. Procrastination is one of my more complex traits. On the one hand, I can be seen as having a poor work ethic and sprout far more gray hair than I care to admit. But on the other, that trait may just create a sense of urgency in me that moves my project forward by way of a last-minute stroke of creative genius.
Who Said You Can't Write A Paper In A Night? Lauren Granich is an English major who procrastinates daily. Granich can often be found avoiding writing her essays and instead, blatantly ignoring the paper’s looming deadline. “If I don’t look at it, it doesn’t exist,” Granich explains. For Granich, the reason is simple: she doesn’t enjoy working on projects. So, the moment she begins to work on them, any good mood she might have found herself in becomes dwarfed by the lack of interest she has in the work. On some occasions when Granich enjoys a topic enough she will try to bust down her mental block and begin a paper the day it’s assigned. But too often, she finds herself waiting until the night before a paper is due to begin, especially if the subject is dull. For Granich, procrastination is not a motivator to create good work. Those papers that she begins late at night or early in the morning are often “crap that [she’s] throwing onto a white piece of paper, and handing to a professor,” Granich explains. However, she’s found that even what she may define as “crap work” is well received by her professors, who often reward her with B’s or A’s for work that she’s tossed together in a matter of hours. In the atmosphere at Stephens though, a B can
still be a kick in the gut for the student receiving it. The pain Granich feels is not always from the fact that she got a bad grade on an assignment, but from the guilt of not submitting her best work. She explains, “I know that if I get a project done quickly, I won’t have to worry about it. I won’t have to feel guilty for a week, or three days. I want to do [my work], but I feel like I can always do it later.” The biggest struggle for Granich is that her favorite part of writing is editing the final draft. But when she’s waiting until the last second to write her piece, she loses the ability to more carefully edit her work, and instead, she finds herself turning in “the crap that [she] writes.” The rush can lead to Granich losing easy points because of hastily misspelled words that she didn’t have the time to correct. There’s always a sense of relief when Granich is able to turn in her work on time even if it’s cutting it far too close to the wire, though that relief is sometimes followed by that same sense of guilt for putting the work off too long, and the fear that the grade won’t meet her standards. At this point in her procrastination, however, Granich has convinced herself that the grade she’ll get is the grade she’ll get, and that, even if it is a B, it’ll suffice.
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A Fantasy Draft Creative writing major Ana Green finds themself procrastinating 70% of the time. Green believes that their procrastination comes from a mix of ADHD (they’re currently waiting on their diagnosis), and the perfectionism that they link to being a creator. “I feel like I have to do everything perfectly,” they say, “Because people will judge your art more harshly if [the work] isn’t perfect.” It’s the fear of not being good enough that pushes Green forward. Their need to be perfect in their work and intelligence may also come from the fact that when Green was younger, they were the “smart kid” in their class— having the answer to everything. But, as they’ve gotten older and their curriculums have grown more difficult, they’ve struggled with leading the pack— the expectation, though, is still there. This led to Green becoming frustrated and telling themself, “If I couldn’t do something perfectly, then I just wasn’t going to do it.”
overthink it,” Green explains. “If an essay is due at midnight and it’s 8:00 p.m., I will sit and get it done.” It’s Green’s fear of not having an assignment finished and turned in on time that drives them to concentrate and turn in quality work. In the fall of 2019, Green participated in a writing workshop in which they procrastinated on all three of the large projects they were assigned, but they were proud of everything they turned in, especially the final assignment. With a minimum page count of 12 and a maximum of 20, Green was able to write a personal favorite piece—a 19-page short story which they wrote in the span of three hours—between lunch and 3:00 P.M., when the paper was due. “It definitely came out much better than I thought it was going to. Every time I tried to sit and write it before that, I would start to write it, then worry I messed it up and walk away.” Their advice to anyone that does procrastinate? Try your best not to, because the stress may not be worth it. “But, if you’re in a creative field, or are somebody that is a type-A who believes they have to have everything perfect, procrastination is the best thing you can do,” Green says. “[Procrastination] will give you the time to think about a piece without the opportunity to overthink it.”
For Green, some of their best and favorite work has come out of their procrastination. “I know that if I have time to sit and think about something, I’ll
"Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo" Me A Dress A well-known fact on Stephens’ campus is that fashion design and product development majors may have one of the most time-consuming and stressful majors of all, as they only have time to work on projects, and if they’re lucky, catch three hours of sleep.
While procrastinating, Downs still finds herself meeting goal points that she’s set for herself earlier on in the process that will help with the final result. This process has allowed her to find more of a balance between “taking care of [herself] and having time to work on [her] projects.” “Don’t think that procrastination is a bad thing,” Downs says. “Just look at how you do it, why you do it, and what you do when you start procrastinating. Use that knowledge to push yourself forward, so that you can work with that process to get things done.”
Pham’s well thought-out process begins with a project with a specific due date. She writes the due date down in her planner. Then she begins to break down the assignment into smaller sections. She’ll begin with a mood board, which she won’t procrastinate on “because [she] need[s] to think about it,” she says. Then she breaks the assignment down further and establishes the timeframe she’ll need to execute each new sub-task. Most of Pham’s projects have a written portion since her major is fashion communication.
Sleep? Who Has Time For Sleep?
Intense scheduling didn’t work for Downs as she found herself putting off more important work to do something else. Instead, the trick is “to recognize early on that I’m procrastinating, and then having a discussion with myself,” Downs says. These talks involve reminding herself that it’s O.K. that she procrastinates, but if she does, it’s going to result in more work to do “at crunch time.”
Christine Pham has a saying that’s stuck with her since her high school days: “You can’t spell procrastinator, without Tina.” It’s a jingle of sorts, a light-hearted take on how Pham first dealt with her struggle with procrastination. Pham, who used to be the kid in high school who would walk into class having no idea an assignment was due, has now, thanks to her organizational skills, honed her procrastination tendencies so that they work in her favor.
Dakota Downs is a major in this program who sometimes only notices she procrastinated on a project after turning it in. She’s a procrastinator that’s always doing something, but that “something” may not happen to be the project she set out to work on. Downs believes that her homeschooling may be what led her to be the procrastinator she is today. Because of a curriculum that was planned out a week or even a month in advance, Downs and her brother were able to work ahead, giving them a week or two with no schoolwork. “I had all this free time, so I figured I could just do whatever I wanted,” Downs explains. “I think that mindset got bred into procrastination.”
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“I should really sit [on the writing portion] for a week, have someone edit it. . . Then I’ll need graphics, which I’ll work on first,” Pham explains. “It should only take me a day, but I’ll stretch that baby out for five or so days.” Pham also knows she works best at night, and that the urgency of deadlines helps her complete the work. Then, she is “more focused on all aspects of the project,” which allows her to submit better work. She also uses self-motivation to help her complete assignments. Pham is an avid journaler and embeds her to-do list into her entries. If she has yet to complete a task, she has to note that failure in the red pen (the pen of shame). Pham’s only advice to other procrastinators: “Don’t be in denial. Admit it. Acknowledge it. You are a procrastinator. Know your pattern of procrastination that way, you know your workflow better and can plan around it. And then filter in your other responsibilities around your procrastination patterns to get other work done,” Pham says. “Find a way to make procrastination more productive to the point where it’s just kicking yourself into high gear.”
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Procrastination doesn’t have to be another demon looking over our shoulders.
Doctor, Doctor, Tell Me What's Wrong
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It’s often speculated that the first step to overcoming any problem is to admit that we have one. We need to take a second to mumble under our breath or scream it to the heavens that we are procrastinators (and if you’re not, feel free to ignore that step). In his book, “The Art of Procrastination”, John Perry (Professor of Philosophy at the University of California and Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Stanford University) discusses how most procrastinators are what he calls “structured procrastinators,” or people who get shit done by not working on what they’re supposed to be doing. Perry believes that we procrastinators, at our core, are not lazy because we do “marginally useful things.” We do this, he thinks, because it means we aren’t working on more important things. Writing a five-page essay is significant and daunting, but grabbing dinner with a friend is trivial and comforting. He also suggests that we use to-do lists as a way to simultaneously pat ourselves on the back and come to a conclusion about what is the least important thing we can work on. In his book, Perry suggests putting mundane asks like brushing our teeth on our lists, as they give us a false sense of accomplishment and promote taking on the tasks that most need to get done. And if need be, Perry recommends leaving notes to ourselves to remember details. If we know in our heart of hearts that we don’t get work done while sitting in our very comfortable beds, we need to remind ourselves to go to the library or local coffee shop to ensure the work does get done. It’s the same idea that Pham recommends: breaking down projects into smaller pieces. The main takeaway from Perry’s book is that we “structured procrastinators” are not martyrs, but we aren’t the villains in this world, either. Our procrastination is a cross we must bear, but if we trick ourselves into doing work, it won’t be the one we die on.
Procrastination doesn’t have to be another demon looking over our shoulders. When used correctly, it can be a tool for furthering creativity and forcing us to keep focused while finishing our work. It’s about time we all own up to the fact we’re procrastinators. Maybe it doesn’t make us so lazy after all.
the guilt-free DREAM CLOSET
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is renting clothes sustainable?
Story by Aurola Wedman Alfaro Photography by Aurola Wedman Alfaro + William Víquez Mora
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walked into Rent the Runway’s store in New York City and suddenly I had a plan for my future. Rent an apartment near this store, get a job to afford the apartment, and come here every morning to pick out my daily outfit. For lack of a better term, I would say I experienced a triple F – flash fashion fantasy – midday and surrounded by people.
Rent the Runway was an early pioneer in the business of rental clothing subscriptions. Founded in 2009 by Harvard Business School peers, Jennifer Hyman and Jennifer Fleiss, the company is now valued at $1 billion. Their business premise is simple. Customers can rent a one-time garment for a special event or enroll in a monthly subscription plan. Their top tier
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plan allows users to wear unlimited clothing pieces, some designer pieces worth $3000 retail, for a $159 monthly fee, as of March 2020.
Emma Watson and Kate Middleton have been labeled outfit repeaters for wearing their coveted dresses more than once.
The desire for high-end clothes at an accessible price is catching on. Le Tote, Armoire, NY&C Closet, and brands like Urban Outfitters and Diane von Fürstenberg have decided to join the club of businesses that offer clothing rental subscriptions. For those leery of rented clothes, it’s valid to question why people rent clothes instead of buying them; Laura Gerding explains her reasons.
The desire for newness is usually satiated with fast fashion. When my sister, Catalina Wedman came back from a summer interning in Washington DC, she had lots of stories to tell. One of them stood out to me. She explained some of her internship peers would go out to buy clothes from fast fashion stores like Forever 21 almost every weekend. “When it was time for us to leave DC, they couldn’t get all of their clothes in their suitcases. Without enough time to find a donation center, they just had to throw some of their clothes away,” she said. This is not an isolated event. The average American throws away 70-80 pounds of clothing every year; according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) only 13% of clothing and footwear were recycled in 2017.
Why Rent When You Can Buy?
Gerding is a communications strategist for Missouri Employers Mutual and an occasional clothing renter. She has rented formal gowns for special events, such as the Ellis Fischel gala and the 20 under 40 gala in Columbia, Missouri. “A good dress can easily cost $200 or more. If you rent, you can get a nicer quality dress for less,” she says. Gerding also notes that there aren’t a lot of places to shop for formal wear in Columbia, and while she has dresses from a few years ago, her size might shift up or down and the fit might not be right. “I love the reviews from real women who disclose their size and how the dress actually fits them,” she adds. Wedding and party dresses often live a Cinderella life. After a magical night out, they are locked up in a dark room (or closet), condemned to live in the shadows. So perhaps, rental clothing companies are just a new kind of fairy godmother. A nicer kind even, they’ll let you keep your dress after midnight. Since invitations to a ball don’t come easy, rental companies are not counting on it. The majority of them offer everyday clothes: trousers for work, mesh panel running shorts, a floral linen dress for a summer get-away, even plain blue jeans. A 2010 poll by ShopSmart found the average American woman owns seven pairs of jeans, so do we really need to rent them? The 2019 State of Fashion offers input from a British survey which reveals one in three young women consider clothes “old” after wearing them once or twice, and one in seven considered it unacceptable to be photographed in the same outfit twice. A social media grid of perfect photos with different outfits has become the norm, so much so that it’s actually news when someone repeats an outfit. Tiffany Haddish,
Sustainability: Fashion’s Growing Trend
The good news is that interest in sustainability is growing. Google Trends shows that searches for “sustainable fashion” have been increasing for the last five years. According to the 2020 State of Fashion, 26% of Millennials and 31% of Gen Z shoppers are willing to pay more for products that have the least negative impact on the environment. This idea of the least harmful option is what clothing rental businesses are selling to consumers. “Let’s change the way we get dressed, one rental at a time. Mother Earth will thank us,” is the message plastered on Rent the Runway’s sustainability page. Armoire offers a similar message, “Armoire is faster, easier, and more fun than shopping. Oh, and it’s also better for the planet.” Rental clothing companies argue that by sharing clothes with others, you can help the environment. So, is renting clothes really sustainable? Srinivasan (Raghu) Raghavan is the Sustainability Manager at the University of Missouri and an adjunct professor of sustainability at the Honors College. Raghavan explains that the percentage of people who rent clothes is minimal when compared to those who buy, “At this point, it’s more of a fringe behavior. If this phenomenon of renting clothes becomes entrenched in culture, I would consider it to be a good thing. Maybe it will take care of the yearning for new stuff. It’s just hard to say because we don’t know yet,” he says.
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dirty laundry
What we do know is that renting clothes involves twoway shipping, packaging and dry cleaning. According to the MDPI Sustainability Journal, people wear cotton sweaters and jeans an average of five times before washing them. In contrast, rented clothes might be dry-cleaned whether or not they were worn.
why is it that we are desperate for new clothes all the time? How is it making our lives better? -RAGHU RAGHAVAN Dry-cleaning involves the use of chemical solvents, Perchloroethylene (PERC) is a common one and it’s considered a toxic air pollutant by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). According to their website, Rent the Runway doesn’t use PERC, instead they use a “blend of mild cleaning agents and biodegradable detergents.” Even with the use of safer solvents, dry-cleaning uses much more energy per kilogram of laundry than regular home laundering. The MDPI Sustainability Journal indicates the only process that is more energy-efficient than regular laundering is professional wet cleaning. Rent the Runway, Le Tote and Armoire declined interviews for this story, but according to my research, Le Tote and Armoire use wet cleaning. Armoire’s website indicates they use both wet and dry methods for cleaning and utilize a steam process that heats up to 250 degrees. Le Tote, which also uses wet cleaning, states on their website that they have “developed an apparel cleaning process that uses biodegradable detergents, 43% less electricity, 11% less gas, and 50% less water than doing the laundry yourself.” NY&C Closet owns their dry-cleaning plant; on their website they indicate, “We hold ourselves to a higher standard than your neighborhood dry cleaner.” However, the site doesn’t provide additional information. Cleaning standards that include wet cleaning and avoid PERC are commendable, but author and journalist Elizabeth Cline thinks they can do better. In a recent Elle article, she states, “Rental platforms could be far greener than they are, investing in renewable energy
for warehouses, reducing packaging waste, and switching to wet cleaning wherever possible.” Cline also touches on shipping’s footprint and recognizes Amazon for buying a fleet of electric delivery vans. With transportation becoming a top producer of carbon dioxide emissions, this is an important point. “If it’s done too frequently, like you’re shipping your clothes every day or three times a week, I suspect the footprint would be considerable, given that our transportation sector is still dominated by fossil fuels,” Raghavan explains.
what about our consumption behavior?
Professor Raghavan brings up a common definition used for sustainable development in the Brundtland report, “to meet the needs of the present without jeopardizing the needs of the future.” He then points out the environmental and social issues that the fast fashion industry is known for: the use of synthetic fibers made from fossil fuels, textile waste dumped on landfills, and labor exploitation. “The real question that we want to address is, why is it that we are desperate for new clothes all the time? How is it making our lives better?” he says. Raghavan warns that if we don’t address the reasons behind compulsive shopping behaviors, the solutions we come up with won’t be holistic. However, he is hopeful about clothing rentals. “I think we should experiment with it [renting]. If clothes are cycling through several people, they don’t have the pressure to go shop. That would have a big impact on the environment and more importantly, on the sweatshop labor issues, as most clothing is manufactured in sweatshops,” Raghavan says. According to Rent the Runway, each of their garments is rented an average of 30 times. After this cycle, items are usually sold at a discounted price, inserting the items into another life cycle. If sustainability is fashion’s new must-have, rental clothing companies should work harder to provide minimal and recyclable packaging and ensure their dry-cleaning and shipping practices are as eco-friendly as possible. Beyond asking the fashion industry to do better, we need to think about how we can do better. We should ask ourselves, do we care more about impressing others with our endless—disposable— outfits, or do we care about our environment and the people who make our clothes?
Beyond asking the fashion industry to do better, we need to think about how we can do better. SL | 39
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Story by Caylea Ray Illustrations by Leslie Douglas
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he Jetsons lied. They lied to our faces about the robot maids, jetpacks and flying cars that we would have. Although the show was based in 2062, that’s only 42 years away. We hoped to have at least some of these inventions now in 2020. Come on, technology. The Jetsons lied about a lot of things, but the biggest lie on the show was that the future would continue to be a man’s world. The show debuted in 1962. It was taken off the air after one season and returned to television in 1985. Although the original show and the reboot coincided with the second wave of feminism (1960s-1980s), George Jetson’s wife, Jane Jetson, remained a housewife. While female homemakers were
common on multiple television shows of the time, those shows were not set in the future. Despite more women entering the workforce in the ’60s, the show that promised a futuristic city and holograms failed to represent a version of Jane that pursued a career. As a writer and wannabe detective, I concluded the reason why Jane remained a homemaker was because the writers failed to realize that by 2062 not only would technology have advanced, but also gender equality. The team of male directors and producers most likely didn’t think of advancing Jane or the future of females. Even after being off the air for twenty years, the family of the future
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continued to showcase a bread-winning father, a genius son, a fashion-loving housewife, and a boy-obsessed teenage daughter. The ’60s was a decade of change for women, as the birth control pill was approved for sale in the U.S. According to Planned Parenthood, by 1965, one out of every four wives of childbearing age had used the pill. Birth control has changed immensely since the ’60s. Today, it comes in the form of a shot, an implant or an intrauterine device, while still having the original option, the pill. Releasing birth control in the ’60s allowed women to gain freedom and gave them a choice over their bodies, then and now. In 1973, abortion was legalized without excessive government restriction. A statement issued by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists estimated that before 1973, 1.2 million women in America resorted to illegal abortion each year, and those unsafe abortions caused as many as 5,000 annual deaths.
Now, women have access to Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers, but these advances are not guaranteed. In 2019, several states passed laws to ban abortion completely or past certain points of the pregnancy. These laws aren’t in effect yet and are being challenged in courts. This argument is still something that divides America, but despite someone’s views as prolife or pro-choice, the legalization of abortion was a big step for women’s liberation. Again, birth control and advances in gender equality were all things that were happening during the time of the show. While these aren’t things that are typically
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discussed in a children’s television show, one would think that the Jane of the future would be more advanced than she was. By the 1980s when the show was airing again, women weren’t slowing down. Women had fought for equal pay and equal opportunities within the workplace. Women were making their way into the professional workforce and fighting for top-notch positions. Now, there are more women working than men. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, as of December 2019, there were 109,000 more working women than men. Experts believe that more women will join the workforce, while the number of men will continue to decline. In 1960, the overall percentage of women working was at 38%. While it’s understandable that we didn’t see a working Jane the first time around, why didn’t this change on the reboot? Finally, in 2017 DC Comics released a comic series of The Jetsons that showed Jane as a NASA scientist. It only took 55 years. The Jetsons lied to us about the future of women. They lied about women in power, women in the workplace, and women who would have control over their bodies. I don’t care that we don’t have flying cars, although it would be pretty cool. I care that the show didn’t show a future with women in charge. I care that The Jetsons showcased a utopian future where jetpacks were more likely than working women. Regardless, I am extremely proud that this show was set in 2062 and that in 2020, we are more advanced with our gender equality than they could have dreamed of. We still have issues to fix but I think The Jetsons would be pretty impressed with where we stand in 2062.
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Story by Madison Green Photography by Bri Bunker + Jaymes Clevenger + Aurola Wedman Alfaro
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e grow up with this idea that as women we have to search for another half that will make us whole. We might spend our lives searching for that missing half, that somebody who will satisfy and fulfill us. Thank you, Cinderella, Ariel, Sleeping Beauty, and even Shrek, for teaching us we are just pretty princesses in need of a knight in shining armor to come to our rescue. Today, more women are embracing the notion that we must do the inner work to make ourselves whole before pursuing a romantic relationship. Our partner in life is not the other half of our heart, but an addition to our lives. Our hearts are already whole.
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Women are discovering that being single doesn’t mean that they are broken or lost. Their singleness isn’t a problem and it isn’t an obstacle to having and taking pleasure in sex. Women are breaking conditioned behaviors, laughing at stereotypes, removing the chains of shame attached to sex and intimacy, and most importantly getting to know themselves spiritually, emotionally and sexually. Women are embodying how to be their own self-activating, selfinitiating, and nurturing sexual beings. Women are learning that they can have an amazing sex-life and that there’s nothing vile about enjoying sex.
Let Me Paint You a Picture: Views on Sex
“If you’re not having fun doing it, then should you really be [doing it]? That doesn’t benefit you or your partner,” explains 21-year-old bartender Jaymes Clevenger (pronouns: they/them). While sex has been associated with shame and sin, Clevenger emphasizes the importance of sex that makes you feel good. “If you can walk away from it with a smile on your face, feeling happy, feeling fulfilled, feeling like everything is right in your life, you know, that after sex glow they talk about. If you can walk away with that, I would say you’re doing okay,” Clevenger says. “If you walk away with any other emotion, something is wrong, and you need to re-evaluate that. It could be something within you, or it could be something with your sexual partner(s),” they say. Women deserve the freedom to think of sex beyond the sense of a chore, an obligation, or something that we do to attract or keep a partner. Sex deserves to be seen as personal satisfaction. Bri Bunker (pronouns: she/her), a 21-year-old digital filmmaking major at Stephens College, doesn’t let
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stereotypes alter her views on sex. “Sometimes it’s [about] making love and sometimes it’s about having a good f***,” Bunker says. Sex deserves to be spoken about without making people shift in their seats at the very word: sex. It deserves to be seen as a nurturing act for the mind, the soul, and the body. So, why isn’t it? Why is it still hard for some women to talk about and to enjoy sex? A history of sexual double standards, lack of sexual education and constant shaming of women who are open about their sexually might be part of the answer.
Have You Met Your Body?
Sex should be seen as a natural bodily process, just like breathing or menstruating. However, we are scarcely taught about the anatomy of our own bodies. According to Feminism Unfinished, we have grown up never truly learning the ropes of female pleasure. Female pleasure has always been something that’s been overlooked while male pleasure has been emphasized. A bit inconsiderate, don’t you think? The book touches base on the idea that sex is (and has been) a woman’s responsibility. A wife is expected to pleasure her husband whereas her sexual needs are overlooked. Sexual knowledge is expected, yet completely unspoken about. In most of our families, parents and grandparents didn’t talk about sex. Our mothers didn’t have conversations about sex with their mothers because sex is (and was) considered taboo, and in return, our mothers didn’t have “the talk” with us. This lack of communication results in many of us entering our first sexual experience blindly, with many unanswered questions.
Let’s Talk About Sex, Baby
“It was assumed that I already knew [about sex],” Clevenger says. “My parents gave me talks like you can’t go to parties and drink or wear short skirts because you’re going to get raped by some boy. You can’t talk to boys online because they are going to show up to your house and kidnap you and be a 50-year-old man when you think it’s some 18-year-old boy,” Clevenger explains. “I grew up being repressed, but the second I was out of the house I was rebelling against all that bullshit,” they say.
I wish my parents taught me something about sex. -bri bunker Bunker was in a similar situation. “I wish my parents taught me something about sex. I was experimenting with guys and my sexuality. I had to learn for myself and got into a lot of trouble,” she says. “When I asked to get on birth control, my mom asked me if I was planning on having sex with my boyfriend at the time, and I was like, ‘No, no, no, what if I became the Virgin Mary you know, stupid answers like that. Now, I’ve gotten to a point where I can buy condoms with my mom,” she giggles. “It doesn’t matter how awkward it is, I feel like I should have had it [the talk]. I would give my kids the sex talk,” she says. Bunker would tell her future kids, “It’s okay if you have sex with people to whom you aren’t married to; it does
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matter if you are being safe. If something feels wrong… tell somebody. She adds, “I don’t want my kid to end up in the same situation that I was in because my mom was in the same situation when she was my age. It’s just a reoccurring thing and people need to talk about it.” Lack of knowledge about sex can lead to fear of sexual intimacy and result in discomfort during the first time or even to vaginismus that are psychologically related to the fear of sex. Not talking about sex often means that we aren’t talking about rape either. Some people might not know what rape can be defined as; it’s not just a penis being forced into someone else’s openings. Lack of sexual knowledge is not a cause for rape and will never be a valid excuse. However, learning about sex allows individuals to define for themselves what is okay and what isn’t. Sexual education is important whether it’s someone’s first time or their one-thousandth time. We should openly and freely discuss sex with our children; they deserve to have their questions answered and their concerns addressed. Sex therapy also needs to be demystified. It exists for a number of reasons, including sexual trauma, premature ejaculation, gender identity and performance anxiety. Sex therapy is a means to help an individual and a perfectly normal component in one’s healing process.
Children of Eve: Temptresses and Sinners
Religion has a huge influence on the perception of sex as a sinful act. Most religions forbid sex until marriage and see it as a means to procreate, nothing else. Like Eve, the original temptress, women have been described as beings who attract men to commit sin. They have been seen as spiritually weak creatures who are more susceptible to sexual impulses. This belief system placed most of the sexual guilt and shame on women. “I’ve been slut-shamed a lot. Even from a young age, when I was a virgin. Now I rebel against that, against my upbringing and what I was taught,” Clevenger says. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than 1 in 3 women have experienced sexual violence involving physical contact at some point in their lives. While men also suffer from sexual violence, women are disproportionately affected. The CDC states that nearly 1 in 5 women and 1 in 71 men have been raped in their lifetimes. Culturally speaking, our sexualities, pleasure expressions, body expressions, and even our emotional experiences have been repressed. Adolescent girls are branded as “sluts” before they even have a boyfriend, let alone “lose” their virginity. Their worth is overlooked because they may be more sexually active than their peers, or simply because they are a young woman. School dress codes are enforced because “boys will be boys.” Rather than making a young woman feel wrong about her body or shaming her for “showing too much skin”, we can teach young boys that women are not objects to be gawked at but creatures to be respected no matter what they wear. Shaming women is not a solution. On the contrary, shame and the feelings of guilt and worthlessness that accompany it can lead women to engage in unhealthy relationships and behaviors. According to Brené Brown, the author of I Thought It Was Just Me (But It Isn’t), many women have engaged
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in toxic relationships due to childhood trauma, a lack of emotional connection or emotional intelligence. When feeling down or insecure it’s easier to be manipulated and to fall into toxic cycles instead of choosing the healthier behaviors that seem so natural when we are feeling accepted and good about who we are.
someone has had sex with) is “the man.” Body count is yet another construct used to dehumanize a woman, claiming that if her body count is high, she’s unworthy. We can thank social constructs for this. Let’s say it together: one, two, three...go! “Thank you, social constructs.”
Screw that! And screw the idea that women are sluts if we have sex, enjoy sex, choose who we want to have sex with and feel empowered through sex. Sex is human. Sex is natural. Sex is pleasurable. Sex is not shameful. It’s time we all start talking about the tools we need to use to break the chains of shame that are attached to sex. Let’s stop using sex-shaming to control how a woman should act. Some of us ladies love to sit with our legs uncrossed, curse often, wear short skirts and engage in sexual experiences with whomever we want.
Clevenger expresses the idea of claiming something back or reasserting a right. “I mean there’s reclamation. Own that shit. Reclaim these words,” Clevenger says. Redefining the meaning of slut, ho and bitch creates the possibility of diminishing the power these words hold in controlling how women act. Bunker talks about her relationship with these words. “Sometimes I’m like fuck them. Other times I’m like, Hell yeah! I am the hottest slut you’ll ever see,” she says.
More than anything, sex is a relationship with yourself— a forever evolving journey. The Double Standard: Keys and Doors
The belief that we judge men and women differently for the same sexual behaviors is known as sexual double standard. In contemporary society, there are those who believe in this standard and those who don’t. Unfortunately, the sexual double standard is very real for the women who endure harassment and judgment just for being a woman. Clevenger remembers hearing the expression, “A key that opens up a lot of doors is super useful, but a door that opens to a lot of keys is useless.” The analogy (which also uses the word lock instead of door) carries the idea that men are the key and women the door or lock that should resist them if they want to remain useful or worthy. By this logic, a woman who seeks respect might deny her desires and find it complicated to fully enjoy sex even in the most “proper” of circumstances. Degrading words like “slut,” “whore,” and “thot (a commonly used acronym for that ho over there) are used to shame women and ingrain in them the thought that sex is wrong and that they should keep their legs closed. The importance that religion and social constructs confer to virginity lead to a perception of sex as something that is taken from us, given away or inflicted upon us. Men who have many sexual partners are glorified, celebrated, high-freaking-fived by other men. A man with a large body count (the number of people
Reclamation and Change
Clevenger also mentions the importance of community and sex conversations. “Getting together and discussing these things with other women is liberating because you can talk about your shared experiences. It shouldn’t be something that we keep to ourselves because that contributes to the shame that we feel. If we stay silent, then they win. If we speak against these “wrong” views, then we can do something about it. Crowds change public opinions,” Clevenger says. As Pam Allen wrote, reflecting her background in the civil rights movement, “Personal liberation will happen simultaneously with the changing of society, not independently.” Whether you’re a woman who prefers one or multiple partners, you deserve sex that is beautiful, pleasurable and healthy. Your views about sex may shift over time as you continue to explore your sexuality. That is normal. You deserve safe spaces to be curious and explore those curiosities. More than anything else, sex is a relationship with yourself – a forever evolving journey. You are allowed to be sexually liberated or to not confront sexual liberation at all. Empowerment looks like a woman making choices for herself about what makes her feel good and what doesn’t. We should respect those choices, even if they are different from our own. All women deserve respect and celebration, that includes those who were not born as female but sexually identify as a woman. It includes individuals who identify as gender fluid. All of us deserve respect and celebration.
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No boys allowed A Look Into Women Making Strides in Male Dominated Careers Story by Hannah Kueck | Illustrations by Leslie Douglass
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rowing up in the early 2000s, I never had the Barbies with impressive careers; I never got to hold a pretend trial with my favorite doll dressed in black robes as judges, nor did I get to put her courage to the test as she wore her yellow, fireretardant suit to extinguish the imaginary monstrous flames of my Barbie Dream House. My Barbies were accessorized with shopping bags; they were princesses and ballerinas. To me, they were aspirational, but not for the proper reasons. I wanted to look and live like Barbie. But looking back, I realize that what my innocent, 6-year-old self really needed, were more real, authentic women. Women that are defying gender stereotypes and pursuing their dreams, even in the fields that are dominated by men. Constructing Confidence Connie Leipard has been in the construction industry for nearly 40 years. Throughout these years, she’s become a mother, a grandmother, and a business owner. Leipard explains that many people in the industry were exposed to the environment from a member of the family. Leipard grew up with many members of her family in the construction industry. She even married a man that was in this industry, and he was a big influence that brought Leipard into the business. Leipard started out working right out of high school in the accounting department for State Farm Insurance. This job helped her develop the accounting and bookkeeping skills that would help her develop her business later. Her talents extend beyond this, however. “I’m a jack-of-all-trades. In my younger days, I worked a little in the field. I’ve worked in office administration doing bookkeeping for 20 years. And now, I’ve migrated to project management,” Leipard explains. In this new role, she goes to the job-site to check on progress. She makes sure the crew has the equipment and materials they need to get the job done. And she works diligently to make sure any problems that
could halt progress get resolved, so the project gets completed on time. In 1979, she and her husband, Mike Leipard, opened their own business, Quality Drywall Construction. The pair shifted their focus from the residential market to the commercial market; a change in which she describes this shift as an “animal.” “This industry is constantly a challenge, and I don’t think that will ever go away,” Leipard explains. There is always a learning curve because of the different skill labor. Through owning and operating her own business, she has seen these challenges first hand.
“This industry is constantly a challenge, and I don’t think that will ever go away.” –Connie Leipard Being in this industry has helped Leipard develop her own voice. Prior to being in construction, Leipard describes herself as shy. “I was the kid in class that never raised their hand,” she explains. She credits her husband and her involvement for the National Association of Women in Construction for helping her establish this voice. “It’s women in the industry that understand what you’re going through. They can help give you confidence and support when you need it,” Leipard describes. In 2016, Leipard went on to serve as the president for NAWIC. This role allowed her the opportunity to be a mentor to women aspiring to go into construction. When she’s being a mentor, she focuses on what they are wanting to gain. “I try to find what they’re missing: is it confidence, or is it knowledge, or maybe it’s putting them in contact with the right people,” she explains. Regardless of their need, being able to help these women grow and being there to support them is a rewarding job for Leipard.
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Women Helping Women Dr. Mary Amanda Haskins currently works as a professor for the School of Health Science at Stephens College, guiding the future women of science to success. She began her journey in the realm of science at Mississippi University for Women. There, she would obtain a Bachelor of Science in paralegal studies, and continue on to obtain her Master of Science in Health Education. She later received her Ph.D. in Health and Kinesiology from the University of Mississippi. Dr. Haskins is no stranger to being surrounded and supported by women. Although Mississippi University for Women is co-ed, she explains it’s a predominantly women institution. Being surrounded and mentored by women, she felt empowered. Even when she attended the University of Mississippi to obtain her Ph.D., she was surrounded by women, especially in her area of study: nutrition and dietetics. Dr. Haskins explains, “This field is almost exclusively a female-dominated field.” According to the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, this field is one of the more female-dominated areas of science. Women make up 94% of the registered nutritionists and dieticians. Making this transition between the two universities didn’t have any negative impacts on her. She was still being guided by women, and working with them. This larger university received more grant money, however. This allowed her to have access to labs, technology, and equipment, which she used to run a bone-mineral density lab. While these items seem like staples to a collegiate science department, her small university simply didn’t have the funding to provide these opportunities to the budding scientists. “I got exposed to what it’s like to run a lab, and I got my radiology training while I was there too,” she explains. This shift between schools opened many doors for her, all because of the funding. Despite her extensive background in the scientific field, she didn’t truly feel like a scientist until later in her academic career. She explains, “I’ve always loved learning and school. But at the time I didn’t see myself as being a scientist when I went back to get my Masters in Health Education.” The first time she felt like she was more than a student—an actual scientist— was in the midst of this program. And she remembers it clearly. Her task was to measure the effects of the perception, knowledge, and impact of a public service announcement for colorectal screening. This PSA that she was a part of premiered across the local television stations in Mississippi. “We found that it would be impactful to have a native Mississippian,” Dr. Haskins
explains, “so our PSA starred Morgan Freeman.” This was the first research Dr. Haskins had the opportunity to work on. This research would then be presented at a national conference. At the time, Dr. Haskins simply thought she was just learning about how people see and absorb information differently, but she now realizes that she truly was doing research—specifically data collection and analysis. Dr. Haskin’s mentors have been exclusively women. These women were in all phases of life. She’s had young mentors that had recently graduated themselves: they were empathetic about the stress that comes along with being a graduate student. She’s had mentors that were preparing to start a family. And she grew with them as their family grew. She’s even had a mentor that was becoming a grandmother. These women had expertise and experience that they shared with Dr. Haskins. “All of these women gave a great model for work-life balance, which is one thing I really appreciated—they had real lives. They worked hard, but they were great at efficiently juggling their tasks, and they made it look graceful and easy, which it isn’t,” Dr. Haskins describes. Being a woman, it’s stereotyped that they can either have their dream job, or their dream family—not both. But these women showed Dr. Haskins that she can indeed have both. She finds this balance through her hobbies of exercising, cooking, and her favorite: letterboxing. “It’s like geocaching, but with stamps. It’s a great thing to do on a date, or to get to know someone,” she describes. She uses this hobby as a bonding activity with her fiance as well. Dr. Haskins has been able to experience many great mentors throughout her education, and now she gets to be one for others. She explains that after meeting a former student’s parents from the University of Mississippi, the first thing the student’s father said to her was ‘So you’re the reason we’ve been eating so much spinach around the house.’ “It was so gratifying to hear that a student, from the class I taught when I was a student myself, ate more vegetables,” she explains. Her priority when being a guide is to always put herself in the students’ shoes, and to approach anything they discuss with her in a welcoming manner. Dr. Haskins reminds students that they don’t have to compromise our well-being to achieve that 4.0. So take a break. Go letterboxing. And most importantly, find the right balance.
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Extinguishing the Flames Elizabeth Leiva’s original plans didn’t include working as a firefighter. She graduated from Helena College University of Montana with a sociology degree, but once she graduated, she explains that she had no idea what she wanted to do. All she knew was that she wasn’t ready to move back to Missouri just yet. After moving to Washington with some friends, Leiva decided she wanted to be in Montana. This is where she would get her start in fire departments. She applied to her local fire department, took a test, and she got the job as a wildland firefighter—a job she would hold for three seasons. One season while she was on-call, the team was sent to Idaho where they would have to dig to create barriers that prevent fires from spreading. “I was the only woman on that crew, and it was hard. You think you’re in shape when you’re on flat ground, but once you start climbing those mountains with packs on your back and tools in your hand, it was really eyeopening,” Leiva explains. Despite being the only woman on the team, Leiva had a great time. The only problem she faced was the physical barriers which she describes as her “own doing.” “I didn’t realize it was going to be that difficult,” Leiva says.
“I knew if I wanted to do this job, I’d have to get in better shape” -ELIZABETH LEIVA After traveling between Missouri and Montana, when wildland season was over, Leiva decided to stay in Missouri. She worked as an assistant coach for her high school soccer team, but she was missing the work in fire. In 2010, she signed up to become a volunteer firefighter for Boone County. After a few months of volunteering, she began applying for jobs. And she got one. She was hired at the Moberly Fire Department, and once again, would make history of being the first woman to be on staff. In order to become a firefighter at these departments, Leiva had to take written and physical agility exams. At the time, Leiva had to carry a high-rise pack up five flights of stairs, pulling a hose, a dummy drag for 50 feet. For Leiva, this was the hardest part. And all of this was done on grass, and she had ten minutes to complete it. “I knew if I wanted to do this job, I’d have to get in better shape,” she explains. She passed the
exam and worked at this department for two years. But she eventually wanted to work at a bigger department, so she tested for Columbia. The Columbia Fire Department exam was more challenging. Leiva had to complete the physical agility exam in 5 minutes and 56 seconds. As Leiva was dragging her dummy through the grass, her time ran out as she reached the halfway point. She was devastated and disappointed in herself. She knew she was going to have to train if she wanted to pass the second time. With the help of her now wife, Leiva began practicing cross-fit and developed more muscle that she needed to pass this physical agility exam. Two years later, she retook the exam, and this time she passed. With a time of 4 minutes and 45 seconds, Leiva had made it through all of the exams. “I was nervous and terrified. I told myself, ‘I can’t fail this again,” Leiva remembers. But above all, she was proud of herself, even if she couldn’t feel her legs from all of the work. Leiva is a proud co-founder of the Memorial Stair Climb, an event that takes place annually—typically at the Faurot Field—to remember the first responders of the 9/11 attacks. The team’s goal is to get 422 people to climb in the event. “422 is the number of how many first responders fell that day: 343 firefighters, 70 law enforcement officers, and 9 EMS,” Leiva explains. Each climber represents one of fallen first responders as they climb 110 stories that these heroes climbed on the egregious day. “It doesn’t have to be a first responder that comes to climb—you don’t have to wear gear, you just climb,” Leiva explains. There are two points during the climb that everyone will stop. These represent the moments the planes struck each tower. “It’s a solemn event; it’s not a race. It’s important to me that these responders don’t die in vain—that they continue to be remembered,” she describes. The money raised during this event is donated to local beneficiaries, Firefighter Cancer Support Network, and the Safety Net of Missouri. These women are inspiring in so many ways. They build homes, they make scientific discoveries, they protect the community, and they extinguish those notso-imaginary monstrous flames. And they’re better than any Barbie I could have ever wished for.
issue credits Cover Photography: Aurola Wedman Alfaro Photography Assistant: William Víquez Mora Model: Catalina Wedman Clothing: Armoire Color Pages (first and last page) Illustrations: Leslie Douglas Letter from the Editor and Table Of Contents Copy: Aurola Wedman Alfaro Layout: Leslie Douglas Staff Line Up Photography: William Víquez Mora Layout: Aurola Wedman Alfaro Re-Imagining Masculinity Story: Hannah Kueck Stylist: Hannah Kueck Photography: Aurola Wedman Alfaro Photography Assistant: Hannah Kueck Makeup Artist: Christine B. Pham Model: Benton L. Bally Chair designer: Alissa Taylor Why Don’t You Just Eat Story: Katherine Marquart Photography: Bri Bunker Layout: Katherine Marquart Models: Alexis Cross-Tunley and Kelsey Ross Of an Unsound Mind Story: Madison Green Photography: Madison Green Layout: Madison Green Model: Koby Wade
The Demon Formerly Known as Procrastination Story: Leigh Ann Barnett Photography: Aurola Wedman Alfaro Layout: Leigh Ann Barnett Model: Leigh Ann Barnett Cat Model: Mila Anne Kueck The Guilt-Free Dream Closet Story: Aurola Wedman Alfaro Photography: Aurola Wedman Alfaro + William Víquez Mora Layout: Aurola Wedman Alfaro Models: Angelica Wedman + Catalina Wedman Clothing: Armoire The Jetsons Lied Story: Caylea Ray Illustrations: Leslie Douglas Layout: Leslie Douglas Children of Eve Story: Madison Green Photography: Bri Bunker + Jaymes Clevenger + Aurola Wedman Alfaro Layout:Aurola Wedman Alfaro Models: Bri Bunker + Jaymes Clevenger + Aurola Wedman Alfaro No Boys Allowed Story: Hannah Kueck Illustrations: Leslie Douglas Layout: Hannah Kueck
S tep h en s Li fe / Spring 2020 / Issue No. 1 6
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meliorism [mēl-yə-ri-zəm] (n.) Latin word for the belief that the world tends to improve and that humans can aid its betterment.