One of the most difficult things I went through as a teenager was when my high school sweetheart and I parted ways for college. The day we broke up, I shuffled through our old pictures together, my face puffy and covered in tears as I felt completely lost and helpless. The last three years of my life consisted of me seeing him on a near daily basis, occasionally hanging out with his family and loving him unconditionally. But just like that the relationship was over, and I felt as if I was left with nothing. I ruminated on our old conversations about wanting to stay together forever. It seemed like we stuck together through every stupid fight, argument and disagreement we ever had. So when the breakup came, I simply could not comprehend why it even happened. 

“You want to see other people in college? Really?”

I remember hating him. I felt as if the last couple years of my life went to complete waste. I swore him off, believing he was selfish, cruel and that he never actually loved me if he ended things with me just to see other girls. At the time I did not want to imagine myself loving another guy as much as I loved him. I stubbornly believed that he was the only one for me, and that any other guy that I would encounter during my college years would only be a worse version of him. “I’ll never love again,” I would dramatically think to myself.

I never thought I would understand why he ended things. But after a while, I not only understood where he came from, but I also became a firm advocate for leaving your high school love before you enter college. Some years later, I am able to look back on this breakup as one of the best things that has ever happened to me. 

I believe that dating in high school is important for two things: learning relationship etiquette and setting the standard for what you want in another person. But that’s about as far as it goes. I don’t think anyone should date in high school with the intention of meeting their soulmate, which I’ll admit is a huge mistake I made when I was younger. That is because high school relationships lack a key component that allow relationships to thrive: maturity. Young love is raw, beautiful and unlike anything you’ll ever feel, but it is usually built on something that has a high potential to turn toxic; comfort. When you are young, you aren’t looking for someone who will challenge you, support your life goals and dreams or encourage you to be the best version of yourself. Teenagers will typically enter relationships only to have a stable figure to confide in, explore intimacy with and have someone to take to school dances. The whole point is to find someone you feel comfortable doing all of these things with. Given the time and circumstances, that’s appropriate. since the teenage years are the time during which one is still on a journey of self-discovery. You aren’t picky with who you choose to be your significant other because you’re not thinking long-term. It’s really just whoever’s available, who you’re decently attracted to, and most importantly, someone who seems willing enough to be by your side. Even if the relationship is unhealthy, teenagers will usually stay because at the end of the day, it represents something familiar and comforting.

Things will take a very drastic twist when college starts, as the next several years are meant for you to re-discover who you are as a person. You will suddenly learn that you have a plethora of goals, ambitions, and projects you want to pursue. You will also realize that as you mature, your expectations for the people you surround yourself with will change drastically. You will start becoming more selective with who you allow into your inner circle as you slowly begin to accept your worth and realize that you hold the power to associate with the people you actually like. During this time, you will likely realize that your perceptions of romantic relationships are shifting as well. You might suddenly see that your significant other from high school no longer aligns with who you are as a person. Whether you like it or not, college will change you a lot. It is completely normal and healthy for people to part ways during this time because this shift in values represents necessary growth. Something that I emphasize is that your soulmate when you are seventeen may no longer be your soulmate when you’re twenty-three. Qualities that you may have loved in another person in your teens might be something you grow to detest a few years later, and that is okay, healthy even. You learn to appreciate the time you spent with your person, but also realize that it’s time to move on. You feel like there are people out there that are better compatible with your morals, expectations and values. And trust me–there are. There are billions of people sharing this floating rock with us, so don’t settle for one person from your hometown. The odds that you found your  “once in a lifetime” in high school are nonzero, but extremely slim. 

As you get older, you will begin to realize that you need to be with someone who encourages you to be the best version of yourself. If you find yourself in a relationship in college, it is important to pursue a partner who isn’t only independent, but also someone who encourages ambition, sacrifice and risk, because that is the only way we grow. Things like codependency, clinginess and any controlling behaviors should not be tolerated because these qualities will bring nothing but toxicity to relationships. Unfortunately, these patterns are extremely common in high school relationships due to a lack of basic stability and maturity. However, you can choose to leave this part of your life behind as you realize that the very last thing you need during this critical time in your life is someone who holds you back. You don’t want to spend your Friday nights confined to your dorm room fighting with your long distance partner on Facetime because they miss you and can’t deal with it. Your college years are there for you to make friends, make the best memories, learn, mature and live your life to the absolute fullest. Take advantage of this time, and don’t allow yourself to be held back by someone who is jealous, insecure and doesn’t want you to experience these things. It is essential that your partner will be someone who will selflessly support you through the most important point of development in your life. You cannot expect to have a happy and successful future when the person you are closest to is selfish, problematic and only cares about having their needs met. 

College stripped off the rose colored lenses I viewed my high school relationship through and showed me the reality of how things really were. And the simple truth was that my ex and I were different people who wanted different things from life. We fought, argued and disagreed on things way more than we should have. His morals differed from mine. Our personalities were like fire and water. Our interests did not align in the slightest. Our perceptions and expectations of our relationship pointed in opposite directions. Neither of us were in the wrong for what we wanted, but the bottom line was that his life was headed into a completely different direction from mine, which I saw but refused to accept. We stayed in the relationship not because we loved each other for who we were, but because we loved how comfortable we made each other feel. And that is wrong. Had we stayed together through college, I know that he and I would have burdened one another to the point of irreconciliation. We simply wouldn’t have been able to thrive and grow into the people we are today. I don’t even want to imagine how miserable we would’ve been if we had gotten married like I hoped we would have someday. Neither of us needed that because at the end of the day, we both deserve to be happy. So when college came around, it blessed us with the opportunity to find people who would love us exactly for what we were. 

With that said, I will be eternally thankful for the years my high school sweetheart and I spent together. I will never again look back on that time of my life and think that it was in any way “wasted” or “pointless.” Being with him for that time allowed me to grow, change and learn lessons that I still hold close to heart. But that relationship no longer serves either of us. Its purpose is to stay in the past, where it belongs. He was perfect for me when I was sixteen, but I am not sixteen anymore.  If you are having fears, doubts or anxieties about what college has in store for your relationship, I feel you. I was once in your shoes. I once feared college more than I feared my own death because I was that scared of losing my ex. But here I am two years later writing this article. Pain and heartbreak exist for a reason: they help you see the bigger picture. Not only does it help you see the bigger picture, but it also helps you mature and realize that some people are placed in your life to help you grow, and that their presence was never meant to be permanent. If it gives you any peace, just know that everything happens for a reason, even if you don’t see it right away. Additionally, if your love is meant to be, it is meant to be. True love knows no heartbreak, distance, status or time. It will prevail through all, and if it has to travel thousands of miles to find you again, when the time is right, it will. What is meant for you will always find you. And even if it doesn’t, the right heart will come to you. Rest assured, we will all find that special person who will make time stop and who’ll always give us butterflies in our stomachs. Every single person on this earth is worthy of raw, pure and unconditional love, and yes, that includes you.

In recent years, actress and singer-songwriter Demi Lovato has taken on the role of social activist as she openly spoke out about her struggle with substance abuse, eating disorders and LGBTQ+ issues. People praised Lovato for her vulnerability and willingness to talk about topics that most would consider to be very difficult to open up about. Upon the release of her documentary titled “Dancing With the Devil,” in which she depicted her battle with opioid addiction, she received additional support from fans and activists alike.

I salute people who use their platforms to spread awareness and their perspectives on certain issues, but there comes a point where this engagement can go too far. This is perfectly illustrated by the recent controversy involving Lovato that took place April 19. That day, the singer-songwriter posted several Instagram stories in which she shunned and criticized an LA-based frozen yogurt shop, claiming that it was “triggering” and “difficult” for her to be there due to her struggle with eating disorders. The culprit behind these feelings were the multitude of “diet” options that were present at the store, including sugar-free cookies and dairy-free/gluten-free yogurts. For some reason, Lovato saw these products as a personal attack. After plastering her Instagram story with multiple screenshots of her attacking the owner of the frozen yogurt shop, she proceeded to post an eight minute video on her Instagram with more complaints about the store. “I am very outspoken about the things that I believe in,” Lovato emphasized in the video. “I understand that sometimes my messaging can lose its meaning when I get emotional. I am human.” 

Upon posting the video, Lovato faced justifiable backlash as people spoke out about how she was ruining the reputation of a small business that is probably struggling to get by during the pandemic. Others, including people with medical conditions like diabetes and Celiac disease called her statements “absurd” and “ridiculous” and emphasized that having sugar and gluten-free options was important for them. Upon seeing that she wasn’t receiving the support and attention she was expecting, Lovato issued an apology video in which she claimed that it was never her intention to stir up drama with the small business and put them in a bad spotlight. “I’m sorry that I got the messaging wrong. I’m sorry that I may have disappointed some people,” she said, “but I’m not coming after a small business as someone with a lot of followers. That’s not what I’m doing.” Upon releasing the apology video, she promised to donate $100,000 to the business, which they say they never received. 

After carefully examining the situation, I have one thing to say to Demi: the world does not revolve around you. Having a mental illness does not put you in a position of authority to tell others what they should and should not be doing to cater to their customers. One must understand that the needs of other people are different from your needs. And that’s okay. We are all human beings with our own experiences, which will cause all of us to have different expectations of ourselves and others. Additionally, the world is not your trigger. Living with a mental illness or disorder is undoubtedly grueling, painful and difficult, but expecting the world to make accommodations just for you—especially strangers who have no idea what you have gone through—is not only unrealistic but also extremely self-centered. You are the only person responsible for your healing. It is not the world’s job to fit the mold of what you perceive to be acceptable or not. Because once again—your needs might be right for you, but they might cross the boundaries of others. For example, if the store was to comply with Demi’s obscene request to get rid of all their “diet” options, me, a woman who is vegan and has Celiac disease would no longer have anything to eat there. 

Before you call someone out for their offensive behavior, ask yourself two questions: is their behavior intentionally malicious, and what is the desired outcome of you confronting them? If someone intentionally made an insensitive comment, or said something downright hurtful, or purposely did something to exclude or belittle you, you have the right to express how you feel and go as far as you need to shine light on what went wrong. But if you are going out of your way to ridicule someone who genuinely did not mean to offend you or did not know the circumstances of the situation, don’t go there. There are better ways of civilly getting your point across. 

As someone who has struggled with an eating disorder for six years, I would’ve done the following in Demi’s shoes: politely thanked the owners for their time and left the store. The solution to her problem was that simple.

If I were to travel back four years and tell sixteen-year-old me that I would join a sorority in college, I would’ve laughed in my own face. At the time, I hated the idea of being surrounded by so much estrogen. Contrary to what the negative image of Greek life has become in recent years, my experience with my sorority has only been positive. Chapter is always fun, my sisters are always kind and cheerful (even during pledging) and yes, I actually like my big. I believe that the mellow and family-like environment of SLU has created a positive space for Greek life to flourish. Because Greek life is so laid back here, it creates a lot of space for inclusivity and opportunity for everyone who wants to get involved. Additionally, smaller chapter sizes allow for an increased number of members to hold cabinet and leadership positions in their organizations. It also allows members to form deeper bonds with their Greek siblings. Unfortunately, the rather familial environment of SLU’s fraternity and sorority life is unfortunately not representative of most IFC and Panhellenic chapters throughout the country.

Joining a fraternity or sorority has become a rite of passage for university students seeking the college experience. Rushing, bid day, big reveal, initiation and finally, getting to put the letters of your chapter in your Instagram bio, are highly anticipated events. Today, the IFC and Panhellenic organizations recognize over 800,000 students belonging to a Greek organization within their colleges. In its own weird way, Greek culture gives college students a unique experience that they will not get anywhere else. Upon signing their bids, students are welcomed and accepted in their houses and promised lifelong friendships, connections and the most fun they could ever imagine during their undergrad years. 

Unfortunately, things are more complicated than this. With its foundations in the mid-19th century, Greek life was originally founded with the intention of allowing college students to find groups where they could share similar interests. However, in the last forty or so years Greek culture has quickly turned into a haven for reckless partying, drug use and a hotspot for sexual assault. Additionally during this time, pledge hazing has become a normalized phenomenon in order for one to prove how ‘committed’ they are to their brotherhoods or sisterhoods. In 2017 alone, four students died as a result of hazing-related injuries. The same year, nine universities including Penn State and the University of Michigan put all greek-related activities on suspension or banned Greek life indefinitely. Common themes that resulted in these decisions include hazing deaths, abuse of members, sexual assault allegations, drinking-related injuries and heavy drug use within the houses. 

I understand the point of hazing. Getting your bid card and just automatically being accepted into your chapter is not only underwhelming but also lame. But the whole point of it should be to make initiation more rewarding and to bond the pledges who are going through doing annoying things together. These things can look like being told to wear a snappy suit to class every day, cleaning, running errands for your Greek siblings, driving people around or memorizing stupid things. This is unfortunately not the case as fraternities and sororities have visibly established power dynamics in their organization as initiated members force pledges to comply with any obscene idea they may come up with, violating the pledge’s every boundary. With most fraternities engaging in something called hell week, this period marks the time during which pledges will be pushed to their breaking points. A former pledge at Louisiana State University’s Acacia chapter recalled the following about his hell week experience: “They made us smoke 47 packs of cigarettes”…“a lot of people were throwing up. At one point during the first night, they took us upstairs and said this was the last meal of this week, and it was a tarp laid out with dog food and other rotten food and we were all forced to eat it until it was gone.” Another common hazing practice called the ‘elephant walk’ got several houses suspended throughout the last decade. Other hazing rituals include blindfolding and kidnapping pledges in the middle of the night, being forced to consume massive quantities of alcohol, engaging in rigorous physical activity while intoxicated, being smothered in substances like condiments, branding and being forced to consume foreign substances like laxatives and ‘do not eat’ silicone packets. I would argue that these forms of hazing are no longer considered ‘hazing’ but simply abuse. Pledges are dehumanized for the entertainment of those above them. Friendships formed in those pledge classes are no longer friendships. They are trauma bonds. 

While hazing is arguably worse in fraternities than in sororities, serious lines are still crossed in Panhellenic organizations. Just a month ago, Indiana University’s Kappa Kappa Gamma chapter got put on suspension for telling pledges to participate in an activity called “blow or blow,” where girls were given the choice to do a line of cocaine or perform oral sex on a man. In 2016, University of Florida’s Kappa Alpha Theta chapter got thrown under fire for a leaked audio tape that revealed pledges being forced to give men lap dances while blindfolded, acting out sex positions and being asked to suck a banana in front of the same group. A blatantly racist statement followed when a Theta member bragged about slapping a pledge for kissing a Black man. “I was like, ‘what the fuck are you doing?!’… Do you realize that he was Black?!” she stated in the recording. Most sorority hazing rituals are sexual in nature, which can be very traumatizing for girls. Typical sorority hazing activities include girls being stripped down and forced to engage in some sort of innuendo—be it dancing in front of their sisters, sitting on washing machines as any body parts that jiggle are circled, running around their houses naked, giving men lap dances, guessing each other’s breast sizes, or sometimes all of these. One can see how these activities cross many lines by highlighting insecueiries and glorifying sexual assault. Once again, being treated like this isn’t a reflection of “sisterhood.” Rather, it demonstrates an abuse of power for a few giggles of the initiated sisters of the pledges. 

 Despite me being a critic of what sorority and fraternity culture has turned into in recent years, I still love Greek life and my organization. But just because I am a part of something does not mean that I will mindlessly defend people who have no business being defended. People who force others to partake in any of the acts that I discussed need to be held fully accountable for their disgusting actions. If you are an organization that calls itself a  “brotherhood” or “sisterhood,” you need to be built on those same values, and not those of power abuse. 

Greek life isn’t going anywhere. You can spend years attempting to abolish Greek life and calling it out for everything that it does wrong, but odds are, it will stay for a long time. People can sign petitions, share their stories, report incidents to the IFC and Panhellenic councils but, more often than not, chapters will be let off the hook. They will resume their day-to-day regimen after a 3-4 year mark and they will return back to the very behaviors that got them in trouble in the first place. Large state schools also thrive off the reputation of being ‘party’ schools because it is what brings them the most revenue. Hundreds of thousands of dollars are made by these universities yearly by selling tickets for large gatherings such as football and basketball games that are sponsored by their friendly neighborhood fraternities. Despite a lot of fraternities and sororities being extremely problematic, universities will often turn a blind eye to what is happening because once again, the monetary profit that they make from these organizations significantly outweighs any downsides. That is until someone gets seriously injured or dies. 

So what can be done? In the most cliche way possible, you hold the power to stop harassment. Do not let yourself become a doormat during hazing. Set your boundaries and do not comply with anything that you feel uncomfortable doing. Don’t expect others to stand up for you because the second you allow your line to be crossed, people will find ways to keep pushing it until you hit your breaking point. They want to see you suffer and demonstrate much you are willing to do in order to devote yourself to them. However, the more people start to stand up for themselves and refuse to engage in these acts, the more the organizations will start to realize that what they are doing is wrong and that they cannot keep getting away with this. It will take time, but it will work. And if you don’t get into the frat you wanted: it will undoubtedly suck. But remember: you are not missing out on much if the people you want to surround yourself with deliberately mistreat you during your first encounters together. People need to understand that absolutely nothing on this earth that is genuinely good for them will make them give up their dignity in order to get what they want. If you think otherwise, congratulations: you have been successfully brainwashed into thinking that it is normal to be belittled and harassed in order to be “recognized” by the people who have the audacity to call themselves your “siblings.”

Many would argue that abuse is a subjective term, but I truly do not believe so. Abuse is any sort of intentional mistreatment or disrespect towards another person. That’s it. The path people take to become abusers is long and complicated, but most people speculate that a lack of empathy for others and a difficult childhood can contribute to the making of the monster. Abuse happens in all sorts of environments: at home, in school, on sports teams, within friendships, etc.  But the amount of abuse in these contexts pales in comparison to the rates of abuse present in intimate relationships. According to one study, 35 percent of men and 42 percent of women experienced verbal, mental or emotional abuse from their intimate partners. According to another national statistic, nearly 20 people per minute are physically abused by an intimate partner in the United States. 1 in 4 women and 1 in 9 men will experience a physically abusive relationship at some point in their lives. 

The reason that so many abusers get away with what they do is because they manage to tiptoe their way out of being held accountable. In order to get away with their abuse they have to become master manipulators. They will usually do this by blaming their heinous acts on the victim. They call them “crazy,” convince them that they are overreacting, blame the victim for their own behavior or pretend that the abuse never happened. It can also be all of the above. When attempting to call out abusive behavior, the victim will often hear responses along the lines of “you’re crazy, that never happened,” “you’re imagining things,” “you’re too sensitive” or “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

This particular manipulation tactic is called gaslighting. Gaslighters will project what they did wrong on the other person to strip themselves of any responsibility for the damage they are causing. Abusers gaslight with the intention of manipulating the victim into thinking that their own feelings, memories or intuition cannot be trusted. As a result, the victim will spend most of the relationship doubting their sanity. Google searches asking “am I crazy?” will be made, texts will be sent to close friends asking for validation and nights will soon become long and sleepless. A person who constantly feels like there is something seriously wrong with them will become miserable and powerless. The aftermath of gaslighting will often manifest itself as depression, anxiety and other trauma-related disorders such as PTSD in victims. 

Abusers typically prey on those who see the best in people. Victims of abuse often possess qualities like open-mindedness, sincerity, ambition, wit, intelligence and a willingness to give second chances. In healthy relationships, these personality traits will be valued and respected. In toxic relationships they are tested. People who abuse base their self-worth on how many people they can hurt and damage. They will take the kindest of human beings and tear them apart bit by bit, leaving them starving, hysterical and naked. Abusers know no love, no respect and no boundaries. To them, relationships are all about asserting their power and control over another person. It’s about seeing how much they can get away with before the victim inevitably hits their breaking point and is incapable of getting back up. It’s about dragging the victim down to rock bottom, where they can keep their victim in constant pain and misery. That way they can no longer show the world their warmth, joy, unconditional love, and zest for life. What so many victims of abuse fail to see is that they were never the problem. They will often spend days, months, even years blaming themselves for what went wrong. They will think to themselves, “well, maybe if I hadn’t brought this up, I wouldn’t have upset them,” or “maybe if I was more laid back, I wouldn’t have cared about what they did wrong.” For those who experience such thoughts: try and immediately stop them as they will only continue to get worse. Because that way, you are making excuses for the abuser by making yourself think that you were to blame for their inappropriate behavior when in reality you never were. You got involved with someone who is incapable of loving anyone, including themselves.

In this day and age, we are taught to have sympathy for the devil. We will often look at the worst of humanity, such as abusers, rapists and murderers, and feel sorry for them. We will attempt to justify their unjustifiable acts by blaming their traumatic childhoods, absent parents or something in between. There is this odd pseudo-belief that abusers were abused themselves and therefore we should feel bad for them because they cannot control their behavior. In the most respectful way possible, I’m going to say that is a load of shit. The truth is that countless people experience trauma growing up. It is not that uncommon of an occurrence. Some undoubtedly have it worse than others. But what sets apart the people who go on to become abusers in life and those who don’t is that those who don’t are willing to recognize toxic patterns in themselves and in other people. They are willing to confront the evil head-on and make the necessary sacrifices to make sure that they never, under any circumstances, repeat the mistakes of those who hurt them. Change is difficult and grueling, but it is a choice. But those who do end up becoming abusers simply do not care about who they are or who they hurt. As a matter of fact, they want others to feel the pain that they once endured. Their every move is calculated to make sure that they torture their victims. Abusers master human psychology to make sure that they attract the right people at the right place and at the right time so that they can take the ones who choose to associate with them to the deepest realms of hell and beyond. And for what? To fuel their miserably low egos? At the end of the day, certain circumstances like trauma can help explain a person’s behavior, but it is never an excuse. We all experience soul crushing events that are out of our control at least once in our lives. But at that point it is our responsibility to make sure that we do not project our feelings of trauma, resentment, anger and hostility onto other people simply because it provides an easy emotional outlet. Because the second we get comfortable doing that, we become abusers ourselves. 

Arguably the hardest part comes when it is time to break ties with the abuser. Suddenly, they start to feel guilty for how they treated you. Once cold and distant, they are now showering you with unlimited love, care and affection. You begin to reconsider your choice to leave them and tell yourself, “well maybe they’ve changed, maybe they’re just scared of losing me.” Neither of these statements are true. Once again, these are calculated efforts to keep you tight in their grip. Because they are running low on the attention and admiration their victim gives them, they understand that they need to re-secure the supply, which they do by throwing their partner a bone. Once the victim feels comfortable enough in the relationship again, the abuse will resume, and things will return to their original course. This particular technique is called hoovering. Out of the kindness of their heart, victims will feel tempted to come back to an abuser and give the relationship another shot. More often than not, they will give into the temptation. But what always needs to be remembered is that the dynamic between the victim and the abuser is not love. The abuser is obsessed with the power and control that they have over the victim all while the victim is emotionally addicted to the abuser’s unstable patterns of affection. Never forget that love is not a chore. Love should not be hard. Love is gentle and kind. Love is always there for you. Love makes you happy. And most importantly, love brings out the best in you.

My favorite quote from the television series “Game of Thrones” is “I’m not going to stop the wheel, I’m going to break the wheel.” There is one secret formula for how to break the cycle of abuse. One does so simply by loving themselves exactly for what they are, because with self-love comes self-respect. With self-respect comes the establishment of boundaries. With boundaries, people will understand what kind of treatment should or should not be tolerated. With certain behaviors not being tolerated, one will simply refuse to associate with people who are bad for them. By people being the most authentic versions of themselves, they will attract healthy, loving and wholesome relationships. They will attract partnerships that encourage them to grow, shine, and show all the amazing things they have to offer to the world. 

Taking your power back from the abuser is one of the hardest things you can do, but once you get there, you feel invincible. The sun suddenly starts to shine brighter. Your chest feels lighter. All of the happy people you spent years of your life envying end up becoming the people you’re closest to. You suddenly want to explore everything, chase down every friendship, opportunity and wide-mouthed smile you can get your hands on. You do something that you thought was impossible to achieve: you fall back in love with life. 

I lost my status as a “victim” the day I took all my power back from the person who loved seeing me in pain. It was the day I set my clearest boundaries, which was something I had never done before. It was the day I knew that I would never again be used, mistreated or hurt by them. It was the day I told myself that I will never again beg or plead for anyone’s love or affection because any person who brings me to that level is not worthy of my time and energy. It was the day I realized that it is better to be single than in a toxic and emotionally draining relationship. It was the day that I told myself that I will never again tolerate being called demeaning names like ‘crazy’ and ‘insane’. It was the day that I understood that love is not about control or power, but about bringing out the best in one another. It was the day that I told myself that all of my relationships will always be centered around mutual love, care and respect towards one another. And lastly, it was the day that I looked in the mirror and for the first time in my life and from the bottom of my heart said, “Anastasia Marie Hanonick, I love you.”

Many of us have heard of the Christian YouTube channel GirlDefined, which is run by sisters Bethany Beal and Kristen Clark. Another figure who has recently made her way into YouTube algorithms is a young Jewish woman named Abby Shapiro, also known as Classically Abby. The 27-year-old is the younger sister of conservative commentator Ben Shapiro. Both channels have been rising in popularity during the recent years. Despite their different religious backgrounds, both GirlDefined and Classically Abby advocate for young women to stick to the following ideals: abstaining from sex before marriage, dressing modestly and devoting their lives to God. These ideals that they advocate for are typically referred to as “purity culture.” The YouTubers also touch on several social justice phenomenons such as same-sex marriage, rape and sexual assault, and feminism and mental health. Most of their views on these topics are as one would expect: feminists are ungrateful pieces of scum who always play victim, mental illness can be prayed away, same-sex marriage is abnormal, abortion is murder, and birth control use is unnatural. Fear not though, because according to these young women, it is never too late to transform your life, abandon all the things you thought you knew about love and sex and become the best and purest version of yourself. 

Purity culture is most often practiced in conservative religious households. I would personally define purity culture as the notion that a woman’s place and worth in life is defined solely by how she chooses to express her sexuality, thus implying that her sexual “purity” is her only value. Some common tenets of purity culture include pushing young girls to abstain from sex until marriage, as well as teaching them to avoid thinking and talking about sex at all costs. Girls are dissuaded from exploring their bodies, told to stay away from the opposite sex to not tempt themselves and encouraged to dress modestly to avoid appearing scandalous. The entire list of the rules and expectations of purity culture is a lot more complicated than this; the few things that I just listed are merely the tip of the iceberg. The point, however, stands clear: a woman’s virginity status is her only sense of worth. What the people teaching these things to girls do not realize, however, is that they are not only being taught to repress every normal and natural emotion they may have about sex, but that these young girls are subsequently beginning to internalize that their only value as a human being revolves around their decisions regarding the topic. 

The amount of damage that being raised in the midst of this incredible amount of guilt and shame purity culture causes is monumental. More often than not, girls raised within this mindset will begin to experience a series of identity crises because of the immense amount of cognitive dissonance they experience. There is something so natural about simply being curious about sexuality, but when one is constantly being told that these thoughts are “unnatural” and “evil,” a great amount of guilt and shame can arise from within. This is particularly visible in girls who might begin to realize that they are members of the LGBTQ+ community, as these feelings can begin manifesting as severe internalized homophobia. The same shame and guilt can arise in heterosexual girls when developing a crush on a boy or thinking about intimacy. This ultimately turns into a slippery slope of other issues that may begin to arise in the teenage years and young adulthood. Most of these problems revolve around girls not ever being educated about basic boundaries, knowing what the red flags of toxic and abusive relationships are, understanding the importance of safe sex, knowing how to give and receive consent, knowing when and how to stand up for themselves and merely having a stable adult in their lives to confide in. I was one of these girls. Here is my story.

I was raised as an Orthodox Christian by a strict parent. Throughout the last few years, I have learned to understand that her intentions were never malicious, and that she was only ever trying to protect me by doing what she thought was best. The truth is that, just like myself, she was failed by her upbringing. She was only repeating what she knew. From a young age, I was taught my place as a Christian woman, which meant no short shorts, no tank tops, no high heels. Long skirts must be worn to church so as to not distract the men and boys. No dance parties, no romantic movies, no makeup, no bright colored bras so I won’t bring any unnecessary attention to myself. As I started puberty, I was never told about sex or what a period was. I did not know that women shaved their legs or what a condom was. My lack of knowledge on these topics was a result of me being pulled out of public school because of the required sexual education classes. By the time I was in middle school, I resented my female identity. I slept on my chest at night as I begged God not to not let me grow boobs, and when I woke up, I would bind my chest with multiple sports bras to hide the very thing that I was. I dressed in boy’s clothes, befriended only boys and spent the rest of my time envying how simple and carefree their lives appeared. To me, women were disgusting. Everything I was taught about femininity revolved around one concept; we were people who were distractions, who were there to lure innocent men in with our sex appeal and served as temptations to throw people off their path. And as someone who firmly believed in modesty and purity, I was ashamed of what I was. I knew that these stereotypes did not apply to me, yet I never hated myself more. 

By the time I was fourteen, I started to resent my faith and began to realize that Orthodoxy was not for me. As I started silently rebelling against everything I had been taught, I slowly began to fall back in love with myself and did something I had never done before; embrace my femininity. I began to appreciate every curve and imperfection on my body, realizing that nature built me this way so that I could one day nurture and carry a child inside me. I began ditching the surplus of oversized baggy t-shirts and basketball shorts in my closet and replaced them with skinny jeans and crop tops. For the first time in years, I was glowing, confident and happy. I suddenly wasn’t ashamed of showing off my feminine features, or kissing a boy, or wearing makeup. I was finally content with myself. However, I quickly began noticing that there was someone close to me who didn’t appreciate this new transition I had made. They would silently watch me get ready for school in utter disappointment, and make passive aggressive remarks about how the light makeup I was wearing made me look like a whore. This quickly turned into screaming fits, resentment and utter bitterness towards one another. I couldn’t understand why she didn’t like seeing me happy, all while she was probably thinking that her beloved child was succumbing to darkness. 

My high school years were the time my upbringing resulted in me losing my innocence. Growing up, I was never taught about how to be confident, how to spot red flags in myself and others or when it was time to leave a toxic situation. I was oblivious to the fact that bad people existed. All I was ever taught was that I was the problem, and as long as I kept my legs closed, nothing bad would ever happen to me. As a result, for most of high school I found myself in several unhealthy friendships that not only damaged my perception of what kind of people I needed to surround myself with, but also negatively affected my mental health. On top of this, I stayed in an emotionally abusive relationship for three years because I did not know how to set boundaries or when to leave. When I attempted to open up about what I had gone through, I was blamed for everything and told that the way I was treated in that relationship was my punishment for having premartial sex. As unfortunate as it is, what happened to me is what happens to people when they are not taught to stand up for themselves. This is what happens when women are not taught about their self-worth, their image and how to let other people treat us. People will naively enter toxic situations which will inevitably strip them of their self-esteem. Young girls who are raised in similar circumstances as myself will begin blaming themselves for what went wrong. After all, it’s what makes the most sense given that they’ve been taught that women are the root of all evil.

The lesson to be learned from all of this is that my story is not unique or special. Millions of other girls were raised in similar circumstances, and another million girls will experience the same upbringing by the time I am a grown woman. Most of these girls will experience issues with confidence, intimacy and understanding their place in life because of the immense guilt and shame they faced growing up. Despite me despising the upbringing I experienced, I am a feminist before everything, which means that I believe in the freedom of choice. If someone were to come up to me and announce that they want to save sex until marriage and then spend the rest of their days being a stay-at-home wife catering to the needs of their husband, I will tell them “good for you.” As long as that choice is made for yourself by YOU, nobody should ever tell you that you are wrong. There is no correct formula for how to live life. 

The GirlDefined sisters and Abby Shapiro could spend hours telling me how their lifestyle was the right choice for them, and I would not say a word to refute it. This is because they used their free will to make that decision for themselves, and it will never be my place to tell them otherwise. What is not okay, however, is drilling these beliefs into the minds of vulnerable young girls by telling them that their worth is only defined by their sexual purity. Because of these bigoted teachings, young girls are internalizing the notion that they are objects who only exist for the pleasure of the opposite sex, and until marriage deems them ready for that, they need to keep their femininity hidden away from the world. If they someday decide to make the choice to staying celibate on their own terms, that is on them and for no one else to decide. However, forcing young girls into these beliefs is not only wrong and disgusting, but also perpetrates a culture of female inferiority. Purity culture is the worst form of misogyny because the second someone gets comfortable with the idea that women are objects and are inferior to men, they will use that as a scapegoat to get away with doing the unthinkable. To help stop this, young girls need to be taught that they are invincible. That they are strong, beautiful and that they are capable of doing anything. That sex can be beautiful and more importantly is something that is strictly personal to them. That they deserve every right to make their own choices about their sexuality when they deem it appropriate. That they don’t need to spend their existence trying to please men and hiding who they are from the world. That there is no shame or anything abnormal about exploring who they are. And that most importantly, they are worthy of nothing less than unconditional love, respect and support from the ones around them. 

Some day, I might become a mother to a little girl. In my heart, I already know that my place as her parent would be to ensure that she grows up to be a kind, caring and genuine human being, not obsessing over whether or not my child thinks about sex. I will always be there to remind her that she is worthy, that she is loved and that she is cared for, not calling her a whore for wearing shorts that aren’t exactly two inches above her knee. I will always remind her to never, under any circumstances, allow anyone to treat her less than the amazing human being that she is, and that her place in life is to not be a married man’s sex toy. I will educate her on the birds and the bees and any “taboo” topics, and trust that she will make the right decisions when the appropriate time comes. I will remind her worth is not calculated based on her sexuality, romantic partners, or what she identifies as. I will emphasize that she should always surround herself with people who respect her and bring out the best in her. I will emphasize that one day, she will grow up to be a strong, beautiful and independent person who will always stay true to herself and stick up for her beliefs. For as long as I am around, I always will remind her that no matter what she chooses to do with her life, I will always be by her side cheering her on. Who she becomes or what she chooses to do with her sex life will not make a difference to me because she will always be my little girl who I will love unconditionally. As long as she is happy, I will be happy too.

The pandemic has been rough for us all. Regardless of who you are, you were probably negatively impacted by the unfortunate turn of events caused by the COVID-19 outbreak. You were likely met with difficulties at work or at school, and were barred from seeing friends and family for extended periods of time while you spent all your free time at home with not much to do. Life gets painfully depressing when you no longer have anything to look forward to. There are no longer outings to attend on weekends, countries to explore or even drives to see family on a major holiday. Hell, you can’t even see the smiles of your colleagues at school or work. Whether you like it or not, these things have likely taken a toll on how you feel about life. Since the start of the pandemic, mental health diagnoses have skyrocketed as an increasing number of people began developing symptoms of depression, anxiety, substance abuse and suicidal ideation. Thankfully, the light at the end of the tunnel is becoming clearer these days. With restrictions loosening as President Biden makes promises of making vaccine disbursement more readily accessible to the people of America, many are hoping that life will soon return to its normal pre-pandemic course. However, experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci are saying that it could be years before our societal regimen returns to what it was before the COVID-19 outbreak. In an interview, Fauci emphasized that until at least 85 percent of the population is vaccinated, people should still expect to wear face masks in public settings, social distance and take precautionary measures. Building capacities will still likely be reduced to minimal quantities, and large gatherings such as weddings and concerts will be encouraged to be held outdoors.

Phooey. As I clicked off Fauci’s press conference and moped about likely not being able to see Lana Del Rey go on tour this year, I logged onto Facebook. As I scrolled through my feed, I realized that I am at an awkward age where some of my peers are either fundraising for their fraternities or posting their weddings photos. As I chuckled about this fact, a picture on my feed caught my eye. An old family friend had just posted a picture of her two sons aged seven and five, who were about to start their first day of in-person school. Both were wearing face masks and face shields to cover the masks. To caption the photo, the mother of the boys wrote a very sensitive post about how sending her boys off to in-person school was something that was scary and unfamiliar for them, but after months of her boys attempting to do school via Zoom, she and her husband felt like they had no other choice. She talked about how it had been months since the boys attended an in-person play-date, and how sitting in front of a computer screen for hours at a time daily was preventing them from putting maximum effort and focus into their classes. The mother also emphasized that this is an extremely crucial age for your kids to develop social skills so that they can learn how to make friends, communicate with elders and superiors and behave in public settings. As we all know, it is impossible to learn these skills when you are confined to the comfort of your home. As she wrapped up the post, she asked for good thoughts and prayers for her boys’ health and academic success for the upcoming semester.

Touched by the Facebook post, it suddenly hit me that there is an entire population of fun-sized humans whose needs we have deliberately ignored throughout the course of the pandemic. With children slowly growing up to be tomorrow’s leaders and the future of the world, their well-being is extremely crucial during the developing stages of their childhoods. Arguably one the most important skills that a developing child needs to possess before reaching their adolescent years are social skills. The pandemic has significantly gotten in the way of this as kids are no longer exposed to the same social interactions they once were. During the first few years of life, children develop something called mirror neurons, which allow us humans to feel emotions such as empathy, sympathy and allowing us to physically mimic human emotions such as sadness, happiness and excitement. These neurons are only developed via social interaction. What people do not realize is that human beings are like chameleons; during our childhoods we learn how to show emotion through mimicking and responding to them from our peers and parents by reading each other’s faces. For example, if a child falls and a parent shows a startled response, the child will start crying. If a child is showing excitement and the parent smiles back, the child will demonstrate similar characteristics. This phenomenon was demonstrated through a series of experiments, known collectively as the Still Face Experiment, conducted by University of Massachusetts at Boston. 

In the experiment, parents were asked to interact with their children with a still face, and upon doing so, the babies showed great signs of distress. The director of this experiment, Dr. Edward Tronick, commented that babies and toddlers are extremely responsive to their interactive environments which critically aids them in their social development. While young children will often be met with positive reinforcement from their parents or caregivers, navigating what is acceptable or not in a non-home environment may now be significantly more difficult due to the pandemic. For starters, children are no longer exposed to the same social situations they once were—such as in-person school, sports, play-dates, birthday parties, grocery store outings and others. There is simply no opportunity for children to even learn how to act in these situations because most were not even exposed to them to begin with. Another important aspect to note is that because of the widespread use of facemasks, kids may have a hard time learning how to read people’s emotions from facial expressions. Older children are more capable of picking up onto other social cues that can demonstrate a person’s mood or reaction to something; for example, tone of voice and body language. Younger kids, however, rely strictly on facial expression to do so. As mentioned in the Still Face Experiment, young children are highly reactive to the facial expressions of the ones around them. In a scenario where a young child may spend extended periods of time at a place where their caretakers are wearing facemasks the entire time can result in a delay of interaction of the child and caretaker, as well as the child being capable of understanding and reading the caretaker’s emotions. This can significantly complicate things as children get older. 

Another important topic of note is how older children and adolescents are handling the pandemic. While these individuals may no longer need to learn how to read the faces of their caregivers or develop the necessary social skills needed for everyday interactions, this stage in life is when kids start to confide in friends more than they do to their immediate family. In an article, Dr. Wendy Walsh discusses how children that are reaching their teenage years will begin developing interests that differ from the ones of their immediate families, stating “Friendships become more complex and more about shared interests. This is where children try out the things that will make their adult friendships work, or not.” She adds that during these times older kids are learning how to cater to themselves and their friends, ultimately developing the necessary skills needed for building trust and support towards one another. This is also the stage where kids will ditch ‘playtime’ and begin developing friendships with deeper roots. Walsh emphasizes that these friendships are significantly more difficult to acquire when they are being formed over screens or if there is a six foot social distancing rule in store. 

In a perfect world, all of these restrictions would go away overnight and life could return to its normal course. However, the world is far from perfect, and on top of that COVID-19 deaths have surpassed 500,000 in the United States. The pandemic has posed a serious health and well-being risk to the entire world; there is no argument that could prove otherwise. Nonetheless, the necessary precautionary measures that the pandemic has caused us to implement are creating a plethora of problems of their own. So what can be done? Interactive play should be put in place, during which kids can spend time away from a computer screen and instead spend time doing something like playing basketball outside, doing a social-distanced meet up or checking out a board game. Children should also spend ‘alone time’ during which they can be away from parents and other siblings, which can get overwhelming. More importantly, parents must understand their child’s need to be online as the internet has become one of the only ways a child could communicate with their friends and peers. These are scary and uncertain times for all of us, and the very least we can do is be understanding and supportive of each other’s needs and boundaries. 

The pandemic has been rough for us all. Regardless of who you are, you were probably negatively impacted by the unfortunate turn of events caused by the COVID-19 outbreak. You were likely met with difficulties at work or at school, and were barred from seeing friends and family for extended periods of time while you spent all your free time at home with not much to do. Life gets painfully depressing when you no longer have anything to look forward to. There are no longer outings to attend on weekends, countries to explore or even drives to see family on a major holiday. Hell, you can’t even see the smiles of your colleagues at school or work. Whether you like it or not, these things have likely taken a toll on how you feel about life. Since the start of the pandemic, mental health diagnoses have skyrocketed as an increasing number of people began developing symptoms of depression, anxiety, substance abuse and suicidal ideation. Thankfully, the light at the end of the tunnel is becoming clearer these days. With restrictions loosening as President Biden makes promises of making vaccine disbursement more readily accessible to the people of America, many are hoping that life will soon return to its normal pre-pandemic course. However, experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci are saying that it could be years before our societal regimen returns to what it was before the COVID-19 outbreak. In an interview, Fauci emphasized that until at least 85 percent of the population is vaccinated, people should still expect to wear face masks in public settings, social distance and take precautionary measures. Building capacities will still likely be reduced to minimal quantities, and large gatherings such as weddings and concerts will be encouraged to be held outdoors.

Phooey. As I clicked off Fauci’s press conference and moped about likely not being able to see Lana Del Rey go on tour this year, I logged onto Facebook. As I scrolled through my feed, I realized that I am at an awkward age where some of my peers are either fundraising for their fraternities or posting their weddings photos. As I chuckled about this fact, a picture on my feed caught my eye. An old family friend had just posted a picture of her two sons aged seven and five, who were about to start their first day of in-person school. Both were wearing face masks and face shields to cover the masks. To caption the photo, the mother of the boys wrote a very sensitive post about how sending her boys off to in-person school was something that was scary and unfamiliar for them, but after months of her boys attempting to do school via Zoom, she and her husband felt like they had no other choice. She talked about how it had been months since the boys attended an in-person play-date, and how sitting in front of a computer screen for hours at a time daily was preventing them from putting maximum effort and focus into their classes. The mother also emphasized that this is an extremely crucial age for your kids to develop social skills so that they can learn how to make friends, communicate with elders and superiors and behave in public settings. As we all know, it is impossible to learn these skills when you are confined to the comfort of your home. As she wrapped up the post, she asked for good thoughts and prayers for her boys’ health and academic success for the upcoming semester.

Touched by the Facebook post, it suddenly hit me that there is an entire population of fun-sized humans whose needs we have deliberately ignored throughout the course of the pandemic. With children slowly growing up to be tomorrow’s leaders and the future of the world, their well-being is extremely crucial during the developing stages of their childhoods. Arguably one the most important skills that a developing child needs to possess before reaching their adolescent years are social skills. The pandemic has significantly gotten in the way of this as kids are no longer exposed to the same social interactions they once were. During the first few years of life, children develop something called mirror neurons, which allow us humans to feel emotions such as empathy, sympathy and allowing us to physically mimic human emotions such as sadness, happiness and excitement. These neurons are only developed via social interaction. What people do not realize is that human beings are like chameleons; during our childhoods we learn how to show emotion through mimicking and responding to them from our peers and parents by reading each other’s faces. For example, if a child falls and a parent shows a startled response, the child will start crying. If a child is showing excitement and the parent smiles back, the child will demonstrate similar characteristics. This phenomenon was demonstrated through a series of experiments, known collectively as the Still Face Experiment, conducted by University of Massachusetts at Boston. 

In the experiment, parents were asked to interact with their children with a still face, and upon doing so, the babies showed great signs of distress. The director of this experiment, Dr. Edward Tronick, commented that babies and toddlers are extremely responsive to their interactive environments which critically aids them in their social development. While young children will often be met with positive reinforcement from their parents or caregivers, navigating what is acceptable or not in a non-home environment may now be significantly more difficult due to the pandemic. For starters, children are no longer exposed to the same social situations they once were—such as in-person school, sports, play-dates, birthday parties, grocery store outings and others. There is simply no opportunity for children to even learn how to act in these situations because most were not even exposed to them to begin with. Another important aspect to note is that because of the widespread use of facemasks, kids may have a hard time learning how to read people’s emotions from facial expressions. Older children are more capable of picking up onto other social cues that can demonstrate a person’s mood or reaction to something; for example, tone of voice and body language. Younger kids, however, rely strictly on facial expression to do so. As mentioned in the Still Face Experiment, young children are highly reactive to the facial expressions of the ones around them. In a scenario where a young child may spend extended periods of time at a place where their caretakers are wearing facemasks the entire time can result in a delay of interaction of the child and caretaker, as well as the child being capable of understanding and reading the caretaker’s emotions. This can significantly complicate things as children get older. 

Another important topic of note is how older children and adolescents are handling the pandemic. While these individuals may no longer need to learn how to read the faces of their caregivers or develop the necessary social skills needed for everyday interactions, this stage in life is when kids start to confide in friends more than they do to their immediate family. In an article, Dr. Wendy Walsh discusses how children that are reaching their teenage years will begin developing interests that differ from the ones of their immediate families, stating “Friendships become more complex and more about shared interests. This is where children try out the things that will make their adult friendships work, or not.” She adds that during these times older kids are learning how to cater to themselves and their friends, ultimately developing the necessary skills needed for building trust and support towards one another. This is also the stage where kids will ditch ‘playtime’ and begin developing friendships with deeper roots. Walsh emphasizes that these friendships are significantly more difficult to acquire when they are being formed over screens or if there is a six foot social distancing rule in store. 

In a perfect world, all of these restrictions would go away overnight and life could return to its normal course. However, the world is far from perfect, and on top of that COVID-19 deaths have surpassed 500,000 in the United States. The pandemic has posed a serious health and well-being risk to the entire world; there is no argument that could prove otherwise. Nonetheless, the necessary precautionary measures that the pandemic has caused us to implement are creating a plethora of problems of their own. So what can be done? Interactive play should be put in place, during which kids can spend time away from a computer screen and instead spend time doing something like playing basketball outside, doing a social-distanced meet up or checking out a board game. Children should also spend ‘alone time’ during which they can be away from parents and other siblings, which can get overwhelming. More importantly, parents must understand their child’s need to be online as the internet has become one of the only ways a child could communicate with their friends and peers. These are scary and uncertain times for all of us, and the very least we can do is be understanding and supportive of each other’s needs and boundaries.

I have been both pro-life and pro-choice in my 20 years on this Earth. In both cases, I held very strong opinions and feelings on the issue. After years of searching for the correct answer to whether abortion should be legal, I finally realized that there isn’t one. 

Despite abortion being a politicized issue in today’s day and age, I firmly stand by my belief that abortion has never been an issue of politics, but one of morality. There is a reason why humanity has still not come to a clear consensus on whether to accept this phenomenon. In the past, there were instances where society introduced concepts that were first deemed as unconventional and abnormal, but were later accepted and normalized. An example of this is same-sex marriage; in early 2002 only about 31 percent of Americans supported gay marriage, but by the end of 2019 the approval rating grew to 61 percent. This same pattern has not been seen with abortion. Since the passing of Roe v. Wade, the support and opposition rates for legalized abortion have come in at about 50 percent each way. I firmly believe that as long as humanity exists, we will never come to a unanimous decision regarding abortion. The reason behind this is as simple as it is complicated: people have their own moral compasses that are almost impossible to change. If a person with their entire heart believes that abortion is murder and immoral, it will be nearly impossible to change their mind. The circumstances of conception often mean little to those who believe abortion is murder. 

Morality will always be a gray area for humans because we rely on our feelings to know what is right or wrong. Within the realm of science, certain occurrences are proven and validated using laws or theories that are applicable during any and all circumstances. These are the principles that state things like “if you drop an apple, it will always fall downwards,” or “if you fuse two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom together, you will get water.” Science gives us precision, and because of that precision we will always know what the right answer is. 

Set rules like these do not exist in philosophy, especially with regards to morality. The only things guiding us to make set choices in life are feelings and consciousness.  The reality of life is that every human perceives the world through their own set of eyes, a set that is different from everyone else’s. This is the reason why there will never be a ‘right way’ to live life. Heck, humanity can’t even agree on the nature of morality itself. 

There are two potential ways to consider morality: moral relativism and moral absolutism. A moral relativist would argue that morality is circumstantial and that the things that determine whether or not something is moral depends on the situation as well as the intentions of a person. For example, stealing is considered a moral evil. However, if the person was stealing something back that already belonged to them, a moral relativist might argue that that makes the theft okay or at least justifiable. A moral absolutist, however, does not believe that committing an immoral deed is ever okay. Something is either moral, or it isn’t. 

Opponents of abortion consider it murder, but because people have different definitions of what constitutes murder and when murder is acceptable, there will never be a set answer as to whether abortion is moral. Both sides of the abortion debate have some very compelling arguments, yet the question of who is right in this argument has yet to be answered. So who is right? Is it the people that claim to protect the unborn? Or is it the people that claim to protect bodily autonomy and spare the unborn child a life full of suffering?

The answer is that we will never know.

To provide a new perspective to the abortion debate, let’s compare abortion to veganism. Most vegans fundamentally believe that meat production was, is, and always will be the murder of innocent animals. Some would go so far to say that if they had to choose between starving to death or eating meat again, they would pick starvation. Many vegans tend to favor moral absolutism; to them, consuming animal products is not okay under any circumstances. Admittedly, there are vegans who tend to be accepting of what others believe in, while others take a more aggressive approach to promoting their beliefs. In the last decade, vegan protests have become a viral sensation because of how obnoxious they tend to get. However, despite making absolute clowns of themselves and scaring the living hell out of confused bystanders, the protesting vegans firmly believe that they are doing the right thing by fighting for the animals to save them from certain death. Some protesters will go as far as breaking onto private property, subsequently putting themselves and others into dangerous situations simply to prove their points that eating animals is never acceptable. These people are often shunned and are told to “leave meat-eaters alone,” and to “mind their own business.”

What people don’t realize is that pro-lifers intentionally put themselves into similar spotlights. Some attend massive protests and go out of their way to barricade women’s clinics on their days off. Others go to more extreme lengths and send death threats to gynecologists or threaten to bomb Planned Parenthood centers. In their eyes, they are doing the right thing, but to those who may not necessarily agree with their views, their actions may cause great feelings of concern, pain and worry. Despite this, their minds cannot and will not be changed. Just like the vegans, they will continue to fight for what they believe is right. 

Abortion is an ethical dilemma. As a result, I doubt that humanity will ever agree on the morality of abortion. Today, I remain firmly pro-choice, but on a personal level I know that I could never go through with getting an abortion if I were to find myself in that situation. But that is my personal opinion. My feelings on the matter have no place in the decisions of other women and their bodies. I also happen to be a vegan. Once again, I would say that my dietary choices have no place on the plates or the fridges of other people. I think that eating meat is immoral and I will never touch an animal product ever again. But that is a choice that I have made for myself, not for others. You might firmly believe that abortion is the murder of innocent unborn babies. But that needs to remain your opinion. The way you perceive morality is different from everyone else, and there truly is no right or wrong answer. If you believe abortion is immoral, you are entitled to that opinion. But leave that decision to yourself. If you believe meat is murder, you are also entitled to that opinion. Once again, leave that decision to yourself. As a human race, we need to understand that our opinions on everything— including morals— will always differ. The very least we can do is coexist with each other’s perspectives and accept that others will think differently than we do. This goes for both sides of the argument. 

March 1 marked the start of Women’s History Month. As a feminist, I keep two ideals close to my heart: A woman’s right to choose and the necessity of gender equality. I will always defend a woman’s right to have an abortion, and I will always support making reproductive health care affordable for everyone. Nothing will ever change my mind on these things. But something I will never again support or celebrate is the life of Margaret Sanger, one of the founders of Planned Parenthood. 

Sanger receives mixed partisan reviews; her opposers consider her a “baby-killer,” while her supporters praise her for eliminating the taboo on birth control and kick-starting a revolution that resulted in women finally having a say over their own bodies. While I believe that resorting to name-calling is unnecessary, I also firmly believe that nobody, regardless of what your views on abortion are, should celebrate this woman. This is because Sanger was an outspoken eugenicist, a fact which a shocking amount of people are not aware of. Aside from supporting eugenics, Sanger was openly racist, ableist and used her rhetoric to decide who was “fit” or “unfit” to have children. 

Everything she stood for is fundamentally opposed to feminism. While on the surface it appears that Sanger fought hard for women’s rights and equality, a deep dive into some of her personal narratives reveal shocking truths that demonstrate otherwise. In her infamous essay titled “A Better Race Through Birth Control,” she emphasized the importance of birth control use to improve the “quality of humanity,” thereby justifying her views on eugenics. In this article she went on to say: “It is reasonable to assume that women of subnormal mentality, however lacking they may be in vision and altruism, would prefer to avoid the pain and responsibilities of procreation, if the satisfaction of sex could be divorced from reproduction. Given Birth Control, the unfit will voluntarily eliminate their kind.” 

In a 1932 article titled “My Way To Peace,” Sanger discussed her seven criteria for what she deemed a “perfect” society. These ideas were centered around increasing the intelligence of the American population. She referred to immigrants as people who are “detrimental to the stamina of the race,” adding that they must be kept out of society. She went on to say that most of these people were “feeble-minded, idiots, morons, insane, syphilitic, epileptic, criminal, and professional prostitutes.” Other heavily emphasized ideas in her essay included enacting rigid policies of sterilization and segregation so that “questionable” traits would not be transmitted to offspring, as well as confining  the “unfit” to separate homesteads and farms where they would spend the rest of their lives if they chose to not be sterilized. Her final proposition was to force the remaining fifteen or twenty million people of the “unfit population” into soldiers or the military to, in her words, “defend the unborn against their own disabilities.”

Sanger’s awful views don’t end there. After attending a KKK rally in Silverlake New Jersey in 1926, she recounted the experience in her autobiography: “I accepted an invitation to talk to the women’s branch of the Ku Klux Klan…I was escorted to the platform, was introduced, and began to speak…In the end, through simple illustrations I believed I had accomplished my purpose. A dozen invitations to speak to similar groups were proffered.” One can wonder: what on earth did she say to invoke such positive reactions from such a hateful group of people?

In 1939, Sanger launched an initiative called the Negro Project with the intention of introducing birth control to impoverished Black communities in the South and conducting research. Physician Clarence Gamble, who shared similar eugenic views to Sanger, overlooked most of these projects. Some argue that these birth control projects were designed to show that contraceptive clinics could be successfully implemented throughout the United States. Shortly after the launch of the Negro Project, Sanger started a campaign with Mary Woodward Reinhardt to educate African-American women in the South about contraception. Sanger, Reinhardt and Sanger’s secretary, Florence Rose, then drafted an essay titled “Birth Control and the Negro,” sneakily using language that invoked positive reactions from eugenicists and social progressives alike. According to the report, “African Americans presented the great problem of the South,” as they were the group with “the greatest economic, health and social problems.” The authors went on to label African Americans as largely illiterate and a population that “still breeds carelessly and disastrously.” In a letter to Gamble in 1939, Sanger wrote: “We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.” This passage has brought Sanger immense backlash, with realizations that all of this work she had been doing in the South may have been to eliminate or reduce America’s black population. Civil rights activist Angela Davis included Sanger’s incriminating quote in her infamous novel “Women, Race and Class,” as she emphasized that Sanger’s projects “confirmed the ideological victory of the racism associated with eugenic ideas.”Sanger’s legacy was enough for a Planned Parenthood branch to remove her name from one of their Manhattan clinics. In a statement, Senior Vice President of Communications and Culture for Planned Parenthood Federation of America briefly said: “Planned Parenthood, like many other organizations that have existed for a century or more, is reckoning with our history, and working to address historical inequities to better serve patients and our mission.” The Manhattan branch acknowledging the disturbing values Planned Parenthood was built on is a step in the right direction, but additional work must be done to hold the organization fully accountable. Many are still unaware of the horrendous values Margaret Sanger espoused, and as a result people really need to dig for the truth. Planned Parenthood may no longer have eugenics and racism as part of its mission, but knowing the history and the origins of the organization is extremely important for educating oneself about how prominent racism and eugenics were in the United States. Margaret Sanger is not a “queen,” nor an “icon” like I have been seeing so many people call her. She is a racist eugenicist who grafted her hatred onto the lives of hundreds of thousands of unsuspecting people. She should never, under any circumstances, be praised or celebrated.