For Marylanders, Question 7 is about more than just education

Like most Marylanders, I've been unable to escape the onslaught of commercials and catchy jingles encouraging me to vote "yes" on Question 7 during the Nov. 6 election. In fact, I've encountered negligible advertising and coverage on the opposition of Question 7, aside from Rep. Donna Edwards standing firmly against the grain of other Maryland Democrats in Congress.

In between nearly every song I listen to on Pandora Internet radio, the following song plays to the tune of a country western guitar, with karaoke style lyrics across the bottom of my iPhone screen: 

"Maryland cash / bring it back / to the state / where it comes from / not West Virginia / don't let 'em spin ya / bring it back / our Maryland cash." 

What a convoluted way to spread the message of Question 7 to uninformed voters. How wary I am of advertisement that does not plainly address the most basic information. What is Question 7? Don't let 'em spin ya. The following is lifted directly from the state's Web site: 

"Do you favor the expansion of commercial gaming in the State of Maryland for the primary purpose of raising revenue for education to authorize video lottery operation licensees to operate “table games” as defined by law; to increase from 15,000 to 16,500 the maximum number of video lottery terminals that may be operated in the State; and to increase from 5 to 6 the maximum number of video lottery operation licenses that may be awarded in the State and allow a video lottery facility to operate in Prince George’s County?"

While the question will likely affect education funds in Maryland, the question is to what extent, and if it is misleading to chalk up the creation of casinos to helping the notorious underperformance of students in Prince George's County Public Schools. While the question clearly dictates that the expansion of commercial gaming in Maryland would be for "the primary purpose of raising revenue for education," only 24 percent of the revenue raised would go to the State Education Trust Fund, which is projected to be $174 million in fiscal year 2017. 

According to these calculations, 73 percent of revenue raised would go to casino operators, and the remaining revenue would go to local government and other funds. 

Though the projected $174 million is earmarked for state education, that is not to say that it is not possible, or even likely, that other education fund sources could be cut in the future. In short, casinos could generate revenue that replaces, not supplements, current education funds—leaving Maryland students in essentially the same predicament. The passing of Question 7 should not be seen as the end-all solution to education woes in Maryland. I want to vote "yes" on Question 7 if it means that my elementary school, Valley View—in Oxon Hill, Maryland, just minutes away from where the casino would be built at the National Harbor—can one day have a computer for every students, and updated textbooks to support an enriched curriculum. I don't want to vote "yes" on a question that will keep high schoolers' SAT scores twenty leagues under the national average, while seniors with fake IDs skip school to lose money from their part-time jobs playing Blackjack. 

While the gaming expansion is slated to create at least 12,000 "good-paying jobs in Maryland," there is a conflicting sentiment that expanding gambling will also expand social ills such as violent crime, automobile theft, and bankruptcy. Studies have shown that communities with casinos have higher levels of all three. To further complicate things, there is also the idea that people who like to gamble won't stop just because there are no casinos nearby. They'll take their money elsewhere—to West Virginia, perhaps—causing Maryland to lose out on millions in revenue. 

There is a trade-off to be made by voting either for or against Question 7 next Tuesday. It inevitably comes down to each voter's feelings about gambling, not about education. Just as there is no guarantee that education will truly benefit from the gaming expansion, it is also not guaranteed that the expansion couldn't move forward anyway, should the voters decide against it. 

Many proponents insist that opposition to Question 7 would mean that Maryland taxpayers would be paying more to fund education in the absence of casino generated revenue—if that's the case, at least I know my money is more likely to be directly funding education, instead of someone's slot machine payout. Question 7 does have the potential to create jobs and fund education, but it's important to remember that the issue is not as simple as a 30-second country jingle.

Paul Ryan and the myth of pro-life

A pro-life stance is not always as benevolent as its name would suggest. At its most basic form, it is saying that abortions are almost never the best solution. I don’t think anyone can disagree that abortion is heinous. No amount of guilt-mongering abortion fetus photography campaign can increase my level of disgust towards the act. It is disgusting, and by an ordinary person’s standards, immoral. That does not mean, however, that the next logical step would involve the revocation of a woman’s option to abort an unwanted pregnancy. Too often, the pro-choice movement is painted as a pro-abortion movement. I cannot speak for every pro-choicer, but for me, it is absolutely possible to endorse a woman’s right to have an abortion, while electing to never have such a procedure myself.

The issue of pro-life vs. pro-choice extends beyond a woman’s ability to access safe and legal methods of abortion. The debate actually boils down to whether a woman’s ownership of her body is legitimate, and whether it can be justified that the heralded American values of freedom and liberty are suddenly discontinued when a woman defies nature and wishes not to birth a baby she has conceived.

“All these men without vaginas discussing abortion,” my roommate said today. She was mostly referring to Paul Ryan and Joe Biden, who squared off in the vice-presidential debate last night. Tucked in the final few minutes of the debate, the tone became somber as the debate reached the topic of abortion, specifically as it related to both Joe Biden’s and Paul Ryan’s Catholic backgrounds and intended policies. “I don’t see how a person can separate public life from private life, or faith,” Ryan began. He asserted that faith, reason, and science all contribute to his belief that women should only be granted abortions in the case of rape, incest, or if there is a threat to the mother’s life. It is a simplistic, borderline myopic view that does not account for the realities and diversities of the human experience. For example, what qualifies rape? Rape is likely characterized in people’s minds as a miscellaneous, violent act — maybe by a masked stranger in a dark alley. There is such a large spectrum in defining rape that it would add great difficulty to asserting this as one of the few exceptions to pro-life measures.

There are many things along these lines that make Ryan’s situational exceptions problematic. In a perfect world, every situation involving pregnancy would result in a healthy baby being born into a world of love and care, from two parents, biological or otherwise. There are those who oppose abortion because it is murder—and yes, it is. But as with any murder, legal repercussions aside, the emotional and mental consequences deflect largely if not solely onto the “perpetrator.” And this is not to suggest that women who have had abortions should carry around the guilt and regret of a cold-blooded killer; this is to say that if a woman has made the conscious decision that terminating pregnancy is optimal to her life, she lives with the decision. Regulating abortion rights in such a way that the Romney-Ryan ticket would may serve as an assault on women’s health, and more importantly, their sexual and reproductive rights. Unwanted pregnancies have been around since before there were lively television debates about our options for dealing with them, and there was a time where abortions were unprofessional, unsafe, and shoddily performed. Greater technology has transformed abortion into a relatively safe option for women with unwanted pregnancies, though safety in such a procedure is always debatable. However, the social stigma of even just the word “abortion” has outweighed the real matter at hand: women should not endure any additional restrictions that are not and cannot be extended to men, especially ones that invite others into the jurisdiction of their own bodies. The prevalence of teenage pregnancy in television media is just one signal that most people would prefer impromptu, uninformed parenting to the ghastly idea of an abortion. Indeed, abortion is an unpleasant procedure, but an approach like that of the Republicans sends a much broader message that women, specifically, are incapable of governing their own bodies.

There is no law that requires a man to be a father, and there should be none that requires a woman to be a mother, whether directly or simply as fact. There is no equivalent to childbirth for men; the closest thing is, well, childbirth. If a man so chooses, he can become a wonderful, involved father to a child, whether his or her birth was planned or unplanned. On the other hand, a man can just as easily choose to impregnate a woman and never have anything to do with her or the child. Men are afforded so many patriarchal privileges that are so standardized that they are virtually invisible. It is an accepted social fact that many fathers are simply absent. The single mother is a common character of society; the teenage mother is another that unfortunately has a large overlap. The unfit mother is another category that has infiltrated some of the previous categories, many times producing sad, horrific stories of abuse and even murder. Women’s situations during pregnancy and childbirth are obviously quite different from men’s. The woman walks around with the baby inside of her womb. The woman walks around with the stigma of being a pregnant teenager. The woman sleeps at night with the trauma and guilt of having an abortion. The woman feels the void of having birthed a baby she has given up for adoption, knowing she will never have that unbreakable bond with her child. There is so much more to pregnancy and childbirth than can be addressed in religious text, political debates, or academic textbooks. All the while, politicians are fervently debating the wombs of women they do not know and likely will never meet.

“Life begins at conception,” Biden said during last night’s debate, acknowledging his accordance with the beliefs of the Catholic church. But, he continued, that does not grant him the right to determine what the equally devout followers of other religions are able to do with their bodies. As a nation, we interfere with other countries’ problems, because we believe our power and strength as a nation warrants such behavior. Such is true with politicians who seek to control women’s reproductive rights: they somehow believe their opinion is of greater value than those of the millions of people their actions would affect.

It is easy to say that abortions are wrong and that no one should seek such a procedure, no matter what the circumstances are. It is easy to summarize a short list of situations in which abortion is okay, and outlaw all other instances. It is easy to stand outside of an abortion clinic and scream at the horrified women who probably debated tearfully about their decision. It is harder to actually accept the fact that as much as we might like, we cannot and should not forcefully impose our personal beliefs onto others, because we will only walk in our own shoes for the remainder of our lives. It is hard to accept that we are not always right, even sometimes when we believe we are. It is hard to set aside personal beliefs and standards to come to logical and practical conclusions that affect everyone. Conceding to the regulation of our bodies is one of the first steps towards imprisonment. If we are not free in our own bodies, then there is no limit to the liberties that can be stripped of us as women and as people.

The third wave 'feminactivist' and why bands won't make her dance

Danielle “Uni” Simms was just a baby when the infamous Riot Grrrl revolution exploded in 1991, but the do-it-yourself, fuck-you-I’m-a-girl values from this era have distended from her heart and mind like a bright, sparkly, ultra-feminist appendage. Now 21 years old, Uni is busy preparing for her Nov. 3 event It’s a Grrrl, heavily influenced by her riotous 90s counterparts.

It’s a Grrrl is “a girl power party smashing patriarchy, spreading feminist thought and celebrating our womanhood,” according to hot pink flyers, reminiscent of handmade feminist zines, adorned with feminine floral designs and the faces of women like Frida Kahlo and Courtney Love. Uni looks like none of these women. She is rocking a curly blonde bush, septum piercing, and round, green-tinged sunshades. Her matte red lips match the demureness of her loose knit sweater—she doesn’t look like a feminist. That, according to the ideals of the third wave of feminism, is because there is no way to describe how a feminist looks. They are all different in both image and in ideology: third wavers have no centralized goal to achieve for “women” as a sweeping nomenclature.

Uni is a part of this wave that has come to understand the importance of incorporating socioeconomic, racial, and other defining factors into their understanding of women’s issues. Feminism can take on different meanings according to people’s different experiences, qualities, and ideas. For Uni, being a feminist involves three main things: doing, creating, and educating. She is a ‘feminactivist,’ a hybrid of two obvious and self-perpetuated titles.

An artist and part-time nanny, Uni considers her ultimate job title to be “creator.” Her passion to create has permeated all aspects of her life. “If I don’t do it, I feel like I’m not making something of myself,” she said. This resistance to complacency bolstered her ambition to create a free event that would promote awareness of women’s issues in a fun, comfortable, misogyny-free environment.

Instead of a coat check, It’s a Grrrl will feature a “bra check.” Everything will be handmade, according to Uni, who herself is creating a wreath made of Barbie dolls, among other peculiar and meaningful art-installation pieces. She is encouraging others to submit their own posters, poems, letters, and artwork for the event. “If you’re familiar with the Riot Grrrl scene, everything was self-created,” Uni said. “So that’s how the aesthetic [of It’s a Grrrl] is going to be: sparkly, girly, but at the same time very raw. Like ‘fuck you if you don’t like it’ type of shit.”

Modestly tending to a Jack Daniels and ginger beer at U Street’s Tap and Parlour, Uni explains how her insatiable hunger for education is best fed through women’s rights activism and feminist work. She is a petite girl, but the conviction in her words boast the strength of several feminist armies. F-bombs escape her lips about as frequently as the Red line comes during rush hour in D.C. She is as cool as a non-phallic cucumber, even when recalling days of being bullied by other girls throughout her childhood. Her personal experiences with what it meant to be a girl—getting her ponytail cut off by a girl classmate, enduring constant harassment and catcalling from dozens of guys in the span of a block—further motivated Uni to cling to her pursuit of feminist education. “I’m always creating, always putting something out there,” she said. “The reason I like [what I do] is because I am educating others as well as…myself.”

In as much as words can hold clout without action, a feminist cannot truly retain such a role without also being an activist—putting those beliefs to work tangibly. A complacent feminist is not a feminist at all; she is a fly on the wall at a patriarchy convention, complicit with the metes and bounds she has been assigned as a woman via inaction. Shirley Chisholm, the first African-American woman elected to Congress, once said that “emotional, sexual, and psychological stereotyping of females begins when the doctor says: It’s a girl.” This pervasive system of gender bias is something Uni acknowledges, and aims to upset through educational events like the one named after the tail end of Chisholm’s famous quote.

Wistfully gazing out into the graying September sky through the bar’s window, Uni offers her opinion on everything from raunchy video vixens to the role of social media in spreading a message. The overarching emphasis seeming to simply be on awareness, Uni insists that “we all just need to know what’s fucking going on”—something It’s a Grrrl aims to assist with.

“Our generation has so much information and so many resources, but how are we going to use them?” Uni asks, her drink barely halfway gone. “[We have] so much knowledge…[because] everyone’s learning at faster and easier pace, but what are we going to do with what we have?”

If Uni’s event were a cocktail, it’d be one part Chisholm, one part Riot Grrrl, and a splash of her godmother, who raised her to enforce rigid standards in the respect she both imparted on and expected from others. “She respected herself so much,” Uni said. “That’s the basis of how I feel I should be treated, and it expanded to other women as well. What also inspired me is that I know so many great women, [and my godmother made me feel like respect] should just be a given.”

Discussing respect, Uni arrives to the topic of a video she recently viewed online of a Sept. 15 performance at N.Y.’s Tammany Hall, in which two ballerinas perform to Juicy J’s “Bands A Make Her Dance.”

“These are professionally trained ballerinas dancing to a song that objectifies women,” Uni said. “You’re tying the culture of hip hop to ballet, I get what you’re trying to do. If you’re trying to uplift a culture, don’t use a song…[that’s] about giving girls money to strip and dance. [The ballerinas] think they’re just dancing and showing their ballet skills, but there’s so much more to it.”

And that’s what It’s a Grrrl will explore: the less prominent nuances of misogyny, and equally as important, how women are themselves exacerbating an undesirable situation.

“There are a million ways to express and empower yourself, to be sexy and be confident,” Uni said. “Sex sells and that’s cool, but it’s a battle between doing a split and pointing at your pussy, or you know, smoking a cigarette in a beautiful fucking outfit, or wearing a bikini [on the beach] somewhere reading a book. That’s sexy, too.“

It’s A Grrrl will take place on the first Saturday of November from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Mova Lounge, a nightclub venue that’s been responsible for hosting a number of LGBT-oriented nights. This location was of special importance to Uni, since she is extending invitations to those both born and identifying as women. “I really want it to be somewhere where they’re going to be accepting of that,” she said. She is also looking forward to the possibility of making this event the first of many, depending on the success of the pilot party next month.

Uni is also cognizant of the potential criticism she may receive for catering this event to just half of the gender spectrum.

“I knew there’d be people who would think it’s sexist to not invite guys,” she said. “A lot of people think feminists hate men, and we don’t want them around, but it’s not that. In terms if being practical and getting the message across [with this event], it only makes sense to have women there that can understand what I’m talking about. If this thing goes well, I want it to be an ongoing thing, then I can think of how I can implement men. I want the women to be comfortable, so it’s strictly an empowering event for women. In the future, we’ll worry about the guys. But for now, women first.”

Each wave of feminism has drenched its generation’s participants in notions of equality, ability, and freedom—but the fundamentals of feminism remain for the most part in our society, eluded. Some say the feminist revolution has acquiesced into a cesspool of generally satisfied women. Besides, something that isn’t broken, according to the old axiom, does not warrant a fix.

American women today can certainly enjoy many liberties that they previously could not, but institutionalized misogyny still keeps many women at bay from their full potential, perhaps with their unknowing consent.

“We’ve come to a place where we feel like we’re good,” Uni said. “We can work, we can vote, we can wear whatever we want. From the outside it looks cool, but when you get to the underlying things, you start to see how it’s not. We have to get inside people’s minds, and understand how they think about women, and the unconscious things they do.”

Finally polishing off the last sips of her drink, Uni dishes out her sentiments on the attention paid to women’s rights and feminism amongst her peers, saying that enthusiasm seems to be “decreasing, but hasn’t lost hope.”

“It’s simple,” Uni said. “Once women know [about the issues and what they can do], they’re like, ‘Oh shit, I’m game.’ It’s like telling someone there’s a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. They’ll go get it, but if they don’t know about it, they won’t.”

Her philosophies are ahead of her time, and more humanist than divisive, despite her current, more narrow focus on celebrating and uplifting women. When asked about her long-term goals, Uni smiles, and suddenly she’s less of a holy figure for feminism and more of just a free-spirited 21-year-old still searching for the ultimate life path that encompasses art, philanthropy, feminism, and activism. “I’m a normal young woman, and my answer is: I don’t know.”

“I know that every time I do something, something else comes from that. So once this event happens, I know something will come from it, and I'll go from there."