The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has a reputation for fun films for casual people. While this doesn’t necessarily detract from the enjoyment, as Martin Scorsese puts it, they are largely seen as the cinematic equivalent of a theme park attraction. Kevin Feige, producer of the MCU, clearly disagrees, going so far as to try and get Spider-Man: No Way Home nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. While Best Picture seems to me a step too far, we should recognise No Way Home for what it is: a film that honours the legacy of Spider-Man while at the same time striking at the heart of Peter Parker’s character.
Jon Watts, the film’s director, had to do a lot with this movie: it had to make a profit; it had to exist within the MCU, and respect the mould of the money-making machines; it had to close the trilogy he began with Spider-Man: Homecoming; and it had to honour twenty years of cinematic legacy. On all of these accounts, he succeeded. The first two are fairly obvious to see: just before the new year, the film made $1.37bn worldwide; and the film is peppered throughout with jokes and gags in line with the rest of the extended universe. It is a fun film packed with high-quality CGI and well-choreographed action sequences, all typical of a Kevin Feige production.
Within this framework, the film pays close attention to the story it has been telling since Homecoming. In the first film, we see Spider-Man (Tom Holland) learn that being a hero is not simply a fun game; in Far From Home, he learns that he cannot simply give up being a hero; here, he learns that he must do the right thing no matter what. The film presses his character to his limit. Just before his Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) dies, she gives him a final, familiar lesson: “with great power, there must also come great responsibility”. Twice, he is given the chance to ignore it, first when he is given the box that can send all his villains away to be killed, and again at the climax of the film when he tries to kill the Goblin. However, the lessons he has learned prevailed: he is persuaded the first time by the other Spider-Men (Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire), and the second, he cures the Goblin, and sends him home to (hopefully) a better world. At the close of this film, Peter’s journey is complete: he has learned just what it takes to become a hero. Retrospectively, the conclusion of the trilogy enhances the first two films, and brings the story, and the development of his character, to a satisfying close.
It was clear that at the beginning of the trilogy, the filmmakers were trying to set the film completely apart from the previous films, such as with the decisions to exclude Uncle Ben and to avoid using Peter’s catchphrase about power and responsibility. However, by having Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield reprise their roles from past iterations of Peter Parker, Watts is setting his trilogy directly next to those that came before. Their inclusion risked being mere fan service and disrupting the integrity of the story. Instead, they point to the fundamental truths of Spider-Man: he goes through pain, loss, and tragedy, but he always comes out the other side, as highlighted when the other Spider-Men first speak to Tom Holland’s character. In this film, they act as a foil to the MCU’s version of the character, hammering home the lesson he has to learn. And as such, they enhance the story, rather than distract from it. And similarly, they pay tribute to the legacy of the previous films (especially to Andrew Garfield’s performance), and the impact they have had on the current iteration of the character.
It is worth pointing out the somewhat lacklustre pacing of the first act: despite the aesthetically pleasing and well-choreographed fight scene between Dr Strange and Spider-Man, it feels as though it drags. Likewise, the epilogue feels rushed: Peter’s grief over his aunt does not feel truly reconciled, and one wonders if it would have been necessary to extend Peter’s address to his aunt’s grave.
However, everything in between the first act and the epilogue flows smoothly. A particular highlight is the apartment fight scene at the close of the second act: Willem Dafoe’s turn as the Green Goblin is terrifying, as he delivers some of the best lines in the film and then brutally beats down the hero.
This fight, combined with his other appearance towards the end of the film, in which he praises Peter for trying to kill him, works well in the context of the film. His role is to be unhinged, and cause chaos; his motivation appears to be to corrupt Peter’s morals. This sort of dynamic could have fallen flat in a movie where the central conflict lies between the hero and villain. But here, it works perfectly: it highlights even further the internal struggle for Peter. At its core, the story is about Peter Parker learning to do the right thing. As such, the villain does not need to do more than to voice and feed the hero’s inner demons. The story is all the more satisfying when Peter does not win through some big fight, but by accepting his final lesson: he must always do the right thing.
This excuses Dr Strange’s incredible irresponsibility. He neither counsels a clearly distraught 18-year-old who asks him to brainwash the entire world nor talks him through the spell, but it becomes clear that we are focussing on Peter. Even if we lay the blame with Dr Strange, we watch Peter choose to help the villains rather than simply take the easy solutions.
That is why the reliance on interconnected cinematic universes is passable here. No Way Home does leave casual fans a bit more in the dark about their villains’ motivations, such as Electro’s desire not to be ignored, or Doctor Octavius’ science experiment gone wrong. However, this is because the film does not want to distract from Peter Parker. No Way Home concludes the trilogy excellently. Much more could be said about other aspects of the film, including the score, the choreography, and the acting, particularly Tom Holland’s performance. But let it be sufficient to say that, for the first time in a while, the MCU has produced a story that stands on its own two feet, without simply relying on their audiences’ love for their interconnected universe. This is certainly, to my mind, the MCU’s best cinematic outing.
Image Credit: Spider-Man: No Way Home / Sony Pictures / Facebook
Don’t have time to comb through multiple manifestos or six different op-eds? The Cherwell News team spoke to all the candidates for the Presidency of the Oxford University Student Union so you can compare them all in one go and make an informed decision.
Michael-Akolade Ayodeji
Image Credit: Cyril Malik
Combining the Union and Student Union presidencies is an ambitious endeavour.
Michael-Akolade Ayodeji clearly is no ordinary student. An adolescence characterised by irregular access to formal education and encounters with the care system, his path to Oxford was an unlikely one. The same drive that allowed him to work ten-to-four night shifts while undertaking his A-levels, he tells Cherwell, is the drive that he thinks makes him the candidate suited to represent Oxford students.
‘I live for being busy. That’s why I do photography, American football, the SU, the Union. I have to do things’
Of course, this ambition comes at a price. Having rusticated during second year while caring for his stepfather during the pandemic and planning another rustication this year for the Union presidency, the SU presidency would probably entail an exceptional third rustication. Even as Michael-Akolade is open about the hurdles he has faced, he emphasizes the change he has managed to achieve. From introducing Ask for Angela at the Union to working to increase access, Michael-Akolade wants to make clear that he isn’t just a status quo manager; he wants to improve it.
In conversation, he is the first to admit that this campaign has been, by his standards, low profile. Personal difficulties complicated the launch, and his manifesto lacks some of the attention-grabbing policies of his competition. But, there is never any doubt as to whether he should be running:
“For me personally, not going to lie to you, it is my experience, my struggles with Oxford that have left me passionate…about changing things”
Otto Barrow
Image Credit: Otto Barrow
Otto Barrow is no stranger to student governance. From serving as the Oxford NUS delegate in 2021 to acting as Chair of Council, he has experienced a range of roles and responsibilities. Through these, he has seen the good, the bad, and the ugly of Oxford administration, and he believes that he is ready to face down the SU rodeo.
In his manifesto, Otto vows to ‘protecc’, ‘attacc’, and even ‘fight bacc’ as SU president. His primary aim is to ‘protecc’ students from sexual harassment, but he also wants to defend Oxford’s environment by halting University investments into polluting companies and encouraging colleges to create net-zero schemes. He wants to ‘attacc’ the lack of awareness about exam arrangements by spreading information about concessions, and to end the ban on trashing.
However, Otto’s quest to ‘fight bacc’ against the “frankly stupid” ban on clapping has been met with frustration by the current SU. DisCam said they were “saddened to see the so-called ‘clapping ban’ once again being misrepresented, this time by a candidate for President in the SU Election”. In response, Otto told Cherwell: “The wider issue here is that meetings and other events don’t meaningfully cater to people who have anxieties or are non-hearing, so having such a policy is dangerous as it allows the SU to pretend to be inclusive when it doesn’t do anything substantial to include these groups within its decision-making processes. I respect all the work that the Disability Campaign does.”
Otto Barrow believes that he has the experience, competence, and the policies students need, as well as the passion to make them happen.
Richard Mifsud
Image Credit: Richard Mifsud
Why do we need a Student Union president at all? This is the question Richard Mifsud, a medicine student at Worcester, asks in his manifesto. For two years, he has run the ‘empty chair’ campaign with his team of stuffed animals: Thespy Bear, Dr Chicken, and Depressed Moose. The campaign aims to highlight the ineffectuality of the SU and seeks to reinvest the £21,000 spent on the president’s salary elsewhere. Last year, he won 500 votes, coming only 400 behind the eventual winner.
Richard is very familiar with the inner workings of universities; he completed his undergraduate degree, masters, and DPhil at Cambridge before coming to Oxford to take graduate-entry medicine, which he will complete this year. Outside of his SU campaign, he hosts CamFolk, a weekly folk music show on Cambridge’s student-run radio station, after having his application for Oxide (the Oxford equivalent) rejected three times.
He believes that “All of the roles that SUs have which make them very popular and useful are currently done by JCRs and MCRs very well; all that’s left in Oxford SU is people that are career politicians or have particular axes to grind. This is why the Oxford and Cambridge SUs always have the same problems with low turnout and low interest.
“The role of the SU should then be supporting the JCRs and the MCRs, and catching that very small number of students that fall through the gaps of the college and university support systems.”
Enrico Pelganta
Image Credit: Enrico Pelganta
With his perfectly parted hair, reserved manner and penchant for smart outfits, you would be forgiven for thinking Enrico was already a politician. However, his melodic Italian accent and dry wit add colour to this ambitious man otherwise clad in shades of navy or grey. After all, lack of vision is not something Enrico can be accused of. His campaign is based on fundamentally redefining the Student Union’s culture in order to reconnect with the student body.
Taking aim at what he describes as politically divisive “virtue signalling” and waste, Enrico wants to adopt a cost-benefit approach towards SU policy in order to restore trust in the organisation, as well as increase its relevance to current students. He highlights the Class Act Campaign and the SU’s ban on clapping as well-meaning policies adopted due to political fashions rather than practicality.
Speaking on the Class Act Campaign, he stated, “I was left wondering how a term card including a pub trip and a Gregg’s picnic (two lovely activities in their right, obviously) would do much to improve the long-term prospects of disadvantaged students.”
This organisational shake up would be extended across the SU to tackle the sense of superiority over JCR’s and MCR’s which Enrico believes pervades its bureaucracy.
He believes that stronger ties with both is key to increasing student engagement, providing the SU with a greater connection to everyday concerns. Further reform of the SU’s decision-making process is also required in Enrico’s eyes, in order to end the waste of time and resources on a “needless Bureaucratic machine”.
Marcin Pisanski
Image Credit: Marcin Pisanski
Marcin Pisanski is a finalist studying law at St Annes and came to Oxford from a state school in Poland. In his manifesto, Marcin describes himself as having two years of experience with the SU, being committed to student representation, and ready to lead the change. During his time at Oxford Marcin has served as Chair of the Student Council, EiC of The Tab Oxford, and President of the Bar and French Societies. When Marcin sat down with Cherwell, two of his priorities became clear throughout the interview: involving students, specifically JCRs and MCRs, in SU matters, and freeing up funds by replacing highly paid full-time positions at the SU with student volunteers or part-time employees.
As for the latter proposition, when asked about the potential risk of over-working this may present, Marcin assured Cherwell that he would never consider paying anyone below the Oxford living wage, and likened the roles to those currently occupied by students in other student organisations and societies. Some positions would still be retained by non-student staff members, but maybe not salaried at the current rate of £100k: “paying someone less than £100k is not paying them that much lower in terms of what the role entails and what kinds of responsibilities they have. I think just paying people normally at the market level is just enough.” If Marcin is elected, a referendum on the issue of disassociation with the NUS is also on the cards.
Kelsey Trevett
Image Credit: Kelsey Trevett
The University has long come under fire from critics, with activists alleging that the university fails to look after the welfare of its marginalized communities and eschews its duties to society and the environment. Kelsey Trevett (they/them) has spent their college years at the forefront of these debates, organizing rent strikes and LGBTQ+ representation movements in and around the university. Now, Kelsey Trevett wants to trade the picket line for the SU presidency.
The co-chair of the Young Greens of England Wales, Trevett is eager to turn critique into action, and advocate for the communities they feel the university leaves behind. “It is important that working class students, disabled students, and LGBTQ+ students are listened to, and there are tangible steps I believe we can take to let that happen,” they told Cherwell.
Trevett recognizes that the SU is inherently constrained by the university’s bureaucracy, but they believe that there is a role for the SU president to be a platform for change, especially for marginalized groups. “We can let the SU be a space where groups can bring about proposals, and create the organizing pressure to ensure those proposals are acted upon,” said Trevett.
“On issues such as sexual harassment or discrimination, it is important that we bring college policies in line and let the voices of those most effected be heard at the SU,” they added.
Trevett hopes to use their experience organizing protests and building coalitions to make the SU a more open and inclusive space. “The next step is to bring Sabbatical officers into the JCR or MCR meetings, to make sure there is really active engagement, and to take proactive steps to help students feel they are being heard,” said Trevett.
Who are you in one sentence?
Michael-Akolade Ayodeji: “I’m an “artivist” – I use poetry, art, visual performance to tell real stories from underappreciated perspectives with the hope to help inspire change.”
Otto Barrow: “Competent: I know what it takes to get through the university bureaucracy, and I can deliver with a light touch.”
Richard Mifsud: “I am an empty chair!”
Enrico Pelganta: “An overworked student who should probably revise its(sic) coursework instead of writing this.”
Marcin Pisanski: “I’m Marcin, I am a lawyer at St Anne’s, and I’m running to be SU President.”
Kelsey Trevett: “An activist committed to fighting for the rights of students, in a university that does not care about us, who is prepared to stand up for each and every student.”
Why, according to you, should students care about the SU?
Michael-Akolade Ayodeji: “Students should care about the SU because major issues that affect our day to day student experience require coordinated and systematic university-wide change. The SU, through access to key decision-makers and stakeholders, is in a strong position to help facilitate this.”
Otto Barrow: “There are some issues that are bigger than individual colleges, such as sexual harassment, decarbonising Oxford, and how the university runs exams. You need a student union to coordinate all of these different things. My vision of the SU is for it to be a bottom-up institution: rather than saying ‘this is what we want to implement’, I want to have an SU that listens to JCRs and MCRs and focuses on the issues that they want us to focus on.”
Richard Mifsud: “Well, that’s a great question. They should care because they’re spending a huge amount of money. Just imagine what we could use that money for other things. I’ve been running this empty chair campaign for three years, and I still don’t have a clue what any of the previous three years’ presidents have done.”
Enrico Pelganta: “They shouldn’t. That’s what SU officers have gotten wrong repeatedly for years. The Collegiate JCR/MCR system means that apart from a legal requirement, the SU has little scope of existence by natural right. There is, however, I believe, scope to make possible for students to care about the SU.”
Marcin Pisanski: “The SU has more power than most students realise. There are some issues where the colleges are simply not enough. For example, if you think about night safety or if you think about returning to Oxford after the pandemic, those are not issues where individual JCRs or individual MCRs could have an impact, so there’s a lot more going on behind the closed doors than people realise.”
Kelsey Trevett: “The SU is a place where people can really be involved, put forward important proposals, and let their voice be heard. The SU can stand up for students who are left behind by the university and remind the university of who it is failing.”
If you were elected president, what is the first thing that you’d change?
Michael-Akolade Ayodeji: The first thing I’d change is the lack of proactiveness in engaging with and supporting JCR and MCR communities and leadership. An SU that students feel apathy towards has no mandate and thus limited ability actually influence the university, regaining student trust and engagement is #1 on my agenda.
Otto Barrow: My first priority would be to ensure that anti-sexual harassment policy is harmonised across colleges, in consultation with It Happens Here and the OSARCC (Oxfordshire Sexual abuse and rape crisis centre). This would involve, among other things, ensuring that all college bar staff are trained in “Ask for Angela” and that anti-spiking cups are made available at bops and other events, along with producing material to help victims navigate the bureaucracies.
Enrico Pelganta: “I would order the commission of a general review report of the decision-making process behind the organisational and bureaucratic machine of the SU. I believe that the way the SU has been run for years is the principal reason behind of its demise: it is impossible to restore trust in the institution if the SU cannot handle change.”
Marcin Pisanski: “The first thing I would change is to make sure that the SU is actually communicating with the student body. I would attend as many JCR and MCR meetings as I physically could fit into my calendar. I would make sure to not just communicate with students from all backgrounds, colleges, courses, and departments, but also to make sure that I am representing them at a University level.”
Kelsey Trevett: “So much! I think the first thing I would like to change, and work on, is to make our internal bodies more trans-inclusive and less queerphobic generally. We have an issue where in many institutions, trans and nonbinary students and LGBTQ+ students do not feel included, do not feel comfortable, and do not feel safe. It’s important as an SU we stand up for those students, and make the SU a place that is safe for them.”
How do you plan to work with the University administration to advocate for student interests?
Michael-Akolade Ayodeji: I have vast experience in a number of approaches which I’ll employ when appropriate. From advocating on behalf of vulnerable groups as I have done with Mind to negotiating win-win outcomes as I have done with my college to providing and if need be, taking it to the street with activism as I have done protesting against discrimination and immigration-related issues
Otto Barrow: “The big challenge that a lot of people find when they’re trying to enact change is that they don’t understand how the university works – it’s a very arcane, bureaucratic structure. I am aware of how these University structures work. I would try to make as many petitions as possible to demonstrate to the university which issues students really care about, for example with my policy about trashing.”
Enrico Pelganta: “To maximise the impact of the SU, I plan to draft with the aid of fellow elected officers a memorandum of understanding with the University for a new course of partnership which will better consider the needs and interests of the whole student community. This is especially significant in relation to the way there is a need to advocate for more uniform treatment of students across different faculties, especially in terms of examinations.”
Marcin Pisanski: “The important thing is experience. It takes a new president up to a few months to get up to speed with everything that’s going on with the way the University operates. I’ve already served on one committee with the Pro-Vice Chancellor of education. I’ve already been the chair of the student council and a student trustee, so I understand how those relationships work.”
Kelsey Trevett: “There are real tangible steps we can take in terms of representation. Part of my manifesto includes the return of lecture capture and accommodation policies, so that working-class students or disabled students are listened to. We will help communities have a direct voice in our work, and let them be the ones that decide what their needs are. I’ll use the presidency to communicate those needs and promote representation in a way that is tangible and meaningful, not just tokenistic.”
Students at different colleges can have vastly different experiences when asking for support such as hardship funds or action against sexual harassment. What can the SU do to make these outcomes more equitable?
Michael-Akolade Ayodeji: “Firstly by empowering and providing more support to campaigns such as Class Act and IHH as they’re composed of students who understand and are incredibly committed to tackling these issues. Secondly, we need a universal approach to solving these issues which requires cutting bureaucracy and dealing with the disparity in support and process between colleges.”
Otto Barrow: “Obviously there are some colleges with more effective systems than others. I want to provide the basis for colleges to learn from one another in terms of their approaches. The fundamental principle of my campaign is to take these ideas from the bottom up and share them in a decentralised way.”
Richard Mifsud: “We have a wonderful collegiate university with every college having fantastic ideas of their own. There’s not enough money to support these ideas and most are done by people in their spare time, leading to an uneven experience. I think that the £21000 from the budget could go towards supporting colleges that are less well off. The SU could also promote communication between separate JCRs and MCRs – it would be nice for Oxford SU to realise they are the servant to the JCRs and MCRs and not the leading master.”
Enrico Pelganta: “Centralisation is not necessarily the solution to this, as the college system exists for a reason. I do believe, however, that it is necessary for whoever wins the SU presidency to work with the University administration to push for a system demanding uniform standards for access and quality of service across colleges.”
Marcin Pisanski: “If we manage to not continue spending 500k pounds on non-student staff salaries, then the SU would have much more money to either launch some kind of a central hardship fund run by the SU as many universities in the UK are already doing, or we would be able to spend that money on supporting students, for example, suing their colleges in terms of cases of abuse.”
Kelsey Trevett: “With hardship funds, we can try our best to create a central point for advertising how colleges make those funds available, and work to close disparities for those who are applying. We should also ensure that every college provides as much as it can.
“It is difficult to get colleges to work together on issues like sexual harassment. The policies are so inconsistent. We should ensure that our goal is to make sure student welfare comes first, bring college policies in line, and protect victims.”
How would you get students engaged and interested in the SU?
Michael-Akolade Ayodeji: “ By being accessible, better at communicating achievements and project progress, engaging with and listening to common room reps so we’re aware of unique issues facing different students and by building trust through maintaining a track record of reliability.”
Otto Barrow: “I aim to move events away from the Student Union building and try to run events in as many different colleges as possible. Most colleges are some distance from the SU building, and many don’t know where it is, so I think that creating events across the university will help to serve the students and represent them more effectively. I also want to get rid of policies that make the SU appear completely inaccessible and which don’t actually have any effect on the issues they’re trying to address – like the ‘ban on clapping’.”
Enrico Pelganta: “I am a strong believer in stronger partnerships and coordination with JCRs/MCRs to increase engagement and interest across different demographics. It is also necessary to build stronger ties with Universities Societies of all kind, so that we can have a comprehensive picture of the student community and its needs.”
Richard Mifsud: “I am hosting the SU empty chair photo competition! If you send a photo of one to [email protected], a picture of an empty chair will win a £2 box of Celebrations.”
Marcin Pisanski: “It’s a two-way communication. We can’t have students being engaged with the student union without the student union being engaged with students. As I mentioned before I would make sure to go to all the JCR and MCR meetings, I would invite society leaders and JCR leaders and MCR leaders from different backgrounds to different SU committees.”
Kelsey Trevett: “I understand that there is a lot of apathy. I think that this needs to be approached so students feel involved, feel engaged, and feel they have a voice in the SU. Every year, candidates say they want to engage more students, and be more proactive about engaging students, but it is important to go to JCRs, go to MCRs, really engage them, and tell them what the SU is doing. It should be about making students feel like they can really feed into the work of the SU. We should hear the voices of all students, and let people feel able to shape and be involved in processes.”
Which song can you not get enough of right now?
Michael-Akolade Ayodeji:” ‘For Troubled Boys’ by KOTA the Friend”
Otto Barrow: “I recently watched Hot Fuzz, so it’s “The Village Green Preservation Society” by the Kinks”
Richard Mifsud: “Do I know any songs about chairs? There’s ‘The Empty Chair’ by Sting, but I’ve never heard of it, there’s ‘Empty Chairs and Empty Tables’ from Les Miserables. I suppose you could do Live Aid, because it’s a chairity.”
Richard Mifsud: “Do I know any songs about chairs? There’s ‘The Empty Chair’ by Sting, but I’ve never heard of it, there’s ‘Empty Chairs and Empty Tables’ from Les Miserables. I suppose you could do Live Aid, because it’s a chairity.”
Enrico Pelganta: “Live Wire by the AC/DC.”
Marcin Pisanski: “Hopefully by Thursday it’s going to be we are the champions, but we’ll see about that.”
Kelsey Trevett: “Just because I listened to it this morning, it’s 22 by Taylor Swift.”
Plush or Bridge?
Michael-Akolade Ayodeji: “I’m not a clubbing guy really”
Otto Barrow: “It depends on the day of the week, so I will have to pass on that one.”
Richard Mifsud: “Neither – I am going to be wandering around aimlessly looking at all the empty benches, going ‘WOW, there’s another!’. I will be very depressed if I see a drunk person sitting in one.”
Enrico Pelganta: “Bridge Thursdays has a special significance for me.”
Marcin Pisanski: “I love the old plush, I’m not the greatest fan of the new one, but I think still Plush.”
Kelsey Trevett: “Definitely Plush.”
Port & Policy or Beer & Bickering?
Michael-Akolade Ayodeji: Laughs. “This will get me in trouble…Don’t really go to either ….. Beer and Bickering”
Otto Barrow: “Port and Policy is more fun as a performance, but Beer and Bickering is more towards where I lean in my actual views on things. I think it’s like the Cavaliers/Roundheads debate.”
Richard Mifsud: “What the hell is Beer and Bickering? [I explain that it is a tamer and less ‘controversial’ P&P]. Thespy Bear likes the dramatic, so he will go to Port and Policy. Depressed Moose, my treasurer, is going to go to Beer and Bickering because he feels like all he can do is bicker.”
Enrico Pelganta: “Would you prefer to be hanged or shot? I am joking, although I have been starting to appreciate the latter more in recent times after being an assiduous frequenter of the former.”
Marcin Pisanski: “If elected I’m probably going to be going to both to make sure that I’m listening to students from different backgrounds, so I’m just going to say both.”
Kelsey Trevett: “Neither, but if I had to pick one, probably Beer & Bickering.”
Najar’s or Hassan’s?
Michael-Akolade Ayodeji: “Ahmed’s all the way”
Otto Barrow: “Najar’s”
Richard Mifsud: You think I have time to eat in my pursuit of empty chairs?”
Enrico Pelganta: “As I used to be vegetarian in the past, so I would probably go for Najar’s.”
Marcin Pisanski: “Hassan’s! (without hesitation).”
Kelsey Trevett: “Hassan’s, because I live right by it!”
Voting for the 2021 SU Elections is now open! Follow this link to cast your vote.
Microsoft have declared a few motivations for their acquisition in a press release announcing the deal. At the beginning of 2021, Microsoft had 18 million subscribers for their Game Pass subscription service. Activision can give them access to their 400 million monthly active players across the globe. Acquiring Activision may also grant them access to their 21.22% share of the mobile gaming market. The same press release briefly stated that this acquisition will provide the “building blocks” for the metaverse.
Activision themselves approached Microsoft for this acquisition. But even before then, producing blockbuster games has become increasingly expensive and competitive. Meanwhile, Activision seems to be struggling to retain and attract talent, potentially due to reports and lawsuits over a toxic work culture. Activision’s share price, meanwhile, has declined steadily since June 2021 from a zenith of $99.18 a share (14 June 2021) to a nadir of $57.28 (1 December 2021) a share.
This deal could have major ramifications for an eventual series of mergers and acquisitions in the gaming industry. On one hand, Microsoft may look at acquiring more gaming companies to consolidate its position, while its competitors may try to do the same. Signs of this are already happening as Sony, less than two weeks later, announced that they are in the process of acquiring Bungie.
Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, noted that the acquisition “will play a key role in the development of metaverse platforms”. The metaverse is an all-encompassing term for a whole universe of virtual reality (VR) spaces and communities linked together. In it, people can work and play, and metaverse marketplaces rely heavily on cryptocurrencies. The technology industry is currently gearing up to move into the world of VR and one of the key challenges facing this shift is consumer uptake. In 2021, the VR market was worth approximately $4.8 billion and the gaming market constituted almost 30% of that. Gaming is seen as the original manifestation of the metaverse as many games have their own virtual marketplaces and communities. By acquiring Activision, Microsoft may seek to become a significant player in the metaverse by increasing the number of online communities they currently have with Activision’s customer base.
One potential roadblock for this acquisition is antitrust and competition regulation. Governments and regulatory bodies often look to block large deals such as these from going through if it looks as though these deals will lead to monopolies and the stifling of healthy market competition. Microsoft already controls the gaming pipeline from studio development to the distribution of titles. This acquisition may enable them to deliver more variety in the popular games offered through their Game Pass subscription service. This can enhance the scope of their gaming ecosystem, which already encompasses consumers’ content, consoles, computers, and mobile devices. On the flipside, because Microsoft would own the distribution rights to Activision’s game titles, they can potentially restrict access of their games to other devices, as they have done with Starfield, and could potentially do with Elder Scrolls VI. It is not yet guaranteed that they will do this with the games acquired in this deal, like Call of Duty, and currently, they have pledged not to restrict access to that franchise. However, antitrust regulators are concerned about the potential for these kinds of activities which can hurt the value of other competing platforms. To assuage regulators’ fears, Microsoft will need to prove that “the deal is neither anticompetitive nor harmful to new firms or consumers”.
The face of the gaming industry is set to evolve. Through this deal, for better or for worse, Microsoft will have more control over the user experience. They can control the development, production, and distribution of their games, and over a wider range of platforms. And if this deal does indeed spark a merger and acquisition war over game publishers, as the Sony-Bungie deal might foreshadow, we can expect a larger degree of consolidation within the gaming market. Just as the Disney-Fox merger affected the nature of streaming, we could see gaming become an industry with fewer players. Individual companies may have further control over pricing, while player networks may become more interconnected. Further down the road, we can see how these huge companies can use their leverage over content to establish a foothold in the metaverse. So why should we care? Because this deal could be one of many that shapes the future of entertainment.
While discussing the upcoming sequel to the Oscar-winning Spiderman: Into the Spider Verse, a friend explained her love of the first film: “I just didn’t know that animation could look like that.”
She was referring to the comic-influenced animation style employed by directors Peter Ramsey, Rodney Rothman and Bob Persichetti, an innovative approach which employed a newly created digital language for which Sony filed patents),. Into the Spider Verse famously bucked the pervasive animation style of the last two decades, established by Pixar and employed by other major Hollywood animation studios including Dreamworks, Walt Disney Animation and Illumination. Established by Pixar technology, CGI creates a sense of photorealism with slight aesthetic changes to give each film a unique character and avoid the uncanny valley. Spiderman: Into The Spider Verse, and its upcoming sequel, Spiderman Across the Spider Verse,whichcentered on the character Miles Morales, combined CGI with 2-D animation, creating an innovative artistic style. Notably, Morales was the first Black Spiderman, the son of an African-American father and a Puerto-Rican mother, and as groundbreaking as the character was, the evolution in animation style, partially spearheaded by a Black American artist, Ramsey, reinforced the film’s importance. Other television and film adaptations have utilized the comic book aesthetic but rarely have they taken full advantage of the comic book medium: the ability to invert the sky, infuse bright color into paths of motion, and to create multiverses through crystalline reflection and fast-paced action illuminated with neon colors.
Ramsey, who also directed the cult favorite animated film The Rise of the Guardians, has discussed the artistry we’ve lost in Western culture by foregrounding one artistic form. A 2015 piece in The Telegraphexplored the similarities, for example in Pixar and Disney’s women’s faces, showing that they were constantly round, snub-nosed, and largely featured disproportionately giant eyes (the similarities aligning with Western beauty standards). An interview with Coco director Lee Unkrich pointed out that Pixar had to grapple with the film’s riskiness, as “a brand-new, original story, rather than a sequel, steeped in Mexican traditions that might not have interested a global audience, especially without a built-in audience or fan base.” Across Hollywood, films that do not repeat previously successful strategies in both form and content continue to be seen as precarious investments, particularly at a time when the only box office guarantee is a Marvel movie. The representation that Black Panther and Captain Marvel showed could be successful were allegedly long seen as liabilities by Marvel’s own long-time executive Ike Perlmutter, due to his belief that they would not be financially successful. Former Disney CEO Bob Iger replaced Perlmutter with Kevin Feige, who considered both stories central to the Marvel Cinematic Universe and were some of the highest grossing films of all time, with Black Panther being particularly critically acclaimed and the first Marvel movie to be nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars.
However, though ethnic diversity has increased in Disney and Pixar animation over the past decade – with Pixar’s Coco (2017) grossing upwards of $800 million and Disney’s Moana (2016) grossing $645 million – most films continue to use the previously successful CGI film aesthetic. In Discussing Film, Spiderman’s Ramsey noted: “It’s great and it’s so obvious when you see it, you just go, “It just makes you see how absolutely silly it is that things are just so limited and so “status quo” when all of these stories are just reflecting the world as it is a little more. You see people like this every day when we walk out the door, it’s just pushing the camera a little over to the left and you have a whole other world that you can see and relate to.” According to the American careers website Zippia, white animators are upwards of 73% of the workforce, while Black animators are just under 4%. It’s unsurprising, then, that there is one pervasive artistic style.
Pixar and Disney Animation are perhaps the best-known, and certainly the most financially successful, studios in the English speaking world. Both companies have faced backlash, most recently for the 2020 film Soul, for not including Black animators and writers in creating stories about Black characters, and for often turning characters of color into animals (including The Princess and the Frog’s Tianaand The Emperor’s New Groove’s Kuzco). Notably, Rashida Jones left Toy Story 4 after claiming that Pixar was “a culture where women and people of color do not have an equal creative voice.”Pixar’s Sparkshorts program, however, has been a hotbed for diverse talent, giving younger less-well known animators a chance to make a short film on a topic of their choosing. Aphton Corbin’s 2021 work, “TwentySomething,” which tells the story of a newly twenty-one year old woman trying to come to terms with growing up and dealing with imposter syndrome. Corbin was a storyboard artist for the film Soul where she came up with the minimalist-influenced style for the counselors who work in the afterlife. “Twenty-Something,” though, was entirely her story.
Unrestrained by the content or artistic regulations that regularly determine the look and story of a group project at Pixar, Corbin’s animating style utilizes a collage of patterns and colors against the backdrop of a night club. The characters’ volume is underlined with light and shadow rather than mass. It depicts a story often not shown on screen, that of a young Black woman succeeding and facing the everyday neuroses of young people, and her new aesthetic style proclaiming an evolution in representation. In all of Pixar’s history, only two feature-films have been directed by women: 2012’s Brave, directed by Brenda Chapman and 2022’s Turning Red by “Bao”-director Domee Shi (the only woman of color to direct a feature-length Pixar film). Given gender and racial homogeneity of Pixar’s directors, it is unsurprising that there has been one particular style of the studio. Corbin’s style, therefore, is both a groundbreaking stylistic change and an inflection point for representation at one of the most powerful animation studios in the Western world.
Both films then function both as vehicles for reflection of under-represented audience groups and an indication of as-yet-unseen masterworks of artistry. Nerdistwriter Javier Reyes, in describing his own moment of feeling “seen” by Spiderman, sets it against the power of the film as an art piece: “Spider-Man is my favorite character ever, but I never expected the movie to be a genuine masterpiece, and universally beloved. (I’m fairly certain it’d be harder to find a dissenting opinion of Spider-Verse than the literal holy grail.) Among myriad other reasons, what made the movie so powerful was just how well it understood diversity.”
Both Spiderman and “Twenty-Something” are artistic masterpieces; they both show the power of representation, as Reyes demonstrates, and the weaknesses of our current system, which allows one aesthetic style to dominate. Lovers of animation – children, the young at heart, and admirers of great art – are lucky to be living contemporaneously to two great artists and we can only hope that the future will see greater diversity in Hollywood.
Researchers from Oxford University’s Department of Experimental Psychology and Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences have revealed that people who have had mild symptoms of COVID-19 can show ‘degraded attention and memory for up to 6-9 months’.
Whilst it had been understood from previous studies conducted that people have suffered from cognitive symptoms including difficulties in concentrating, forgetfulness and fatigue, from an acute infection of COVID-19, these findings had not been proven amongst milder symptoms of COVID-19. Now researchers have found that this memory loss is consistent amongst people who have shown no other symptoms of long covid and have had asymptomatic to moderate symptoms.
155 participants were recruited for this study of which 136 were included in further analysis. 64 had contracted COVID-19 whilst 91 reported that they have not. Whilst none of the participants had received treatment in intensive care, three participants had been hospitalised and seven had displayed severe COVID-19 symptoms that had affected their ability to carry out day-to-day activities.
Stephen Burgess of the MRC Biostatistics Unit at the University of Cambridge highlighted the small number of people included in the study, also adding that it was not randomised. Despite this he said, “differences between the COVID and non-COVID groups in terms of several specific measures of cognitive ability looked at in this study were striking” and “despite the limitations of non-randomised research, it seems unlikely that these results can be explained by systematic differences between the groups unrelated to COVID infection”.
The study asked participants to complete a number of exercises which would test their memory and cognitive ability. The exercises had a particular focus on cognitive functions considered critical for daily life, such as sustaining attention, memory, planning and semantic reasoning.
A control group on factors including fatigue, forgetfulness, sleep patterns and anxiety were tested against all of the participants who had previously been infected with COVID-19, but they were not significantly different.
The study found that the participants performed well in most of the exercises. Their abilities including working memory and planning showed good results. However, participants performed significantly worse in their episodic memory abilities (up to six months post-COVID infection) and a greater decline in their ability to sustain attention over time (for up to nine months) against those who had not been infected.
Dr Sijia Zhao of the Department of Experimental Psychology said: “What is surprising is that although our COVID-19 survivors did not feel any more symptomatic at the time of testing, they showed degraded attention and memory. Our findings reveal that people can experience some chronic cognitive consequences for months”.
Overall, the results prove that specific cognitive abilities are affected by COVID-19 infection but that after 6-9 months these abilities are not significantly different than normal which demonstrates evidence of recovery over time.
However, it seems that these symptoms do wear off as Professor Masud Hussain has stated, “we still do not understand the mechanisms that cause these cognitive deficits, but it is very encouraging to see that these attention and memory impairments return largely to normal in most people we tested by 6-9 months after infection, who demonstrated good recovery over time”.
For over a century, the evolution of the sweet potato has been a huge mystery. New research from Oxford’s Plant Sciences department has revealed a key missing link that completely changes the prevailing understanding of not only this crop, but also migratory history of early humans.
Oxford Professor Robert Scotland, the leader of the team says, ‘How the sweet potato evolved has always been a mystery. Now, we have found this new species in Ecuador that is the closest wild relative of sweet potato known to date and is a fundamental piece of the puzzle to understand the origin and evolution of this top-ten global food crop.’
Sweet potatoes are ‘hexaploid’ with 6 copies of the chromosomes. Understanding when their genetic duplication event took place helps researchers to reveal when the sweet potato first evolved and became available to early human farmers.
Yet, researchers have long been plagued by a perplexing dilemma. The closest known ancestor of the hexaploidic sweet potato was only a diploid, with only 2 copies of the chromosomes. A new study by the Oxford team and collaborators, the United States Department of Agriculture, and the International Potato might have cracked the code: a tetraploid called Ipomoea aequatoriensis.
Genetics are a complicated subject that require very difficult research to make sense of. The numbers of genetics vary widely between organisms, with human beings having 46 chromosomes, resulting from a pair of twenty-three chromosomes, and ferns having 1,440 chromosomes.
Unlike mutations of single DNA letters, polyploidy is ‘obvious’ looking so it can be a great way for researchers to trace the evolutionary history of organisms and compare when the duplication events occurred. Especially for crops – it is estimated that up to 80% of plant species has undergone it at some point.
A quirky jump from two to more chromosomal pairs is not unprecedented. Multiple times throughout genetic history, organisms have jumped from two to four or more chromosomal copies. The sugar cane, for example, has experienced this phenomenon many times over, resulting in up to 12 copies.
As a Pembrokian, I have an affinity for the colour pink – our college is, affectionately, the ‘House of Pink’. I remember commenting that the horde of Pembroke Freshers meandering down Park End Street on the first Bridge Thursday of Michaelmas, donning our pink freshers t-shirts, resembled a kind of ‘pink tide’. My comment certainly invoked the rich, dare I say colourful, history that pink has, socially and politically. From various feminist causes to centre-left polity, the colour pink calls forth almost a century of political turmoil and turbulence.
The colour has long had a volatile meaning. Up until the end of the nineteenth century, it was a colour of youth; largely genderless, perhaps only slightly masculine by its association with red’s connotations of violence, anger and agression. By turns pink has been associated with luxury, the working class, prostitution, socialists. Indeed, according to Bloomberg, pink only became associated with femininity after the end of World War II, when canny advertisers began directing pastel pink appliances and upholstery towards women as an antidote to the military-inspired fashions and textile rationing of wartime. This was part of a postwar effort to remove women from the workforce and reestablish their traditional homemaker roles, marking out the feminine territories of the domestic and domiciliary and symbolising it within a self-contained pink universe of womanhood. It indicated a specific stratum of feminine experience.
This connotation was extended to baby girls in the 1980s when ultrasound technology was first used. Since then, using colour to mark out identity has become a distinctly 20th and 21st century obsession – take, for example, our preoccupation with the visual symbolisms of gender reveal parties and their perpetuation of blue and pink as gender signifiers. This theme is sustained by its multitude of gendered cultural associations, from the lazy stereotyping of Barbie memorabilia and stuffed Care Bears to y2k chick-lit and Mean Girls. At the same time, though, the 21st century has embarked on projects of subversion and, ultimately, destruction of the constraints of such binaries with only more seriousness. The global lexicon has stretched beyond such reductive gender-binary terms. Certainly, pink has been reclaimed as the unlikely hero of various feminist and LGBTQ+ movements, freed of its gender-normative shackles and given the power to challenge social constructs and existing paradigms.
Following Donald Trump’s inauguration in 2017, the pink pussycat hat became a key piece of visual imagery employed by the Women’s March that opposed him – defiant and dissenting creations of knitted protest against Trump’s misogyny, namely his infamous ‘grab ‘em by the pussy’ comment. The march, which ended up being the largest single-day demonstration in US history, was an expanse of pink. The colour symbolised a story of sisterhood and solidarity in the face of a multitude of threats to women’s rights. Pink had staked its claim in the most divisive US election in living memory.
The story of pink continued with Nancy Pelosi’s pale pink ‘mask-to-pantsuit colour-coordination’, to borrow the words of Hilary Clinton on twitter. Still the colour maintained its grip on the twitterverse, with the hashtag #AmbitionSuitsYou accompanying the motif of the hot pink pantsuit as part of a 2020 campaign to mobilise American women to vote. A number of celebrities unapologetically donned the pantsuit – Kerry Washington, Zoe Saldhana, Mandy Moore and Amy Schumer among them. One twitter user coined it ‘pink power’. The Guardian named pink ‘the colour of activism’ in an article published in the same year. Pink’s road to reinvention was driven by its reclamation and reappropriation within feminist politics.
Outside the arena of gender politics, the colour pink certainly gives a subtle nod to the ‘new left’ governments of early 21st century Latin America. Left-of-centre administrations in Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Ecuador, Bolivia and Venezuela formed what the media coined the ‘pink tide’. Pink was adopted as a softer, more muted version of the socialist and communist red, in the same way that the pink tide’s social democracy was slightly more centrist and capitalistic than its radically Marxist counterparts and predecessors. A distinct turn towards progressive social and economic policies, the pink tide saw Latin American politics radicalised and their governments populated with former activists and trade union leaders. It was a resolute move away from the neoliberal model that persisted at the start of the century.
Ultimately, while this turn to the left resulted in significant reforms that worked to lift millions of people out of abject poverty, the leadership of these regimes were unable, in the face of the assault from vested interests, to sustain their hold on power to carry out the more radical changes necessary to realise a more equitable social order. That is not to say that the pink tide didn’t leave a pink shadow. It fundamentally changed the location of the centre of Latin America’s political spectrum, forcing right-wing candidates and succeeding governments to adopt more socially-conscious administrations. In many ways, it challenged the prevailing free-market fundamentalist Washington consensus. Once again, the colour pink functioned as a vehicle for powerful social and political change.
Indeed, as Leatrice Eiseman, Executive Director of the Pantone Color Institute asserted, ‘our use of colour is connected to the cultural mood.’ ‘Colours that celebrate our desire to break boundaries satisfy our fervent need for playful creativity and unconstrained visual expression’ she said. Colours don’t have intrinsic meanings – they simply soak up the meanings that we project on them. They exist both within cultural, social and political categories, and across them. In this sense, the ever-changing significance of the colour pink has worked to define and redefine its own politics.
I came across Lynne Enright’s book, Vagina A Re-Education whilst working in Waterstones after my A-levels. Initially, it was shelved alongside brand-new releases, however it soon joined the few other books with such titles like Women’s Health A to Z or Naomi Wolf’s Vagina, in the section titled ‘Illnesses and Conditions’. This bothered me – it seemed indicative that these sections had been designed by a man and books by, and for, women and other marginalised genders were being simply fit into whichever category was deemed least offensive.
I tell Lynn Enright this when we logged onto zoom.
Lynne acknowledges that her book isn’t one easily categorised: “It’s not something you seek out during a specific bout of illness, it’s more about wellness – that wellness has become so associated with something other, but it should just be part of the everyday life and education.”
This was Lynne Enright’s first book; yet it wasn’t her first ingress into these subjects. She has written regularly regarding topics of health: “I am really interested in health and I love that as a subject. I wasn’t ever a health journalist per se, I started out in fashion.” Lynn categorises herself more as a feature writer, writing on a range of topics that interest her.
The genesis of this book is in her time as a journalist, specifically working for The Pool. Lynne was Head of News and Content when she worked there and noticed a trend: “whenever we did stories about fertility, infertility, pregnancy, abortion, miscarriage, even smear tests, there was a really big response. I think information regarding those topics traditionally considered as ‘women’s issues’, have been neglected elsewhere in the regular media. And more widely in society, there are taboos around miscarriage, abortion, major infertility. So these pieces did well, and even the stories that didn’t get huge numbers you could see people on social media who were very engaged, and starting their own discussions – I think they felt heard and listened to and it was something that was obviously important to people.”
Lynne talks about how she could see this happening, set against the backdrop of her home in Ireland: “I have always been very involved in and passionate about the repeal movement in Ireland. We all knew it was coming for quite a while, but it happened around that same time though speaking about this book, and it just felt like a lot of those things were connected to, the bigger almost philosophical questions about consent or how we talk about sex. They connected to the reality of women and people in Ireland – that they weren’t allowed to access abortion and that was fundamentally connected with a lack of basic information about our bodies, so it was those things together that made me realise there was a book in it and that it was something worth doing.”
Her book also generated some personal revelations once she started to do the research: “I realised that I was learning stuff that I’d never known or been taught, and I was in my thirties writing this and had been through lots of things, had an abortion, was starting to receive fertility treatment, had been having sex for fifteen years and still there were things that I didn’t know. Realising that, whilst being very enlightening, was also troubling…”
Lynn’s personal experience informed her writing, however through the process of talking to people to further research her book, she was astounded by the universality of her own experience: “I grew up in Ireland, and I was in the state school system which the vast majority of people are. And here most state schools are run by the Catholic Church and so sex education was really lacking, but I was really surprised as I was interviewing people for research for this book, to realise it’s basically lacking everywhere.”
She goes on: “You know, it’s very rare to come across a country that has really nailed sex education, and you can come across schools, individual schools that have done very well but that’s almost random, it is usually down to the head teacher in the school or if there is a teacher that feels passionately about the subject and would like to take it on.”
Lynne further remarks on the absurdity of sex education being regularly outsourced: “in Ireland it is often outsourced to a Catholic campaigning group – it’s bizarre that we allow that aspect of education to be so unregulated, it’s not as if we’d let a campaigning group just come in and teach any other subject, but that happens with sex education.”
Lynne has said “it’s time for quite a revolutionary shake up of sex ed” – I now wish I’d asked her what she thought of the series Sex Education!
The conversation moves forward, as Lynn creates a persuasive argument for sex education needing to continue past the point of our school lives: “there’s only so much that you can teach in school and it has to be age appropriate, and then you’re out in the world.”
She talks about an article that she wrote regarding the controversy about the blood clots caused by the vaccine and the pill: “I don’t think that it’s really a fair comparison as there are different types of clots, factors etc. However, I think it was connected to the fact that women feel like they’re prescribed the pill, without really much consultation, they’re not told about the side effects or the risks. In the UK and in Ireland we have a health system that’s quite like paternalistic, that presents the authority of doctors, and we don’t often feel that we can have an open two way conversation about our health or our bodies.”
We voyage into a discussion about the issues with the Conservative government stripping back funding of the NHS, which has left people without having a two-way conversation because you need to get in and get out “and this conversation can’t be done in 10 minutes”.
Lynne articulates her gratitude towards the NHS, especially in comparison to other health systems globally, yet she highlights the issues including often it being challenging to seek a second opinion: “And it’s not impossible, and you can do it but it’s not made easy for people, and, and you know I think doctors do point out that you need to advocate for yourself. I feel like I didn’t really know that you should until recently, I think it’s more a part of American culture, but not so much in British culture. I don’t think we really think about self-advocacy and we don’t go to the doctor having necessarily engaged with what we think is wrong with our own bodies. We should continue to have an ongoing conversation and relationship with our own bodies.”
We need to recognise how institutions have a role to play in this. I reflect to Lynn on the circumstances of my own arrival at university, having been an avid reader of feminist literature since fourteen. I’d read a myriad of books including Lynn’s, finding myself surprised by just how many people didn’t know basic information regarding sex, contraception or how to even discuss their own sexual pleasure. I truly believe that universities have a bigger role to play than they currently accept in helping to provide key health services and educate more widely. Lynn and I find ourselves in agreement, however she goes further: “I think as we grow and enter into different institutions, they need to take on the mantle of education. I saw that Channel 4 introduced a menopause policy, but recently they introduced a pregnancy loss policy as well. Institutions throughout our lives have a role – in some cases to educate, and in some cases to facilitate and to acknowledge that there will be challenges and circumstances that people will face like illness or like menopause and miscarriage, which aren’t illness but need that same sort of framework to be dealt with in a workplace environment.”
I shift the conversation to a question I’ve been wondering since reading her book – why call it Vagina A Re-Education? A lot of the issues regarding the lack of sex education and issues surrounding sexual pleasure can be boiled down to the vagina/vulva divergence. Most people use the term ‘vagina’ to refer to the female genitals, when the vagina is technically the muscular tube leading from the external orifice to the cervix of the uterus. The vulva encompasses the exterior female genitals including the clitoris, and thus is incredibly important when discussing issues such as female pleasure. Lynn says: “Really the title is because vagina is still what most people say, and, and that’s that.”
She elaborates a bit: “I didn’t really grasp that point but I started researching and even in the early drafts of the first chapters I was talking about the vagina. Then actually I read a theorist who makes the point that by not naming the vulva we’re doing it a disservice that rang true and it suddenly made me realise that we don’t talk about the vulva.”
Lynne and I further voyage into a discussion over the importance of names, and that how the names we are comfortable using in society are informed by this patriarchal lens of childbirth and heterosexual sex: “We don’t think about, you know as uncomfortable as we are talking about vaginas, we’re more comfortable talking about them because they facilitate childbirth.” And this is what Lynn Enright plays with in the title of her book– that comfort level that we have with the word, and the fact that we regularly mean the vulva when saying vagina is emblematic of how far sex education and our social understanding still have to go.
We’ve discussed at this point sex education and its various flaws, so I enquire if there is an ideal sex education that she would like to see?
Lynne pauses before saying: “Around the time I was writing this book, I spoke to people from Australia, Lebanon, Ireland and the UK, and what everybody has in common was that pleasure was never mentioned. I think that it’s quite tricky because, you know, that not necessarily the point of school, like school isn’t there to teach kids about the pleasures of sex, but at the same time if it’s never mentioned, then you are doing students a disservice.”
“When you have an education that focuses on sex as something to be sort of avoided for women, it often then positions them as the basic gatekeeper. The women I spoke to, when they were teenagers, sex had been positioned as something that men would want from them, and that it was their job to protect themselves against pregnancy but also male desire. The male desire was positioned as a more forceful, more powerful desire than female desire which wasn’t mentioned. I don’t think that you can really have a have a good interesting robust conversation about consent, without talking about or at least acknowledging pleasure, and the fact that female pleasure exists.”
“That’s what I mean we have to be quite revolutionary and radical – I think it’s still quite bound up in gender norms and it’s still a little too squeamish”
She is willing to conceded that there are certain priorities in the sex education that should remain: “Of course, the main things you are going to have to focus on are preventing teenage pregnancy, girls, women and people with vaginas needs to know about their periods and those are completely valid.” However, she wants it said that sex education “shouldn’t just be scary. And so many of the women I spoke to felt honestly quite scared after their sex ed classes and that’s not right.”
We discuss how divisions in schools between boys and girls and the patriarchal value placed on boys’ sex education versus girls’ further facilitate this fear: “periods become something that only girls have to learn about – it makes them quite private and it continues that taboo – they are engrained into the education system that protects boys from hearing about those things.”
“I knew all about wet dreams. Firstly, I felt that like they were really common and everybody got them and that’s actually not the case, but also wet dreams, they’re not particularly relevant to me as like a teenage girl, you know? But I feel like that was comprehensively referred to in my sex education, and I think there is a disparity there.”
I enquire further about the thread in her book regarding damaging myths, in particular the hymen. She entitles her chapter on this topic ‘The Hymen, a Useless Symbol’: “You know, the way we talk about the hymen is particularly dangerous, because whilst other myths are damaging, this myth – the definition itself – is not correct. The hymen as a ‘seal that’s broken’ – that’s untrue. I think it’s really interesting that we’ve come to understand a piece of our bodies, a physical thing, completely according to patriarchal values – that’s just quite striking.”
She sits back for a second, before continuing: “I went on this kind of journey of realising the extent of the harms that those myths can cause and the ramifications of them – how every time you’re told a lie or not told the whole truth about your body, it disempowers you and that can have devastating consequences.”
I ask her a final question: ‘it’s now two years since you published Vagina A Re-Education, is there anything that you think you would include now that you didn’t include at the time?”
She pauses before saying: “The discussion about trans rights is more relevant than ever and sadly the situation for trans people has become even worse, so that is still something we’re really fighting for.” In the introduction of her book, she acknowledges that “not everyone who has a vagina is a woman. I know that there are women who do not have a vagina. I recognize that we are living in a time when there is, especially among young people, an increased reluctance to see sexuality and gender as fixed and binary. I think this will only be a good thing for vaginas and people who have them … this book generally refers to cisgender girls and women when it says girls and women, largely because I am constrained by the currently available data and research.”
She goes on to state that: “When I was writing actually, I had to rely on data from the US about black women’s maternal health because there wasn’t the data to discuss the situation in the UK. And now since I’ve written a book, figures have been released that show the UK is even worse – the outcomes are even more dramatically different in the UK. Also, there’s more and more information coming out about fertility and infertility and the disparities within communities, accessing that treatment in the UK, but also about the success rates. So, I think those are all things that I would have liked to have looked at and this illustrates there is still work to do.”
Finally, we discussed how the categorisation of her book inspired a change in Waterstones – we introduced a Women’s Health section. Lynn’s face lit up, and our interview concluded talking about the importance of change: “The thing about change is that you have to keep going. This book involved realising something that all feminists realise – that there have been women doing this work for literally centuries. Change isn’t linear, and you have to keep going and keep building off the work that has been done before.”
Every year of my Oxford degree so far I’ve optimistically bought a ticket to the Pink Night fundraiser, and every year I’ve arrived at the same quandary a few weeks later: what to wear. I know it isn’t particularly sustainable to be buying new pink outfits every year with little repeat wear potential, even if they’re thrifted, but I am occasionally too weak to resist the promise of a fresh Instagram post, and so I have become well-acquainted with the pitfalls of wearing pink. Every possible shade of the colour seems to come with its own potential issues — pastel can feel a bit fairy princess, or worse, bridesmaid, coral makes it seem like you didn’t think you could pull off a ‘proper’ pink, and Schiaparelli-esque fuchsia is such a domineering shade that it threatens to wear you rather than you wearing it.
I also think that part of the reason why pink can be such a difficult colour to wear is found in its diverse usage in popular culture. Much has been made of the mid-20th century shift from pink as a ‘boy colour’ to a ‘girl colour’, through landmark hyperfeminine iterations of the colour worn by Mamie Eisenhower on Inauguration Day 1953 and Marilyn Monroe in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, but less is made of how pink was now the definitive colour not just for girls, but for every type of girl. No other colour has had quite such a range of iconic female characters in film clad in it. While white and black-based looks still adhered to the Madonna-Whore dichotomy, pink was the definitive colour for every section of the spectrum of female archetypes from toxic feminine mean girl icons like the Pink Ladies and Regina George, to Molly Ringwald’s ingenues, to genuine role models like Elle Woods. In the words of the Lebanese designers Azzi & Osta, pink “represents the softer or the wilder side of a…woman”.
Yet this universal palette of pinks provided to women across the board has inspired some reactionary approaches to the colour. The mid-2010s were the age of ‘millennial pink’ as the subject of derisive Guardian articles, and pastel manicures clasping rose gold iPhones, and more than ever before pink was associated with a particularly delicate brand of femininity. At the same time, to a certain group of people born between 1999 and 2003, a certain shade of pink brings flashbacks to Tumblrs filled with sunsets and bubblegum pink cigarette lighters overlaid with Lana Del Rey lyrics or questionable takes on mental health — here, suddenly, was pink gone grunge. The point is, people wanted pink femininity but without any hangups about being bad feminists, and the result was an aesthetic that seemed more regressive than any cinematic rich bitch’s go-to pink blazer. By the time Jodie Comer’s Villanelle made her debut in pink tulle in 2018, and stars from Gemma Chan to Dakota Johnson took cues from her at the Oscars the following year, the idea of an edgy, ‘not like other girls’ girl in head-to-toe pink felt a bit passé.
So where next for pink? Who What Wear forecasts a step away from millennial pink and soft pastels, and towards hot pink, via Zendaya power suits and ubiquitous Jacquemus bags. However, just as paler pinks bring to mind troubling questions about our femininity and how we express it, brighter pinks can tread a fine line between feminine power and caricature. As long as pink has its cultural and political baggage, there will be few colours through which one can express oneself in a wider variety of ways. With the problematic versatility of pink uppermost in our minds, let the annual Pink Night outfit search commence.
After a year that has seen skyrocketing numbers of resignations, the surging popularity of working from home, and corporate rethinks during the COVID-19 pandemic, employers are scrambling to hold onto talent and avert the worst of the so-called Great Resignation.
Researchers from the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge might have found a solution: a 4-day work week, which is set to be piloted at up to 30 companies throughout the United Kingdom. Similar tests are expected in the United States and elsewhere.
Participating companies will slash work hours from 40 hours a week to 32, and will closely monitor any changes in productivity and employee satisfaction. The trials will launch in June 2022 and last for six-months. The trial is also expected to cover issues such as corporate environmental footprints and gender equality, reflecting a feeling from companies that the growing concerns of employees and activists have to be addressed.
The U.K. version of the trial is overseen by 4 Day Week Global, a nonprofit pushing for shorter work weeks and improved labor rights, in partnership with researchers from Oxford, Cambridge, and Boston College. Researchers will analyze data about productivity, interview participating companies, and think of metrics to measure the overall success of the program.
Researchers and advocates hope that the trials will produce an informed report that can be used as a template for companies thinking of making the switch. They also hope to use the report to sway the opinions of policymakers. Already, France is pondering a 32-hour work week, which would be a reduction from the country’s 35-hour work week.
Advocates hope to show that reducing working hours to four days, without cutting pay, will result in the same productivity and economic returns for corporations. There is some anecdotal evidence that reducing hours can counterintuitively increase productivity and staff retention, thereby saving costs for companies, as well.
Campaigners argue that cutting work hours can easily be achieved by cutting down on meetings and relying on technology to sort through workloads. One of the biggest hurdles that supporters hope to overcome is perception. Previous trials have had mixed results, owing to the different needs of specific sectors. There are also fears that shortening the work day would come with a cut in worker compensation, potentially creating new problems for workers and exacerbating burnout.
The COVID-19 pandemic led to surging interest in their work, as the explosion of work-from-home policies led to a broader reconsideration of norms in the Western office culture.
The trials are the culmination of four years of organizing and advocacy by the 4 Day Week Global, founded by Andrew Barnes and Charlotte Lockhart. According to their website, they’re committed to finding solutions to improve business productivity, worker health outcomes, strong families and communities, and promote gender equality. They claim that the five-day work week emerged from organizers seeking to reduce the previous six-day norm a century ago. They see their own work as the successor to that movement.
