Wednesday, April 30, 2025
Blog Page 426

NEVER fail to call out racism: the devastation of silence

Melanie Onovo
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NEVER fail to call out racism: the devastation of silence

TW: Racism, sexual assault 

British society and campuses continue to live in denial of racial inequality entrenched in our communities. Removing the burden of racism from the rest of the international community is unjust and a besmirchment on the progressive principles by which we live. Racial injustice is a global problem, with particular resonance here in the United Kingdom. While many people seem to have only woken up to the realities of racial oppression now, this has been my reality from the very beginning of my life. The Black community has been fighting what feels like an endless battle against racism and we will have failed if our concern for racial prejudice disappears because George Floyd is no longer the number one news story and the news cycle has moved on.

White guilt should not be downplayed. It is valid to feel emotional distress and anxiety when you have to have to understand and accept your biases and bigotry. Due to the significance of White guilt, centuries have failed to give the correct priority to race issues in education and have simply pretended that it isn’t there. This is a miscarriage of justice for every Black person who must suffer racism without proportional consequences in order to protect the comfort of their White peers.

In my short time at Oxford, I have experienced too many racially inappropriate encounters. I have not always spoken about them because it is upsetting and exhausting; I should not have to constantly explain to people why I deserve respect and why they should have a personal regard for my existence as a Black woman. 

Here is what I have experienced as a Black woman in romantic settings:

  • I have always felt like the less attractive option and the lesser preference of my peers who comprise  my dating pool.
  • I have had my hair pulled, and was forcefully flipped and called violent racial slurs whilst someone  thrusted inside me with rage. Sexual harassment and assault is most prevalent in the Black community, but no one talks about it.
  • I am constantly the “booty call” and never the girl wanted for a serious relationship due to the hypersexualisation of Black women historically.

Here is what I have experienced as a Black woman in social settings:

  • I have had my box braids compared to Medusa’s snake hair
  • I have been asked if I have a health condition that prevents me from growing hair because I wear wigs
  • I have been called a slave on multiple occasions by supposed close friends

Here is what I have experienced in an educational capacity at Oxford:

  • I have been told by a tutor not to worry about my grades as my place at Oxford is more about being able to have “intellectual conversations about Hobbes and Aristotle”
  • I was gaslighted into believing I was unintelligent when I had a genuine invisible learning disability
  • I was told by a tutor that my handwriting was a reflection of my academic potential and that I should not allow this to be another “disadvantage” I must face
  • It was assumed that my dissertation on the Biafra war would be difficult due to a lack of sources in English when Nigeria was literally a British colony and has a prosperous educated elite… 

These are only a few instances and continuous cohorts of Black students have suffered a lot worse.

Wearing protective hairstyles at university means preparing for uncomfortable and agonising interactions. I must approach romantic relationships with caution due to the fetishisation of my skin. Equal expectations by my academic support system, relating to my potential to succeed, seem out of my reach. These issues should not only be important now that another Black man has been murdered by the police. This discourse is important and should continue – we must be vocal in correcting racism and all instances of implicit bias. Everyone must be working to educate themselves on the severity and pervasiveness of racism and anti-Blackness.

I grew up and went to school in a predominantly Black area, so I was less familiar with instances of racism, microaggressions and implicit bias when I arrived at Oxford. The hateful and baleful remarks against me and the evil racist attitudes being released into the world must NOT go unpunished. The burden should not be on me and other Black people to get used to racism and numb to the suffering. As an ally, you cannot and must not stay silent in times of injustice, in moments of racist hatred and ignorant disregard for the seriousness of the circumstances that Black people live through everyday. It will be uncomfortable, it may be in response to people close to you — friends and family — but choosing a position of neutrality is to allow such dangerous and harmful perceptions and structures to continue unabating.

One crucial lesson must be learnt from this: being “not racist” in silence is not enough. Failing to call out instances of racial discrimination is not just validating the hatred, evil, and ignorance behind racism, but it actively contributes to a dominant culture of dismissal and disregard for the plight of Black people everywhere.

While social media has been flushed with posts expressing solidarity for George Floyd, and support for those protesting racial justice and putting their lives on the line in the process, students and campuses need to go a step further. Real progress will require a deeper understanding of the ingrained oppressive power structures. It will require my fellow students to assume a more proactive allyship and become comfortable with confronting everyday instances of racism and prejudice.

“The beauty of anti-racism is that you don’t have to pretend to be free of racism to be anti-racist. Anti-racism is the commitment to fight racism wherever you find it, including in yourself. And that is the only way forward.” – Ijeoma Oluo

Image credit: Daria Koukoleva

Belonging and Burdens at Oxford: Confessions of a BAME Oxonian

Cherwell Life
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Belonging and Burdens at Oxford: Confessions of a BAME Oxonian

‘I’m never going to feel like I belong here!’ It was almost a year ago when those words flew out of my mouth. I was sitting in front of my supervisor, trying desperately to stop the streams of tears that were running uncontrollably down my face. It was a low moment, a very low moment. I cried to the point of not being able to breathe and all I could think about was how pathetic I felt in that moment. But this deep and dark moment was also a massive realisation. 

As a BAME woman, I feel just as helpless as I did when I first matriculated. I have felt that my needs as a BAME person haven’t always been met and at times I have not felt protected by the people who are in theory the most appropriate and powerful people to enforce positive change. Especially when I was an undergraduate, I kept silent. I saw problems around me and decided to suppress them and “fit in”, whatever that meant. Part of this came from the fact that I felt like I was outnumbered. There weren’t many BAME people in my College and I feared being categorised as an ‘angry brown girl’ who was being overly sensitive. More poignantly, I felt like I didn’t have the right to complain. I was a First-gen student who had come from a state school background and lived on free school meals. In my head, it was an absolute miracle studying at Oxford. My whole ride was supported by bursaries and scholarships. For that reason, I was lucky to be at Oxford; I didn’t feel like I had earned my place or that I deserved to be there like everyone else. I should’ve been grateful to be able to walk around Oxford and any critique of the institution would somehow reflect more poorly on me. How wrong I was. 

Part of the issue I’ve had with Oxford is from the people at the top who fail to address the fact that when it comes to issues of equality, diversity and inclusion, there is not just an admissions issue, but also a massive cultural problem that has been swept under the carpet. In fact, when I attended a panel discussion about diversity early this year I put this view across to the panellists. I told them that Oxford has a major cultural issue and that six years haven’t changed my complex relationship with it. What I got in return was gaslighting, a dismissive comment about Oxford being a “hotel” where no one feels comfortable and a lecture about how it was my responsibility as a BAME woman to change the culture at Oxford. This coming from speakers who, a few minutes earlier, suggested that Oxford needed to ‘listen to the students’. In my response, I didn’t raise any new issues; these have been raised by many marginalized students before me and yet here we are, still demanding for Oxford to address cultural problems. 

This is the main issue I have had with Oxford, this idea that it is up to me, and others like me, to change things. What the people at the top sometimes fail to understand is that there is a deep and heavy emotional burden attached to students who pioneer various equality, diversity and inclusivity initiatives in the University. I know this because in the past year I have felt this. Within the past twelve months I have introduced a few different initiatives and facilities. Admittedly, these have been funded by my College and, alongside the hard work of other students, I have contributed to making the College a more welcoming and inclusive place. It is a great feeling knowing that these have been put in place, however it didn’t come without its difficulties: microaggressions, prejudice views and resistance from some people who simply do not want to give up tradition and move with the times. Not to mention the fact that my College was happy to promote everything that I had done while knowing full well that I carry out this work for countless hours without any form of recognition or payment. The lack of recognition almost felt like a slap in my face. 

All this time I have felt like I’ve been trying to knock down a high brick wall with my bare hands whilst also juggling a deep disillusionment. Of course, I know that there are many people from different minority groups facing a similar plight at the University. The added Collegiate system has also run the risk of BAME people’s experiences being rather inconsistent, especially in terms of welfare provisions. In a messed up way, this collective feeling of dissatisfaction has been slightly reassuring; I’m not alone. But I know that this is unacceptable. There have been people who have used this disappointment to keep fighting. In very tough times, I have been reminded that as painfully slow as change can be, it is happening and there are plenty of people who are doing everything they can to make Oxford a better place for current and future staff and students. I hold on to that bit of hope. A fantastic alumna of my College once told me to hone my anger and channel it into something positive. Once I’ve had some time to heal from this year, I do want to dust myself off and keep fighting the good fight, if not for me, for others after me. Matters of equality, diversity and inclusion are part of a collective mission.  

To point out the glaringly obvious, a lot of great work is being done by staff and students, but we still have a long way to go. That’s progress for you: there’s always room for improvement and as a collective we need to constantly be tearing down the rigid and structures to open up space for marginalised groups. I can only speak from my own experiences as one BAME woman in Oxford. In my view, students, staff, fellows and alumni need to be working together more closely. The University needs to do more than just getting BAME people and other disadvantaged students into Oxford. The support needs to continue when they’re actually at Oxford and to recognise the unfair responsibility placed on them to carry out activism within the University. 

A year after my meltdown, I’m deeply saddened by the fact that I probably haven’t come any closer to feeling like I belong here. As much as I have loved certain moments of my time at Oxford, I don’t think I’ll ever feel completely comfortable and happy here. But that doesn’t mean that I have given up; I will still keep fighting the good fight. I live in hope that one day there will be more people like me studying at Oxford and secondly, that they’ll feel genuinely part of the community, not on the edge of it. 

From me to you: Jewish solidarity with BLM

Zak Kaufman
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From me to you: Jewish solidarity with BLM

CW: Discrimination, Antisemitism, Racial Abuse

It is no secret that the United Kingdom has a widespread problem with systemic racism. The protests of the last few weeks demonstrate not only how widespread this issue is, but also how deep-rooted it remains within the national psyche. It is also clear that the UK has a grave problem with profoundly ingrained antisemitism. While hardships that the Jewish and black communities face due to systemic antisemitism and racism are not the same, they have a similar effect of making people feel unsafe in their identity.

Stereotypes that plague the British Jewish community are inextricably linked to the difficult history between the Jewish people and Britain. From their introduction into the country as ‘Servants of the Crown’ by the Normans, Jews were treated as second class citizens, having to pay ‘forced gifts’ and wear badges identifying themselves. The Jewish community was even expelled from the country in 1290 following a huge tax grant given to King Edward I by parliament, who stood by whilst Jews who were forced into money lending due to Catholic religious restrictions were being killed en masse by those they lent to. Following their re-settlement in 1656 by Oliver Cromwell, the Jewish community continue to be haunted by stereotypes leading to their defamation, blood libels, and the accompanying persecution.

Anti-Semitism has not yet been confined to the history books. The Labour Party has faced repeated accusations of failing to address the issue of antisemitic behaviour amongst its members and leaders appropriately, leaving many Jewish people feeling unable to support their normal party of choice. There were 1,805 reported antisemitic incidents last year: Violent incidents increased by 25% and online incidents increased by 82%. This is a problem that is not going away, it is increasing in frequency and severity. Meanwhile, the attitudes of the Labour Party in dealing with their issues are indicative of a society which does not view the issue as serious.

Systemic antisemitism is evident in many smaller micro-aggressions and antisemitic incidents that Jews face daily, something that I have personally experienced. They were evident when I was forced to lie about my identity whilst being mugged by multiple armed young men, out of fear for my life. And they were evident when the police responded by recommending that no charges be pressed and by gifting me a rape alarm. Likewise, when the police were reluctant to investigate a bus driver who refused to drive until all Jewish children, including my brother, were removed from the bus.

These micro-aggressions which I, just one individual, have faced extend into every facet of my life. A fellow fresher told me that their families are antisemitic because Jews ‘control the world’. This makes a person who struggled with applying and working to achieve a place at the University of Oxford, despite their faith state school saying the antisemitism would make them unwelcome, feel precisely that unwelcome. When I walked passed a teenager on the street who turned to her brother and said ‘that’s a Jew, we stab them,’ that was enough for anyone to feel unsafe in their identity, knowing that a new generation is being brought up to hate them.

These smaller micro aggressions, antisemitic incidents, and the larger failings of the UK to address the issue of systematic racism and antisemitism have changed the way that I approach new social circumstances. As a Jew I feel uncomfortable revealing my religious identity until I believe I have made an impression on someone that is irreversible regardless of their stance towards Jews. No one should be made to feel uncomfortable as a result of their race, religion, or ethnicity; however, that is the reality of life under systemic antisemitism.

These personal experiences may seem dramatic but are reflections of the experiences that the Jewish community experience daily, making them feel unsafe and unprotected by the police. These are the same circumstances that lead to children as young as two being drilled to hide from attackers whilst they are at their faith school or nursery. They also make security at synagogues and schools a grim necessity.

It is for precisely this reason that the Jewish community should support the Black Lives Matter movement in their fight against racism, both overt and unconscious. No person should have to feel unsafe, persecuted, and unwanted on account of their race, religion, or ethnicity. Neither should someone feel as though they have to justify their existence nor their humanity. This is a sentiment that, as a community that has faced prejudice, and is continuing to challenge stereotypes, the Jewish people should adamantly support. 

Despite the Jewish community being affected differently by systemic racism and antisemitism than the black community, the discrimination that it does face makes it more sympathetic to the movement. As people who have also suffered due to lazy stereotypes based on ethnicity, Jewish people can understand the struggle of trying to change ingrained attitudes, and the problems of changing a historical narrative that often hides discrimination and appalling treatment of minorities.

As people who can sympathise with the persecution faced by the black community, we must be supportive of their fight against it. The BAME community is not homogeneous but made up of many communities, including Jews who only make up 0.5% of the UK population. Each community has its own issues, but we must be united in the war against racism. As a member of a community that is too often a victim of systemic racism and antisemitism, I support the Black Lives Matter movement. BLM is a beacon of positive social change, representing the hope of fixing the problems of systemic racism across the UK and the global stage. Therefore, as a member of a minority, it is my duty to stand beside the BLM movement, aiming to ensure that, in the near future, no one will be disadvantaged or persecuted due to their ethnicity.

Brits abroad: is Sancho’s success the start of a new era?

Thomas Lyne
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Brits abroad: is Sancho’s success the start of a new era?

With the Premier League’s restart scheduled for the 17th June, most English clubs are only just reintroducing contact training. But not all British players have had to wait so long to return to competitive football. As the first month of the Bundesliga draws to a close, Jadon Sancho has already had more than enough time to get back into his stride with Borussia Dortmund.

On the 26th May, in the BBC’s in-depth analysis of his career so far, Sancho was identified as Lionel Messi’s potential long-term successor. Five days down the line, as if responding to the lofty comparison, Sancho scored the first hat-trick of his career in Dortmund’s 6-1 drubbing of bottom-of-the-league Paderborn. This makes him the first English player to score a hat-trick in a major European league beyond England in 31 years. Sancho will need to find 53 more where that came from if he wants to match Messi’s record, but after securing his position as the highest-scoring teenager in Bundesliga history, he has made quite the start to his career in Germany.

It has been years since a young player has generated this much hype. But perhaps the most striking thing is the fact that he’s not based in England. Here we have a 20-year-old English winger sitting in a comfortable third in the Bundesliga Top Scorers, behind only Robert Lewandowski and Timo Werner. The best English players, so we are told, should play in the ‘best’ league in the world, the Premier League. After all, of the 115 players in the last five England World Cup squads, only David Beckham in 2006 wasn’t playing domestically. Something about Sancho’s rise still doesn’t feel quite right.

Things are rarely so easy for Brits who stray away from the ‘comfort’ of the Home Nations. We need only cast our minds back to November last year, when Gareth Bale held up a sign reading ‘Wales. Golf. Madrid. In that order’ while celebrating qualification for Euro 2020 with the Welsh national team. ‘I’m playing, but I wouldn’t say I’m playing happily,’ he had remarked at the start of the season. Bale’s time in Madrid has been a tale of constant conflict with the Spanish media, and his failure to prove his mettle as a linguist hasn’t helped diffuse the situation. His compatriot Aaron Ramsey, with only 9 starts in his first season at Juventus, looks to be going down a worrying path as well.

Although Bale remains the highest-profile ‘Brit abroad’, there is a new generation of elite British players choosing to hone their skills overseas. Sancho, without a doubt, is its poster-boy. As he shatters record after record, one begins to wonder whether the spectres of past British failures are being dispelled.

An increasing number of established England internationals are finding their feet abroad. The success of Kieran Trippier at Atlético Madrid and of Chris Smalling at Roma has been particularly striking in their first years away. Trippier has produced more chances than any other La Liga defender this year, and is his team’s top tackler, while Smalling has been affectionately nicknamed ‘Smaldini’ in honour of the legendary Milan centre-back Paolo Maldini.

However, it is the success of the younger British talents overseas that is truly unprecedented. It is in the Bundesliga that their impact has been felt most strongly. All of the 8 players who have followed Jadon Sancho to Germany since he signed for Dortmund in August 2017 were under 23 upon arrival.

When we look at the numbers in a European context, the trend doesn’t seem quite so radical. As of the 4th June 2020, there are 35 British players signed on to clubs in the top ten highest-ranking European leagues in the UEFA club coefficient, excluding the Premier League. That’s barely a fifth of the 149 French players playing abroad across the same range of nations.

Though the British exodus has been piecemeal at best, for Manchester City, who lost Sancho after failing to guarantee him first-team game time, and the other top Premier League clubs, this should certainly be a wake-up call. City may have scored more goals than any other Premier League team so far this season, but none of these was scored by a product of their academy. As good as 20-year-old Mancunian Phil Foden is, he won’t be getting on the scoresheet from the bench any time soon.

Elite homegrown talents like Sancho have every right to pursue first-team football abroad, and given the unfavourable conditions in the Premier League for emerging talent, we cannot blame them if they continue to do so. And if the Premier League’s elite clubs continue to bleed talent, then they only have themselves to blame.

Ballet: bewitching, beautiful, bold

Nina Holguin
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Ballet: bewitching, beautiful, bold

I have loved ballet all my life. Since day one it has been filled with Barbie ballet DVDs, ballet dolls and of course ballet lessons. While my pointe shoes may not be used as much since going to University, I still spend most of my time either watching ballet, or wishing I was. My family knows this, so tickets to see the latest shows is an easy and frequently given gift. Of course, I don’t mind- in fact I love it. After all it was a gift to see Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake last year.

For non-viewers of ballet, Matthew Bourne is a household name in the ballet world; he is the Beyonce of ballet directors and choreographers. And there is nothing more iconic than his version of Swan Lake. First premiering in November 1995, the ballet has been shown repeatedly ever since. Not only collecting over 30 international awards, you may recognise it from the end of the movie Billy Elliott, as adult Billy plays the new title role of the main Swan. In his reinvention, Bourne shifts the plot away from the classic heroine Swan Maiden of Odette to the Prince Siegfried and, most importantly, makes all the swans male. At the time, this was almost laughed at; traditionally Swan Lake is such a female dominated cast with gracefully delicate female swans. Nobody saw it working. Instead, Bourne used the aggression of real swans as his inspiration, putting masculinity at the heart of this ballet. And it worked.

So, as you can imagine, I was overjoyed at having the chance to see the performance- but also apprehensive. I had heard so much about it, how extraordinary it was, how much I’d love it and I was nervous whether it had been over-hyped. I had seen Bourne’s Beauty and the Beast and, while I enjoyed it, it remained solely as enjoyable. I went with my grandparents and my mum, sat down, and watched one of the most intense, moving and brilliantly executed ballets I had ever seen. I could rant about every detail and its significance to the overall performance, but I’ll limit myself. The sets and costumes were stunning and thoroughly modern, the long scenes built tension to unbearable levels and the technicality in the performers was undeniably breath-taking. Young men apparently can spend years in Matthew Bourne’s ‘Swan School’ and boy, you could tell. But, the story in conjunction with the choreography was the highlight. The Prince’s mental health due to a seemingly cold Mother and the pressures of Royal life shown via the Swans was incredible. I will refrain from details because I really don’t want to spoil it; for once I feel like you can spoil a ballet. I will say, the last act had me very literally on the edge of my seat, was the pinnacle of something bigger than I can explain and finally left me, and my whole family, entirely speechless. I didn’t talk the entire way home- it didn’t feel right to.

What is good about the story is that the Swans can be interpreted in many different ways, speaking to a wide range of individual experiences. You may have seen for some viewers the ballet is about the repression of the Prince’s homosexuality. For me, a couple of weeks before I watched the ballet, I had heard some very upsetting news. When I did watch it, the ballet was everything in my mind at once. It was everything I wanted to see, what I couldn’t express at the time. It was a show that made me feel less alone. How brilliant Bourne was to make the show so vague, so personal and so universal.

I think it was the perfect pick for Billy Elliott. It’s about fighting powers you can’t control, the idea of masculinity and your own oppressive mind. It’s a revolutionary ballet. Ballet has a history of being inventive and dynamic which many people don’t realise; for a while the idea of stuffy old traditional ballet became accepted as the norm. Bourne shows us via his best work that this isn’t the case. Ballet can be beautiful, athletic, emotional and ground-breaking, if you give it the chance.

Has ‘Over the Rainbow’ been overcooked?

Hannah Roberts
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Has ‘Over the Rainbow’ been overcooked?

As ‘We’ll Meet Again’ rang through the streets of the UK on VE Day on Friday 8th May, with echoes of the previous night’s ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ for care workers still in the air, there came the striking reminder that music always accompanies a crisis.

It is clear in almost any example of public culture, from these anthems for crises to music’s use in adverts, films and TV shows, that music can be a vehicle and catalyst for collective human emotion. Though it could be deemed a bit of a leap to suggest that music holds emotion inherently, it is used all over the world to unite people in common purposes, and crises magnify this effect.

Singing has become a symbol of solidarity in these trying times, with voices joining together from windows all across the world, from Wuhan to Rome to London. These scenes of hope have flooded social media and inspired people to do some music-making themselves. With musicians both professional and amateur stuck at home, the boundaries between different levels and genres of music have been blurred. The days when artists could record in Abbey Road are, for the time being, gone. The people making music in this crisis are all doing it from their homes, with, at best, a fairly basic recording set-up, or, for most, just a smartphone.

An overwhelming amount of this online music content has been directed towards raising money and awareness, especially that produced by artists already in the public eye, like Michael Ball’s charity single ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’. The NHS Voices of Care Choir and Captain Tom Moore topped the charts and raised a huge amount of money for NHS Charities Together. This track, like so many other crisis anthems, has that specially-manufactured spine-tingling quality – using the classic recipe of cinematic strings, bell-tree flourishes and a suitably dramatic key change – designed to tug at heartstrings and empty pockets, all for a good cause.

Virtual musical events are all over the Internet. Lady Gaga’s One World: Together at Home concert, featuring Billie Eilish, Sir Elton John and Lizzo, raised $127m for the coronavirus effort. Jason Mraz performed his new single ‘Look for the Good’ in aid of the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, an appropriately upbeat number (with a calypso vibe that teeters dangerously close to the opening titles of the CBBC show Arthur). The London Symphony Orchestra has been streaming full-length concerts from their archive twice a week on YouTube, encouraging donations to support the orchestra, which, like many musical groups, artists and festivals, is struggling to keep afloat with all its events cancelled. And, of course, Miley Cyrus could not have got away without performing a rendition of ‘The Climb’, sung during Facebook and Instagram’s Celebrate the Class of 2020 event.

In short, famous musicians of all genres have tried to make some money out of this crisis, whether for charity or for themselves, raising their profile while they’re at it. But for the lesser-known, hand-to-mouth musicians whose entire livelihoods are reliant on landing concerts and gigs, this crisis is hitting particularly hard. Though streaming content online seems like a viable solution, especially as public consumption of online media in the UK has soared since the beginning of lockdown, it is estimated that it would take more than 7,000 streams for a musician to earn one hour’s worth of minimum wage pay. This is the crippling reality for thousands of musicians; as many as 87% of the Musicians’ Union’s members are self-employed, and, according to the UK government website, the self-employed could not even apply for financial support until 23rd April and are unlikely to be paid anything until June.

Besides the issue of finding an income during such a crisis as this, there is also the problem of saturation. While the first examples of online grassroots music making – such as the Marsh family’s performance of ‘One Day More’ from Les Misérables – went viral, the hype about virtual performances has definitely waned. It would seem that the novelty has worn off. I have to admit, my heart does not leap when I see yet another virtual performance by a choir or orchestra – no doubt painstakingly put together – ploughing through the classic tear-jerkers and morale-boosters.

Perhaps this crisis has made people realise the value of live performance as it is usually understood: the experience of music in a concert hall, stadium, pub, or even living room, in the presence of other people, rather than through a screen. Or perhaps we’re all just a bit bored of ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’.

The Dangers of Genre-lisation

Dot Foster
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The Dangers of Genre-lisation

Within a week, the television adaptation of Sally Rooney’s novel Normal People, which explores the oeuvre of two teenage lovers, was requested on BBC iPlayer 21.8 million times, breaking all previous records. This should come as no surprise; according to the Romance Writers of America, the romantic fiction industry averages $1.08 billion per year. Linda Lee suggests romance novels ‘are the most popular of all genres of fiction… a third of all women who read, read romance novels.’ While decried as non-literary texts, in a digital era of dwindling book sales, the genre is ‘big business for the publishing industry,’ according to Farah Mohammed. Women are associated with the romance novel as both writers and readers, a type of writing dismissed as unimaginative, escapist – even ‘women’s pornography’ – the books we imagine reading under covers in the dark, or while on holiday, lying on a beach. Culturally contextualised as light reading, some figures in the literary world view the romance novel, to use Anne Eike’s simile, as ‘bubble gum for the mind,’ or as Jennifer Egan calls it, ‘very derivative, banal stuff.’ 

But romance novels are financially profitable for authors as well as publishers. According to Forbes, the Fifty Shades of Grey series scored E.L. James a total net worth of $95 million and made her a public figure. But not all romance novels include whips, chains, and tropes of the blushing virgin and billionaire businessman. In fact, I’m sure you could find a romance novel that would help you explore any of your sexual or romantic niches – or none of them. Not all romance novels include graphic depictions of sex acts; the term ‘romance novel’ itself is a ‘genre-lisation.’ Want to read about vampires who are in love? Faeries? Lethal assassins? Werewolves? Bikers? Football players? Paraplegics? Done. It turns out the category of romance was coined to include pretty much anything deemed of secondary literary status as long as its associated with women: its association with women writers and readers, in fact, is its point. As the genre broadens to include romance novels that no longer necessarily follow cisgender, heterosexual couples remain dominant (Andrea Wood and Jonathan Allan’s research reports a ‘proliferation’ and ‘growing demand’ for LBGTQ+ romance) it is criticised less for its acquiescence to ‘the demands of compulsory heterosexuality,’ as Wood and Allan put it, and more for its perceived ability to change attitudes towards women’s behaviour. 

‘Women writers’ is a neat, alliterative aphorism to describe people who write and who identify as women. It is distinct from ‘women authors.’ Derived from the Latin word ‘auctor’ (‘augere:’ to grow or originate) ‘author’ implies an ‘originator’ as a textual authority. Authority is what is at issue here.  The romance genre reveals the fault lines of power relations and of cultural authority as society changes. 

According to Valerie Peterson, 84% of romance novel readers are women and 41% of them are between 30 and 54 years old. Imagine a dissatisfied housewife reading about the lives she cannot have. But this stereotype, born in 1970s America when the romance novel genre gained momentum along with the 2nd wave feminist movement, is less useful in our current context. Rita Felski philosophises that ‘Romance in its various guises undoubtedly feeds a craving to be totally loved or unconditionally admired, proffering a momentary release from the reign of the mediocre and mundane.’ If so, what it offers is exactly what it is criticised for. 

The romance novel is not only the Mills and Boon hardback and the ‘rapetastic’ bodice-ripper of the ‘70s, as Sarah Wendell describes them, but is also Jane Austen’s astutely observed drawing-rooms and Charlotte Brontë’s sharp protagonists. It is in their tradition that the teenage anguish of Sally Rooney’s 20-somethings and the sex appeal of E.L James’ decadent protagonists critique as well as capture our contemporary moment. As Robin Lynne points out, ‘Romance novels are as feminist, or anti-feminist, as anything else in our society…it depends on the novel, but most of the novels we’re talking about are produced within a society that is heteronormative and patriarchal.’ Romance and women aren’t just linked because people think ‘Oh, women like that stuff.’ There genre has been about putting women in their place and this is interesting because now women can use it to be subversive. 

Nora Roberts is a romance author who has a global influence on a record-breaking scale. An average of 27 Nora Roberts books are sold every minute, there are more than 400 million copies of her books in print worldwide, they have spent a total of 1,045 weeks on the New York Times bestsellers list (equivalent to 20 consecutive years of weekly bestsellers) and a combined 200 weeks (nearly 4 years) at the number one spot. If you placed Nora’s books top to bottom, they would stretch across the United States from New York to Los Angeles 18 times. What does Roberts have to say about her success? In an interview with Carole Cadwalladr in 2011 she said there is ‘more than a streak of misogyny’ in how romance is received. ‘All some people see is the big R…I’ve made my career on my own terms and that doesn’t necessarily suit the likes of the New York Times book review…They don’t see that as legitimate. But it’s just so insulting towards millions of people. Why would you apologise for what you read for pleasure? Just think of the illiteracy rate. Every book read for pleasure should be celebrated.’ Roberts wanted to write stories that were empowering: ‘I don’t want to be the secretary, I want to be the boss. I didn’t want to write the kind of story where the man treats the woman like shit for the entire book and in the last chapter he tells her, ‘I treated you like shit because I love you.’’ Roberts, who in 2011 was making roughly $60 million per year, seems quite the character:  her readers’ official message board is called ADWOFF, an acronym for ‘A day without French fries.’ She has a prodigious output, writing for hours everyday, and a devoted readership. Many consider her ‘genre-defining.’ Certainly, her novels have been powerful, for her readers, for her, and for the cultural contextualisation of the romance novel itself. As award-winning author Susan Elizabeth Philips writes at the end of her novel It Had to Be You, ‘Sometimes I have this blissful dream in which romance writers run the world’. 

So why is romance continually dismissed as unrealistic, a guilty pleasure that gives its readers false expectations? For E.C Miller, this seems like a way ‘to disparage, dismiss, and discount women’s stories, equality, needs, and desires’. I think it is so popular because of how it transforms reality, much like they colour-edit movies; making images, experiences, voices seem dreamlike. Felski argues this process is deeply imaginative: ‘You are sucked in, swept up, spirited away…mesmerized, hypnotised, possessed.’ Oscar Wilde once said, ‘Everything in the world is about sex except sex. Sex is about power.’ Wilde is right, in terms of the way these texts, while overlooked and sometimes condemned by the literary world, provide a space for women’s fantasies and sexuality to be explored, aspects of womanhood that most articulate female power. Generalisations are dangerous; gathering all women into an amorphous group not only leads to inaccuracies but also culturally perpetuates untruths. Romance is fiction written mostly by women, mostly for women and mostly faces criticism rather than critical approbation. As Linda Lee notes, crime and detective novels, which often follow similar formulaic patterns but are mainly written by men, are not judged in the same way. If a man does write a romance novel, as Nora Roberts says ‘they call it something else. And it gets reviewed and made into a movie.’

RON wins Union presidential vote

Cherwell News and Investigations Section Editors
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RON wins Union presidential vote

Union members have voted to Re-Open Nominations for the Union presidency. 

RON has won the majority of votes for President-Elect, beating Union Treasurer Jack Solomon by 325 votes to 300.

Chengkai Xie, Tamzin Lent, and Adam Roble have won the positions of Librarian-Elect, Treasurer-Elect and Secretary respectively. All three candidates ran on the HOPE slate, alongside Solomon. 

All officer positions were uncontested except Librarian-Elect, which Xie won with 333 first preferences.

Candidates from the HOPE slate also received the highest votes for Standing and Secretary’s Committee.

Alana Brown achieved the most votes for Secretary’s Committee, receiving 102 first preferences, while Zeus Chen received 110 first preferences for Standing Committee.

Image credit to Barker Evans.

Oriel JCR pass motion demanding removal of Rhodes statue

Imogen Duke
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Oriel JCR pass motion demanding removal of Rhodes statue

Oriel JCR voted yesterday for a motion which mandates the JCR to demand the removal of Oriel’s Cecil Rhodes statue. The motion passed with 125 votes for, 26 votes against, and 3 abstentions.

The motion means the JCR resolves to “explicitly demand the removal of Cecil Rhodes’ statue on the High Street façade of Oriel College,” recommending that the statue be moved to a museum and be properly contextualised.

The Oriel JCR President is mandated to write to Oriel College’s governing body condemning their inaction, asking for an explanation of the decision to keep the statue, and requesting them to reconsider. All JCR Presidents will be invited to countersign the letter.

The motion states that the JCR believes: “Oriel College has failed to fulfil its promise to provide clear historical context and draw attention to the colonial and racist history attached to Cecil Rhodes.

“The continued homage paid to Cecil Rhodes throughout the college, particularly in the form of his statue, poses a fundamental contradiction to principles of inclusion within our college community.

“Regardless of historical and educational value, the current location of Rhodes’ statue glorifies Cecil Rhodes, affords him inappropriate honour and prestige, and undermines the anti-racist principles that Oriel College professes to hold.”

In January 2016, when there were previously widespread Rhodes Must Fall protests, a Cherwell survey suggested that only 15% of Oriel students wanted to remove the statue. Over 80% of votes cast on this JCR motion were for the removal of Rhodes’ statue.

Kate Whittington, the Oriel JCR President, told Cherwell: “On Wednesday, the JCR held an emergency open meeting in order to discuss a motion demanding the removal of the Cecil Rhodes statue. It was a two hour meeting which happily was a time of productive and respectful discussion. Today we received the results of the motion which passed by a large majority and had one of our best turnouts this year for voting.”

Oriel College told Cherwell: “As an academic institution, Oriel welcomes respectful discourse and stimulating debate within our community. We know that many of our students will have opinions on the statue and on the wider discussion about structural and institutional racism. We want to hear those views and are actively listening to the debate. A great deal of work is being undertaken at the moment and an update will be given to students when there is news to share with them.”

Image credit to Wikimedia Commons.

Jericho Comedy Club to host digital festival 13 and 14 June

Christina Kirk
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Jericho Comedy Club to host digital festival 13 and 14 June

NextUp, a digital comedy streaming service, has teamed up with Jericho Comedy Club to present an online comedy festival on 13th and 14th June. The festival will be streamed on Twitch and YouTube and with a live audience of 140 over video chat platform Zoom. Money raised from the event will go to Oxfordshire Mind, a local mental health charity dedicated to offering health and support to individuals struggling with mental health issues.

Jericho Comedy has more than 11 shows scheduled over the two days. The festival begins at 2 p.m., with streamed shows through NextUp, live podcast recordings, talk shows, game shows and live stand-up shows.

The lineup for the festival begins with a live podcast recording of ‘Daddy Look at Me’ with Rosie Jones, Helen Bauer and guest Stephen Bailey at 2 p.m. Following at 3:30 p.m. is a drugs talk show with Jacob Hawley, who hosts BBC Sounds hit podcast ‘On Drugs’, wherein Hawley will take a look at the drug legalisation debate. The rest of the day and into Sunday will include shows and acts such as a live musical gala, Comedy Club 4 Kidz, Dragprov Digital, and more.

Money raised from the event will go to Oxfordshire Mind, a local mental health charity dedicated to offering health and support to individuals struggling with mental health issues.

Harry Househam, one of the founders of Jericho Comedy, told Cherwell: “We’ve been working as volunteer community fundraisers for Oxfordshire Mind for the last 4 years, we started Jericho Comedy originally as ‘college comedy nights’ in college bars whilst I was a student at St. Hugh’s, when we sat down and tried to find a connection between Oxford students and the comedy community the most prevailing theme in that venn diagram was mental health. It was a cause important to us based on our own experience and people we know, but it also seemed like one close to the hearts of the comedy community, Oxford students and the people of Oxford as a city. Our list of charities was a list of one, we’ve been working with Mind ever since. They’re incredibly supportive of us, last year they gave us an award for outstanding commitment in fundraising and every year they support us to run a massive comedy gala at the Oxford Playhouse to over 1,200 people in a day. We love working with Oxfordshire Mind, and we’ve been lucky to see first hand where some of that money goes. Some of the services they offer are literally life saving, and we couldn’t be prouder to help fundraise for them.”

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