The 'F' word

By Mia Wells

Feminism; why do I need feminism? What even is feminism? It’s the advocacy of women’s rights on the grounds of the equality of the sexes. Keyword: equality. Feminism is not about women being better than men nor is it men being better than women. But as a young female, I have lost before I’ve started knowing I likely will not get the same opportunities as a privileged male.

Society’s skewed ideology that women are somehow inferior to men as been ingrained into us from the outset; I have grown up with a male-dominated government and it was a running joke for me to seen and not heard. They wanted me to be submissive, subordinate, subservient. They wanted wallpaper women, what good to them is wallpaper that speaks?

I need feminism, because I am still answering to the boys, men- and women. That think my skirt length, defines my self-worth. That CATCALLING on the street is a compliment, when it feels like a threat. My femininity is not a privilege; it’s a badge of vulnerability, inferiority. We have apps designed to walk us safely home and the tagline of my achievements is my gender- “Wow! You’re pretty good- I mean- for a girl” or “Good job! But you kind of run like a girl” When was it decided that being female or having feminine qualities was degrading?

A boy in my class once laughed at me for supporting the feminist movement. He didn’t know that he was laughing at the six million girls currently out of school. He was mocking the eleven year old girl in Texas who was attacked by eighteen men and all the media could talk about was… her clothing. He was laughing at J.K Rowling; told to use her initials, because being a female author would obviously be less appealing. He was mocking me, because feminism taught me to love myself, that self-care and self-validation comes from me and that in itself is okay. He is dismissing the benefits it will bring him, feminism is deconstructing the gender roles so that we may have a world where a boy can cry or show emotions without the repercussions or “breaching his masculinity”, that I know I can live in a world where I am not discriminated or defined by my gender. Addendum: feminism means equality and social justice for everyone. This is what a feminist looks like and you are what a feminist can look like.

A Dead End in my Path

by Nyah Kauders

Our brains have paths that lead to infinite possibilities, which will unveil a new light. Shining on a sign with a combination of arrows pointing to various directions, the sun leaves you with insatiable anticipation, deprived of limits as you wait to commence your journey. Then, with a crack, a roar and a growl the sky cracks and water cascades viciously down the bleak clouds; the rain of self-doubt has now entered your mind and is washing away the destinations which the arrows on the sign were pointing to. Are  you scared to continue your  journey on your own volition? Or have you been emaciated by self-doubt and a shortage of confidence?

Humans need fuel which energizes them to fulfil their success: a feeling that they are capable able to achieve anything to our unqualified wonder, that they’re able to beat anyone, be better than anyone and that they trust themselves in what they are doing. Abhorrence towards others never build up inside these people when they see success surrounding them, but they feed on this determination in order to rise to the challenge.

‘The way to develop self-confidence is to do the thing you fear and get a record of successful experiences behind you’, soliloquised William Jennings Bryan, which absolutely true! The only way to build confidence and abolish self- doubt is to throw yourself into awkward situations and strive in them.

So, meekly you’re standing contemplating whether your melancholy should be replaced by a surge of excitement as you place your shaking foot forward. Although you wish to turn back and procrastinate, you can’t help but continually notice your heart is thumping against your ribcage- trying to pump out the despair that was once circulating your body. You ignore the rain of self-doubt! In fact, imprudently you saunter forward until you have reached a mile.

With mud in your face,

tears in your eyes,

the cold air gnawing  at your heart,

you take this pain for pleasure knowing you can reach your goal…

End FGM

by Georgia Hallett

FGM means, female genital mutilation. Many people do not know what this is although it is a huge problem all around the world and is costing many lives of young girls.

Effects

FGM is untrained women who cut out the outside of girls’ private parts (down below). When the nurses do this the knives are not sterilised and even sometimes cut them with broken glass which can cause infection. Not only will this cause terrible infection but can be a cause blood loss is also a big risk of death. You have no anaesthetics during this and you aren’t put to sleep either.

Child abuse and human rights

This is against human rights because everyone has a right to privacy and if they haven’t given permission to have this surgery that is against their human rights. Another human right this is against is the right to do what you want with your body and they are forcing you to have this operation it is against you human rights.

If the people are operating on a child of course it is child abuse because they have no pain killer and aren’t put to sleep so the patients are in so much pain.

Can you hear me?

By Nyah Kauders

As I point my hand meekly at the at the barrier of self-confidence that surrounds around me, I feel hesitant to raise my voice as I try to contemplate the reason for why I have been put into this situation when I know that my voice is just as significant as everybody else’s…I ask myself frequently: “is it necessary that other people should weigh our voices down and laugh jubilantly at the isolation they have placed on us?” The answer I get may be a grin or a snigger or a laugh and the people who try to mute me also try to overpower me with their voice and therefore it turns into over innocence. Can we just blend these innovative ideas together and then we won’t be engulfed by this concrete wall in which my hand now doesn’t point meekly at but forms a fist in trying to obliterate this embarrassment of ourselves. Then we can free our voices to the world.

Nelson Mandela, Malala Yousafzai and Malcolm X will forever be a key attribute to the concept of raising our own voices. Standing strong, they proclaim out to the world their beliefs, knowing that not everyone, even though we are all the same, may share the same opinions. A chilling warmth of happiness melted away the frozen frame of humanity and leaked away the prejudice that we were facing and unveiled a new key. With extreme excitement we opened the defrosted chest with the key  and we unlocked the right to have a voice, equality, the right to have an opinion and -more than a third of governments (62 out of 160) locked up prisoners of conscience – people who were simply exercising their rights and freedoms.

A pang of annoyance at the repetition of these names occur on a few people as we don’t realise that we can be like them. We don’t have to cause a massive reaction like they did: as long as it makes you feel unique then why be scared. Self-consciousness, reluctance to try something new, pressure to follow the crowd prevents this age group to share innovation! Is this because there is a fear of the consequences?

‘I don’t care that people may protest against my perspectives. If they protest it shows that they heard my voice.’

Book-to-movie Adaptations Discussion

By Amelia Cook

Most of the films we watch these days are based on books. For example, The Hunger Games, Room, The Book Thief – even Breakfast at Tiffany’s! But, when you’re translating a novel into a movie, the story may change or characters are lost. Therefore, I thought this would be an interesting discussion to have!

The first question I have for you is whether you read the book or watch the movie first? I’m a strong believer in reading the book first because I like having the freedom of deciding for myself what the characters and setting will look like and just letting my imagination run wild. However, there are some instances where I find myself in a situation where watching the movie first is easiest. The most recent example I have of this is The Danish Girl. This movie was based on the memoirs of Lili Elbe who was one of the first identifiable recipients of sex reassignment. Did I read these memoirs? No. Am I planning on reading it in the future? Maybe. This is one of those situations where sometimes the message from the text will have been adapted faithfully to the screen and you leave the cinema having learnt something.

I’ve also noticed that my three favourite films (Brokeback Mountain, V for Vendetta and 10 Things I Hate About You) are all based on short stories, comics or plays but I haven’t read the original text of any of these. Maybe it’s my distance from the originals that allows me to have so much love for these adaptations. Therefore, if you watch the movie first you’ll be able to appreciate it without criticising every change and you’ll be able to enjoy both formats freely.

My next query is how faithful should an adaptation be? The dictionary definition of adaptation is “alter for new use or new conditions”. Does a movie have to follow the novel chapter by chapter? Or can they take several liberties and make changes? One of my personal favourite adaptations is Catching Fire, because it remains true to the text it’s based on, but is ever so slightly tweaked to fit the film environment. On the other hand, we’ve got the Divergent series…

 

The first movie followed the book and was everything fans expected it to be, but then Insurgent offered some alterations and from the Allegiant trailer it looks as if the story will be taking an alternate route. But, does this make the movies bad? For me, I think it’s important that we separate the film from the book because for a story to work well in two mediums, it won’t remain exactly the same.

There you have it, a discussion on the varying forms of media we use to tell our stories. So, what’s your opinion and how do you feel about book-to-movie adaptations?