Mount Hood

Opinion: The biphobia epidemic

Chrys Weedon | Entertainment Editor

It is nearly common knowledge in the psychological community that the LGBTQ+ community experiences a disparate amount of mental health issues when compared to their straight counterparts. According to the Bisexual Resource Center, 40% of bisexual people report considering or attempting suicide, compared to roughly 25% of gay and lesbian folks.

Studies from the Williams Institute have discovered that people who identify as bisexual make up approximately half of the LGBTQ+ population, but only 28% of those people are out to their loved ones. Why these disparities? Biphobia has been posited as a cause.

The term “biphobia” is defined by the BRC as “mislabeling bi+ people as lesbian, gay or straight, even when they come out as bi+.” What does “bi+” mean? I’ll come back to that.

A lot of biphobia isn’t blatant. Instead, it is often buried deep within subtle actions, or microaggressions.

In his book, “Microaggressions in Everyday Life,” Derald Wing Sue defines microaggressions as the “constant and continuing reality of slights, insults, invalidations and indignities visited upon marginalized groups by well-intentioned, moral and decent family members, friends, neighbors, coworkers, students, teachers, clerks, waiters and waitresses, employers, health care professionals and educators.”

Biphobia is really more common than many people, straight and LGBTQ+ alike, think. For example, phrases are often uttered such as, “you’re just confused”; “bisexual people just want to sleep with everyone”; “bi people are more likely to cheat”; “can’t you just pick one?”; “you aren’t really bi if you’re dating (opposite gender)”; “you aren’t really straight if you’re dating (same gender)”; I could really go on.

Ignorance toward bisexuality and the erasure of bisexual identities is rampant in the LGBTQ+ community as well. Many gay or lesbian folks just assume that identifying as bisexual is only a baby step toward “actually” coming out as gay. Many people simply don’t understand what bisexuality means.

Now back to that word: “bi+.” This term simply acknowledges that different people interpret the label “bisexual” in different ways. Some people define bisexuality as being attracted to multiple genders, or more than one gender. Some people explain the term in the most stereotypically understood way: being attracted to men and women, or masculine and feminine people.

Sometimes people hear the word “bisexual” and they get stuck in that mindset that I just explained: bisexual people are only attracted to men and women, and it turns into a whole mess of “well does that mean bisexual people are just obsessed with someone’s genitals?” The answer? No. Bisexuality does not inherently mean that someone doesn’t acknowledge the complexities of gender. What the issue really comes down to is that some people don’t even want to get to know someone and what their bisexual identity means to them before they go and jump to all sorts of different conclusions.

I have experienced a lot of biphobia in my life, and I’ve watched my loved ones struggle with it as well. Experiencing biphobia from my own community has hindered me from truly accepting my identity, and in some cases, it has stopped me from coming out. I’ve been told I’m not gay enough to be Queer, and not straight enough to be straight. I’ve had friends question the validity of my identity. I’ve been called transphobic. I’ve been interrogated with “oh, you’re bi? But have you ‘tried’ both? Have you had sex with men and women?” This essentially says that if I hadn’t “tried both” I wouldn’t be a legitimate bisexual and I’d have my membership card revoked.

I think the LGBTQ+ community needs to be better. Writing off biphobia as simply a “straight” issue is ignoring a big part of the problem. How can we expect straight people to be accepting of our community if we aren’t even accepting of each other? There is no excuse to be this oblivious anymore. Bisexual people exist and we need your support too.

 

Contact the author at cweedon16@wou.edu

Photo by Ashlynn Norton

Opinion: Where campus jobs and management could improve

Rebecca Meyers | Lifestyle Editor

At the start of almost every term, signs pop up around the on-campus cafes, dining areas and other places informing students that they are hiring. These campus positions exclusively hire students — but why do the signs appear so often? Surely, Western understands the struggle of working students and does everything they can to ensure that student employees have a reliable, accommodating job to depend on? And why wouldn’t they stick around longer if that was the case?

Shortly after being enrolled in Western, I figured out that most — not all, but most — campus jobs are not exactly the most desirable. I remember distinctly two different occasions that I, in an offhand manner, mentioned I had thought about applying for one for convenience’s sake and was immediately informed by a friend or classmate that this was a bad idea. Talking to a few former employees echoed this sentiment towards campus dining, campus recreation and campus safety.

Morgan Taylor, a senior education major, relayed her experience working on campus to me.

“Like any other job, it had its ups and downs. I liked what I did and I learned a lot in my two years I spent there. However, by the end of my time, I felt very under appreciated and taken advantage of in terms of scheduling,” Taylor said. “It ended up being a very negative experience for me because of the way it ended with a certain administrator who I had a hard time communicating with because of their lack of leadership and compassion and understanding that we are students. And as a result, because of the unwillingness to communicate, they forgot to put me on the schedule. This careless mistake cost me three months of pay and if it wasn’t for help from my family, I would have had to drop out of school.”

Another student, who worked in a different department of campus but wished to remain anonymous, expressed similar experience.

“I feel as if working on campus is made into my main priority (over) school and family. Management has made me late to class on several occasions by not giving me and fellow students enough time to close out, gather belongings and walk to class. I also felt and noticed some toxic things happening while in the job and students feeling uncomfortable around those we work with. I understand that many places around campus have these issues and (I) believe these need to be looked into,” said the student.

Two other students, both current employees of Valsetz Dining Hall, gave insight to the campus dining situation.

“There are some faculty on board who do have our best interests at heart and are on our side. But there are still many higher ups that make it feel like an unforgiving environment that expects us to have no lives outside of Valsetz,” said one employee.

The other student added, “Overall I like the people I work with, it’s just the way it’s run… If anyone ever asks if they should apply to Valsetz, I say only if it’s your last option.”

What these experiences reflect is a problem well known on some level or another among many students at Western. To me, this is a disappointing dynamic, one that is clearly detrimental to some student employees for a number of reasons.

Firstly, for students, financial well-being is a big part of maintaining peace of mind and therefore both mental health and academic performance. A student constantly worried about finances will have less energy to focus on schoolwork — and, in a worse case scenario, it can actually compromise their ability to make ends meet. Hours that students are allowed to work are limited to around 20 hours a week, so that students have enough time to attend classes and complete schoolwork. Which, in theory, is great: they’re looking out for students’s time-management needs. However, this does not allow very much room for the financial needs many students face — school fees among them.

Also, looking out for students’s overall well-being should also include providing a workplace that adds as little stress as possible, which is hard to do when it feels like managers don’t fully understand the needs of their employees.

Personally, I have found my off campus job (which is a minimum wage position in food service that is by no means my dream job) much more accommodating to my schedule in a way that allows me to get enough hours, with my manager even asking every employee how many hours they think they can work without stretching themselves too thin, how many hours minimum they need to survive and what their preferable medium between the two is. This eliminates a lot of stress for my coworkers and I, and we usually feel we are in a financially stable position.

This is the kind of respect that anyone should find even in an entry level job, though all too often it isn’t, and for Western student employees to feel that this is lacking is both a poor reflection on the institution as a whole and likely a reason for the negative perception of campus jobs among students.

Another reason this issue should concern Western is that it affects the overall perception of the school that students will leave with and take with them for the rest of their lives, which will possibly affect whether they recommend the school to others, or even whether they decide to complete their degree here.

Overall, it seems that current Western campus jobs could stand to have a reminder that employment is a big part of student lives, and therefore should be treated with as much thought and effort as possible. This would end up benefiting everyone in the long run.

 

Contact the author at rmeyers17@mail.wou.edu

Photo by Caity Healy

Opinion: Six tips on how to be environmentally-friendly

Paul F. Davis | Managing Editor

Human-made environmental problems are showing — climate change and severe contamination — and they are killing our planet. Luckily, the solution is here — ban single-use plastic bags. Nope, sadly our earth’s human-made contamination is much too multifaceted to solve just by making plastic bags fly into the past like they fly away in a slight breeze.

Still, feel-good laws like these don’t actually have a large enough impact on future environmental issues. Even so, Oregon State Legislature passes bills like House Bill 2509 into law. Chiefly sponsored by Carla C. Piluso, the bill states that retail establishments statewide can only provide recycled paper bags for customer use. This will reduce the amount of single-use plastic bags consumed in Oregon. However, with the requisite reduction of plastic bags, there will need to be an equal increase in paper and reusable bags. According to the UK’s Environmental agency, “paper bags must be used three times” to neutralize its environmental impact, relative to plastic.

With that in mind, paper bags are objectively worse than plastic bags. This conclusion was made because the United Kingdom’s Environmental Agency found that paper bags require four times as much water to produce than plastic bags, and the trees that are used to create paper bags are contributors to acid rain. Not to mention, it requires seven trucks worth of paper bags to equal the number of plastic bags carried in on one semi-truck carrying plastic bags. But most importantly, have you used a wet paper bag?

What needs to be known is that being “environmentally-friendly” is much more complicated than “will it compost or not?” True environmentally-friendliness comes from what is called a life-cycle assessment of a good.

These life-cycle assessments take into account all facets of a product’s environmental footprint, including but not limited to: water usage, the toxicity of after products, the energy necessary to produce, what it took to manufacture the raw materials needed and the transport after production.

We already know the best and basic steps to at least work towards a more environmentally friendly attitude: reduce, reuse, recycle.

Reduction is accomplished mostly by asking yourself, “do I really need this?” Do I need these takeout utensils, or should I use my own that I have at home? Am I buying this new phone because I need it, or because I want to look a certain way?  

Reuse can be as simple as using your new fancy paper bag as a trash bag or by buying refurbished technology — which is cheaper, too.

For those that don’t know how to recycle, the most important thing you can do is contact your local recycler and ask what you can and cannot recycle; some recyclables can be recycled but some areas don’t have the technology to do so. For example, even though paper cups given to you at Starbucks or Dutch Bros say that they are recyclable, most areas cannot actually recycle them because there is thin plastic layer on the inside of every cup that requires a special technology to remove said layer.

Being environmentally-friendly can be hard, but if you work on being intentional with your choices you can make huge difference in your environmental footprint.

Tips based on information provided by the Environment and Ecology website

  • Buy refurbished technology rather than new technology
  • Drink vegetable-based milk instead of cow’s milk
  • Go paperless for your bills
  • Invest in reusable utensils
  • Reduce the amount of meat you eat
  • Reduce the single-use food and drink containers you use

 

Contact the author at pfdavis14@wou.edu

Photo courtesy of Paul F. Davis

Opinion: Critical Role Kickstarter campaign raises $9 million to fund “The Legend of Vox Machina”

Cora McClain | Copy Editor

How much does it cost to fund an animated series? Well, according to “The Legends of Vox Machina Kickstarter is LIVE!” it takes $750,000 to make just one 22 minute episode. This was the initial goal Critical Role, a Dungeons and Dragons web series with an all-star cast of well-known voice actors in the video game and animated world, set in their Kickstarter campaign in order to fund a 22 minute animated special entitled “The Legends of Vox Machina.”

As stated on the project’s Kickstarter page, the team initially pitched the special to traditional media studios. However, they soon changed their strategy after finding little to no success with these studios and networks. In order to “stay true to our beloved characters and tell the stories (their fans) want to see,” they decided to turn to their fans (a.k.a Critters) to make it a possibility.

The Kickstarter launched March 4, and within 40 minutes, the community gave them $1 million. By 5 p.m., the community smashed through the original stretch-goals, giving the project $3 million.

“The target was $750,000, but that was because we thought we might hit it,” Travis Willingham, Critical Role CEO and cast member, stated in their eighth Kickstarter update on March 7. Dungeon master and cast member Matthew Mercer added that they hoped they’d  “hit it by the end of the campaign.”

After reworking their plan for the campaign, they changed the project from a four-part special, to a complete 10 episode season. The first two episodes would follow the original arc for the special, with the last eight following an arc in their original campaign.

However, funding all 10 would take $8.8 million. On April 4, the community heeded the call. During the first half of their regular stream after a week-long hiatus, the community raised $400,000 to ensure they would get that 10 episode series they wanted.

As of April 9, the project stands at $9,199,756 with 66,634 backers and nine days left.

Now, what does this film project tell us about the future of entertainment?

“The Legends of Vox Machina” isn’t the only entertainment based project smashing records through crowdfunding. “Mystery Science Theater 3000,” a film project that revived the original show, ended their campaign with $5.76 million and Netflix picking up the series.

Entertainment other than film also follow this trend. “Goodnight stories for Rebel Girls,” a children’s book series, previously held the title of fastest funded project on kickstarter — earning their goal of $40,000 in 30 hours — and ended their campaign with $675,614. Along with the critical success of “The Legends of Vox Machina,” these projects and the overwhelming support for them illuminate just how viable crowdfunding can be in creating entertainment.

A trend is brewing in the industry: give the power back to the consumers to pick the entertainment they wish to consume. Coupled with the popularity of streaming services over major media networks, it’s easy to see that the entertainment field is beginning to shift away from traditional media towards a new and exciting partnership between creators and consumers.

As an avid consumer of online content (including that of Critical Role) seeing projects funded by a community in support of their favorite creators thrills me to no end. I felt for a long time that the mainstream entertainment industry has been out of touch with the audiences and communities that flock to the screens. However, online content made by smaller creators who have a close tie with their fanbase can lead to better content made by bigger budgets and an end product that services the wants and needs of not only the fans, but also the creator. I believe that we need more of these partnerships to revamp the entertainment industry and give new people the opportunity to release their creativity and provide people with content they want to see.

Fanbases are powerful entities that breathe life into the entertainment industry and would easily do their part to aid the creators they love. “The Legends of Vox Machina” is just one example of what a world of community supported content can create.

 

Contact the author at cmcclain17@wou.edu

Photo courtesy of Critical Role

Guest Opinion: Money matters

Lake Larsen | Alumnus

The world of finance and fiscal management is a stressful and scary place. Just the thought of budgeting will give many a thousand-yard stare. Because of this, far too many college students walk around playing a sort of Russian roulette with their debit cards. Just spending and spending until bam! You’re overdrafted.

Due to this fact, colleges should be required to give some type of basic “how to be an adult” class for students. As an accountant at a university, I deal with students on a daily basis asking questions about their finances. In and of itself, this is not the issue — I love helping students. However, some of the questions I receive baffle me and honestly upset me with the failure of our education system.

Instead of teaching students how to pay down the principle on their student loans, colleges instead force students to take classes unrelated to their major. Yes, it is important to be a well-rounded student. I also understand the benefits to some of the other courses and how they are advantageous to students. However, it’s kind of hard to focus on being well-rounded and to think of the benefits of some unnecessary class when you have $30,000 in debt with a 450 credit score. But hey, at least I have some random knowledge on a subject that will probably never come up again in my life.

If the goal of lower division core classes is to help students potentially find a hidden talent or help develop basic skills, then why not offer things that have a larger chance of actually helping in a student’s life?

This isn’t to say that students can’t or won’t find passion in one of these subjects. I realize that this is a possibility. However, I think it should be a student’s decision if they want to take these extra classes. In the end, it’s their money. It should be up to them entirely if they want to take extra courses.

Some classes need to be required, and I understand that. So why not add a very basic fiscal management course to the list? The skills students will learn in that class will benefit them for the rest of their lives. I can’t say that same thing is true for some of the other courses they’re forced to take.

If colleges want their students to be successful, give them the tools to do so. In a society where money is power, it’s time to teach students how to become powerful. Because in the words of Pink Floyd, “Get a good job with good pay and you’re okay.”

[fruitful_alert type=”alert-info”]Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in guest opinions are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Western Howl. [/fruitful_alert]

Contact the author at llarsen13@wou.edu

Photo courtesy of Ashlynn Norton

Opinion: Parking ticket pandemic

Ashlynn Norton | Photo Editor

It’s a common consensus across campuses that tuition is too expensive. When beginning to look at how all the fees are broken down, some of it doesn’t make sense, particularly parking fees.

As a current first-year student, I have to live on campus since my hometown is too far away to commute to and from every day. Which is fine, I enjoy living on campus. But one thing I find a little ridiculous is the fees that are tied around parking here at Western Oregon University.

Since I live on campus, I am required to have a parking pass for my car. The parking pass alone was 80 dollars that I had to pay out of pocket. I don’t think I have to remind you that I am a poor college student who doesn’t necessarily have that kind of money. Students pay thousands of dollars to attend this university, so why should students need to pay for a parking pass that doesn’t even let them park anywhere on campus? Students with a resident parking pass are only allowed to park in two locations: J lot and J loop.

The point I am trying to make is that I think if you pay for a parking pass, you should be able to park anywhere on campus without getting a parking ticket. Student employees should also get free parking passes. If an RA can have their housing paid for, why can’t a student employee get a free parking pass?

I received a parking ticket and the fee was 25 dollars. Again, poor college student here who has two jobs and lives paycheck to paycheck. I only get paid once at the end of each month, along with all the other students who work on campus. When I do get paid, all of my money goes to insurance, loans, bills, etc.; I barely have enough money left to buy myself gas for my car. Yet, the school expects students to pay their parking ticket within ten days, or else the fee increases.

Parking tickets and fees of that sort are just another way for the university to suck money out of its students.

This isn’t just a problem here at Western Oregon University. This “Parking Ticket Pandemic” is at institutions like University of Oregon, Oregon State University, and even campuses out of state.

The parking situation at OSU is so bad that there is a waitlist for parking passes. So some students aren’t even able to park on campus. Sahalie Ellickson, an Environmental Sciences major at OSU stated, “parking is really inconvenient and as a college student it is not even worth the hassle to bring a car. They make it almost impossible to drive on campus and it is not affordable by any means. It’s horrible for not only the students but the people that work here too.”

Whereas, at the University of Oregon, students have to pay a monthly fee for their parking passes. Payton Swartout, a student at the University of Oregon, said that “to have to deal with the struggle of finding a parking spot on campus, even after paying 90 dollars a term for a parking pass, is ridiculous when we are forced to spend tens of thousands of dollars to even attend the school itself.”

The way parking tickets are distributed and their fees need to be reevaluated. It’s getting to a point where it puts more stress on the students, and we already have enough as it is. The best solution to the problem here at Western Oregon University is to take away the fee increase if a parking ticket is not paid within ten days. The expectation of having a student pay a parking ticket within ten days is unrealistic and puts too much pressure on said student. Taking away the fee increase would be the first step in the right direction to make parking, and life, a little less stressful here on campus.

 

Contact the author at anorton17@wou.edu

Photo courtesy of Ashlynn Norton

Opinion: Western has a long way to go before it’s considered truly accessible

Chrys Weedon | Entertainment Editor

Western Oregon University is privileged enough to have a disability services office that is fairly visible on campus and that is committed to giving students accommodations. The Office of Disability Services offers services such as test proctoring, housing accommodations, note taking services and provides all of the interpreters on campus. The buildings and layout of campus, however, leave accessibility wanting.

Western has existed since 1856, as many of students have heard during their tours and orientations. Although the buildings on campus have gone through various iterations and renovations since then, most of them aren’t accessible to differently-abled students and faculty.

Many buildings have the very basic elements of an “accessible” building, but simply meeting the base requirements does not equal accessibility.

Even the Richard Woodcock Education building — considered one of the most accessible buildings on campus — has its issues. For example, the front doors are automatic, but they open so slowly and irregularly that they rarely make anyone’s life easier. Additionally, you have to be so close to the doors to trip the sensor, they almost whack you in the face on the way in. How is that accessible?

The older buildings on campus present even more accessibility challenges. Many buildings are so old that their elevators and hallways simply aren’t big enough for a wheelchair to fit in comfortably. Several buildings, including Bellamy Hall, are only accessible to differently-abled students around the back of the building, which can cause extra time getting to and from a class. Extra time aside, able-bodied students aren’t limited to using one entrance or exit, so why should the burden be on differently-abled students?

Older residence halls are also not accessible. I lived in Landers Hall as a first-year, and it was difficult for two people to walk past each other in the outdoor stairwells and down the hallways because the paths were too narrow. Barnum and Gentle have the same issue. Landers doesn’t even have an elevator. In fact, many of the older buildings on campus do not have clearly marked elevators or signs indicating how to access them.

I can say with 100 percent certainty that there are even more accessibility issues that I am not aware of because I am privileged enough to not need to use the elevator everyday, or have to worry about how wide a hallway is. I can still see the glaring obstacles in the way of a truly accessible campus.

An institution is not required to make accessibility adjustments if they are considered an undue burden, which means “significant difficulty or expense” according to the ADA website, ada.gov. The undue burden loophole is a way that many businesses and other institutions try to dodge making themselves accessible — I’ve learned all about it in my three years at Western. So theoretically, the accessibility issues that Western has could be brushed off as being an undue burden to fix. However, seeing as the current renovation of Natural Sciences is budgeted around $6 million, which can be found through a google search on the university website, I don’t think Western as an institution can claim that it is out of their means to fix the issues they have.

For more information about parts of Western that aren’t accessible and parts that are, students can attend a tour through the Office of Disability Services Wednesday, Feb. 27 from 12-1 p.m. The tour is led by student Vanessa Rice and is meeting in the Willamette room the the Werner University Center.

 

Contact the author at cweedon16@wou.edu

Photo courtesy of Ashlynn Norton

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Western Oregon University in Monmouth, OR is located within the traditional homelands of the Luckiamute Band of Kalapuya. Following the Willamette Valley Treaty of 1855 (Kalapuya etc. Treaty), Kalapuya people were forcibly removed to reservations in Western Oregon. Today, living descendants of these people are a part of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde Community of Oregon and the Confederated Tribes of the Siletz Indians.

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