For Quebec, the little red felt square fastened to so many winter coats is a symbol of the student movement and the fight against poverty in Quebec. As many explain it now, the  safety-pin clad symbol is inspired by the French phrase “carrément dans le rouge” (meaning “squarely in the red”)– it’s a wordplay on students trapped in debt caused by tuition hikes and cuts in bursaries.

The website for the Collectif pour un Québec sans pauvreté (Collective for a Poverty Free Quebec) states, in French, that October 5, 2004 was the first time a red square was used for this purpose. At a presentation to the Committee on Social Affairs in the National Assembly of Quebec, the Collective opposed Bill 57, regarding social welfare and assistance. It was here that they first used the rhetoric that would become the wordplay we know now.

According to Joël Pedneault, current SSMU VP External, the square was popularized in 2005 when the Quebec student movement used it to protest financial reform. “The 2005 student strike was successful in many ways,” and, as a result, “many started wearing the red square even if they didn’t identify with the left wing of the student movement.” Pedneault points out that – because of this success – “you have people who are more moderate still wearing the red square.”

Myriam Zaidi, former SSMU VP External, was in CEGEP during the 2005 strike. “In 2005, we didn’t go on strike against tuition hikes, we went on strike against a change in the loans and bursaries systems in Quebec.”

Members of the Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante (ASSÉ) and of other independent student unions decided to form the Coalition de l’association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante élargie (CASSÉÉ). This was the organization that would coordinate the upcoming strike campaign.

“In 2005, the red square was a sign of CASSÉÉ, at that time it meant a grassroots strike movement. What you need to understand about [this time] is that…going on strike was portrayed as the [most] radical move.”

“The red square was associated with those wanting to do a radical action. I know that people from FEUQ specifically did not wear the red square for a few years. Until very recently, they wouldn’t wear the red square because they were in opposition to CASSÉÉ.”

“It’s interesting how the red square became more widespread.” Zaidi is adamant that this change is significant. “In 2005, ASSÉ was much more radical, so a lot of the people…They were against neoliberalism and capitalism, et cetera.”

Zaidi and Pedneault both contrasted this radical symbolism with the way the red square is worn now. Pednault explains that many don the red felt, especially at McGill, because they “just see it as a symbol of the student movement. Not just of a particular part of it, not just as a symbol of free education.” However, he admits that there are too many students to generalize about all of their reasons for wearing the symbol. “I haven’t spoken to every student on campus wearing the red square,” he admits, laughing. “There are a lot of them.”

Zaidi echoes this point, explaining that “today, you have many more people wearing the red square than [in 2005]. The red square is losing more and more of its significance. A lot of people see it as a symbol of being just against tuition hikes, but back then I would never have thought it would become the symbol of student protest.”

“I think most students don’t know the history,” Zaidi continues, “I’ve been thinking a lot about the red square this year. We chose a sign, a symbol for [the many] students in the chain. The chain of student debt. It’s a very strong and powerful statement.”

But because of this, she has some qualms about the way the symbol is appropriated by the variety of students wearing it. According to Zaidi, the symbol traditionally has much stronger ties to the concept of debt than to hope, a fact that was reflected in 2005, when most of the students wearing it were deeply in debt. But things have changed: “I have a lot of student debt, and [it’s hard to see] people wearing the red square [now] who have a really privileged background.”

And this is inevitable with the popularity of the symbol because, as Zaidi explains, “not everyone in the student movement is in the red.” Because the symbol has been transformed and popularized in the past seven years, many don’t know that it’s so explicitly tied to student debt. “Maybe if people knew more about it, it might change the amount of people wearing it.” But even Zaidi isn’t sure if she feels that this would be better or worse for the student movement. “I think [the symbol] could have been something else that really meant that we’re against tuition hikes and that we’re in the student movement.”

And even with the red square’s popularity, there are still so many students ignorant of its meaning or history. There’s no Wikipedia page about the red squares all over campus and throughout Quebec. At McGill, it’s not uncommon to hear inquiries like: Is that a cancer awareness badge? Cool – are you wearing a pro-choice symbol? Whoa, cheap substitute for a poppy? No, nope, none of the above.

With all of the nuance of the meaning, history, and symbolism of the red square, it’s strange to imagine that so many would be uninformed about its origin. Even Pedneault concedes that there are still some who don’t understand the symbol at all. “Someone asked me once whether it was anything to do with communism. I said ‘No.’”

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The idea for Igloofest was originally concocted by the same four men who started Piknic Electronik. Ever since its inception in the winter of 2007, nine evenings every January have filled the Jacques Cartier Pier with walls of ice, spiked hot chocolate, famous DJs, and screaming (mostly) twenty-somethings. This year has featured DJs such as Montreal native A-Trak, south London’s dubstep legend Mala, and French DJ Sébastien Léger.

Igloofest, though, has evolved – it is more than just an outdoor music festival. Since its creation, the event has grown – as The Star described – to signify “Montreal’s importance on the global music scene.” Few would deny that both Igloofest and Piknic Electronik have been a large part of advancing Montreal’s house, dubstep, and techno culture, even within the context of Montreal’s music scene at large.

But one could easily argue that Igloofest is not entirely about the music. It is also the particularly unique experience of an interactive igloo village in which you can eat, drink, and dance. Many can say that they’ve been to Bonnaroo or Coachella or Sasquatch for their favorite musicians. Most McGill students have heard stories about how their friends spent a weekend of their summer after Grade 12 camping out in tents, waking up to the heat, scorching their skin in the sun, and gorging on fried food. These don’t sound much different from Piknic or Osheaga.

Yet, Igloofest is a completely different experience. I was red-faced from the cold, not a sunburn. I was sweating from the layers under my hat and gloves, not the heat. My toes were frozen, my brain was dizzy from dancing. Sure, I got elbowed in the face a little bit and I lost my cell phone (Note, add to that advice list: helmet, cell phone tether), but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have a fun night.

Accessibility is also a major factor in the draw to Igloofest. I might have felt different about the imperfections of my night if I’d had to shell out more money. Igloofest and Piknic Electronik general director Nicolas Cournoyer told the Montreal Gazette, in an interview, that their  “mission from the start, with both Piknic and Igloofest, was to democratize electronic music and make it accessible to everyone.” And when you consider that every winter approximately 60,000 people, many of whom are students, gain access to world quality techno DJs for only $15, it seems that they have succeeded in that endeavor.

As Cournoyer explained, “it’s no longer the underground event it once was, but people who love the music still come. We’ve come a long way from the prejudices of the early 2000s, when many people still saw techno and house as nothing but a series of silly, repetitive beats.”

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B.K.S Iyengar’s informative Light on Yoga explains the etymology of this ancient tradition. “The word Yoga is derived from the Sanskrit root yuj, meaning to bind, join, attach, and yoke – to direct and concentrate one’s attention on, to use and apply. It also means union or communion.” Its origins are contentious, but many agree that the first recorded description of yoga dates back to the sacred Hindu scripture known as the Bhagavad Gita, written between the fifth and second centuries B.C. However, yoga isn’t normally conceptualized this way in western culture. Yoga isn’t alone – many different Hindu traditions have also been detached from their original religious roots, including meditation, cremation, and beliefs such as karma and reincarnation.

As a result, the Hindu American Foundation recently felt compelled to start a campaign, called the Take Back Yoga project. Given that yoga is so entrenched in Hindu tradition, the group encourages yogis (people that practice yoga) to become educated on its underlying history.

This concern has been exacerbated by the corporatization of yoga. Bikram Choudhury, founder of Bikram’s Yoga College of India, is one of the more famous cases of commercialization. Many call Bikram Yoga the “original hot yoga.” An article in Yoga Journal by James Greenberg explains how Choudhury “has copyrighted and trademarked everything from his name to the verbatim dialogue that accompanies the teaching of his classes.” Before Choudhury, Greenberg explains, “no one had ever tried to copyright a specific sequence of yoga poses.”

Choudhury seems to feel that, even though none of the poses are actually his own creation, he still has a right to trademark the sequences. “It’s become the Bikram system, but there’s no such thing as Bikram Yoga; yoga is yoga, yoga is hatha yoga,” said Choudhury. “It’s not anybody’s property; it’s like God, it’s love, it’s nature. But anybody picks up a few postures in a sequence and makes it a book, it’s a copyright, so somebody copies my book, I sue them.”

Following Choudhury, many others have trademarked, copyrighted, and patented their forms of yoga, classes, and phrases. David Life, cofounder of Jivamukti Yoga, has also trademarked the Jivamukti name. Because of this, there are many different names (and brands) of yoga today. Ashtanga, Vinyasa, Bikram, Moksha, Hot Yin, and even Power yoga are all recognized disciplines. Jessica Robertson and Ted Grand started Canada’s Moksha Yoga in 2004, and the first three studios were opened in Toronto.

On the CBC radio show Q with Jian Ghomeshi, John Philp, author of Yoga Inc, debated with Ted Grand about the commercialization of yoga. Philp’s concern was that those practicing yoga today are more interested in “trying to look good naked” than in attaining enlightenment. Grand explains, however, that Moksha brings yoga “through the filter of a consumer society.” He doesn’t care if people come in “for a tight butt” or “to look better naked…our goal is to try and create more peace with people.”

But narrowing the practice of yoga into either entirely shallow or completely spiritual is a gross oversimplification. It’s hard to take the time to attempt communion with the divine when you have papers to write and midterms to take, but both aspects can be equally appealing. In order to aid those who seek both, Rolf Gates and Katrina Kenison wrote an instructional and reflective guide called Meditations from the Mat: Daily Reflections on the Path of Yoga. Like many yoga guides, it is filled with cheesy (and sometimes trite) quotes like, “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for” (Hopi elder), “The first step in this process of mindful awareness is radical self-acceptance” (Stephen Batchelor),  “It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult” (Seneca), or my personal favourite “I listen to the wind, to the wind of my soul” (Cat Stevens).

Many people don’t realize that you can embrace the spiritual nature of yoga, meditate and learn from it, and still find these kinds of quotes trite. It doesn’t have to be one or the other – it can be exercise and religion. And ultimately, everyone should define their own practice of yoga.

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This article may contain potentially triggering content.

Trigger warnings are notifications, given verbally or in writing, of the potentially emotionally triggering content of an article, video, or image which might cause flashbacks of rape, other physical assault, or even eating disorders to surface. Individuals with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), abuse histories, or other conditions might have a lower ability to tolerate reminders of stirring emotions or memories in everyday life. Reminders, in this case, are deemed “triggers,” and can constitute any visual depiction or detailed written description of abuse, rape, suicide, self-harm, disordered eating, or any of the psychological states that result from these.

I learned about trigger warnings while enrolled in an introductory Women’s Studies class at McGill, which is why I was surprised when one of my feminist studies professors failed to give warning before assigning a reading about a film where one of the main issues was sexual assault. Then again, before playing a clip from a movie about rape, she also said nothing. The clip we watched was from a 2007 Romanian film, 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days. It’s about two female students in communist Russia who try to arrange an illegal abortion. The man performing the abortions requires sex as payment in a scene that I would describe as portraying rape. It was emotionally provocative to say the least, and many students left seeming shaken or appalled by what we’d seen.

I was surprised, and even offended, by the lack of warning, but I assumed this would be an isolated incident. While the problem never resurfaced again in that class, I was confronted with a similar situation in a communications class just before reading week.

We discussed the media coverage of the infamous Chris Brown and Rihanna mess in which he physically abused her, and toward the end of a class, we watched a Public Service Announcement (PSA). The video contained a scene reenacting the transcription contained in the police reports from the event, as a narrator simultaneously described the exchange. The actual PSA contains a trigger warning, but there was no time, and frankly, no option, to leave class before it was shown.

The acting in the PSA might have been terrible, but the words from the transcription were terrifying. There were quotes like “she attempted to gauge his eyes, but he bit her fingers” and “she brought her knees to her chest and placed her feet against his body, pushing him away. He continued to punch her legs and feet. She began screaming for help.” For those watching without histories of abuse – sexual or otherwise – this video may have been simply unpleasant. But if you’ve been through a similar situation, and there’s no indication of the potentially referential content of a course lecture or reading – something that you are obligated to participate in – you might find yourself reliving a terrifying and traumatic incident in class.

Some might argue that there aren’t enough students with psychologically traumatic histories to make trigger warnings necessary, but I would disagree. First of all, if there are any students at all at McGill who might benefit from such a policy, I’d say that makes it significant enough. Second, while there are really no precise statistics on students with abuse histories, I would argue that many more people than we realize have experienced psychological traumas. Third, it is the University’s responsibility to provide McGill students with a safe learning environment. Students should not be put in a position where they might have to reveal a personal history of abuse in order to advocate for trigger warnings.

A November 2000 study conducted by the National Violence Against Women Survey found that 17.6 per cent of women in the United States have survived an attempted or completed rape. Statistics on this issue are, because of their nature, impossibly hard to calculate. Furthermore, this statistic is what I would describe as the bare minimum possible number, and are only those documented in the survey. It doesn’t include those attempted (or followed through) rapes that went unreported, instances of domestic or sexual abuse, or rape cases where the victims weren’t women.

A little more recently, there was a 2004 study in Psychiatric News examining the effects of PTSD on university performance. Out of the 230 students polled, 105 “had experienced one or more serious psychological traumas at some point in their lives.” It may have been a small study, but that was almost 50 per cent of students randomly questioned. The study found that students with PTSD performed just as well as other students in school, but there’s no record of how often they were forced to encounter flashbacks, subjected to reliving traumatic events, or experienced panic attacks resulting from a lack of trigger warnings in classes or while doing readings.

It is important to remember that we are responsible for what we say. The information (and opinions) you disseminate affect other people, sometimes more than you may realize. If you’re in a public forum, and especially teaching a class, you’re accountable for your words and your actions. In a class where attendance is taken, it may not be an option to just skip a lesson you think might upset you, and students shouldn’t be forced to relive traumatic experiences simply because the professor didn’t think about what they were doing.

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Olivia Messer is a U2 Humanistic Studies and Communications student, and The Daily’s Illustrations editor, but the opinions expressed here are her own. She can be reached at olivia.messer@mail.mcgill.ca.

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The sentiment of IWD has been honoured since 1908, but it wasn’t formally established until after a decision made at the 1910 International Conference of Working Women in Copenhagen. The first international celebration occurred on March 19, 1911, and was observed in Austria, Denmark, Germany, and Switzerland. IWD is now an official holiday in countries as diverse as Belarus, Cambodia, Nepal, Turkmenistan, Uganda, and Zambia. It is not officially celebrated in Canada.

While variations of Women’s Day have been celebrated since the early 1900s, both the movement and its association with feminism have changed dramatically in the last century. Many now separate IWD from its original political motivations by treating it more like a fusion of Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day, bestowing women with flowers, candy, and affection. So, if IWD is no longer as politically charged, why can’t it be an official holiday?

Some argue that making IWD a national holiday in Canada or in the United States – where Women’s History Month is already celebrated in March – isn’t politically tenable, but I think it’s worth asking: Why not? Groups like the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC) advocate for making IWD a national statutory holiday because it would “send a positive and meaningful message” from the Canadian government. “All women in Canada need to see the government take such an initiative to affirm the empowerment of women, highlight their abundant contributions to Canada, and inspire future woman leaders in the process,” argued Beverley Jacobs, who was president of the organization from 2004 to 2009.

So, what’s keeping this vision from becoming a reality? Are we still living in a world where we can’t officially argue for women’s equality because it’s taboo? Or is it because many believe we already live in a post-feminist, egalitarian society? The very fact that we need to ask these questions speaks to the necessity of a day dedicated to thinking about women’s role in society.

That being said, it would be remiss not to acknowledge that IWD has its own inherent problems. The holiday is meant to celebrate a diversity of women and their experiences, but because of the nature of the celebration, it is inevitably exclusive. Those who don’t fit within the gender binary are not included in these celebrations. As a result, the essential elements of third wave feminism are tossed out in the cold for the sake of a large, mainstream reception of the holiday. In the spirit of feminism, these celebrations should be free from marginalization on the basis of cultural, social, racial, economic, or political differences.

Many of the events are exclusively meant for the participation of women. Mothers, daughters, sisters, and grandmothers are welcome to participate in spirituality, yoga, and mental health workshops – like ones at Equilibrium Yoga on St. Laurent – but non-female participants are not welcome. This deters men from honouring women and marginalizes transgender and intersex individuals. Furthermore, events like these not only reinforce the gender binary, they put a dark cloud over a celebration about acceptance, recognition, and solidarity.

Any worldwide celebration is bound to have its hiccups, and IWD is certainly no exception. However, it is still a necessary and valuable celebration to observe. We don’t live in a post-feminist world, and although more and more women around the world are gaining access to education, civil rights, and equal pay, parity hasn’t been achieved in any respect of the word.

Possibly both the biggest strength and weakness of the unofficial organization of IWD is that it is, as a result, haphazard and unfocused. International Women’s Day as it exists today doesn’t get a lot of media attention or coverage, so it really is about whatever you make it. This year’s United Nations theme is “equal access to education, training and science and technology: pathway to decent work for women,” but don’t just follow the guidelines of the United Nations theme or of the official website. Choose your own theme, plan your own event, or take the time to participate in whatever way you feel is most productive and inclusive.

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Olivia Messer is a U2 Humanistic Studies and Communications student, and The Daily’s Illustrations editor, but the opinions expressed here are her own. She can be reached at olivia.messer@mail.mcgill.ca.

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When you’re a vegetarian from the American South, you have to answer a lot of questions, ranging from “Why?” to “You know the Bible says it’s okay to eat meat, right?” In an effort not to proselytize or obnoxiously provoke, I’ve learned to simplify my answer into three parts: environmental concerns, animal cruelty, and health.

Environment

The environmental costs of the meat industry are varied in their nature, and giant in their scope. United Nations research indicates that animal agriculture “is one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global. … [Animal agriculture] should be a major policy focus when dealing with problems of land degradation, climate change and air pollution, water shortage and water pollution, and loss of biodiversity.”
The facts surrounding the environmental impact of meat-eating are simply undeniable, and they have dire consequences for the future of our planet’s climate.

Journalist Jamais Cascio recently found that the greenhouse gas emissions arising every year just from the production and consumption of cheeseburgers – in the United States alone – is roughly the amount emitted by 6.5 million to 19.6 million SUVs. (To provide perspective, he estimates that there are now approximately 16 million SUVs currently on the road in the U.S.)

Cascio’s research takes into account the energy costs associated with everything from growing the feed for the cattle that provide the beef and cheese, to transporting and even cooking the components.

McGill professor of Geography & Earth System Science Program Navin Ramankutty agrees that the problem is deserving of serious attention. “In terms of carbon,” he said, “[animal] agricultural practices and the conversion of land for agriculture accounts for 15 to 20 per cent of total emissions today, and this number is even higher if you consider methane and nitrous oxide, two other greenhouse gases which are even more potent [than] CO2.”

Worse still, Foer writes that the meat industry is responsible for 37 per cent of global anthropogenic emissions of methane, which is about twenty-three times more potent a greenhouse gas than CO2.

The meat industry’s profligate resource consumption is by no means limited to fossil fuels, however. According to Foer’s book, “nearly one-third of the land surface of the planet is dedicated to livestock.”

Then there’s the issue of waste, which is a multifaceted and complicated one. By waste, I mean a few different things: waste in the literal sense, a waste of lives, a waste of the remaining few of endangered species, a waste of resources, and even a waste of money. This industry is anything but efficient.
Regarding literal waste, Foer reports that “chicken, hog, and cattle excrement has already polluted 35,000 miles of rivers in 22 states. In only three years, two hundred fish kills – incidents where the entire fish population in a given area is killed at once – have resulted from factory farms’ failures to keep their shit out of waterways. In these documented kills alone, thirteen million fish were literally poisoned by shit.”

Meat production also wastes hundreds of thousands of animal lives each year. Gail Eisnitz, author of the legendary Slaughterhouse, gave a presentation in 1999 in which she explained that for all of the animals killed in the process of meat consumption, many more are killed and never make it to the plate. “In 1997,” she stated, “a single hog corporation in Oklahoma reported losses of 420,000 dead hogs – that’s 48 hogs dying every hour. … They died as a result of the hostile, stressful, disease-promoting conditions inside these massive factories. … Thousands of piglets that were sick or didn’t grow fast enough were beaten to death. The industry calls this thumping or PACing: the industry acronym for ‘Pound Against Concrete.’”

Even the food fed to livestock has a significant environmental affect. The Guardian recently reported on a Swedish study conducted in 2003 that illustrated how “raising organic beef on grass rather than feed reduced greenhouse gas emissions by forty per cent and consumed 85 per cent less energy.”

Health

Factory farms wreak havoc on more than just the environment. Because we live on this earth, our collective health is closely tied with pollution. What affects the planet inevitably affects us. It’s where our food grows. What you put in your body determines how it works, how long you live, and whether or not you get sick.

Foer’s book explains that there are, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 76 million cases of food-borne illness in America each year. And we’re not just talking about the big ones you’ve all heard of—like salmonella and E. coli.

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a genuinely terrifying problem that few people know about. MRSA is colloquially termed a flesh-eating-bacteria. The U.S. National Library of Medicine describes common symptoms as skin abscesses, fever, and shortness of breath. Mother Earth News explains that while MRSA was confined largely to hospitals in the past, its annual death toll has climbed to higher than that of HIV/AIDS related deaths in the United States.

But MRSA is not the only antibiotic resistant infection we should be worried about. The problem is the sheer volume of antibiotics fed to livestock every year. In the U.S., this figure tallies up to 17.8 million pounds. (Foer’s research, however, shows that the industry underreported its antibiotic use by at least forty per cent, and notes that 13.5 million pounds of those antimicrobials are currently banned from use in the European Union.)

This could have a seriously profound affect on our own ability to get over infections. According to Mother Earth News, “the CDC reports that two million people in the United States now contract an infection each year while in the hospital. Of those, a staggering 90,000 die. … Numbers such as that are prompting some medical investigators to suggest that we may be entering a ‘post-antibiotic era,’ one in which … ‘there would be no effective antibiotics available for treating many life-threatening infections in humans.’”

Contamination is perhaps an even larger problem with factory farming practices. Because of the speed and “efficiency” of machines used to tear chickens apart more quickly, the birds’ intestinal tracts are ripped apart, coating them in feces. As a result, Consumer Reports named a study in 2007 that found “83 per cent of poultry is infected with campylobacter or salmonella by the time it reaches the grocery store.” The study reported that this is the case even in organic and antibiotic-free brands.

This has worsened in the past thirty years, mainly because of a decision on the part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Foer details how “the poultry industry convinced the USDA to reclassify feces so that it could continue to use these automatic eviscerators. Once a dangerous contaminant, feces are now classified as a ‘cosmetic blemish.’”

His research cites the findings of a journalist named Scott Bronstein, who wrote a series on the subject for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, in which he described how “every week millions of chickens leaking yellow puss, stained by green feces, contaminated by harmful bacteria, or marred by lung and heart infections, cancerous tumors, or skin conditions are shipped for sale to consumers.”

In fact, because these chickens have to be drenched in chlorine before they’re shipped to buyers, Foer explains that “the birds [are] injected…with ‘broths’ and salty solutions to give them what we have come to think of as the chicken look, smell, and taste.”

Indeed, according to Foer, largely as a result of the USDA’s lax regulation of the industry, “pathogen-infested, feces-splattered chicken can technically be fresh, cage-free, and free-range, and sold in the supermarket legally.”

Animal cruelty and treatment of workers

Eisnitz’s book Slaughterhouse, published in 1997, was the first of its kind to expose the practices on the inside of these facilities built to dismantle and prepare meat for consumption. During her investigation, it became clear that the workers, not just the animals, at slaughterhouses and factory farms are victims of the system in which they work. For this reason, these operations often have 100 per cent (and higher) turnover rates per year.

Eisnitz found that factory farm work is among the most dangerous in the country, resulting in surprising numbers of workplace injuries, such as the loss of fingers and limbs, burns, and stabs. Some have died when crushed by falling animals, while others have simply dropped dead while working on the line. “Due to exorbitant line speeds,” she wrote, “in the last 15 years, we’ve seen a 1,000 per cent increase in cumulative trauma disorders. Even the meat industry itself reports that at current line speeds, workers’ bodies are physically used up after five years. In fact, that’s why these companies intentionally recruit illegal workers from places like Mexico – that completely and conveniently protects them from insurance claims.”

Factory farming’s treatment of the animals themselves is also appalling. Foer has found that approximately 200,000 cows per year simply collapse as result of illness and injury – hence the application of the term “downer.” Unfortunately, according to Foer, “in most of America’s fifty states it is perfectly legal (and perfectly common) to simply let downers die of exposure over days or toss them, live, into dumpsters.”

The issues of abuse are largely tied to the psychological trauma resulting from these types of jobs, and this is discussed in both Foer’s and Eisnitz’s books through many personal accounts.

In large part, the U.S. government’s failure to take action on animal cruelty stems from a legislation relating to “Common Farming Exemptions” (CFEs). These CFEs essentially exempt factory farms from the necessity of following animal cruelty laws. The loophole is that anything considered “common practice,” or done by a majority of farms, will overrule animal cruelty laws, making legal action on abuses incredibly difficult.

Family Farms

Less than one per cent of the animals killed for meat consumption in the U.S. come from family farms. But the industry certainly still exists. Much like the independent farmers interviewed in Eating Animals, the family growers that I spoke to were willing to discuss their jobs, and genuinely concerned about the health and safety of their animals.

Jack and Lisa Ivey own a cattle and poultry farm just outside of Atlanta, Georgia. Jack started farming fulltime about ten years ago, and they now have about 250 heads of cattle along with four chicken houses. “You know, everybody’s called to do something – my husband’s called to be a farmer and he loves it, and he’s great at it and he’s very passionate about it,” Lisa says.

Lisa explains that they spend a lot of time with their animals, building relationships with them. “My husband loves those cattle like we love our dog…and he takes that very seriously. He’s responsible for taking care of them, if one of them is sick – if we can’t take care of them, the vet comes to our house and takes care of them for us.” I sincerely doubt you’d see that kind of treatment in a factory farm.

While there may not be sufficient evidence to suggest that family farms have less environmental impact, or use fewer natural resources, they certainly have a far better record in terms of animal cruelty and treatment of workers. Unfortunately, substantially fewer people are going into small farming now than they used to. Lisa confirmed this. “It’s not an easy job. It takes a special type of person to do it, [but] I would tell you that the majority of independent farmers care for their animals like we care for them,” she said.

As much as possible, this concern extends to the choices Lisa and her husband make with regard to selling their cattle. “We sell to barns that don’t use hot sticks, because who wants to be shocked in the rear end? Nobody I know.”

Lisa explained that the combined forces of large corporations and the U.S. government make it hard to survive as an independent farmer today. “[Family farmers] are gettin’ pushed out. It’s very distressing to me because it’s the government. The government is putting in so many regulations, and…we don’t feel it as much here in the south, but you’ve got to keep in mind – if we were out in the Midwest…where there’s a lot of the big corporate farms – we probably couldn’t operate out there. We would just kind of be pushed out.”

Farming also requires a unique level of dedication and commitment. “You can’t just go on a three-week vacation. Who is going to take care of the animals? … The reality is nobody wants to be tied to all of that responsibility. I think that’s another reason why the independent farmer is going away. It takes a lot to make money…but I also think people don’t want the hassle. It’s a lot of work.”

The problem is that independent farms can’t produce nearly enough to feed everyone who wants to eat meat. North Americans may well have to reduce our consumption of meat if we are to start taking these questions of our health and environment seriously. “The most current data even quantifies the role of diet,” writes Foer. “Omnivores contribute seven times the volume of greenhouse gases that vegans do.”

You are responsible for what you eat, and where you get your food. It’s abundantly clear that being concerned with the environment and consuming meat don’t exactly compliment each other. Not that meat is inherently evil – just don’t reprimand those who drive Hummers whilst shoving cheeseburgers down your gullet.

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In a Princeton University study, “scientists found that among patients with life-long eating disorder problems, 53  per cent say that their disorders first emerged during college.”

It appears that disordered eating, even if not a full-fledged diagnosable eating disorder, is a strikingly common phenomenon in university. In order to raise awareness about the nature of eating pathologies, the Eating Disorder Program, part of Mental Health Services, is hosting events at McGill until February 11 as part of National Eating Disorder Awareness Week.

Randi Fogelbaum, director and coordinator of the program, explained some of these statistics. “It’s a huge adaptation to move from your parents house to university, to have to be responsible for yourself, have to be independent…there’s so much change that there is a higher rate of eating disorders among university students.”

Even though they’re quite common, eating disorders come in a variety of forms. The most widely publicized are anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge eating disorder.

According to the department of Family and Consumer Sciences at Ohio State University, the symptoms of anorexia nervosa include the refusal to maintain weight “at or above a minimally normal weight for height and age,” severe fear of weight gain, distorted body image, and “in females, loss of three consecutive menstrual periods and decreased interest in sexual desire.”

Bulimia nervosa, meanwhile, is characterized by a wider variety of types of binging and purging. These behaviours include everything from vomiting to excessive exercise. Binge eating disorder involves eating more often and in greater speed and quantity than is healthy.

One of the lesser publicized, but most commonly-diagnosed eating disorders at McGill, Fogelbaum noted, is classified as “eating disorder not otherwise specified.” This diagnosis arose to fill a gap left by the descriptions of anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. “Sometimes people have a lot of the criteria of either anorexia or bulimia but can’t be diagnosed with one or the other specifically.”

Body image may be just one of the contributing factors to the development of eating disorders, but it’s certainly the most well known. There have been and continue to be several initiatives to unveil the current mass cultural tendency toward perfection, including the 2008 film America the Beautiful, which will be screened today at New Rez.

More recently, similar research has been conducted on the Western obsession with weight and body image. A study published in the Journal of Applied Psychology found thinner women get paid far more than either “average-size” or heavier women. Researchers Timothy Judge and Daniel Cable believe, according to the Washington Post, “that much of the problem is the result of subconscious decisions based on entrenched social stereotypes.” The study cited that this discrepancy earned thinner women “about $16,000 more a year, on average.”

In any case, Fogelbaum asserted that, “Usually, there’s an interaction between genetics, your personality type, and then environmental factors. It’s not just about the body image.”

Luckily for McGill students, the resources offered at McGill are unlike any other university in Canada, according to Fogelbaum. “Our program here is the only one in Canada like this…I researched about 60 universities across Canada, and [this] is the only program for eating disorders specifically with a full multidisciplinary treatment team and groups.”

McGill’s Eating Disorder Program website outlines the various services offered, including multidisciplinary assessments (where you meet with a psychiatrist, nurse, and dietician, and when you can receive personalized feedback and treatment plans), individual psychotherapy, nutritional counselling, and medical follow-ups. There are also several types of support groups, from psycho-educational groups to meal support.

Unfortunately, Fogelbaum explained, “the nature of eating disorders is very secretive because there’s a lot of shame around it, so often people don’t want others to know that they’re suffering from it.”

“By the time somebody comes to seek help, its usually been the domino effect,” she said, meaning patients feel treatment is the only remaining option. However, she also emphasized that willingly seeking treatment is crucial part to the recovery process.

According to Fogelbaum, the program’s office receives many calls from concerned friends and family, but this in itself is not enough to initiate treatment. Patients “need to want the help in order to take the help.” The best thing anyone can do who knows someone with a potential eating disorder is “to be honest…to be caring.”

Though statistics  point toward most eating disorders developing in university, she explained that this isn’t necessarily all bad. “The positive thing is that because there are so many transitions, [university is] also a really good time to get treatment for your eating disorder and it’s a really good time for students to be able to create change and be able to succeed with treatment.” It seems that with a program centred on awareness and multidisciplinary treatment, this is especially true at McGill.

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Tucker Max is a bestselling author, self-proclaimed asshole, the spearhead of the “fratire” genre, and a film producer. His movie I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell grossed over $1,400,000 in the U.S. He has been published in Esquire, the Huffington Post, and several other major publications.

He’s known for many things, but has achieved most fame as an internet personality. Among his notable practices are the objectification of women and the delegitimizing of serious issues like rape and violence through comedy. Many feminists have criticized him without reading his books or seeing his movie – unfortunately, I am not one of them. In fact, to my embarrassment, a ninth-grade version of myself found some his stories quite funny. Fascinated by Max, I’ve voraciously read his articles, frequently referenced his drunk rating scale, and spent hours on his web site.

Clearly a smart man, this graduate of the University of Chicago and Duke’s law school is not just some random blogger. In fact, he spent two weeks atop the New York Times bestseller list. I’m not disputing his intelligence, or even necessarily his intentions; I’m saying that what he puts forth is not constructive. It’s harmful: it perpetuates violence against women and invalidates criticism of that violence by playing the humour card.

As a guideline for my deconstruction of his arguments, I will use the quotes that Max used as advertisement for his movie. These quotes, all related to at least one of his stories, are intended to be satirical.

“Fat girls are not real people.” “The best thing about fat girls is heart disease.” “Every woman has her price.”

The cover of I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell (the book – not the film of the same title) is a photo of Max with his arm around a blond woman in a little red dress. Her face is replaced with a cut-out that says “your face here.” Even before you open the book, women are reduced to a lower standard than men: they have no individual identity or personality.

Worse, his web site has a rating scale for women that goes from zero stars (“Wildebeests”) to 5 stars (“Super-hotties”). The in-between gradations are labelled things like “common-stock pig,” “respectable pig,” and “girlfriend material.” “Wildebeests” are ugly, fat, and boring – like common-stock pigs – but they’re also annoying. According to Max, women like this “should all be put to sleep” and are generally so pervasive that when you see a “wildebeest,” “you have to actively restrain yourself from kicking her in the crotch and stomping on her throat until she drowns in her own blood.” He adds that “basic human rights do not apply.”

Obviously basic human rights do apply to everyone, not just the physically attractive, as deemed by Tucker Max. But it’s more than that – Max avoids responsibility for spreading such repugnant views by arguing that humour cannot be censored. Call me a turgid feminist devoid of a sense of humour, but I don’t find violence, objectification, or disrespect particularly hilarious.

“Deaf girls never hear you coming.” “Scott Peterson killed his pregnant wife. But not in a funny way.” “AIDS isn’t funny. Until it happens to someone you hate.”

I don’t know how many times anyone has to explain this: rape is not funny. Coat these jokes in fatal illnesses and disability, and you get something so reprehensible I find it difficult to believe anyone laughs at them. But they do.

These quotes were part of a national ad campaign that appeared in multiple locations: textsfromlastnight.com ran them, and the Chicago Transit Authority was going to, before they pulled out of their contract at the last minute. People aren’t dismissing these jokes as offensive, either. Max is getting praise for being devilishly humorous, pushing the envelope, and saying things others aren’t willing to. Many think Max is funny because he’s edgy.

But what Max might be failing to consider is that there’s a reason people don’t joke about AIDS, murder, and rape. Not because they’re afraid to or because they’re being controlled by feminist bitches, but because these things are actually not humorous. Real people encounter these situations, suffer, and die in ways that Max probably couldn’t imagine if he tried.

Tucker Max is problematic not just because of his claims, but because of whom they inspire. Fratire, as the genre he works in is so appropriately named, is supposed to represent what “real men” think. His argument is then that “real men,” whatever that may mean, should objectify women to the point that they are deprived of their humanity (provided they don’t fit his standards). If you’re not thin, attractive, and a little passive, you aren’t worthy of equal treatment.

I’ve seen countless friends eat this ideology up, using his rating scales and his famous euphemisms to degrade women while praising Max for providing the entertainment they were so desperately deprived of before. But what is he really providing? He claims that he’s giving a voice to the voiceless middle-class men emasculated by society. Thank goodness. We know how little privilege and volume the middle-class, heterosexual white man had before Max came along.

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Olivia Messer is a U1 Humanistic Studies and Women’s Studies student. Write her at olivia.messer@mail.mcgill.ca.

This article was originally titled “Tucker Max? More like Fucker Max” when it was released on April 14, 2010.

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