– Audre Lorde

Albert Lalonde, co- spokesperson for the 2019 student movement Pour le Future de Montreal (PLF) since its inception, agreed to speak with me about his experience: “The first call to protest was for February 15th 2019 through an anonymous Instagram story, and suddenly we were 400 kids skipping classes protesting downtown,” he recalls. On September 27 of that year, more than 500,000 people mobilized in the streets of Montreal, demanding climate justice; which at the time, was the biggest climate-related protest in Canada since Earth Day in 2012.

I remember 2019 vividly: I was 15 years old when I first heard Greta Thunberg’s Stockholm speech, famously denouncing global leaders and their lack of action in the face of the climate crisis. I was outraged. This speech marked a shift in much of my generation’s collective consciousness. Adults and leaders of the world were largely not stepping up; radical action had to be taken, and this fight would have to be led by us, the youth. At only 17 years old, Lalonde helped create a movement led by high-school students that disturbed the status quo, bringing the issue of climate change to the forefront. “We were going against all these different levels of authority: our parents, our teachers, principals, the school board, including theMinister of Education.”

Today, however, this sense of responsibility towards future generations seems to have been erased from our collective memory. In October, I posted a questionnaire on Instagram, asking people I know between the ages of 18 and 24 years old to describe how they felt about the current state of the world and the environmental crisis. It quickly became clear that the overwhelming majority felt helpless, describing themselves as anxious, scared, tired, stressed, hopeless, and doomed.

This September, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) released a report sounding the alarm about the increasingly unavoidable overshoot of the Paris Agreement limit, a legally binding international treaty aiming to hold our global temperatures to 1.5 °C. It urged the need for immediate, drastic mitigation efforts from governments worldwide. In contrast, over the past few years, there has reportedly been a downward trend in engagement for environmental mobilization. Now, according to GlobeScan and BBMG, 42 per cent of youth (between 18 and 24 years old) were disillusioned with individual action in 2024, up by 24 per cent since 2020. The report suggests this decline is due to young people feeling more and more powerless in the face of climate change.

Considering the global socio- political context of the past few years, this is not all that surprising. “In times where there is more urgency, the climate always falls to the wayside,” says Dr. Sejhal Bharghava, a young global health advocate and family doctor based in Ottawa, who agreed to discuss the issue with me after guest lecturing at McGill. Bharghava who is involved in many climate action organizations around the country, does not blame youth for choosing to step back from the overwhelming issue that is the climate crisis: “How much do people expect young people to do? We’re in school, we’re unemployed, we have debt and in our spare time you want us to fix your mess?” It is no longer effective to just tell people about how bad things are; instead, Bharghava strongly believes “we need to present people with a vision of what we can move towards.”

The CEVES — a student-led Quebec sustainable action collective that included organizers from PLF — did have a vision to share. In 2019, students behind this collective including Lalonde were preparing to call for an unlimited strike where they would host workshops on different school campuses and share perspectives on how climate justice could become part of school curriculums. However, these promising plans came to a halt when the global lockdown was called two weeks before they were set to strike. Between 2020 and 2022, core organizers started to experience burnout, making attempts to build on the movement’s momentum difficult.

Lalonde, along with many other young PLF participants, decided to focus his attention on more local issues. “One thing that we saw during the pandemic is that all of these networks didn’t just vanish. They just transferred onto other projects and work that, in many ways, are more rooted.” Indeed, all the young and motivated people who had been engaged in the cause had come too far to do nothing with all the valuable knowledge gained. Many shifted their efforts towards issues such as indigenous sovereignty, migrant rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and Palestine. In that way, these young PLF organizers have remained active in their fight for justice, and — by extension, environmental justice — at a grassroots level.

At 24 years old, still motivated by the issue of the climate crisis, Lalonde is actively working alongside Our Children’s Trust, a coalition of young plaintiffs (some of which were part of the CEVES) suing the federal government for their lack of commitment toward solving climate change. Though this lawsuit has been ongoing for 7 years, the Federal Court is only now proceeding to a five-week trial that started on October 26 in Vancouver. Despite the disappointing conclusion to the PLF movement’s promising prospects, Albert still affirms that the solution to this deep feeling of doomism among the youth (the belief that catastrophic outcomes of global crises are inevitable) is to get out there and do something.And, fortunately, many young people are.

Sustainable Youth Canada (SYC), a non-profit organization led by youth for youth, organizes climate-related events across the country, hosting workshops in schools and communities, as well as providing policy writing and consultation opportunities. In our email exchanges, Sara Carling and Allie Wang, co- directors of SYC in Montreal (SYC’s oldest and most established Canadian branch) say that people get involved on a volunteer basis as youth-climate activism lacks funding. Though they notice that news related to climate change is rarely positive, Carling and Wang contend that engaging with SYC allows them to “have a different perspective, and see people working alongside each other towards making positive change.”

Bharghava is part of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE), an interdisciplinary group uniting health care workers in Canada to connect the dots between the impacts of climate change and human health to governments and the general public. “I think finding community is huge. I know it’s said a lot, but truly, joining CAPE was the best thing I could have ever done for my mental health and my sustainability and resiliency in this movement, because it gets hard,” she admits. People who stay engaged in these important issues continue to be hopeful, even if that sometimes feels radical.

When we turn to the rest of the world for evidence of hope and important activist work, we can find it everywhere. As many of us find ourselves grappling with eco-anxiety or a general sense of doom, let us use these inspiring people and movements as a reminder that we don’t have to deal with these emotions on our own. The healing nature of community cannot be underestimated as an antidote to doomism: “Community isn’t very far and you don’t have to look very hard foritbutyoudohavetomakea bit of an effort to make those connections.” Indeed, to Bharghava, getting involved is all about taking the first step, and that should be the easiest part: “Any sort of advocacy is better than nothing — anything is better than nothing!”

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In an essay opposing the Canada-US Free Trade agreement of 1987, writer Margaret Atwood wrote “Canada as a separate but dominant country has done about as well under the US as women, worldwide, have done under men; about the only position they’ve adopted toward us, country to country, has been the missionary position, and we were not on top.” Notably, Atwood expressed similar ideas in her 1972 guide to Canadian literature Survival, in which she posits Canada as a metaphorical rape victim of the United States. Exposed to Atwood’s writings in lecture this past week, I was shocked at their continued applicability. As the trade war between the two nations continues to make headlines, and Trump himself faces new sexual assault allegations, I start to see that Atwood was on to something very real and continuously relevant.

On October 25, at a campaign rally in Port Huron, Michigan, Trump said the trade war would end “soon.” Trade with Canada has been one of the Republicans’ sorest spots in the polls, and an issue that many American voters have at the forefront of their minds as they head into the upcoming midterm elections. A Pew study in July 2026 found that 60 per cent of Americans disapproved of tariff increases, while only 37 per cent approved. At the campaign rally in Michigan, Trump described Canada as “willing to give us anything at this moment.” This past summer Trump also said, “We don’t need anything that Canada has…but they need everything that we have.” The note of sexual dominance in Trump’s language is palpable here.

While Trump’s history of sexual assault remains either a point of indifference or disillusionment for many of his followers, it has never had nearly as large an impact on Trump’s popularity as any economic policy he has implemented. It is public knowledge that 28 women have accused Trump of sexual assault or rape since the 1970s into the 2010s; including his first wife Ivana, who claimed in their 1989 divorce deposition that he had physically and sexually assaulted her, and writer E. Jean Carroll, to whom Trump was found liable for $5 million in sexual abuse and defamation damages in 2023, and another $83.3 million in further defamation charges in 2024. Trump is also accused of significant involvement in Epstein’s child trafficking network, with sources such as CBC reporting that his name is mentioned at least 1,500 times in the initial files, and sources including The New York Times reporting this figure as being closer to 38,000, when the search terms were extended.

Many of us have also seen the abhorrent video from Access Hollywood in 2005 in which Trump says, “You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful women… I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything … Grab ’em by the pussy.” As uncomfortable as it is to contend with this quote, when read closely, it bears uncanny resemblance to Trump’s ways of speaking about Canada. The American President views both women and Canada as fragile, weak, boundaryless, belonging to him, for his ravaging. Trump has shown us time and time again that he simultaneously views women’s bodies as property for his taking and he views Canada as a geographic version of the same thing: his for the taking, on his terms.

Not only in Trump’s language of abuse, but also in his language of minimization and retaliatory disparagement, can we draw parallels. In December of 2024, as tensions and counter-tariffs rose from Canada (we were, it turned out, not the pushover he had expected), Trump began referring to former PM Justin Trudeau on occasion as “Governor Trudeau.” This demeaning nickname hauntingly mirrors Trump’s behaviour towards the women he wishes to discredit. Historically, the American President has responded to accusations of sexual assault by refuting the alleged-victim’s attractiveness, and thus claiming a lack of interest. When journalist Natasha Stoynoff alleged that Trump had pushed her against a wall and forcibly kissed her in 2005, the President was quoted as saying “[t]ake a look. Look at her. Look at her words. And you tell me what you think. I don’t think so.” When Jessica Leeds claimed that Trump had violently molested her in the first class cabin of a 1970s flight, Trump called this “fiction,” adding that “[b]elieve me, she would not be my first choice. That I can tell you.” Though these acts of minimization may seem to exist in separate spheres, I see Trump’s intentions as one and the same. Any one who publicly challenges his violence and/or his attempts at control is to be met with degradation and humiliation. Trump gets what he wants, or else he pretends it was not worth wanting in the first place. We can also draw parallels between sexual violence and geo-political menace in the narratives which Trump weaves around his victims, wherein he positions himself as the injured party. At this same campaign rally in Port Huron, Trump claimed that for years, Canada had been “ripping” the U.S. “off” via trade. In September, Trump said “[Canadian] leaders have taken advantage of our stupid leadership for many, many years. They felt emboldened….They act like they’re totally innocent. They’re not. They were very bad. But now they’re being taught a little lesson.” In a similar vein, Trump repeatedly describes his female assault victims as attention seekers set on destroying his reputation. Of E. Jean Carroll, Trump said in 2019, “Shame on those who make up false stories of assault to try to get publicity for themselves, or sell a book, or carry out a political agenda.”

As we have seen, there appears to be no video that can resurface, no picture that can be released, no assault Trump can commit on women that can seriously affect him in the polls. It is not a lack of information, but rather a complete and utter lack of integrity on the part of his supporters. There would be no logic in these women trying to destroy Trump with made-up claims – it does not work. They have no motive other than justice. You do not get praise and fame for accusing one of the most powerful men in the world of sexual assault. E. Jean Caroll understands this all too well. In her memoir, What Do We Need Men For?, Caroll wrote, “[w]hy I haven’t I come forward before now?…Receiving death threats, being driven from my home.. .only to see the man turn it around, deny, threaten and attack… doesn’t sound like much fun.”

As certain tariffs on paper and machinery products from Canada recently rolled back, and Trump makes promises of the end of the trade war, his fear of losing his grip on his domestic political standing in the midterms is palpable. I only wish Trump’s fear was as palpable in response to a proportionate backlash towards his sexual misconduct — a backlash that never manifested into something strong enough to truly frighten him, reinforcing Trump’s belief that women are his for the taking with limited consequences, if any. Atwood argues that Canadian culture is steeped in its victimhood as a result of America’s economic and cultural domination, which in turn fosters a culture of artistic freedom. What art will future generations be producing, what culture is fostered in America, where women watch their rapist elected into power? Both Canadians and women at large have a history of finding cultural roots in defending one’s self, but we also deserve the liberty to find cultural roots that are not rooted in the violence perpetrated against us. Our lives, our culture, our words deserve to be defined by more than our victimhood.

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In 2025, Netflix released psychological crime drama Adolescence, a British TV series that would change the way we think about the manosphere, online incel culture, and its implications on contemporary misogyny. The story, set in South Yorkshire, follows the arrest of a 13-year- old boy on suspicion of murdering his female classmate after she rejected his romantic advances. Each episode is shot in one take, inviting us into the story in its entirety; every moment of silence, every improvised line, every facial expression brings us closer to the feeling that we are there in the room, with those characters — whether we like it or not.

The story of Adolescence did not come from nowhere. Rather, it was a response to the frequent cases of gender-related knife crimes occurring in the United Kingdom. This included the murder of Ava White, a 12-year- old girl in Liverpool who was stabbed by her 14-year-old schoolmate Harry Gilbertson following an argument over a Snapchat video. He was given a minimum sentence of 13 years, while the three other boys involved in the incident were released without charge. Elianne Andam, a fifteen-year- old student from Croydon, London, who aspired to be a human rights lawyer, was stabbed to death by her friend’s seventeen-year-old ex- boyfriend during the couple’s breakup . Noticing these cases, Adolescence screenwriter Stephen Graham wanted to find out what was behind this terrifying “male rage” responsible for the deaths of innocent young girls, remarking “this kind of thing didn’t happen when I was a young lad.”

Surprisingly, the term “incel” (short for “involuntary celibate”) was actually coined by a female university student in Toronto who wanted to create a community for people who had difficulty forming romantic or sexual relationships. Her website, Alana’s Involuntary Celibacy Project, was founded in 1997 and was open to people of all genders and sexual orientations. As her own dating life improved, she stopped maintaining the website and passed it on to someone else. It was only in the mid-2000s that the “incel” discourse came to be dominated by men. Men who felt resentful about their lack of romantic and sexual experience and who chose to displace the blame onto women. Following the tragic Isla Vista attacks of 2014, in which 22-year-old Elliot Rodger murdered six people in the vicinity of a sorority house to “punish” all women for rejecting him, the creator of the “incel” term expressed regret for the way her project had become tragically misinterpreted. She compared herself to “a scientist who invented something that ended up [becoming] a weapon of war.”

Later in the 2000s, incel communities thrived on online platforms like Reddit, 4chan, 8chan, and Gab. They also turned to the dark web for their more insidious communications which included planning and promoting gender-related murders and attacks. Today, popular online figures within the manosphere movement include Andrew Tate, Sneako, Clavicular and Vox Day, as well as anti-feminist women like Hannah Pearl Davis, who claims that divorce should be banned and that men have the “right” to watch porn if they don’t want their marriages to fail. Violence linked to incel culture and the manosphere h a s killed as many as 50 people in the US and Canada, and more in the UK and Germany. In Canada, the first time that a court made a finding of incel-motivated terrorist activity was in 2023, following 17-year-old Oguzhan Sert’s brutal murder of a female receptionist in 2020. He had written a note reading “Long Live The Incel Rebellion” prior to the attack and used abusive language during the murder, calling the woman a “whore” and repeating “die, die, die.”

McGill University students who were interviewed on the topic in my own investigation expressed mixed knowledge about such incidents; 100 per cent of women interviewed were aware of both incel culture and cases of incel-related violence, compared to only 60 per cent of male interviewees. One male student noted the existence of different types of incel figures online, including “looksmaxxers” who encourage young men to undergo unsafe cosmetic procedures or take steroids as a measure to attract women. Most students attributed the rise of these cases to online trends and cultures. However, students also acknowledged that whilst this particular form of misogyny is relatively new, extreme incidences of gender-based violence, femicide and misogynistic ideologies have been around since the beginning of time. A particularly poignant example is the École Polytechnique massacre of 1989, in which fourteen women were shot in a savage anti-feminist attack. Perhaps what is most shocking is the return of such heinous instances during an age of supposed progressivism. When asked if they view these cases as a personal threat to themselves, 100 per cent of female students said yes, while 100 per cent of male students said no. One male student stated “I’ve never read an article in the news and thought, ‘this is a personal threat to me.’”

Recognizing these cases as nothing short of wicked and pernicious acts of violence against young girls and women, and treating them as such in court and beyond, is essential to combatting the normalization of incel culture. Former UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer praised the Adolescence series, welcoming Netflix’s initiative to make the drama available for free screening in secondary schools and in parliament. The UK has incorporated potential incel radicalization into its national counter-extremist monitoring program, “Prevent,” but has not yet categorized severe incel attacks as terrorism (the UK’s Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation concluded that its current legal definition of terrorism is broad enough without needing a new category specifically targeting incel-related attacks.) Meanwhile, Canadian authorities have prosecuted incel-linked attacks, such as the Oguzhan Sert case, under terrorism legislation, and Public Safety Canada announced over $25 million in funding to deal with radicalisation and incel- related violence. The US government recognizes incel extremism as a single-issue motivator to terrorism, but has historically treated cases as hate crimes rather than terrorism. Legally, then, Canada has taken the most steps toward treating incel- motivated violence as the destructive and harmful crime it is.

It is one thing to enforce legal consequences for incel-related violence, and another to prevent it in the first place. In this respect, the UK has taken the most effective measures in implementing anti- radicalization measures into its national curriculum. Schools are mandated to teach students about incel culture, as well as the links between pornography and misogyny and what constitute positive conceptions of both femininity and masculinity. Canada and the US, meanwhile, lack national equivalents, and responses tend to be fragmented across provinces and states. NGO White Ribbon offers free online training for teachers in Canada, but this alone is not sufficient. As one McGill interviewee said in my investigation, sexist and misogynistic tendencies “sadly start young,” making proper education and the prevention of these ideologies in the classroom crucial. Of course, any number of factors can contribute to harmful ideologies, from a particularly influential older brother to a humiliating romantic rejection. But the influence of the environment in which children spend at least six hours a day in must not be understated.

Spreading wider awareness, implementing effective prevention mechanisms, and passing strict legislation and proper online regulation are all steps governments must take to deal with this relatively new phenomena. These girls and women, many of them students, had futures full of possibility. Yet they were made victims of brutal misogynistic murder for the crime of their very existence. They should be remembered and honoured through real efforts at change.

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There are, of course, little differences between students who live in residence first year compared to those who don’t. Most residences offered by McGill are a five to 15- minute walk from campus. This means that the average student in residence can afford to wake up about an hour or two before their lecture begins. In contrast, a person living off campus with the same morning class would probably have to wake up much earlier to accommodate a longer commute. Moreover, the time it takes to get to class increases exponentially the more they rely on public transportation. For example, a student living in Brossard must take the bus, then the REM, and then walk ten minutes before entering campus, meaning they have to wake up almost an hour earlier than a residence student. This factor also applies when returning home. Many extracurricular clubs and social activities don’t start until after 6 PM, and can drag on until as late as 9 PM. For students belonging to these clubs who don’t live downtown, they have to repeat their morning commute reversed and arrive home as late as 10 PM. To make matters worse, certain forms of transport, like the metro and certain bus routes may feel less safe during later hours, especially for women traveling alone. These factors make it much less convenient for offcampus students to get involved in student life.

Nevertheless, the hours students wake up at and the hours they get home constitute only minor differences between residence and non-residence life. After all, some students may be morning people, for whom waking up early is not a challenge, regardless of how close they live to campus. One could additionally argue that students offcampus make up for the time they lose on public transportation by not having to do the same volume of chores such as cooking dinner or doing laundry, as they may still live with their parents. There is, however, an important distinction between the students living on and off of campus, the most important of which is the volume of social interaction one gets from living in a residence.

Indeed, dorm-life is filled with social interaction. Whether that be a positive factor or not often comes down to the sociability of individual students, but being in proximity to so many people of the same age definitely comes into play in how easy it is to make friends. After all, students living on campus have a wider range of social events they can attend, whether they are organized by the residence or independently by students. This greatly increases students’ chance of developing a sense of community, which may not always be the case for students who still live at home.

Most importantly, more social interaction means more chances to network. It may appear overly cynical to analyze social interaction solely based on its transactional value, but there are simply too many examples of successful business ventures, partnerships, and creative projects that have emerged as the result of a dorm friendship. Websites like Facebook and Napster were created to facilitate socializing and sharing music between students living on campus. Bands like MGMT and The Pixies were formed as a result of dorm-friendships. For students living in residence, this form of networking happens much more naturally, through communal living. This does not mean that students living off campus cannot network, but they may find themselves as easily immersed into McGill’s community in order to develop useful connections.

Furthermore, while McGill’s Quebec-residency tuition brings more class diversity to campus due to its low cost, in comparison to the international tuition, this class diversity becomes virtually obsolete when considering the demographics of residences, which mostly includes out-of-province and international students. While McGill as an institution may be open to class diversity, the university’s residence system still possesses the same flaws as other, less inclusive spaces. Networking, one of the most essential parts of the McGill experience, is ultimately facilitated for wealthier students who can afford to live in residences. While lower-class students may attend the same classes and go to the same events, they simply cannot compete, on a social level, with students who can afford to live on campus. The difference in experience between a student living at home and a student living in residence is therefore not simply a matter of how much time one can sleep and how close one is to campus; it is a socio-economic issue.

Living on campus indirectly advantages out-of-province and international students. Their increased ability to network and their constant social interaction in the residence community, allows for greater career and social opportunities. While this phenomenon is less prominent than in the United States where tuition costs even more, McGill’s student life is unfortunately not free of its own elitist bubbles.

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Decisions about tuition and immigration affect where students can afford to study and whether they can remain in Quebec after graduation, yet students in the province do not have equal electoral power over those decisions. Voting in provincial elections requires Canadian citizenship and at least six months of domicile in Quebec, among other conditions. Eligible students can support candidates whose proposals on tuition, university funding, and immigration reflect their needs. Those who cannot vote must navigate the resulting policies without having a ballot to influence who sets them.

For international students hoping to remain in Quebec after graduation, the parties offer different approaches to immigration. According to New Canadian Media’s campaign reporting, the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) proposes maintaining annual permanent immigration at 45,000 through 2029, while the Parti Québécois (PQ) proposes lowering that number to 35,000 and prioritizing students and skilled workers already in the province. Québec Solidaire (QS) proposes 70,000 permanent admissions annually and restoring the Programme de l’expérience québécoise (PEQ).

Beyond the parties’ admission targets, eligibility rules determine which graduates can apply to stay. The PEQ currently allows eligible international Quebec graduates and temporary foreign workers to apply for provincial selection for permanent immigration. Its current graduate intake, open until October 31, requires applicants to have obtained an eligible diploma by November 19, 2025, and to meet the program’s other conditions. Students beginning their degrees this fall therefore cannot treat the temporary reopening as a pathway secured for their own graduation.

The PQ’s proposed priority for students already here and QS’s promise to restore the PEQ deserve scrutiny on precisely this point: which students would qualify, under what conditions, and when? An overall admissions target does not answer those questions or guarantee an individual graduate permanent residence. Quebec selects applicants for skilled-worker immigration, while the federal government makes the final decision on permanent residence. Eligible student voters can weigh these competing proposals when choosing their representatives.

Provincial funding helps determine what resources are available for teaching, research,and student support. At McGill’s April 23 Board of Governors meeting, President Deep Saini reported that Quebec’s 2026-27 budget would increase funding for Quebec universities by 5.5 per cent. The board also approved a balanced budget for the 2027 fiscal year while projecting operating deficits of $33 million for the 2028 fiscal year, and a $55 million deficit for 2029.

The parties’ tuition proposals would also benefit different groups of students. According to The Concordian, Québec Solidaire proposes halving tuition for Quebec students during its first term while maintaining current rates for students from outside the province. The CAQ, meanwhile, has defended higher tuition for out-of- province students. A promise to make university more affordable therefore needs to be judged by which students it includes and which students would continue paying the same rates.

Language policy links university funding to another question: how can students from outside Quebec participate in the province’s public life? Under agreements announced in June, Quebec will provide up to $20 million annually across McGill, Concordia, and Bishop’s to support French learning. Beginning with the fall 2026 cohort, the agreements set an institutional target: 60 per cent of out-of-province students in eligible, in-person undergraduate programs should reach level 4 in spoken French on Quebec’s proficiency scale by graduation. Level 4 is the highest beginner level on the provincial scale and involves basic proficiency in everyday communication. If McGill or Concordia misses the target, Quebec can recover a portion of the funding provided, proportional to the shortfall. McGill should explain which French courses count toward degree requirements and provide accessible learning opportunities for students with limited room for electives. A target measured at graduation is only useful if students are given realistic opportunities to reach it.

Learning French can help students follow Quebec’s political debates and participate in them. That participation should include the freedom to question the immigration, tuition, and language policies affecting their lives. McGill’s efforts to encourage engagement with Quebec should therefore give all students, including those who cannot vote, opportunities to discuss and challenge those policies.

For students who cannot vote, participation can include asking questions at public discussions, contributing to student journalism by writing opinion pieces or sharing their own experiences, or working with community organizations. McGill and its student associations can support that participation through bilingual election information and discussions that welcome students with different levels of familiarity with Quebec politics. Students’ concerns should carry weight in university and public debate before October 5 and after the ballots are counted, whether or not they are eligible to vote.

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Firstly, women’s empowerment across the decades has shifted women’s position as mothers and caregivers to individual agents responsible for their own financial and professional wellbeing. First wave feminism granted (usually the most privileged) women the right to vote in the early 20th century. Women gained suffrage in 1918 in the UK and Canada, and 1920 in the US with the passage of the 19th amendment. Nonetheless, it wasn’t until 1960 when all women in Canada, including First Nations, Métis and Inuit women (no longer losing treaty rights in doing so), could vote, triggering a period of rapid social change in which women assumed political and professional roles outside the home. By the 1990s, women entering traditionally female fields such as teaching, nursing and clerical work declined in favour of higher qualified jobs, such as doctors, lawyers and professors. 1993 saw the appointment of Kim Campbell, Canada’s first female Prime Minister, and in 2001 the Government Canada officially recognized and sought to correct the gender pay gap. Hundreds of milestones have been reached in regards to women’s equality since. With more women in leadership roles than ever, it is no surprise that they are less inclined to sacrifice time, money, and potentially career advancement to raise a child.

In fact, media outlets have been quick to cover Alexandria Ocasia- Cortez’ decision to freeze her eggs in order to focus on her burgeoning political career. Freezing eggs and leaving potential motherhood for later on in life is becoming a popular option for women who want to explore their career goals and personal aspirations more fully before committing to having children.

A second factor inhibiting people from having children is a cost of living that seems to keep rising exponentially. As if raising a child was not already a financial burden on families, the US’ social welfare provisions make life even harder for working mothers. The US has no federally mandated paid parental leave policy, making it the richest country in the world not to offer it,. as well as one of seven countries in the world not to offer this policy. Although the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) provides (unpaid) leave, the criteria is strict — requiring a history of at least 12 months by a covered employer and 1,250 hours in the past year — leaving many ineligible to claim its benefits. Though 13 states as well as Washington DC have implemented paid parental leave programs, the rest of the country has far to go in this area.

Canada offers a maximum of 15 weeks maternity leave at a 55 per cent wage replacement rate, whilst Quebec runs its own plan (QPIP) allowing up to 18 weeks at a 70 per cent replacement rate. The most generous providers of maternity leave are the Nordic countries, with Sweden entitling parents to about 16 months of paid leave at 80 per cent of their salary. This includes at least 90 days of non-transferable leave, ensuring fathers are also able to take time off.

A third reason people are not having as many children as before is that child mortality has gone down considerably. This previous pattern of rapidly replacing children should also be considered when analysing a decline in contemporary birth figures.

As recently as the 1820s, approximately 1 in 2 children died before reaching the age of 15 as a result of unprecedented levels of poverty and disease. By 2020, child poverty had dropped to just 4.3 per cent . This is also a consequence of the long-term global shift from agrarian to industrial economies with a decreased reliance on child labour.

Given that more and more women are now choosing to live their lives childfree, the use of contraceptives has risen substantially to match this trend. In 2021, 874 million women used modern methods of contraception, such as female sterilization, condoms, implants and the pill. Birth control was historically an incredibly liberating tool for women, arriving in line with the second wave of the feminist movement and sexual revolution. As taboos against sexuality diminished and sex was distinguished from conception, women could better plan when or if they wanted children, givingthem bodily and existential autonomy.

But did we ever consider the long- term and short-term health implications of birth control? Nearly 70 years have passed since the first artificial contraceptives became available and even with hundreds of options on the market, nearly 1 in 4 women report “life-altering” side effects of birth control. The most common effects reported by women include weight changes, mood swings, migraines, and nausea. Women using birth control containing estrogen experienced more severe effects such as high bloodpressure and blood clots.

A study looking at online drug reviews for contraceptive products, such as progetin-only pills, extended- cycle pills and intrauterine devices, also found some women who took contraceptives struggled with painful acne, affecting their self- confidence, as well as mental health problems such as mood swings and depression. One review said “I’m in shock that a small pill could do this much damage.”

Young women around McGill campus reported mixed effects when asked about their experiences with birth control. Some women the progesterone-only pill experienced mood swings, lethargy and general hormone changes. Others taking the combined pill were satisfied with a reduction in acne and elimination of cramps but noted that they may be developing a “dependent” relationship with it, fearing the skin problems and period pains would return worse than before after getting off the pill. One woman, put on birth control to help with endometriosis, experienced a six-month period as a result of going on the pill.

And yet, women continue to take birth control because the price to pay for getting pregnant will always be higher than experiencing mild (or severe) side effects. This is not to say that all women are dissatisfied with birth control; in fact, a Drugwatch study found 49.62 per cent of women were very satisfied with their current method of birth control. It is, however, worth reflecting on the burden placed on women amid a growing pharmaceutical market that has not yet developed an effective male equivalent to the hundreds of female birth control options.

Many may say that it is biologically easier to develop birth control for women, or that there won’t be a market for male birth control. The few studies that have been done on male birth control have indicated successful results. One clinical trial used progestogen and testosterone injections to kill sperm in healthy adult men and observed a 98.5 per cent success rate, though adverse side effects such as acne and injection site pain were experienced and the trial was terminated early. Another study used a non-hormonal pill which was well tolerated by the men and had no adverse side effects. Though the research is still sparse, these studies suggest legitimate and effective male birth control is absolutely possible.

However, even if such an option were accessible, would women trust men to take such measures? Though one group is keen on the idea, saying “we already give birth,” other women on campus sway towards the negative, mentioning that men already disrespect the use of the condom and that they are not the ones that will experience the repercussions of pregnancy.

Nevertheless, the freedom of choice in determining if and how women take birth control is undoubtedly important in this day and age. For some, it has massively improved their quality of life, health, and reduced fears around pregnancy, whilst for others it has done the opposite. Above all, it is worth reflecting on this liberating invention from all its angles, acknowledging the potential of what modern day science might achieve for women and men globally.

The post Repercussions of Birth Control appeared first on The McGill Daily.

These differences in cost are continually shaped by provincial politics. In 2023, the Quebec government announced higher tuition requirements for out-of- province Canadian students at English-language universities such as McGill and Concordia, alongside new French-language measures. McGill and Concordia challenged some parts of these policies in court with the Quebec Superior Court delivering its verdict in April 2025. The court ruled the measures unreasonable, finding that the government had not provided sufficient evidence to justify the tuition increase and that the French-language target was nearly impossible to achieve. While the French-language requirement was struck down, Quebec revised its tuition policy and chose to maintain the higher fees in January 2026. The increased out-of-province rates remain in effect for the 2026- 2027 academic year. While students may attend the same university, take the same courses, and may even sit beside each other in the same lecture hall, their different hometowns means they’ll pay dramatically different fees for the same university experience. Tuition, however, is only the beginning of this problem.

The variation in cost of attending McGill as an out-of-province or international student
is also significant, particularly when it comes to the choice of living in residence for first year. At New Residence Hall, for example, a regular double room costs $1,575 a month per
student while a single room costs $1,800. Students also have to purchase a mandatory $6,150 meal plan alongside other residence fees.

Cheaper options exist, such as Solin Hall, where rooms start at $1,135 a month and students cook for themselves; however, they must commute to campus. Some first-years also choose to live off-campus, while local Quebec students who can stay with family may avoid housing costs altogether. For a first-year student already adjusting to university life, these costs can make life in Montreal feel very different from the affordable city they may have imagined.

The rental situation outside residence is more complicated. After years of increasing prices, Montreal’s rental market has begun to show some signs of cooling. Statistics Canada reported that the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment fell 5.2 per cent between the second quarters of 2025 and 2026. Still, this does not mean that housing has suddenly become affordable for students. Canada Mortgage Housing Corporation reported that rents rose 7.2 per cent in 2025 and that the city’s most affordable units remained particularly difficult to find. Students already working with limited budgets do not necessarily feel the effects of a cooling rental market following years of increasing housing costs.

McGill itself recommends Milton-Parc, downtown, and the Lower Plateau for students who want to stay close to campus, while pointing students looking to save money towards neighbourhoods such as Verdun, NDG, Hochelaga, Villeray and Parc-Extension. The latter set of options are farther away and are therefore cheaper at the cost of a longer commute.

The most obvious response to rising student expenses is often what I like to label as the “just get a job” choir. While people will often give this response to students facing financial troubles, the solution is not always as simple as it sounds. Montreal cut 21,000 jobs in August alone, while the city’s unemployment rate stood at 6.5 per cent. Although this was comparable to Toronto’s 6.7 per cent and Vancouver’s 6.5 per cent, the sharp monthly loss of employment points to a difficult job market for students who are looking for work. The unemployment rate for people aged 15 to 24 was 12.9 per cent, and among students planning to return to school it was 15.6 per cent nation- wide. For students who do not speak French, the search can be even more limited, 28 per cent of English- speaking adults in Quebec who had recently applied for a job or promotion felt they had been unsuccessful because of language-related reasons.

Working a part-time job during university can be a valuable experience for many students, yet there is a difference between choosing to work part-time for extra cash and depending on a job to afford the costs of university. These hours spent working to afford one’s studies are lost hours that could have been spent studying, participating in clubs, volunteering or simply resting. McGill does provide financial support to its students. Based on university data, McGill offered more than $6.2 million in entrance scholarships to over 2,000 students in its most recent admission cycle. It also distributed $6.3 million in need- based entrance bursaries to 550 incoming students with average bursary amounts increasing in accordance to tuition status. Even though these programs make university possible for students who might otherwise struggle to attend, the existence of financial aid does not erase the larger question of whether the cost of university itself has become increasingly difficult to manage.

Quebec is not unfamiliar with this question. In 2012, thousands of students wore red felt or fabric squares and marched in what became known as the Printemps Érable, or Maple Spring. The protest was mainly organized to oppose planned increases to university tuition as well as concerns surrounding student debt and access to education. The movement secured a key victory in September 2012, when Pauline Marois’ newly elected Parti Quebecois government cancelled the planned tuition increases, fulfilling a central demand of the student strike. Fourteen years later, tuition remains part of the affordability debate but has now grown more pertinent alongside issues such as rising rent, food security, employment, residence costs, and the disparity of costs across many demographics of students.

Montreal is still less expensive than many other major North American university cities. Both these things can be true, while still keeping the door open for debate regarding affordability for the city’s student population. For an international student paying substantially higher tuition, a student relying on part-time work, or someone trying to cover rent without family support, life in the same city, at the same university, can look completely different.

If Montreal wants to continue defining itself as a student city, affordability should mean more than simply being cheaper than somewhere else. It should also mean that the students can realistically and comfortably afford to live and study here.

The post Can Montreal Still Afford the title of Student City? appeared first on The McGill Daily.

On July 16, the 230-member blue collar workers’ union at Parc Jean-Drapeau voted unanimously in favour of increasing pressure tactics, such as a general strike, following unsuccessful negotiations with the City of Montreal over a new collective agreement. The union voted on this decision a little over two weeks before Osheaga: one of Canada’s largest music festivals, held annually at Parc Jean-Drapeau and one of the busiest weekends of the year for the park’s workers.

“The first thing that comes to mind when thinking about peak season at Jean- Drapeau is the huge number of people that attend the many events held on the island.” says Meera Pande, U3 cultural studies and political science student at McGill. Every summer, Jean-Drapeau receives hundreds of thousands of visitors for major events, with music festivals such as Piknic Électronik, Palomosa, and Osheaga being especially popular. “Osheaga has always been an all-ages event, but definitely has a specific draw to students looking to make the most of summertime in Montreal.” Ahead of these festivals, you’ll most likely see students reselling last-minute tickets on social media or student clubs and organizations offering discounted tickets for specific events. Students’ lives are vibrant in anticipation of the rush that comes from seeing their favourite artists with their closest friends.

The pre-festival frenzy, however, looks a little different through the lens of the Parc Jean Drapeau workers. The Parc Jean-Drapeau union has been working without a contract since December 2023, when their collective agreement expired. Correspondingly, the union has been in negotiation with the City of Montreal over a new collective agreement. The union is represented by the Canadian Union of Protected Employees (CUPE), Canada’s largest worker’s union. A statement released by the CUPE stated that the 230 workers at the park have not received a pay raise despite increased inflation.

In an interview with the Daily, Pierre- Guy Sylvestre, an economist, CUPE negotiator, and staff member, mentioned that the negotiation table includes a mix of grassroots organizers, union representatives and lawyers. He describes how the union has been mainly focused on reaching a new contract with a wage increase that adjusts for inflation as well as back pay for the past two-and-a-half years workers have operated since the previous contract expired. “Sometimes there are tough negotiations where even after two years or so, there’s no back time pay [included in the agreement]. This is especially in the private sector. But here with the local section, 301 Blue Collars, the back time’s always going to be respected.”

When asked about what exactly increased pressure tactics can look like, Sylvestre stated that, “Preparing for a strike is very hard, so there are other pressure tactics [unions can apply]. Let’s say we’re working with office staff. Just wearing a t-shirt can really offend bosses. …. The best agenda [would be to] go to meetings and meet your members. Some unions don’t go see those members because they have this rank and file, but it’s too much order. A union is a human relations group, you know? You have to go see the members, you have to talk with them. For me, this is one of the best weapons of any social movement, especially for unions.”

The potential strike may not make waves among incoming and returning McGill students as most of the major Parc Jean-Drapeau events of the summer have come to an end, and students’ focuses are most likely directed to preparing for the upcoming fall semester. Many major Montreal strikes typically seem to go under the radar for university students unless work stoppages directly impact their day-to- day lives, such as the Fall 2025 STM strikes, the 2024 McGill law professor strikes, or the 2025 AirCanada flight attendant strikes.

Despite many McGill students only living in the city temporarily, student life is not isolated from Montreal’s labour economy. A report by the Chamber of Commerce of Metropolitan Montreal found that in 2019–2020, over 173,000 students lived in Greater Montreal. The presence of students in the city was not only economically advantageous as a result of their spending, but also by promoting job creation. Hence, Montreal businesses have molded themselves to be as desirable to students as possible. In addition to the never-ending list of major events throughout Montreal, basic needs and extracurriculars often come at a lower price for students: museums and cinemas, transit fares, and even groceries are cheaper for students. There are hundreds of thousands of blue collar and service workers working day in and day out who make this city what it is. While apathy towards labour grievances is only disturbed once a strike shakes our routines, we students tend to forget that worker compliance is what allows us to enjoy what the city has to offer.

As of late, the union told CTV Montreal there is no strike plan. However, if and when one is announced, I urge McGill students to support the movement and stay informed in any way possible.

“We’re everywhere that’s going to [include] a social fight: equity for women and men, or any kind of discrimination against a group,” stressed Sylvestre. “Unions like CUPE and our allies, we ally together and we fight.”

The post The City’s Ours appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Paris is the world’s most popular travel destination and welcomes around 48 million people every
year. The economic benefits of tourism clash against the city’s efforts to conserve what they deem to be historical landmarks — including residential buildings — breeding tension among the city’s inhabitants. Along with other so- called “Eurosummer” destinations, Paris is slowly turning itself into an open air museum for the sake of its visitors — at the expense of its residents’ livelihood.

Like many other European cities, Paris is dealing with a housing crisis and has faced a steady population decline since 2012. Parisians are struggling to find decent affordable housing, which is in large part linked to the rise of short term home rental services like AirBnB. Landlords would much rather rent to tourists for short term stays than to residents all year round for less money. Unlike other destinations like Barcelona and Berlin, where home-sharing of single rooms is a common practice, 87 per cent of Paris’s short-term rentals are entire apartments, which otherwise could have been all-year round rentals.

Parisian architectural design poses an additional challenge for its residents, as the emblematic 19th- century Haussmannian buildings can be a pain to live in. As of 2024, zinc roofers’ craftsmanship on Parisian Haussmannian buildings has been added to the UNESCO cultural heritage list. Though very beautiful on the outside, those iconic zinc roofs do a deplorable job at regulating temperatures inside the home. This issue has been especially pressing in the past few years during the repeated heatwaves in Western Europe, with temperatures reaching 40°C this summer. Renters living on top floors of Haussmannian buildings have described “going crazy” in the heat with temperatures reaching 35°C inside, which can cause dehydration, heat exhaustion, or even heatstroke. Students are particularly an affected demographic as they often choose these lower-rent apartments. However, switching out the zinc roofs for a more sustainable alternative is out of the question, especially now that these designs have been listed by UNESCO.

The increase in short term rentals and the conservation of old landmarks feeds into the housing crisis which itself is a factor in the decline of population in the city. While this decline is partly due to the aging population, many Parisians end up moving out of the city to find affordable housing with more space. In terms of preserving residents’ quality of life, other touristic destinations such as Barcelona have elected their mayor on a promise to fight the housing crisis by revoking short-term rentals licenses, for instance. Paris has yet to take actions to protect residents against short-term rentals.

Furthermore, tourism often comes along with mass consumption, which can damage the social web of the city and accelerate gentrification. While high rates of tourism might stimulate economic growth and employment, it can create friction with the residents of these areas. In 2025, the city of Paris profited €24 billion from tourism, and 1 out of 10 jobs in Paris are now dependent on the tourism industry.

The tourist’s appetite for sightseeing takes shape as a “tourist gaze” that shifts urban planners’ focus away from residents and towards the marketability of the city. For instance, the city’s current focus is shifting towards a “luxury” clientele with higher purchasing power to maximize profits. As tourists come to a certain city, retail businesses shift around them. Neighbourhood services such as grocery stores, local markets, or even laundromats are being replaced by boutiques, high- end restaurants, and American-style coffee shops. “Authentic French restaurants” tend to pop up in neighbourhoods such as Montmartre, le Marais, or le Quartier Latin with English-only menus providing “typical French food” any tourist would expect to eat in France at an inflated price. Social media leads mass tourism to operate in a snowball effect, a viral video is enough to replace a shop’s local clientele with an interminable line of transients. In fact, the small local bakery my brother used to frequent has been deemed “the best bakery in Paris” on TikTok and now has a permanent waiting line. As the city is
slowly changing in order to appeal to its many visitors, how can it live up to the expectations of people traveling for an “authentic” experience?

The issues Paris faces are observed in any given city with an increasing reliance on tourism to drive their economy. Tourism grew exponentially from 25 million international tourists in 1950, to 1.3 billion in 2017, and that number is expected to go up to 1.8 billion in 2030. In many places like Paris, tourism is one of the main embodiments of unchecked capitalism. Tourist attractions today are consumed quickly, a moment captured in a photograph or a video, which is then posted on social media to join thousands of almost identical posts. People’s real, everyday lives become a piece of entertainment, a bullet point on someone’s bucket list, an “exotic” highlight on someone’s Instagram profile. Entire neighbourhoods’ livelihoods wither away, while the architecture of the city slowly but surely freezes itself in time.

The post My Midsummer’s Nightmare appeared first on The McGill Daily.

This syllabus week, it’s time for the environmental implications of artificial intelligence to take center stage.

It happens in every course. My history professor will gaze wearily at the class and heave a hefty sigh rife with apprehension before instructing us to turn to the last page of our syllabus. We scroll through the PDF on our laptops until we find the subheading “AI Policy,” the complexity of these eight letters concealed behind a sleek 12- point Times New Roman font underlined in black.

About four years ago, on November 30, 2022, OpenAI released an early demo of its generative artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, ChatGPT. Five days later, co-founder of OpenAI, Greg Brockman, claimed over one million people had used the technology.

In 2026, ChatGPT and AI usage feel ubiquitous. Journalists grapple with the implications of AI in op-eds, business owners eagerly implement the newest generative AI technology to maximize their profits, and tourists’ iPhones gleam with itineraries generated from a chatbot, restaurant and museum recommendations spilling out faster than they can say “ciao.”

In universities, educators confront a challenge different from anything they have seen before. AI is now a major focus when it comes to syllabus week, earning its own paragraph or even a full page.

Professors never cease to pause — sometimes for dramatic effect, sometimes out of apprehension, often begrudgingly — before raising the question of artificial intelligence use in their course.

The class discussion that follows is predictable. One student will wax lyrical about artificial intelligence short-circuiting the creative process; another will raise concerns over the misinformation that often spews from chatbots; a third will say that AI can never replicate the unique tone of a scholar who spent six months digging through archives instead of six minutes on ChatGPT. Conversations about misinformation and well-researched, human academic writing are all fine and well. In fact, they are very important. I, too, am deeply concerned about the implications of AI in academia, especially in creative disciplines that rely heavily on writing, like the humanities.

I don’t think we should stop having these kinds of discussions — about the moral implications of AI on creativity, originality, and academic rigour. But I am worried that AI’s impact on the environment is being entirely left out of classroom conversations.

In 2025, the MIT Technology Review published a comprehensive assessment of AI’s energy footprint, bluntly laying out the real environmental implications of the technology. The authors spoke to dozens of experts who measured AI’s energy and water usage and then analyzed their findings to reveal exactly how generative AI systems work.

For one, before a user can prompt ChatGPT to write a research paper or draft an email, AI models are trained in data centres. These centers are incredibly energy intensive, often requiring millions of gallons of water every day for cooling technology to prevent overheating. In 2023, data centres worldwide consumed 175 billion litres of water and training OpenAI’s GPT-4 model alone consumed about 50 gigawatt-hours of energy — the same amount needed to power San Francisco for three days.

By 2030, global data centres powering AI are projected to consume about 945 terawatt-hours of electricity, according to a United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment, and Health report published in June. That’s nearly three times the annual electricity use of Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nigeria combined.

While data centers guzzle enormous amounts of water and energy, about 90 per cent of AI’s power use comes from online everyday user requests, according to Miriam Aczel, co-author of the UN study and environmental policy researcher. AI operational requests (like prompting a chatbot to write a LinkedIn post) require substantial amounts of energy, estimated to take up to 10 times more energy than a Google search. While the exact amount of energy used varies based on the prompt, it is clear that the average chatbot query is not as harmless as one might think.

Artificial intelligence is anything but artificial in its very real, measurable environmental costs. Scientific researchers, journalists, and think tanks are spelling this out like flashing stoplights that are impossible to miss.

So why are we not talking about it in the classroom?

Why have we stopped thinking about our natural habitat when it comes to AI? Have we all gotten so swept up in the ethics of using artificial intelligence in the world of academia that we have forgotten about the natural world right in front of us?

It’s time to steer the discussion about AI away from the abstract and toward the concrete. This week, when your professor will inevitably ask your thoughts on artificial intelligence, consider raising your hand to join the discussion.

Your professor may be surprised. They may respond in earnest, or even use your comment as a launchpad for a larger conversation, asking the rest of the class what they think.

Yes, creativity, critical thinking and authenticity in academia matter. But so does the environment. It’s time to start acting like it.

The post The Environmental Cost of AI appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Every year, I fall for it: the sun sells me a fantasy, and I’m its number one customer. Summer always seems to promise a better body, a new love affair, a different personality, more spontaneity, more invitations, and the illusion that life will become cinematic. The season is never just about the weather. It is my annual opportunity to imagine becoming someone else. June feels like a dare; I start thinking I am the kind of woman who drinks wine at 4:00 p.m., and suddenly my closet is filled with clothes designed for a version of my life that does not exist. I’m spending money with the same carelessness that belongs to girls with family money and naturally good skin. By the second week of June, I start moving through the city with the sort of confidence that can only come from heat and self-deception.

Summer is cruel because it publicizes the body. It strips away its protective layers, physically and socially, and every year I feel the same little panic begin to hum under my skin. As the weather warms, the questions arrive right on schedule: Is my summer body ready? Have I somehow failed the season before it has properly begun? This is where summer begins to feel punitive. Bare skin is sold to us as freedom by an entire culture obsessed with women looking beautiful in heat, when in reality it often feels like surveillance in better lighting. The higher the temperature climbs, the stronger the pressure to look effortless, bronzed, toned, and flirtatious. The more relentless the heat becomes, the more absurdly aware I am of everything: my legs, my stomach, the shine of sweat, the smudge of my makeup, the betrayals of hair in humidity. Summer afternoons gleam in a way that feels almost taunting. They make you more visible yet less secure at the same time. That is the tragedy of the season: it asks women to look relaxed at the precise moment they are most exposed. It is hard not to compare yourself in a city full of girls who look as if they were invented by July, girls who seem to have emerged fully formed from sunlight, while the rest of us are left trying to pass off self-consciousness as a kind of glow. As if enough bronzer, enough confidence, and enough pretending might turn discomfort into beauty. 

In the same fashion, summer’s pleasures are never really free, no matter how naturally they try to present themselves. Patios, vacations, beach weekends, cottages, festivals — all of it is made to look casual by the sort of people who can afford for leisure to seem unplanned. But who gets to disappear for August? Who is serving drinks to the people participating in the summer? There is something especially bleak about being broke in a season organized around pleasure, having to work while everyone else performs freedom online. This is my real grievance with the fantasy of summer we are annually being sold: it pretends to be democratic because the sun shines on everyone equally, but the good version belongs mostly to people with money, time, and somewhere nicer to be. 

Another cruelty of summer is men, desire, and the stupidity that arrives with the heat. Summer makes us behave as if desire is a simple matter. Who, after all, does not enjoy the idea of a little low-commitment seasonal flirtation? But the hotter the days get, the bolder and less interesting men seem to become. Summer gives them the confidence of people who mistake being outside for having a personality. Suddenly, every man with a drink on a terrace thinks he has become charming, when really he has just become visible. Still, there is something tempting about the performance. Summer romance is a genre people insist on reenacting, no matter how often it ends badly. As the days grow longer, so does the annual hope that this time I will have fun and not end up humiliated. I have come to believe that, collectively, we confuse heat with excitement, boredom with spontaneity, and loneliness with chemistry. Summer flatters desire by making it feel ambient and easy, when in reality, that atmosphere often hides how unstable and disappointing romantic attention can be. Summer is very kind to mediocre men. It gives them a little shimmer, and they almost always confuse it for substance. I say this without judgment, because I am hardly innocent myself. I know exactly what can happen when the night is warm, the light is flattering, and your standards begin dissolving as quietly as the ice in your drink.

Underneath all the brightness, summer can be profoundly lonely, perhaps because it is the season most aggressively associated with sociability, romance, and fun. And while I would never be gauche enough to admit to something as vulgar-sounding as the Fear of Missing Out, I do find it difficult not to feel that everyone else is out enjoying the leisure that is promised with the season. Summer creates a peculiar pressure not only to avoid empty weekends but to be seen having a good time. There is a quiet shame in staying in on a beautiful night and an even quieter fear of wasting the season altogether. There is shame, too, in not being transformed by it, in remaining stubbornly yourself while everyone else seems to have been improved by absorbing ample sunlight. Summer creates a special kind of sadness: not just unhappiness, but the humiliating sense that you are failing at pleasure. In winter, sadness at least feels seasonally appropriate. In summer, it feels impolite. Have you ever felt the strange violence of a beautiful day that does absolutely nothing for you, as if even the light has joined in to make you feel inadequate?

If summer disappoints so reliably, why does it remain so seductive? Because people need a season for projection. Summer offers a socially sanctioned period for hope, fantasy, erotic possibility, and the delicious idea that life could still become more beautiful. Its optimism is cruel, yes, but also strangely necessary. People want a time of year that seems to forgive ordinary life, to suspend its drearier facts for a few golden hours at a time. The point is not that the fantasy is false. The point is that we know it is false and still dress for it anyway. We buy the outfit, answer the text, stay out too late, and let the light persuade us one more time. I find myself on another hot evening in another summer dress, standing on another city sidewalk, with the air itself persuading me to smoke another cigarette. As I light it, I think: summer may be a lie, but it is the kind of lie that keeps people alive. Its cruelty is not that it fails to be pleasurable, but that it teaches people to mistake pleasure for transformation, visibility for freedom, and temporary brightness for a changed life. Summer is when everybody starts confusing good lighting with personal destiny. That, perhaps, is its real genius: not that it transforms us, but that it makes us briefly willing to believe we could be transformed. By August, I usually know better. By next June, I am once again willing to ruin my life for a sleeveless dress, a warm night, and a little golden light.

The post The Cruel Optimism of Summer appeared first on The McGill Daily.

On February 28, the US and Israel launched a join airstrike attack on Iran, killing many high-ranking government officials including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iran quickly retaliated in a series of missile and drone strikes against Israel and US allies in the region. The war has since turned into a chaotic global conflict; political leaders stand divided, the energy market has stalled, the Gulf states suffer damage from the unprecedented attack, and Trump speaks exclusively in contradictory terms about his next move.

Meanwhile, the Iranian government maintains a near- total internet blackout throughout the country, which renders it difficult to determine how the war is affecting Iranians on the inside of the conflict. The Daily was able to get in contact with a factory manager in Iran, to recount his experiences and share his thoughts from the first week of the conflict.

“[On the morning of Monday March 2], a very, very loud sound – caused by a bomb or missile – jolted me out of bed, waking me up,” he writes. “I froze, and did not immediately go to check on the factory until about 15 minutes later. In the factory, about 80 per cent of the windows facing the explosion were broken…The factory yard was full of bomb or missile fragments, full of large metal pieces, full of various parts including vision cameras, full of crushed rubble…broken glass covered my desk.”

“I think if [the explosion] had happened during working hours, we would have had at least 10-20 people injured…the distance between the explosion and our factory was about 100 meters.”

In the following week, Saeed cancelled work for his employees, although he went to the factory every day.

“Every day and night – at 10 p.m. or 3 a.m. or 8 a.m. etc., generally at different times – I heard a sound like an airplane or a missile. With my previous knowledge, I tried to take shelter quickly, so that if something happened, I wouldn’t get hurt. It sounded about two to four times every day.”

Once work resumed for Saeed’s employees, the sentiment amid the factory was one of unrest and paranoia. “There was worry in their eyes. A few of them had turned their feelings of worry into anger or chaos. Inadvertently, their words disturbed their coworkers and caused them to grow anxious as well. Seeing the state of the situation, I decided to call off work until further notice and send everyone home.”

“Some people decided to stay, to help clean up the rubble…at 9 a.m. we started replacing the broken windows. At noon, there was another explosion and the windows broke again.”

Such destruction and paranoia is characteristic of war. As the conflict drags on, Iranians – both within the country and in the diaspora – become increasingly disillusioned with the foreign powers who came to their “aid.” Hope dwindles for regime change and improved conditions once the war is over.

On the other hand, the majority of Iranians express discontent with the current regime, and have grown desperate for an alternative. “The ordinary people have lived without any peace or prosperity for 47 years. They are tired; they are unhappy,” Saeed tells us. “But they have found that whenever they protest, they face severe crackdowns and bloodshed, while the government remains untouched. I think more than 85 per cent of the people are against the government.”

Time and time again, mass protests against the regime have been met with violent retaliation. The most recent wave of protests in January and February of this year have been recorded as the deadliest wave of crackdowns in Iran’s modern history, with many estimates of fatalities exceeding 30,000.

This is why the assassination of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on February 28 had such a profound effect on Iranians: after decades of protests that rendered thousands dead while harbouring no real change, hope is in scarce supply. The sudden death of the regime’s most important figurehead gives a despairing population a tangible source of hope to latch on to. The overwhelming sentiment seemed to be that Khamenei’s death had freed the people of Iran, and put a definitive end to their suffering.

However, liberation did not immediately follow Khamenei’s death. In fact, what Iran saw instead of democracy was its antithesis: Ali Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, was appointed by Iran’s Assembly of Experts as his replacement; and the Islamic regime, although weakened, remains in power.

Weakened in terms of state apparatus, but not in spirit; since the beginning of “Operation Epic Fury,” the Iranian government has doubled down on its repressive measures and intimidation tactics. On state television, one presenter threatened that “every single” dissident will be pursued, and they will “make [their] mothers mourn.” The chief of police claimed that anyone who takes to the streets against the regime “[will not be seen] as a protester or something else; we will see them as the enemy and do with them what we do with the enemy.” Some Iranians profess that, in spite of the current airstrikes, they are still more afraid of their own government than outside forces.

Their fear is not unfounded; the Islamic regime has routinely imprisoned, tortured, and killed those who it deems a threat to its hegemony. Systemic violence is intrinsic to the government’s state apparatus.

It is true that the US-Israeli attack is an illegal one, and the continual erosion of international law is deeply concerning. It is also true that American intervention in the Middle East, such as the “war on terror” in Afghanistan and the 2003 Iraqi invasion, has an egregious track record. The US’ meddling has often resulted in lengthy, drawn-out conflicts that destabilize governments and devastate local populations. However, the present alternative for Iran – complete withdrawal of US and Israeli forces from the region, leaving the people’s fate in the hands of the Islamic regime – isn’t awfully alluring either. It is likely that as soon as foreign attacks cease to be a threat, the Iranian government will carry out mass imprisonments and executions of its internal “enemies.”

One option touted enthusiastically by the diaspora is the return of the exiled crowned prince, Reza Pahlavi. Although Pahlavi has a sizeable support base in the Iranian diaspora, and perhaps has some backing in Iran, his competency for the role is questionable. Saeed has his reservations regarding the exiled prince: “A person who has only talked and lived in luxury for 47 years wouldn’t be willing to come to Iran even if they give him the country with both hands. In my opinion, the percentage of people’s desire for Reza Pahlavi…is not even between 5 and 15 per cent.”

In Saeed’s view, Reza Pahlavi is a troublesome candidate; “Having a father as the Shah is not proof of sensibility and wisdom. If your father was wise and sensible, the events of 1979 would not have taken place. [The Shah] also had in his mind a great delusion, and wanted not only Iran, but the entire world under his feet; a delusional dream of power and global domination. Like Mohammad Reza Shah, [Reza Pahlavi] is our Trump who wants to rule the world.”

When the most viable “democratic” alternative Iran sees for itself is a relic of an archaic autocratic dynasty, it is clear that Iran is not dealt a fair hand when it comes to democracy. Grievances and suffering have compounded over decades of living under oppressive rule, resulting in progressively lower expectations and standards for change. Even when people continue fighting for a “democratic” alternative, what they come to accept as “democracy” becomes more lenient.

What results is a nation in which war sparks celebration, and the most viable form of democracy is the return of monarchy. After 47 years of violence and bloodshed, war is peace and freedom is slavery.

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One moment, an influencer is showing their skincare routine on TikTok.

The next, you are watching footage of bombings in Gaza.

This is the strange paradoxical rhythm of social media. Images of war, famine, and political violence appear alongside memes, fashion content, and pop culture gossip. Tragedy and entertainment converge into the same continuous stream of content.

For many people, especially students who receive most of their news through platforms like TikTok, Instagram, or X, the juxtaposition of global tragedy and everyday entertainment creates a kind of emotional whiplash. We move instantly from witnessing human suffering to something else entirely, without the time to process what we have just seen. In previous generations, exposure to global tragedy was slower and more mediated. Encountering global tragedy often requires dedicated time and attention—whether through reading a full article or watching a news segment — because understanding and emotionally processing such events cannot happen instantaneously. Social media breaks this experience into fragments: war footage appears between vacation photos and makeup tutorials, exposing users to global suffering in brief moments, squeezed between other content competing for attention. The infinite scroll collapses the distance between the catastrophic and the mundane.

This constant exposure to suffering can be psychologically exhausting. Seeing repeated images of violence, starvation, or destruction, even from afar, can create feelings of anxiety, helplessness, or emotional fatigue. Some psychologists refer to this as secondary or vicarious trauma: the emotional toll of witnessing suffering indirectly through media.

However, social media introduces an additional layer to this experience. The problem is not only that we see these images but rather how we see them. Online feeds offer no pause, no transition, and no context. The emotional system is forced to switch rapidly between empathy, shock, amusement, and indifference.

Over time, this can create a dangerous form of desensitization. When atrocity appears constantly in the feed, it risks becoming just another form of content. The brain begins to protect itself by dulling its response. The images are still disturbing, but they begin to blur together. What once felt shocking starts to feel like the norm.

There is also an emotional tension many users experience: the discomfort of scrolling past suffering. A video shows a starving child, a destroyed city, or grieving families. We watch for a few seconds, perhaps feel a surge of sadness or anger, and then we move on. Then, another post appears. Another video. Another distraction. Features like infinite scroll and algorithmically curated feeds encourage us to continue scrolling, even when what we have seen deserves attention and reflection.

This dynamic raises an unsettling question: are we truly empathizing with suffering, or simply observing it?

Critic Susan Sontag once wrote in her book, Regarding the Pain of Others, about how images of war can transform violence into spectacle. When suffering is repeatedly photographed and circulated, it risks becoming something viewers observe rather than something they meaningfully engage with. Social media intensifies this problem. The platforms that deliver these images are designed to maximize engagement and attention, not reflection.

None of this means people should ignore global events or stop paying attention to injustice. The circulation of images from conflict zones has also played an important role in raising awareness and documenting human rights violations. Many of the world’s most urgent stories now reach global audiences precisely because ordinary people share them online.

Nonetheless, it is worth questioning how the structure of social media feeds and shapes our emotional relationship to these events. When tragedy appears alongside entertainment, when catastrophe becomes part of the same endless scroll as memes and lifestyle content, our sense of empathy becomes harder to sustain.

We are more informed than ever before. Yet at the same time, we are often overwhelmed, exhausted, and unsure how to respond.

The problem is not that we see the world’s suffering. The problem is that the platforms through which we see it rarely allow us the space to feel it.

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Every year, March 8 serves as a benchmark to gauge the causes that women are fighting for, a moment to reflect on the progress of last year’s concerns, and on the wave of new ones that have since emerged. This year, indignation towards legislative amendments in the province dominated demonstrations in Montreal and Quebec City, with thousands of participants protesting recent changes including threats to religious freedoms, reductions in women’s access to healthcare services, and narrow immigration policies.

A notable point of contention is the government’s ongoing pursuit of secularism. While in 2019, Bill 21 initially banned public service workers, like teachers, from wearing religious symbols in the workplace, last October, Bill 94 went a step further, prohibiting school staff, volunteers, and students from doing the same. According to CBC, the Quebec government intends to “defend equality between men and women,” though the bill can often carry out the opposite effect. Dolores Chew, a member of Women of Diverse Origins, the group who organized the march, explained that “women who wear hijabs are going to lose employment, making them economically dependent.” Thus, instead of reversing the effect of patriarchal power dynamics, measures like these reinforce them. The consequences of Bill 94, which encourages women to choose between faith and involvement in civil society, are already evident. In January, the Riverside Elementary School in Montreal banned Sabaah Khan, a mother who had volunteered at the library for 8 years, for wearing a hijab due to its compliance with Bill 94. Furthermore, the new secular proposal of Bill 9 expands the current restrictions on religious attire to subsidized daycares and private schools, in addition to banning prayer spaces and religious foods in public institutions.

Another central issue among protesters is women’s access to healthcare. Funding and staff shortages have led to the temporary closure of obstetrics clinics across the province. In the last few months, several women have had to travel hours to give birth due to a lack of professionals or clinics near them, particularly in the Gaspésie region in eastern Quebec. As reported by CBC, a member of the Parti Quebecois and a health critic, Joël Arseneau, denounced the government’s idleness, which treats women in the Gaspé like “second class citizens.” Those without access to public health insurance face even more obstacles, since the community groups that are meant to help them also face severe funding drawbacks from the provincial government. Moreover, intimate partner violence reports in Quebec tripled from 2015 to 2024. The rise in reports throughout the decade might not only reflect the quantity of cases, but also an increase in women reporting violence to the police. In the first three weeks of 2026, at least four men killed women in a context of intimate partner violence in Quebec. Additionally, women’s shelters are in demand now more than ever, with the housing crisis and limited access to the appropriate resources women need to leave dangerous situations.

Furthermore, the stricter immigration policies in the last few years have created an especially precarious environment for female immigrants. Filipino protester Deann Nardo, from Migrante Quebec, claims women of colour who immigrate to Quebec are more vulnerable to “exploitation and abuse,” both at home and in the workplace. These women are more than 20 per cent more likely than men to arrive in Canada with spousal status. They are put in precarious situations where the right of many immigrant women to remain in the country depends on their partner’s employment. This systemic economic dependence binds them to their partners resulting in not only a lack of self- sufficiency, but also a difficulty in leaving a patriarchal household. While open work permits were a gateway into finding employment, now, with greater restrictions on the eligibility of spouses and dependents, financial autonomy for immigrant women seems even further away.

The provincial instability mirrors a broader concern. On a global scale, the ascension of the far-right threatens the security of women’s rights. “There’s a rise in anti- feminist discourse,” says Anne- Valérie Lemieux-Breton, the coordinator of the social services group Regroupement des Groupes de Femmes de la Capitale- Nationale. Québec Solidaire (QS) leader Ruba Ghazal highlights how hateful comments online targeting female public figures discourage many women from continuing to share their views online. She partly attributes targeted online harassment to “a rise in misogynistic and masculinist discourse, even in schools.” Montreal-based author, India Desjardins, shared a recent comment in which she was targeted on one of her posts: “You’re a crazy bitch. Go get help.” Ghazal defends the importance of not trivializing such violence, as well as the need for a service that addresses the issue and helps victims feel safer. The QS leader claims “There is a lot of work to be done to educate and raise awareness among the population.”

International Women’s Month is here not just as an opportunity to celebrate all that women have conquered over centuries of oppression. It’s a reminder that systemic barriers against equality perpetually rig the game, and that women of colour constantly find themselves in a lose-lose. In this political climate, women like protester, Mathilde Leduc, are fearful that “the rights that we had will disappear over time.” Though standing tall March after March is a tiresome battle, we’re still standing, as resistance is imperative so that no woman is left behind.

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If you’ve ever taken a high school language class, you’ve maybe encountered a form of close reading dissecting the many devices used in literature. Does the author use formal or colloquial language? What motifs are used in the text? How do form and content work together?

You aren’t asked these questions because you’re expected to pursue a career in literature. You aren’t asked to do most assignments, like write an essay, for example, because you’re expected to make a breakthrough on problems exhaustively studied by experts. Writing helps develop your own analytical voice. Understanding how to methodically work through a question is a muscle that needs to be constantly trained.

Yet in light of the rising critiques of the bias, disproportionate representations, and scarce job prospects seen in traditional journalism, masses have, as a response, begun to rediscover this form of textual analysis to make sense of our current social and political sphere. Old and new writers have found a home on Substack, where they can freely express their opinions without the constraints of an editor at their back. Many of us, disillusioned with major news outlets, have discovered newsletters covering marginalized voices and underrepresented stories. So while the “oversaturation” of writing platforms like Substack or Medium has exposed smaller communities to a newer, wider audience, I like to think that the abundance of people wielding their intellectual freedom outside of a formal classroom has the potential to create accessible spaces where knowledge, curiosity, and creativity can openly thrive… So why doesn’t it?

The resurgence of blogging in the last few years has naturally led to a mass migration of social media users to essay-format platforms. This past year, Substack amassed over 2 million new paid subscribers and currently has a total of over 20 million subscribers. To sustain this upward trajectory, and perhaps prevent shortened attention spans from pivoting elsewhere after experiencing the writer’s high, Substack introduced new features to keep its newfound audience seated. The On Substack publication run by the platform’s management team credits the addition of notes (basically tweets) as one of the drivers of Substack’s significant growth. Instead of merely publishing articles, users can now also put out status updates on subjects ranging from midnight musings to quotes from other publications. Notes provide a simple way to share one’s thoughts on any subject matter and receive engagement without the added task of research, drafting, or editing. Following their introduction, these short, sharp, and often morally superior attacks on current culture have begun to dominate the app’s discovery pages. Occasionally, these notes will be extracted from a longer essay expanding on the same point. Often, this longer essay will just be one out of the thousands on the app that advances the same general takeaway, which leads me to my second problem.

I am by no means a stickler when it comes to what people write about on their page. I also would not expect every newsletter I read to make transgressive breakthroughs, as I don’t have those expectations for myself. However, I do object to claims overstating the recent strides cultural commentary has made this past year in developing spaces for progressive discussion.

I won’t deny the fact that Substack has achieved some significant strides in reviving many people’s love of writing. Substack has additionally exposed me and so many others to great ideas while allowing writers to monetize their content and make a living doing what they love. But the excitement of reading articles on the app began to subside once I realized that I was reading the same conclusions reached in the same manner. Think essays on performative femininity, parasocial relationships with media figures, the correlation between trend cycles and consumerism, etc. None of these topics are inherently flawed, and I’m sure there are interesting points to be made about each. Yet when cultural commentary writers are pigeonholed into social media analysis and fail to apply any historical research into the topics covered, you begin to ask yourself, does this observation aim to reveal pitfalls in modern-day society, or are these just repeating trend cycles and masquerading it as commentary? I don’t believe the recent growth of users is exactly to blame for the redundancy I’ve seen on Substack. As previously mentioned, the newcomers led to more frequent updates undertaken by Substack’s team, such as trending pages, direct messages, and newsletter rankings to secure the app’s growing popularity. Substack became a viable competitor to other social platforms, but instead of upholding what made it so unique, Substack caved into the algorithmic and fast-paced rhythm seen on TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter. While they were intended to maintain the stamina of Substack’s growth, these developments simultaneously fostered an environment where quantity has triumphed over quality, and devoid, sweeping, almost superficial aphorisms have replaced curiosity. Substack, like most other social platforms, was ultimately plagued by the internet flu, or in other words, the online philosophers’ problem of the week, quickly exhausted once the same point was recycled over and over again.

Besides my basic frustrations over the repetitive content seen on the app, the trend cycles piercing platforms centering art, politics, and all other forms of analytical writing do reveal some worrisome consequences. In the act of reiterating what’s already been said on the news, online, and in our circles, we weaken the muscle of writing to the point of paralysis – a point where eventually, all we can critically consider with a careful eye is what’s familiar. We step into the process of writing an essay with a set conclusion, and consequently no curiosity. Capitalism or anti-intellectualism become the foundation of the piece, a base that we build our analysis atop of, rather than being the end conclusion reached after research and investigation. Consequently, when the focal point of such analysis presents itself, with its many faces in the real world, there is little independent written about the matter. Capitalism and its consequences are only examined when discussing low-quality clothing from SHEIN and the death of personal style, rather than the devaluation of local textile markets in African countries for cheaper Chinese goods (which are typically produced in horrific working conditions). Anti-intellectualism is reduced to American college students’ inability to finish a novel, and the global cuts to education and research are seldom considered. We distance ourselves from the topics we aren’t informed enough on to make an opinion on, and in the end, writing and the skills acquired through that process are no longer transferable.

When considering what I personally would like to see in independent journalistic writing, I often fall back on Toni Morrison’s advice to young writers. Morrison, who despite mostly receiving accolades for her writing, was also a skilled editor at Random House. She also often provided young writers with a plenitude of advice. In a 2013 interview with the New York Public Library she said, “You don’t know nothing. So do not write what you know. Think up something else.” Morrison explained how she would usually say this to the creative writing students she taught, and I know the kind of online newsletters that fancy themselves in cultural criticism don’t necessarily concern themselves with creative non- fiction. Still, I do think there is some benefit in going into a writing project with a basic idea in mind and a strong motivation to gain more knowledge because naturally, the more you learn about a subject the more your opinion will change. The cycle of “trending discourse” that has afflicted many bloggers today reveals a larger issue with the way opinion writing is treated today. When we run with the idea that one must develop a clear thesis and layout before undertaking the drafting process, an idea that has been drilled into the minds of young writers and academics for as long as anyone cares to remember, we kill the potential of so many possibly insightful projects. Deciding that our own limited, probably one dimensional, perspective is the most important perspective will drive us to solely seek information that supports our main argument, or engaging with those that challenge it in a superficial manner.

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