Thoughts

the sexualization of women weight lifters bothers me. It also kind of bothers me that I can't quite articulate why it bothers me. So here I am trying to articulate for you, but mostly for myself, why it bothers me. To start, I think there are some endearing things about man friends on my Facebook posting sexualized photos of weightlifting women. It might sound strange but I'm not being disingenuous. I think it's a way of saying I think women who are strong and powerful are sexy. And I think there is something really nice about that sentiment. It's a way of going against masculine norms (while unfortunately still following them) and saying these women don't intimidate me, they arouse me. <--strange, but that's what it's saying. So why does this bother me then. What bothers me is the types of videos they choose to post. It bothers me when women have huge fake breasts in these videos. It bothers me when they are wearing booty shorts or tight lace...

What We Build On It was a brisk October day. My breath hung in the air. Tourists huddled around me with their hands wedged tightly in their coat pockets, and they breathed into the cold with pursed lips. We stood there, feet grounded on the marble bricks outside the Historical Society. Our tour leader greeted us. Frosty air rippled out in smoky chains from her mouth as she spoke. “Shall we begin?” she asked. We smiled, mumbling our agreements, and began our historical tour of Bascom. Bascom Hall, and the Hill it sits on, has represented the regality of the University of Wisconsin campus since its construction in 1857 [1] , but many forget about the history beneath the hill. This is a story of the silent, the overlooked—the invisible. This is a story of soil. This is a story of what we build on We made our strides in long lunges as we hoisted our bodies up Bascom Hill. This was a story my legs understood. This was a story of great energy. Roughly 18,000 years ago, the University o...