During my freshman year, I joined Building Ourselves through Sisterhood and Service, a peer mentoring program for womxn of color on campus. Every year B.O.S.S. assigns upper-level mentors to first-year and sophomore womxn on campus. It is very much a get-as-much-as-you-put-in sort of organization. They provide brunches, movie nights and service opportunities for mentor-mentee pairs to bond, but still encourage them to get to know each other beyond scheduled events.
Last week, I visited my best friend who just began her new young-adult-post-Cornell life. We’ve been friends for almost four years, and I’ve never seen her as happy as she was last weekend. She and the other friends I had spent months stressed out about their post-Cornell careers, and they are all really settling into their new lives. I remember just a few months ago when they too were scrambling to find jobs, get fellowships and apply to graduate schools.
“My name is Anuli Ononye, I’m a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences and I am running to be your next S.A. president…”
I apologize to anyone who heard my Student Assembly president spiel more than once in the past few weeks. At this point, I have the five minute speech so deeply ingrained in my head that I can say it in my sleep.
To preface this article, I am writing this at 3 p.m. on Saturday, May 8 and I have no idea who “your next S.A. president” will be. Regardless of the election results, I can say that running for S.A. president has been the most rewarding, challenging and meaningful experience of my Cornell career. Whether you’re thinking about making your S.A. debut next election season, you can’t stand the S.A. and need one more reason to love-to-hate us, or you’re just curious about campaigning, here are my biggest takeaways from the last month:
Start With Your Platform
The best advice that I received throughout this entire campaign was to “articulate why I wanted to be S.A. president without lying to myself.” Although this seems like the bare minimum, it’s actually a harder ask than you’d think. It’s deciding why you want to spend hours a week in S.A. meetings, your summer vacation talking with administrators and the rest of your time here opening yourself up to the entire campus community.
Last week I hosted a dorm event in Flora Rose House about romantic comedies titled “Can ‘Chick Flicks’ be Feminist?” As an Undergraduate Resident Fellow, I usually tailor my semester events to conversations about gender justice and equity. Romantic comedies are my favorite movie genre and I was interested to see what other residents thought about the idea. We had a great discussion ranging from whether the term “chick flick” is misogynist to tropes in the genre that promote fatphobia, racism and homophobia.
Romantic comedies are (more often than not) a place to get strong and independent female fictional protagonists. Elle Woods (Legally Blonde) is a strong advocate for her friends, a harassment survivor and a powerful attorney. Andy Sachs (The Devil Wears Prada) abandons a life of fashion glamour to pursue a career in journalism.
I went to the Ithaca Farmers Market for the first time this week. I’m a junior. The farmers market is 1.3 miles from our campus — I know because I just looked it up ‚ and in three years I never had “the time” to go. Spoiler alert: I loved the market. My friends and I dressed up in cute farmers market clothes, ordered iced coffees and banana bread, and sat out on the dock watching Ithaca College’s rowing team do drills.
Last week, I thought I saw one of my good friends in Zeus. By good, I mean actually good. We were in the same new member class for our law fraternity, we currently sit on an E-board together and he’s a great mentor to my younger brother. But, I ended up waving at a stranger whose confused face confirmed that he was not my friend, which prompted me to scramble into a seat hoping that no one around me saw the awkward interaction. I proceeded to text my friend to tell him about the horrific moment.
Confusing a stranger with my good friend is just another example of the awkwardness that is masked interactions.
I am writing this column on March 13, 2021, which marks the one year anniversary since President Martha Pollack’s infamous email. The content of that email sent us home for the remainder of the Spring 2020 semester and was my first real introduction to the severity of the pandemic. After her email was sent out around 1:30 p.m. on March 13, 2020, I packed up my life in Ithaca and got on a flight to Southern California less than 17 hours later. Looking back, I had no idea what we were in for. I can shamefully admit that I was even a bit excited for an extended spring break.
I know this is a week early, but considering that my column is titled Womansplaining, there is no way that I’d pass up on a chance to write a column about International Women’s Day ––and more broadly, Women’s History Month. This year’s United Nations’ theme for International Women’s Day is “Women in Leadership: Achieving an Equal Future in a COVID-19 World.” That is a long (and very important!) title, emphasizing the importance of elevating women into leadership positions amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. There is obviously no perfect feminist (contrary to my Instagram bio where I self proclaim myself the “professional feminist”) and no right way to advocate for women or gender justice. However, if you’re thinking about ways to be a gender advocate on campus this month, here are eight ways to be a “better” Cornell feminist.
Take a class in feminist, gender and sexuality studies.
If you’ve met me at any point in the last three years, you probably know my mantra: “Every person should have to take a feminist, gender and sexuality studies course on campus before they graduate.” Throughout my FGSS career, I have studied Beyonce’s impact on feminism, marital rape laws, the Disney princesses, Nigerian feminist poets, Greek life on college campuses and influencer culture. Every aspect of your life, past or present, has to do with gender.
I never experienced a snow day until I came to Cornell, which puts me at a whopping two days. For many Northeastern students, those two days are less than they typically expected in one year of elementary school. On top of that, I have (to my utter embarrassment) spent both of those snow days studying.
My lack of understanding and participation in “snow day festivities” probably makes me both the best and worst person to write an op-ed urging administrators to keep snow days regardless of Cornell’s COVID-adapted online teaching modalities. My first snow day was the Monday after Thanksgiving, my sophomore year. Having arrived back on that Sunday, I used it as a catch up day on all the work that I had “accidentally chosen” not to do while at home in Southern California.
