Sexual assault is no easy topic of discussion, let alone a joke. So why is rape such a popular punchline? Is there a way for it to be respectfully incorporated into a stand-up routine? Are “rape jokes” something that comics should be allowed to make? These are some of the issues that Cameron Esposito tackles in her stand-up special “Rape Joke” from 2018.

There are many vessels for expression that help survivors deal with their experiences, but Esposito takes on a pretty blunt approach. Throughout her special, she shares her own experience as a survivor against other topics of female sexuality, lesbianism and her own conservative, Catholic upbringing.

Why make rape jokes at all? “They are just a part of our culture,” says Esposito, but is that a justifiable excuse? She explains that modern society has belittled the voices of survivors, making conventional discussion very one-sided towards the perpetrators. Why not actually discuss the lack of consent, the fear and the actual elements of rape when making a rape joke?

Well, of course, then it is suddenly not funny. Rape culture feeds off toxic masculinity and the inability to properly talk about sex and consent, says Esposito.

Growing up, no one ever explained any of these vital topics to her, a byproduct of her extreme Catholic upbringing that ultimately led her to confuse assault with normalcy. However, as Esposito explored her sexuality as well as the limits and extents of consent in her world, the complete disregard for her own survivor experience remained ignored as ever.

Esposito’s comedy special is unique in its ability to balance both raw and lived experience with humor, without letting one spoil the other. This particular screening in the UMBC Sports Zone was put on by the Women’s Center and We Believe You to kick off Sexual Assault Awareness Month this April.

Given the growing amount of discussion on sexual assault on campus and survivorship, April will be an important month for UMBC. As the Women’s Center works to raise awareness on resources and consent, Esposito’s “Rape Joke” serves as the perfect jumping-off point in the mission for creating meaningful change.

A facilitated discussion followed the screening in the Sports Zone as audience members discussed what stood out, what Esposito did well in discussing such sensitive topics, and the important takeaways regarding survivorship, rape culture and bystander intervention.

Esposito told one particularly powerful story about her coworker who stood between her and her attacker, who was calling her names and rushing towards her. Her coworker’s simple act of kindness and compassion made a huge difference in her life, leaving her eternally grateful to the bystander’s intervention.

That’s the most important thing you can do, she reiterated near the end of the special. Calling yourself an ally is one thing, but believing survivors’ stories and simply putting oneself between a victim and a threat can truly change lives.

It’s time to eliminate rape culture and rape jokes from everyday discourse. As UMBC passes through April, raising sexual assault awareness will definitely extend further than just one month. This campus has learned a lot, but still has a long way to go.

“I believe culture evolves, and language evolves,” says Esposito. “I believe that’s often a person who’s speaking from a position of enormous privilege that doesn’t usually have to worry about their evolution because they’re on top and people will just put up with whatever they’re doing. But as a comic, No. 1, I want to work with kindness.”

“Allyship” is a concept featured heavily in modern social justice movements. UMBC even has an “Intern for Cultural Humility and Student Allyship” at the Mosaic Center and regular “How To Be A Better Ally” seminars. Yet, what it means to be an “ally” remains a controversial and nebulous concept.

The Anti-Oppression Network describes allyship not as an identity, but rather as an ongoing process wherein privileged individuals offer support to marginalized individuals. Therefore, receiving recognition as an ally is granted through the trust of marginalized individuals.

This definition certainly seems popular as it is featured on several other websites on the topic, but it has a number of deep flaws.

For one, marginalized people are not a monolith. How many marginalized folks need to recognize an ally for them to actually be an ally? All of them? Most of them? One of them? In any case, it begs the question of who is the judge? In a system of privilege, the de facto answer becomes “the one with privilege” which definitely seems like something to avoid, yet it is implied in this system of allyship.

The issue of recognition itself aside is important to consider in the covert implication of this definition–that recognition is owed to the ally. It certainly does not seem to just stem from a position of privilege to offer support and expect or even demand recognition as an ally in return, but if this definition is normative, then that expectation is reasonable.

Which, in turn, leads to the most glaring issue regarding allyship: savior complexes.

In a system of allyship, the ally holds all the power and none of the real struggle. Any discussion of how “good” allies feel creates a sense of “duty” or “responsibility” that leaves the doors wide open for privileged individuals to use as a fight against the plight of marginalized people, primarily for their own satisfaction; thereby, perpetuating that same plight.

An example of this that I am personally familiar with are events like Pride or the Trans Day of Visibility. There are many cases of cis and straight allies co-opting these sorts of events as little more than celebrations. Even going as far at times to push back against LGBTQ+ folks who would make these events “too radical” or “too hostile” to allies.

The power dynamic here can be seen by the fact that the burden is on the LGBTQ+ individuals to extend a sort of respect in recognition of allies. This sort of respectability politics only serves to further marginalize LGBTQ+ voices for the benefit of allies.

This is why the concept of solidarity in allyship is key. Solidarity is the recognition that though oppression manifests in innumerable, diverse ways, the underlying system of that oppression is universal. To this end it gives every person at least some sort of stake, leaving no one wholly unaccountable.

Providing a hypothetical example, solidarity encourages white LGBTQ+ individuals to advocate for the liberation of people of color as the systems of hegemonic white supremacy functions the same as the systems of hegemonic homophobia and transphobia.

This contribution does not demand any recognition or trust in the same way that a system of allyship would because there is no longer an exchange between individuals with privilege and individuals without privilege. Respectability politics as well are made obsolete, as a desire for satisfaction from respect is no longer the motivation behind support. Rather, it is an intersectional exercise of self-liberation across different axes of oppression.

Now, this is significantly less romantic than the idea of a selfless individual giving out of only the goodness of their heart, but frankly, that is the point. Counting on someone to be “good,” “nice” or even “just” is significantly riskier than counting on them to stand up for themselves.

Ultimately if it comes down to a choice between an inherently risky system of utopian selflessness or a safer, albeit less heroic system of practical liberation, I believe it is far wiser to pick the latter.

The UMBC Retrievers baseball team came into the game smoking hot, winners of their last seven games. On Wednesday, they faced a tough midweek matchup at home against Navy (22-9, 9-2 conference) who had their own win streak of five games and were winners of 20 of their last 23 games. UMBC would look for revenge against the Midshipmen after their 13-4 loss earlier this season in Annapolis.

UMBC would start down 1-0 after the top of the first inning but would quickly strike back on a Terrance Pinkston leadoff homer. Blaze O’Saben and Christian Torres would follow with runs via a wild pitch and an RBI double by AJ Wright. Navy would answer right back with a two-run homer by Navy’s Matt Wolff in the second to tie the game at 3. In the third, Pinkston would add another RBI to his sheet on a deep sacrifice fly to left field to score Ryan Brown to take the lead back at 4-3.

In the fourth inning, UMBC would explode with four runs on a 2-out rally. With the bases loaded, Joe Milkowski cleared the bases with a double. Andres Machado followed suit as he popped a blooper into right field to score Milkowski to take the lead 8-3. Through four innings, UMBC had left 9 men on base.

Pitchers from both dugouts settled in after the first 4 innings. After Tanner Esposito pitched the first inning and Reid Celata pitched the second inning, Greg Albert came on with a great relief outing of 3 IP, 1 H, 0 ER and 3 K’s. Albert lowered his season ERA from 8.44 to 6.59 on the evening.

In the sixth inning, Machado dropped another RBI single to score Brown for his third run of the day to extend the UMBC lead to 9-3.

Max Goron, Aaron Husson and Bryan Gilliam all saw action after Albert’s strong three innings and did not allow any runs. After the team allowed 5 hits in the first 2 innings, UMBC pitchers quieted the Navy bats as they only allowed 2 hits the remainder of the game. UMBC finished the game totaling 9 runs on 12 hits, with a clean defensive game for their second consecutive game.

UMBC saw action from their entire lineup, as every starter reached base. The dynamic trio of Terrance Pinkston, Blaze O’Saben and Christian Torres went a combined 5 for 12 for the evening, each gathering one run. Terrance Pinkston, Blaze O’Saben and Christian Torres all continue their unbelievable seasons, hitting .391, .292 and .370 respectively.

Ryan Brown saw the ball at the plate very well, going 2 for 2 with 2 walks and collecting 3 runs.

UMBC extends their win streak to 8 games, their longest win streak since the 2016 season. Their win against Navy propels them to an overall 13-11 record (1-5 conference). UMBC will look to extend their win streak and improve on their conference record as they head back on the road this weekend as they take on conference foe Maine for a 3-game series starting this Saturday. The Maine Black Bears currently sit at 2-21, and 1-4 in conference. UMBC will return to Alumni Field next Tuesday as they take on the 16-12 George Washington Colonials at 6 p.m.

For the first time, the University of Maryland, Baltimore County Global Brigades traveled to Ghana over spring break to participate in public health projects. This brigade has traditionally operated in Nicaragua, but political unrest has prevented many campuses from traveling there for brigades this year. This unfortunate circumstance provided UMBC with an opportunity to send its first brigade to Ghana, which reopened for students in 2016 after being shut down for five years due to concerns relating to Ebola. Here is my personal account of this astonishing trip.

I will be the first to admit that I was wary of service trips. My biggest fear about this trip was that the program would be centered around making us feel good about supposedly volunteering without making a true impact on the community; however, I quickly found out there was no reason to worry. Global Brigades ensures that their projects involve local artisans and communities, and their mission is to empower communities instead of “helping” them. They place a large focus on giving them the materials needed to lift themselves from poverty and make progress long after the organization is gone.

This was certainly the case in Ekumfi Ekumpoano, the town we were working in. Medical and business brigades had arrived to provide proper medical care to the members of the community and to help establish profitable businesses; water brigades will arrive in May to build water spouts to provide safe drinking water and connect underground water pipes to toilets.

The town of Ekumfi Ekumpoano looks like this: there are goats and chickens everywhere; they roam freely, occupying any cool area under a tree or in the shadow of a home, but they all know where their home is, supposedly. There are 505 homes in the community, all of which are made from cinder blocks and metal roofs. Some boast colors of bright green, blue and coral. An average of eight to nine people live in each home and the total population is about 3,300 residents. The children were at school for most of our work days, and while they were away, the women cooked outside their homes or sold goods in metal pans balanced on their heads. Since the town is on the coast, most of the men are fishermen, and they spend their days in large wooden boats on the water. Others are artisans specializing in masonry or carpentry. Above all, the most memorable characteristic of the community is the glaring sun that beat down on the entirety of the town and the relief of the occasional breeze that came with being by the ocean.

But another aspect of Ekumfi Ekumpoano is that the district it is in has one of the lowest access to sanitation facilities. Because of this, the objective of our trip was to construct three biogas digesters in the community. These underground chambers work to treat organic waste in a sustainable way: bacteria inside the chambers will turn the waste into biogas, which filters from the newly cleaned water so it can enter the groundwater again. This model was chosen for the community based on its potential to operate indefinitely without being pumped out like a septic tank.

To be clear, Ekumfi Ekumpoano does have pre-existing toilet facilities. There is an old, cement building with seven holes in the ground for men and seven for women. The problem is that a service group built this facility years ago without involving the members of the community; they built the structure and left without sharing instructions for use and upkeep. For this reason, we were told that most people currently defecate in the bushes on the outskirts of the town or by the ocean.

Our first visit to Ekumfi Ekumpoano was on Sunday to conduct interviews with the households receiving the biogas digesters and to take a tour of the community to learn more about where most residents currently defecate. Our group of 14 split into three; we would be working as small teams to build biogas digesters for multiple households. We were welcomed to the community by Mr. Peter, an old, smiling man who serves as one of the three chiefs of the town and the community liaison for Global Brigades. He guided us to the three homes with which we would be working.

My group stopped at a home painted bright green on the outskirts of the town. We interviewed Kwame, the head of the household. He told us about how he heard of the program, why he decided to sign up, and his expectations for the final product. Throughout the week, I grew to love working with Kwame on the biogas digester each day. We did not speak the same language, but his goofy smile and nicknames for our team helped us communicate. 

For the next three days, we worked with Kwame, Mr. Peter and a local mason named Patrick (a cousin of Mr. Peter) to build the biogas digester. Patrick is a 33-year old man who grew up in the town; he had known Kwame for years, which showed in their constant bickering. He lives with his two children in one room in his uncle’s home, which he gave us a tour of on our last day together. Patrick shared with us that he does not want to stay in the community forever and he desperately wants to play soccer, but it is difficult to be scouted in towns like this one. Despite his ambitions to move to a larger city, Patrick learned how to make the biogas digesters from Global Brigades so he can continue to help his community build more digesters and maintain the current ones once Global Brigades leaves Ekumfi Ekumpoano. He is strong, goal-oriented and determined, beginning every instruction with, “if you want to be strong like me, do this.” Patrick puts on a tough facade, but the love he has for his community and the effort he puts into everything he does naturally drew my group to adore him.

By lunchtime of the third day of construction, all the groups had finished their biogas digesters. Admittedly, my group finished last, but only because Kwame and Patrick gave us coconuts fresh from the tree and invited us to their homes to celebrate our shared success. Although we only had the pleasure of working with them for three days, the impact that these men made on my group is immeasurable. Our last task of the brigade was to plan and share a lesson about hand washing methods with the junior high school students of Ekumpoano Catholic Basic School. The children were aged 12 to 14 and were as rowdy as any typical middle school students in America, but we enjoyed discussing the benefits of hand washing and when to do so with the students. The fact that the students at the school lived in the community we were working with made us confident that what they learned about hand washing would be implemented along with the use of the toilet facilities we built.

Our last day of the trip before returning to America was spent immersing ourselves in the rich culture of the country. We visited Cape Coast Castle, one of about forty castles that held captive Africans before they were sent to the Americas or Europe as slaves. We had the opportunity to stand in the hot, dark dungeons that were packed tight with African bodies and compare those living situations to the stark contrast of the lofty rooms of the Europeans above. We also watched a performance by the African Foundation Dance Theater, a local theater in Cape Coast that provides bountiful opportunities to young adults and children in the area, including deaf and mute children who are often not provided with many resources. After the performance, the artists invited us to learn a traditional dance and play the drums.

The cultural immersion and interactions with local community members allowed our brigade to truly experience life in Ghana for a week. It was incredibly hard to leave the country after developing relationships with people like Patrick, Kwame and Mr. Peter, who are still working hard in Ekumfi Ekumpoano even as you are reading this article. However, there is comfort in knowing that in just one week, our brigade was able to truly make a difference through Global Brigades and make strides in the process of lifting this community out of poverty. Global Brigades is an organization with pure intentions to empower others and provide them with opportunities they deserve, and this new partnership between UMBC and the community has opened the door for both parties to gain something new.

Hulu’s television series “The Handmaid’s Tale” has recently brought feminist speculative fiction back to the forefront of culture. Margaret Atwood continues to inspire many readers with the original novel, including up and coming author Naomi Alderman.

In 2016, Alderman released her fourth novel, “The Power,” which was dedicated to and influenced by Atwood. The novel has had tremendous literary success, winning the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2017. Alderman has also signed a contract permitting the novel, which has been labeled as an essential modern feminist work, to be a TV series, following in the footsteps of Atwood.

The Power is framed as a pop history book written hundreds of years in the future that looks back on a present-day world where women and girls have developed the ability to send electricity through their hands. As these women learn to control their new ability, revolts occur across the world, especially in third world countries. As the women grow more and more powerful, they become the dominant gender, essentially reversing thousands of years of traditional gender roles.

Throughout the novel, Alderman follows the narratives of four unique characters. First is Ally, who after killing her cruel foster father with her newfound father, becomes “Mother Eve,” the leader of a feminist religion that honors a female God. Next is Roxy, the powerful and feisty daughter of a British mob boss. After coming to Ally’s convent, Roxy further strengthens her power and becomes one of the strongest warriors in the new world order.

There is also Margot, a high-climbing politician who uses her power for self-advancement and advocates for the training of young girls to become soldiers with powerful control over their abilities. Finally is Tunde, a male journalist who follows and reports on the gender revolutions across the world. Each character offers a unique perspective as an already problematic world erupts in chaos.

The unyielding power of the women in this world gives them a new strength over men, and they take this strength to the extremes. In addition to fighting off their oppressors, they also seek out more vulnerable populations, often acting out violently. In one particularly devastating scene, a group of women violently assault and rape a man.

Rather than playing into the assumption that a women-ruled world would inevitably be more peaceful, Alderman reminds readers that any world with a dominant gender can only result in disaster. Women fail to fix the oppressive structures that once formerly constrained them; instead, they turn these structures onto the men.

We see women apply a variety of techniques to advance themselves in this new world: Ally manipulates her followers into believing that she is someone she is not; Margot expands her political prowess; Roxy draws upon the strength of her own power as well as the status of her father; and Tatiana Moskalev, the former First Lady of Moldova, kills her husband and takes over his role as President.

All of these women, however, depend on the use of their power to successfully implement these techniques. In doing this, Alderman examines the question of what women have to do in order to be seen as equal (or superior) to men. Is physical dominance the only way for women to prove their worth?

Despite her relatively simple language, which in some ways seems more at home in a young adult novel, the ideas that Alderman brings to the table give her novel a much more mature tone, demonstrating the broad impact of The Power. By exploring and twisting popular feminist theories, Alderman forces us to reconsider the harmful influence that gender roles have on our society, proving herself to be the next generation’s Margaret Atwood.

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