Staff Columnists

Sheet masks are not accommodations: Redefining “self-care” for mental health

“Self-care” is often limited to its consumerist contexts and is stigmatized when expanded to include mental health accommodations that challenge existing structures and norms.

| Managing Forum Editor

The vulnerable dead: On emotional expression in the workplace

Especially for workplaces that double as “safe spaces” for emotional vulnerability and social justice, are reformation and decentralization possible in a professional culture still rooted in patriarchy and whiteness?

| Senior Forum Editor

Should you try to blend in when you travel?

While traveling, you may still have the tendencies of an American tourist, but with respect and an appreciation of other cultures as well as your own, you are sure to make the most of your trip.

| Junior Forum Editor

Shop like a man

There is a kind of male cost-consciousness mythos that has stood out to me both in media and in my own life: the Male Shopper. 

| Staff Writer

Free weed!

Reefer blowers, dank smokers, kush queens, lend me your ears! I have come to discuss the new system of cannabis legalization, but not to praise it.

| Senior Forum Editor

Who’s to blame? Social media, addiction, and the role of influencers

Whether it’s due to a semi-hypocritical distaste for large influencers or something deeper, I find that social media users like myself share a feeling of some subterranean problem causing us anxiety and discomfort, no matter how much community we find in these online spaces. 

| Junior Forum Editor

Is WashU really a safe space? Why narratives of campus safety must include sexual violence

When considering campus safety, we often exclude sexual assault from our definitions of violence, despite its prevalence on our campus.

| Managing Forum Editor

In memoriam of GirlsGoGames and her sisters

There’s something sacred about a platform that gives space for kids to be depraved around other kids — and something unsettling about growing up online surrounded by people much older than you, simply because it’s no longer lucrative to invest in spaces only for children.

| Managing Forum Editor

Born smarter

Is it much of a surprise that students placed in an optimal environment for success — smaller classrooms, more thought-provoking assignments, more one-on-one attention, more behavioral exceptions, and more physical resources —  are likely to outperform their peers?

| Junior Forum Editor

Is it possible to sew a pair of ethical pants?

I spent what added up to about three part-time workweeks trying to make a single pair of “ethical” pants. What I didn’t foresee was that the hardest part of the process was figuring out what a pair of ethical pants even looked like — or if it existed at all.

| Managing Forum Editor

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