Welcome to Reggie Responds, Roar’s advice column! Our columnists are here to provide you helpful, or maybe not so helpful, advice. Tune in on Fridays to see what they have to say about your problems.
Q: In light of all that’s happening, as a girl, it’s disheartening to see that men are becoming defensive and calling women snowflakes for being scared over the “smallest” things. It’s so frustrating to see that even in this day and age, people don’t think that men are the problem.
Nikita:Â I’ve put off writing a reply to this for as long as I could because every response I came up with was either too angry, too brash, or too ineloquent, but as I write this now, I realise that I don’t need to be eloquent to get this point across. The past week-and-a-half has felt like it lasted a month and I cannot begin to explain every emotion I have felt, a feeling I’m sure many women are familiar with at the moment, unfortunately enough.
Every social media platform for the past week has been full of women bravely recalling their past traumas, hoping to provide solidarity to other women only to be met with jibes by men who refuse to believe them. And I am sick of it.
Why are women forced to re-traumatise themselves by bringing up past experiences (that they would rather forget) in the hopes that men will realise that, “hmm maybe women are not that safe after all?”. The most common defence I have seen this past week — and one we have seen over the years, really — is that of “not all men.” And all I have to say to men who use this is, if you’re not calling your friends out when they make sleazy comments about women, when they make women feel uncomfortable, or when they actively try to discredit women’s trauma and their lived experiences: then you’re just as much a part of the problem as those “other” men you so vehemently try to distance yourselves from.
And frankly, as long as women have to worry about getting home safe when they’re walking home after dark — as long as that is true, then yes, it is all men, because there’s no way for us to know if a stranger on the street is a threat to us or just another passer-by. So, excuse us for prioritising our safety over everything else, how incredibly selfish of us.
To the women reading this, I offer you my love, respect, and solidarity, and I hope you surround yourself with people who do the same.
Q: King’s is such a waste of money, and each time you bring something up to the lecturers they’re somehow able to deflect the blame on you.
Matthew:Â I can’t even lie and pretend I don’t feel that way a lot of the time, because they cannot feasibly tell us that the course we are receiving is up to the standard of in-person teaching. Until they are willing to outright admit that, we won’t be getting a reduction in fees. My suggestion would be to speak to somebody a little higher up than one of your lecturers. Whether that be your personal tutor, or even emailing a senior staff member. If you feel so strongly about this, maybe look into some ways you can voice your opinions to/through the KCLSU.
Please just know you’re not alone in this opinion, and ultimately every “remote” course is going to seem like a waste of money at the moment. Don’t underestimate the amount of work the lecturers are doing behind the scenes to make it a seamless semester, but likewise, you have every right to feel hugely let down. Whilst nobody could have predicted this past year, we also did not sign up for a virtual degree, and so that should ultimately be reflected in the fees. Let’s just hope the government does something to address this sooner rather than later.
If you want to submit a question, you can do so here.
