When Yasemin Smallens came to Vassar this year, the queer culture she encountered was invigorating—the way a slap in the face might be. She found a bubble where being a butch lesbian is an anomaly among the queer femme norm, and where the privileges of masculine presentation complicate her place in hookup culture. In this […]
Unmascing the Everyday Patriarchy at Vassar Part II: What Boys Never Learn
Interviewing Dakota Peterson for the Unmascing series was a logical choice for me, and one that was both personal and political. Dakota—Tika for short—is one of my best friends. I’ve witnessed some sticky situations in her romantic life; Tika often has to navigate the effects of white masculinity on her relationships as a queer woman of […]
What Happened Here
Imagine you’re sitting with five friends. Based on the results of an April 2015 survey, if they’re all cis women there’s a good chance at least one of them has been sexually assaulted. And even fewer will have reported it. The survey, completed by Vassar College, found that 21% of female-identifying students at Vassar were […]