Columns

Or at least, a Men's Issue.


Rather than resting our laurels with last week’s women’s issue, we’ve decided to outdo ourselves and make a men’s issue too. Because, well, we like men as well, and sexism can go both ways. Watch out for that.

Feeling a little out of my depth due to my lack of a “Y” chromosome, I frantically asked the office for ideas for this man-themed editorial. Among the resulting suggestions were: beer, boobs, penis size, something something rugby, computer games, what’s acceptable for men to drink and what isn’t. Boring.

Instead, I’ve decided to once again talk about VSM. Because, aside from being the men’s-issue-week, this week is also The Week That VSM Will Probably Pass.

I’m not going to talk about my views on VSM, or the idea of Voluntary Membership. Instead, I’m concerned about how democracy appears to be of little importance to the government. For a bill that claims to be about freedom, the actions taken to ensure the passing of the bill appear to be anything but free and democratic. This bill has had an overwhelming number of submissions against it (98%), and yet these submissions have been discounted due to the fact they were in large part submitted via online voting forms. Since when were there criteria for how wordy or original a submission has to be before it can be counted?
 
This is a bill that students have made their opposition to clear, such as in the OUSA referendum last year when they gave OUSA a mandate to oppose it. This is a bill that students have actively protested against, most recently on Friday. The protest was passionate, civil and friendly, with protestors using (God forbid) humour in their chants and signs. Instead of being heralded as a positive thing - normally apathetic students standing up for what they believe in - it’s been condemned as yet another instance of riotous students running rampant.
 
Moreover, while voluntary student membership is a pretty great idea in theory, in reality it will result in students having far less freedom than they currently do. Rather than the students paying, OUSA will likely be contracted by the university to provide core services (as has happened in Auckland University), leaving the university unaccountable to students.
 
So all in all, a big win for “freedom”.

Have a great week,

Lots of love,
 
Julia
 

P.S. We hope that, rather making us seem strangely animal crazed, the rooster sheds some light on our “very clever” cover ideas. Cock? Pussy? Geddit?