The Pressing Issue

Plastic accumulating in our oceans and on our beaches has become a global crisis. Researchers have estimated that we produce about 300 million tonnes of plastic waste each year – equivalent to the weight of the entire human population. If these trends continue, it is expected that by 2050 there will be more plastic than fish. According to the United Nations, at least 800 species worldwide are affected by marine debris which consists mostly of plastic (80%). Every year, plastic debris causes the deaths of more than a million seabirds as well as over 100,000 marine mammals. Fish, seabirds, sea turtles, and marine mammals can become entangled in or ingest the plastic waste, causing suffocation, starvation, and drowning. A 2019 study based on four years of diving on 159 reefs in the Pacific shows that reefs in four countries – Thailand, Australia, Indonesia, and Myanmar – are heavily contaminated with plastic, which clings to the coral, sickening or killing it. If these trends continue, it is expected that by 2050 there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish. Entrepreneurs, non-profit organizations, and environmentalists have worked tirelessly to save marine life through state of the art inventions and relief programs that not only transform our distressed and polluted oceans, but go further to cleanse the food, water, and air humans consume.

Working Towards a Cleaner Ocean

The Surfrider Foundation

The Surfrider Foundation is dedicated to the protection and enjoyment of the world’s ocean, waves, and beaches through a powerful activist network. Their team consists of over 50 volunteers and environmental activists that support their mission through networking, campaigning, advocating, and fundraising. The Surfrider Foundation focuses its efforts on five key areas: beach access, clean water, ocean protection, coastal preservation, and plastic pollution.

The foundation has a variety of different programs to further its mission of protecting the world’s oceans:

The Blue Water Task Force is the Surfrider Foundation’s volunteer-run program for water testing, education, and advocacy. This volunteer water testing program is used to raise awareness of local pollution problems and bring together communities to implement solutions. Blue Water Task Force labs measure fecal indicator bacteria levels in recreational waters and compare them to water quality standards set to protect public health.
The Ocean Friendly Gardens Program contours landscapes for rainwater retention, create living soil to sponge up water, filters pollution and sequesters carbon, and installs climate-appropriate plants to create wildlife habitats and a sense of place.
The Ocean Friendly Restaurants Program increases awareness, drives behavior change, and ultimately creates a scalable impact to reduce our plastic footprint in restaurants. Restaurants participating in this program must have no styrofoam use, follow proper recycling practices, only use reusable food ware for onsight dining, and provide paper straws when requested. There are currently 607 restaurants across the country recognized as OFRs.
Rise Above Plastics is designed to eliminate the impacts of plastics in the marine environment by raising awareness about the dangers of plastic pollution and by advocating for a reduction of single-use plastics and the recycling of all plastics. The Surfrider Foundation website supplies its viewers with 10 easy ways to reduce your plastic footprint.
The Smartfin is a surfboard fin with sensors that measure important ocean properties that help researchers and coastal communities understand trends in ocean health. With the Smartfin, surfers become citizen scientists, turning wave sets into data sets simply while surfing.

Luxury Labels & Their Dirty Secrets

The names of luxury fashion brands have long been associated with wealth, prestige, and exclusivity. But when you peel away the deceptive facade, you will find truths that are both disturbing and humiliating for the glorified labels.

1| Burberry

On the Burberry website, among the chic handbags and up-scale clothing, you will find their sincere Global Environmental Policy. The statement highlights the company’s commitment to respect the environment by minimizing their operation’s environmental impact. The luxury fashion brand has also set the goal to become carbon neutral and eliminate the use of chemicals that may have a negative environmental impact by 2020. This devotion to saving the environment, however, has not always been part of their policies. In fact, the company’s past relationship with the environment prompted fierce criticism from environmentalists and green campaigners.

The 2017/18 annual report released by Burberry, revealed that £28.6m of merchandise was physically destroyed that year, including £10.4m of destruction for Beauty products. The company’s percent of waste had also appeared to be worsening, with the value up 50% since the 2015 report and almost six times greater than in 2013. The news had left consumers and investors outraged but came as no surprise to those in the fashion industry, as the practice of unsold stock and fabrics is a commonplace among luxury brands. At the risk of reducing full-price sales by becoming too widely available at discount stores, brands like Burberry would rather destroy their merchandise than risk their exclusivity. Sending products for recycling also runs the risk of making the merchandise accessible to thieves who can sell them at a discount and devalue the brand.

Though destroying merchandise has become common practice for the fashion industry, with retailers describing it as a measure to ensure the supply chain remains intact, it comes with some very negative consequences. In 2019, it was recorded that the fashion industry is responsible for 10% of the annual global carbon emissions. By 2030, this percent is expected to reach higher than 50% if the industry does not reinvent itself. Incineration contributes greatly to this percent, releasing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, thus exacerbating global warming. By burning their merchandise, Burberry is increasing its environmental footprint exponentially. Among the burned items are leathers, furs, and other skins that cost animals their lives. A former Burberry employee describes her experiences with the luxury brand in an interview with Forbes explaining how, “It was killing [her] inside because, as a vegan, seeing all that leather and fur went to waste and these animals had to die for nothing.” In 2018, PETA exposed Burberry for burning the merchandise that contained the skins and furs supplied by animals who endured the worst conditions imaginable as well as horribly painful deaths.

In September of 2018, Burberry announced that it will stop the practice of burning unsold goods, along with ending the use of real fur in its products. The 2018/19 report highlights the significant reduction of destroyed products that year (£1.4 million worth) along with the integration of recycled fibers into their collections. In 2020, Burberry has committed to addressing climate change impacts within their own operations and aim to achieve a zero-carbon footprint.

"We are committed to respecting the environment, minimising the environmental impacts of our own operations and activities in our supply chain."

— Burberry (Global Environmental Policy)

2| Hugo Boss

Before Hugo Boss established a name for himself through classic men’s suits and dapper ties, the clothing manufacturer produced uniforms for the Nazi party.

In 1924, Hugo Boss founded a textile factory in Metzingen, Germany, under the title ‘Hugo Boss’. It originated as a family-run business that manufactured police and postal uniforms. Two years after it was founded, in 1931, Hugo Boss joined the Nazi Party and began his first big contract supplying brown shirts to the ‘National Socialist Party’ later becoming known as the Nazis. The Party continued to supply Hugo Boss with the production templates for its uniforms, which is a contract that propelled the small-time business into a successful international corporation. Much of the work that took place under the supervision of Hugo Boss consisted of forced labor from 180 Polish and French prisoners of war and concentration camps. These workers endured extremely poor working conditions, including uncertain food and hygiene conditions.

According to Dr. Eckhard Trox, a military uniform expert at the museum in Ludenschied, the Nazis had contracts with thousands of companies to produce the black SS uniforms, brown shirts worn by SA storm troopers, and the black and brown uniforms worn by Hitler Youth. Among these companies was Hugo Boss.

Following the death of Hugo Boss in 1948, the factory returned to making uniforms for postal and police workers. The first men’s suit was produced in the 1950s and by the 1970s the company focused solely on men’s fashion.

In 1997, the company became aware of the upsetting history behind the founder, Hugo Boss, when he appeared on a list of dormant accounts released by Swiss bankers. Following the publication of his father’s history, Siegfried Boss stated, “Of course my father belonged to the Nazi Party, but who didn’t belong back then? The whole industry worked for the Nazi Army.” In 1999 the company finally agreed to contribute to a fund that compensated former forced laborers.

In 2011, luxury brand Hugo Boss issued a public apology on their website, wishing to “express its profound regret to those who suffered harm or hardship at the factory run by Hugo Ferdinand Boss under National Socialist rule”.

"It is clear that Hugo F Boss did not only join the party because it led to contracts for uniform production, but also because he was a follower of National Socialism,"

— Roman Koester, Economic Historian at Bundeswehr University

3| Gucci

In 2019, luxury fashion label Gucci was under scrutiny for cultural appropriation – twice. The first incident took place in February when its fall 2018 ready-to-wear collection was dropped on the runway and on the Gucci website. The backlash was immediate on social media, including Gucci collaborator, Dapper Dan, who expressed his disappointment with the brand on his Twitter account: “I am a black man before I am a brand,” he wrote. “Another fashion house has gotten it outrageously wrong. There is no excuse nor apology that can erase this kind of insult.” The controversy surrounded the balaclava-style sweater, which many claimed to resemble blackface.

Gucci treated this problem with urgency, quickly issuing a statement from chief executive officer, Marco Bizzari, in an interview with WWD: “Certainly, it was not intentional, but this is not an excuse. We make mistakes, and certain [ones] are worse than others because they offend people. The lack of knowledge of diversity and the consequent understanding are not at the level we expected, despite all the efforts we did inside the company in the last four years.” The brand also issued an apology on Twitter stating that the wool balaclava jumper had been immediately removed from their online store as well as all physical stores. The statement also highlighted Gucci’s fundamental value of diversity which would be implemented throughout their organization.

Despite this controversy, Gucci made headlines again in May when they began selling a headscarf dubbed “Indy Full Turban” which cost $800 on the Nordstrom website. Critics labeled the sale of the turbans as cultural appropriation, emphasizing the deep religious significance that is not appreciated by those wearing it as a designer accessory. Nordstrom changed the product’s name to “Indy Full Head Wrap” before completely removing the item from the website.

Among the backlash on Twitter that Gucci received was a powerful tweet by Simran Jeet Singh, reading “Wow. @Gucci and @Nordstrom are selling turbans as fashion items. We’re attacked and killed for how we look, and now corporations get to profit off that same look? Feels wrong to me. Your thoughts?” The Sikh Coalition also took to Twitter to express their disgust.

Though many considered Gucci’s release of the turban to be offensive, others described it as a celebration of other cultures and beliefs. Gucci failed to formally apologize for the misstep, and requests for comments on the matter remained unanswered. In an indirect response to the two instances of cultural appropriation, on July 30, Gucci appointed its first global head of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

"We're attacked and killed for how we look, and now corporations get to profit off that same look?"

— Simran Jeet Singh

4| Dolce & Gabbana

In November of 2018, Italian luxury fashion brand, Dolce and Gabbana, launched three short videos on Weibo, the Chinese social media network, to promote its upcoming Shanghai runway. The videos feature an Asian woman in a beautiful Dolce & Gabbana dress, attempting to eat pizza, spaghetti, and a cannoli with chopsticks. In the background, a Mandarin-speaking voiceover says “Welcome to the first episode of ‘Eating with Chopsticks’ by Dolce & Gabbana” – purposely pronounced incorrectly in a way that mocks Chinese speech. Within 24 hours of posting the videos, D&G was forced to remove them from all platforms.

Sadly, the racist remarks didn’t end there. A mere 4 hours before the D&G Shanghai runway show dubbed The Great Show, was set to begin, screenshots of a reported conversation between Stefano Gabanna and fashion blogger, Michaela Tranova circulated the internet. The screenshots quickly went viral in China, along with the hashtag #boycotdolce. Within hours, hundreds of Chinese models that were supposed to walk in the show had withdrawn, forcing the show to be canceled.

Gabbana’s response to the mounting situation included a screenshot of the conversation with the words “Not me” in bold. Dolce & Gabbana’s account posted a similar message, claiming both Stefano’s personal account, as well as the brand’s account, had been hacked. An additional message was put forth by D&G on Instagram, labeling the situation “very unfortunate” for the company as well as “the people who worked day and night to bring this event to life.”

This situation did not come as a surprise, as Stefano Gabbana has a long history of offensive comments. At the Spring 2013 show in Milan, white models wore dangling earrings depicting images of stylized black faces. ‘Blackamoor’, the style of the faces, is usually associated with slavery and leans heavily on racist stereotypes. In March 2015, in an interview with Panorama, Gabbana made degrading comments about same-sex parenthood, stating: “ I’m not convinced with what I call chemical children, a rented uterus, semen selected from a catalogue.” In 2016, Dolce & Gabbana made yet another cultural misstep, releasing the “slave sandal” as part of the spring 2016 collection. While most retailers omitted the name, the D&G online store waited for the backlash to finally prompt an alternative name. In April 2017, D&G released a sneaker intended to appeal to the millennial generation, featuring imitation doodles in Sharpie that resembled the ones teens covered their Converse with in high school. Among the sporadic drawings was the phrase “I’m Thin & Gorgeous”. In an interview with Claire Mysko, CEO of the National Eating Disorders Association, she addressed the issue, “Though there may be an element of cheeky humor at play in the design of these sneakers, equating thinness and beauty with success and status is a message that hurts everyone.” Instead of responding to the problematic phrase printed on the sneakers professionally and apologetically, Stefano Gabbana fired back, “Darling you prefer to be fat and full of cholesterol ??? I think u have a problem.” Gabanna seemed unfazed by the criticism and continued to make mistakes regarding sexism, racism, and other controversial issues.

The fashion industry supplies its customers with merchandise that promotes self-expression. The clothes and accessories an individual wears gives a brief insight into the type of person they are. Researching the values a company stands for can prevent customers from draping themselves in the racist views of the designers who created the merchandise they are wearing or giving their money to a company that cares more about their exclusivity than the environment they live in. We are all guilty of- as a designer lover myself – purchasing extravagant merchandise produced by luxurious brands without knowing their beliefs or cruel histories. It is our responsibility to be mindful of the designers we support in order to make the fashion industry free of racism and sexism while minimizing their carbon footprint.

by Isabella Conti

Animal Ethics

When asked to picture a zoo, many are reminded of distant summer days spent exploring prestigious zoo institutions with their families. Zoos justify their existence through scientific research, nature conservation, public education, and entertainment. These basic arguments, however, can also be used against zoos – exposing the industry for negligence and driving animals into aberrant behavior.

There are over 10,000 private and public zoos, as well as 200 aquariums worldwide, holding about a million vertebrate animals and hundreds of thousands of fish. The term ‘zoo’ simply means a collection of animals, meaning the term is applicable to large public organizations as well as the smaller collections of animals situated in towns, private backyards, or by roadsides. Each state in the U.S. has its own laws relating to exhibiting animals. Some states have the simple requirement of permission from the Selectman of the town, while others require a zoo license. To obtain a zoo license, one must complete the zoo license application, which does not consist of more than a name, address, and institution information, making it significantly easy for potential zoo owners to acquire the license. The guidelines for housing animals of different species in zoos are even more minimal in other countries. In the ‘Guidelines on minimum dimension of enclosures for housing animals of different species in Zoos’ issued by Central Zoo Authority of India, the prescribed size of the feeding and retiring cubicle for mammalian species of captive animals is unreasonably small. Among the various different wild animals that are advised to be kept in uncomfortably small enclosures are tigers, which can grow up to 3.9 meters but are instructed to be kept in enclosures with the dimensions of 2.75 meters by 3 meters. In Australia, according to the ‘Australian Animal Welfare Standards and Guidelines’, koalas are able to be kept in enclosures with a minimum internal height of 1200 millimeters, or 3.93 feet. Considering koalas typically grow to be 2.8 feet tall, the enclosures are extremely small and unnatural. The lack of experience required to exhibit animals coupled with the unfair dimensions of the enclosures have made zoos more like pitiful prisons and less like ‘collections’ of animals.

Zoothanasia, the cruel practice of killing healthy zoo animals is a reality for captive animals all over the world. This practice was first brought to the media’s attention in 2014 when ‘Marius’, a healthy 2-year-old giraffe was put down, dismembered, and fed to the lions in front of an audience at a Danish Zoo. Bengt Holst, scientific director at Copenhagen Zoo attempted to justify this inhumane act by stating, “Our giraffes are part of an international breeding program, which has a purpose of ensuring a sound and healthy population of giraffes” assuring there was no place for Marius in the giraffe heard. This instance provoked researchers all over the world to uncover the number of animals routinely killed because they are no longer useful to the zoos. Though EAZA, the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria, does not publish records on the number of animals that have been culled, executive director Dr. Lesley Dickie told BBC he estimated between 3,000 and 5,000 animals were “management-euthanized” in European zoos in any given year. Zoos are instructed to be as transparent as possible when recording data on deaths, but they are fallible and in some instances, information is missing. Zoos legitimize the killing of healthy animals by misusing words such as “surplus” or “euthanization”. Any definition of surplus indicates something along the lines of an amount that is “greater than needed”. In the case of zoos, the term “surplus” boils down to animals who can no longer be used for breeding or for show, and therefore cannot make money for the business. Zoo administrators try their hardest to sanitize the murder of animals by calling it “management-euthanization”. Euthanization is the act of putting to death painlessly by withholding medical measures from a person or animal suffering from an incurable or painful disease/condition. This term is deceiving in the context of zoo administration, considering the animals that are being killed are completely healthy. The animals that are not murdered, are deprived of their natural habitat, forced to live in close proximity with other species, and suffer from depression, boredom, and health risks.

Zoos claim to benefit wildlife conservation, which is the practice of protecting wild species and their habitats in order to prevent species from going extinct. However, even in what is considered to be the best circumstances, zoos are unable to replicate natural habitats, preventing animals from participating in natural activities – roaming, flying, climbing, hunting, and choosing a mate. Zoos also claim they protect species from going extinct, a noble goal which is proved to be false in a study published in the journal PLOS ONE, showing that of nearly 4,000 species in captivity, only 691 have the status of “endangered”. While in some cases confining animals to zoos will keep them alive, it does nothing to protect wild populations or their habitats. In fact, it is nearly impossible for captive-bred animals to be released into the wild due to their inability to acquire the survival skills necessary to live in the wild. According to a team of researchers from the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, the odds of animals such as tigers and wolves surviving freedom are only 33% percent. This 2008 study also showed that captive-born carnivores are more susceptible to viruses and diseases, as well as more likely to starve to death than their wild-bred counterparts. A 2015 study published in the Journal of Applied Ecology concluded that captive breeding should be treated as a last resort when species face imminent extinction because, without conservation in the wild, there is no point in captive breeding.

The Association of Zoos and Aquariums argues that AZA-accredited zoos and aquariums, “play a vital role in educating over 180 million visitors, including 51 million students, each year, about wild animals, their habitats, their related conservation issues, and the ways in which they can contribute to their preservation.” However, “A Global Evaluation of Biodiversity Literacy in Zoo and Aquarium Visitors“, a study from the University of Warwick, found that there was an increase from pre-visit (69.8%) to post-visit (75.1%) in respondents demonstrating some positive evidence of biodiversity understanding. The percent, only slightly more than 5%, is extremely small in terms of the 6,000 visitor sample. PETA also emphasizes the fact that most visitors treat the exhibits as wallpaper, spending only a few minutes at each display, seeking entertainment rather than enlightenment.

Animals that are put in shows are often abused for the sake of human entertainment. After the release of the film, Blackfish, the dark side of orca shows at Seaworld was exposed. Former trainer, John Hargrove reveals to CBS News, “[Orcas] are being subjected to sunlight, without shade protection – that causes cataracts and damage to the eyes. They’re swimming in chemically-treated water,” and. “You see them grinding down their teeth on the pool walls and ledges, breaking off their teeth where we have to go in and manually drill the tooth.” Since the capture of wild whales has been banned for decades, Seaworld developed an artificial insemination program, in which they breed whales at unnaturally young ages, and too frequently according to Hargrove. As of 2019, it has been recorded that at least 166 orcas have died in captivity, not including 30 miscarried or stillborn calves. Of the 166, 20 orcas belong to Seaworld, where at least 49 have died. Additionally, up to 90 percent of the 11 million tropical fish that enter the U.S. each year are caught illegally using cyanide according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Based on a scientific study on the effects of cyanide exposure, fish suffer “severe gasping, followed by loss of balance and a complete loss of all respiratory activity” upon being squired with cyanide. Cyanide can also cause coral bleaching, alter the coral’s biology, or outright kill it.

The cruel and unnecessary murders of captivated animals need to end. Shows like “Tiger King” emphasize the need for stricter regulations on potential animal owners, while networks such as National Geographic highlight the lives of wild-bred animals who live a life of freedom in their natural habitat. Zoos are a relic of past cruel attitudes of wildlife and should be treated as a last resort for animals who endure barbaric living conditions and suffer painful deaths at the hands of zoo administrators.

by Isabella Conti

A Memoir

The Day Our World Stood Still

I gazed out of the foggy window at the towering trees, which became faint blurs as my dad pressed down on the gas pedal. The silence in the car left my brain trying its very best to fill the emptiness. The sound of the tires against the black asphalt street was a lullaby that sent me into a memory that had been buried so deep in my mind, I forgot it had been there. My thoughts floated out of the rental car and drifted far away from my shell of a body that sat there in silence. I closed my eyes and began to dream.

I was five years old and filled with excitement to move into my new bedroom with my two sisters, Nitalia and Aviona. The luminous room was filled with warm yellow rays showing evidence of the approaching spring. The walls were freshly painted a delicate pink, to match the rosy cheeks of the three little girls that would fill the room with secrets, giggles, and sugar plum dreams. I pushed open the stark white wood door with one hand, while my Hello Kitty radio occupied my other, and the pile of three twin beds in the center of the room towered over me. I gently inserted the CD into my favorite toy, and the lyrics of “Mamma Mia” began to float out of the speakers. I carefully climbed on top of the cushiony tower and began my performance. One by one, the rest of my trio, Nitalia and Aviona, came into the bedroom to join me as if I had called their names. With a Wii remote as our microphone, we sang at the top of our lungs and envisioned the crowd going wild after every song. What was once a desolate room in the back of our house quickly became a venue for our best performances and my fondest memories. When you are five years old you don’t understand the importance of simplistic moments like this one, because your innocent mind thinks there will be a million more, and there may very well be. But for me, moments spent with my two sisters were numbered. If I knew then what I know now, I wouldn’t have ever stopped singing with them, and I would have squeezed them a little tighter that day.

I was plucked from cloud nine and brought back to earth when the car shifted from running over a pothole. I scanned the car and saw my dad with a strong facade painted across his face, my mom with trails of black mascara running down from her eyes to her chin, and Aviona quietly sitting next to me whimpering to herself. One less person, one less giggle, one less hand to hold. My big brown eyes filled with salty water and I fought every urge I had to blink and release the stream down my face. I dazed out the window, and dug deep into my mind, trying to find a memory of Nitalia and me before trauma shook our world forever. Before all of the nights spent in different hospitals across the country. Before she had trails of bruises up both of her arms from all of the IV’s. Before all of her long brown hair had fallen out as a result of chemotherapy. But I was at a loss. I dug through every mental filing cabinet I had, urgently searching for anything to remind me of her giggle, or the feeling of our hands intertwined, but all I could conjure up was a distant Memphis memory.

By the time I was seven years old, the magic of Christmas had dwindled down. Waking up in my own bed and running with my sisters to the family room to open up the gifts Santa delivered was quickly replaced with waking up in an unfamiliar apartment in the middle of Memphis and slowly walking to the small Christmas tree decorated with store-bought ceramic balls. Eagerly running to the abundance of gifts neatly wrapped and signed “Santa Clause” was replaced with holding Nitalia’s hand and helping her keep her balance as she takes the few yet difficult steps from the bedroom to the living space. The smiles and giggles that once filled the Conti home on Christmas morning were replaced with puffy eyes from crying the night before, and fake smiles that tried their best to hide the true feeling of anguish that was within all of us.

It was almost Christmas day, and we sat in our Memphis apartment, too far from home. My dad gazed out the window, trying to escape from reality for a split second. I hear him call out, “Girls, it’s snowing!” He tried his hardest to sound excited, but his glassy eyes proved otherwise. Aviona and I tore across the apartment, throwing on our coats and boots. We passed by Nitalia, who was snuggled under a mountain of blankets on the couch. Nobody had to say it, we all knew the chemotherapy and other medications had stripped her of her childhood, leaving her unable to play in the snow. Aviona opened the door, and the frigid air shocked our systems as we moved from inside the heat to the falling flurries. A few moments later, we returned inside with a miniature snowman sitting crookedly on a white plate. “We wanted to bring the snow to you” we both exclaim to Nitalia. She couldn’t help but giggle at the sweaty snowman, already losing some height from the heat of the apartment. We stood there and soaked up her laugh and smile until all that was left was a soaking wet plate with some scattered sticks.

The car came to a stop, and with it stopped my reminiscing. No matter how hard I tried to run, the reality of losing her would always catch up to me. A family of five eventually became a broken family of four. My cheeks burned from the frigid air rubbing up against my raw skin from the constant flow of salty tears. Every time I blinked, I was reminded of just a few hours earlier, when I was laying in the small hospital bed with her, surrounded by the monotony of the stark white walls, whispering my final “goodbye” into her ear. What was left of my dwindling innocence left me questioning how someone could be taken away from me as quickly as they were given. My heart was sliced open by the silver lining that I spent the last one and a half years of my life trying so hard to find.

There we were, in another unfamiliar place, with the unfamiliar feeling of losing a sister, a daughter, a best friend. We arrived at the home in New Hope, Pennsylvania as hopeless as we had ever been. Everywhere I looked, there was evidence of her, being a constant reminder of the part of my life I could never get back. The specialty bed my parents bought for her earlier that month lay empty. The wheelchair ramp my dad installed by the front door would never be used. The freshly folded blankets that she never got the chance to cuddle up with on a winter day. Even though Nitalia was not there, the remnants of her remained throughout the house the family of five was supposed to come back to.

January 28, 2011, while everyone else’s lives went on, our’s stopped. We lay there, in the enormous California King bed, amidst the sea of blankets and pillows, with our heavy hearts weighing us down.

The Aftermath
They say time heals all wounds, but here I am nine years later and the pain of missing my big sister is just the same. I am constantly haunted by the idea of her never moving onto college, never going on her first date, and never being called “Aunt Nitalia” by my future children. I am continually reminded of the void in my life where she should be. Just when my past begins to neglect me, I am asked the simple question, “How many siblings do you have?” and I am immediately pulled back to the reality that Aviona and I are missing the third pea in our pod. During an innocent car ride into work, I catch a glimpse of my elementary school, and immediately find myself back in the office, waiting in the prickly woven chair for my panicked mother who had just found out Nitalia was diagnosed with cancer. As soon as life feels the tiniest bit normal, January 28th creeps up on us, and we are reminded that our girl is gone.

Just like the aftermath of a war, my family is left with an incredible loss, battle wounds that will stick with us forever and serve as a reminder of what we went through, and the ongoing memory of the soldier we lost to the battle with brain cancer. I try my absolute hardest to preserve the memory of her – her giggle, her voice, the way she used to laugh so hard and hit me on the arm – but as I become older I can feel it slipping through my fingertips. So I rely on the things she wasn’t able to take with her when she left to bring back the memories I have lost sight of. The thousands of pictures from times I never even knew existed. Her flannel dresses that are a reminder of her sweet vanilla smell. The dusty jar of aquaphor that still sits by her empty bed. And all at once, I can see her again. Feel her again. And it’s like she never left.

by Isabella Conti

We need to talk. PERIOD.

‘That Time of the Month’. ‘Aunt Flo’. ‘The Curse’. ‘Period’. How many different words or phrases can be created to disguise what it is actually called? The Menstrual Cycle.

Menstruation is a health reality for roughly 50 percent of the world’s population, yet conversations about the menstrual cycle have been deemed unacceptable. This is a consequence of not only cultural discomfort but the societal etiquette women have been expected to follow for centuries. Instead of educating young girls on the beauty of their reproductive system and the life it can hold and nourish, they are taught how to manage it privately and discreetly. Behind every culture, there is a long and troubling history of menstrual taboos, which continue to manifest themselves today.

Jane Ussher, professor of Women’s Health Psychology at Western Sydney University, explained, “Periods [have long] been associated with dirt, disgust, and shame, and some might say fear.” She describes this manipulation as misogyny, “a sign of positioning something that is essentially feminine as other, dirty and disgusting." This stigma that surrounds menstruation has lead to a troubling history of suppression, isolation, and sexism which can be found in countries all over the world today.

Nepal

While the physical ostracization of women on their periods is no longer legal in countries like the United States, the ancient Hindu practice of chhaupadi remains in place in Nepal, parts of India, and Bangladesh. This belief, that is rooted in the belief that menstrual blood is impure, “is a form of seclusion connected to Hindus’ deep religious beliefs and feelings about ritual purity and impurity” explained Mary Cameron, a professor of anthropology at Florida Atlantic University who worked extensively in Nepal. The chhaupadi practice, which is characterized by the banishment of women during menstruation from their usual residence due to the belief of impurity, has long been

criticized for the violation of basic human rights of women and also for the physical and mental health impacts it is associated with. During the isolation process, women are expelled from their homes and forced to stay in small closet-like huts for the duration of their period as well as prohibited from entering the kitchen and touching food, religious icons, cattle, and men.

Though chhauapdi was banned by Nepal’s Supreme Court in 2005, identifying it as a violation of human rights, it has continued to flourish across the country of Nepal, where fear for the consequences of breaking menstrual taboos had taken control. Following the highly publicized deaths of three women in just ten months, who were forced into the inhumane practice of chhauapdi, Nepal’s government took action. The deaths emphasized the dangers of the practice, which put women at risk of violence, rape, a plethora of health issues, and death. In August 2017, Nepal’s Parliament criminalized chhaupadi, passing a law that reads: “A woman during her menstruation or post-natal state should not be kept in chhaupadi or treated with any kind of similar discrimination or untouchable and inhuman behaviour”. Though women’s rights activists indicate this is a step in the right direction, they were quick to point out that one law is not powerful enough to rid the country of the deep-rooted practice that is written in Hindu scriptures. A deeper cultural transformation is required.

China

According to the Guardian, only 2% of women in China use tampons. This is reportedly due to the belief that using a tampon will tear the hymen and rob them of their virginity. The hymen, a membrane that stretches across the vaginal orifice is insignificant in the purpose of the female reproductive system. Dr. Jonathan Schaffir, an ob-gyn at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, reveals this misunderstood tissue to be remnants of the development of the vagina during embryonic growth. What societies across the world have glorified as the sole representation of a woman’s sexual purity is nothing of the sort, just some leftover tissue. This realization accompanied by the cultivation that the hymen is quite easily torn through exercise, tampons, medical exams, and just over time reveals how critical society has trained us to be when discussing the woman’s reproductive system.

Among Chinese women, there is an extreme lack of education surrounding sex and their body parts, which exerts the country’s “virginity fetish”. Those with this fetish consider a girl’s virginity to be the one trait that defines her character. Hymenoplasties, nicknamed ‘revirginity’ is an extremely common surgical procedure in China, designed to repair and reconstruct the thin, ring-like membrane known as the hymen. The aim of this procedure is to cause bleeding during post-nuptial intercourse, something women feel they need to endure after lying to their fiancés about their sex lives, according to the Shanghaiist. There is a long history behind the emphasis of virginity on Chinese women that continues to exist today as a result of men’s correlation between virginity and love, responsibility, and virtue.

China’s media regulator has also banned feminine hygiene product advertisements on TV during prime time, deeming them “disgusting”. This provokes fear and shame in women, making them think their natural cycle is unacceptable.

Kenya

In Kenya, the educational disadvantage young girls and women are put at, is extremely alarming. According to the ZanaAfrica Foundation, 1 in 4 girls do not know they can get pregnant once starting their periods, as well as 95% of girls not knowing that rape, incest, and coercion are violations of their human rights. More than one million girls miss up to six weeks of school each year because they do not have access to the menstrual products that are needed. ZanaAfrica has worked tirelessly to change this, by distributing free menstrual pads to schools in low-income communities and providing health education to increase the number of girls that stay in school. While menstrual taboo still is prevalent in Kenya, National Public Radio notes the political efforts in Kenya have succeeded in increasing access to menstrual products.

India

This year at a hostel in Gujarat’s Bhuj, 70 female college students were pressured by their principal to remove their undergarments to prove that they were not menstruating. This came as a result of the hostel official complaining to the principal that some of them had broken the norms that were enforced while they are on their period. In India, women are not allowed to go to temple, enter the kitchen, or touch other students when they are on their periods, rules that arestill in place today. At mealtimes, menstruating students are expected to sit away from others, clean their own dishes, and sit on the last bench. The next day, the students alleged that they were abused by the principal and hostel official before they were forced to strip. Three years ago, in a very similar ‘menstruation check’ case, 70 girls aged about 10 years old were forced to strip naked at Kasturba Gandhi Girls Residential School after a female warden found blood on a bathroom door. Discrimination against women on account of menstruation is extremely common and widespread in India, where periods have long been a taboo. In 2017, CNN exposed India for the 12% tax on pads, leaving only 12% of women able to afford this necessity. In recent years, it has become increasingly common for urban educated women to challenge these regressive ideas, and fight for periods to be seen as what they are - a natural biological cycle. Following months of protests and campaigning by activists, India announced it has scrapped its 12% tax on all sanitary products in 2018, a year after the government introduced the tax.

The United Kingdom

Statistics published in the Huffington Post reveal that in the UK, over 90% of girls worry about going to school during the duration of their periods because of shame, teasing, fear of leaking, boys knowing, or not being able to go to the bathroom during class. Polling company YouGov found 43% of girls have experienced teasing or jokes about periods by boys - with 40% of this teasing occurring during class time, while teachers are present. The ‘Fear Going to School Less’ report conducted by the menstrual care brand, Bodyform, brought attention to the increase of stigma that has resulted from a failure of period education for boys. The statistics support this statement, with 94% of boys admitting to a clear lack of knowledge about periods, 42% finding the topic to be awkward, and 38% embarrassing. Bodyform has pledged to work with high schools to create positive and informative conversations surrounding periods to normalize and remove the stigma. As a result of the #FreePeriod Campaign by Amika George, the UK government announced in 2019 they are taking measures to ensure sanitary products are free across all schools in England.

The United States

You don’t have to look very hard to identify period stigma in the United States, as it is made evident in many places. Close to 14 million women across the U.S. aged between 12 to 52 live below the poverty line, and most of them don’t have access to sanitary pads. In states like Texas and Alabama, you can buy a Snickers bar from a vending machine tax-free, but when it comes to purchasing a tampon or pad, which are not considered “necessities of life”, women must pay taxes. Due to this tax, women are estimated to spend an additional $150 million per year on menstrual products in the United States. A number of countries around the world have already begun eliminating taxes on menstrual products, but America remains absent from this list. Though some states have been successful in adding pads and tampons to the list of necessary items, 70% of states across the country continue this sales tax.

Period stigma is not only present in convenience stores. In 2015, then presidential candidate Donald Trump, said in an interview with Megyn Kelly that, “you could see there was blood coming out of her eyes. Blood coming out of her wherever.” These denunciations made by sexist men hiding behind society’s cloak of masculinity subdue and mock the pure and essential anatomy of a woman.

The Impact

Feminism has been on the rise in the last decade, but few find it comfortable to engage in conversations about menstruation. In order for women to be looked at and treated equally, there needs to be an acceptance of the period. Rather than dubbed ‘shameful’, ‘impure’, and ‘dirty’, we must acknowledge as a society that it is a natural biological cycle that creates life. Approximately 26% of the world’s population is made up of women of reproductive age, many of which do not have access to basic hygiene or necessary feminine hygiene products. Period poverty coupled with the stigmatization and shame associated with periods, not only restricts the vital knowledge and relationship between a woman and her anatomy but impacts us all on a global scale.

As a global community, to ensure a healthy and prosperous future for girls and women everywhere, we have a responsibility to continue the conversation in order to minimize the stigma that surrounds menstruation.

Join the movement! Fight to end period poverty with these nonprofits.

by Isabella Conti

Isabella Conti

The Pressing Issue

Working Towards a Cleaner Ocean

Working Towards a Cleaner Ocean

The Ocean Cleanup Project

Seabin Project

The Surfrider Foundation

The foundation has a variety of different programs to further its mission of protecting the world’s oceans:

The Ocean Friendly Gardens Program contours landscapes for rainwater retention, create living soil to sponge up water, filters pollution and sequesters carbon, and installs climate-appropriate plants to create wildlife habitats and a sense of place.

The Smartfin is a surfboard fin with sensors that measure important ocean properties that help researchers and coastal communities understand trends in ocean health. With the Smartfin, surfers become citizen scientists, turning wave sets into data sets simply while surfing.

OceanCare

Just a few of the OceanCare milestones:

1989 - In Martigny, Switzerland, OceanCare blocks the construction of a new dolphinarium.

2002 - The Silent Oceans campaign against underwater noise is launched. At the symposium ‘Whale Zone’ near Zurich, renowned scientists, politicians, and marine protection activists discuss protection measures for marine mammals and oceans.

2003 - OceanCare co-founds the International Ocean Noise Coalition, which is joined by 150 organizations worldwide. A petition by OceanCare urges NATO members to optimize military tests in order to minimize impacts on marine mammals.

2007 - A study by OceanCare and the Environmental Investigation Agency on mercury contamination prompts a Japanese supermarket chain to remove whale and dolphin meat from its product range.

1| Burberry

"We are committed to respecting the environment, minimising the environmental impacts of our own operations and activities in our supply chain."

2| Hugo Boss

Before Hugo Boss established a name for himself through classic men’s suits and dapper ties, the clothing manufacturer produced uniforms for the Nazi party.

Following the death of Hugo Boss in 1948, the factory returned to making uniforms for postal and police workers. The first men’s suit was produced in the 1950s and by the 1970s the company focused solely on men’s fashion.

In 2011, luxury brand Hugo Boss issued a public apology on their website, wishing to “express its profound regret to those who suffered harm or hardship at the factory run by Hugo Ferdinand Boss under National Socialist rule”.

"It is clear that Hugo F Boss did not only join the party because it led to contracts for uniform production, but also because he was a follower of National Socialism,"

3| Gucci

"We're attacked and killed for how we look, and now corporations get to profit off that same look?"

4| Dolce & Gabbana

The Day Our World Stood Still

January 28, 2011, while everyone else’s lives went on, our’s stopped. We lay there, in the enormous California King bed, amidst the sea of blankets and pillows, with our heavy hearts weighing us down.