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Unpacking Mike Pence’s aversion to being alone with a woman

~ sarahphilips23 ~ Leave a comment
Screen Shot 2017-03-30 at 11.52.20 PM
REUTERS/Carlos Barria

If you follow the happenings of the Trump administration as closely as I do, you’ve experienced the barrage of headlines and op-eds that resulted from the revelation that Vice President Mike Pence retains a personal policy for working with women: not working with them at all.

Apparently, the Vice President of the United States decided, in an effort to supposedly respect his wife, that he should never be alone with a woman, for fear that sexual attraction will come into play in the relationship. Continue reading →

Your refusal to welcome refugees is not Christian

~ sarahphilips23 ~ Leave a comment
pope-francis
(Osservatore Romano/AFP via Getty)

14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? 15 Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. 16 If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? 17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

James 2:14-17

I have a lot of problems with the Church. There. I said it. Acting like I am someone who upholds every doctrine and verse in the Bible and the catechism of the Catholic church, which I was raised in, would be a lie and I’m not a liar. I have issues with the gender roles that are often assigned to girls and boys at a really young age. I take issue with the pervasive idea that being gay is a sin and I completely support marriage equality and LGBTQ+ rights. I could go on for awhile, but the point remains that I have some issues with the way I, and others, were raised within Christianity.

Yet, still, I find that my faith informs how I look at and interact with others. How could it not? In the Christian way of teaching, we are taught from a really young age what it means to love someone without reserve. What it means to be a self-sacrificing, giving person. What it means to be a person of God and of faith.

That means, by definition, that my faith is not about me. My faith guides me to make the right, just and equitable decision without regard for myself, or it should. All of this is dictated by the same idea: love others, with no asterisk.

Continue reading →

FISD school board election: why you should vote

~ sarahphilips23 ~ 3 Comments

fisdFrom the time we enter school on that first day of kindergarten, we are taught that our job is to do well in school, to make the most of our intellectual talents, to contribute to the world and to maximize our potential. Along with most of my friends, I live in a secure and blessed world where college is not a maybe, but a must. I live in a district that has a 98.8 percent graduation rate, compared to the national average of 82 percent. I live in a district that has 4o elementary schools, 16 middle schools, and a whopping 9 high schools, with many more on the way.

I am one of 52,000 students in FISD, something that I am exceedingly thankful for. As I go off to college, I have slowly began to realize just how lucky I was to have grown up in a district that emphasized my education as much as it did. I was offered every AP class under the sun, given the tools I needed to do well in college, and had the opportunity to experience extracurriculars in a way that I know many students in the country and the world don’t get to experience.

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Feminism: my favorite curse word

~ sarahphilips23 ~ 2 Comments

mayaangelou

“Today, we’re going to start our unit on feminism.”

That sentence, uttered by my AP Literature teacher a few months ago, excited me. For just half a second, I allowed myself to fantasize an ideal world of intellectual discussion. For half a second, I allowed my brain to begin preparing itself for reading works of literature that would foster reasonable debate. For half a second, I was looking forward to something outside of the usual coming-of-age theme that our English teachers have been beating into our heads seemingly since we were born.

However, that half a second was ruined before my teacher could even begin her second sentence.

My doomed fantasy was shattered an instant later by a loud groan coming from the back of the class, prompted by that offensive and automatically abhorrent word: feminism.

And of course to make matters worse, the groan had come from a fellow female.

Continue reading →