Little Miss Opinionated

By: Bella Carbone  With the 2024 presidential on the horizon, I can only sum up my feelings in a few (negative) adjectives. One of those would be tired and that is the emotion I would like to focus on. For someone who is barely past voting age, some may think I would feel excited or at least that I have a civic duty to vote. As a feminist, I understand how the personal is political so abstaining from politics or choosing to be ignorant is not a viable option if I want to risk losing any more vital rights.  The first time I voted in a presidential election was in 2020. Then, my vote felt crucial to an effort of ousting a leader who had zero respect for anything I stand for. I felt empowered by my right to vote, I felt like I had just a smidge of a say in the laws that would control my life. There was a sense of freedom in the ability to vote. I was not enthused about voting for Biden. In fact, that decision had felt like “a lesser of two evils” which was not an unusual sentimen...

By Bella Carbone   I am going on vacation this weekend and I am so excited. The feminist and pleasure activist in me, can not wait to have just a few days away from work, school, and the stress of everyday life. Vacation mode is a time to relax and reset, as I have been feeling a bit overwhelmed and overstimulated recently. However, as a critical feminist I have a bittersweet feeling about vacation and tourism in general. For starters, there are the ecological impacts of travel especially via flight. Then, there’s the exploitative nature of travel, which can become problematic when tourists travel for sexual pleasure in “exotic” locations (sex tourism) as well as in white savior mission trips (voluntourism). Further, it feels rooted in the same mentality as colonialism and imperialism. Impede on the lands of native and indigenous people in the regions, stay until self-gratification is achieved, and leave without acknowledging the local individuals or culture. Oftentimes, the people...