The Silhouette: Please introduce yourself.
Rijaa Khan: My name is Rijaa, my pronouns are she and her and I'm the [Women and Gender Equity Network] director this year.
What is WGEN?
WGEN is a peer-support service. We cater to women, trans folk, nonbinary folk and people who generally identify outside the gender binary. We also cater to all survivors of sexual and gender based violence, so, to people from all gender identities. We provide a safer space on campus and we're on the second floor of MUSC, room 204. People can come in and just chill. We have a library and many different resources. We run events throughout the year as well, and we have community care groups.
WGEN is a peer-support service. We cater to women, trans folk, nonbinary folk and people who generally identify outside the gender binary. We also cater to all survivors of sexual and gender based violence.
Rijaa Khan, Director, Women and Gender Equity Network
What inspired you to join WGEN?
When I was in first year, it was the year right before the pandemic, [so] everything was in-person and I would come to the space a lot as a service user to read or talk to people. For me, it definitely was a safe space. When you're on campus, you're always running around and it can feel really overwhelming. There wasn't really any space like WGEN on campus that I felt truly comfortable in. Then, because of my love for that, I became involved afterwards. I've been a part of the exec team since then, for the past five years now. Just because of the ways that the service helped me, I was inspired to join and provide that support for other people.
What is your fondest memory from your past five years with WGEN?
It was during the pandemic. We were running a music exchange event where we were sharing our favourite BIPOC artists for our campaign Bodies are Dope. I almost didn't want to go, but I decided, "I’ll turn my camera off and just be there." A lot of people came to the event and I think, like me, they came just to do something. But we ended up going past two hours because everyone became so comfortable talking about music and our favourite artists. I was in the trenches during the pandemic, and I'm sure everyone was, so this memory is so fond to me from this genuine feeling of community that I was reminded still exists.
I was in the trenches during the pandemic, and I'm sure everyone was, so this memory is so fond to me from this genuine feeling of community that I was reminded still exists.
Rijaa Khan, Director, Women and Gender Equity Network
I really appreciate that. I think the community aspect is really hard to come by even with life in person.
I think it's one of the biggest difficulties in running a service but it's one of the most important things. It can be really hard to make friends. When I was in first year, even though it was in-person, I struggled because I was in this huge program and you rarely see the same people every day. So, the only avenue to make friends for me was through services like WGEN, which is something I hear to this day from other people too.
What do you want others to know about WGEN?
For WGEN, people know us only through the purple room or from our events. One thing I try to emphasize is that we’re involved in a lot of the events they’re talking about. We have three campaigns every year: Transforming Mac in November, where we run the Trans Day of Remembrance vigil with the [Pride Collective Centre] and the [Queer and Trans Colour Club]; Bodies are Dope in February, which is a campaign centered around bodies, body neutrality, racialized bodies; and Making Waves, towards the end of the year, which is very workshop-focused. I've heard that these sorts of things aren’t available for people across campus, but I want to emphasize that they’re here.
What would you say to someone who is uncertain about visiting WGEN?
One user told me she circled the space for two weeks before stepping in. That was so relatable because it's something that I did in my first year. But, as soon as I stepped in, it was so welcoming and comfortable that I couldn't figure out why I was scared in the first place. I was someone who I was always scared of going to events too. We’re mindful to create events where, if you don’t want to socialize or talk to people, you can still come and do something together, like watch a movie or make art. Even if you're feeling anxious or shy, you can just be present and get to know everyone. It is really scary, and I want to validate those fears – I had those anxieties too – but it can potentially be one of the best memories that you have in your undergrad. Taking that leap was the best thing I could have done for myself. So, give yourself and the people in the space a chance to get to know you. From that, you can see how much you like it and whether you want to keep coming back.
Comprehensive sexual education provided by universities can help students navigate their developing identities, relationships and choices
I know how to find the hypotenuse of a triangle. I can name each of the planets in our solar system. I can even list several literary devices. But if you ask me what I learned about sexual health over the span of the five years it’s taught in the public school curriculum, I could tell you nothing. Absolutely nothing. Unfortunately, the awkward giggles, bewildered expressions and uncomfortable atmosphere are all that’s cemented in my brain years later.
As young adults transitioning from high school to university, life on campus introduces opportunities to explore new relationships, new experiences and new choices.
However, as students begin to pursue sexual experiences, they’re forced to rely on sub-par sex-ed from high-school, conversations with friends or searches on the web – which aren’t always reliable.
Given the diversity of students at university, it’s important to recognize the various experiences and levels of exposure individuals have received to sexual education.
With the need for more comprehensive sex-ed, universities can help bridge the knowledge gap left by schools. They can create safe and accessible spaces that encourage learning about sexual health and well-being in unbiased and non-judgemental ways.
Depending on where students come from, sex and sexual health may be severely stigmatized. As a result, the formal sexual education curriculum may be minimal to non-existent, leaving many international students with a poor understanding of sexuality, reproductive health and rights.
Even for domestic students who receive curriculum-based sex-ed in Canada, the content is not culturally inclusive and fails to take a holistic approach.
All students, and especially Black, Indigenous and People of Colour students, would benefit from an anti-racist approach to sexual education that decolonizes, Indigenizes and dismantles systems of oppression. Such an approach to sex-ed offered in post-secondary settings would open opportunities for important dialogues that include the Black, Indigenous and other racialized experiences.
These communities have also been disproportionately affected by poor health outcomes, such as higher rates of sexual violence and sexually transmitted infections, due to various determinants including low socioeconomic status, inequitable access to healthcare and a lack of trust in the healthcare systems that have a history of racism, discrimination and structural violence. An anti-racist sex-ed framework could offer better support for these communities.
It is also critical to support the disconnect young adults with diverse identities experience when navigating their sexuality and health. For instance, the colonization and historical trauma experienced by the Indigenous community still deeply affect their ability to relate to the content taught in school curriculums. Likewise, 2SLGBTQ2IA+ students need access to better support and a sex-ed curriculum that remains inclusive of their experiences and provides evidence-based information to promote positive sexual health outcomes.
It is also critical that students with disabilities receive proper access to comprehensive sex-ed. Too often, individuals with disabilities are stripped of their dignity and autonomy and that needs to change. Applying health equity and justice frameworks to centre the experiences and voices of oppressed groups is key to ensuring all individuals are able to express their sexuality on their own terms.
Sex-ed matters. It gives students power over their identity, sexuality, health, relationships and more importantly, their future.
Everyone has the right to comprehensive sexual education and I believe that a comprehensive sexual education curriculum is an intersectional and equitable one. Comprehensive sexual education incorporates the narratives of BIPOC communities, rather than outdated and oppressive frameworks from the past. It also provides students with the opportunity to learn about topics beyond reproductive health such as healthy relationships, sexual violence prevention, body image, gender identity and sexual orientation.
With the need for more comprehensive sex-ed, universities can help bridge the knowledge gap left by schools. They can create safe and accessible spaces that encourage learning about sexual health and well-being in unbiased, nonjudgmental ways.
Depending on where students come from, sex and sexual health may be severely stigmatized. As a result, the formal sexual education curriculum may be minimal to non-existent, leaving many international students with a poor understanding of sexuality, reproductive health and rights.
And while the McMaster Students Union services like the Student Health Education Centre, Women & Gender Equity Network and the Pride Community Centre are already working towards disseminating this knowledge and providing resources for students, McMaster has a unique opportunity to do more.
By implementing comprehensive sex-ed during Welcome Week and orientation for incoming students and offering regular support through the Student Wellness Centre, McMaster can promote positive sexual health outcomes and leave their students feeling sexually-empowered with a greater recognition for their dignity and bodily autonomy.
Sex-ed is an ongoing process and shouldn’t stop in high school. As we continue to grow and discover ourselves, the relevancy of sex-ed increases and so does the need for universities to equip their students with accessible support and evidence-based resources.
WGEN’s Culture of Consent event educated students about consent and sexual violence misconceptions
cw: discussion of sexual assault
According to a 2018 survey conducted by the Council of Ontario Universities, 22 per cent of respondents from McMaster University indicated that they had experienced sexual assault since the start of the 2017-2018 academic year. Additionally, overall survey respondents indicated that the perpetrator was an acquaintance in 26 per cent of cases and a friend in 25 per cent of cases.
According to a 2018 survey conducted by the Council of Ontario Universities, 22 per cent of respondents from McMaster University indicated that they had experienced sexual assault since the start of the 2017-2018 academic year. Additionally, overall survey respondents indicated that the perpetrator was an acquaintance in 26 per cent of cases and a friend in 25 per cent of cases.
In response to the high rates of sexual violence on campuses, student leaders from universities across Canada released a sexual violence prevention report in August 2022 addressed to universities and the provincial and federal governments. The calls to action include creating education plans and implementing trauma-informed practices, focusing on survivors’ voices in institutional policy making and prioritizing a national standard for addressing campus sexual violence in the National Action Plan to End Gender-Based Violence.
Events like the Women and Gender Equity Network‘s "Building a Culture of Consent" are part of addressing the prevalence of rape culture and sexual violence on campus. The event ran on Jan. 18 as part of the McMaster Student Union Wellbeing Week. The event aimed to educate students on the topic of consent, dispel common myths surrounding it and provide sexual assault resources.
Rijaa Khan, a fourth-year student in applied psychology and human behaviour and an events executive at WGEN, believes that there is a strong need for students to be educated about consent, particularly due to the misconceptions that can contribute to rape culture.
“A common myth that people believe in is this idea that sexual assault only happens in alleyways or dark places by strangers. That was one of the main myths that [WGEN] had to tackle because a lot of the time, according to statistics, sexual assault happens by someone that someone knows,” said Khan.
During the WGEN event, students created a Clothesline for Resistance, with designs on paper t-shirt cut-outs that reflected their main takeaways from the event. Some examples of the designs included messages such as, "Rape is 100 per cent the rapist's fault", emphasizing the importance of holding perpetrators accountable for their actions and rejecting victim blaming.
Khan also discussed the importance of bridging the disconnect between sexual violence resources and students' knowledge about them.
“A lot of people don't even know how to file a complaint or report that something has happened to them because they don't know the [sexual violence] resources that McMaster offers . . . If we talk more about consent and rape culture, the resources can reach more people who need it,” said Khan.
“A lot of people don't even know how to file a complaint or report that something has happened to them because they don't know the [sexual violence] resources that McMaster offers . . . If we talk more about consent and rape culture, the resources can reach more people who need it,”
Rijaa Khan, WGEN Events Executive
Khan highlighted that WGEN has a Safe(r) Space program that provides students with peer support. The initiative aims to create a safe space for individuals that are seeking help, including survivors of sexual assault. WGEN also focuses on being a resource for survivors and connecting them to other sexual assault support resources in the Hamilton community.
Additionally, WGEN will be hosting a weekly survivors community group, open to students who are survivors of sexual, gender-based, and/or intimate partner violence.
Khan advocated for students to actively learn about consent and statistics on how sexual assaults can occur, in order to change their perception of sexual violence in university settings.
“I think constantly challenging your understanding of rape culture is really important. A lot of [students] formulate these ideas of rape culture and how sexual assault can happen based on the media. Another common myth is that everyone who gets sexually assaulted actually reports [the assault]. Very few survivors actually report and when they do, a lot of the time it gets dismissed by our legal system,” said Khan.
Khan encourages students to follow WGEN’s Instagram to learn about resources surrounding sexual violence support and education.
The activism of Black women on campus to foster community and create a culture of inspiration for future Black students
C/O Bethel Samson and Malikca Lawrence
To feel like you belong here has always been a luxury for some.
This might be hard to believe, as with a couple of searches on Instagram it does not take long for a Marauder to discover at least one club, organization, or activity they may wish to affiliate themselves with. However, much of the accessibility that we often take for granted in our digital age did not come without the efforts championed by those who were the most excluded in the first place.
Student-led organizations on campus, when properly acknowledged and given the resources, serve as valuable hubs for networking opportunities, academic and professional guidance and social interactions. While such goals may be the intentions of allowing students to congregate like this, unfortunately, this is historically not reflective of the experiences of Black students at McMaster.
Consequently, there continues to be a need for Black students to have access to the same caliber of resources as their peers. These must be initiatives which are institutionally afforded, that acknowledge and take into consideration the unique cultural positionalities of Black students and Black students with intersectional identities.
Fortunately, there are already two students working to create, secure and maintain concrete spaces for Black students at McMaster even after they graduate.
Bethel Samson
Recognizing the lack of diversity in her program, Bethel Samson is a fourth-year health sciences student who decided to take action and address these concerns.
“When I walked into my cell biology course as a first-year health sci, the first thing I noticed was the lack of Black students. Considering [that] my cohort, like others, will go on to impact the future of healthcare, it was vital to me that there be students who represent Canada’s diversity,” said Samson.
The lack of representation in McMaster’s health sciences program prompted Samson to create the Black BHSc Association in collaboration with her peers in 2020. Serving as a co-founder and events coordinator, Samson and co-leaders of the BBA advocated to create equitable admissions for Black applications within the health sciences program with the goal of increasing the acceptance of Black students.
Samson’s work within the BBA successfully crafted an application stream into the health sciences program for Black students only, named the Equitable Admissions for Black Applicants. EABA provides a process where applications would be reviewed by an all-Black admissions committee. Having successfully been implemented within the 2021 application cycle, this initiative has worked to increase the number of Black students within the class of 2025.
Aside from her extensive involvement in the BBA, Samson has regularly volunteered as a peer supporter to marginalized students for McMaster Students Union’s Women and Gender Equity Network and continues to extend her events experience within WGEN as an events co-coordinator.
Samson is currently completing a thesis with the department of Psychiatry and Neurosciences on first episode psychosis and cannabis use disorder among racialized youth. She hopes to explore how Black youth can hold conversations around this culturally sensitive topic with loved ones and get the empathy and proper care they need. Aspiring to work in healthcare, Samson intends to address the neglect Black communities face within the healthcare system.
“I want to continue to grow our resiliency as a community. I want a future where if a Black patient comes in, they feel comfortable first and foremost. I hope in the future, Black first-years do not have to go through the feelings of isolation and feeling like their behaviors are overly observed like I had to,” explained Samson.
Samson hopes for the continued diversification of Mac’s student body to include the voices of more Black students in all facets of McMaster.
Malikca Lawrence
Malikca Lawrence is a second-year arts and science student also heavily involved in activism for Black students on campus.
“My first year was entirely online. I didn’t know anybody [or] any clubs and had no way of making connections that allowed me to feel a part of the Mac community. But then this year, I discovered a whole host of Black clubs I didn’t even know existed and I immediately felt a sense of community,” said Lawrence.
To empower first- and second-year students such as herself who share similar feelings of alienation upon returning to campus in person, Lawrence decided to work as a vice president events for Blackspace, a club for Black women and non-binary folks to connect, collaborate and uplift one another.
An avid reader who spent much of her time volunteering and working with libraries in her hometown, Lawrence brings her passion for books to facilitate a book club within Blackspace where students can connect through the literary works of Black authors.
Lawrence also extends her desire to create community by working with the Black Student Association, a hub for Black students to connect to professional and academic resources and opportunities.
Of Jamaican descent, Lawrence stays connected to her Caribbean cultural roots by outreaching on behalf of McMaster Association of West Indian Students. She is responsible for booking spaces and reaching out to other Black organizations for MACAWS events.
Notably, Lawrence is extensively involved with a new tiered initiative titled the Black Student Mentorship Program. The organization serves as a portal to connect Black students seeking guidance with a Black mentor, be it undergraduate students connecting with grad students or grad students looking to connect with professors.
Lawrence expressed how as a Black woman, she has often observed Black students and their lived experiences being overlooked in academia, a vicious cycle which marks the start of countless systemic cultural and academic barriers Black students will go on to face within their academic careers. It is of the utmost importance to her to offer a wide range of options for Black students to be able to choose the direction of their academic, professional and social growth.
“Talking to past students who never had these clubs, we created these spaces because we felt isolated. I hope to continue the work people before me have started and I see myself as one day being president of one of these initiatives that I am a part of and perhaps even start something new. It’s all about catering to what is lacking in the community,” explained Lawrence.
Looking forward to being involved in healthcare and working with Black folks, Lawrence hopes to continue to study how the past of the Black diaspora continues to shape the current Black experience.
C/O Julia Ford
Transforming Mac: a week aimed at enabling trans students to network and heal.
To commemorate Trans Day of Remembrance on Nov. 20, McMaster Women and Gender Equity Network dedicated itself to organizing Transforming Mac, an annual weeklong series of events dedicated to giving trans Marauders a space just for them. Intended to provide opportunities for trans students to create community and connections on campus, there are a variety of Zoom events and ways to engage. Given that emotionally supporting gender marginalized folks by providing them with closed spaces and further resources is one of WGEN’s primary mandates, WGEN views Transforming Mac to be an event where trans folks feel normal connecting with others who share similar intersections of identity.
Running for over five years at McMaster University, Transforming Mac is more pertinent than ever in 2021, a year which proved to be one of the deadliest on record for violence and hate crimes committed against trans individuals across North America prior to December.
The events for Transforming Mac include a vigil, a community group discussion on Nov. 20 which marks Trans Day of Remembrance in Canada and closed spaces for trans folks to watch movies, make art and engage in self-care together.
Centering normalcy is greatly emphasized in Transforming Mac’s events, where existence of oneself without constant explanation and advocacy is framed to be an empowering choice in and of itself.
Julia Ford, the assistant director of WGEN, attests to the importance of WGEN maintaining its tradition of hosting Transforming Mac despite the restrictions placed on gathering capacities.
“It’s really important to provide spaces where trans people can feel safe because the broader world unfortunately does not offer trans folks that chance to exist normally,” explained Ford.
Transforming Mac is characterized by its offering of a multitude of safe and closed spaces, referring to events where only individuals of a specific identity can attend. Alongside closed spaces for only trans folks, there are also spaces specifically for racialized trans folks.
Namely, the purpose of closed spaces is such that individuals who attend these spaces do not feel the need to explain their identities. It is important to note that Transforming Mac is not a week only for education or remembrance, but a week of moving forward and acknowledgement for trans students on campus. Transforming Mac serves to help trans folks feel safer. Trans activism, while certainly crucial in its own right, is allowed to coexist with Transforming Mac’s main priority of providing trans folks with the opportunity to build community without becoming the center focus.
“We have received really positive feedback from the broader McMaster community about Transforming Mac. [In] our more educational oriented events in the past, many folks were intimidated by the proper terminology to use and our events really helped to break some of this hesitation to learn more about trans issues,” explained Ford.
WGEN attempts to ensure it does not speak over trans voices when organizing events or closed functions and welcomes collaboration with trans organizers in an effort to center trans voices with planning respectful and inclusive events.
Attendees are not required to participate in any specific way and the events are designed to allow folks to engage in such a way that is safe and comfortable for them. Encouraging organic conversations and having an actively monitored chat and texting functions for attendees who may not be able to speak freely are ways the organizers of Transforming Mac ensured comfort and safety.
“We as organizers have no set expectations for an event and it is of [the] utmost importance that attendees are able to come to the event and enjoy it on their own terms [and] not by any requirements we put in place,” explained Ford.
Transforming Mac did not measure its success by the quantity of attendees, but rather the quality of the conversations fostered over the week. Additionally, the organizers of Transforming Mac wanted to ensure students do not feel pressured to publicly engage with the week and to freely use the resources offered.
“Being situated online in accordance with COVID restrictions has its advantages and disadvantages. It is good for individuals who wish to remain anonymous and is more accessible for folks who are still not ready to identify themselves. Unfortunately, not everybody may not be able to speak freely online,” explained Ford.
Rija Khan, the WGEN resources coordinator helped organize Transforming Mac alongside the Queer and Trans Club of Color by overseeing the distribution of resources for each event. As a representative of WGEN, Khan is also trained to provide peer support for individuals who may require it.
“Alongside support resources, we provide gender affirming resources such as binders, packers and sanitary items at certain events. We also have a library I oversee and catalog,” explained Khan.
It was significant to have WGEN representatives at Transforming Mac as it encapsulated WGEN’s belief in catering its services to all genders and oppressed individuals and that is not only limited to cisgender women. The involvement of trans individuals of colour at Transforming Mac served to prevent conversations about gender, identity and the trans experience only centering around white trans folks, whose experiences often greatly differ.
Racialized queer folks must feel safe to speak about their lives without being judged or feeling pressured to revisit and reexplain their life experiences which may often be traumatic. Addressing shared experiences was a way to foster self-healing and increased self-awareness for Transforming Mac attendees.
“Growing up without queer friends, I find that Transforming Mac is to an extent educational because I was able to learn lots from the anecdotal and lived experiences of others. It allowed me to get to know myself better too,” explained Khan.
Transforming Mac has undergone an evolution since its existence. From education to remembrance to a space for community, it will continue to occupy a place at McMaster where it will keep transitioning to accommodate the changing needs for trans McMaster students.
Travis Nguyen/Photo Editor
MSU Service directors talk about their plans for the upcoming hybrid year
While the pandemic certainly took its toll on student life, a group of dedicated student leaders have been working tirelessly to maintain essential mental and physical health support services. There are many services that aim to create a safe(r) space on campus for marginalized communities. The McMaster Students Union has five such student services: the Women and Gender Equity Network, the Student Health Education Center, Maccess, Diversity Services and the Pride Community Center.
SHEC is a service for any McMaster University student looking for health-related support, childcare resources and breast-feeding spaces. They also offer free health items such as condoms, pregnancy tests and other external health resources.
“As MSU SHEC, we are a completely peer-run health advocacy, information and resource connection service. We operate under a broad definition of health, recognizing that wellbeing looks and feels different to each person. We provide free health supplies and educational materials and are dedicated to promoting our four strategic priorities: sexual and reproductive health, empowered bodies, substance use and mental wellbeing,” explained Anika Anand, the director of SHEC.
Similarly, WGEN offers peer-support services, but these are catered towards survivors of gendered violence and promoting gender equity.
“WGEN is a community-building and peer-support service run by and for women, trans and non-binary folks, as well as all survivors of sexual and gender-based violence. We focus on creating community and non-judgmental spaces among these folks through our safe(r) space, multi-event campaign weeks and peer groups. A big part of our mandate includes supporting folks through peer-support and free resources,” said Neha Shah, the director of WGEN.
Maccess, a service dedicated to disabled students on campus, on the other hand, is reorienting its disability activism strategy to not only raise awareness for disabilities on campus, but to actively advocate that disabled students on campus are invaluable to McMaster.
Maccess, a service dedicated to disabled students on campus, on the other hand, is reorienting its disability activism strategy to not only raise awareness for disabilities on campus, but to actively advocate that disabled students on campus are invaluable to McMaster.
“We are a peer-support, community-building and activism organization, run both and by disabled students. We use the term "disability" to include folks who identify as having a disability, mental health concerns, neurodivergence, chronic health conditions and addiction. Our priority this year is to move away from just the recognition that disabled folks exist on campus, to where we recognize disabled folks are valuable on campus,” explained Emunah Woolf, the director of Maccess.
Diversity Services is extending the services it traditionally offers and has plans on adopting the long-established peer-support system used in the past by WGEN, SHEC and PCC to further extend its avenues to provide support.
“Diversity Services works on celebration, advocacy and generally uniting all folks across campus that identify as religious, cultural and other minorities. We are joining Maccess, PCC, WGEN and SHEC in their practices with the pilot of our new peer-support services. These are taking place as community circles that are closed spaces for people to come in and find people with similar intersections of identity as themselves,” explained Sofia Palma Florido, the director of Diversity Services.
Amidst the uncertainties of an entirely online 2020-2021 academic year and a hybrid 2021-2022 year, these MSU services have been compelled to adapt to these circumstances. They have had to drastically alter how they reach and provide their services to students. Across the services, the directors found offering services with the same engagement, quality and reach to be some of the most pressing difficulties of an online environment.
“In our workshops we would commonly have events that promote learning and expanding students’ horizons. When we moved to an online setting, everyone involved, be it volunteers, executives or guests at our events, were already so affected by Zoom exhaustion that it was very difficult to execute everything to its full potential," said Palma Florido.
Nonetheless, Palma Florido has strategies to appeal to first and second-year students to get involved with Diversity Services. She hopes that these strategies will engage students who have not had the opportunity to physically or extensively interact with Diversity Services and the other MSU services.
“Particularly targeting first and second-year students, my goal is to create and facilitate spaces for these new students who have never been on campus to find community. So, allowing for spaces where people can create community with people that have similar lived experiences is something I cherish for myself, and I really want to make that happen for new and returning students,” said Palma Florido.
Services like SHEC have also experienced a shift in their culture and dynamics operating online.
“We operate using a safe(r) space protocol which is creating that supportive, non-judgmental environment. This aspect has been tough to create digitally, so it did involve a lot of training on digital responsibility for our volunteers and execs to facilitate safe(r) space online,” said Anand.
Anand remains optimistic however, finding brighter sides to the constraints of an online environment and even embracing some of the pros it has to offer.
“Although operating virtually has placed additional barriers on access and visibility, it has also provided an additional layer of anonymity for service users trying to access our space and peer-support. Service users may feel more comfortable accessing services since they are not seen walking in and out of space,” explained Anand.
For a service like Maccess however, an online environment has allowed it to open itself up to more students, namely disabled students, who were unable to access the service in person.
“We tried to shift our metric of success for events by focusing on quality over quantity. So, if we have a Zoom event that three or four folks got out to and we had a great conversation and we were able to offer them support and community, we consider that a success. In some ways moving online did allow us to have more accessibility, for example an issue we had in the past is that folks’ disabilities would prevent them from coming to the Maccess space on campus,” said Woolfe.
Woolfe also draws attention to the opportunities a newly online community brought to disabled students on campus.
“Previously we were not able to create Discords as an online community created a lot of liability issues, but to have a space where disabled and immunocompromised folks could meet one another from their room or hospitals was a really positive thing we could do. It allowed us to provide captions, extended hours and other accessibility needs,” explained Woolfe.
Shah is viewing the online Fall term of WGEN as an opportunity for expanding WGEN’s services to meet intersectional and survivor communities’ needs online now, and to plan for a gradual opening to in-person activities.
“This year, we are planning on providing similar services that we did last year, but hopefully with more options to access these both online and in person. Julia, the assistant director and I have also planned to increase our focus on two key areas of our mandate: survivors and ease of access. We hope to increase the amount of programming we provide to survivors, especially with a focus on intersectionality — so providing closed spaces within our identity-specific events,” explained Shah.
Like the approaches taken by SHEC and Maccess, Shah is also mindful of student accessibility needs, and has ideas to make the WGEN space even more inclusive to student accessibility needs.
“We are working to address how it can be really intimidating to enter our safe(r) space, that there are many misconceptions about peer-support, and that there are also some concerns about accessibility about our physical space. We hope to work with other services to address these concerns,” explained Shah.
McMaster students are strongly encouraged to seek out support from MSU services if needed.
McMaster students are strongly encouraged to seek out support from MSU services if needed.
Having safe spaces around the university allow marginalized students to feel less alienated
Graphic by Esra Rakab
cw: mentions of racism, hateful political rhetoric, child sexual abuse
If you’re on any part of political YouTube where the titles appear to be “Feminists REKT!!! Compilation”, or “Man Speaks FACTS, DESTROYS Emotional Liberal,” then you have likely heard of how safe spaces, also known as closed spaces, are for “snowflakes.” Moreover, closed spaces are framed as being a “new type of segregation” enforced by the “radical left” on campuses.
The main contesters against these spaces appear to be predominantly white professors at post-secondary institutions and (mainly white) right-wing pundits who frame the concept of having spaces closed to only certain marginalized groups to be a step backwards. In turn, they argue that there would be outrage should the tables be turned and there were spaces closed to white people.
Well. Despite all the controversy surrounding the newly emerging safe spaces on campuses across North America, I honestly feel that the main motivations for why safe spaces were proposed as a solution in the first place go largely ignored.
Even in a university as accepting and as open to improving its measures towards inclusivity as McMaster University, there have been countless instances in my primarily white program where I’ve felt degraded and humiliated as a visible woman of colour.
Even in a university as accepting and as open to improving its measures towards inclusivity as McMaster University, there have been countless instances in my primarily white program where I’ve felt degraded and humiliated as a visible woman of colour.
This has mainly been in the form of tone policing, where if I express myself with the exact same emotion or words as another white classmate, I have constantly been told that I’m “too aggressive” and that I need to “calm down” by numerous students.
There have been instances where when I shared my status as a child sexual abuse survivor in confidence to explain how it only strengthened my convictions in feminism and as a result, I was labelled as being “too much,” and was pushed into isolation from the get-go.
With all of the hashtags, the “BLMs” and the “support small businesses” stickers plastered across the social media of the students who unknowingly engage in deeply damaging behaviour, I cannot help but lament with disappointment.
So many seemingly “non-discriminatory” people appear to be very disconnected when it comes to actually engage in the small actions within their day-to-day life that make 2SLGBTQIA+ students and Black, Indigenous and students of colour feel safe.
I was formally introduced to closed spaces at Mac while volunteering with the Women and Gender Equity Network, a survivor-centric organization dedicated towards empowering those experiencing gender-based violence and educating Mac on such issues. While I was initially confused as to why many of WGEN’s events were closed to different groups, I soon understood why.
Like myself, there are people out there who experience microaggressions and discrimination for an identity they cannot control. Just like me, they are emotionally exhausted at having to bite their tongues when a snarky comment is made about their existence in university, a historically white institution, or when they make white people around them uncomfortable when they don’t fit into a neat little box of how a model minority should act like.
Like myself, there are people out there who experience microaggressions and discrimination for an identity they cannot control.
Even if a remark here and there may not appear to be the end of the world, from my personal experience, these small, yet deeply painful moments build up until they’ve become a full-fledged trauma and they build up until you feel as though maybe you really don’t belong on a campus like Mac.
That is why we need closed spaces. Marginalized students who are at risk for identity-based discrimination need a space to simply talk about their experiences with other students who share these experiences. They need a space with other students who will understand each other without having to do a million, painstaking explanations to set the context.
Many universities are already notorious for not taking allegations of sexual assault, racism and any other forms of discrimination seriously. However, given that instances of discrimination frequently happen in a subtle, systemic form where the student has a lot at stake socially should they react at all, there is almost no way for students to deal with and talk about these very real issues.
Yes, the real world is not this nice, but offering safe spaces to students as a therapeutic tool to cope with these injustices is the least we deserve.
By relying on students to work overtime in their MSU roles, low-income students are being barred from MSU jobs
The McMaster Students Union provides over 300 part-time job opportunities for full-time undergraduate students. For many students, MSU jobs can be incredibly convenient as you don’t need to travel far — either you can do your job from home or complete your shift on campus.
Additionally, MSU jobs can also be up your alley if it relates to something you’re passionate about. Whether it’s running a first-year mentorship program, editing for the student newspaper or running a food bank — there is plenty of space for you to pursue your interests.
However, it’s important to note that many of these jobs are contract jobs. While you can get a part-time job at Union Market or TwelvEighty Bar & Grill where you work on an hourly basis, a lot of MSU jobs state a range of hours in its contract. For example, the Student Health Education Centre Coordinator’s job contract says that they will work 10-12 hours a week, whereas the Women and Gender Equity Network Coordinator works 14-16 hours a week. However, despite what the contract says, many student employees find themselves working overtime — for free.
Students overworking their contracted hours are especially noticeable within the peer support services. For example, the Student Health Education Centre coordinator wrote in their Oct. 8 Executive Board report that they work 25-40 hours a week instead of their contracted 10-12. They then explained in their Nov. 5 report that although they have been logging their hours, they will not gain approval for many of them because then they would be considered a full-time employee.
The Pride Community Centre, Women and Gender Equity Network and Maccess coordinators also wrote similar concerns in their reports. All of the coordinators highlighted the issue of having to pre-approve overtime hours with the vice-president (administration) that may not even be approved. This is difficult to do, considering that many tasks and meetings pop up that are hard to anticipate in advance.
Students overworking their contracted hours is especially noticeable within the peer support services. For example, the Student Health Education Centre coordinator wrote in their Oct. 8 Executive Board report that they work 25-40 hours a week instead of their contracted 10-12.
Many of these part-time managers are then left to decide whether to fulfill tasks of their role adequately and work overtime or work their hours but not complete the tasks they need to do in their role.
The Maccess, SHEC and PCC coordinators have also highlighted that they are the only paid staff members of their service, so when a volunteer executive cannot complete their work, they often have to take over the role. The reports highlight that volunteer executives often work well above their hours in addition to being unpaid, so it seems unfair to task them with even more work than they currently do. As a result, the extra hours of work fall onto the paid part-time manager.
This is a systemic issue within the MSU. By forcing undergraduate students to overwork their contracted hours, we are telling students that to do a good job at your role, you have to work over your expected hours. That you have to do unpaid work to be a good MSU employee. Because of this implied expectation, low-income students are often barred from MSU jobs.
You can even take the Silhouette as an example. The Sil’s section editors, like myself, are paid for 10-12 hours per week. But oftentimes, we work a lot longer than that. Last year when I and a few other editors logged our hours, we worked upwards of 15-20 hours per week on average. This is because in a week, we have to attend three to four meetings, find contributors to write for our section, write our own articles, edit anywhere from three to six articles, correspond with contributors, provide our contributors feedback and layout two articles. Sometimes, issues or complaints can pop up as well that we have to deal with.
Our workload is often impossible to complete within 12 hours — 12 hours per week is less than two hours of work each day! If we don’t do extra hours, though, we simply wouldn’t be able to publish the amount of content we do currently. The same goes for many other roles in the MSU — if you don’t work extra, you likely won’t finish the tasks you need to do for that week. But because we do so much extra work, low-income students are less likely to hold these jobs because they can probably find a job that doesn’t overwork them. As a result, students who are okay with doing a little bit extra for their job are the ones who end up in these MSU roles.
Our workload is often impossible to complete within 12 hours — 12 hours per week is less than two hours of work each day! If we don’t do extra hours, though, we simply wouldn’t be able to publish the amount of content we do currently.
If only privileged students can afford to be part of the MSU, there is an inherent lack of representation in the MSU — the student union that is supposed to represent all undergraduate students. The MSU relies on our ability to “put in the extra work” and if you aren’t able to do that, they’ll find someone else to hire.
What’s worse is to be a competitive applicant for an MSU job, you often have to volunteer and do a lot of unpaid labour to appear more qualified. For many paid positions in the MSU, it is an asset to have volunteered or contributed to that service in the past. With the Sil specifically, it is an asset to have written or volunteered with the Silhouette if you want to be considered for a paid role because it shows that you have an understanding and passion for the Silhouette.
However, because volunteering is looked highly upon when applying for a paid role, people who have the ability to spend time volunteering — instead of working — have an upper hand in the job application process.
It’s clear that this is a systemic problem within the MSU. The MSU is something that should serve all of us. I’m lucky enough to be able to hold a paid role in the MSU, but I still find that time after time, the MSU has harmed me and many others because the “higher-ups” tend to be upper-class, privileged, white and overall, out of tune with the rest of the student body.
By Mads Clement, Contributor
cw: mental health, suicide
In 2018, the Student Representative Assembly voted to rescind the Peer Support Line (PSL), an anonymous hotline that existed to support students and their mental health.
PSL offered students a place to chat with another student trained in peer support about difficulties that they were experiencing. These challenges could range from relationship issues to academic problems.
According to a former vice president (administration) of the McMaster Students Union, the main reason the PSL was rescinded was because it received too many “crisis calls”, which posed a liability to all parties involved. Given student staff were not trained in crisis management or how to address calls with students experiencing suicidal ideation, this is a reasonable concern.
WGEN is a peer support and community building space on the second floor of the student centre.
However, closing a mental health-based service has had negative impacts on the student body. We have lost one more resource on our already very small list of mental health resources. Anonymous peer support is extremely valuable. These services can be accessed without the fear of your name being officially attached to your mental health issues and because peers can relate to you on levels that adult therapists often cannot. Having someone who can relate to you without worrying about whether you will be institutionalized is an important facet of mental health care.
For these reasons and many others, students were outraged by the closing of PSL. We took to Twitter and Facebook, asking for answers as to why such a valuable service would be rescinded. It’s hard to find mental health care on campus, and reducing our options makes it even harder.
I actually received a reply from a member of the SRA to my outraged tweets where they wrote; “actually, there are 4 new counsellors that have been added to increase 4,000 hours of counselling to decrease the waiting time that students face when accessing the Student Wellness Centre.”
There are three main reasons why this resolution is an issue.
Problem number one: as mentioned above, going to a therapist is not the ideal option for everyone, as some students are likely to have minimal shared experiences with therapists. This especially applies to marginalized folks; patients of colour are less likely to find a racialized therapist that understands the impacts of systemic racism on their mental health. 2SLGBTQ+ students face a similar struggle when dealing with cisgender, heterosexual therapists. The same can be said of various other marginalized identities.
The second problem is that four more therapists isn’t enough. Ask anyone who goes to therapy at the SWC about how long they wait for appointments. In the majority of cases, there’s a two week to one month gap in between appointments. This is not adequate. On top of that, the therapists and counsellors are so swamped with students that they rarely have time to dedicate care to their patients beyond a surface level interaction. Mental health problems often run a lot deeper than what therapists are able to deal with because of their volume of patients.
Since there are many students floundering for mental health care outside of the SWC and PSL, more pressure has been put on the MSU peer support services: Women and Gender Equity Network, the Pride Community Centre, Student Health Education Centre and Maccess. These services, like PSL, are run by students who have entry level peer support training and are not compensated for their work. They are not equipped to handle the volume of students coming to them for help, let alone the degree of mental distress some of their space users are in. These students are not trained therapists.
Additionally, the majority of students that volunteer for these services are marginalized, which leads to the issue of marginalized students taking on all the mental health work on campus. These students, because of the pressures in their own lives and the added pressures of dealing with the mental health crises of others that they can’t always handle, often develop their own mental health problems and also need support or therapy. This system is unbalanced and unsustainable.
We need a balance of both therapists and peer support services. Therapists can provide specialized care to those who need it, but they are at capacity at McMaster University right now. We need more therapists; specifically therapists who have experiences with marginalization. It’s super weird talking about institutionalized transphobia with a cisgender, heterosexual person. This needs to change.
In addition, the MSU peer support services need more funding and volunteers should be compensated for their work. They put hours of unpaid labour into an unforgiving system that does not support them.
McMaster needs to rework its mental health support systems, and it needs to do this as urgently as possible. Everyone suffers when mental health services are limited, not just mentally ill folks.
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The McMaster Students Union and McMaster University are preparing to re-examine their policies and protocols on sexual violence in light of the recent Student Voices on Sexual Violence report released by the provincial government earlier this month.
The Student Voices on Sexual Violence survey was sent out last year and involved 160,000 students from over 40 Ontario post-secondary institutions outlining their experiences of sexual violence and harassment.
According to the survey, three in five McMaster students disclosed at least one experience of sexual harassment.
Sixty-one per cent of McMaster students said they do not have knowledge of McMaster’s sexual violence supports and services.
A McMaster Daily News article responding to the report states that McMaster has provided sexual violence prevention and response training to more than 8,600 students, staff and faculty over the past year.
Arig al Shaibah, McMaster’s associate vice president (Equity and Inclusion), said the university’s sexual violence education team will begin planning a bystander intervention training program in April.
In response to the report, the university will also shortly be reviewing the McMaster’s sexual violence policy, which was created in 2017.
“We are just in the beginning processes of looking at the policy,” al Shaibah said. “We know the numbers that come through our offices are not necessarily indicative of the full picture, so periodically going out there and being able to anonymously get a good gauge of people’s experiences and perceptions is really important.”
Every year, the EIO releases a report highlighting statistics on disclosures of sexual violence and harassment.
However, al Shaibah said the EIO needs to make sure that definitions used to classify disclosures are standardized.
“We have just improved the way we are collecting and centralizing data,” al Shaibah said. “Moving forward, one of the things we are doing is trying to make sure that everyone in the intake office is using the same definition so that we can start to capture trend data over time.”
MSU vice president (Administration) Kristina Epifano will be revising the current “Workplace Anti-Violence, Harassment, and Sexual Assault Prevention Policy” in response to the survey.
“With these revisions, we will host some feedback sessions, inviting student-staff and volunteers to share some of the challenges they've experienced with policies in the past and recommendations they would like to see moving forward,” Epifano said in an email. “I believe it is important to adapt the policy to highlight different options and courses of action that a survivor can take during the process.”
The provincial report comes against the backdrop of multiple allegations of sexual assault within the MSU Maroons.
On March 29, Farah released a statement addressing the subject, promising a formal investigation.
Nevertheless, Farah states that she hasn’t “found actual reports, anonymous or otherwise, of sexual violence within the Maroons team this year.”
The statement also said Epifano will be standardizing an anonymous online reporting tool used for Marrons for all MSU volunteers.
Jocelyn Heaton, the coordinator of the MSU Women and Gender Equity Network, said the MSU’s steps in addressing sexual violence are helpful, but there remains a lot of work to be done.
“The fact that less than three quarters of students know that there are supports and services available is pretty harmful for people who experience sexual violence,” said Heaton. “Also, knowing that a lot of that group is going to receive a disclosure during their time at university and they're not going to know where to refer people to is harmful as well,” she said.
Heaton also mentioned that there has been no consultation thus far with services like WGEN when it comes to the Maroons incident and revising the MSU’s workplace sexual assault prevention policy.
“As the coordinator of a service, the only service specifically meant to address sexual violence, I was never once consulted or brought in to talk about that situation,” Heaton said. “Students have not been consulted on what the policy should look like.”
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