The thing that has been on the tip of everyone’s tongue since Tuesday is the blue wave phenomenon during the midterm elections. No one, however, seems to be talking about the pink wave. Over 100 women are expected to serve in the House of Representatives. That is roughly 28% of congressmen. Some of which include the first black woman Ph.D. scientist in Congress, Jasmine Clark of Georgia, and Melat Kiros, the first black woman to represent Colorado and the first Gen Z woman in Congress. We see some of these firsts span out even further in the Senate. Peggy Flangann of Michigan is the first Native American woman to serve, and Annie Andrews is the first woman ever elected to represent South Carolina in the Senate. 30 years ago, Carol Moseley Braun, of Illinois, became the first ever black woman to be elected to the Senate. Now Illinois will be the first state to have two women of color serve in the Senate at the same time after Juliana Stratton became the fifth ever black woman elected. Only 64 women have served in the Senate since it first convened in 1789. Only five of these women have been black, only three women were Asian American and Pacific Islander, and one was Latina. As for all of Congress, only 445 women have served, making up only 3.5% of those who have served in either the House of Representatives or the Senate. Women are half of the US population yet hold just 28% of the seats in CongressThis comes 110 years after Jeanette Rankin became the first woman to serve in Congress in 1916, three years before the 19th Amendment passed. This midterm is a turning of the tide when it comes to female representation in politics. Women’s issues have been highly debated in government for years, with little female say, including the recent overturning of Roe V. Wade. The government has long made laws about women’s bodies without any women present. I mean, even the government buildings themselves are structured to benefit men. In fact, there wasn’t a women’s restroom on the Senate floor until 1993. This isn’t victory just yet. Women’s butts in seats won’t provide change in legislation on its own. We need to hold our politicians accountable for the policies that we want to see change. The people have spoken; their ballots have been cast. We want change, and that won’t get done until the politicians get to work. Acknowledgement: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the individual author, not necessarily Our National Conversation as a whole.
By Adrihanna Collins
As a junior at California State University, Northridge (CSUN), I’ve walked this campus at nearly every hour: during morning classes, in the late-afternoon rush, and long after the sun has gone down. Throughout these walks, I’ve noticed one thing: how safe I feel depends heavily on how illuminated the path ahead of me is. During my morning and afternoon classes, daylight does the work. Walkways properly guide me to my classes, and buildings look like regular campus buildings — not towering shadows that obstruct my view. I’m not anxious about where I’m headed, nor am I contemplating whether to take the shorter, darker route or the longer, brighter one. But as soon as the sun sets, everything seems to turn upside down. Without sunlight, walkways are no longer reliable paths that I follow without a second thought. Instead, I navigate them carefully and deliberately, wary of my every step, moving as quickly as I physically can without breaking into a run. Areas surrounding Sierra Hall, the B3 parking structure, the orange orchard, and the pond become almost unrecognizable compared to their daytime appearance. Even if there is no immediate danger around me as I walk to class or to my car, I wouldn’t know for sure: inadequate lighting limits what I can see. I rely solely on scattered streetlights that light up only portions of the walkways, leaving stretches of darkness in between. With each illuminated section comes a sense of security, only for it to disappear as quickly as it came when the path ahead fades back into darkness. In some areas, even that brief sense of security is absent, as entire stretches of campus remain poorly lit. This uncertainty about my surroundings leaves me questioning whether campus is really as safe as administrators make it out to be. For many students, balancing work with school means attending classes after the sun has set. Therefore, taking nighttime classes may be a matter of necessity. With CSUN scheduling classes as late as 9:45 p.m., students should be able to walk on their campus without the additional burden of worrying about their safety. As a woman, these concerns are especially prominent. After speaking with other students about this issue, I’ve realized that many women share similar experiences. Some describe clutching pepper spray in their fists as they walk to their cars, using their phones as flashlights to navigate poorly lit areas, or constantly scanning their surroundings for potential danger — all of which I have done myself countless times over the years. Blue-light emergency phones and call boxes are limited in the amount of safety they provide. I say this because, while these systems serve a crucial purpose, they are designed to assist students when an emergency arises. But what about prevention? Adequate lighting is a preventative measure that reduces opportunities for danger. The goal should transcend providing students with resources to use when their safety is threatened. Instead, it should be to create an environment where students are less likely to feel the need to use blue-light emergency phones and call boxes in the first place. If I’ve silently carried concerns about my own safety throughout my time at CSUN and the students I’ve spoken with have similarly kept their experiences to themselves, how many others feel the same way? Although my firsthand experience and conversations with students are limited to CSUN, concerns surrounding inadequate campus lighting extend far beyond Northridge. Students at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), University of California, Davis (UC Davis), California State University, Los Angeles (Cal State LA), California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly SLO), and California State University, Monterey Bay (CSUMB) have also raised concerns about lighting conditions on their respective campuses. What initially appeared to be an isolated concern at my own university begins to look like a broader issue affecting students across California. If students across multiple California universities are raising similar concerns, what does that say about the priorities of university administrators? More broadly, what does it say about the responsibility of California’s elected representatives? When something as fundamental as lighting remains a concern, the question should shift from why students feel unsafe to why those with the authority to address these conditions have yet to resolve them. In The Daily Sundial, CSUN Environmental Health and Safety Director Daniel Castellon emphasized the importance of student participation in identifying campus safety concerns, stating, “Without their feedback, there’s not gonna be any change.” While student feedback is undoubtedly valuable and always will be, should meaningful improvements to campus lighting depend on students’ efforts in the first place? To suggest that students must come together and voice their concerns for this issue to receive attention places the responsibility on the very students these institutions are meant to serve. This overlooks the role of university administrators, who should be proactive in identifying and addressing such conditions. Student efforts and advocacy should serve as an additional means of identifying campus concerns, not as a prerequisite for administrators to address them. Administrators should be able to see with their own eyes just how poorly lit areas of their campuses are. Part of their job is to maintain an environment where students can pursue their education without worrying about their safety. Are pitch-black stretches of walkways and insufficient lighting really conditions they consider acceptable? I find that hard to believe. Although CSUN conducts nighttime safety inspections and provides maintenance services for campus lighting, the continued presence of poorly lit walkways raises questions about whether these efforts are sufficient. Identifying lighting deficiencies and malfunctions barely break the surface; ensuring that they are addressed through timely repairs and additional lighting where needed is equally important. These are basic improvements that should be prioritized so students can navigate their campuses with greater confidence. California’s elected representatives also have a role to play, as they are responsible for representing the interests of their constituents. Among those constituents are younger generations of Californians pursuing higher education — the
By Maya Balmanukyan
This past Sunday, Michigan Congresswoman and former Michigan Senate Primary candidate Haley Stevens broke with her party to endorse the Republican nominee, Mike Rogers. This development comes after both a contentious primary and an intense personal feud between Stevens and the Democratic nominee, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed. This also comes after Steven’s fiance, Jason Turkish, had endorsed Rogers three days prior. The real question is: How did we get here, and what does this mean for the remaining days before the race? To really understand how we got to this point, we must look at the critical issues and positions that were expressed by Stevens and Sayed during the Democratic primary. Rep. Stevens is staunch supporter of Israel and the war in Gaza, denying genocide and advocating for continued military support to the Israeli government. Dr. El-Sayed is the antithesis of these positions. He has consistently acknowledged the UN-backed categorization of Israel’s actions as genocide, does not support continuing military aid to Israel, and has advocated for redirected domestic spending for Michigan and the rest of the United States. It has been made evidently clear in the United States that aid to Israel and the conflict in Palestine have increasingly dominated election and news cycles. The more Israel has continued its brutalization of the Palestinian people and region, the more American political parties split and deviate from their policy agenda, preventing true progress. Both the Democratic and Republican parties have been met by immense challenges to their unity and party solidarity. On the left, you have the Democratic Socialists that decry the smallest infraction upon their pretentious and unrealistic moral code, as seen with DSA and pro-Palestinian supporters protesting New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani for attending a vigil for innocent civilians killed in the 2023 Hamas terror attack in Israel. On the right, you have a more right-wing populist faction that is undyingly loyal to President Trump. This has led to many political actors in the conservative world abandoning and attacking well established Republicans like Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie, who was recently defeated in his Republican primary under accusations of antisemitism relating to his stance on the United States-Israel relationship. Another angle to look at here is private interest spending and donations. The American- Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) spent over $35 million in support of Steven’s primary bid, which resulted in making the Michigan Democratic primary for senate the most expensive in American history. Steven’s mutual embrace of private interest money explains well why she has now endorsed a man who has constantly spouted Islamaphobia, stood by President Trump’s demonstrably detrimental policy agenda, and is an overall antithesis of everything the Democratic party stands for. She has now become no better than the radical partisan actors of the new American political world, hell-bent on making one issue out of a plethora of policy positions, a dealbreaker in supporting the nominee of her own party. Her betrayal to not just the people of Michigan, but Democrats nationwide, will be immortalized as a catastrophic marker of the state of our political atmosphere. Acknowledgement: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the individual author, not necessarily Our National Conversation as a whole.
By Theodore Maher
Follow Us