Guest Column: Women Should Not Be Judged Only by Their Attractiveness, Personality, Intelligence, Past Accomplishments, and Overall Moral Character

By Ella di Mancuso (Medill ’16)

Alright, Northwestern; we need to have a serious talk.

There’s a problem on this campus, and it’s not just the polar vortexes or the fact that Dunkin’ Donuts still doesn’t exist yet.  It’s not a problem everyone has – only about half of the students at Northwestern have experienced it.  I’ve had friends that have experienced it.  I’ve seen people on Sheridan and in Norris that have experienced it.  I’ve experienced it.  And unless we address this issue now, unless we change the culture of this campus, people are going to keep experiencing it.

Guys, seriously: Stop judging a female student only by her good looks and personal skills and grades and student group involvement and overall common sense and list of accomplishments and whether she is actually a good person or not.

It’s a problem that’s quickly spiraling out of control, and all you have to do is

On Tolkien, War and Morality

Tolkien, 1916

I logged on to Facebook this morning to discover that today marks the 122nd anniversary of the birth of J.R.R. Tolkien. I don’t want to call it his “birthday,” seeing as he passed away many years ago, and that learning of someone’s birthday on Facebook usually implies that you are friends with them, which I regrettably am not. We missed each other by almost 20 years. Yet his stories, in both literary and cinematic form, brought an amount of joy and imagination to my childhood (and adulthood) that I could hardly describe in words.

I remember with remarkable clarity the first time I was introduced to the world of Tolkien. The year was 2002 and I was