With 15 minutes of lunchtime remaining at The University High School, students are still lining up for food. There are seven chicken nuggets left, two chicken schnitzel burgers, towers of two minutes noodles and one lonely, shrivelled dim sim. . There’s not a fresh, homemade salad or sandwich in sight. Does this seem like the food a school canteen should be serving? The type of food to fuel the minds and bodies of our children? We have decided to crack open the canteen and find out what the school community really thinks, and we expect to find students hungry for change.
This type of heavily fried food should not be a staple of a child's lunch. Government schools are encouraged to provide a range of healthy foods to students. These recommendations are set out inthe National Healthy School Canteen Guidelines for healthy food and drink supplied in school canteens. Food is rated according to a traffic light system; green means these foods and drinks are the most suitable to be sold in school canteens and should be available on the canteen menu every day, amber means the food contains some valuable nutrients, but may be too high in saturated fat and / or sugar and / or sodium, Foods and drinks categorised as RED are not consistent with the dietary guidelines and should not be sold in a healthy school canteen. They are low in nutritional value and may also be high in saturated fat, sugar or sodium. Unfortunately all the foods available to students in the last 15 minutes of lunch time at the canteen come under a amber and red food rating. For some students these foods are eaten on a daily basis and in large quantities. So what is the effect of this level of consumption of processed, fried foods?
Read MoreThe ‘Golden Age’ of comics existed from the late 1930s to the early 1950s. It was a flourishing time for comics and graphic art that, while important, undeniably had a lot of problems. Racist caricatures existed when juxtaposing comics featuring strong cowgirl protagonists in ‘Women Outlaws’ and ones featuring Mantoka, a Native American who battled the ‘white man’s treachery’. Looking back, it’s hard to believe that such a diverse comic culture could evolve into the industry we have today, with all its problems with underrepresentation, misrepresentation and bad representation. So how did this massive transformation happen? The Comic Code Authority.
In 1948 a psychiatrist called Fredric Wertham started advocating that comics were evil and corrupt children (such an original thought process). He also apparently - and I’m quoting from the website here - said ‘Adolf Hitler… was “a beginner compared to the comic book industry”.’ Doesn’t he sound like such a nice, non-wacko guy? He also declared things like Batman and Robin were gay (this Robin was most probably in his early teen years), Superman advocated fascism and anarchy, and don’t even talk about Wonder Woman’s status as an unmarried woman. He argued his point by taking comic panels completely out of context, which I’m sure many people know, never leads to good things.
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By Madeleine Sorić
On the 25th of September 2015 in the United States, a film called Stonewall was released. It’s based on the true events of the Stonewall riots that occurred in 1969 at the Stonewall Inn. They were in protest of the police raids happening in many LGBT+ safe zones. The Stonewall Inn, owned by the mafia, was one of these safe places and, on June 28th 1969, it too was raided. Marsha P. Johnson, a black bisexual sex worker and drag queen with a fluid gender identity, is known for having thrown the first brick in the riots. Her close friend, Sylvia Rivera (a half Puerto Rican / Venezuelan, bisexual, drag queen with a fluid gender identity), co-founded the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR). These two women are key icons in LGBT+ history, and yet, a white man plays Marsha’s role in the film while Sylvia isn’t even paid tribute. This character is a gay cis white man, and the public was outraged about the white-washing and transphobia in this action. However, a smaller group of the angered public was even more disgusted about the fact that nobody mentioned the bi erasure.
Read MoreThe absence of female athletes from our TV screens deserves more attention. Television is the making of modern athletes. All internationally recognised athletes started out as players for their local club. They have become famous because they have graced our screens. Barely anyone would have heard of Usain Bolt if the 100m sprint wasn’t televised internationally. With the global influence of social media now becoming apparent, every want-to-be athlete is praying for a big break on TV that will make them famous. Unfortunately this charitable service does not extend to female athletes as television networks rarely broadcast women’s sports.
Read MoreEveryday the language used in regards to sexual orientation changes; society changes the meanings of words and new words are created. In the ever-expanding world of sexual identity, understanding the meanings of the words used to describe sexual orientation can be extremely useful, especially when you’re new to the topic.
Read MoreBy Conor Ammett
Growing up, you notice differences between the two main genders. You notice how women are expected to wear dresses and men are expected to wear pants. You notice how women have long hair and men have short hair. You notice how women are called fragile and gentle, and men are called strong and brave. Conventions of language, like the aforementioned examples, contribute to stereotypes that are entrenched within our society, like what is stereotypically feminine and what is classically masculine. Before women were allowed to vote, before women were allowed to work, before women were allowed to voice their opinions, there was a time when women were considered as lesser than men. This was such a popular belief that everyone believed it- boys and girls growing up, men and women already grown up. Women were not seen as equal to men. But that was in the past.
Read MoreBy Emma Letham
We’re living in an era where professional athletes are becoming constrained by tight expectations regarding their behaviour. There’s an incredibly thin line between being competitive and having a bad attitude, and in today’s society, where we strive to be politically correct in everything we do, the line has vanished and it’s impossible to distinguish acceptable and unacceptable behaviour.
Athletes are only human and - just as we all do - get frustrated when things aren’t going their way or stressed when under a load of pressure. However, when they do get frustrated, all eyes are on them and they sometimes let out a few expletives. Obviously the action isn’t ideal, but don’t we all start running off profanities when we’re frustrated?
Read MoreBy Rebi Houlihan
I am going to come right out and say it. I love comic books. I am a massive comic book nerd and can talk about them for ages. But there are far too many times when I open a comic that I’ve been really excited about, but have to close it as soon as I see the first female in that issue.
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