For me, the hardest part of reconciling Beyoncé’s life with feminist theory is when I consider the man she is married to.

While there is no doubt in my mind that Jay-Z is a very talented artist, his music is often anything but feminist, and from what I can see, the rap genre seems to follow this trend.

In the documentary “Dreamworlds 3: Desire, Sex & Power in Music Videos,” the filmmaker explores how women are portrayed in music videos. In general, it seems that in hip-hop and rap music videos, women are treated as objects rather than people, and are often merely accessories for the artists who are performing in the videos. This documentary also points out that instead of using creativity to tell a story, often artists just throw in some mostly naked women dancing and call it a music video. And don’t even get me started on Robin Thicke’s video for “Blurred Lines.”

The lyrics of rap and hip-hop songs also add to the degradation of women we see in music videos.

In 2012, a rumor circulated that Jay-Z would no longer use the word “bitch” in his songs after his daughter Blue Ivy was born. This unfortunately turned out to be merely a rumor, and it seems Jay-Z has continued to use the word in his music.

Jay-Z did say he regretted the lyrics of one of his songs in particular, “Big Pimpin’,” in which he refers to a woman as “bitch” and a “ho.” This expression of regret seemed to be a step in the right direction.

However, more recently, Jay-Z’s part in Beyonce’s “Drunk in Love” has been a controversial talking point. In the song, Jay-Z makes reference to Ike Turner, who has been accused of abusing his wife Tina Turner. The line “Eat the cake, Anna Mae” is a direct reference to a scene in Tina Turner’s biopic, wherein Ike yells at Tina and shoves cake in her face. Many chided Jay-Z for making light of domestic abuse, and Beyoncé for allowing that kind of content in her music.

While it has been argued that Jay-Z uses the degradation of women in his songs as a way to draw the public’s eye to ways that women are degraded, I feel that even putting that kind of negative language in the media is detrimental to gender equality and respect.

It’s difficult to understand how Beyoncé can propagate feminist ideals and beliefs while she is married to someone who seems to make light of these things in his music.

On this topic, Lily Allen recently released a music video for her song “Hard Out Here,” which parodies the hip-hop and rap music videos’ use of women as objects. She points out the ridiculousness of the women’s clothing, dance moves and roles in the videos, singing, “I suppose I should tell you what this bitch is thinking/You’ll find me in the studio and not in the kitchen/I won’t be bragging ‘bout my cars or talking ‘bout my chains/Don’t need to shake my ass for you ‘cause I’ve got a brain.”

This song points out the hypocrisies of the music industry in a smart and succinct way, proving that music videos can be both entertaining and enlightening.

And I don’t think that rap and hip-hop necessarily need to be in contention with feminism. Many have lauded mainstream rappers like Macklemore for singing about social issues rather than strippers and cars. The rap and hip-hop genres could easily be used as a way to teach more people about feminism, rather than degrade women.

While perhaps Jay-Z is a great husband and a wonderful father, his music often leaves me feeling uncomfortable, and I think he could set an example for the entire hip-hop community by refraining from using derogatory terms and phrases when describing women.

Ultimately, I think the music industry lends to a misogynistic view of the world, and artists like Jay-Z (and even Beyoncé) are merely perpetuating these ideas when they continue to rap and sing about women in a negative way. I hope that some nights Bey and Jay’s pillow talk is about gender equality, and they can both use their music as a platform to encourage respect for women as people, not expendable accessories in music videos.

Email HANNAH STRUMWASSER at hstrumwasser@gmail.com if you think you have 99 problems and Jay-Z is one.

There are a lot of maps in my house, including a world map (it’s upside down), a bike path map of Davis and a map showing the location of pinnipeds worldwide. But there’s one map that’s missing. I see it as one of those flight maps that has the curvy lines all over it connecting all the cooperatives worldwide, nationwide and statewide.

Davis cooperatives hosted a west coast cooperative conference called WestCo last weekend, and co-opers showed up from more places than I expected including Berkeley, Santa Barbara and Eugene, Ore. I’d never considered that co-ops existed in Oregon, then all of a sudden, there were Oregon co-opers staying in my house. It was great. I felt the unspoken, immediate bond of the co-oper because something about being offered “vegan breakfast biscuit things” out of a recycled yogurt container by a stranger warms the heart. Though we were all strangers, everyone helped each other out unasked. It was like having a huge extended family that showed up and started making delicious beet salad and beet pancakes and gluten-free beet brownies.

Not only did we eat a lot of food together, it feels like we all learned from each other. Because of the way the Davis cooperatives came together to organize the event, I learned about my immediate community and my extended community. I saw the beautiful gardens of Sunwise Co-op, met people from J Street Co-op and Cornucopia Co-op and saw campus groups such as Project Compost as well.

Outside of the workshops, where I learned about cool things like herbal remedies, we talked about differences and similarities between our co-ops. There were a lot of similarities (meetings, flannels and the constant struggle to do dishes) but there were also a lot of differences (size of houses, meeting/house management and quality of free-box finds). These conversations led to discussions about cooperative values and how we could put our newfound knowledge to use.

This illustrates something I love about living in a co-op: we’re constantly trying to improve. The community I’m a part of discussed, following the conference, the seven cooperative principles that we apply to our community as much as possible: voluntary and open membership; democratic member control; member economic participation; autonomous and independent community; education, training and information; cooperation among cooperatives; and concern for community. The last two are my favorite and, since learning about these principles, I’ve seen them everywhere.

Cooperation among cooperatives happens somewhat subconsciously, from my perspective. We shop/work at the Davis Food Co-op, have community dinners and get together for events like WestCo that bring together more communities than just the ones in Davis.

Concern for community encompasses the incredible support I see in these cooperative communities. Cooperatives are kind of like an onion — but overlapping onions. Like a bunch of onions did a sort of rat king thing. A co-op is the smallest onion ring, then there are other co-op rings, then community rings like Project Compost, the Eco-garden, the Student Farm and the Whole Earth Festival. The skin of the onion is like spreading what I’ve learned from a co-op lifestyle to the rest of my life — I pick up random trash I see, communicate as well as I can, compulsively compost, use reusable dishes at the CoHo … and these aren’t explicitly co-op things! I know plenty of people who aren’t co-opers and do these things.

This shows me something really neat. My co-op is a collection of wonderful, considerate people that have similar values and goals, and that extends to other co-ops and communities and spaces and people, regardless of whether or not they identify as a co-op(er). There are loads of like-minded people scattered along the west coast, as I learned from WestCo, which suggests that they’re also scattered across this country and others. It’s like everyone came from one beet that was then grated into the salad of life! Okay, that simile’s a stretch, and a bit vegan-cheesy, but I think you see what I’m grating — I mean, getting — at.

Make cringe-inducing puns and get really excited about them with ISABEL MONIZ at irmoniz@ucdavis.edu.

Recently, ASUCD Senate Resolution #20 was seen by the ASUCD Senate.This resolution urged “the Board of Regents of the University of California (UC Regents) to undertake practices of corporate social responsibility through divesting from corporations that aid in the Israeli occupation of Palestine and illegal settlements in Palestinian territories, violating both international humanitarian law and international human rights.”

We applaud ASUCD for the willingness to tackle such a difficult issue and we support the right of students to bring forth pressing matters to their student representatives. However, we do not wish to discuss whether we agree or disagree with the idea of divestment. Instead we wish to comment on the process of bringing the resolution to ASUCD. While students have the right to voice their opinions and lobby their ASUCD senators to take a stance on such an issue, student government may not have been the most effective route to take.

The senate resolution, even if passed by the senate, would only have served as a recommendation from the UC Davis student government to the Regents to divest from these companies. However, the UC system administration has already stated that it “will not bring a recommendation before the Board to divest from companies doing business with the State of Israel” until the United States “government declares that a foreign regime is committing genocide.”

This means that the resolution, regardless of whether it passed or failed, would not hold any substantive power to make the Regents go against prior statements made by the UC system administrators and divest. The resolution is and always has been simply a suggestion to the Regents.

Many people involved in this movement, including the authors of this resolution, were aware of the Regents’ statement. However, since passing the resolution at UC Davis would mean that the majority of the UC campuses would have declared a pro-divestment stance, the supporters believed it would send a strong message to the Regents regarding student opinion across the UC system.

With this in mind, there may have been other more effective routes of discourse, which could bring about tangible change. For example, protesting and starting grassroot campaigns to lobby government leaders and state representatives to divest from these companies could bring more immediate results.

By lobbying directly to people who actually have the power to make change, there would be a dialogue between those who care about divestment and those who can actually effect change in this area.

Some students have suggested putting the senate resolution on a ballot where UC Davis students could vote on the issue.

However, a possible problem which may arise from this issue being on the ballot is the possibility that only the people heavily involved in supporting and opposing divestment would vote. Some students at UC Davis may not be educated enough on this subject to be willing to make a decision; others may not care.

Furthermore, because the divestment issue would not be a fee initiative, there is no minimal turnout that validates the decision. Hypothetically, the decision would be valid if  only one person voted on the issue. Though silly, this hypothetical situation highlights the possibility that the ballot results would be unrepresentative of the UC Davis student body.

Discourse regarding world issues and human rights is always something that should be encouraged in a university setting. However, at the end of the day, we feel there were other outlets that may have been better suited to help students effect change in a concrete way.

Going to the gym is a methodical experience for most people — put on stretchy clothing, hydrate and engage in some form of exercise. But what happens when someone defies the unwritten rules of gym etiquette?

People typically conform to certain norms at the gym, including how to dress and behave properly. Breaking social norms isn’t just about going out and doing weird stuff in public — it’s about eliciting responses from people based on their surprise of someone’s non-conformity.

My goal in this enterprise was to see how people would react when I wore ludicrous clothing to the gym that most people would deem unfit for this particular atmosphere.

My attire included: a loose dress that resembles the appearance of a peacock, a baggy red-and-black striped crop top over the dress, a blue flannel, pink cheetah print pajama pants and Converse. I was looking fierce, featuring an array of prints and patterns. My hair was arranged in a crazy bun at the very top of my head and, in the spirit of working out, I secured one of those sweat bands to my forehead.

Most notably, the outfit wasn’t restricting and I had a full range of motion. Although it might have looked weird, I was comfortable and that’s what matters when you’re at the gym, right? Well, that’s what I was about to find out.

I walked into the ARC and had my card swiped. After taking a gander at me, the guy proceeded to encourage me to “have a good workout,” which was coupled by a faint chuckle. I thanked him and sauntered off, making a beeline for the weight room.

It was 9 p.m. on a Friday night and the room was predominantly populated by men. So, not only was there a woman in the weight room, there was a “weird” woman in the weight room.

I got a lay of the land before heading to the free weights, but I saw that the lightest weight was a 15-pounder. Unsure if they had weights more my speed, I inquired to the guy lifting next to me and he kindly offered me his.

I started using the weights in an incongruous manner, i.e. I did a casual interpretive dance with them and kept deeply lunging with the weights by my side. The mirror in front of me allowed me to investigate people’s reactions behind and around me while I “exercised.”

I noticed that most people glanced in my direction once or twice, but didn’t fixate on what I was doing. The large majority of people are in a “zone,” listening to music and not really paying attention to their surroundings. Some people laughed and pointed to their friends or would try to sneakily peek at me again, but no one made it extremely obvious that they thought I was so out of place.

However, the thing is that people are most likely going to bring it up in some future conversation, saying “Yeah, one time this girl came into the weight room wearing a dress and pajama pants. It was… odd.” I’ve had people voice their opinions to me about what people should and shouldn’t wear to the gym or how they should “properly” work out, which is what prompted me to test it out.

I went up to the man working at the service desk in the center of the room to confirm that most people don’t work out in the type of outfit I was wearing. He substantiated this social norm by saying that he’s never seen anyone wear something similar to me.

Is it socially unacceptable to wear what I did when working out? Because I thought that people just wore what was comfortable for them. And yes, for the majority of people, wearing leggings or shorts and a T-shirt is what’s most comfortable, but there are alternative clothing options as well.

It seems that in the end, people were more inclined to gawk if they were with friends at the gym because they had someone to turn to and laugh with. Otherwise, people kept straight faces and just went about their business, as did I.

Fashion is usually considered subjective, which is why I think it’s interesting that people seem to care so much about what others wear to the gym and is why I broke this social norm.

The results that I got partially confirmed that wearing proper workout attire is considered a norm, but I also established that a fair amount of gym-goers just don’t give a shit.

If swol’s your goal, contact SAVANNAH HOLMES at skholmes@ucdavis.edu and ask her to be your personal trainer.

I spent the better part of my 18 years in the land of milk, honey and $11 craft sandwiches: Los Angeles. Growing up in the City of Angels has undeniably affected my coming of age (as well as my radical vocabulary). To help understand both the visible and invisible influences of place on coming of age, we’ll use Beasts of the Southern Wild, Benh Zeitlin’s 2012 adaption of Lucy Alibar’s one-act play, Juicy and Delicious.

I saw the movie twice, the first time after it came out, and the second last Saturday night, with a couple of Natural Lights in my belly. The second time was tremendously better (maybe because of the Nattys). This film tells the story of Hushpuppy, a six-year-old resident of the “Bathtub,” a poor, isolated community in New Orleans threatened by storms and rising sea levels.

Hushpuppy is by and large a miniature version of her ailing father, Wink. In fact, he often refers to her as his ‘man’ or hopes she will one day become ‘king’ of the Bathtub. As a consequence of these descriptions and her inner resolve, Hushpuppy’s six-year-old frame carries the soul of a person sculpted, fired and glazed with age.

The interactions Hushpuppy has with her surroundings help demonstrate a need for self sufficiency. When I describe the Bathtub as poor, I may be doing it a favor; the community is decrepit. The inhabitants live only off with what they can literally get their hands on — Hushpuppy grasps and kills her very own catfish in one scene. The only time getting food in LA is hard is when you have to go half a mile or more down Wilshire at rush hour (joke for Los Angeles residents only).

Of course, catching fish bare-handed was intrinsic to Hushpuppy’s situation. It is of utmost importance to her. She needs to be fed. For most college students, our issues are more complicated than a base desire for food. Now, I don’t want this column to turn into something that dignifies so-called “first-world problems.” That’s for the internet memes.

Adjusting to new places, especially in college, can be a challenge. Reconciling departure from home with what seems like the possibility to go anywhere can be tough. Although not from Beasts of the Southern Wild, one of my favorite analyses on the power of home comes from Furio Giunta, a mobster in HBO’s “The Sopranos.” On returning to Italy for a funeral, he exclaims to a friend that “When I saw Naples from that airplane, I got a hard on.” His friend replies, “What do you expect, it’s home.”

Those lines deserve to be chiseled in stone. The thought of home and childhood are connotated with simplicity and comfort. Streets feel like old friends. The destruction of familiar buildings feels like a personal affront. In contrast, new cities and towns are strangers.

I’m often amazed by how many people say that they fell in love with their school immediately. Relax. Christ. I suspect part of it is the mentality that for $30,000 plus, not loving your school equates to educational heresy. Another factor is the idealization of college by media. There are infinitely many more college comedies than college dramas. If a person isn’t living up to the picture perfect image, they may feel like they’re not getting the full college experience. I failed Math 16B. That was far from ideal.

Can you really love a new place immediately? I’m like Furio — when an aerial Los Angeles comes into view, I’m off to the airplane’s bathroom hoping the sound of the engine will drown out the sound of the ‘Angelino Special’ that I’m about to rub out. That’s 18 years in the making.

That’s why Wink would rather die than leave the Bathtub. It’s why Hushpuppy, even at six, recognizes the power that place has over people. When Wink dies, he is burned and set afloat. What a perfect way to be returned to home.

Here’s my expert opinion: be honest with yourself. Being able to recognize what you like and dislike about a place is actually beneficial. It allows you to humor the bad and adapt easier. Case in point: If you live in Tercero and say you don’t mind the smell of cow shit, you’re doing the cows a favor. They smell like shit. No one digs that.

To call ELI FLESCH a “Segundo Elitist,” you can reach him at ekflesch@ucdavis.edu or tweet him @eliflesch.