62 Cents

Image courtesy of The New Republic

Gender pay gap between women of color and white men as of 2014.

By ASTON CHAN ‘22

“I think that Milton welcomes redundancy because there is never going to be a time where talking about feminism or gender identity is too much,” Erinma Onyewuchi ‘20, co-head of Students Advocating for Gender Equity (SAGE), remarks. 

Referring to SAGE’s new publication “62 Cents,” Onyewuchi, along with co-head Samantha Bateman ’20, seeks to “encompass and speak to the experiences of gender minorities.” This inaugural issue of 62 Cents included art, writing, and news column submissions predominantly from the SAGE board that discuss both people’s experiences on campus and their reaction to gender minority news.

SAGE’s mission is to facilitate discussions on what gender equity means in the context of the school, whether it be through dialogues that compel students to think more about their role on campus or initiatives like period packing parties that provide supplies to women’s shelters. To Onyewuchi, too many clubs “fall into this ‘SAGE is meeting on Friday, we’re going to be talking about men’” cycle where “the same people come, or it’s just the board [which talks] about the same things.” SAGE needed a publication that both widened “[their] reach on campus” and displayed “more about who [they] are and what [they] want to talk about rather than being just ‘feminism is important.’”

Kendelle Grubbs ‘20 came up with the name for one of her projects in a Black Literature course she currently takes with Onyewuchi, but SAGE also thought it would fit very well as the publication’s title. As Onyewuchi puts it, “it’s a play on the idea of our putting our little two cents into everything, except 62 cents is the amount that black women make to the white man’s dollar in terms of the wage gap.”

Given the existence of “The F-Word,” another feminist publication with articles, literature, and student art, what exactly is the role of “62 Cents” on campus? Onyewuchi believes that “[62 Cents’] role is doing more submissions, news, and reactions to current events just because [they] publish more often,” whereas “‘The F-Word’ takes more submissions and publishes a compilation of experiences over the year in the form of art and writing.” To her, “the whole point is that there are so many publications. There’s the Measure and the Paper, and you could argue about their differences.” With overlap “in terms of subject matter, what [they] talk about, and [their] goals,” Onyewuchi truly believes that The F-Word and 62 Cents are going to collaborate in the future. 

Olivia Wang ‘20, co-head of “The F-Word,” agrees. Given that “there’s not enough discussion about gender equality on campus,” Wang believes that “the more [publications] there are, the better.” With such similar missions, Wang “definitely sees collaboration” coming in the future; it isn’t essential that “some students are submitting to [62 Cents] but not to [The F-Word], since [The F-Word] has a whole board who will also write.” What is essential is that “those who are not having [discussions regarding feminism] start taking steps towards having those conversations.”

General opinion about both publications’ coexistence has been mixed but generally positive.  History Department Chair Mr. McGuirk affirmed that “it would be great if [both publications] could collaborate, but both could function independently; there are certain things in a monthly publication that you wouldn’t get in bigger F-Word publications, so it would make sense to have some smaller stopping points that could help students talk about current event issues that are important in the moment.” Morgan Hackett ’21 expresses that “it’s good to hear from new perspectives, even if it means creating another platform.” Cate Anderson ’21 concurs, stating that “as long as the message is getting out there about gender equality, that’s what matters.”