“I attended a Quaker school for most of my life, so from a young age my education was infused with Quaker values, or what we called the SPICES (Simplicity, Peace, Integrity, Community, Equality, and Stewardship). I was taught to ask how my passions, hobbies, and work — though far in the future — could serve these values. As a theater kid, I came to realize the potential of performance as a form of stewardship. Towards the end of high school, I was in a piece of testimonial theater (based on a series of interviews with young NYC women) about the circumstances that give rise to things like sexual exploitation. We toured schools and conferences in the Tri-state area, telling stories that often go unheard in our city. At @Princeton, I pivoted into the world of comedy, which I have found powerful in magnifying the absurd and the unjust. Whether performing with @quipfire! Improv Comedy or writing with Triangle and @allnighterpton, I try to get my audience to think twice about the norms we tend to take for granted. It’s a compelling form because when people laugh, they listen differently. Of course, I also do comedy because it is so fun (certainly for me! jury’s still out for my audience). As a senior in SPIA, I try to do with my academic work what I’ve done with performance. In exploring the intersections of gender and privacy and the implications of treating gendered harms as private matters, I try to pursue those Quaker values I learned when I was younger. And as I begin to work on my thesis, I am thinking about what it means to find where aspirational laws, policies, or general societal beliefs that reflect these values, be it equality or otherwise, don’t align with reality. I want to understand where and why these gaps exist, and someday, I hope to use the law to bridge them. But for now, I have to thesis.” - Morgan Carmen ’21