FREE Take a It’s not copy Cover shoot: At home in enough. Kettle’s Yard Fashion 22 he systems for students reporting misconduct are inadequate. One speaks out about her experiences. Eat your greens Opinion 16 Vulture 26 No. 857 Friday 23rd November 2018 Arts 26-27 varsity.co.uk Cambridge’s Independent Student Newspaper since 1947 44% of Oxbridge entries from 143 schools Edwin Balani, Sarah Orsborne, and In the face of inancial Catherine Lally Over 1,140 schools sent no students to Oxbridge between 2006 and 2017 despite their students having applied, a Varsity investigation reveals. his is compared to more than 6,000 students admitted from hardship, two students the top ten schools for Oxbridge admis- sions over the same time period. Students from the top schools made in excess of 15,800 applications to the two universities. Of a total of 4,041 UK schools that had students apply, there went into sex work were 2,974 schools that sent only ten or fewer students to Oxford or Cambridge in the same time period. By contrast, there are 143 schools which have sent 100 or more students to Continued on page 10 ▶ College ▲ A photo illustration outside Senate House (JOE COOK) disciplinary expenses. live in private rent accommodation, alongside necessary work for their de- Niamh Curran Taylor told Varsity that they went along with unforeseen expenses, and gree. hey had previously left home due into sex work while in Cambridge be- costs relating to their disability. hey to a “hostile” relationship with their fam- lapse Its “I struggled to balance the need to per- cause they could not obtain the inan- were unable to live in college accom- ily. his, alongside their family’s inancial form sex work, to aford necessities, the cial support needed to cover necessary modation because they required mental situation, meant they could not turn to impact on need to attend lectures and do academ- expenses. Another student who spoke health provisions that the college could them to help with rent payments. ic work, and my need to rest and look to Varsity, Sam*, said that they entered not accommodate. he student reached out to two difer- one student’s after my diminishing physical health. sex work because they felt it would ofer At one point, changes in their living ent members of University and College I couldn’t manage it”, said Taylor*, a inancial independence they could not situation meant they had to pay a sum staf to seek inancial support, but their Cambridge student who took on sex otherwise obtain. upfront, which they could not aford. experiences with these two individuals PTSD work alongside their degree after fac- Taylor said that they needed the ad- he nature of their disability also ing severe diiculties covering inancial ditional inancial support to aford to meant they could not work long hours Full story page 9 ▶ News page 11 ▶ Inside ● Studying in the ‘hostile environment’ Pg.7 ● Class lists released in irst year of opt-outs Pg.8 2 F 23 N 2018 News FEATURES Bringing the untold story of a Kenyan Bina Agarwal: queer love to Cambridge ‘You’ll never get Page 15 ▶ anything until OPINION Dear Cambridge, I’m not buying it you ght for your Page 17 ▶ rights’ FEATURES Diabetes and me: what are the implications of e award-winning Economics Professor speaks incurability? to Merlyn omas about her work on women’s Page 12 ▶ property rights and challenging the traditional model of the household vulture Magazine “I read Marx’s Das Kapital when I had u She chuckled, “So I made a lot of ❝ Merry once. I was wowed by it.” Brilliant and friends because I was very happy to Christmas, humble, Professor Bina Agarwal’s titles share my food with others.” She leans When you Sir Elton precede her person. in to tell me indignantly, “ e only veg- have land Born in the dusty heat of Rajasthan etarian! Can you imagine?” or a house, John where her grandparents lived, before Embracing her time away from home, Bina and her family moved to Delhi, painting and reading poetry in her spare you have (Lewis) the cultural capital of India, she remi- time, it is no wonder that her vision as a credible nisces about her childhood fondly. “It an economist is more unconventional Page 26 ▶ was fantastic. My paternal grandparents and imaginative than most. exit option. moved to the foothills of the Himalayas Ater completing her degree, she If you have and my other set of grandparents stayed returned to Delhi to do a PhD, where a place to in Rajasthan. So we spent our summers she began to specialise in her scope of sometimes in unbearably hot climates subject. “ e choice of subject was very go, you can Noella Chye [email protected] and sometimes terribly cold ones.” much decided by the problems India was leave Merlyn omas & Catherine Lally [email protected] An early-achiever from the o set, facing”, while she says that “India was Vivienne Hopley-Jones [email protected] Joe Cook [email protected] she went to sixth-form early when she an agrarian society predominantly both ❞ Mark Curtis [email protected] was teen. Although she has excelled in terms of proportional GDP and also Rosie Bradbury & Stephanie Stacey (Senior); Isobel Gri ths & now in every respect in her eld, as a the number of people located in farm- Millie Kiel (Deputy) [email protected] Jess Ma, Alexandra Giannidi, Sarah teenager she had never even considered ing.” She adds: “plus, there was a lot of Orsborne, Kiran Khanom, Elizabeth Haigh, Amy Batley, Maria Stragapede doing economics. Stuck between phys- poverty.” Jack Conway [email protected] ics and English literature, her parents In India, a country with gaping Maia Wyn Davies (Senior); Dan Wright, Nick Harris, Priya Bryant, Tom Nixon (Deputy) [email protected] nally suggested she study econom- inequalities in wealth and a rapidly Joseph Krol & Gesa Sophia Borgeest [email protected] ics, “Economics is a scienti c subject expanding economy leaving behind Isobel Bickersteth & Jess Tan [email protected] Nick Collin [email protected] but you can also tell a good story, so I vast swathes of society, there is much & James Dickinson [email protected] thought why not?” progress to made with regards to gender Miles Ricketts & Alice French [email protected] Perhaps what is most striking about equality. And it is here that Agarwal has Julia Davies [email protected] Iris Pearson & Niamh Curran [email protected] Agarwal is that she is totally down to focussed much of her e orts, but par- Ella Jones [email protected] earth when it comes to the gravity of ticularly in the gender gap in command Marcus McCabe (Senior) & William Ross (Deputy) her accomplishments, casually telling over property. [email protected] Devarshi Lodhia [email protected] me about her days as an undergradu- Wedged between Kazuo Ishiguro’s e Belle George & Oliver Rhodes [email protected] ate at Cambridge, studying Economics Buried Giant and Khalil Gibran’s poetry Jamie Hancock & Nick Chevis [email protected] at Murray Edwards, at the time called anthology, on the bookshelf in her of- Cordelia Lam [email protected] Fancy - Vivi Way (Chief); Aimee Wragg, Gabby Handberg, Helen Grant, New Hall. She adds: “I was quite young interviewing ce, lies A Field of One’s Own, Agarwal’s Helena Mackie, Emily Kilner, Imogen Childs, Jasmine Phull, Naomi Hayes, when I came. I was 17 and a half and I interesting award-winning book. She is perhaps Poppy Kemp, Ruth Moss, Allison O’Malley-Graham, Phoebe Harris, Shannon had never lived abroad so in many ways best-known for this work, whose title Phillips [email protected] people in Raphael Korber Ho man it was wonderful. It was a growing up Cambridge? was inspired by Virginia Woolf’s A Room Raphael Korber Ho man period. It was really marvellous in that Email us at of One’s Own. When she wrote it in 1994, Edwin Bahrami Balani [email protected] Caitlin Smith [email protected] sense. But there were just ten women in interviews@ “no one was working on the question of Reuben Andrews, Felix Peckham, Anna Hollingsworth a class of 150. And I was the only Indian varsity.co.uk women’s property.” [email protected] woman. e only brown woman.” An economic staple and a contempo- Dr Michael Franklin (Chairman), Prof Peter Robinson, Dr Tim Harris, Michael Derringer, Caitlin Smith, Noella Chye, Louis Ashworth, Anna Dining options at Cambridge during rary feminist literature in its own right, Jennings, Anna Menin, Daniel Gayne, Ellie Howcrot Agarwal’s undergraduate years were her book demonstrate the limits of the a far cry from today’s meat-free Mon- commonly-held idea that women’s em- days. Agarwal was the only vegetarian powerment simply means jobs in the in college in her time at Cambridge. urban workplace. © VARSITY PUBLICATIONS LTD, . All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be “But College did something wonder- Instead she emphasises the impor- reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior permission of the publisher. ful for me. I used to tell the chefs in tance not only of women being in the Varsity, 16 Mill Lane, Cambridge CB2 1RX. Telephone 01223 337575. advance when I was coming to buttery agrarian workforce, but for them to be Varsity is published by Varsity Publications Ltd.