Women’s Wellness Week Faces Them Head On
by Rachel Bukberg, Kappa Kappa Gamma
Once upon a time, I sat in a ninth-grade health classroom at my small, single-sex high school, staring at photographs of supermodels in issues of Vogue and Glamour. As my teacher began to lecture on the dangers of eating disorders, and might as well have spit on the magazines to illustrate her disgust at the way in which they perpetuated such problems, I stared at my classmates in the room. I longed for the long, shiny hair of the girl sitting next to me – or perhaps, the flawless complexion of my classmate to my left. While I understood that no one was perfect, I was nonetheless plagued with the thoughts that must have been shared by nearly every other member of the class. I wondered if they noticed the blemish I had worked so hard to cover up that morning, or perhaps if the text message the girl to my right had just received was about how awful my outfit looked last weekend. If we had spent the class period having an open discussion about the feelings we experienced on a day-to-day basis, my guess is that these thought processes would not have been solely my own.
During the first week of March, the Women’s Health Advisory Team (WHAT) and Cornell Panhellenic sponsored a series of events to address a problem facing Greek women: that the feelings and ruminations that I experienced in high school still affect college women today. This week, which we titled “Women’s Wellness Week,” did not intend to rid participants of their various insecurities entirely. Instead, the week’s programs set out with the intention of acknowledging these issues, speaking openly about them, and hopefully leaving participants with some tools to cope with their own inner conflicts. The honesty that many of the week’s participants brought to each forum not only allowed those speaking the chance to get difficult thoughts in the open, but also left listeners with the comforting feeling that they were not alone.
The week’s focus on self-esteem examined the interrelatedness of such topics as physical health and appearance, sexual health, identity, and interpersonal relations. “Badge Day” took place on Monday, encouraging Greek women to wear their badges as a symbol of pride for both their own chapters and the Greek system as a whole. Forums were held on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evenings in order to give women the chance to address many of the issues at hand. The first forum, which focused on physical health and appearance, began with a brief presentation from Kate Nicewicz, an expert on skincare. Discussion then built on her presentation, as participants were encouraged to examine the lengths at which women our age can go to in order to seek physical perfection – and the psychological toll that setting such high expectations for ourselves can take.
Wednesday and Thursday’s forums built on Tuesday’s by addressing the ways in which our own insecurities play a role in the way we treat others. Wednesday’s discussion, which focused on sexual health (with the contributions of SHAG, the Sexual Health Awareness Group), engaged participants in an honest discussion about how sexual activity might be used in a similar fashion to tanning beds and make-up – as a way to feel beautiful and desirable. Additionally, Wednesday’s forum addressed the nature of how we judge others based on their own sexual expression, and how our own insecurities might play an integral part in how we go about doing this. The latter topic created an interesting transition into Thursday’s forum, which explicitly visited the consequences of outwardly expressing such judgments. This conversation, which focused primarily on internet gossip sites as a mode of publicly displaying negative thoughts about others, allowed participants to examine the bi-directional relationship between individual self-esteem and the treatment of others. While the forum did not conclude with any plans of action against these sites, participants were instead given a number of tools to help cope with the feelings of violation and hopelessness that often accompany an individual’s experience with being criticized on the internet. The week finally concluded with a lecture from author Liz Funk, who spoke about many of the topics previously discussed in the forums.
It is important to stress that Women’s Wellness Week did not seek to form any concrete plans of action, as the issue of self-esteem amongst young women is not one that any person could expect to solve. Instead, the forums served as an outlet for women to share their experiences, and to learn from each other how they might more effectively handle them. After Thursday’s discussion, the topic of self-esteem had branched into a more complex situation. This included the struggle to balance one’s identity as an individual with one’s identity as a member of a sorority – a difficulty exasperated by attractiveness rankings and listings of reputations of Panhellenic’s eleven chapters on the internet. Additionally, participants examined the ways in which gossip sites often turned many members of our community into celebrities – both ridiculed and praised – which could lead to insecurities perpetuated by reading about oneself on the internet, or instead by simply not being chosen as noticeable enough to be talked about.
This last point is particularly relevant given the losses that the student body has faced in the past year. While it is impossible to determine a sole cause as to why an individual might choose to take his or her own life, the dangers of living in such a large community are clear: as students, it often takes hard work to get noticed, and with the shortage of employment opportunities in this economy, often being just average at Cornell feels like failure. To add insult to injury, the acknowledgement offered to certain individuals on internet gossip sites (who are often members of the Greek community) is rarely of a positive nature. While this is not a problem that can simply be fixed, Women’s Wellness Week began to address such issues, and sparked much discussion that both the Women’s Health Advisory Team and Panhellenic hope will continue in the coming year. In the meantime, we encourage chapters to reach out to their members, and to recognize them for their accomplishments. Furthermore, events that bring together sisters from a variety of different chapters can aid in reminding members that it is possible to be an individual, a member of one’s own chapter, and a member of a larger community all at once. Perhaps working to help individuals to achieve this realization will serve as a step in giving them both the uniqueness and sense of belonging that can be so beneficial in promoting positive self-esteem.
by Rachel Bukberg, Kappa Kappa Gamma
Once upon a time, I sat in a ninth-grade health classroom at my small, single-sex high school, staring at photographs of supermodels in issues of Vogue and Glamour. As my teacher began to lecture on the dangers of eating disorders, and might as well have spit on the magazines to illustrate her disgust at the way in which they perpetuated such problems, I stared at my classmates in the room. I longed for the long, shiny hair of the girl sitting next to me – or perhaps, the flawless complexion of my classmate to my left. While I understood that no one was perfect, I was nonetheless plagued with the thoughts that must have been shared by nearly every other member of the class. I wondered if they noticed the blemish I had worked so hard to cover up that morning, or perhaps if the text message the girl to my right had just received was about how awful my outfit looked last weekend. If we had spent the class period having an open discussion about the feelings we experienced on a day-to-day basis, my guess is that these thought processes would not have been solely my own.
During the first week of March, the Women’s Health Advisory Team (WHAT) and Cornell Panhellenic sponsored a series of events to address a problem facing Greek women: that the feelings and ruminations that I experienced in high school still affect college women today. This week, which we titled “Women’s Wellness Week,” did not intend to rid participants of their various insecurities entirely. Instead, the week’s programs set out with the intention of acknowledging these issues, speaking openly about them, and hopefully leaving participants with some tools to cope with their own inner conflicts. The honesty that many of the week’s participants brought to each forum not only allowed those speaking the chance to get difficult thoughts in the open, but also left listeners with the comforting feeling that they were not alone.
The week’s focus on self-esteem examined the interrelatedness of such topics as physical health and appearance, sexual health, identity, and interpersonal relations. “Badge Day” took place on Monday, encouraging Greek women to wear their badges as a symbol of pride for both their own chapters and the Greek system as a whole. Forums were held on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evenings in order to give women the chance to address many of the issues at hand. The first forum, which focused on physical health and appearance, began with a brief presentation from Kate Nicewicz, an expert on skincare. Discussion then built on her presentation, as participants were encouraged to examine the lengths at which women our age can go to in order to seek physical perfection – and the psychological toll that setting such high expectations for ourselves can take.
Wednesday and Thursday’s forums built on Tuesday’s by addressing the ways in which our own insecurities play a role in the way we treat others. Wednesday’s discussion, which focused on sexual health (with the contributions of SHAG, the Sexual Health Awareness Group), engaged participants in an honest discussion about how sexual activity might be used in a similar fashion to tanning beds and make-up – as a way to feel beautiful and desirable. Additionally, Wednesday’s forum addressed the nature of how we judge others based on their own sexual expression, and how our own insecurities might play an integral part in how we go about doing this. The latter topic created an interesting transition into Thursday’s forum, which explicitly visited the consequences of outwardly expressing such judgments. This conversation, which focused primarily on internet gossip sites as a mode of publicly displaying negative thoughts about others, allowed participants to examine the bi-directional relationship between individual self-esteem and the treatment of others. While the forum did not conclude with any plans of action against these sites, participants were instead given a number of tools to help cope with the feelings of violation and hopelessness that often accompany an individual’s experience with being criticized on the internet. The week finally concluded with a lecture from author Liz Funk, who spoke about many of the topics previously discussed in the forums.
It is important to stress that Women’s Wellness Week did not seek to form any concrete plans of action, as the issue of self-esteem amongst young women is not one that any person could expect to solve. Instead, the forums served as an outlet for women to share their experiences, and to learn from each other how they might more effectively handle them. After Thursday’s discussion, the topic of self-esteem had branched into a more complex situation. This included the struggle to balance one’s identity as an individual with one’s identity as a member of a sorority – a difficulty exasperated by attractiveness rankings and listings of reputations of Panhellenic’s eleven chapters on the internet. Additionally, participants examined the ways in which gossip sites often turned many members of our community into celebrities – both ridiculed and praised – which could lead to insecurities perpetuated by reading about oneself on the internet, or instead by simply not being chosen as noticeable enough to be talked about.
This last point is particularly relevant given the losses that the student body has faced in the past year. While it is impossible to determine a sole cause as to why an individual might choose to take his or her own life, the dangers of living in such a large community are clear: as students, it often takes hard work to get noticed, and with the shortage of employment opportunities in this economy, often being just average at Cornell feels like failure. To add insult to injury, the acknowledgement offered to certain individuals on internet gossip sites (who are often members of the Greek community) is rarely of a positive nature. While this is not a problem that can simply be fixed, Women’s Wellness Week began to address such issues, and sparked much discussion that both the Women’s Health Advisory Team and Panhellenic hope will continue in the coming year. In the meantime, we encourage chapters to reach out to their members, and to recognize them for their accomplishments. Furthermore, events that bring together sisters from a variety of different chapters can aid in reminding members that it is possible to be an individual, a member of one’s own chapter, and a member of a larger community all at once. Perhaps working to help individuals to achieve this realization will serve as a step in giving them both the uniqueness and sense of belonging that can be so beneficial in promoting positive self-esteem.
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