Women’s Center programming aims to engage

Author Courtney Martin knows being a college student can be exhausting. As a student at Barnard College in New York City, Martin said she pushed herself to the limit, causing her to “dance around” an eating disorder.

Now the author of “Perfect Girls Starving Daughters: The Frightening New Normalcy of Hating Your Body,” 28-year-old Martin has found her passion writing about the issues young women face today.

Martin’s lecture “Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters,” kicked off the University Women’s Center’s 10-day women’s event series Monday night.

The week, titled “Discover Exceptional Women” is programming put together to showcase the services offered by women’s groups on campus and celebrate the diverse types of women on campus, Anitra Cottledge, coordinator of student programs with the University Women’s Center, said.

Cottledge said it’s the first time the University has put on a week of events specifically directed at women. Event topics will include discussions about women with political ambition, how to succeed as a woman on campus, how to balance work and life and women’s health.

A woman’s drive to achieve can often lead them to ignore their physical and mental health, Martin said.

“This is a generation of women raised to think they can be anything, and somehow they have heard they have to be everything,” she said. “This can be damaging to their health.”

College women of today often base their self-worth on their achievements and their body image, Martin said.

She said the idea of women wanting to be successful, fashionable and thin without making it look difficult was labeled as “effortless perfection” by a 2004 Duke University study .

A message Martin said she hopes to get across is there are internal glass ceilings to be broken, like basing success only on achievements and a positive self-image, along with the familiar external glass ceilings like equal employment opportunities, job salaries and promotions.

“A lot of college-aged women are anxious, depressed and burnt out,” she said. “Look at your calling and do it in a way that makes you happy and well.”

‘Women’s progress in politics has been slow’

Glass ceilings have gained media attention during this year’s presidential race, too, with the first viable female presidential candidate ever, and the GOP’s first nomination of a female for vice president.

Although both New York Sen. Hillary Clinton and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin have referenced their success as “breaking the glass ceiling,” political science Assistant Professor Kathryn Pearson said there is still a lot to be accomplished by women in the political arena.

“Relative to other professions, women’s progress in politics has been slow,” she said.

“Front Runners: Women With Political Ambition” will showcase this topic on Sept. 24 as a part of the Women’s Center’s event line-up.

Women make up only 16 percent of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, Pearson said, proving women are still under-represented in public office.

“There is no reason that men should outnumber women by such huge margins in running for office,” she said.

Cottledge, who is coordinating the events, said the Women’s Center often receives questions about why an organization of its kind needs to exist in 2008.

Although 56 percent of college students are women and progress has been made in many areas, Cottledge said women still make 76 cents for every dollar their equal male counterparts make at the same job.

Journalism senior Bethany Khan said she plans on attending all of the activities and events she can fit into her schedule.

“I think it’s a good place to get informed about the different topics they are going to be discussing,” she said. “It serves as a forum.”

Khan, who serves as an officer for the Women’s Student Activist Collective , said although she often keeps up on issues affecting women, many students who don’t can use this week of events to discuss issues facing women with friends.

“As long as there is privilege, we need these support networks and groups,” she said. “Even though these topics are female-centered, they affect everyone.”