College women face self-esteem issues

IU sorority women have reason to smile by simply looking at their reflection in the mirror.\nLos Angeles resident Juliet Funt, a motivational speaker for eight years, lectured sorority women on the issues of body image and self-esteem in a presentation titled "Buff Up Your Insides" Thursday evening at Assembly Hall. Funt's speech framed the self-esteem of women, or the lack thereof, as an urgent issue with lifetime consequences society must recognize.\n"No one judges you the way you judge yourself," she said to more than a thousand Greek women. "You are more valuable than you think you are."\nJunior Sarah King, president of the Panhellenic Association, said Funt's presentation is one event among several her organization sponsors each semester. \n"We host a couple of speakers each semester, since part of our mission is to provide programs for the women in our community," she said. "It's important to address issues like self-esteem; there is something special about everyone."\nFunt began her lecture with a brief discussion of the "uber-fit" body image policing the West coast social conscious. Funt said cultural pressures such as advertising and marketing contribute to many misunderstandings about natural human beauty. \n"Los Angeles is a funny place to live if you talk about inner and outer beauty," she said. "Maybe I'd be pissed if I'd gone that long without a sandwich. Americans are famous around the world for how obsessed we are with atheistic beauty norms." \nFunt referenced current cultural beauty practices she deemed especially problematic, such as the use of the poison Botox to cure wrinkling skin, to signify the importance of reflecting on self-esteem for women.\n"Botox is injected into the muscles in the face; the poison temporarily kills the muscles; the muscles become relaxed; no more wrinkles," she said. "The only side-effects include an inability to make facial expressions and the possibility of a permanent witch-like fixed stare. I ask myself why these otherwise normal women would want poison injected so close to their brain?"\nNancy Stockton, director of Counseling and Psychological Services at the IU Health Center said some insecurity is universal to humans. However, she said most insecurities can be handled by learning to think and feel differently. \n"To be human is to be insecure; insecurity is very much a part of the human condition, Stockton said. "Self-esteem is often tied to self-defeating behaviors. Insecure women can seem so competitive and caddy (talking) behind others backs. Truly secure people work-out insecurity complexes. They question their automatic assumptions about things."\nKing said a woman's low self-esteem and lack of self-confidence often reflects, unfortunately, in poor decision making by many sorority women when liquor is mixed with low self-esteemed fraternity men. She said she would like to see all sorority women "doing the right thing" in following University alcohol policies. \n"Standing up to men is something that can be challenging to women. I think a lot of women struggle with self-doubt, body image and self-perception," King said. "Also, alcohol at fraternity parties in fraternity houses is big problem on campus. It's hard to tell the group 'No I won't come over; we won't go to a party there.'" \nFunt said sorority women should caution themselves when acting on insecurities, since all American women have been conditioned and indoctrinated to feel a certain way about themselves and their place as a sex symbol in Western culture.\n"Knowing what you like is a muscle you have to build," she said. "We have random lives; we don't know what we like. Sometimes there are random human beings in our lives; sometimes we end with random men. Randomness is the enemy of feeling good."\nStockton said talking and listening to friends coping with difficult self-image issues is important. In such a situation, Stockton recommended making the following suggestion to a friend: 'I know it seems this way to you; to me, things seem this way.'\n"All of us are capable of change, capable of growth and broadening our perspective," she said. "Spend less time looking at yourself in the mirror. If you must look at yourself, look at your healthiness. Appreciate how well your body works."\nFunt asked all audience participants to unpack the media mania creating a crazy culture of manipulated "robo-people." She said current fashion industry practices, such as digital imaging, are presenting models of beauty unobtainable by real people since the computer manipulated images are not a real reflection of real human face and body characteristics. \n"Somewhere along the line from birth to the current moment, a cultural norm has become a social rule," she said. "Outsiders determine our worth. Their message: you better be rich, hot and thin. If not, you are not as fabulous or worthy. 'You better be hot; you better be rich; you better be thin,' we hear again and again. After a while, you kind of don't notice anymore."\nThroughout her lecture, Fun said people have a magnificent influence on other people; as a result, the subtle intrinsic joys of watching yourself picking others up often results in high self-esteem.\n"Who am I and what makes me feel good?" she asked. "Listen to your own style and your own personal taste. Decide what you like, translate it into excitement and go for the maximal joy in things. Joy floods the human system with feeling good. Self-esteem is the by-product of doing 'esteemable' things. Be a champion of something."\nStockton said campus community members should be patient in deciphering the barrage of social and media messages designed to deflate self-esteems.\n"Do not take so seriously other things people do and say," she said. "If you are being treated poorly by someone else, they are speaking about their own insecurities more than your individual characteristics. Tell yourself: it's up to me not to take things so personally."\n-- Contact staff writer David A. Nosko at dnosko@indiana.edu.