This past week, I was fortunate enough to attend a lecture (for lack of a better term) given by Stacey Nadeau for sorority women at Ole Miss. If you don’t know who Stacey is, you should. But honestly, I didn’t know before either. Stacey is one of the six women chosen to be in the Dove campaign for healthy women, where the ladies are featured in their underwear. On billboards. In public. If that doesn’t intrigue you enough, then her message definitely should.
Stacey’s message (or at least what I took away from it) is that healthy can come in all shapes and sizes, and confidence shouldn’t just come from being skinny.
Growing up, girls are always told to embrace their body type and love yourself for who you are, but this isn’t always easy. And just because we’re now in college, it hasn't gotten any easier either.
Being in a sorority or even just on a college campus, we are constantly surrounded by hundreds of other women. It isn’t hard to look at another girl on campus and immediately judge them for the way they look, especially during recruitment.
Starting in just a few short weeks, we will see over 1,500 girls in a span of seven days. It is our job to judge these girls based off a very short first impression that consists of what they’re wearing and how well they can make small talk in a 15 minute conversation.
After hearing what Stacey had to say in both her lecture and her personal visit to my sorority house, I’ve realized how much different recruitment could potentially be.
I’m not saying that we should stop paying attention to what everyone is wearing, because I know that’s impossible (plus I enjoy looking at all the outfits just as much as the next girl). But, I am saying that we should try and keep more of an open mind.
As a whole, Ole Miss is beginning to work toward a “no frills” recruitment. This means that our houses will have a minimal amount of decorations, singing, costumes, etc. So what if the way we judged girls was no frills too?
The Dove campaign Stacey was featured in was no frills, literally. No clothes, no makeup, no touch ups, nothing.
Please don’t take this too seriously, because I’m not telling y’all to show up to Sisterhood Day in your bra and underwear, but maybe focus less on the surface of things. Try and get more involved in the conversation, and less on what your rushee is wearing or how great her makeup looks.
I know that these kind of changes can’t be made overnight, but small changes can make just as much of a difference. So that’s my soapbox, and I look forward to seeing all the girls for this year’s recruitment! And please, be fully dressed.
