In response to Maggie Lillis’ column Self-esteem: Body image speaker empowering, celebrity-name drops (SN 2/14), I would like to say that as a sorority member present for this mandatory event, I was extremely disturbed by this article. First, while Jessica Weiner’s program was a mandatory event, that does not and should not take away from the value and the core message that I and hopefully many other women received that evening.
It upsets me to hear that as soon as Lillis realized this event was mandatory for sororities, her “self-image plummeted,” and it “made (her) sink into a hole of self-loathing a little further.” To Lillis I ask this: Were you and I at the same event that night? The whole point of Weiner’s program was not to make you feel inadequate compared to other women, but rather to empower and invite all women to help change the exact feelings that Lillis was experiencing. All women, sorority members included, have experienced these feelings of imperfection and self-loathing at one point or another.
