Women's Studies Event

This post is long overdue, but back in late October I attended the women's fair. The event focused on developing strong women within today's society and was put on by two of the sororities here on SLU's campus. The event featured Meredith Osborn, a SLU counselor, who began the session by asking us to define what we believe a strong woman is and to think of someone who meets this criteria. She then asked what it means to be empowered and I thought the suggestions were quite interesting. The group came to a consensus that empowered women set aside stereotypes to be their best and most authentic selves. I really liked what someone said when they asserted that empowered women are strong and believe they deserve the best in life and therefore seek it. Meredith then showed a couple of videos to the group including a video with feminist speaker Courtney Martin and Robin Thicke's Blurred Lines feminist parody as well. I thought this event was extremely interesting because it allowed an insight into how others define both strong and empowered women. I also liked how Meredith encouraged discussion and participation from the crowd in order to reach a universal definition of what an empowered woman looks like and how to further develop strong females despite societal pressures and oppression.