Penn Consortium for Undergraduate Women to launch 'Love Your Body' campaign

According to the Social Issues Research Centre, fewer than 5 percent of women are able to attain the “ideal” body type portrayed in advertising.

This weekend, the Penn Consortium for Undergraduate Women will be launching a three-day Love Your Body Campaign to address such staggering statistics. PCUW will be drawing ideas from the campaign that the National Organization for Women Foundation runs annually.

To kick off the campaign, PCUW will be holding a discussion over Sunday brunch about the media’s influence on body image. College senior and PCUW Chair Adrienne Edwards is hoping the talk will spark a reflective conversation.

“We want to create a safe space where people feel like they can share their struggles and their experiences and perspective,” Edwards said.

She added that, because the discussion may be emotionally taxing, PCUW is hosting a restorative yoga session immediately afterward.

“One thing that I found with body image is that often, movement such as exercise or dance is construed in a light that can be more negative than positive,” Edwards said. “For example, [someone might think], ‘Oh I really need to exercise so I can get my body to look this way because I want to look just like this person in the media.’”

PCUW is trying to counter this association with movement.

“We wanted to bring movement back to a more positive light in terms of ‘I’m moving to enjoy my body,’” Edwards explained.

On Monday, the campaign will continue with a discussion called “Cliteracy: learning everything you need to know about healthy and happy vaginas!” The discussion will begin with a more biological background and later move into topics related to sex.

Edwards is particularly excited for this event.

“I really think that Cliteracy is doing something totally different for this campus because I don’t think we necessarily have a sexual educational event very often,” she said. “And I think that’s something that’s lacking on Penn’s campus.”

College sophomore and PCUW Publicity Chair Elizabeth Britton is equally excited for Cliteracy.

Because such conversations are often considered taboo, “I think it’s great to talk frankly about the female body,” she said in an email, .

To conclude the campaign, PCUW is bringing in journalist Irin Carmon, who recently made Forbes’ “30 Under 30” media list, to discuss the representation of women’s bodies in the upcoming election.

PCUW has been promoting the campaign over the past week by having students write positive messages about body image on mirrors on Locust Walk. Mirrors tend to be associated with negative body image, “so we’re going to try to flip that,” Edwards said.

Through the Love Your Body Campaign, PCUW hopes to celebrate and heal.

“Our culture and particularly the media put so many expectations on our bodies,” Britton said. “This campaign gives us a chance to stop and say, ‘My body is my own. It is a home in which I live, not an object to be judged.’

“It’s about celebrating our bodies,” she added, “because each of them is unique and amazing.”

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