Extra Credit-F.A.D. Event on the South Oval

I attended the F.A.D. event on the South Oval today, and was able to learn some very interesting information about certain topics pertaining to body image. This event was relevant to this course because the presentation boards contained information about various body image issues. I liked the "13 Going on 30" presentation board, which discussed the issue of young-aged girls being interested in clothes and things meant for women. There was an image of a young girl modeling a bikini on a runway that I found disturbing, because girls that young should not be modeling tiny bikinis on a runway. If girls start modeling on runways at such a young age, they will likely develop body image issues much earlier than a girl who was not exposed to the modeling world. Another presentation board contained information about the beauty standards in Africa. In Africa, big is beautiful. The presentation board showed images of bigger women and showed how bigger woman were more successful, and were more likely to find a husband. Another presentation board discussed the wage gap between men and women. There were charts showing that to this day, a man's salary is still slightly higher than woman's. I also received a flyer while at the event which had a list of places and contact information for those victims of sexual assault. I found this list to be very helpful, because I didn't know Norman had all of these places for sexual assault victims. I think information such as this flyer should be handed out to students more frequently, because it would help raise awareness of the issue of sexual assault, since it is usually a big issue on college campuses. I did some research on sexual assault cases on our campus and found an article that was printed in The Oklahoma Daily last year. According to Foy and Hughes, "Reports of forcible offenses on campus rose from two to five in 2007, the most recent year for which statistics are available, despite efforts by the police to stop sexual violence." Some victims of sexual assault are too afraid to report their incident to the police. When a flyer is given to a student, they have access to these helpful numbers, and may be more likely to call since they don't have to take the effort to look them up.

Overall the event was very informative, and it was evident that all the students put a lot of effort into making their presentation boards. When I stopped by, it was very crowded in the area where the boards were, so I was not able to navigate around all the people and see all of the boards. I did like the boards that I was able to see, and I think the best way to inform students about body image issues is to have events like this.

The Oklahoma Daily article : http://oudaily.com/news/2009/feb/02/campus-groups-work-combat-sexual-assault-ou/