the Informer

Beauty and the beauty ideal are thrown at women from every aspect of their lives. To help contribute to creating a more realistic standard of what is beautiful, Women for Change has created a calendar depicting beauty in our community. The calendar is titled “What is Beauty?” and it will be unveiled on Friday, Feb. 19 in Gengras room 331.

“At first, we thought about doing a ‘Dove-like’ calendar, similar to their campaign for real beauty,” said Mala Matacin, a psychology professor and the faculty advisor for Women for Change. “When we got back in the fall semester of this year, that idea morphed into asking women to define beauty for themselves and to tell their story about that beauty.”

The project came to fruition in December, when the initial stages of the planning process began. Women around campus were invited by the group to submit photos of themselves or other women they considered beautiful.

Along with the photos, they were asked to complete this thought: “Beauty is…” Lastly, submissions were required to have a small written response explaining why they thought the photo was beautiful.

Submissions were accepted by students and faculty alike. “Since Women for Change represents women across all generations and ethnicities, it also became very important for us that not only students or young women were represented in this calendar,” said Matacin.
The group received an overwhelming response from the community. Matacin reached out to other schools, such as St. Joseph College, to include their participation.

In the end, they received 25 submissions for the 12-month calendar. According to Matacin, the final calendar features 23 photos. She then put the calendar together, submitting it to the members of Women for Change for final approval.

The calendar begins with the month of March, which is Women’s History Month. Matacin wrote in her dedication to the calendar, “It is fitting as each woman’s story of beauty represents a little of her unique history, or rather her story. You will not find the narrow images of beauty that are typically seen in calendars, but rather diverse images and stories that are as varied as women are. No woman defined beauty in exactly the same way.”

The hope for the calendar is to change the way beauty is perceived. “I think some of it has to do with the fact that the images that we constantly see of women are ‘flat,’” said Matacin.

“By that I mean that the images of women represented in traditional media are the same – sexualized objects for the male gaze. In this calendar, women were given the chance to redefine beauty beyond the bounds of what we normally see. The fact that there is a story with her image is powerful. She is not just her body, but she has history, a soul, emotions, intelligence, etc…”

The unveiling on Friday will be the first time anyone outside of the Women for Change group has seen the finished product. The event begins at 5:30 p.m. and will have refreshments courtesy of the Women and Gender Resource Center.

The calendars will be sold that day for $10 and also at the Vagina Monologues on Feb. 26 and 27. Other merchandise, such as magnets, posters and t-shirts, will also be on sale to promote the calendar. Ten percent of the profits will go to CONNSacs, the Connecticut Sexual Assault Crisis Center.

According to its Web site, “Women for Change is a group aiming to provide a space for education, open dialogue, and support among people of all ages, backgrounds, ethnicities, and sexual orientation surrounding body image issues, including but not limited to feminism and sexuality. Women for Change’s goal is to promote bonds between women in society.”

Students and faculty who would like to join Women for Change can e-mail Matacin at matacin@hartford.edu or its president, Gili Goldfrad, at WforC@hartord.edu. On March 2, the group will participate in International Women’s Day, and in April it will help out with Trashcan Day and Umbrellas for Peace.