Price of beauty will not pay for degree

Wednesday, 5/21/97 Price of beauty will not pay for degree
Revlon event puts looks, not intelligence on pedestal

By Sharon DeYoung This letter is in regard to the "Fun,
Fearless, Female Tour" put on by USAC and sponsored by Revlon last
Wednesday, May 14. Unfortunately, I didn’t have an opportunity to
go to this event and so I can only assume the flyer was a clear
indicator of the event and base my criticisms on it as it was
advertised. I have talked to someone who went to the event, and
from what he said, the event did have more merit than was obvious
from the flyer, yet I’m pretty much restricting my argument to what
I saw advertised, for again, that’s what I know. For those of you
who didn’t see this flyer, I’ll describe it for you. There was the
"Fun, Fearless, Female" phrase in large print, a small photo of
model Tyra Banks wearing a clingy T-shirt mid-page, (she spoke at
the event), and in the upper right hand corner, something about
girls getting makeovers for that ‘career look.’ The rest of the
text indicated that this event was sponsored by Revlon, and that it
would give girls the opportunity to receive free makeovers and
samples of Revlon makeup. The bottom left hand corner indicated
that this event was put on by USAC. Now this event isn’t bad in
itself. I can see how makeovers can be fun, and I don’t object to
free samples of anything. And besides just "making an appearance,"
my friend informed me that Tyra Banks talked about minority women
rising up in the ranks of the modeling world, and breaking the
boundaries of stereotypical notions of beauty. As a successful
African-American model, Tyra Banks is certainly qualified to
discuss her role as a groundbreaker in the modeling world, but is
it appropriate for a university to give a profession with its main
qualification that of physical attractiveness, such a position of
prominence on campus? Certainly intelligence is helpful in any
profession, but there are many other professions out there that
would have more relevance for more women on campus than modeling
does; that rely more on a college education than modeling does
(which never to my knowledge requires a college degree). And there
are minority women breaking boundaries and challenging stereotypes
in ‘other’ professions too – why can’t we hear from them? I saw
that flyer and for a moment my heart fluttered up. Had I made a
mistake? Was I at UCLA, or did my college application somehow find
its way to Barbizon beauty school? It surprises me that the
Undergraduate Student Activities Commission would have promoted
this event, but I can guess where their motivation came from. Less
and less a public institution, the UCs are increasingly reliant on
corporate and private funding. Getting that money is great, being
obliged to flatter donors with such a self-conscious tipping of the
hat is not. It seems we really are moving toward "the year of the
adult undergarment" that David Foster Wallace pointed out "in
jest." (I dimly remember a sign out on Bruin Walk – Playboy Bunnies
on campus to talk about "relationships." So just what did good ol’
Hugh slip us?) UCLA is an institution that prides itself on its
ability to compete with more expensive, private universities on the
East Coast. Such comparisons seem unfounded and indeed ridiculous
when our academic institution is sponsoring such activities as
those mentioned above. I didn’t go to college to learn success
through a certain shade of lipstick, and I don’t buy into that
clever "beauty is power for women" thing that is all over popular
culture, and has evidently infiltrated our universities too.
Everyone likes to look attractive, but for women, the pursuit of
beauty is all too often overemphasized at the expense of more
enduring, empowering, and in the end rewarding endeavors, chiefly
learning, which is why people go to universities – to learn. And to
be fair, every experience is a potential learning experience, but
it scares me to see that even here at UCLA, where I thought I’d be
safe from cardboard cut outs of what a woman is supposed to be, I’m
given such dry presentations of a corporate vision. The only
solution I can think of for this problem is to reverse current
trends and get the UCs back to being the public universities they
began as. I’d appreciate a response from USAC. DeYoung is a
first-year undeclared student. Previous Daily Bruin stories: Revlon
and UCLA gather money for women’s cancer research Annual Fire and
Ice all raises $1.6 million for program