In Defense of Diva Days
April 12, 2006
Trudi Attema
It was with disappointment that I read 3C’s anti-Diva Days letter in the previous issue of the Mars’ Hill. In my first two years at Trinity, every spring I would look on enviously as my guy friends got to participate in the male-bonding extravaganza of Ft. Douglas Week. Last year I found myself in a position of leadership as CLA (now renamed CF), and I and my fellow CLAs decided to take action and correct the situation.
We teamed up with Freshman Class Rep Matt Keller, Cathy Chapplow and the Freshman Advisory Committtee to ensure that the females of campus would no longer be sidelined. We spent many (many!) hours brainstorming and planning to come up with events that would be as fun as those the boys were having across campus, but uniquely female enough that girls would actually participate. We suspected there would be some girls who took offense to the “diva” title, or accuse us of planning events that were too girly and not competitive enough.
Hoping to reach the interests of as many people as possible, we tried to balance out the Celebrity Lookalike event and Chocolat movie event with a midweek football game and the ever popular assassins. We planned some dress-up days just for fun and our “wear a skirt” idea was not intended to be stereotypical, but because we know that when the whether turns warm, people love a good excuse to get dressed up.
To our dismay, less than 10 people showed up on the night of the football game, confirming our suspicions that for the most part, girls do not bond in the same way guys do, and while we support those who prefer more active, high-impact events such as mud-wrestling, they seem to be the minority.
Last year’s team worked very hard to plan a week of special activities to celebrate the women of campus and we hoped it would become an annual event that people could get excited about. How unfortunate that only a year later, our efforts are already being attacked with the “stereotype” label.
Kudos to this year’s community life team for their hard work in organizing the week, and for those who would like to see Diva Days change, I encourage you to get involved in the planning next year and make it something that better reflects the interests of women.
Trudi Attema
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