Women's panel tackles gender issues in the media and community
Officer Martinez is introduced in Park Library Auditorium March 27.
The Women Empowerment Panel discussed issues of sexism and double standards in the workplace, in early childhood and throughout modern society.
Speakers and audience members alike emphasized the effects of media, career paths and appearance assumptions have over women on March 27 in the Charles V. Park Library Auditorium. This was in honor Women's History Month, which concludes by next week.
The Courageous Conversation Series was a collaboration between Phenomenal Brown Girl and the Diversity Committee of the Student Government Association. It featured the insight of five Central Michigan University community members.
The on-stage community included hosts SGA Diversity Chair and College of Health Professions Senator Brianna McCrary and Phenomenal Brown Girl President Briana Traver.
The panel also showcased the experience and insight of East Campus Police Officer Laura Martinez and Women's and Gender Studies Lecturer Scott De'Orio.
To commence the conversation, panelists tackled the force the media plays in presenting and influencing women.
"I think that there are a lot of negative images of women in the media. You see it on social media, magazines, music videos and things like that," said panelist Caitlin Crutcher, Vice President of A Mile in Our Shoes (AMOS).
Crutcher, a Farmington junior, said unnatural depictions of females that are exhibited on the screen and over social media have negatively altered the way women view themselves. She said self-image is often influenced my products created by cultural media.
Crutcher's experiences come from viewing women in reality television series such as "Love & Hip Hop" as a young child.
She said she was exposed to women who looked like her but were also framed by over sensationalized confrontations and by poor, extremely dramatic behavior.
"(They) would be arguing and throwing (drinks) at each other and talk about men," she said. "They have money and are successful in their own right, but that's not what the media was showing. They were showing them as being tacky and things like that."
Martinez, on the other hand, applauded the recent women she has seen spotlighted in films such as "Black Panther," "Tomb Raider" and "Wonder Woman."
"They were all women of empowerment who showed the strength of what they had, not only in strength physically but also strength knowledge wise," Martinez said.
She said the media overall is a double-folded sword, that will always have negativity associated with it.
"The media (only) has the power that I allow them to have," she said
Martinez biggest conflicts with her gender identity became most vocal during her first years as the only female police officer in her first department.
"Sometimes I came home crying, sometimes I came home punching a punching bag (and) sometimes I came home laughing because it all felt silly," she said.
At CMU, Martinez still serves as the only minority female in the campus police department. She said although she has never been disrespected by her fellow officers, she has faced much criticism in the community.
"Certain cultures do not recognize a female as being someone of any power or importance, so when I get those calls there's another hurdle I have to jump over," she said.
McCrary, a Livonia senior, said she is often spoken down to by the faculty and gentlemen in the Neuroscience community.
She said her professors will openly be taken back by her goals of becoming a Physician's Assistant and are still stuck in the old-age assumption that her demographic belongs in nursing.
"It's hard being a woman on campus and being a woman of color on campus. We have to defend ourselves and unfortunately we are portrayed as being aggressive, (but) we have to fight for what we believe in."
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