2008 Woodie Awards
SIA raises body image awareness
Julyssa Lopez
Issue date: 4/30/08 Section: News
The girls of RudiSigma Iota Alpha (RudiSIA), Inc. sorority held their first event of the semester on April 9, entitled "A Woman's Body Image." The event was designed to discuss stereotypes, unfair expectations and media portrayals affecting the way females view themselves and their bodies.
RudiSIA is an interest group for the national Latina-based sorority, which began as an organization in the mid 1980s. It was in September 1990 when SIA was founded as an official sorority. According to the official Web site for Hermandad de SIA, the women of the sorority, "strive to travel through new channels of involvement in the Latino community while reinforcing our commitment to our philanthropies."
Freshman Edlin Ortiz, a member of RudiSIA, explains the term "Rudi" refers to the group's status as an interest group, rather than an official University Greek sorority. "The Rudis are an interest group that contains inactive members. They do not have any letters yet but share the same goals as the SIAs," she explains.
Being an interest group means the girls have no official University representation and are not yet official sisters of SIA. The members now can decide to pledge and become official sisters. However, SIA is still not an officially recognized sorority. Next year, members can opt to make it a Greek colony, which means its members have liberty to sponsor events and fundraisers. Once the colony has enough members, it can become an official part of Greek life at the University.
RudiSIA's "A Woman's Body Image" event, which was held in Lecture Hall North, was a chance for the girls to raise awareness of the interest group while additionally demonstrating the types of topics and concerns important to the girls of SIA.
"I thought it was so effective because the girls were professional but extremely down-to-earth," junior Carmen Novoa said. She heard about the event through friends within the RudiSIA group and was immediately drawn to the subject matter. "I think body image is really important to talk about, because it wasn't something just for the ladies-everybody relates to it."
Junior Soudaphone Kittirath explained attendees would grasp this and the group had hoped to reach out to males. "We're all female, but we want people to see what we go through everyday, and the impact things like image have on us," she said.
Freshman Gabriel Santos felt the workshop did what it had sought out to do. "They did really good," he said. "It was good to talk about what beauty really means. As a guy, I learned you really have to think about what you're saying to other people because your words and comments about beauty can really affect others. You need to be careful with what you say."
Overall, RudiSIA member sophomore Jessica Casanova felt the event was an accomplishment. "There were about 20 other people, not counting us, and we had really good interactions with people who showed up," Casanova said. "It was extremely successful."
RudiSIA is an interest group for the national Latina-based sorority, which began as an organization in the mid 1980s. It was in September 1990 when SIA was founded as an official sorority. According to the official Web site for Hermandad de SIA, the women of the sorority, "strive to travel through new channels of involvement in the Latino community while reinforcing our commitment to our philanthropies."
Freshman Edlin Ortiz, a member of RudiSIA, explains the term "Rudi" refers to the group's status as an interest group, rather than an official University Greek sorority. "The Rudis are an interest group that contains inactive members. They do not have any letters yet but share the same goals as the SIAs," she explains.
Being an interest group means the girls have no official University representation and are not yet official sisters of SIA. The members now can decide to pledge and become official sisters. However, SIA is still not an officially recognized sorority. Next year, members can opt to make it a Greek colony, which means its members have liberty to sponsor events and fundraisers. Once the colony has enough members, it can become an official part of Greek life at the University.
RudiSIA's "A Woman's Body Image" event, which was held in Lecture Hall North, was a chance for the girls to raise awareness of the interest group while additionally demonstrating the types of topics and concerns important to the girls of SIA.
"I thought it was so effective because the girls were professional but extremely down-to-earth," junior Carmen Novoa said. She heard about the event through friends within the RudiSIA group and was immediately drawn to the subject matter. "I think body image is really important to talk about, because it wasn't something just for the ladies-everybody relates to it."
Junior Soudaphone Kittirath explained attendees would grasp this and the group had hoped to reach out to males. "We're all female, but we want people to see what we go through everyday, and the impact things like image have on us," she said.
Freshman Gabriel Santos felt the workshop did what it had sought out to do. "They did really good," he said. "It was good to talk about what beauty really means. As a guy, I learned you really have to think about what you're saying to other people because your words and comments about beauty can really affect others. You need to be careful with what you say."
Overall, RudiSIA member sophomore Jessica Casanova felt the event was an accomplishment. "There were about 20 other people, not counting us, and we had really good interactions with people who showed up," Casanova said. "It was extremely successful."
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