At our last chapter meeting, two of my sorority sisters passed around a bucket of those well-known labels that have “HELLO, MY NAME IS…” stamped in red above a blank space where you can write your name easily. However, the labels in the bucket had strange names written into their blank spots like, “black chick,” “quiet Asian,” and “dumb athlete.” These two women, Kelly Froelich and Kate Gadsden, were passing around these labels as a part of the I’mPower Campaign, a final project created by a group of students who participated in Katie Hood’s Public Policy class titled, “Women as Leaders.” Through the campaign, this courageous group of students will reexamine how we distribute labels on campus and how these labels influence our self worth. With I’mPower, Kelly, Kate and their colleagues hope to redefine Duke culture and revitalize the Duke community by celebrating the individual, not the label.
The campaign will begin this month with an op-ed in The Chronicle to get people talking about the effects of Duke culture. It will continue with a campus-wide “Disable Your Label” day on Wednesday, February 27th, where students will visibly wear the labels of other students throughout the day and participate in a culminating event to strip off their labels together. The only label that the campaign hopes will stick with students is that of its uplifting, universal message: I’mPower.
So what’s your label? Everyone on campus has been associated with a label by the Duke community. It is simply the nature of how we shape identity in our culture to attach labels to people. I know I can spout off a few labels that my fellow students have attributed to me: “unemployed English major,” “Artsy freak,” even “Cat lady.” Labels like these follow us around campus, whether we actively choose to use them to define our identities or not. I’mPower tells us that these labels do not necessarily define us and that we, as a community, can break the cycle of labels that can diminish our true character and identities.
I sat down with Kelly Froelich and Kate Gadsden to discuss I’mPower and Women as Leaders a little further. Froelich and Gadsden are both seniors in Delta Gamma who participate in leadership activities such as BOW, Maxwell, peer tutoring, DUU Speakers & Stage committee, and the Who Needs Feminism? Campaign. They told me that Women as Leaders was a course they participated in last spring that facilitated discussion about challenges that women face today, ranging from case studies of women in the workforce, to personal advice for navigating the transition of college to a career. Katie Hood, former CEO of the Michael J. Fox Foundation and Duke alum, was the inspirational professor who was able to offer the advice of a Duke grad as well as that of educated and evolving career woman. In this uniquely focused learning environment, students like Kelly and Kate were able to foster communication about issues with Duke culture.
“It all started with [College] ACB,” said Kelly when asked about the inspiration to start I’mPower. College ACB, also known as Collegiate ACB today, is a gossip site that has been a fixture at Duke for several years, instigating feelings of malcontent, judgment, and social unrest on campus. The site is a perfect jumping off point for cruel criticism of other students and organizations as well as online bullying. Besides perpetuating negativity online, the labels floating around sites like Collegiate ACB such as “slut,” “fratstar,” “rich white girl,” “Asian nerd,” “terrorist,” and “dumb jock”—to name a few—have been picked up by Duke culture and disseminated among many of us on campus. Kelly, Kate, and their fellow I’mPower creators believe that the best way to stop the perpetuation of these labels is to foster communication in order to “chip away at people who perpetually label others.”
So what’s next for the campaign? This coming Wednesday, take part in Disable Your Label day by wearing a label and stripping it off in order to declare your freedom from the labels of Duke culture. Start talking about what I’mPower means to you and how you will deal with labeling of others and yourself in the future on campus. And keep listening, because Kelly, Kate and their comrades in the I’mPower campaign will be setting up a Speakers Series and posting videos to celebrate the campaign to empower students to live without labels.
Here is the I’mPower Mission Statement: “We are a university of unique, smart, and driven individuals. Yet somehow we are both the perpetrators and the victims of a system that is obsessed with labels. We create a Duke culture of academic and personal competition that destroys the Duke community. This competition lowers the self worth of members of the Duke community and we no longer have the confidence nor the willingness to fail that is necessary in order to succeed. We no longer stand together united as Duke; instead, we divide and redivide ourselves into groups, preventing us from getting to know and value each other. We are judged and judge others superficially based on our appearances and affiliations. As a result, our sense of self-worth is distorted. Our strengths are not recognized, our weaknesses are preyed upon, and we rely on the validation of others. Our obsession with labels must stop. We must find ways to empower ourselves without disempowering others. We determine our own potential. We define our own worth. Let us celebrate ourselves and each other. Change Duke, do not let Duke change you.”