Show Me the Women

This is what's been keeping me up at night lately, and what I plan to do about it.

I was sitting in the Savage Hall lobby before my class on Mineral Nutrition and Chronic Disease when I noticed three portraits of white men looking down at me. I began to notice that portraits of white men adorn the walls of every building at Cornell University.

That same day, I read an article in the New York Times about women in science, which revealed that even women do not hire other women for science positions as often as they hire equally qualified men. I started to think that part of this is purely what we think a scientist looks like, and that part of this problem is the messaging we are getting through the portraits on the walls at our universities.

When I started talking to friends about the portraits, many people wanted to know why it bothered me that the department founders, big donors, and administrators of the past were mostly men--they saw it as merely a function of history and that surely, these people deserve it.

While I do not want to discredit the people who have had a profound impact on our university, I do believe that they send a message about what merits a portrait at Cornell. That message connects being important with being rich and male and white.

I wish to widen the net of what we consider "important" at Cornell.

My plan is an art exhibition in the spring coinciding with PCCW (President's Council of Cornell Women) Weekend. The exhibit will be located in the Memorial Room of Willard Straight Hall and will feature portraits of prominent Cornell women from over the years. Alumnae who have made significant contributions to their fields, as well as prominent female faculty and administrators, will be featured. The portraits will be edited to look as much like an oil painting as possible, and framed.

Throughout the exhibit, framed mirrors will be installed with titles underneath them, to encourage exhibit-viewers to see themselves as part of the exhibit. A central piece of the exhibit will be a large, blank, framed canvas with the title card: "Cornell's First Female President."

My hope is that this exhibit raises questions about whom we honor in society, what we value in people, and the progress (or not...) of work place equality. I want every student to identify with the people featured, based on gender, race, ethnicity, or area of expertise.

The exhibit will be coupled with programs and discussions with different groups around campus. I am excited to partnering with my friend Lizzie on curated film screenings that feature women as writers, directors, and actors.

Cornell needs a change, and it’s not going to “happen on its own.” While women have begun to outnumber men as college grads, the hopeful trends stop there. Women are paid less for the same jobs as men once they leave college, and often self-select into “female professions” which pay less to begin with. Even here at Cornell, the gender gap starts to widen with the leadership of business clubs being mostly male. If we continue to study underneath the watchful eyes of rich white men in big, important portraits, we will continue thinking that being important means being rich, white, and male.

Cornell cannot change history, but we can change the messages we promote to our students. We can balance out the movies shown at Cornell Cinema to include movies directed by women. We can balance out the featured keynote speakers invited to campus by Hillel and other large organizations. We can balance out the portraits on the walls by featuring women in an art exhibit. We can balance out administrative leadership by hiring more women and encouraging them to apply for top positions. We can balance out STEM degrees by providing mentoring programs for women in these majors. We can balance out gender inequality, bit by bit, step by step, in our little corner of the world.
We deserve this. And it is time.

Show Me the Women does not solve the problem of gender inequality at Cornell University. But it begins the conversation, and provides a platform for discussion about the issue. It will bring women and allies together across differences to start working on the tough problems we face today. These problems require creative solutions, and this is just a start.

#showmethewomen