Pia Schiavo-Campo shared with attendees her personal struggles with body image. Photo by Hailey Sayegh.

As part of its second annual Body Love Week, USC’s Women’s Student Assembly held a workshop led by body love activist Pia Schiavo-Campo that involved soul-searching activities like this one, a raise-your-hand-if-you’ve-ever-felt-this-way exercise. 

Other statements that got lots of agreement were, “There is at least one facial feature of mine I wish I could change,” and, “I wish I had a flatter stomach.” One look around the room made it clear: no girl is free of insecurities, especially those pertaining to her appearance. 

Schiavo-Campo, a plus-sized model, writer and blogger, facilitated a discussion about the body standards that plague women in her workshop called “Expanding definitions of Beauty: Redefining the Thin White Ideal.” In a PowerPoint presentation, Schiavo-Campo projected childhood pictures documenting her body image journey – from her pre-pubescent years of carefree prancing in ballet leotards to the dawn of her self-conscious period, which spanned from junior high through college. 

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She shared a very personal story. With an alcoholic mother and lots of family turmoil, Schiavo-Campo turned to secretive eating as an escape. At the age of 12 she had already started dieting, trying fads such as eating only grapefruit or eating 10 cookies followed by an hourlong run. She displayed a picture of the man to whom she lost her virginity in college, whom she said was “crazy,” but who was admittedly the first to make her like her body by constantly telling her she was beautiful. She shared all of this while her husband – not the same man from the picture – sat in the back of the room. She even shared that she is a size 18 and weighs 230 pounds. “I like to say it ‘cause I don’t think people should be uncomfortable with numbers,” she said.

We discussed how, as women, we are buying into a one-dimensional definition of beauty: a thin and light-skinned one. A self-proclaimed “mixed fat chick,” Schiavo-Campo is attuned to what she calls the “fake diversity we are being fed by the media,” from L’Oreal’s take on diversity, featuring only light-skinned straight-haired models, to the Disney Princess version of diversity, which, despite Mulan and Pocahontas, shrinks all of the princesses’ waistlines to impossibly tiny proportions.  

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Other topics discussed were Shiavo-Campo’s problem with black women wearing blonde weaves and the eyelid surgeries popular in Asian countries to make eyes appear bigger, or more Caucasian. “It’s gone beyond, ‘I want a flat stomach,’” said Schiavo-Campo. “Now it’s, ‘I don’t want you to know what I am.’”

Without a hint of self-righteousness (she admitted to getting liposuction, which she now regrets, and to loving a good selfie), Schiavo-Campo shared her dismay at the practice of body-shaming other women, be they thinner or thicker than us. Before ending with a Q&A session, Schiavo-Campo gave us a five-step process to help end the oppression we subject women to based on their looks. 

Step 1:

Stop talking so much. Be more proactive in changing what you don’t like about the patriarchal status quo. In the words of Gloria E. Anzaldúa, “I change myself, I change the world.” 

Step 2:

Stop reading those glossy magazines. By picking up "Elle” or “Glamour,” we are internalizing the impossible (Photoshop, anyone?) beauty ideals that Hollywood creates.

READ MORE: Free Cupcakes, Condoms and Vibrators at Body Love Workshop

Step 3:

Compliment random women. “Some people think this is shallow,” said Schiavo-Campo, “but hear me out.” Compliments don’t have to be about appearance. Letting someone know she is funny can provide a huge confidence boost. Schiavo-Campo challenged everyone in the room to try it for the next 30 days. 

Step 4

Stop the Mean Girl talk. If your friends start gossiping, walk away. Or make them feel uncomfortable, she suggested, by abruptly changing the subject to mark your disinterest in talking smack.

Step 5

Use social media for good. Schiavo-Campo talked about some brave and trending hashtags, such as “#bellyrealness,” that expose unfiltered and unstaged photos of women’s perceived flaws, like a protruding belly, for instance.

Junior Pre-Law major Elinor Haddad thinks these are definitely five tips she could adhere to. “In some ways they’re already things I naturally do,” she said. “I really don’t like to gossip.”

"It’s about being aware of who’s listening to you," said Haddad. “I have a 14-year-old sister.”  

Kate Weatherby, a senior majoring in Spanish and the director of Women and Youth Supporting Each Other (WYSE), feels the hardest part would be stopping the Mean Girl talk. “I feel like in an effort to celebrate ourselves for not sticking to the norm of being skinny, we put down other women who are skinny,” she said. “We try to draw those lines so we can say, ‘no, we’re on the good side.’”

USC’s Body Love week continued Wednesday with a workshop on how to overcome your sexual inhibition and “unleash your inner sexy” and will conclude with an open mic night Friday at Ground Zero Performance Cafe. 

Reach Staff Reporter Hailey Sayegh here.