Seven senior women shared their experiences at the annual Women of Dartmouth panel held in a crowded Collis Common Ground Tuesday night. Panelists conveyed deeply personal stories, covering topics that varied from self-mutilation to issues related to gender and sexuality.
The women discussed their life experiences both while at Dartmouth and before they arrived at the College, many of them focusing on the difficulty of trying to discover and establish their identities.
Pamela Lin '07 discussed the challenges she faced growing up as a deaf child, struggling to learn to speak. She said that until she was eight or nine, she did not understand what it meant to have a conversation. Lin recounted a childhood story about a time when she spoke random syllables at another child because she believed that was what people were doing when they spoke with each other.
"They were all just moving their mouths, making sound, and I just wanted to do the same thing," Lin said.
While Lin shared many humorous anecdotes about some of her experiences, including getting out of traffic tickets and speeding through airport security, she also discussed the pressures she felt to conform to the hearing world and her ultimate decision to embrace her deafness rather than be embarrassed about it.
Annie Daher '07, whose mother was murdered when she was 12, also spoke about how she tried to act like any other student when she first came to Dartmouth. Hailing from a small town in California where the residents all knew what had happened to her, she called Dartmouth her first opportunity just to be "normal."
"I could come here, and I wouldn't have to answer questions," Daher said. "I could get a fresh start. I didn't want to have to explain."
After a very difficult freshman spring, however, Daher said that she was "tired of being normal." She stated that she began to share her story with her friends, and that while people were not always able to understand her experiences, it was more important to her that they could empathize.
"If we can start to feel for one another and really want to know how people feel and try to feel that with them, that is the single most important thing that we can do for one another," Daher said.
Lennel Assan '07 discussed her struggle to define her identity as both an African woman -- her parents are from Ghana -- and an African-American woman, stating that her experiences with the African and Caribbean student population at Dartmouth marked one of the first times that she felt part of a community.
Both Sarah Rosa '07 and Sarah Chaudhry '07 discussed the difficulty of adjusting to a culture at Dartmouth which differed greatly from the community in which they grew up.
Chaudry, who attended a New York public high school and is the daughter of immigrants, said that at Dartmouth she often felt alienated by the attitude and culture of privilege that surrounded her at the College.
"I felt invisible all the time," Chaudhry said. "I felt like I was a guest."
She said that Dartmouth students can fail to make valuable connections with each other and lose connections to their home because they are too focused on their studies and other activities.
"I think it's so high pressure, and everyone who comes here is so high-achieving that we become obsessed with the products," Chaudhry said. "I think it's that constant deferral. You can't have that conversation with your friends right now because you have to go do your work."
Amanda Rosenblum '07, who said that she was speaking for "those who wish to reclaim Dartmouth," read a poem urging Dartmouth students to "stand up," and to establish connections with each other and remember their ties to the students who came before them.
"[Dartmouth students] need to work together, need to push buttons," Rosenblum said.
Soralee Ayvar '07 spoke against what she believed to be a culture at Dartmouth that requires students to repress their emotions.
The first Women of Dartmouth Panel was held in 1989.
