WHAT? 

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I finished up my fourth year with my final semester in Fall 2021. I took only four classes: Business Strategy Capstone, Branding, and two honors philosophy courses that included Feminist Philosophy, and the Happiness of Pursuit. The Feminist Philosophy course was taught by Dr. Melissa Jacquart and it included a hefty amount of reading and discussion around feminist key concepts, metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of science, and it concluded with a final project with a creative and written component as well as a 5-minute presentation. 

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SO WHAT? 

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For many years, I’ve identified as a feminist. At first, it was of course the typical “white feminism” (despite me not being white) that most people identify feminism with. But as I grew and went through high school and college, through research, lived experience, and interactions with marginalized groups, I became a more educated intersectional feminist (which has in turn, lead my politics). This course helped me build upon what I already knew and, in a way, it confirmed what I already knew. While there is no “right” way to be a feminist, I knew a lot already about what we learned in this course but got to build upon it in deeper ways and have discussions with my peers about the topics.  

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The final project especially helped me with my career as a marketer and a personal trainer. My final project (see below) combined passions of mine and helped me articulate thoughts that I had about the online fitness industry that I had for a long time. The fitness industry within social media is incredibly toxic. Through the readings from the course and additional research, I learned how and why the online fitness space often utilizes guilt and shame for promoting health and fitness to women, but does not do the same for men, whereas they are often empowered. 

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NOW WHAT? 

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We had complete freedom to choose our topic as well as how we wanted to tackle it creatively—this wasn’t just another final paper. I specifically chose a topic ​that has interested me for a long time as a personal trainer and social media consumer. I also knew it would apply to my future career and how I approach my work with clients, rhetoric in promoting my work, and social media involvement. I have tried to never engage in the tactics that I disliked in the first place, despite the fact that they often lead to more results, but from doing research on this topic, I am even more committed to avoiding the guilt and shame tactics that are common in the fitness industry. I utilize my project daily as I work with my clients, and I am continuing to apply the lessons I learned to my next honors experience that involves personal training and social media influencing. 

  

SAMPLE OF WORK 

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This is my final project in its entirety (other than my presentation which is a very condensed version of the below content). It is comprised of my creative component and my written component. I wanted to explore the question of how & why the fitness industry utilizes shame, guilt, and negative emotions when targeting women with their promotions, words, and rhetoric while the same cannot be said for content aimed towards men. I utilized multiple papers from the course content, a few studies and articles about fitness and social media, analyzed Fitness influencer’s Instagram posts, also surveyed my own Instagram followers in order to complete this project.