Oprah Winfrey: Her Most Honorable Mention

James Freedman, president emeritus of the University of Iowa and Dartmouth College, believes that an honorary degree should “celebrate distinguished and sublime achievement,” and demonstrate to its students the “qualities of character and attainment it admires most.” Inspired by Freedman’s philosophy, this weeks post is devoted to explaining and understanding why I believe that Oprah Winfrey (pictured on the left), activist, talk show host, philanthropist, and media mogul, is deserving of an honorary degree in my field of communication studies as well as from a feminist perspective. If an honorary degree is to represent the ideals of the University of Southern California as an academic institute, then we must take into consideration the principles inscribed on USC’s Tommy Trojan: faithful, scholarly, skillful, courageous, and ambitious. As an African American, as a woman, and as someone who has very publicly struggled with her weight, Oprah Winfrey is an exceptional human being who has overcome great odds and used her fame and fortune to touch hearts and to truly change the world.

Oprah Winfrey is an ideal candidate for an honorary degree because she excels in all areas that I, as a scholar, student of communication, human being, and feminist, value and admire. As a student of communication I idolize Oprah as the multi-Emmy award-winning host of the most successful talk show in history. As a scholar I respect her as an influential book critic who catapults each one of her recommended authors to stardom and for her devotion to bettering education; and as a feminist and humanitarian I venerate her as the first female African American billionaire, as the most influential woman of my time, and as having accomplished all of this without a husband. Winfrey has donated countless millions to charities and foundations around the world, and most recently invested $40 million of her earnings toward her grandest contribution yet, the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls (Oprah is pictured with the students at the ribbon cutting ceremony). Awarding Oprah Winfrey with an honorary degree would resolve the problem proclaimed by Freedman himself; that the prestige of receiving honorary degrees has been “trivialized” by awarding celebrities and “prospective benefactors” rather than those outstanding citizens who are truly distinguished in their field. Oprah Winfrey makes for a model honoree because she possesses the celebrity and wealth which will attract the much desired media attention to the university as well as the credibility, respect of the public, and good virtue to use these gifts wisely and purposefully.

If I am going to nominate Oprah as honorary degree candidate, it is essential that I explain to you the many accomplishments that I believe make this tremendous woman so worthy. To begin with, she has mastered and monopolized all facets of media in which she has ventured. Her talk show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, began September 8 1986, the year that I was born, and after more than 20 years on the air it is now the longest running daytime talk show in history. Like many daytime talk shows, Oprah deals with issues such as heart disease, spirituality, obesity, anorexia, as well as home decorating and beauty makeovers. One might ask; so what makes her show so special? According to Time Magazine (Oprah's TIME cover is pictured below), "Few people would have bet on Oprah Winfrey's swift rise to host of the most popular talk show on TV. In a field dominated by white males, she is a black female of ample bulk. As interviewers go, she is no match for, say, Phil Donahue...What she lacks in journalistic toughness, she makes up for in plainspoken curiosity, robust humor and, above all empathy. Guests with sad stories to tell are apt to rouse a tear in Oprah's eye...They, in turn, often find themselves revealing things they would not imagine telling anyone, much less a national TV audience. It is the talk show as a group therapy session." This quotation, I believe, touches on Oprah’s greatest strength, that she is neither white, nor male, nor skinny, nor blonde. She is none of the personas that we are accustomed to seeing on our television set, thus she makes her guests and viewers feels comfortable and welcome. It is her unmatched ability to maintain a sense of humility in the face of such great success that make Oprah Winfrey a master of her trade and a woman worth commemorating with an honorary degree.

Although television is where she got her start, her company, Harpo Productions, publishes two magazines, O and O at Home, which in 2002 were hailed by Fortune Magazine as the most successful start-up magazines ever. Still, despite her vast number of accomplishments, Oprah’s magic lies not in her immense fame and fortune, but in impact she has personally made. In 1998 she began Oprah’s Angel Network, which has raised more than $51million for underprivileged families. To name just a few more of her most notable acts of charity, she donated $10 million to Hurricane Katrina relief and single handedly put ten black men through college with $7 million in scholarships. CNN has hailed Oprah Winfrey as the “World’s Most Powerful Woman” and Vanity Fair once wrote, “Oprah Winfrey arguably has more influence on the culture than any university president, politician, or religious leader, except perhaps the Pope.” To say this about a white male would be exceptional; but to hear this about an unmarried, at times overweight, black woman from a very humble background is just earth-shattering.

Although among much of the African American community Oprah is a hero and a legend, she has received criticism throughout her career for being “anti-black culture” and even accused of becoming “white-washed” in order to gain popularity in main-stream society. Others have said that because she is a woman her interviewing style is “too soft;” while others say that because she gives a lot of support to Africa, she is “un-American.” Inevitably, she will always have critics; as such a high caliber of fame cannot come without a price. But, that being said, who can say that Oprah Winfrey is not faithful, scholarly, skillful, courageous, and ambitious? I believe that both James Freedman and Tommy Trojan would be proud to award Oprah Winfrey with an Honorary Degree in human letters for being an outstanding citizen, a role model, and a truly revolutionary human being. Aside from being one of the richest people in the world and one of the leading African American philanthropists, Oprah Winfrey has re-invented the face of success and turned our society’s hierarchy upside-down.

This I Believe: My Journey to Feminism

Ever since I was a young girl I remember having a unique picture of what it would be like to grow up and become an adult. While many of my friends dreamed of their future husbands and of having babies, I fantasized about a career and imagined wearing fancy designer suits and high heels at work. As this month is National Women’s History Month (Matilda Joslyn Gage, this year's honoree, is pictured here) it is fitting that I take a moment to reflect on how I came to be passionate about women's issues and the media. Motivated by the This I believe Site, "a national media project engaging people in writing, sharing, and discussing the core values and beliefs that guide their daily lives," I will devote this week's post to discussing the remarkable women and events that helped shape my core values.

It was not until I began my feminist studies at USC that I realized my concept of the ideal adult woman was based on my mother and my grandmother, both of whom during my childhood had high-power careers in the fashion industry. Since my mother was rarely home to cook us dinner at night or to do the laundry, I never inherited the belief that cooking and cleaning were a woman’s sole duties. While I have the utmost respect for mothers and housewives, I feel I was lucky enough to learn at an early age that women, just like men, could thrive in the business world. My mom and dad left for work together every morning and came home at the same time each night and as far as I knew that was just the way things were.

As I got older I started to notice that my mom was around less than the other moms. She never helped me with my homework or picked up the dry-cleaning for my dad. An aspect of my mother’s life which really stands out in my memory is the obsession with looks and appearances. Since she worked in the fashion business, she was always impeccably put together from head to toe. At the time we were living in the suburbs of New York, and I remember frequently visiting the New York City offices where my parents worked. It was a family business run by my grandparents, but my grandmother was clearly the matriarch. All of the female employees were attractive, wore black pants suits or skirt suits, stockings, and dressy shoes (the "power suit" style of dress is pictured here). This to me was the image of success. It is these enlightening experiences with professional and career driven-women that have helped to shape my understanding of the role of women in our society. I believe that it is possible to be both a great mother and a successful businesswoman. Barbara Marcus, president of Scholastic Books, on balancing a career and motherhood explains, "If you have work you love, that not only broadens you and makes you more interesting, it's also a positive for your home life." I feel blessed to have been in the presence of such powerful females, because it instilled in me the desire to help women achieve the respect, recognition, and opportunity that they deserve.

As a teenager I became aware of the expectations forced upon women in our culture, and was angered by the constant objectification of females in magazines and on television. As stereotypes about women are perpetuated through the media, women will be stripped of their self-esteem and sense of worth to a detrimental degree. Author of Odd Girl Out: Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls and staffer of the Empower Program, Rachel Simmons discusses princess culture in film. She says, "The princess is the last frontier of acceptable girliness. It points to how crazy our times have become that I, as a feminist, am promoting princess culture because, hey, at least you don't have a twelve year-old wearing a thong." The devastating effects of our societies repressive attitudes toward women are reflected by the overwhelmingly male dominated business world. Growing up as a girl in image- obsessed Los Angeles I have witnessed first hand just how misleading the media can be. Yet despite my frustration with the media, I am equally fascinated by its ability to impact people and communicate on such a grand scale. Through my blog and ultimately in a professional setting I aspire to break down some of the great many fallacies about women by exposing the media's hypocrisy.

The future holds endless possibility for me; and for that I thank women like my grandmother and those before her who dared to challenge the patriarchy. Like the famous writer and women's rights activist Gloria Steinem said (pictured here), “Power can be taken, but not given. The process of the taking is the empowerment in itself.” For the young girls who are not raised with an air of strength and self respect, it is important that those of us who are step up to the plate to show the world that their stereotypes are tired and outdated. I believe that anything less is inexcusable. What do you believe?