On Friday morning of Eating Disorder Awareness week, Ames High Feminist club was not attending National Honor Cult Society. Instead, they were spreading positive messages throughout the school in a most clever way. In each bathroom of (most) every hall of the school, mirrors were covered with cardboard, which was covered with inspiring quotes and pick-me-ups. This prevents people from picking at their reflections and reassures them that they do, in fact, make Ames High beautiful. As our culture puts an emphasis on appearance, more and more adolescent girls and boys have become unhappy with the way they look. Eating disorders are a side effect of this “measuring up” to one another, especially easy and common in high school. It is understood that sometimes a mirror is needed for emergency teeth-checking or hair-fixing, but the point remains there: everyone is beautiful. By obsessively looking into a mirror you are actively questioning this fact and taking too much time thinking about yourself. Taking away the reflections from the mirrors makes girls surprisingly angry. I wouldn’t know how the guys took it because I don’t utilize the same bathroom facilities as they. This is why leaving one mirror open is a good strategy. This way, the point can still be made without complete and utter destruction of all the hard work put into decorating the cardboard. I think the success of the mirror project is attributed to the fact that everyone enjoys complements, even if they come from brown paper in place of their beautiful reflection. Also, there were some amazing, and funny, and clever, and beautiful announcements made by the leaders of this trailblazing club. To commemorate the wonderful day, Ames High Feminist Club has installed a cardboard example of our work in Room 222. Be proud of your vagina!