From Party Animal to Role Model

By Craig Considine – People in my generation have created a culture where short skirts are the norm; where breasts hang out of ‘tube-tops’; where women can get drunk and flash themselves without embarrassment; where women are seen and treated more like sexual objects rather than companions; and where pornography and the degradation of women is all over the Internet. Meeting Nicole Queen and her tremendous amount of self-respect for her mind and body is something very admirable and is a character trait that American women and men can learn from.

In high school and college, I spent a lot of my social time with friends and fraternity brothers; thus I became acquainted with the party scene and ‘Greek Life’. From the male side of the spectrum, I saw that women were often verbally disrespected and physically treated as sexual objects. Men, on the other hand, were more interested in pursuing women for their bodily parts rather for their mind, soul and love. The problem is two-fold – men and women can’t respect each other if they don’t respect themselves.

Nicole’s impact on my own character and conduct was profound. Hearing her story and realizing how relevant it was to what I have witnessed in my life was a real eye opener. Women, as she noted, should be treated with respect and should be loved and admired not just for their ‘outer beauty’ but their ‘inner beauty’. If a women dresses provocatively, she is essentially asking for the wrong kind of attention from a man; she noted that the more skin a women shows, the more she wants to be treated as a sexual object. Therefore, women have a certain responsibility if they wanted to be treated with respect (and vice versa).

I came away from our conversation with a newfound respect for women and a sense of how women should be treated but also how women should act. A women’s beauty is two-fold; it’s physically beauty but also depth of character, sense of self-respect, and a sense of honor for mind, body and soul. Now I walk around in public and look at women through a new lens. Sometimes I ask myself ‘Why does she dress like that?’ What is she asking for? What is she implying? The kind of women that is truly beautiful is the one which doesn’t have to dress provocatively, one that can be beautiful without showing skin, one that is confident, respectful and humble, and one that thinks intelligence is just as important as beauty. This is what I found in Nicole and that’s why I’ll never forget meeting her.

Craig Considine