Let’s talk about talking- part 2

Image courtesy of @rosemcgowan/ Instagram

Social media allows us to connect with each other everyday. In recent years, conversations have been started about sexual assault, feminism and gun violence. In this two-part piece, we question why its taken us this long to open up about the issues and important topics in today’s world. Let’s talk about talking.

In part one of this two-part piece, we highlighted an issue with the way that we collectively go about talking about ‘sensitive topics’.

In each case, such as the #metoo movement or the gun violence protests, something significant has had to happen in order to start a conversation. Talking to activist and campaigner for LGBTQ+ and HIV, Matthew Hodson this was all too real. He says “When I was a university student the Thatcher government introduced a piece of legislation, Section 28, which defined lesbian and gay relationships as 'pretend',” he continues, “Section 28 helped to mobilise a generation of LGBT activists.” As inspirational as this is, again something significant happened to spark a revolution for the LGBTQ+ cause.

Both minds and bodies are effected by the act of bottling up, whether it be about a personal issue or a global issue. Psychotherapist Olivia Djouadi says, “People need to share as it can have a bad affect on their physical health and maybe how they feel about themselves. Stress shouldn’t be anybody’s normal.” The list of effects that stress has on the human body is never ending. A weakened immune system, insomnia, anxiety, the list goes on and on. Talking can help relieve the levels of stress in our bodies, and will therefore help to reduce the side effects that it has on us physically and mentally.

Keeping quiet has a global effect also. From the conversations that have been started within recent years, such as the discussion about the gender pay gap, it shows that there was a huge magnitude of people experiencing the same issue. It’s only when they began to discuss, trust and talk, that change began to happen.

Image courtesy of @rosemcgowan/ Instagram

By talking, we change.

If we consider the sexual assault allegations against Harvey Weinstein that were raised in Hollywood in 2017, many women effected did not feel able to open up about their assault prior to the movements Time’s up and #Metoo.

If the conversation was started earlier, we can’t help but think that change could have been made sooner. However, it’s just as much about opening up as it is about listening. Perhaps those women didn’t feel that they could speak out and make a difference. But by discussing it, there becomes a larger sample of women who had suffered the same. This gave them a bigger cause to fight for and ultimately ended in change of the issue and a wider awareness of sexual abuse within many different industries, not just Hollywood.

Equally activist Matthew Hodson commented on the effect of the lack of awareness surrounding HIV that subsequently sparked his activism career, “I lost count of the number of people I know who died. The media portrayed us as rotten and promiscuous and contrasted the deaths of gay men with ‘innocent’ victims, children and people from sub-Saharan Africa. Many treated the deaths of gay men as inconsequential, some even welcomed it.”

Image courtesy of @matthewhodson/ Twitter

So how do we fix it?

Matthew says, “I’ve always been passionate about ensuring people have access to information. Knowledge can be lifesaving”. Raising awareness about issues such as HIV and #metoo keeps the conversations open. By doing this we encourage those affected to tell their story, providing them with a trust that they will be heard, much like Djouadi suggested.

Equally, there is much to be said about how open we should be to controversial topics. By making them seem taboo or wrong, only silences the issues that may occur within them. And although they may not be an issue yet, the conversations that have been spoken about within this two-part piece have all been started after something significant happened. So it only highlights how we collectively could have an effect on our global issues by being more accepting and open to conversations that we may not usually feel comfortable in. Let’s talk more.

#feminism #talk #part2 #LGBTQ