Month: February 2019

-sickening silence

-windows cracked

-her sweaty palms grip mine

-tear soaked faces

-gut wrenching sobs

-relief or grief? Maybe both

-what is there to do

-would anything even make a difference

-quiet car

-heavy air

-the big target sign lights up the parking lot

-people walk by

When someone close to you experiences sexual assault it’s very upsetting and really makes you think about rape in our society today and the politics and culture surrounding it. There’s a lot of talk of a “rape culture” in America but when I think of a rape culture it’s not just cat calling and crude jokes. America has preventative laws and legislation in place to protect women, which a lot of countries can’t say they have. Rape that isn’t being fought against in countries where there aren’t laws that specifically tackle it, child brides and arranged marriages where women physically can’t get help out of fear of being rejected from their community/religion. This is where there’s really a rape culture. I’d never thought about this much until my friend shared her story with me. Speaking up about issues like this isn’t easy to do, especially with all the tumultuous conversation around rape culture and sexual assault and how to quell these issues. That’s why this story is important.

Notes:

-bullying very common

-pain and triumphs within life

-isolated for being different

-LGBTQ teens are having different experiences from “regular” teens

-suicide=feeling different/being outcast

-group w highest rate of suicide

-public health emergency

-loss of friends

-no support

Audio plays a big role in the way this story is told because you can’t read peoples body language or facial expressions or anything that would be physical indicators of what they’re feeling. In a way having Hallward give facts and explain scenarios and then victims of the bullying they’ve experienced speaking along with LGBTQ teens sharing their stories via podcast is almost more intimate. Again, you can’t see them so we’re more in tune to the tone in their voices and whether they’re crying or not etc. You can tell a lot by listening to someone’s voice.

The parts of the podcast that are particularly effective are when the real-life stories are being told by LGBTQ teens who are going through these experiences. This is so effective because kids who are being bullied or losing friends because people in their life have decided they’re lesser than can hear about kids’ experiences who are similar to theirs and maybe not feel so alone.

This compares to the more visual story we got from Martha Halls books because both Martha and Safe Space radio are appealing to similar emotion, but in very different ways. Martha attempts to share the same message Safe Space does, that people can be brought together and don’t have to suffer alone if we share our painful stories, but she does it in a way that isn’t blatant. Martha uses extensive metaphor and imagery in her books, she appeals to our visual senses and what she’s conveying isn’t in black and white. Safe Space, on the other hand, just comes out and says their stories and they do it in a way where we don’t have to read much into it, it’s pretty black and white the message they’re conveying

Martha Hall’s books encompass so much more than just words and pictures. There’s depth and elaborate metaphor to her writing that extends way beyond anything she could convey on paper. As I looked at her pieces they were ripped and burnt and stapled and sewn together. There were some books with beautiful handwriting and illustrations and colorful paper and others that were all black and scarce of words. The externalization of Martha’s internal consciousness, emotion and feeling were overwhelming. Her life, good and bad is poured out into her pieces.

A few books filled with poems and writing could never fully illustrate what it’s like to go through 16 years of cancer treatment and looking through her works evoked a sense of morbidity and embarrassment of our society. Doctors who don’t care about their patients and only want to diagnose and treat them and send them on their way shouldn’t be the norm.

A larger cultural change that could occur through sharing Martha’s story and books and works is the way doctors treat their patients. Medical School doesn’t teach doctors how to be personable and empathetic. It teaches them how to care for the patient physically, and the mental and emotional toll of whatever treatments the doctors are providing to the patient aren’t anything of importance. I don’t think it’s the doctor’s job to be their therapist, but when someone who is giving them potentially life changing news about their physical state can empathize and listen to them and their feelings, it can really alleviate some of the hardships the patient is experiencing. Changing the ways doctors interact with their patients on a personal level is a positive cultural shift that would benefit our society.

1. Question: Do negative stigmas drive shame and prevent social cohesion?
2. Possible Answers: Yes and no, this really isn’t a black and white answer. Both Hallward and Epstein touch upon stigmas in very different ways, and Hallward doesn’t do it very clearly. In Hallward’s ted talk she discusses how people don’t want to talk about their seemingly shame ridden stories because they’re afraid of what people will say or how they’ll act towards them. We see this example in the LGBTQ community or with mental illness. People don’t want to speak up and get that weight lifted off their shoulders because they’re afraid of the stigma that been placed around them. Things run through their heads like, no one will accept me, people will think I’m crazy or, no one can relate to me so what’s the point? This is a really scary thing because these stigmas that society’s placed upon people are so strong to the point that it’s preventing any kind of social cohesion from happening at all. Stigma’s are definitely a huge part of shame and people not opening up to others. They might even be the backbone of it. In Epstein’s article she writes about the AIDs epidemic and how it’s being handles in Africa. Stigma and the negative affect it has on social cohesion is introduces here when talking about the people who already have the disease. They’re seen as less than and are avoided by the younger, healthy population. They live in extreme poverty. No one gives much thought to them and AIDs prevention programs use the money they get to start discussion about safe sex, instead of, or in agreement with talking about how to help people who already have the disease. Because of the negative stigma around the disease and second handedly, the people who have it, no one wants to talk about the disease or do anything about it really. This prevention of social cohesion isn’t seen in Uganda however. Because the people are literally living closer together and know family members or friends with the disease, they are hungry for more information about it and want to stop the disease and bring help to their communities. People in Uganda have overcome the negative stigmas AIDs in enveloped in and social cohesion is occurring because of the close relationships they have with each other due to being family members and living close together.
3. Position: Overcoming the negative stigmas society has placed upon different experiences or orientations would rid any shame associated with them, or at least minimize it. When people come together and share their stories their creating a type of bond that can be an extremely powerful political force. Social cohesion can only happen if the negative stigmas are transformed into empowering, positive ones. Social cohesion cannot happen if people aren’t willing to talk about their hardships and bring them to life. Doing this humanizes everyone and levels the playing field, casting out shame and negative stigmas.
4. Thesis: Social cohesion can only occur if the negative stigmas that feed into shame are changed to positive ones through open conversation and mindsets.

Safe Space definitely creates social cohesion, I’d even go as far to say that it’s a perfect present-day example of it. Safe Space creates an area for people to band together and share experiences that wouldn’t have ever been brought into light if it weren’t for this radio show. Hallward’s whole ted talk about how bringing shame enveloped stories to light pushes for social change and releases people of baggage they had previously been carrying around is perfectly displayed in the Safe Space radio.

I listened to the segment about Male Sexual Violence and Rape Culture with Daryl Fort and even the opening of the radio show is displaying social cohesion. It opens with a bunch of bits stringed together of people saying how sharing their stories, even if it wasn’t face to face, healed them and set them free of all the extra, unnecessary baggage they’d been carrying around.

With this rape culture segment, it offers a place for people to hear stories about gang rape, sexual assault, etc. and the culture around that. Safe Space creates social cohesion because it, in and of itself, is an area for people to come together and be close with one another through various shared stories and experiences. Even if someone isn’t personally telling their own story on the show and discussion is just being had about something that happened to someone else; someone coming on to listen who shares a similar story can really relate to that. That one person who shares that story turns into dozens and maybe even hundreds and suddenly this experience that had been so shame filled for so many people is being openly talked about and it’s not shame ridden anymore; it’s turned into an empowering story and people are freed of the weight they’d been carrying on their own.

-Stigma

• This drives shame/racism
• How people look at certain situations
• Hallward=stigma around mental health?
• Epstein=stigma around disease
• Dictates how people are treated

-how something’s handled

• Stops change from happening

-or drives change to occur

-Connections between articles

• Starting conversation
• Changing shame to normalcy
• Relationships=power

-Complications

• Living close together=literal in Epstein

-metaphorical for Hallward

• Personal experiences are universal
• Can’t be recognized as universal if they’re not brought to light

Emotions and pain that come with various experiences in life can be challenging to bring to light. Opening up to other people and getting help to carry that emotional baggage can be harder said than done. In Epstein’s “AIDS, Inc.” she dives into the world of a country run rampant with AID’s and explores this very issue. Starting a conversation with a younger generation about this disease is very difficult and the goal of getting the ball rolling on discussion about AID’s can oftentimes be lost in solely talking about safe sex practices. Epstein states, “It turns out that talking about the pain, both physical and emotional, that the disease creates is far more difficult than getting over the embarrassment of talking about sex” (115). This quote really hones in the fact that it’s not just the disease that’s hard to talk about, it’s the emotions and real-life struggle that accompany it that’s the challenging part. AIDs affect seemingly every part of people’s lives who have it and the harsh reality of that is oftentimes pushed to the side and ignored. This idea connects really well to Hallward’s ted talk and the whole point she was conveying about the difficulty of sharing stories enveloped in shame. It’s difficult to push past the emotional/shame-ridden side of experiences and bring them to light, but once this happens it can be life changing.