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.