Tag: Electrify

• Online Activism

  August 14, 2018 12:18 pm Comments Off on Online Activism

  When you hear the word ‘activism’, what sort of picture do you paint in your mind? Personally, mine consists of a large sea of people in the middle of a city waving flags and chanting. This is the kind of activism that we, as uni students, tend to participate in and experience. It makes an impact. When you have a thousand people campaigning so passionately and emotionally about the issues that affect them, that passion and emotion is infectious. But this does not negate the fact that protests and marches might not be accessible to everyone.
  This is where online activism comes in. Many have dismissed talking about social issues online, calling it ‘slacktivism’ and asking: ‘but if you feel so strongly about this, why don’t you actually do something?’ Frankly, this kind of rhetoric has its roots in ableism and classism. For many people, engaging in offline activism is simply not an option. People with anxiety might not be able to deal with the huge crowds that marches tend to attract. Those with mobility issues might be physically unable to walk around holding signs. Some might not be able to afford the expensive transport that they would need to take if a protest was held in a venue far away from their home. For women, people of colour or members of the LGBT+ community, attending protests simply might not be safe.
  Many of those who feel the need to speak out about social issues turn to social media as an alternative space to try and make a difference. And a lot of the time, it does. If you have a large social media following or several hundred Facebook friends, it is likely that many people will notice the articles you share and the opinions and issues you post about. Sometimes, online activism is the building ground for some great discussion. In the wake of Eurydice Dixon’s rape and murder and the ‘stay safe’ debate which consequently arose, many of my Facebook friends expressed their feelings about this incident. This sparked constructive conversations and the exchange of personal anecdotes. In the lead up to the marriage equality postal vote in 2017, campaigners shared their opinions on equal rights and how the results of the vote would affect them, often sharing the link to enrol to vote on various online spaces. This is why online activists are not shouting into an empty void: we are able to connect with hundreds and thousands of people online and sometimes, people will listen to us.
  Where I take issue with the online activism that I have seen some people practice is its lack of nuance. In social media outlets such as Tumblr or Twitter, where it is possible to exist anonymously, callout culture thrives. Instead of participating in and inviting others to participate in healthy debate, some activists will emotionally attack those whose political attitudes differ from theirs. It is valid to feel angry about the state of the world and tone policing should not be condoned. However, using this anger to try and convince others to see the world in the same way you do is unlikely to make a difference. Those on either side of the political spectrum can become afraid that any time they wish to express a political opinion, they will become the subject of vitriol. This defeats the purpose that online activism had in mind in the first place, as it discourages people from participating.
  Activism is important. In a society where many of us feel scared and angry about our current political climate, it is necessary that we do whatever we can to make a change. The fact that we are able to advocate for social justice either online and offline, depending on our needs, means that no one is left out. The worry with activism that exists purely online, is that people will hide behind their anonymity and forget about the respect that is imperative to discussions surrounding social justice.

  Phoebe Lupton

• Stop telling me not to walk alone at night

  12:12 pm Comments Off on Stop telling me not to walk alone at night

  To those who never understand,
  Stop telling me not to walk alone at night.
  I’m not telling you to stop because you need to focus your efforts on our broader social attitudes towards women and men’s respect for them.
  I’m not telling you to stop because you have no right to try to frighten any woman into changing behaviour she has every legal, practical, and physical right to engage in.
  I’m not telling you to stop because your incessant warnings cause many women intense and unnecessary anxiety every time they go out at night.
  And I’m not telling you to stop because every warning offensively implies that we, having lived our whole lives in fear of being little more than victims to men’s violence, would know nothing about its existence.
  Although I agree with all of these reasons, I’m not telling you to stop for any of them. I’m telling you to stop because, quite simply, I cannot afford not to walk alone at night.
  The simple fact is, I’m working two to three jobs, studying full-time, living alone, and largely supporting myself. I cannot afford to avoid those 8pm, 11pm, 3am and 6am walks to paying shifts.
  I don’t choose to walk alone at night because I enjoy it, or to make some kind of political or feminist argument. I do it because trying to get by when you are living alone in a new city, and on a junior minimum wage, is fucking hard. Trying to do it without a car, whilst studying full-time and struggling with your mental health is even harder. Trying to fit work, study, and life into a sun-up to sun-down schedule is straight-up impossible.
  I am definitely not the only young woman who has experienced this anguish. Yet our voices are continuously drowned out by the hypothetical arguments of the more privileged (often white and male) students who believe that victim-blaming is just plain ‘common sense’. Please, take a step back and realise what the common reality is for young, working-class women.
  To get to my last job, almost every day I had to walk past the same deserted corner my friend was sexually assaulted at months earlier.
  To get to my current job, I still walk past stores at which friends have been sexually harassed by colleagues and customers whilst working, where reports have been ignored, and where they cannot afford to quit.
  And this reality – of almost daily early morning and late-night walks, and of harassment – is one which is never truly grasped by other students.
  In a university population of which the majority is composed of students from high-SES income backgrounds, and only a minority that works to survive, explaining my financial independence and the requirements that come with it is almost impossible.
  Not only is it impossible, but it is exhausting. The feeling of being alone in this unique obligation can be all-consuming on some nights. As much as other students appear to support women’s right to walk home alone at night, not many truly understand the emotional fatigue that comes with not having any other option.
  As much as I would like to – as the police framed it in the wake of Eurydice Dixon’s death – ‘take responsibility for my safety’, young, working women do not have the same resources or capacity that everyone else does to take on this responsibility. We cannot be responsible, and therefore cannot be safe, especially when society is overly focused on victim-blaming and slut-shaming.
  So again – to those who don’t understand – stop telling me not to walk alone at night. I know the risks, as I’m constantly reminded of them.
  I, and many other working women however, have no option but to take them. In an age in which girls are encouraged to become more independent, perhaps it is about time that we stop trying to discourage their hard work and success and start making a real effort to facilitate it.
  Women have shit to do, and it’s about time we start acknowledging it.

  Anonymous

• Flashes of Passions

  12:01 pm Comments Off on Flashes of Passions

  My current passion is cross-stitch. I bought a set at a market. I was attracted by the ironic slogans and variety of colours. I could do that; I can be crafty- I thought. I’ve spent the last six nights cross-stitch in hand, with my computer balanced precariously on my lap in an endless loop of Brooklyn 99 episodes. Periodically I shout for my roommate when I’ve dropped the needle somewhere on my grey sheets and it’s unclear where needle ends and sheet begins. When it’s done I’m going to frame it, that much I’ve already decided.
  It always starts this way. The regularity of a handmade market triggering my crafty side is somewhat troubling. My spaces are filled with half completed projects. My room a graveyard to passions that, once urgent and erupting, have cooled into ashy igneous rock.
  It started with collages. Masses of magazines later, I had coated my wardrobe in a paper layer of aesthetic. I even had a collage of world leaders to conveniently help me study for my Cold War exam. Then it was stamp collecting. And knitting. And crocheting. And then collages again. Then there was a phase of making my own coffee body scrub, which I have zero regrets about (delicious). Then a final, quite urgent, phase of collaging, in which my bedroom furniture achieved the tell-tale paper cladding. And now here we are- cross-stitching.
  Two things are clear. Collaging and I have some serious unfinished business. And my passions are intense. They burn bright, often consuming everyone around me too. But they flame out quickly. Inevitably I end up getting bored by the required time commitment. Or too busy with uni. Or, the classic, wooed by another crafty hobby.
  It is the essence of hobbies that they’re a welcome distraction from our real commitments. The ultimate procrastination tools, because you can’t feel guilty if you’ve abandoned this week’s reading journal in favour of sewing hundreds of tiny crosses into the shape of a sheep- you’re still working your mind! Moreover, they make us feel like we’ve achieved something, that our hard work has paid off (if you make it to the end of the project!). It is my strong belief that we need little hobbies and passions to keep our minds decluttered, to give us ten minutes of distraction a day from assignments and responsibilities.
  But what about the graveyard of unfinished projects, I hear you ask. True, most hobbies are short-lived. You’re passionate for the first week or month, and then it fizzles. I have the utmost admiration for long-term knitters or for people who can decisively say that their collage is done (who are you? Teach me your ways). Often, I feel like a failure for the number of things I’ve left unfinished, embarrassed when my mum still saves stamps for me.
  And then I remember this: to be passionate is to be living. Life is full of hurried moments we want to sneak for ourselves amongst the daily grind. The unfinished projects are a testament to our passion, to the spark of joy, however fleeting, that we get from them.

  Miriam Sadler