Sunday 11 October 2015

#emilymatters

 

 
 

I was first introduced to #emilymatters at a women in politics conference hosted by the Sikh network. During which I heard Kate Willoughby recite a speech from the play "To Freedom's cause" spoken by the character of Emily Davison and publicise #emilymatters. Both of with, I felt, had extra emphasis on the idea that the fight is far from over and this is my belief why...

As a political science and social policy student I spend everyday immersed in the history of politics and society and all of its influences and foundations but I am yet to hear the history of the Suffragette movement be mentioned. I hear the word feminist used on a daily basis but only to describe a perspective, not once have we investigated the origins of the word or the women who made people speak and understand it. I also never learnt about this at all whilst studying history at high school but at least I know all about the Romans and the impact of the coalition government. This is why #emilymatters ...

#emilymatters because when I tell people I'm studying political science they look me up and down and say "what's the point in that?" Or my personal favourite "where's that going to get you?" As if just because I'm a woman from a working class family I have no use or purpose in the political world when in reality politics is involved in everything, right down to their reasoning for limiting me based on my background. #emilymatters because after seeing Teresa May present an incredible argument in Parliament I could not wait to see the positive press she would receive the next day, only to see articles about the inappropriate colour of her suit with not a single mention of her strength and power the day before.

#emilymatters because when I was a child I was continuously called "bossy" because I always had my own opinion and I knew how to voice it. I was called "bossy" or "loud" because I loved to be the director of the shows we could put on and refused to be told what to do. If I didn't want to do something I couldn't be forced into it. In everybody's eyes, except my Momma's, this was a negative thing. Thankfully my Mom instilled it in me that it's something to be proud of, a confidence boost that stayed with me and that has quite genuinely motivated me for the whole of my life. It's so important that this education begins in the home, I was just so lucky to have never been without it.
I recently witnessed a young boy at my place of work saying that "all girls are bossy, they should just do whatever boys tell them to." The fact that this isn't a rare occurrence for me to come across at work clearly displays the need for education that this is never okay to think and the empowerment of young girls to be noticed by both boys and girls as "leaders" and "confident" people is a prime example of why #emilymatters.

#emilymatters because people ask me whether I have a boyfriend before they ask me what my aspirations are. Yet my brother is always asked "how's college?" Or "any idea what you want to do at uni yet?" But if we ignore our genders we are both very academic students with a thirst for change and the desire to be part of that change in anyway possible. So why should the difference in the way I'm approached and spoke to be based on the fact that I have a pair of breasts and a menstrual cycle?

#emilymatters because people assume that I'm from a working class family so I must be a mad labour supporter and hate Thatcher. When actually the second assumption could not be further from the truth. Neither could people's belief that everything she ever did wrong in their eyes was because "she's a bird." Similarly, #emilymatters because I shouldn't have to tolerate being called "somebody's bird" or anybody's "other half" ever again in my living life. Ever.

#emilymatters because I see a future when children ask "who are the suffragette's?" And "what did they even do?" But they will know the entire family history of the Kardashians and why they're famous.

And most importantly of all I could not escape mentions of steak and blowjob day earlier this year, despite numerous attempts, yet I have seen nothing about the fact that today is Emily Davison's birthday. Moreover, when people see the name Emily Davidson people google her as they have no idea who she is. Education is key and we are responsible for making sure their sacrifices and their lost lives were not for nothing. We have to show that together we are not prepared to let these revolutionary people be nothing more than a page in a history book. The fight isn't over, it's far from over and if I didn't quite convince you that the women's movement needs to keep moving then please watch this trailer for the new film Suffragette and tell me that we can justify stepping back to stop the fight...





This amongst so many other reasons is why #emilymatters now and always...




Love Liv x

Sunday 2 August 2015

Sea (if it can even be called that) world...

 

Why is there such a vast difference between the image we are given by SeaWorld and that which we are told in Blackfish?
 
 
 
 
 
 
I watched Blackfish with completely no idea of the cruelty that happened as I was actually, shamefully, a SeaWorld fan and my family enjoyed their visit there so much back in Christmas 2007 that we visited twice just to see the Shamu show! We are the perfect example of the people who they talk about in the documentary who fall victim to all of the crap that they tell you to make you believe that "they actually love performing" and "Orca's live longer here because they're taken care of and fed so frequently, this is something they don't even get in the wild." But the fact of the matter is that no Orca in SeaWorld captivity has ever died of old age.
 
The documentary shows various deaths and accidents involving the Orcas. This being through their own accident, or the whale on whale aggression that is seen daily in the tanks. Whilst people argue this is due to the Orca's natural aggressive disposition, wouldn't you want to rip someone's head off if you'd spent your entire life in a concrete tank constantly swimming in circles? There have been horrible cases of the other whales doing something to the whales that do not behave. Most commonly, this is where they drag their teeth along their skin, leaving scratches and sometimes cuts that can lead to the animals bleeding out right there in the tank or even worse mid performance as can be seen in the image above.
 
 
 
But there was no way I could have ever prepared myself to watch the segment where they speak about how they captured the whales. The images of baby whales crying for their family as they refuse to swim away to safety is truly heart wrenching, so emotionally affecting that I could not even cry. You can see the mothers crying to their babies as they're being lifted away in nets and one of the captors speaks about how he had to discard the dead. They were told that all of the babies who didn't survive were to be cut open, filled with rocks and simply dropped back into the ocean to sink. It's inhumane what they did and have continued to do to these whales but what makes it so much worse is that it's been allowed to happen before our very eyes.
 
 
 
TilikumSeaWorld have told us blatant lies to encourage our custom. For example they tell people that a bent dorsal fin is very common in Orca's but in reality only 1% of the population have this defect, and it's usually due to accident or injury. Yet all of the Orca's at SeaWorld have this feature. They also enforce that they do not separate mothers and their babies. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Yet Blackfish tell the true story of a
separation that quite literally broke my heart. They tricked the mother and baby into different tanks after a show and simply took the baby away, leaving the mother in the module tank and the baby shipped off within the day. The Mother than continued to float in the corner of the tank for hours alone making these noises. The trainers became worried as they had never heard these kind of noises being made before and after analysis they discovered they were long range calls. She was calling for her baby and continued to do so for the rest of her life. The calls were continuous all night as she called for her lost baby and the other mothers would simply come and swim by and check on her every so often and let her search and grieve for her child who was taken so horribly from her. It was at this point of watching the documentary that I actually registered how like humans these intelligent animals are and it enforced even more to me the reasons that they cannot be caged or contained.
 
Also Blackfish explores the way in which it's not simply a case of SeaWorld's environment being negative for the Orca's but it's the long term damaging effects of them being forced to train and perform that does the most harm. For example one of their Orca's was transferred to Loro Parque in the canary islands and whilst this park had no experience of Orca's before the trainers were aware of basic skills and how to handle the whales. Pictured to the right you can see Alexis Martinez and Keto, the SeaWorld whale that would eventually kill him. The park was notoriously known for being awful when it came to animals and Alex was believed to be the best trainer they had, yet this still could not control Keto from what he had to do. Alex's fiancĂ©e speaks of how she received the news and the way in which they would not let her see him even though she had been informed on the phone that he was fine. When she arrived she was greeted by lawyers and businessmen all telling her that it was Alex's fault and nothing to do with the animal in question and of course when SeaWorld were questioned in court about their association with Loro Parque they denied all known links.
 
 

 
There is a clear trend in the cause of accidents and deaths at SeaWorld; they are always trainer error. So much so that the director of SeaWorld even went as far to declare that Dawn
Brancheau "would have said herself that it was her own fault." Even going as far as to blame the woman who had given her whole life to controlling and understanding the Orca's that their corporation had so cruelly damaged. They also first released a statement declaring that it was her ponytail that caused the accident and that Tilikum had mistaken it for food. This in itself I found to be quite harrowing that them declaring the whales to be so hungry they would jump at the site of anything that resembled food, but yet this is still a better reason than the truth of what happened? In the documentary they analyse the footage brilliantly and really pay tribute to the excellence that was Dawn and all she offered to SeaWorld. It was clear to me that this tragedy was due to frustration and communication which Tilikum could not understand and nothing more. Tillikum is now seen to be a 'danger' to the other whales at SeaWorld and as a result is kept alone for most of the time except for performances and he can be seen floating for hours on end, not even swimming, just floating. How can this be right?
 
 
"There is no record to this day of an Orca ever killing anybody in the wild..."
 
 
 
 

Wednesday 27 May 2015

The Pill Problem...



Why is taking the contraceptive pill perceived to be any different than taking tablets for a migraine or for period pain or using a cream for acne? It's not any different at all and in fact all of those symptoms stated above qualify the pill to be prescribed as a suitable medication to solve those problems.  The pill is used for so much more now than to just prevent pregnancy. I cannot help but question the logic and reasoning behind widening the uses of the pill to treat women but not addressing the apparent lack of information and awareness they receive when its prescribed. 
 
I found myself very blessed with an excellent female GP when I was first prescribed the pill. She told me everything I could possibly need to know right down to what kind of feeling I would get in my legs if I developed a blood clot or was experiencing the early signs of deep vein thrombosis, which she explained was one of the side effects of this medication, and I felt beyond prepared as she guided me through the information leaflet. This leaflet told me everything from what percentage of hormones were in the type of pill I was taking to what to do if I missed a pill or lost a box. I really felt like I had all bases covered and I just assumed everybody else had the same knowledge upon being prescribed the medicine, but today I learnt that this is not the case at all.
 

 
Part of me feels I was so thorough in wanting to understand what I was taking because I was using the medication for reasons other than contraception and therefore treated it as if it was any other kind of medication that had side effects I needed to be fully aware of. I can completely understand why women who use the pill for purely contraceptive reasons would not particularly learn the extensive impact of the medication, just as you wouldn't learn the percentage of different chemicals and ingredients that are used to produce condoms for example. It serves a purpose and almost fully protects from pregnancy and that's all you really need to know. It's always amazed me that people know that the pill will make you gain weight but not that it can lead to hormonal function being impaired and affecting fertility after prolonged use or that it increases the likelihood of breast cancer and ovarian cysts. Where did the rest of the awareness and information get lost?

The pill has to be treated differently to any other form of contraception as it's something we choose to put into our body and cannot be immediately removed as it excretes hormones that will travel around our entire system affecting and neutralising the necessary parts. It's not a temporary contraceptive precaution, it's something that completely changes your bodily function. It does so much more than just stop you from conceiving and regulating periods and this needs to be made so clear to every woman that is prescribed this medication. 
 
Sadly I read a story today about a 21 year old girl called Fallan who died from a blood clot on her lungs which is believed to be down to her, very quick, use of the pill. But when you read into the story it's a clear lack of awareness from her medical practitioner about what she was actually prescribing her patient. Before I was even prescribed my pill I was made aware of the different types and which ones she believed would be best suited for me. We then looked at their side effects and decide on the most suitable medication for me and I have changed the pill I use three times since my first prescription as my bodies needs and requirements have altered. This girl experienced side effects almost straight away, feeling breathlessness and pains in her legs. This is the point of which she should have returned to her GP straight away and told them about the side effects she was experiencing, but sadly she was not aware that this could be a side effect or that this was even possibly linked to her new prescription. So she was sent home with what they thought was a "bruised sternum" after receiving an X-ray for her episode of breathlessness. These side effects are in most information about the contraceptive pill (see the links attached at the bottom) and although the odds of it being a side effect are slim, it's still possible and should be stressed to any patient.

 
Another thing which I noticed upon reading their tragic story is that nobody questioned whether she used the pill until she was in an intensive care unit and they were searching for an explanation for what could be wrong. I always make it clear, no matter how stupid I think I sound, that I am using the pill when asked about any medication I am taking. My reasoning behind this is that you just never know, it could be linked to why I'm feeling the way I am or even offer a reason to explain why symptoms have got worse or problems have arose. You might feel like an idiot the first few times when you're being examined for an achy back and telling them about your family planning choices but it's better to be safe than be faced with a story as tragic as that of Fallan's who was only using the pill for 25 days before she sadly passed away. 
 
 
 
We would never allow somebody to inject chemicals into our body without knowing what could happen or what it was for so why are women being allowed to personally swallow chemicals that they have not been fully informed about?
 
 
Further information...
 

Wednesday 15 April 2015

My Sunny Day with A Thousand Splendid Suns...

"Learn this now and learn it well, my Daughter: Like a compass needle that always points North, a man's accusing finger always finds a woman. Always. You remember that Mariam."

 
 
Today I had one of those lovely days of pure bliss in the sunny garden with an incredible book. I managed to get this book from a charity shop for £1.50 after hearing about it from one of my girls. It was recommended to me by Charlie who said "you will love it, it will make you so angry. At one point I threw the book." I am an absolute sucker for any book that makes you feel super sass or evokes a fire in your belly and makes tears fall from your eyes. That doesn't even begin to cover what this book made me feel...
 
The story follows two girls both growing up in an Afghan state oppressed by the laws and the men that are excused by them. Their stories are so far from that of the other but the way it's so beautifully written by Hosseini makes you relate equally to both. You feel as if you understand these girls and what they are going through, when in reality we cannot even fathom what they face. Even though those they love are being killed and taken from them by the wars, the horror of the war within their households is one of far more destruction.
 
More than anything the book is a tale of strength and Endurance. This being the "one skill that a woman needs in life." And when Mariam questions her Nana what she would have to endure she responds "Oh don't you fret. There will be no shortage of things." These expectations and almost acceptances are the most harrowing aspect of the book. The fact that these women are prepared to almost lose their life on a daily basis is truly unfathomable. To be child brides, forced to sign "contracts" and be unwillingly married to men that have the right to rape them in their own home.
 
 
 
 
 
The book spans a wide number of years through the Soviet war all the way until the Taliban takeover in Kabul, where the book is based. It's truly shocking to hear of the death and inhumanity that comes with these wars but if anything it's more shocking to hear the unbelievable stories of these two women who are married to the same man. They are forced to live in the same house and be used equally at his disposal when he wishes, without a second question. The same man who will treasure his son and allow him to be spoilt with toys and an illegal television whilst his daughter is starving and forced to enter an orphanage just to be fed. It's truly horrific, even more so as we know such things actually happen in the world, to real people. But under the surface it's really a tale of the love between two women. A respect and admiration that cannot be suppressed, no matter how hard they try. The love and understanding they have for each other cannot be compared or even put into words. It is something you can only truly appreciate by reading their journey as it's depicted through Hosseini's words. 
 
 
 
However, even though these women are isolated and subjected by their state there is no excusing their power. That is the only word I can use to describe their characters.  I have never felt so inspired and almost attached to two characters in any of the books I have ever read. It's possibly the most beautifully written novel I have ever encountered and I wish it was compulsory for everybody to have to read it at least once in their lifetime. I finished the book feeling so much more humane and having so much more empathy towards a state that I have always perceived to be self destructive and without hope. I feel as if I have been educated by this book and I can truly say that I now have infinite hope for their nation and for their peaceful future as long as women like Laila and Mariam exist.
 
 
 
 
Love Liv x

Tuesday 31 March 2015

What makes your soul sing?


The concept of hearing your soul sing can only be explained as feeling sick. It's as if there's something deep in the pit of my stomach screaming to get my attention so I can acknowledge that I am on the right path. People speak about their conscience talking to them or the voice inside their head, some even speak of instinct ruling their decisions. The feeling to which I refer is so much more than just instinct or conscience. It's like a clear personal clarification of "girllll you're doing good!"








I first felt this sickness when I was read Harry Potter for the first time. I clearly remember being lay on top of my bunk beds and my brother being nestled below and hearing my Dad's voice from the landing as he recited Rowling's words. I remember feeling almost intoxicated with this new feeling as I heard the description of Tonks' "bubble gum pink hair" echo into my very core. It's here that I first heard my soul sing and fell truly in love with literature. From here on in I always relied on this feeling to make decisions in life no matter how small they are.

It's the feeling I get when I hear BeyoncĂ© sing '1+1' or I hear Ed Sheeran's voice and the same way I feel when I smell roast chicken. These are the things that make my soul dance. It's the feeling that makes me tearful when I hear Oprah speak or listening to Maya Angelou talk about her Mother. They are the moments that open their arms and embrace my very being and inspire me to take another step on the right path.

This is why I think I became so distraught when this feeling disappeared from my life, completely packed up and left. I no longer felt sick on a daily basis as I had always done at Sixth Form. When I felt a personal clarification daily that "this is where I should be." Surrounded by ethical debate and Virginia Woolf, it was hard to not hear my soul as these feelings shot round my system. To go from this constant back and fourth conversation with my soul to hearing it almost cry at the sight of Skype lectures and silent seminars was more than I could take, and I had not heard my soul sing since.

It was not until a trip to the House of Commons that I knew it hadn't quite gone. My Mom calls it my spark and I felt it was truly back. I had only experienced flickers of it since returning home, once whilst talking to an incredible woman and again when I was called someone's "favourite tutor" at work. It's always small things on the surface that I realise now are the things that allow me to move further forward in my life. A year ago these would be things I would take for granted and moments I would usually overlook or consider to be normality because of my excessive self confidence. However I can honestly say now that after desperately sitting and hoping to feel sick or get some kind of reassurance that I am moving forward when all I felt was stuck, it's these things that matter.

 It matters that my brother is allowed to shine in his own light and accepts and appreciates himself just as others do. Because truth be told, that is what makes my soul sing. Over the past year I have learnt that it's definitely important to reach your full potential and travel on the right path but you've got to have people there with you. And more importantly they've got to be people that want to be there and want to push you forward even when you're dragging yourself back into bed in your baggy shirt. These are the people that let you sob in the foetal position if you need to and the ones that accept you're 'two curries liv.' And more importantly lately, the ones that know when it's time to go for a pint! The people that know you're on a journey and things will eventually get better so they just make sure you know they're there until they do. These are the ones that will hold you up and make sure you're moving, no matter what the pace. These people make my soul sing and that never faded. I was just too intoxicated with pity and clouded with misery to listen to it.







So I beg of you to open up your soul and let it sing, because it will. No matter what the sound.

Love Liv x

Friday 20 March 2015

When did Politics start to care more about outerwear than opinions?


On Wednesday 18th of March I was lucky enough to be given the chance to enter the Houses of Parliament and be present for Prime ministers question time and the Chancellor's budget announcement for 2015. It was an experience like no other and something I felt completely immersed with as I saw women proudly taking their places on the front benches, defending their beliefs and fighting to be heard amongst the crowds. So you can understand my utter disappointment on the train journey home where the evening standard did not at all echo what I had observed in the day but chose to focus on Theresa May's choice of shoe and suit for the occasion.



 

The worst part is that this wasn't a one off where a reporter simply didn't care to report anything of more importance. It seems that sadly this is the case with all of the press reports of the day, minimalizing the political women to nothing but mannequins to be criticised and dissected for their enjoyment. Theresa May is the home secretary for our nation yet not one of the articles I have come across so far have any mention of her role in our society or the impact she has had in the political world, instead it merely comments upon her ever evolving choice in shoe wear and bright suit. There is even a dispute on whether it was orange or pink as it has been recorded to be both, what a politically stimulating debate eh?  The most ironic thing I think is that Theresa May was appointed the Minister for Women and Equality by David Cameron, yet she's sexualised and judged based on her dress sense in every article about the Budget announcement. It's as if her importance is completely disregarded, who has the authority to do that to anybody? Certainly not the press.



I had never understood up until this experience why women felt they had to be submissive in politics and almost take a back seat and let the male mouthpieces deliver the policies that these women have endorsed and created.  These women understand that they have to be liked because at the end of the day politics is a population game, and they find themselves being the vital players. The perfect example of this theory is Margaret Thatcher. I could never understand why even at the beginning of her life in politics she found herself being disliked, simply because she refused to be tamed and sit quietly while her country crumbled. I even believe that some of the decisions she made which caused her to be branded a 'Monster' and to 'have no heart' would not have been taken so harshly and been such a threat had she not had boobs.  It's quite distressing to see that women in the house find themselves faced with a decision to either dress plain and speak out and be branded 'butch' and 'threatening' or to open themselves up and accept being sexualised in silence whilst others talk of their work.


 

 
But women please first we have to help ourselves! We could do without Edwina Currie, a political woman, tweeting such things as "Great cleavage though, eh? Feisty lady, bold statement, love it" in regards to Theresa May. Just the part about her being a "Feisty lady" would have been very sufficient, thank you very much. How can we expect things to ever change if we continue to sit back whilst the camera's focus on the cleavage of our countries most important and impacting women? This has to stop. I cannot read another debate about the colour of a woman's suit when she is responsible for gender equality in our great nation.
 

Love Liv x










Saturday 28 February 2015

Pinkification? Girls get the blues too...



Pinkification is a concept that every girl will without a doubt be faced with more times than she cares to count. But more than that, many men will also be faced with this theory as well as it affects so much more than just the females it regards. In a nutshell, pinkification is the awful theory that lead to the Labour party thinking that using a pink bus would encourage females to vote for them. It's the concept that colours are gender based, pink being only for girls and blue for males. Ironically, it's a very black and white idea.


 
"This matters for so many reasons. When people meet a little girl in a pink, sparkly dress, they talk to her about how sweet and pretty she looks. If she's wearing a dress with robots or trains on, they'll talk about them instead- that is, about technology or engineering. That opens up her mind, her world and her future." This ground breaking observation is something that we have all noticed but feared to voice. Speaking from experience I had never felt the pressure to be a girl that was "pretty in pink" until I went to a friends Princess Party. The group of girls sat around me dressed as the classic Disney Belle, Cinderella and Snow White, yet I was sat as Sandy from Grease with curtain hoops as earrings because mom hadn't let me had my ears pierced yet! That day, in my mind, we were all princesses at that party but I couldn't understand why I didn't look like everybody else's ideas of what a princess was. I also went to a princesses and wizards day dressed as a combination of Hermione, Ron and Harry Potter. Only to find the other girls all in dresses looking strangely at my Gryffindor scarf and eyeliner scar on my forehead. To me I was dressed as somebody that I loved and wanted to be but the other girls didn't understand why I wasn't dressed like "all the other girls in dresses." That was the first time in my life that I felt different but the most astounding thing was I really didn't seem to care.
 
This idea is something that rocket scientist Elishka Jepson drew upon when she created her graphics for the Princess Awesome dresses that were made by Eva St Clair and Rebecca Melsky. They made these dresses for "a different kind of girly girl because girls shouldn't have to decide between dresses and dinosaurs, or ruffles and robots." But the world is changing as the battle against Pinkification becomes stronger. Even Hamleys have felt the force of the Pinkification party as Mothers complained their blue and pink floors for each aisle of toys that had been gender separated lead to "gender apartheid" that would eventually result in social inequality. This made them reorganise their store completely to eliminate this gender segregation. Well done Hamleys! Even Lego recently launched their first ever set that included a female scientist and Mattel launched a Barbie book entitled "I can be a computer engineer." However there is clearly a long way to go as in the Barbie book she eventually turns to her male colleagues for help after she makes several technical mistakes. Baby steps Barbie, baby steps...



Seriously?

Seriously Barbie, seriously?

 




























Pinkification was something that I always thought only affected girls but recently whilst at work a young boy told me that he liked all of the colours apart from pink because that is a "girly colour." After hearing him say this I questioned his reasoning behind this opinion and "what makes a colour a certain gender?" To this he replied "well everybody knows pink is for girls and blue is for boys, that's what my parents taught me." And this is a crucial part of the development of the opinion, "my parents taught me." I cannot tell you how often I have been in a supermarket and been infuriated by a parent telling their child they cannot have a certain bag of sweets or a certain toy because "that's meant for girls, look at the colour of the packaging." And then continued to identify a gender with the character on the packaging. Children aren't aware of these stereotypes, they are taught them.
 
 
It's our jobs as parents and mentors to help them develop and to be their moral compass. Please make sure that it is always aligned and pointing North, so that we can all move forward, together.
 
Love Liv x
 

Thursday 12 February 2015

Cucumber, banana and Perez Hilton...

It's not very often that I find myself feeling so disgusted at a programme that it will force me to turn it off, I am the Queen of trashy TV. However the word "trash" could in no way even come close to defining channel 4's new bid to be current and appealing to the modern viewers. The horrific series is compiled of three phallic named shows; banana, cucumber and tofu. Although I could only stomach the first two shows before vowing to never watch another second of this awful creation ever again. I found myself to be truly appalled at this medieval portrayal of gay men's lives.
 
For years the gay community have battled with the stigma that they are nothing more than sexual predators with uncontrollable and unlimited minds of sexual provocativeness. Of course we know this to not be the truth yet 'cucumber' opens with a suggestive montage of arousal resulting from every attractive young male that this man sees, all inside a bloody supermarket! It's not only exceptionally far fetched but it also does nothing to minimalize the stereotype that people have fought to forget for decades. I think the thing that I found so awful about this programme is that the main man involved has a very respectable job, yet in the first episode he completely disregards it in order to dance around getting ready to an awful kylie song, (see what I meant about stereotype)! This then results in a suicide, yes you read that correctly, an actual suicide of a colleague because he didn't answer his phone in time to solve the problem at hand. Channel four, what are you doing?
 
The disaster only continues in 'banana' where we see the life of a young gay male who has an accepting family that welcome him and love all aspects of him yet he chooses to lie about this to his peers and pretend that they have kicked him out and condemned him to hell. How's that for a role model performance? He then continues to basically have sex with anything and everything and that's about all his life exists off. He leaves work at the drop of a hat to meet a strange businessman for sex in a hotel room. This being a guy he has stalked on social media for months and fantasised about for even longer than that. The clichĂ© is so strong you can literally smell it as it clouds your vision.
 
Just to put this obscurity of this show into further context I watched this ordeal shortly after seeing "Call the Midwife" which featured a story about a gay male living in post-war London and the kind of prejudice he faced. When his wife found out the tell tale signs that she believed she had missed were the fact that he always smelt nice and had clean clothes, whilst the other men were covered in dirt and grease and the fact that he liked the parlour to be clean. These characteristics being not far from the same details portrayed in channel 4's shows. Have we not progressed at all in our portrayal of human life? And to make matters worse the shows barely even have real speech so the characters have no voices at all for us to hear their true feelings and emotions to understand and empathise with.
 
This, I believe, is the reasoning behind why Michelle Visage found herself so frustrated with the actions of Perez Hilton in the Big brother house. She constantly referred to herself as a "voice" for the LGBT community, much to Perez' dismissal. I found this concept of being a "voice" very impacting. She believed in herself being a presence and a verbal support and when I reflect I believe this to be so much more powerful than actions, especially when trying to impact change. At one point in the series I found myself actually weeping for Michelle as I felt I too was part of her quest to bring a voice to the cause. As she wept in the diary room whilst Perez gyrated against the windows of the house in nothing more than underwear I finally understood what she had been trying to express all along. Actions don't always speak louder than words, everybody needs a voice.
 
 
 
We have the ability of our voice so that we can find the true meaning of it and find it's purpose. We are not objects so why do we need to be classified, stereotyped and labelled?


Love Liv x