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April 9, 2018

The Figures Of Sacrifice That Live In The Shadows

Note: This post has been contributed.
 
No matter how hard you think you have it, think again. Over and over we have to tell ourselves that we’re not the only ones in the world that are going through tough times. Sometimes you can’t even imagine someone else who is suffering and going through traumatizing experiences because you just can’t. Seeing is believing, which is why so many people explore through cultural such as reading stories, watching movies, listening to hauntingly beautiful music etc. it's very easy to allow yourself to believe, you’re the only one that is finding it difficult to cope, seeking answers in life and lacking the motivation to carry on. You’re not! We walk around the society not knowing who is standing or sitting beside us in public transport and when lining up at stores. Have you ever thought you might be standing next to someone who has been or is going through something that is testing their willpower to carry on? These are the figures that walk in the shadows, but bear the greatest burdens in our communities.
Credit AliziaZinn
The blues
They’re known as the men and women in blue. They’re just ordinary people at heart. They come from local communities where they grew up and made lifelong friends in. Every day without fail, they put themselves in harm's way for us. Whenever there is something that disturbs the peace, be it a terrorist attack, or a large house fire, these brave men and women will take the call and respond as fast as possible. So what happens to policemen and women when they retire and can no longer be on the force? There is NARPO which stands for the National Association of Retired Police Officers. They can reconnect with people they served with and live life after work together by going on trips and to events. For those who are injured in the line of duty, life can seem as if it has been robbed from you. Hope For Heroes is a charity dedicated to looking after disabled police officers that have had to leave duty to their injuries. Far from being allowed to fade away into the shadows of society, this charity stages events such as gatherings, dinners, picnics and days out with the similar company. It's a way for those who have lost limbs, eyesight and possibly suffering from PTSD to meet and stay in touch with a really supportive network that can help them stay positive. 
The scars of war
Veterans are some of the bravest and courageous people you can ever meet. When national governments call upon them to protect the country, they answer the call. Usually, in popular culture, we always hear about the aftermath of wars through the microphones of politicians who made those decisions that deployed soldiers to the battlefield. What Max Martini is doing is telling the story from the soldier’s perspective. He’s dedicated seven years of his life to making a movie about a serviceman who returns from war, with scars that many people cannot see. He survived an IED blast which made him the sole survivor of his team. Max is telling this story by looking at the very real impacts of traumatic brain injuries and post-traumatic stress disorders. While everything may look fine on the outside, these warriors can often feel alone as they deal with mental conditions that war has left them with. 
 
All too often society gets lost in sensationalist nonsense. Whether it be some kind of celebrity spat or political scandal, we always seem to forget that line of men and women who become our shield against evil. 
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April 9, 2018
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April 3, 2018

The Gender Pay Gap: Is A Peaceful Protest Worth It?

Note: This post has been contributed.
 
We live in the most advanced time of our lives at the moment. Technology has advanced us in ways we could have only dreamed of thirty years ago, and yet in some ways we are still living dramatically behind the times. March holds International Women’s Day, a time to celebrate some of the most influential and inspirational women of our lives. With the social media posts, the announcements on the news and the general support of women who work, women who stay at home and women who change the world, there is still one rather large elephant in the room. Despite all our pushes for equality between men and women since the times of Emmeline Pankhurst and the Suffragette movement, there is still a tipped balance in the favour of men in the current world. I’m talking cash money, people!
Salaries are imbalanced and there is a great need for change. When the gender pay gap is being talked about from the stars in Hollywood to the cleaners in the local restaurants, you know it’s big news. It’s not avoidable, because it stares us all square in the face on a daily basis. The gender pay gap affects women of all backgrounds, all races and all ages. The question is, why? If a man and a woman are on the same level of education, the same job title and even the same race if you want to get into the nitty gritty, why does he earn more than her? We’re still trying to figure it out.
asphalt, communication, commuter
If women have less economic power in the workplace and less economic security, there’s a big nod to the phrase that no one says out loud: she’s just not as good as her male counterpart. It’s wrong. And yet many protests for salary equality are blacked out by the media. Usually the reason for this is that the bigwigs in the media corporations are mostly men, and they earn more than their female counterparts. Why would they want to highlight the greed? Why would they want to bring to the surface the fact that others are saying that this isn’t okay? It’s 2018 and it’s time to make a stand.  The last thing that anyone wants is for a woman to throw herself under the horses of royalty all over again to prove a point. We don’t want to go back to a time where women were thrown into prison cells, putting themselves through hunger strikes and force fed purely to be heard. Protesting should be done in a way that gets noticed, but this doesn’t have to include riots. Let’s be honest, rioting is literally the toddler equivalent of pulling a dirty diaper off and smearing it all over your own walls. If you want to protest, it has to be effective and it can’t mean messing up and damaging your own town and your own people. Rioting is also a crime, and companies like Wallin & Klarich can explain to you in layman's terms the futility of getting a felony purely because you want to make a point. We’ve all seen the riots in the news, and they may get attention, but they get the wrong kind of attention.
 
 
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If women want to stand up and be counted, be equal, we need to protest and march again, but we need to do so in a way that is effective and gets the right type of attention. Thankfully, due to the culture of social media in the world that we live in, blogs, vlogs and opinion polls go viral faster than anything. Peacefully protesting your point is lawful in civilised society. No one needs to act like animals to be noticed, because – as the police and lawmakers believe – animals belong in cages and that’s exactly where you can end up: jail. Peaceful protests are respected by the lawmakers and they can bring about change if enough peace can rock the boat. Women now have the right to vote, LGBTQ+ followers now have the right to be recognised and have insults viewed as a hate crime, workers now have the right to be a part of trade unions and be heard by their employers, and all because of peaceful protests. Being able to go out onto the streets and publicise the viewpoints of the public is a good way to gain interest and raise the profile of your campaign. If you’re protesting about the lack of benefits or pay for women, then holding a few days where every woman in your community does not go to work, does not do housework, does not ‘look after’ anyone but herself and her children can be an effective tool in proving their worth.
We need to live in a world where our daughters are as equal in their efforts as our sons. I would be mortified if one day, my own children had a different pay level purely based on their genders. There are companies out there that are still following draconian methods, where women are paid less based on the fact that one day they may leave their roles and procreate. It’s often easier to pay a man more to stay in his job, as he’s less likely to leave because of children. However, this is a very outdated viewpoint. Some women cannot have children. Some choose not to have children. Those who do are still women; they are still people who are educated and deserving of the salary that they have worked hard for. The right protest can bring about change, but it has to be done lawfully for it to be worth it.
Making demands and standing up to be counted has to be legal. Silent protests and sit-ins are very powerful, and women may have been oppressed by men for a long time, but that doesn’t have to be the case. Standing up and being counted takes grit and determination and we all know that women have those qualities in spades.
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April 3, 2018
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