Anywhere you look in the world there is inequality and we think it is awful that our world has come to a stage where no one can be treated fairly. Every day millions of people have to suffer, both physically and mentally, because of something as simple as who they are, where they come from or what beliefs they hold. No one should suffer for any of these things. Unfortunately, not only have we destroyed our world in this personal way but we have also caused immense, irreversible damage to its physical nature through our ignorant overuse of synthetic materials which will pollute our planet for billions of years, affecting all life forms we accommodate on Earth. We hope to shine a light on some of these issues and so through 11 Voices, the main topics that we will be focusing on, but are not limited to, are: feminism, race and diversity, the LGBTQ+ community, our planet, human rights, animal rights and mental health. Each of these are important causes and change is needed to improve them all.
As the eleven of us are all young women, we initially bonded by speaking about feminist issues we had come across at school, however as these discussions opened up and we shared our own experiences and stories about all kinds of discrimination we began to talk about many different kinds of activism, which then led to the creation of 11 Voices. The first topic we will be discussing is feminism as we all feel the effects of gender discrimination against women whether it is in the form of being catcalled while running; different opportunities to boys at school; sexist comments made in passing; or a wider, more worldwide issue such as the default male being used far too often. In society, women’s needs are too often overlooked, unaccounted for or ignored and we have had enough. We refuse to sit back and be belittled in this way any longer. We are actively taking steps to reduce gender discrimination as much as we can, partly through raising awareness of important feminist issues through this blog, and we hope that you will be inspired to join us in doing so.
Another topic we will discuss on our blog is race and diversity. Recently, the Black Lives Matter movement has gained huge publicity and a light has been shone on the sheer discriminatory inequality faced by many black people. Great awareness has been spread about some of the issues faced by non-white people all over the world, however this is not enough and action must be taken to actively fight racism until it is abolished. Much like many of the topics we will discuss on here: yes, advances have been made, but we are by no means all the way there.
The LGBTQ+ community is yet another group facing extreme difficulties on a daily basis. Although you would think that we as compassionate humans would be accepting of everyone no matter their sexuality or gender identity, this is obviously not the case and in some countries we are even moving backwards in terms of rights held by the LGBTQ+ community compared with other people who identify as straight and cisgender (and usually male and white). It is unacceptable that these people are shunned from societies. You cannot disagree with a person’s being no matter how much you try to verify your opinion; there is morally no reason why anyone should be treated as inferior to anyone else because of who they are and we would like our voices to be heard in our attempt to raise awareness of this subject.
The next topic we will discuss is our planet - the environmental issues we are facing and how we propose we can make a change to save our planet and ensure future generations will still have a home on this earth without us completely destroying it first. Over the last century, our use of plastics has drastically increased, whether in the form of micro-plastics, single use packaging or plastic bags, they will all cause multiple deaths and we cannot afford to keep killing our planet in this way, or it will eventually become uninhabitable. Plastics are not the only thing causing harm to our world, global warming, increased carbon emissions and other forms of pollution (eg. oil spills) are also damaging to the environment and there are many steps you can take to reduce your contribution to killing the earth which we will point you to on our blog.
Through our section on human rights we hope to open your eyes to the humanitarian issues which affect far too many people all across the world. There is an enormous gap between those who live in a world of excess and those who are barely surviving and we think it is atrocious that more is not done to help those who are in great need. This does not only apply to less developed countries either, in the UK approximately 14 million people live in poverty, suffering and without basic requirements, so we strongly feel that this is an issue that needs to be addressed.
As well as this, humans are not the only ones suffering on this earth today – animals are too, but the difference is that they are voiceless and so we need to speak out for them against their mass slaughter every day. Eating meat and other animal products and using animals to test on has become the norm, however they are sentient beings, meaning they are able to perceive and feel things, and so maybe we should be questioning their extensive use. Hundreds of millions of animals are killed every day to supply the meat industry, but this is not a necessity. As much as you might enjoy the flavour, you do not need to eat meat to survive, as is shown by the hundreds of millions of people worldwide who do not eat meat and haven’t suddenly collapsed and passed away because of it. The number of vegetarians and vegans is growing not only because of a concern for the welfare of animals but also because changing to these diets causes a sizeable decrease on your own carbon footprint, therefore contributing to fighting global warming, so we suggest that you consider cutting down your meat consumption too.
Mental health is another crisis we are facing at the moment. Every year roughly 800,000 people die due to suicide and for each death, it is estimated there are over twenty other attempts (WHO). This should be an extreme case but unfortunately suicide rates are rising. Although women are three times more likely than men to have suicidal thoughts or attempt suicide, men are two to four times more likely to die from suicide than women, which seems to suggest that they are unable to reach out and ask for help, possibly due to the perpetuated idea of stoicism and so-called “toxic masculinity”. However, suicide is not the only problem: people all over the world suffer from depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, PTSD and OCD to name just a few and the general understanding about these mental health issues is definitely not where it needs to be. They will not just go away so, like with all of the topics we will discuss on here, something needs to be done to being about good change and in this case dissolve the stigma around mental health.
We each have our own personal reasons for being a part of 11 Voices and have come together with the hope of inspiring you that you too can speak out about the change you would like to see in the world and people will listen. Our aim is to share our own thoughts on topics which we feel strongly about and educate others about them, spreading awareness and hope for a more caring and inclusive world in the future. We hope that you will learn from what we have to say, develop your own opinions and feel confident enough to call people out when they say something wrong – if you sit by and allow it to happen you are just as bad as them! Start a conversation with others about the issues we have on our planet and what we can do to save it and you will be doing your part to raise awareness and contributing to a better world in the future.