Time for Society to Look Up

Hello everyone! My name is Mayah Gold and I am a freshman at Science Leadership Academy. This blog post is about my Agent of Change for my You and The World project. In my first blog post I talked about what rape culture is, and in my second blog post I talked about the research findings that were shown in my own SLA community. Based on my research, my change that I am making is putting posters around the school to inform people about what rape culture is, and what it looks like.

Even though this is the final blog post I will be writing, there is some more information that I have come to gather. In this further research, I have come to learn are ways that men and women can combat rape culture, ways that they can speak up and stop someone when they see them perpetuating this behavior. Furthermore, some of those examples include being respectful of someone's space even in a casual setting, thinking intensely about the media's portrayal of men and women and the stereotypes that are set up for us.

Moving on, for my agent of change I decided to build off of the open survey research and information I had gathered. I had seen examples of rape culture and victim blaming throughout my own community. The community that I was supposed to feel safe in. And seeing some of my results not only shocked me, but made me sad for my community. So as a result of those findings, I wanted to send messages around the school informing people exactly what rape culture is and how they might be enforcing it. So I made four posters with pictures of sexual assault victims quoting their attackers. None of these people I knew personally, but I had read their stories, and my heart ached for them. I wanted more people to realize what exactly rape culture is. I printed out the pictures, put two images on one poster, and wrote a little message under each other.

These are just two of the four posters that I hung around the SLA school building. I feel that by putting these up, I can make people see what other people have gone through. What sexual assault and rape culture they have experienced, and how these ideas can lead to a bigger problem.

Reflecting on the overall project, I would say this would have had to be my favorite project of any subject of my freshman year. I was given the opportunity to choose a topic that I am passionate on, and inform people about it, and then make a change. Another point was I loved going on a rant when people disagreed with me. I learned that others don’t have the same string opinions as me, which could be challenging at times to deal with. But within myself, I learned that I have a really strong voice about myself. And I want to share it. I feel like I could have done some more outside organization research with more powerful people. In conclusion, I would love to do this project all over again, just for thr fun of it!