When I began political campaigning in 2017 – lobbying, running full-scale national media campaigns and working with politicians – I saw changing the law as the biggest thing I could possibly achieve. It was a David v Goliath story, and our institutions are taught to us as untouchables so, I know it was a gargantuan effort. I lived through it.
You see, it’s not that I don’t see lobbying and changing the law or changing global Instagram policy as ‘big’ work, it’s just that I believe that big work happens all the time in much less visible ways. I truly believe that the things we can’t measure have a giant effect, too.
For the last three years conversations and dialogue have become the meat of my work – instead of positioning myself as some sort of gatekeeper of solutions, I’ve been trying to offer my skills and knowledge and explore solutions – and ways of thinking about them – with others. Some of the conversations I’ve had changed my thinking and behaviour for the better. There have been moments when ideas that felt cloudy or complex slotted together for the first time, and made perfect sense.
More often, though, these conversations have allowed something to slowly come into view over a period of weeks or months, and though I might not have felt the satisfactory click! of the dots being connected, I've looked back and realised I can articulate something so much better than I could the year before, and that instincts have become sentences. Ideas I didn’t have the words for, I now do. I don’t know if there’s a way to possibly explain the power that conversations can have. I mean, how easy is it to recognise that one of the most powerful forms of cultural progress is the thing you do all day, every day? The thing you do without thinking?
When it comes to gender equality – the topic I focus on in my work – we are living in a deeply unequal society, where gender and racial hierarchies define systems, institutions and our culture, to put it plainly, in the words of Richie Reseda: “we have systemised white male insecurity as its worst”, and having worked in arguably, the institution that represents that truth the most, I came away from it with little hope. “If I'm in the place where the most change can be made, and it reminds me the most of the problem, what does that mean?” Is what I used to think to myself in bed at night during political campaigning.
The majority of the conversations I had in parliament were carefully considered chess games, not conversations. Optics were more important than integrity and I never felt like I was ever able to be truly honest because those I was in rooms with were playing a game I had to assimilate into in order to have a chance of winning. People sat in rooms, at tables and talked, smiled, nodded, asked questions, offered sympathy and made jokes, but most of the time – save for with a few politicians who seemed more genuine – it all felt remarkably inhuman.
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Working on the ground, having conversations with people about gender, misogyny, sexual violence and more feels more impactful that meetings in parliament ever did. The people who show up have less reason to be invested in the optics of their opinion, aren’t at the mercy of voters and, though often have an allegiance to a dominant group much like politicians do with a party, have usually shown up with the intention to discuss that allegiance and ask why the hell they have it in the first place.
In these conversations I have seen people express fear, anger, worry and say the thing, or ask the question they would be too terrified to do anywhere else. And that honesty has got us somewhere. Then they have gone back to their children, their friends, their partners, their colleagues; their lives and something in them has shifted. Just a little. But it has. In parliament, I never experienced that once.
Let the girlies enjoy this one, please.
We talk about society in this work, always with the caveat that we are society. That we have the power to change it if we can change ourselves. There’s a triteness to buzzy sayings we hear again and again like “the work starts with you”, but it really f*cking does. Having conversations with yourself and those in your immediate sphere of influence is real, meaningful work. And it can, over time, impact every interaction you have, every major decision you make. I’ve never seen people more engaged in these topics as when they’re given a safe space to explore them offline, consensually and with others who want to explore them too. And even if that exploration has been challenging or confronting, they usually come back.
Where criminalising something was the biggest work I could imagine when I was twenty five. In my thirties, I’m interested in the stuff we can’t measure; what would our communities look like if more men than ever were questioning hegemonic masculinity than ever before? What would our communities look like if white cis women were understanding that feminism goes way past having the same rights and power as white cis men? What would our culture look like if our mainstream media focused on the roots of misogyny rather than only the impact of it? I believe culture is the catalyst for so much of our political change, and culture only changes when enough of us show up to have conversations.
Our power goes beyond individual lifestyle choices and social media posts.
Conversations may be a critical weapon in shifting culture but having them takes practice; the confidence to be honest and challenge yourself takes practice. Then the skill of facilitating hard conversations with people who are open to challenging these ideas too takes practice. Feeling resourced enough to be able to show up with the patience and compassion that makes all the difference takes practice. And not all of us have the capacity to do it, but those of us that do, should. Those of us that care, should try and build the courage to create spaces for those in similar social locations to us to question dominant ideas. Those of us that are women, hearing every day expressions of misogyny can learn to disrupt and question those ideas whilst staying safe. Those of us that aren’t from marginalised backgrounds have access to people who are perpetuating regressive ideas and we can learn to call them in more effectively. This work of conversation is for all of us.
If you’re a woman in the world trying to become better at responding to sexist viewpoints there are small ways to start thinking about how you’re approaching those conversations and what’s working versus what isn’t. Here’s three quick tips that I use:
- Quality over quantity: Are you trying to fight everyone on an issue? One meaningful discussion with someone you know that plants a seed that is grown and developed over time is more valuable than ten arguments with random people on the internet who are trying to hurt you. Save your energy and pick your battles.
2. Try hard to reframe this conversation as an exploration; you are delivering a message instead of winning a debate. This will lower your expectations of how this conversation ‘should’ go and ease frustrations. If you delivered your message clearly and constructively you’ve laid groundwork and done a great job.
3. Set expectations for the conversation. People feel ambushed by anything that feels uncomfortable, so finding a quieter moment outside of a reactive one and inviting them to discuss something that prepares both of you. It doesn’t mean the conversation won’t be confronting, but the tone can be set in a way that makes it an opportunity for growth. e.g “I’m interested in talking to you about this, because it’s important. I want to make sure we can have this conversation in a way that impacts our relationship the least.”
Look, we can’t talk ourselves out of systems of inequality; the perfect response to “not all men” won’t end misogyny and patriarchy. A million women with the perfect response won’t end it either, but to question the dominant ideas around us and have constructive conversations in our communities does, and will make a difference to the way we relate to each other and operate within this shit show of a system. And if enough of us are questioning the culture, then we might begin questioning it with our actions, too.
