In recent years, the social environment of the United States has begun to remind me more and more of any of a plethora of high school coming-of-age movies. Not in the sense of growth and discovery, but the most stereotypical "high school sucks" mentality, including the promotion of the division and exclusion of groups of people based on the most surface level traits. After the 2016 election, I began to wonder what I could do to create change in my country when I, in all honesty, felt completely helpless.

So, I began to volunteer on political campaigns, promote causes and initiatives that I am passionate about and made it my mission to speak out when I witnessed intolerance or cruelty. Although it can honestly be considered a positive that the election made me personally more vocal about what I believe in and fight for, life's constant swinging pendulum began to balance the positives of the outcomes of the election with blatant negatives for the entirety of the United States. We have seen a myriad of activists fighting for equality and the creation of monumental movements such as #MeToo, however, antisemitism and discrimination have also been given platforms and an audience outside of the shadows thanks to the 45th President at rates higher than we have seen in the recent history of our relatively young republic. Our country has retreated to utilizing human identities and moral convictions to continuously fragment our basic understanding of what it means to simply be a human being.

Bearing witness to such a concerning shift towards the polarisation of our country, I have found myself thinking more and more about what it means to be human. Reflecting, I realize how undeniably relevant my personal motto is. Reading "Be a person that learns to treat people like people" pasted all over my personal spaces, I remind myself that although I may disagree with someone in the political arena, we are both still human. In general, I sometimes feel like we lose our understanding of what it means to truly be a person, to look into the eyes of another and see nothing further than their humanity and mortality, just like our own, to disband preconceived notions and stereotypes and accept that although we are all diverse at our core, biologically, spiritually, and molecularly, we remain similar - we remain human.

I have always been reminded through literature, music, film, and my own personal beliefs, that the eyes are the metaphorical windows to the souls of individuals. As our mouths aid in the production of sound, our eyes say just as much in silence by emphasizing expressions of happiness, sadness, fear, anger, or any other variation of emotions. So, what would happen if all we could see were the eyes of a person? What if we took away the body type, larger identifying markers, personal style, social media presence, or even name? Would we begin to see those around us differently? How much differently would we, as a species that relies so strongly on the physical appearance of an individual to create a full mental interpretation of said person, further create judgments about another?

We each create our own worlds, just as we do when building our social media feeds, in real life, that interlace with the individual worlds of those around us. To put it simply, although we may be all on the same physical earth, the stranger across the street lives quite a different reality than the reality of your mother, father, or even yourself. But, we live. We live through each day disregarding the individual realities of those around us. We need to take time, time to appreciate the perspectives of our fellow humans. We need to create open channels of discussion on difficult topics without retreating in anger or fear when presented with an opposing opinion or viewpoint that may be different than our own. We need to see the humanity around us for all that it is, the good and the bad, which in reality, is all relative to the interpreter.

So what if we removed these labels that proved to confine us and polarize our country and simply talked about life, love, spirituality, or an infinite number of other topics that we rarely explore in the world of small talk, polarization, and social media? More profoundly, what if we listened? What if we create this open forum of exploration of the human condition and truly saw each other as humans. What if we could try to create a more inclusive environment, rather than polarized communities? What if we conversed to learn rather than yelling to constantly be heard? The only way we will ever begin to facilitate a form of social change is to simply begin.

So… let's get started.

Let's listen to women, and actually, actually hear them.

To my readers, I am ecstatic to announce that I will be starting the initiative entitled The Not So Silent Woman: Untold Stories where I will be periodically posting the responses to "Big Questions" that I receive from women across the UW-Madison campus. I will ultimately be starting an Instagram profile dedicated to sharing the thoughts and voices of young women about topics that we normally don't openly discuss.

Let's start the conversation.

Together.