As we grow older our parents try to become our friends more than being our parents and it often starts with ‘the talk’.
Yes, we’re talking about the talk that every teenager gets from their parents which you might not know, is extremely different for different genders. The boys’ version of ‘the talk’ is the real talk in which parents try to explain their sons (at least to the lucky few) what sex is and how important safe sex is and everything in between. As for girls, our version of ‘the talk’ is slightly different. We are not told about sex or what to do with our sexual urges, but rather we’re given a lecture about how we should escape a risky situation. How we should keep ourselves safe by wearing specific things, doing specific things, not doing specific things and more importantly by being a specific kind of person.
We’re told how our body would often be sexualised because that’s how this society works. We’re told how the people who we consider our friends might think of us otherwise and how we should protect ourselves from them.
We all remember the first time our mothers gave us the talk and how we reacted to it. We were either scared or completely oblivious to it. When We Talk About Rape is a spoken poem that starts on the aforementioned subject.
Spoken word poets Akanksha Sinha & Poorvika Mehra performed their piece for UnErase Poetry and it’s captivating for women of all ages and kinds. It’s a strong piece on how rape culture has been normalised in our society and how hard it’s to actually fight it. The poem also talks about how this society confuses a woman’s confidence in herself as a threat to their ideals which is why so often they’re put to a test.
When We Talk About Rape: watch the video over here:
A poem like this one, along with the performance that it was carried out with, makes us believe how strong words can be and how much they can captivate one’s ideals and thoughts.
Jyotsna Amla