#konurtala - Icelandic women speak

It is not news that social media can be a breeding ground for movements to raise social awareness. This week, an Icelandic Facebook page dedicated to health and cosmetic advice called Beauty Tips launched an initiative to tackle the silence that surrounds sexual violence.

Women on social media are changing their profile pictures to one of the two pictured above. The orange image denotes that the user has experienced sexual violence, the yellow one shows that the user personally knows and supports victims of sexual violence. Some people are even using part of each image to form a whole image which illustrates that they have both experienced sexual violence and support other victims.

The movement quickly went viral using the hashtags #konurtala (“women speak”), #þöggun (“silenced”) and #outloud. Hundreds of women have been encouraged to speak out in response to one woman’s introductory question of whether anyone had experienced sexual violence.

As Iceland is statistically the best place on Earth to be a woman this level of support is hardly surprising. The memorable and eye catching nature of the images means that they have quickly been noticed by people outside of Iceland.

By having a safe platform to share painful stories on empowers women to speak out about their pasts. Awareness is imperative to fighting stigma and educating the world that everyone deserves equal respect. Sexual violence is never OK and campaigns like this provide a solidarity essential to recovery.

Madeleine is a recent graduate from the University of Exeter where she studied BA English with advanced proficiency in French. Madeleine loved her time at uni, especially her involvement with online magazine Her Campus Exeter and taking advantage of how close the city is to the beach. In the next year, Madeleine hopes to complete a semester studying Chinese and Chinese history at Soochow University, China, and indulge her love of travelling by getting lost on a gap year before returning to Blighty to undertake postgraduate study at the University of Bristol, studying MSc Gender and International Relations..