MP hosts insightful discussion with young people

With the UN celebrating the international ‘Day of the Girl’ on Saturday (11th) it was somewhat appropriate that on Friday Alison Seabeck, MP for Plymouth Moor View, hosted an event with young people from across the Plymouth, to discuss body image and how the sexualisation of society affects affect us as individuals.

This was the 3rd event hosted by Ms Seabeck, in partnership with the Plymouth Excellence Cluster. Lisa Hartley and Rona Smith, Co-directors of the Excellence Cluster led the discussions between almost 50 pupils from schools across Plymouth. Ms Seabeck was encouraged by the success of the first two events which saw firstly just girls, and secondly just boys, maturely discussing and addressing the challenges and concerns they often face and feel put under by the media and society in general.

This time round the conference involved both girls and boys and took these themes a step further by looking at how this impacts on our relationships with each other, as friends, boyfriends and girlfriends. Many students felt that the desire to look and act like the people in magazines or on TV led to a poor self-identity, and therefore that meant that their relationships would suffer.

The increasing prevalence and accessibility of porn also gave many young people a false idea of what real sexual relationships look like, which can put a large amount of pressure on them to act and behave in a certain way.

The overwhelming majority of the young people felt that they key was education. They were all in agreement that sex education should include more than biology, and should be taught throughout your school life. It should also cover the issues of sexualisation, body image, social media, respect and consent and the effect of advertising and pornography.

Alison Seabeck MP said: “This was the third event of this kind which I have helped organise and definitely the best. We had some really interesting input from all of the young people who attended and some very challenging ideas which came out of the discussion.

“With International Day of the Girl on Saturday it was good to host an event which raises similar issues and brought concerns that young women, and often men, face day-to-day to the forefront.

“I want to thank everyone who attended and especially Plymouth Excellence Cluster for helping organise and running these conferences, which were a real success.”