#the broader community feels like it's a safe space. a space built on acceptance and love.

[carry-the-sky]

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[mtr-amg]

I’d like to begin by recounting of one of the bravest acts I’ve ever seen. Earlier this year I attended the Australian Romance Reader Awards, where Melanie Milburne was the guest speaker. At the table beforehand, she told me that she wasn’t sure how her speech would be received, that she was nervous because what she had to say was controversial. And then she got up and said that after a stellar career and nearly 80 titles to her name, not only were there some books that she wished she could go back and rewrite, but that there were some of which she was actively ashamed.

Melanie’s growth as an author and as a person meant that books she had written earlier in her career were now deeply uncomfortable to her. She said that some situations, characters and scenes transgressed into areas that made her profoundly uneasy, and, given the option, she would have them taken out of circulation.

I was taken aback but also impressed that in this age of backlist gold and constant self-promotion an author would not only admit that some of her books made her uncomfortable, but also that she would do so publicly and unreservedly.

Melanie is not alone—there are aspects of our history and traditions that we need to talk about, which raise uncomfortable questions for all of us, as readers, writers, publishers and advocates for the romance genre.

Romance has always existed in the margins of the literary world. Not economically, of course, but within the broader literary landscape, romance is kind of equivalent to Wakanda, the mythical land in the Marvel movie Black Panther. Those outside it see only a desolate village, starved of real culture and devoid of literary merit. But once you find the book that takes you from outside to inside, you’ll find a vibrant, thriving community that is supportive, organised and running on a mythical, powerful element that the rest of the world does not even know exists.

In Wakanda, the element is Vibranium—used to make weaponry previously unheard of—but in the romance genre, that powerful element is something else entirely. Romance harnesses hope.

Hope has been built into romance stories from the very beginning, and it’s tied so strongly to what has made this genre so subversive for so long—the idea that women’s lives can be better. It’s what the ‘happy ever after’ ending means. It’s the kernel of motivation in every one of our stories—that no matter where we are now, or what is happening, things can get better. Things will get better.

At the beginning, hope in romance was tied to finding the right husband—one who would make sure her emotional needs were met as well as her physical needs. We hoped that he would see her as a whole person and not just a possession.

But it didn’t stop there. Romance hoped new hopes for women: personhood, careers, ambition, self-acceptance, self-love, sex, great sex, mind-blowing sex, sexual autonomy, bodily autonomy, lively and nourishing friendships, and passionate and enduring love affairs. But mostly romance hoped for women’s lives to be well-lived.

Along the way, romance also hoped that emotional would no longer mean weak, that fear would no longer turn to anger, that feminine would no longer be an insult. It hoped that men would be able to cry, dance, feel joy and unshakeable love, and express those things out loud. It hoped that everyone would be able to find a happy ever after with whomever they loved. Romance hoped a lot of hopes for many different people, but mostly it hoped for a world better than the one that currently exists. In our own little bubble, we read and wrote and edited and published and shared our stories and hoped.

But what does romance look like in 2018? What hopes are we hoping for ourselves and for our future, for our daughters and sons and their children?

Suddenly, stories of triumphant women matter more than ever. The world is both bigger and smaller and the strides that we have taken forward seem to be but a façade for a deeper, more insidious malevolence, one that hides behind humour and innuendo and the demand for hard proof. One that requires a constant, exhausting vigilance.

Many of the behaviours that are now being called out—sexual innuendo, workplace advances, stolen kisses because the kisser couldn’t resist—feel in many ways like an old friend. They exist in the romance bubble. They show up in our stories, with a long history of providing a way to hope when we weren’t sure how to do so, and they readily tap into that shared emotional history over and over again in a way that feels familiar and safe.

Something that a friend once said changed the way I think about the romance genre and our responsibility to the greater world. She said: the media and the art that we consume are the most powerful influencers on our lives and our actions. If that art is romance novels, then we have the potential—and the obligation—to affect women around the world.

I keep coming back to this idea of potential and obligation. Because I think this is why romance has been so important to so many women for so long: it shows the potential within all of us, and it honours its obligations.

Now, obligations are slippery. And in a genre as big as ours, they’re hard to pin down. The romance readership contains multitudes, and it’s impossible to be everything to everyone. And, as one cogent argument goes, we’re not the only genre. Why is romance being held accountable in a way that other genres are not? Why must we answer to this ingrained malice in a way that no one else is expected to?

Because it’s obligation. If we want to call ourselves a feminist genre, if we want to hold ourselves up as an example of women being centred, of representing the female gaze, of creating women heroes who not only survive but thrive, then we have to lead. We can’t deflect and we can’t dissemble. We need to look to the future and create the books that women need to read now. We’ve been shown our potential. To rise to it is our obligation.

And this is where it gets tricky, because as a community, we have to do the one thing that romance has never taught us how to do: breakup.

It’s okay to grieve the loss here. It’s healthy. After all, in a relationship as long as the one that romance has shared with these familiar behaviours, there were good times, and we should acknowledge that our relationship with these behaviours was healthy for a time. They allowed to us to begin hoping for women’s sexual authority and gratification. They allowed us to write and publish the first descriptions of women’s sexual desire and satisfaction in such a way that she didn’t have to die at the end for the ignominy of having enjoyed an orgasm.

Our decision to move forward now—to recognise the toxic underpinnings that exist underneath these behaviours—doesn’t erase the good aspects. It just recognises that this relationship has run its course, and that we as a genre have grown beyond it.

Be strong, because no break up is easy, and this one is especially hard. There is still seduction in stolen kisses. An intense romantic onslaught can still provoke excitement.

We have been conditioned to respond to coercion. The pursuit. The games. The inclination to play hard to get. The value judgements wrapped up in our responses to our bodies and our desires.

I read an article once that said you should never trust your first response, because that is how you’ve been trained to respond—by your family, teachers, the media, society. Your first response is your conditioned response. But the second response, which follows immediately afterwards, is your thinking response.

We have been conditioned to respond to coercion. Now it’s time to start relying on our thinking response.

And part of this breakup needs to include compassion for ourselves for the things we weren’t yet aware of. We must forgive ourselves for not knowing what we didn’t know until we learned it. But we do know better now, and that comes with an obligation to do better.

Much of my thinking here has been informed by sex positivity, and how it can be applied to fictional worlds. There are two key principles to the movement: first, active, informed consent in all aspects of sexuality, and second, anything that happens between consenting adults is natural. I particularly like how principle the first flows into principle the second: if you have active, informed consent, then anything consenting adults do afterwards is natural.

And yes, it means consent for everything. Recognising the heroine’s bodily autonomy, her right to decide what happens to it at every point is crucial to these discussions. We need to divorce the idea of sexy from the idea of surprise. Your heroine can be pursued, but she must not be prey.

It means empowering your heroine’s choices—write that contraception scene. This is the genre where it should become so ingrained that women engage only in safe sex—protecting themselves and their partners—that it becomes cliche. Empower your heroines to demand safety, and empower your heroes to deliver it without being asked.

Write options. Secret babies are a treasured part of our genre, but unwanted pregnancies have serious financial, emotional, and professional repercussions for women without a support system around them. Use this plot point, by all means, but be deliberate in your choices and don’t romanticise it. You don’t know who’s reading.

Progress isn’t made without sacrifice. Privilege isn’t shared if the privileged don’t make space beside ourselves. It won’t be an easy transition—none of it. But the alternative is to continue normalising coercion and domination and disrespect and powerlessness in our romantic relationships.

We are all in the business of imagination, and we’ve all chosen the genre of hope. I hope that you understand the power that you hold in your hands to influence the world and make it better. And I hope that you continue our long tradition of hoping for better lives for our heroines, and the heroines around the world who read these stories and learn to hope for themselves.

[bonnieafawcett]

Revised Research Text

There are many different aspects that play into a students wellbeing and different strategies to improve student wellbeing within highschools. I am looking at the need for student spaces to be intentionally designed for wellbeing. There are a variety of wellbeing categories, all of which are equally important and addressed differently. Social wellbeing is an important aspect, showing the need for quality relationships and collaboration. Students crave friendships, a sense of being heard and belonging. Along with social connectedness is the value in personnel reflective practices. These issues have been addressed by other educational spaces such as Cannon Hill College and Nottingham Trent University, both of which I will look at and discuss their techniques and successes. Therefore, gaining a broader understanding of this topic of student wellbeing and establishing techniques to further improve my designing.

Student wellbeing is an undeniably important factor within high schools. “The Mental Health of Children and Adolescents : Report on the Second Australian Child and Adolescent Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing”, is an intriguing article showing the statistics of mental health and wellbeing for highschool students. Taken from the answers of teenagers aged between 11-17, it explores how serious of a topic this actually is. Based on the answers of over 6,300 families it documents the prevalence and type of mental health problems, along with the impact of those problems on families and young people. Showing the need for wellbeing based design within highschools. “Around one in ten adolescents (10.9%) reported having ever self-harmed. This is equivalent to 186,000 young people aged 12-17 years who had deliberately injured themselves.” Showing the statistics on how real of an issue this really is. With modern day increases of different stresses such as social, exams and home stresses, students are struggling to cope. Spatial design offers the opportunity to address this stress, intentionally designing to decrease stress and bring down the devastating statistics.

‘Children’s and Young people’s voices on their wellbeing’ was an interesting study which looked at children and teenagers' opinions on their own wellbeing. This study showed data about students and what they valued as important in their education, home life and towns. This was interesting concerning their opinions on what a school should provide for them and what affects their wellbeing. The study had three main points “Quality of relationships, quality of environments, and self and Freedoms.” Dex and Hollingworth identify these categories to be the three most important points of student’s wellbeing. “Listening to children’s voices has produced a large number of elements they see as affecting their wellbeing.” Some of the data they looked at from their study was “Relationships that are important to children and young people, their rank of importance, and the qualities that are important in each particular set of relationships” For example what these young people look for in a teacher are qualities such as, “caring, listening, supportive, praise and respect/fairness” These qualities should all be mirrored in their school environment as well, in order to validate students need for those qualities. Other things the study looked at were “The characteristics of children’s and young people's environments that affect their wellbeing” This focused on home, school and neighbourhood. Showing that what these young people valued in school was “Friendships, Safety - (bullying, abuse, intimidation), Achievement opportunities and learning opportunities. This was interesting showing the overall sense of what students wanted their schools to look like. This study is interesting as it sheds light on student’s opinions of what a school should look like in terms of wellbeing. It showed how they valued safety, opportunities and friendships the most, along with being understood and having a sense of belonging. These are key qualities to consider for my design, as these also pull over into common spaces for students as the overall school intention and feeling.

Tuomas Sahramaa looked at placemaking techniques within Duke University campus, aiming to create a communal area for students. Paying attention to the high levels of stress and anxiety within schools he wanted to reduce these by creating a positive atmosphere by addressing and improving student wellbeing. By focusing on a collaborative space within the university he addressed students' need for relationships. “Duke University commissioned a study in 2002 that revealed that while an open plaza at the center of the campus was designed to be a focal point and gathering place for students, it was in fact greatly underused.” Looking into student wellbeing he argued that students' wellbeing improved when they had confidence in their ideas and work. He noticed that students who were connected with other students improved academically, through collaboration. This idea of collaboration built up relationships between students as well as confidence and growth from feedback. It broke habits of isolation and loneliness. “The University then sought to redevelop this space to create a central, democratic space to serve as a public forum for student activities, a place for casual encounters, and a space for the entire student population to unite as a whole.”  Sahramaa changed the space to a lively, friendly space for students to come together in collaboration, building relationships and decreasing stress.

“Participatory Principles in Practice: Designing Learning Spaces that Promote Wellbeing for Young Adolescents During the Transition to Secondary School” was an interesting project of The Cannon Hill College, where they looked into student wellbeing and designing for them with this in mind. What they discovered is that wellbeing is primarily made up of four key areas: Mental wellbeing, emotional wellbeing, social wellbeing and intellectual well being. Each of these areas had different influencers and different outcomes. “Emotional wellbeing can be enhanced through a strong sense of school connectedness, personal values and reflective practices.” This idea supports the previous claims showing the importance of student relationships and collaboration in creating a school community. Also talking about the idea of personal values and reflective practises brings through the idea of unique difference and students learning to fully embrace this with confidence. As previously iterated, the positive influence this has on emotional and social wellbeing. “For adolescents in an unfamiliar school environment, social wellbeing is tested by the complexities of new relationships with peers and teachers, and changing academic expectations. Many authors have identified key influences on student social wellbeing which include peer acceptance connectedness and a strong sense of belonging” From this research the project adopted a participatory approach to ensure that the designing process and product would foster a sense of community, belonging and ownership amongst the College community. “The challenge for Cannon Hill College was to design a series of learning spaces that promoted the capacities associated with student wellbeing, while at the same time permitting twenty-first century and Middle Years learning to be integrated successfully into authentic classroom experiences. This challenge was addressed through participatory designing.” The project was then worked on by a large group of architects, landscape designers, contractors, students and staff. Bringing a sense of collaboration to the space, and a confidence for students when their input was used.

Nottingham Trent is a large University accommodating over 26,840 students in different study areas and campuses. NTU Student union is a large building and a well designed space, focused on the student community. This is an interesting case study as it tackles having such a large amount of students well considering their wellbeing. The space is a vibrant, welcoming space. It incorporates soft natural colours and materials with bright, fun colours and innovative modern styling in order to create a lively welcoming space. The modern glass exterior welcomes creation and friendships well the interior considers different students and their individual needs. With several spaces the university incorporates a cafe eating space, study space, fitness centre and even a bar. The space has a clean clarity to it with it’s simple soft building colours and textures, well the furniture and lightening bring the space to life. The building is effective in its attempt to create a safe space for students to come together, collaborate and build each other up. The overall sense of the space is one of positivity and creativity. It’s use of different spaces brings different kinds of students into the space. Students who value keeping fit enjoy using the fitness centre well the cafe brings in students needing team work spaces, and those looking for a hot coffee. The openness of the space turns it into an effective multifunctional atmosphere focussed on students' productivity and connectedness. This idea of productive community builds positive student wellbeing for those within the space.

In conclusion connection is an important aspect within student wellbeing. The startling statistics about student mental health and wellbeing show the growing need for awareness and intentional student wellbeing design. Surveys from students themselves show their desire for friendships, safety and a sense of being understood and belonging. Different educational spaces such as Duke University, Cannon Hill College and Nottingham Trent student union show their approaches to wellbeing. Each facility focussed on the importance of student connectedness, collaboration and building relationships. Different techniques bringing students together through participatory designing, collaborative spaces, multiple different spaces and intentional designing were successful in improving student wellbeing.

Lawrence, D., Johnson, S., Hafekost J., Boterhoven De Haan, K., Sawyer, M., Ainley, J., & Zubrick, S.R. (2015) The Mental Health of Children and Adolescents. Report on the second Australian Child and Adolescent Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing. Department of Health, Canberra.

Dex, Shirley. Hollingworth, Katie. Children’s and Young people’s voices on their wellbeing. Childhood wellbeing research centre. Sep 2012

Sahramaa, Tuomas. Community-Forward Campuses: Fostering the Sense of Community at Universities Through Placemaking. 2013, p. 33.

Nastrom-Smith, Christopher, and Hilary Hughes. “Participatory Principles in Practice: Designing Learning Spaces That Promote Wellbeing for Young Adolescents During the Transition to Secondary School.” School Spaces for Student Wellbeing and Learning, edited by Hilary Hughes et al., Springer Singapore, 2019, pp. 199–219. DOI.org (Crossref), doi:10.1007/978-981-13-6092-3_11

Nottingham Trent University Student Union. England. 2014