Imagine living in a world where nothing is wrong.
Everyone is happy, confident, has the perfect job, the perfect partner, and is living only the best life has to offer, without any problems, or insecurities to overcome. This world exists just a click away on your phone: it’s called social media. While social media is a great place for you to connect with friends, family, and colleagues, it can also bring a lot of insecurities to someone’s life by not being able to really share your true self and keep up with appearances, especially for women.
One study conducted by non-profit Anxiety UK reports “45 percent of respondents said they feel ‘worried or uncomfortable’ when email and Facebook are inaccessible, while 60 percent of respondents stated that they felt the need to switch off their phones and computers to secure a full-fledged break from technology.” An interesting fact since many people find that spending time on social media apps causes them anxiety as a result of them comparing their everyday lives to everyone’s else’s highlight reel. Can it be that social media causes anxiety or stress for some when they do use it, and for others when they don’t use it?
As social media invades all aspects of our lives, a new social network is ensuring that our online profile is designed to help those using it, rather than become a place of comparison and a source of anxiety. findSisterhood is a network for anyone that identifies as a woman, and one that is completely anonymous. A safe place for women to share their experiences on motherhood, sex, friends, relationship and every subject they want to talk about but don’t want to be judged as we do on other socials.
The idea for the platform was born when founder Ana Pompa Alarcón Rawls, gave birth to her second child, and being an immigrant in the United States with no family, found herself with several questions and in need of support as a mother.
Since then, findSisterhood has become a safe haven to empower women to talk about anything that’s on their mind without any judgement, taboo or stigma around it. How many times does one find themselves with questions they feel they cannot ask anyone, or just things you want to get off your chest but feel no one will understand you, not even your closest friends, family or therapist? It happens more than we’d like to admit.
Unlike Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and many others, findSisterhood is not about the number of likes, shares, or comments in your posts, it’s about sisterhood, supporting, and empowering other women regardless of how many followers they have. Expressing yourself without the pressure of what society and everyone will think is the heart of it. The platform is completely anonymous and uses a one-way cryptographic system that makes every post, comment and like untraceable, even by team members of the company.
Being able to share everything without your name tagged to it is the essential key to the company’s success, seeing that most women are willing to share their problems if nobody knows their identity. It’s that old case of “a friend of mine is having this problem and she doesn’t know how to solve it” without having to say it’s your friend. Furthermore, there’s no more reassuring feeling than knowing you’re not alone and that other people have gone through the same insecurities as you.
In a world where judgment and criticism are stronger than ever, it is increasingly important to find ways to connect with other women to empower and help them without any fear. Let’s rejoice to the fact that no problem is unique, so no one is ever facing it alone. Regardless of race, nationality, and language, all women have the same insecurities, and that should unite us, not create more competition or self-doubt. Deep down what we all want is to be heard and understood without being judged.
