Equality in terms of how they are viewed, respected, treated, and valued, as compared to other highly charismatic animals like the Pandas. Not something easily done but with the right changes and mentality, such a thing is possible. Why does it matter for spiders to receive the same treatment as large furry animals? If you are thinking that whilst reading this then I have either failed to change your mind (we should totally go for a nature walk as I try to change your mind) or you have not read any of the previous posts (GO READ THE OTHERS TOO).
Where would be the best place to start? I think helping those with arachnophobia, the irrational fear of spiders, is an excellent place to start. About 3% of people are arachnophobes (Oosterink et al., 2009) which is not as bad as other situations or animals like heights and snakes (Oosterink et al., 2009). Helping someone get over this fear would mean one more person that can come to terms spiders and perhaps see them as they do maybe tigers and pandas! Have a friend that needs help out of this fear? You have come to the right place. One of the kindest, and most covert ways is to take them to the movies! Not to any random movie though, one with a spider or insect-based hero like Spider-man or Ant-man. This apparently helps with the symptoms of the phobia (Hoffman et al., 2019) and it is not as drastic as having them interact with an actual spider, you also get the excuse to watch a movie.
The actual clip used for the study
As Dr Coleman pointed out in the “Conservation” post, the irrational fear is innate, and likely came from our ancestors’ fear of venomous spiders (IFLscience). But what if we condition ourselves from a young age, while we are in primary school? The school could use spiders and other less popular taxa as a form of animal-assisted education which does have its own benefits (Kirnan et al., 2018). Usually only domesticated animals are used (Brelsford et al., 2017) and it could be that this form of education only works because of how kids view these animals. It might not be as effective in delivering the same results as those animals but spiders can serve the role of introducing the darker side of value of animals and the current state the world is in and likely to take.
An injured Nursery Web Spider with only one leg on one side, resting on a signboard
It looks like secondary school children are now more aware of climate change (The StraitsTimes, 2020) than I was at their age (boy do I feel old) but I highly doubt they understand it at the same level that we do now. Changing of mindsets, lowering usage, and lifestyle changes would be the best way to deal with many problems we face now as they tackle the problem at the source but, due to how difficult they are to change, they might be near impossible. Similar to how some fast-food chains target the children to get their parents to buy a meal to make them happy, demand side solutions should be just as aggressive.
References
Brelsford, V. L., Meints, K., Gee, N. R., & Pfeffer, K. (2017). Animal-assisted interventions in the classroom—a systematic review. International journal of environmental research and public health, 14(7), 669. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph14070669
Hoffman, Y. S. G., Pitcho-Prelorentzos, S., Ring, L., & Ben-Ezra, M. (2019). “Spidey Can”: Preliminary Evidence Showing Arachnophobia Symptom Reduction Due to Superhero Movie Exposure. Frontiers in psychiatry, 10, 354-354. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00354
Kirnan, J., Shah, S., & Lauletti, C. (2018). A dog-assisted reading programme’s unanticipated impact in a special education classroom. Educational review (Birmingham), 72(2), 1-24. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131911.2018.1495181
Oosterink, F. M. D., de Jongh, A., & Hoogstraten, J. (2009). Prevalence of dental fear and phobia relative to other fear and phobia subtypes. European journal of oral sciences, 117(2), 135-143. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0722.2008.00602.x
The StraitsTimes. (2020, October 23). Local students know more about climate change than world conflicts. https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/parenting-education/local-students-know-more-about-climate-change-than-world-conflicts
Featured photo by Егор Камелев on Unsplash