The Black Hair Tax: No Breaks for Black Women Who Want to Avoid Breakage
‘Travel is Not an Inherent Right’: Reflecting on the Western Privilege of Self-Discovery Overseas
In Cambodia, my main guide was a smart woman who spoke at least four languages. Through work, she’d made many Australian friends, but despite numerous applications, she kept getting denied a visa to go and visit. I thought of all the British people I knew or saw on Instagram who had obtained working-travel visas easily and jetted over there for six months or more. It’s easy to forget sometimes, when we see these travellers on Instagram or compare ourselves to our friends, what a privilege it is to be able to do these things at all…
‘Connecting to Something Bigger than Myself’: Reconciling Spirituality and Atheism Amid the Catastrophic Mess of My Life
Singing descants in the church choir at school, I felt nothing except the pride of being able to reach the high notes. While I have always respected the people in my life who do believe in a God, or gods, I never have. I refused to believe that there was someone or something out there setting me on a path. I am the master of my own destiny, as the saying goes. But then a change came…
‘Wasted Hours and Tired Eyes’: How to Start a Digital Detox and Detach from Your Phone
After checking my social media usage, I was disgusted to find that I had spent at least 8 hours a day on social media platforms. One day in particular I spent 10 hours and 45 minutes on Instagram and TikTok alone; I couldn't remember a single post I had seen. What a waste of time. I knew I had to detach myself from it and find better ways to spend my downtime…
‘There is No Singular Selfhood’: What Trad Wives Have Taught Me About Defining Womanhood
Deep into an Instagram scroll, I wait patiently for the punchline in the video ‘Five ways to serve your husband’. I realise as I watch that there may be no punchline here at all, just genuine advice. Cook for him. Raise his children. Dress to respect him. Never nag. Obey him. I am on trad wife social media again…
‘So, What Do You Do?’: The Mythos of Careers and the Underpinnings of this Damning Question
This question has made its way into our drop-down menu of questions for social interactions, including, but not limited to, ‘How are you?,’ ‘How are your parents?,’ ‘Did you have a nice weekend?,’ and, ‘Do you want a drink?’. The aching question of what we do to earn money has, by some interesting turn of capitalistic events, disguised itself as nonchalant and unflinching as the rest in our questioning remit…
The Black Hair Tax: No Breaks for Black Women Who Want to Avoid Breakage
Raise your hand if you've ever been personally victimised by an Instagram hairstylist. I'm not just talking about the six-week wait for an appointment or the large non-refundable deposit amounts; I'm talking about the bulleted list that's usually written in all caps with a tinge of hostility. Braids are an integral part of Black culture, so why aren't they more accessible?
‘Every Haircut is a Carefully Calculated Event’: How a Bi Bob Helped Me Accept My Sexuality as an Arab Muslim
Each woman's ethnicity, features and fashion choices played a crucial factor in how they would be treated in every country I lived in. Each of these aspects was a moving variable in who would cut my hair, where I got it done, the length, the way I styled it, and my overall relationship with it regarding how I presented…
‘Comfortable in a House I Own or in My Own Skin?’ The Black Girl Countryside Paradox
I am approaching my next milestone: buying a property. Normal questions circle around my head. Can I really afford this? How are the schools in the area? Is there enough room if I want a family? But I find myself stuck on one important question: will there be enough black people where I go?
Living at Home in Your Thirties: The Art of Overcoming Self-Judgement and Societal Pressures to Put Your Wellbeing First
A year ago, almost to the day, I moved back home. Home-home, as in, my Mum’s house. It’s not somewhere I thought I’d be in my thirties. Due to rising rent, the cost-of-living crisis and generally navigating a post-pandemic world, many thirty-somethings have found themselves in the same position as me, living at home out of necessity. What was once a peculiarity is becoming more commonplace…
‘I Still Feel the Need to Apologise for My Body’: How Experimenting with Gender Has Taught Me the Universal Nature of Fatphobia
I turn sixteen and discover gender nonconformity. This doesn’t really change how I am outwardly perceived. That is, both feminine and fat. This made my sense of self-perception all the more complicated. For a moment, I felt free. Unfettered by the restraints of the gender binary and the dysphoria of never being ‘woman’ enough to truly identify with my physicality. And then I learnt about skinny-twinklike-androgyny…
Bloody Brilliant: A Review of Modibodi’s Period Undies
Like other period pants, Modibodi’s products are designed as a reusable alternative to disposable pads, liners and tampons. They’re meant to fit and feel like regular underwear – except they come with a built-in patented 3mm lining to absorb any liquid. Or, to put it in their own words, period pants as leak-proof as a chat with your bestie (it was this line that sold me)…
‘Nudity Allows an Openness Beyond the Physical’: Reconnecting with My Body to Lead a Richer Life
Phenomenologists say that the body is a means of knowing. Through somatic, tactile engagement with the world, we learn things that do not need to be spoken and communicate sensorially in a way that transcends codification. The immediacy and honesty of our bodies allows an openness beyond the physical. Nudity allows an openness beyond the physical…
Atta Girl! Good Girl Syndrome, and Why Suffering From It Is Holding You Back
One of the biggest problems with being a ‘good girl’ is that people will try to exploit your lack of boundaries and manipulate you as they see fit. You will become an easy target for narcissists, and if you put your trust in the wrong people, you will find yourself in countless sticky situations. Failing to speak up and use your voice can also result in self-esteem issues throughout adulthood. I am one of many women who can tell the same story…
‘I Didn’t Have the “Desirable” Body I Saw Online or in Magazines’: Scoliosis, the Media, and the ‘Perfect’ Female Body
As time has gone on, me and all the women I have spoken to have learnt to love their bodies as they are. But that doesn’t mean the notion of the ‘perfect’ body on social media doesn’t still exist. There are so many women out there trying to change this narrative, and show women with all different body types to highlight that there is not one right way to look. This is what I hope to achieve for scoliosis…
‘Like Taking Myself on the Ultimate Date’: My Solo Travelling Experience and the Journey to Enjoying My Own Company
Solo travelling has really helped me to grow into myself. I chose to take my first solo travel experience for my birthday, and I don't know if I’ve ever felt more pride for myself than when I was able to wander around the streets of Italy on my own on the evening of my birthday, a bag of cannoli and a lot more confidence than I’d felt before…
How Visiting the Lizzie Borden House Made Me Contemplate the Ethics of Consuming True Crime Content
There are definitely bad actors out there that harass victims and their families, and as a conscious consumer I believe that is indefensible and absolutely disgusting. I do not condone it. And yet, I have seen content creators like Stephanie Harlowe and Kendall Rae on Youtube highlight long-forgotten cases in the media, and this attention has led to new leads coming forward and even having some of these cold cases solved…
‘Hot Girls Have Rot Days’: Why I’m Rejecting Perfected Femininity Online for a Goblincore Aesthetic
Goblincore removes the modern-day expectations of femininity along with the binaries and boundaries that we set in place around womanhood. Instead, it sets us loose in nature. We can roam in the woods, crouch in the dirt and throw away the social media codebook. Goblincore encourages us to exist as free feral beings, where no one is failing or shamed – and we are happier for it…
Four Techniques to Practice When You Seem Stuck in Self-Pity: Dealing with Comparison and Jealousy to Find True Self-Worth
I watched as my friends moved cities and found jobs in creative industries I’d always dreamed of working in, and watched others travel the world seeing things I never have. Of course, I felt so happy for them. Seeing them living life to the fullest was great, but under the surface my ego began to taint their experiences by comparing myself to them. All my achievements became unworthy…
How Discovering Pole Dancing Has Helped Me Accept Myself As An Aspie
Pole requires me to have a perfect mind and body connection for me to succeed in perfecting challenging movements and combinations. As a neurodiverse individual, I have found it naturally more challenging to link the mind and body connection. But now I have found that after two years I am able to do amazing things with my body that I never even thought possible…
‘Our Bodies Were Projects to be Worked On’: My Experience of Fatphobia and Disordered Eating Growing Up in Weight Loss Groups
The first time I set foot in a Slimming World meeting, I was young enough to be occupied by the toys in the corner of the room laid out for kids dragged along by their parents. It was there, in those meetings, that I first began to absorb the idea that fat was bad; our bodies were projects to be worked on, and if I tried hard enough it was perfectly possible for me to look like a Spice Girl…