The Black Hair Tax: No Breaks for Black Women Who Want to Avoid Breakage
‘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…
‘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…
‘Love is Not a Finite Resource’: Celebrating My Conceited Era, and Why You Should Too
I’m in love with myself. Literally. I am the prettiest girl in the world. I watch my Instagram stories on repeat. I buy myself gifts. I’m simply obsessed with me. Call me conceited, selfish, self-absorbed or all of the above, but it won’t change a thing…
Why Aren't Curvy People with Eating Disorders Taken Seriously?
No one believes curvier people can have eating disorders or body dysmorphia. Eating disorders are something only thin or anorexic people can have. Curvier people are expected to lose mass amounts of weight, expected to starve themselves to thinness. Our society and medical system are so fatphobic that they are okay with curvier people losing an unhealthy amount of weight…
Bullied into Silence for Not Feeling Beautiful: Experiencing Thin-Shaming, Weight Gain and Body Dysmorphia
I feel anger and resentment toward this narrative that is continuously pushed that women who fit into the traditional mould of ‘thin’ are not allowed to feel negatively about their bodies. Virtually my entire life, any time I have expressed unhappiness with my body, the responses have been overwhelmingly unsupportive…
‘What is the Cost of Our Self-Expression?’: Why Buying Fast Fashion is Anti-Feminist
In harnessing the power of clothing in the face of oppression, we have forgotten about the people who make our clothes, the majority of whom are women of colour trapped in the cycle of poverty. What feels like a feminist act – whether it’s buying clothing with our earned incomes or ‘treating ourselves’ – may in fact be anti-feminist...
‘Trauma Doesn’t Always Have to be Ugly. It Can be Beautiful. Decorative’: Tattoos as a Form of Power and Healing
I found a Black tattoo artist in a Black studio and went on my own to do the single most life-changing act of my late 20s. And oddly enough, what I felt during that first session wasn’t pain (it didn’t hurt that much) or regret (the experience was so affirming; I will never forget listening to old school R&B and feeling tender, careful hands trace lines of ink into the back of my calf). What I did feel was air. For the first time in a long time, I felt myself breathe…
How Body Neutrality Has Helped Me Reimagine the Way I Relate to My Physical Self
For me, body neutrality is a concept based on the idea of accepting and respecting your body by understanding that its importance is functionality rather than appearance, and it has undoubtedly changed the relationship I have with myself…
Algorithms, Archetypes and Aesthetics: How Your Online Lifestyle is Denying You Desire
There is no moral trophy awarded for inhabiting a certain type of body or seamlessly aligning with all of the ‘right kinds’ of media. No matter how you frame calorie restriction, you won’t have the energy or physical desire to have sex. But you will fit into the cultural understanding of what sexually desirable is – what matters is how desirable you are, not how much desire you experience…