The Black Hair Tax: No Breaks for Black Women Who Want to Avoid Breakage
‘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…
‘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…
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…
‘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…
‘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…
‘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…
Tarot and My Early 20s: Navigating Graduating from a STEM Subject and Wanting Nothing to do with Science
Tarot is a thread that has woven my early twenties together. While it is not fortune telling, it is a useful tool for accessing our own subconscious and viewing situations in a new light. When I bought a one-way ticket to the US, my beat-up tarot deck came with me. When I took jobs and quit them, restarted my career, the tarot chimed in…