Mutilation depends on perspective for women who’ve experienced it. They call it Female Genital Cutting and Western feminists should listen.
TBINAA | Why I’m Grateful I Have a Borderline Personality Disorder Diagnosis
I googled ‘famous people who have borderline’ but I shouldn’t have. Amy Winehouse, Marilyn Monroe, Britney Spears. All touted as hysterical, unstable women.
The Local DE | Life in suspense: the refugees in Germany who can’t reunite with their families
Jihad made a bid for a safe life as a refugee, never expecting that protecting his family would mean long term, permanent separation.
TBINAA | How Do We Make Online Feminism Less US-Centric?
I work as an online feminist activist. English might be a common language for the US & UK, but it also erases important differences.
TBINAA | When white people are silent in the situations of injustice, they have chosen the side of the oppressor
It is the balance of power which determines whether an action crosses the line from hurtful to abusive. When the power dynamic is out of balance and the person with the power inflicts harm on the person with less–even when it is unconscious–it reinforces their position of power and becomes abusive.
TBINAA | #MeToo: Will My Son Grow up to be a Rapist?
And if predatory behaviour is as ubiquitous among men as it appears and as I have experienced it to be, statistically it is likely that my son will violate someone, at some point, in his lifetime. That could be anything from ignorant boundary violation to, god forbid, rape.
TBINAA | Dear White Women: Why We Need to Stop Crying When POC Call Us Out
Don’t do your crying in the company of people of colour. Don’t beg them for forgiveness, after all you are part of a system which abused them.
TBINAA | What Can We Laugh at Now?: Political Correctness and Humor
What we find funny is indicative of our beliefs, attitudes, judgements and opinions. It is a useful barometer. When we mock those who by birth or circumstance are less fortunate, we become persecutors and make others our victims. We have no less duty of care for verbal abuse even through humour, than we do for physical abuse.
TBINAA | How Racism Fueled the Manchester Attacks
Britain has never taken responsibility for the bloodshed and exploitation which built the empire. This is evidenced by Theresa May’s hardline on Brexit. We want to take without giving anything in return. We make no apologies for our xenophobic attitudes; our comedy ridicules ‘those bloody foreigners’, our narrow-minded and disrespectful behaviour often shames us in the countries we visit.
TBINAA | The Cowardice of the White Woman
Maybe it was then I first asked the question: would I risk my own life to protect the Anne Franks of this world? The answer was always yes. But hindsight is a flattering bedfellow.
TBIBAA | When My Relationship With Facebook Became Abusive
Like all abusive relationships, getting out of Facebook once you’re in, is difficult. I’m reducing my interaction with it click by painful click.
Harlot | A Pragmatic Approach to Polyamory and Parenthood
My partners, my partner’s partners and our combined set of resources give me time to recharge, without my children feeling neglected.
Harlot Magazine | The Relevance Chasm between Gen X and Y
The consequence is that I must accept the younger generation has implicit knowledge and awareness of current culture that I do not because they have easier access than I do, to their landscape. They grew up in it and they have insights that I do not.
Huffpo | When I Say I Hate Monogamy, What I Really Mean Is…
Monogamy is not a person. Monogamy is a relationship configuration and is as such, impossible for me to hate. It’s neutral.
Thought Catalog | How Polyamory Healed Our Codependent Relationship
Since codependency attracts codependency in every relationship, the phenomenon becomes polarizing and in a quad or more, exponential. And if you’re polyamorous, codependent couples will attract codependent couples to play their games.
Huffpo | 5 Hard Truths About Adoption, Adoptive Parents don’t want to Hear
Adoptees. We’re overrepresented in mental health settings, often at two-and-a-half to six times the rate of non-adopted children.
Nerve | Polyamory is Pain
The pain of polyamory showed me that I was in a codependent relationship. Something that had been hidden from me within my monogamous paradigm.
Huffpo | 5 Life Lessons for My Children
I can’t really sit you down now to talk to you about life lessons because at 4 and 2 years old, you are too young. Besides, who wants to talk about life when there is so much living to do?
Jezebel | My Vagina Smells Like Shame
For most of us growing up in this culture our response to vagina, it’s shape, colour and smell, is SHAME. My mother made sure of that.
Huffpo | My Problem With Monogamy
My problem with monogamy is that it is unthinking, unconscious and creates a perception of comfort where there is none.
the Guardian | Comment threads? They’re a fight to the death. Look, you know I’m right.
In the online world, protecting your reputation and your voice is survival; so much so, that if someone has made an fool of themselves in public and been proven wrong, they will – nine times out of ten – leave the forum and choose to eradicate their presence; in other words, they commit a sort of social suicide.
Huffpo | Want a Pulitzer Prize? Death’ll Do It
Fortunately for those of us who aren’t inclined to make the epic effort it requires to wade through the opening pages of Hemingway’s epic piece of literature–as boring as it is wise–you can satisfy your hankering for death and survival in almost every current Richard-and-Judy-stickered novel out there, from Harry Potter to The Lovely Bones.
Huffpo | Don’t Revisit your Childhood, on your Children
As the world evolves, so humanity remains essentially emotionally the same. One part angel, one part devil, all of us suffering from the influences of religion, society and our parents. All of it crystallized in sharp relief within the hellish prison of childhood. I always said I’d never forget…and yet now I have children, I find myself getting annoyed because … Read More
Digital Journal | How China’s One-Child Policy Got it Wrong
In the 1970s, the Chinese government believed that the only way to solve the strain on its resources was by enforced birth control because they fundamentally misunderstood the relationship between population growth, poverty and hunger.
Digital Journal | Is Third World Famine Good For America’s Economy?
n 1983 Ethiopia knew the worst famine for over a century due to a failing harvest compounded by a Marxist government who ruthlessly spent half its national budget on fighting rebels in the North. That same year, a little boy was born in the heart of the country. His name was Erdolo Eromo. 30 years later in his birth country … Read More
Inspired Economist | How Fair is Fairtrade?
When Cadbury came along with their capacious wallets, they wanted to make their biggest seller – Dairy Milk – Fairtrade. Did they though?
Technorati | I’ve seen the Future, And it’s Stepford
Audrey Hepburn is seen here in CGI glory advertising a bar of galaxy chocolate. And at first this seems relatively innocuous. But appearances (as we know from Stepford) can be deceiving.
Technorati | What Did Whitney Really Want…
Whilst I didn’t know Whitney, I do know about the desire to escape one’s own life. Drugs of all types – whilst providing freedom and oblivion which can be temporarily stimulating, exciting and comforting are in no way a shortcut.
Technorati | What’s your Online Battle Cry…And does anyone care?
My cause is not children in Africa or maltreated cows, and it’s not that I don’t have compassion for them. But my battle is to repair some of the dysfunction caused by the society and environment I grew up in; sex negativity, maternal narcissism, fluid relationships… and if I am to manage even part way, then it needs to be my primary focus. At least that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.