Why I Teach my Children that Violence is Sometimes Unavoidable

Because the non-violent lessons I have taught her meant that I neglected the most important one. The one about respecting your own boundaries and protecting your own body. Instead I apparently encouraged my daughter to be a good cog in the kindergarten system, to report it to an adult and in doing so taught her to go against her instincts and passively accept violence on her body. She became a victim, because I taught her it was the right thing to do.

Nurturance Culture In Action

Through this work, an advance reader copy of Turn This World Inside Out, The Emergence of Nurturance Culture by Nora Samaran found its way into my hands. And although at 140 pages it’s only little, its impact on me has been disproportionately large. It has helped me find compassion; it has helped me connect fragments of ideas which existed in my brain already, but floated untethered in abstract (where they were of no use at all).

Humans are pre-programmed to objectify. So how can we help it?

Because I went. I saw Tarzan. I objectified, and thoroughly enjoyed doing so, thinking it at best harmless fun and at worst a sort of inconsequential revenge for all the years that my sisters and I have been objectified. This is what the men go on about, I thought. Yes, it’s fun.

One Alternative Sex Shop in Berlin Leads the Way in Consent

Sex shops themselves serve as a kind of a sex-toy curation service and could theoretically buy healthier selections for their clientele. That’s a responsibility few sex shops choose to shoulder in a capitalist system where sex sells.

Sometimes An Epidural is Best for Baby

My way, would be natural I’d decided (with not a little smirk of superiority). A water birth, maybe with a kick of gas and air to get me laughing like Uncle Benny in Lethal Weapon.

The Lies of Legally Blonde

What she achieves – and surely what all girls should aspire to – is an offer to join a prestigious law firm (where no doubt she will take an 80 hour work week and still have time for exercise and manicures) and a proposal of marriage. Splendid.

Boy, You’ll Be A Woman… Soon

No one does make up for men like Tim Curry

For a woman like me–a die-hard fan of The Rocky Horror Show who lustfully watched Sweet Transvestite on loop –the news that Chanel launched it’s first make-up for men on September 1 2018 in South Korea, was wildly exciting.

What Aziz Ansari Did Does Not Make Him A Criminal, Unfortunately

Power is the capacity to influence others which–notwithstanding systemic privilege–fluctuates, sometimes on a daily basis according to self esteem, personality, age, maturity and in every unique relationship dynamic. How can power be measured or compared, when there is no absolute, and perception of power is also a form of power?

Purple Prose ushers in a new era of Bisexual Visibility

The ideas that Purple Prose lay out are not new; but they are published. Publication does a lot to validate ideas in our world since our collective unconscious recognises validity most often through third party verification.

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.

Bringing Attention to Atrocities in an Apathetic Western World

Refugee Voices Tour

But there is no victorious ‘democratic’ ending to this story. In Syria the civil uprising has gradually been transformed into a full scale civil war. Sayid and his colleagues have all lost loved ones to this war and their political is personal. Sayid’s own crime–and why he is here–was to film government violence and put it up on YouTube, after which he was put on the list of wanted terrorists.

Why Communists turn into Nationalists

As causes grow in popularity, the original victims are often left behind whilst those already in power claim more space and more status by piggybacking on these issues without having suffered first-hand experience in order to promote their own agenda.

Overheard Conversations Are The Most Interesting

A few choose to queue, indicating their impatience by folded arms and tapping feet. Others return chastened to their tables littered with remnants from the first round, but their bodies stay tense, mouths quivering with injustice.

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.

How to Start Using Your Privilege by a Cis-White Woman

To learn on one hand that I have perpetuated systemic oppressive behaviours, and on the other having to face those who have been oppressed and who are angry at me for doing so makes me want to shield myself from the onslaught which risks triggering the terror I felt as a child.

But if I truly want to be an ally, I cannot ignore it.

Fighting My Daughter’s Racist Formula

In-groups are formed by what we consider to be ‘relevant’ familiarity. Children, and even adults, process most of our information visually which means that varying skin tones might be not only the first but also the only indicators for who is ‘in’ and who is ‘out’.

White Fragility and the path to White Depression

Gone are the days when I positively affirmed every day in the shower, and shared uplifting memes. Now I see these past behaviours as tragic extent of mine and others’ unawareness. I thought if I changed my mindset and concentrated on dismissing the negative and amplifying positive activism, that the world I wanted would resettle itself with my aligned actions.