Everywhere you looked was all black. Black girls in black clothes punting black womanness. So although the request had been made for those in attendance to do so wearing all black, maybe it wasn’t the best colour choice, considering the sun was out in full force. “I feel like I’m being cooked,” someone said. “I…
She is the artist who has launched a thousand thinkpieces. Everything that Beyoncé does is extensively critiqued. Her songs and their accompanying videos, her tours, outfits and statements have become “events”: not just because of the media and public attention they generate, but also because of their function in black women’s lives. Beyoncé speaks of…
Lenka Vodstrcil, Monash University and Catriona Bradshaw, University of Melbourne This article is part of our series examining hidden women’s conditions. Few have heard of bacterial vaginosis (BV) although it’s a relatively common condition. It affects at least 12% of Australian women, 30% of American women and up to 50% in parts of Africa. Symptoms…
Six years after its subject swept the board at the Grammys, winning five awards including record of the year and song of the year, Amy, the documentary about the life and death of Amy Winehouse, has won the singer another Grammy. Asif Kapadia won a Grammy award for best music film for Amy in Los…
When a group of computer science students decided to study the way that gender bias plays out in software development communities, they assumed that coders would be prejudiced against code written by women. After all, women make up a very small percentage of software developers – 11.2% according to one 2013 survey – and the…
Can you imagine how the world would act if it was mostly men and not women who got their periods once a month? Yeah, imagine it. If every guy of reproductive age out there had a monthly visit from Aunt Flo (or Uncle Flo, as the case may be), how would it change the way…
It is the year of our Beyoncé 2016, and I am a 33-year-old lesbian. I started realising that boys did not excite me like they did my friends when I was about 11 years old, and I have now been completely comfortable saying the words “I am a lesbian” for 10 years. I don’t know…
I waited. Stuck behind a dark-haired greyed-out woman limply attired. We queued. And then I was at the glass. A £50 ticket secured my seat on the Glasgow-London night train. Last seat – not a reclining one – but I felt the god of travellers smile on me. The atmosphere was jolly. Friday night return…
It was bound to happen. A pop-up shop for a debate on egg-freezing, designed to respond to “growing public interest” in “social” egg-freezing – ie the freezing of a woman’s eggs before there is any medical reason to do so, and before she has any plans to start a family. “Social egg-freezing is a relatively…
With references to the Black Lives Matter movement, Malcolm X and the Black Panthers, Beyoncé’s half-time show at the Super Bowl on Sunday might be the most radical political statement from the superstar in her 20-year career. Backing dancers wearing Black Panther-style berets and clad in black leather were photographed after the performance posing with…
Dear Bear, I’ve been with my partner for five years, and I want to spend many more together. We both hate capitalism. He grew up extremely poor and I grew up wealthy. I’m all about redistribution of wealth in all aspects of my life, and my relationship with him is no exception. He has worked…
Toni Morrison wants everyone to know that she hates the title of her newest novel, God Help the Child. The original title, Morrison said last week at Congregation Beth Elohim in New York, was The Wrath of Children, and in her opinion it was wonderful. It provided more clarity about a key theme of the…
There’s a game my friends and I played as children: we would page through magazines and pick the things we desired and the people we wanted to be. The trick was to be fast, so that you would be the first to pick the most beautiful people, clothes, car and house. We would flick through…
Weaved up? Check. Larney accent? Check. Yellow bone? Check. Manicured nails? Check. Make-up contoured to the nines and designer duds for days? Check. Congratulations. You’re well on your way to fitting society’s baseline expectations of what it takes to be regarded as an attractive black woman. And it doesn’t end there. So what happens, pray…
Global health officials have said that the Zika virus, which has been linked to severe birth defects in thousands of babies in Brazil, is rapidly spreading in the Americas and could infect up to 4 million people. The race is on to develop a Zika vaccine. Here are some questions and answers about the virus and…