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Culture

Five life-upending quotes about capitalism to take into 2021

  • Jan 26, 2021

Think

The new nature of world issues

  • Jan 23, 2021

Girl Power

An ode to the wonderful women of Christmas

  • Dec 22, 2020

No Filter

It’s time to disassociate food and guilt

  • Jan 18, 2021

Culture.

Let yourself feel the magic of Christmas

I know, I know. Christmas is a capitalist scam that creates tonnes and tonnes of landfill every year. Everything about it highlights the gaping...

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Think

Five (good) lessons from (horrible) 2020

1. A quiet life is a good life. I may be casually disregarding the immense stress I was under at the time, but a part of me looks back at the...

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No Filter

2020 is the year to redefine the Kiwi Kirihimete

There is nothing inherently wrong with the giving of gifts as part of celebrating the Christmas season. For some it’s tradition, for others it’s...

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Girl Power

I will not be ashamed of loving Love Actually

"Don't sigh, don't cry!" Emma Thompson on THAT Love Actually scene / YouTube

It’s not particularly feminist, it’s not even particularly romantic,...

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Think

The Kiwi who wrote the book on calm

Journey To Wellness / Image via Instagram

Journey To Wellness may be one of the cutest Instagram accounts in the world. Filled entirely with...

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Culture

Time to reflect: A Year in Aotearoa

Exhibition / Markus Spiske / Pexels

A bit cliche, but only because it never retires, is that saying ‘a picture says a thousand words’.

It...

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Culture

Why do we love Diana so much?

Behind The Scenes: Creating The Crown Season 4 | Netflix / YouTube

Since finishing Netflix’s latest season of The Crown, I’ve slept, cooked meals...

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Girl Power

On ‘Wild Honey’ by Paula Green and the Women Poets of Aotearoa

I don’t know how I missed the publication of Paula Green’s book Wild Honey . Particularly given that the magnificent cover of this charming and...

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No Filter

Why don't we like it when women sing about sex?...

We all know I’m talking about WAP.

In a year full of juicy news, Cardi B’s raunchy single managed to hold its own against other storylines...

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Girl Power

The best books written by women I’ve read this year

At the start of 2020, I set myself one resolution: to read one book a week for the entire year. 52 books. The idea was that if I read more books,...

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Think

The world is better when women are allowed to be horny

Ariana Grande / Positions / YouTube

Ariana Grande’s new full-length LP, Positions , is something of a mixed bag. The songs are good, some are even...

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Culture

Book Review: ‘The Topeka School’ by Ben Lerner

In Ben Lerner’s coming-of-age novel The Topeka School, alternating narrators weave a complex tapestry of teenager Adam Gordan’s journey as he...

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No Filter

White women: how did we get even worse?

One of the most significant disappointments of the 2016 US Presidential Election, aside from the fact that Donald Trump won, was just how many...

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Girl Power

Are we finally over the Kardashians?

Kim Kardashian West / Image via Twitter

There was no blueprint for Kim Kardashian’s genre of fame – aside from the obvious. A slew of socialites,...

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Think

Data feminism: confronting systemic biases

The pursuit of science is one of the most noble there is.

That is coming from a woman studying Physics, from someone who loves being...

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No Filter

Now it’s time to do the work

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris / Image via Twitter

I’ll never forget the day Barack Obama won the 2008 U.S. Presidential election. I was in high...

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Culture

Is it possible to disengage from the news?

It feels like bad stuff is happening all the time at the moment. Part of that is because it is, I mean, 2020, right? The global pandemic, hellish...

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Girl Power

Give your favourite movies the Bechdel test

Cinema sign / Clem Onojeghuo / Pexels

What makes a feminist film?

Representation in film and the media has been increasingly topical, with...

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Think

Whakataukī: a door into aroha and the cognitive universe of te reo

For some, it may be a little too early for talk of Kirihemete. But every year, there is a book that I love so much that I want to buy a hundred...

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Culture

The pop girls are saving 2020

Miley Ray Cyrus / via Twitter

Okay, nothing is going to save this year – too much tragedy has struck for 2020 to ever be redeemed. Be it wildfires...

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Culture

I don’t know how to explain Lovecraft Country

Screenshot: Lovecraft Country / Season 1 Episode 4 Promo / YouTube

When I first started Lovecraft Country , the latest must-see TV show plastered...

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No Filter

The husband stitch: worse than a myth

Woman in bed / Ketut Subiyanto / Pexels

When it comes to researching the husband stitch — a.k.a. daddy stitch, daddy tuck, husband knot and all...

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Girl Power

Legalising cannabis would keep girls safe

I was thirteen the first time I smoked weed.

There’s a funny little anecdote I like to tell about this experience. My boyfriend at the...

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Girl Power

In celebration of Nobel Laureates Charpentier and Doudna, and of their discovery of genetic scissors

This year, for the first time in history, a science Nobel Prize was won by two women. Scientists Emmanuelle Marie Charpentier and Jennifer A....

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Think

Does Chlöe represent a new political era?

Swarbrick campaigns in Auckland Central / Facebook

A week ago today, the nation watched as a giant red wave swept the country. It was stunning and...

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No Filter

The abuse facing girls who game

Games arcade / Carl Raw / Unsplash

In many parts of society, feminism has made impressive changes for the better.

Other parts of society...

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Think

Schadenfreude: not just harmful to the tall poppy

Following the news about President Trump contracting CoVID-19, an outbreak of a different kind took hold of our digital sphere. Schadenfreude -...

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Culture

Better Things is the best show you’ve never seen

Screenshot: Better Things Season 3 Trailer / YouTube

Honestly, I get kind of sick of watching TV shows that don’t look or sound anything like real...

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No Filter

She's no one's 'dear' - stop patronising the PM...

Prime Minister Ardern speaking at Otago University / Facebook

If someone as accomplished and resilient as Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern can be...

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Think

You can love a person of colour and still be a racist

Girls holding hands / Anna Shvets / Pexels

Have you ever heard something so absurd that you can only blink?

“I understand actually. My...

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Culture

Book review: ‘The Lying Life of Adults’ by Elena Ferrante

As a rule, all coming-of-age stories include the protagonist’s realisation that the world of adults is founded on lies of many shapes and sizes....

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No Filter

Grappling with climate anxiety

Reminders of the dire state of our climate are seemingly everywhere.

“We’re all gonna die” my friends often say to me, casually, over a...

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Girl Power

Sorry, but we need to stop stanning politicians

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, U.S. Supreme Court justice / Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States, Photographer: Steve Petteway / Wikimedia...
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Culture

In memory of Ruth Bader Ginsburg

In the days since her passing, long serving liberal justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has been described as a: champion; defender; feminist icon;...

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No Filter

I would love to quit social media

I can go a long time without checking my social media. I can go ages.

At least, that is what my brain thinks.

And, when I do hop...

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Girl Power

Why you should listen to Leah Remini’s podcast, “Fair Game”

Everything I know about Scientology, I learnt from Leah Remini, an actress who was raised in Scientology from the age of nine, but ended up...

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Think

Facing the facts: what leading academics, clinicians, and science communicators are saying about...

This month, a patient sincerely asked me if I thought it was bad to catch coronavirus. With the world so many months into a global pandemic, that...

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Culture

We caught up with the girl from Revolution Road

Ainsley Duyvestyn / Image Supplied

Before her serene, defiant (illustrated) face could be found in bookstores across the nation, the girl from...

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No Filter

We need more billionaires like MacKenzie Scott

I’m of the personal opinion that the world shouldn’t have any billionaires.

It might sound radical, but to me, the more radical belief is...

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Girl Power

I'm sick of feminism being used to sell things...

You know those tampon ads that tell you girls can do anything? The make-up ads that talk about the importance of realising your self-worth? The...

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Think

Our relationship with food is (still, mostly) unhealthy

I remember once when I was in high school, sometime during the dirty late-2000s, the teachers gathered my peers and I for one of those annual “...

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Culture

Book Review: ‘More Than a Woman’ by Caitlin Moran

“I know that unless you are spirited and beautiful heiress, life is essentially a to-do list. Which begins with ‘escape this vagina’ and ends with...

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No Filter

South Auckland bears the burden of Covid-19 in NZ

Bird's eye view of houses / Jeswin Thomas / Pexels

Living through Covid-19 has presented tough challenges for everyone in NZ.

Many elderly...

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Girl Power

On the pure joy of being a Stan

Best of VMA Acceptance Speeches ft. Lady Gaga, BTS, Doja Cat & More | 2020 MTV VMAs | YouTube

When Lady Gaga’s sixth studio album ( Chromatica...

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Think

The voting age should be lowered to 16

Every election cycle, we hear the same tired lamentation from politicians, media pundits and various aunts and uncles: “young people don’t show up...

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Culture

VÏKÆ's debut EP has been a lifetime in the making...

Two years in writing, a lifetime in the making.

Ukraine-born and Auckland-raised, Veronika Bell — known onstage as VÏKÆ — has distilled...

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No Filter

Stop giving outrage parties free publicity

A few weeks ago, I wrote about coming across a political hoarding that read: NO GENDER IDEOLOGY. I wrote at the time : “It took me a while to even...

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Think

Just ten things to say in response to a bigot

We’ve all been there. Your lungs quit working for half a second, your eyebrows shoot up your forehead. When you live in a greenie, social justice-...

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Culture

Book Review: ‘Women and Leadership: Real Lives, Real Lessons’ by Julia Gillard and Ngozi Okonjo-...

In chapter 11 of Julia Gillard and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala’s extraordinary book ‘Women and Leadership: Real Lives, Real Lessons’ , the authors share...

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Girl Power

Pop music isn’t bad just because girls like it

As a long-time fan of Taylor Swift, seeing her new album “folklore” receive such amazing reviews has been equal parts gratifying and frustrating...

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No Filter

The harmful myth of the model minority

Group of women / Anna Shvets / Pexels

On principle, I haven’t watched the bodycam footage of George Floyd’s murder.

Though after reading...

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Think

Managing money in a pandemic: personal finance in the time of CoVID-19

As the CoVID-19 unfolded across the world, media headlines featured some pretty bleak verbs with regards to world economies ( plunge , free-fall...

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Culture

Drag is not “inappropriate” for children

It’s funny how things go: when a Timaru woman launched a petition in an attempt to stop a drag duo from reading to children at the public library...

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No Filter

Yeah, we did need a reminder to be kind

When Jacinda Ardern told us to be kind following the new community transmission of Covid-19, she was accused of being “patronising”. In my opinion...

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Girl Power

Local sex survey reveals much to be desired

If you’re a person who engages in sexual activities, or you know a person who does, or you’re a member of the Facebook group Girl Related After...

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Think

The misogyny in our response to “mental breakdowns”

Screenshot: Kanye West, "kanye west / charlamagne interview" / YouTube

In 2007, when Britney Spears suffered a “mental breakdown,” tabloids...

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Culture

E^ST on new music and new chapters

In her first studio album, Mel Bester, known onstage as E^ST, has laid a piece of herself bare.

Recorded with producer Jim Eliot (who has...

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No Filter

What’s between Us and Better: Racism in Aotearoa’s healthcare system

I’m finally on annual leave after a rather intense six weeks of my first general surgical rotation as a junior doctor. “How are you going to spend...

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Girl Power

Women's lives don't just end at 25...

As a nineties kid, I’m watching thirty barrel around the corner with increasing fear. I’d never really been all that afraid of aging. I hung out...

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Think

Should we be supporting cancel culture?

Phone in hand / Pixabay

The rise of cancel culture: quarantine orders around the world definitely had something to do with it.

With people...

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Culture

Lianne La Havas has found ownership of her expression

Screenshot: Lianne La Havas / Can't Fight (Official Music Video / YouTube

British singer-songwriter Lianne La Havas has just released her third...

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