The first time I had my armpits waxed, I was eleven-years-old. I hadn’t even started intermediate school. As an active kid, I loved the water and...
Sometimes, when the world seems a bit much, a feminist read is the perfect remedy. I did not expect Jane Eyre to provide that empowering read; it...
New Zealand is not the easiest place to be sober. But we are increasingly questioning our attitudes towards alcohol. The 2019 Global Drug Survey...
Yes, that’s right. Please stop. You’re making women feel uncomfortable about a body part that is no different from any other. Women with boobs...
“All I’m hoping for is that it starts big conversations,” Joni Nelson tells me about her first play, 8 Reasonable Demands . The young playwright...
We need to talk about our attitude towards food. The body positivity movement has made impressive changes to the way we think about our bodies –...
Every year, a report about New Zealand fashion manufacturers and suppliers is released. The brands are assigned a grade based on the ethical...
I love true crime documentaries. Netflix has fuelled that obsession. Once I’d watched Making A Murderer , it suggested The Keepers . The...
Jack Kerouac went to Mexico and slept with lots of women. Yawn. He road tripped across the country; he did...
Social media is messing with young women. I’m not saying that as a baby boomer who thinks technology is evil. I’m saying that as a young woman...
Find me a TV show that shows teenage girls in all their raucous yet insecure high-school glory. Go on, ya...
I don’t think about my birth certificate much. It’s a struggle when I have to drag it out...
Free education for everyone between the ages of five and nineteen. That’s the promise that the Ministry of Education makes to New Zealanders. But...
First published on Monday the 16th of April, 2018, this piece comes in at number 6 in the top 30 most read Villainesse stories of 2018.
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First published on Monday the 5th of February, 2018, this piece comes in at number 13 in the top 30 most read Villainesse stories of 2018....
First published on Sunday the 25th of March, 2018, this piece comes in at number 14 in the top 30 most read Villainesse stories of 2018.
First published on Thursday the 7th of June, 2018, this piece comes in at number 15 in the top 30 most read Villainesse stories of 2018.
First published on Thursday the 29th of March, 2018, this piece comes in at number 17 in the top 30 most read Villainesse stories of 2018....
First published on Saturday the 12th of May, 2018, this piece comes in at number 21 in the top 30 most read Villainesse stories of 2018.
First published on Friday the 10th of August, 2018, this piece comes in at number 23 in the top 30 most read Villainesse stories of 2018....
First published on Wednesday the 25th of July, 2018, this piece comes in at number 26 in...
First published on Saturday the 4th of August, 2018, this piece comes in at number 27 in the top 30 most read Villainesse stories of 2018....
I am angry. I am not only angry about the senseless deaths of women at the hands of men. I am angry about the bigger picture. I am angry that some...
Christmas + Netflix = trashy, feel-good, rom coms. The online streaming service has taken to releasing a few original Christmas movies each year...
New Zealand is not great in terms of mental health or support for those with mental illness. That’s putting it lightly. OECD statistics shows how...
The holiday season is upon us, and with it comes the weirdest social event of the year: the work Christmas function. No matter how nice the people...
Rugby, beer, and “she’ll be right”. It’s not hard to define masculinity in New Zealand. A total stranger to our country, after watching about ten...
A girls’ night is not complete without the perfect movie. There’s nothing quite like a glass of wine...
The midterms were an exciting sign of change for America. Representation for women and...
In case you missed it, New Zealand’s abortion laws are outdated. And finally, we might be...
Short answer: yes.
I’m not a ‘climate change denier’. I believe the science. I believe that climate change is an urgent problem that needs...
Milkman is compelling. It’s the kind of book that rarely makes even the longlist for the Man Booker prize: a page turner. I didn’t expect the...
As a society, we’re bad at coping with sexual harassment. Helping survivors and holding perpetrators to account is not our strong suit. If that...
Imagine cramps so bad that you can’t get out of bed. Every month. Followed by people dismissing the...
The Kavanaugh hearings and the #MeToo movement have revealed one depressing fact about the world: that no matter how terrible the abuse suffered,...
By 2020, New Zealand’s refugee quota will rise by 500, to a total of 1500 refugees per year. That’s progress, but it’s nowhere near enough....
I want to get one thing out of the way right up front. I’m not saying you can’t have or share an opinion. Everyone can freely express their...
Sightings is an exciting play; it’s not every day that an all-female cast takes to the stage to disrupt theatre conventions with powerful,...
In the olden days of 2012, ask.fm and anonymous questions on Tumblr were the main platform for online harassment. People could send hurtful...
For me, menstrual cups are a godsend. To some people, they’re an uncomfortable, one-time experiment that will never work for them. With most...
We need to talk about free speech. More specifically, who it protects and who it doesn’t. Human rights are a good thing, and free speech is...
Feminism is a broad concept, right? Recent efforts to make feminism mainstream (which have been relatively successful) have expanded the...
The Kiwi OE is a fantasy that I was brought up to believe in. In my pākehā, upper-middle-class world, your 20s are not complete without wandering...
The way some people talk about reality TV, you’d think it was a symptom of everything wrong with modern society. People who watch it are...
How is this happening? Do I even want to do this anymore? As a female law student, revelations of sexual assault in legal workplaces throughout...
Put down your phone. Stop focusing on the tasks you have to do. Think about why you’re here. Breathe.
It sounds simple. But… I’m really...
It seems like New Zealand is falling behind. Irish citizens have spoken and they want abortion...
Last week, University of Otago staff dumped an estimated 2000 copies of Critic , a student-run magazine, in skips around campus. Why? The cover...
“Today was so unproductive. I got nothing done.” I often find myself measuring my days in terms of how productive I’ve been. In other words: if I...
Blood, women’s suffering, and endless parallels with current events. I frequently ask myself why I’m...
Sometimes I love New Zealand’s ‘she’ll be right’ attitude. Not stressing over the details is great for things like playing sports or planning a...
“What are you going to do with that?” When I tell people that I study English at university, that’s the response I get. If I mention that Law is...
Hollywood gets a lot wrong when it comes to women. It’s disappointing yet unsurprising that largely male production teams have no idea how women...
New Zealand has a party culture. Whether you like that culture or not, it undeniably exists. Binge drinking is a rite of passage and for a lot of...
Let’s face it, New Zealand’s sex ed is generally pretty terrible when it comes to gender and sexuality. I don’t think the word ‘lesbian’ was...
Runaway is a Dunedin-based games company. In the lead-up to International Women’s Day, they started a Girls Behind the Games campaign to encourage...
In my experience, the first few trips to get contraception and protection from Family Planning or the doctor require a whole team of girls....
A lot of industries are dominated by men. It’s an unfortunate, retrograde fact, but it’s true. Workplaces were built for men, by men, and not a...
If you based your knowledge of sexual consent on popular movies, books, and songs, you would probably be a rapist. So why is Western pop culture...
Books are one of my reasons to get out of bed each morning. It’s a cliché, but reading opens up new worlds. However, a lot of the time , those...
