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...
Sexism is real. I hate to be the one to break it to you. It sucks and I wish it didn’t exist. But it’s here, in the world around us. There have...
Whenever we, as a society, discuss allegations about sexual assault, a story about false rape complaints is told. And that story is distorting the...
The Prime Minister is on maternity leave, there’s a female majority on the Supreme Court,...
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...
Elon Musk’s Twitter account is getting pretty weird. He’s turned on the media , auto workers, and now is even criticising science (you know, that...
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...
I have mixed feelings about school uniforms. Sure, my high school was neat and identifiable because we all wore the same thing. But is appearance...
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...
The music video for Helen Corry’s new song La Femme drops today, and we’re stoked to premiere it here on Villainesse. It’s the kind of video you...
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...
I can remember sitting in health class, learning about wet dreams. At the time I probably thought ‘This is gross, TMI’. Now, I appreciate the fact...
The first time gets a lot of sensationalised press. The mixture of expectation and anxiety make it an experience like no other. Whatever happens,...
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...
I regret taking the pill. Not because I’m against contraception, or I didn’t like taking medication daily, but because my enjoyment of life was...
Some movies give you chills for a good reason, like brilliant cinematography or acting....
Right now, somewhere in a high rise building, a discussion is taking place. “How can we sell this product to women?” There are no women around...
I’m used to being told to “stop with the feminist shit”. If I had a dollar for every time I’d heard that...
First published on Wednesday the 20th of September, 2017, this piece...
