[ad_1]
There are new rules to ambition.
[ad_2]
Tag: empowerment
-
How To ‘CAP’ Off Your Day For Peak Health & Performance
[ad_1]
Even better, a positive evening ritual not only improves your mood, it helps reduce mental clutter. “Most of us spend our days in what I call ‘middle gear,’” Foster explains. “We’re constantly multitasking, switching between tabs, emails, and to-dos. By evening, our cognitive bandwidth is shot.”
[ad_2]
-
An ode to the mums of Stranger Things
[ad_1]
Stranger Things is a show about ordinary people doing extraordinary things. Aside from Eleven, the heroes of the show are a ragtag troop of tweens, teens and parents from the Midwest fighting off supernatural monsters. Amongst them are the mums, who, in my humble opinion, really deserve a special shout-out. Because not only are they taking on 9-foot-tall demogorgons, they’re also fighting battles on other fronts, too: they’re juggling hormonal teens, useless husbands (or ex-husbands) and a heavy dose of good old-fashioned 1980s small town America misogyny.
Courtesy of Netflix
Joyce Byers (Winona Ryder) is the most obvious example of a badass mum. Mother to Will and Jonathan, her life is already hard enough before the Upside Down starts leaking into Hawkins. She’s a single mum working long hours at a local store to provide for her sons. The boys’ father is decidedly useless – especially when Will goes missing and his only interest is the potential payout. Joyce becomes convinced that Will is speaking to her through the lights in their home and begins raging around her quaint little town demanding answers and help. She is, of course, dismissed as the slightly nutty single mum who failed. It’s a stereotype that the people of Hawkins are all too ready and willing to embrace.
Courtesy of Netflix
Watching Joyce fight not only the supernatural forces threatening her family, but also the ignorance and judgement of her humdrum neighbours makes you want to throw a fist in the air and cheer her on. In season 1, she doggedly sets up Christmas lights and finds her son. Throughout the rest of the show, she’s continued to bring this steadfast, bulldog energy. She’s tiny, clumsy, and looks wholly unprepared for any battle. But, of course, as a mum, she throws herself in front of her boys without a second thought.
Karen Wheeler (Cara Buono) is, in many ways, Joyce’s foil. The mother of Nancy, Mike and Holly, Karen is, in many ways, a stereotypical suburban housewife, complete with lazy, clued out husband, a million plates to juggle and a bit of an afternoon wine problem. She spends her blissful free time, of which there is not that much, soaking in a bubble bath with a dirty book or ogling the hot teen lifeguard at the local pool.
[ad_2]
Meg Walters
Source link -
The incel I loved, the Britain he hated
[ad_1]
The man I loved didn’t fit the stereotype of an incel. He wasn’t some bitter, jobless guy raging on Reddit from his parents’ spare room. He was smart, sociable, gainfully employed — neat suit, good salary, praised by his boss. On paper, he looked like the kind of man any woman might be proud to date. But behind his polite smile was a festering resentment.
Even though he’d had relationships, he was still an incel — because his resentment never left. He wasn’t unwanted; he was just angry that the women he wanted didn’t want him back. As a younger man, he’d struggled on the dating market, only finding confidence once he had money and status. Every rejection hardened into a belief that women were shallow or “corrupted by feminism.” To him, dating wasn’t mutual — it was a hierarchy he thought he deserved to win. When things didn’t go his way, he blamed women collectively. That’s the real incel mindset: not celibacy, but entitlement.
I grew up in London — Asian, neurodiverse, the daughter of two academics. He was my opposite: white, working-class, raised in a northern village where almost everyone looked the same. His dad was a policeman, his mum a dental nurse. Their home was full of Union Jacks, their politics firmly pro-Brexit, their social feeds littered with far-right talking points and sympathy for Tommy Robinson. That was his normal.
To most people, he was the picture of “lad culture”: football, pubs, cheap flights, cage-fighting clips with his mates. But beneath the laughter was anger. He admired Trump, Farage, and Andrew Tate. He distrusted refugees. He mocked diversity initiatives. He once told me he wanted to study history through the Open University — then spent hours talking about the Third Reich as if it were a masterclass in order, not a warning of horror. His intelligence made his obsession feel deliberate, and chilling.
At work, though, he played a different role. He was confident, helpful, always volunteering to “rescue” me. His boss adored him. His colleagues saw him as dependable. And I, exhausted from masking my autism in a corporate world built for neurotypicals, let him. Gratitude became my survival tool — thank you for the help, thank you for the advice — while he quietly took control. It wasn’t kindness; it was power dressed as protection.
He’d tried similar tactics with other women in the team, but they brushed him off. I didn’t. I was the only non-white person in my cohort, already under scrutiny, and his “help” gave me breathing room. What looked like support became dependence — and dependence became control.
Outside work, he was worse. His friends were openly anti-immigrant, casually sharing memes about “remigration.” His family mirrored those views: Brexit flags, jokes about “wokeness,” complaints that Britain had “gone soft.” He wasn’t an outlier; he was part of an ecosystem where grievance passed as common sense.
That contradiction never stopped haunting me. Here was a man with every social advantage — white, male, employed, respected — and yet he saw himself as a victim. He’d built a story where he was the one betrayed by progress, by feminism, by diversity. His father’s temper, his parents’ messy split during COVID — all of it fed his sense of grievance and decline.
My feelings changed in stages: first confusion, then fear, then pity. Pity that his intelligence had been wasted on resentment. Pity that his masculinity had shrunk into dominance. Pity that he couldn’t imagine a Britain where he wasn’t on top. But pity doesn’t neutralise danger. His politics bled into everything — how he treated women, how he talked about race, how he saw the world.
[ad_2]
AtypAlly
Source link -
Why I went halves on my engagement ring
[ad_1]
Last weekend, my partner and I got engaged. (Eek! Yay! Champagne bottle emoji!) Getting engaged is something we’ve been talking about doing for a while — yes, I knew it was coming. And I’m glad I did, because it meant I could book a manicure and plan my ‘fit. It also meant I could help choose the ring. We settled on a truly stunning (IMO) vintage emerald and diamond ring from Rock N’ Rose. And when it came to making the purchase, it seemed only natural that we would split the bill.
When I tell people that my partner and I decided to go halves on my engagement ring, it tends to elicit a wide range of responses: a raised, suspicious eyebrow. An “Oh, that’s… interesting.” Maybe even a thinly veiled look of pity.
Courtesy of Meg Walters
Courtesy of Meg Walters
It’s not that I expect absolutely everyone to go halvsies. Obviously, many women may not want to – and that’s fine! But I’m always a little surprised by these reactions. I had assumed that splitting the cost of the ring was something a lot of us modern women might be doing. It felt fair, feminist; a symbol of our partnership rather than a reminder of some kind of outdated gendered imbalance.
After all, things have moved on quite a lot when it comes to equality in male-female romantic relationships. For one thing, it has become the norm for both men and women to work. Research from ClearScore suggests that most couples are making an effort to contribute equally when it comes to finances: 40% of couples split their bills proportionately to income, while 51% split everything 50/50. Admittedly, there is still a long way to go when it comes to the division of labour, with women reportedly doing 36 hours of household tasks per week, while men do an average of 25. Nevertheless, this is an improvement on the zero hours that (many) men were doing 50 years ago.
However, despite this general push to make heterosexual coupledom more equal, surprisingly few couples make the same decision to go halves when it comes to the engagement ring. According to a 2023 study, 94% of partners who did the proposing paid for the engagement ring in full, and only 2% of couples reportedly decided to split the cost of the ring.
Then again, the more I think about it, these stats kind of check out. My algorithm (which has cottoned on to the fact that I’m getting engaged) is filled with a surprising number of young women who seem to believe pretty fervently that the ring should be something that the man and only the man pays for. And, even more strange, the general line of thinking seems to be: the bigger the ring he can buy, the better the man.
Just take the bizarre reaction to Belly’s engagement ring in The Summer I Turned Pretty. Videos went viral on TikTok, with fans of the show joking about its teeny-tiny size. “Jeremiah had to find the cheapest one,” one TikTok comment read. “And she was soooo proud of it too. Girl…cmon,” another read. Most people assumed that it was Jeremiah’s job to provide the ring — and most judged him for not being able to afford a bigger one. There was a similar outcry after Celine Song’s Materialists, which (spoiler) ends with Chris Evans proposing with a daisy ring. It’s meant to be a romantic gesture, but, instead, many women seemed to find it insulting. “The Materialists was a broke man’s fantasy. the flower ring???? at 37?????” one woman wrote on top of a TikTok video.
[ad_2]
Meg Walters
Source link -
Happiness Is Fleeting — How To Focus On Satisfaction Instead
[ad_1]
I cannot overstate the importance of giving your brain a reward for doing the tough work of successfully enacting the other five Sustainable Life Satisfaction techniques. If you don’t, it is natural to think, This is hard stuff—why should I keep doing it? But as you reward yourself, you will start to develop, and ultimately retain, all five qualities.
[ad_2]
-
These girls-only drinking societies are like IRL dark academia – but at what cost?
[ad_1]
When I started at university in Cambridge, there was a whole new language to learn, along with making new friends, attending tutorials, and figuring out where things were in a new city. There were DOSs (director of studies), quads (short for quadrangle, a kind of internal courtyard), pigeonholes (where students’ mail is left for them) and something called swaps.
A few weeks into term, about twelve other first-year girls and I received invites in our pidges to a swap with the boys’ drinking society at our college. It turned out that a swap (also called a ‘crew date’ at Oxford University) was a dinner that usually happens between drinking societies or with their invitees. I’d heard rumours of drinking societies before I went to Cambridge – they sometimes attract the attention of the national press after all – but I hadn’t realised that pretty much every college has them, many of them very old, complete with traditions and sometimes even a specific uniform like a tie.
If I’m honest with myself, it felt exciting and a little bit special to be invited. Only a select bunch of fresher girls were chosen, looking back mostly white, thin, privately educated girls, and we got ready together, going past the Porter’s Lodge in small groups to avoid suspicion. It was only at the swap itself that I began to feel uneasy.
We went to the dingy basement of a restaurant that I would later find out was infamous for hosting swaps – a few restaurants in Oxford and Cambridge were rumoured to make good money off drinking societies, tolerating raucous, sometimes downright anti-social behaviour that other establishments wouldn’t. It was too loud to hear anyone speak, and the boys were more focused on drinking games and chants of ‘chug!’. I mostly talked to the other girls, anyway – I couldn’t help but think we’d be better off hanging out in one of our rooms.
I went on a couple more swaps with boys from other colleges, but I never felt totally comfortable, and sometimes I was scared. One time, another fresher called me uptight because I was sitting with my arms crossed. I’d later go on to find out years later that he’d been convicted of sexually assaulting another student. More run-of-the-mill was just a general embarrassment at the entitled behaviour I saw and the gross boasting of the boys (including the claim from a pair of drinking society presidents that they’d recreated David Cameron’s rumoured performing of a sex act on a dead pig’s head – something the former PM strongly denies).
So when I was invited to the equivalent girls’ drinking society at my college, it initially seemed like a welcome alternative. Perhaps even an antidote to the toxic masculinity associated with men’s drinking societies and their traditions, like Caesarean Sunday (named after Jesus College’s men’s drinking society), where students get drunk and fight on Jesus Green.
When there’s a huge problem with sexual assault and harassment on British campuses, a group of young women supporting each other and not adhering to sexist ideas of how young women should behave is understandably appealing. As Cora, a former drinking society member who is now in her late twenties, says, “There’s something subversive and intoxicating about women behaving badly. It’s attractive; the idea of finding a sense of community and belonging.”
Most of the members of the girls’ drinking society lived in one big house in the college grounds, where they hosted our initiations. Although a lot less extreme than the boys’ initiations, where they supposedly had to have a ‘designated driver’ to look after them because they were expected to throw up from alcohol, I still didn’t like them. One of the two presidents tried to get me to do a shot of tequila with an insect in it. I said no because I’m a vegetarian, but she made it clear she found that lame.
I stayed as part of the drinking society for most of the rest of my time at uni, but I began to feel increasingly conflicted. I wanted to hang out with my friends, but as a bi woman, I began to find the whole setup overwhelmingly heterosexual. Cora, who realised she was queer after uni, says, “There were very strict gender norms and expectations based on gender.” On swaps, it is customary to sit boy/girl/boy/girl. Although the drinking society I was in was fairly casual and sometimes non-binary people came to our pre-drinks, it still felt like a very straight space with an implicit goal of same-sex hook-ups.
[ad_2]
Elspeth Wilson
Source link -
This is exactly how many plus size models walked during fashion month
[ad_1]
“We would love for you to attend our fashion month show.”
Me: “Are you providing dressing options?”
“Nothing in your size, sadly, but we do have these really fun earrings!”
In 2019, this was a common conversation I had with many London Fashion Week shows. It became rather tedious and honestly quite offensive.
For many years, as a plus-size woman, I’d been made to feel grateful to even be invited to these fashion month shows because, quite frankly, I didn’t have the acceptable ‘fashion-worthy body’ that’s so prevalent in the fashion industry – even though I had nearly a decade’s worth of high-end fashion editorials, billboards, beauty campaigns and articles under my name. My size was definitely still an issue. Plus-size models were definitely still an issue.
So, for the last three years I have been recording how many curve or plus-size models walk down the runway across the four main fashion weeks, and looking into whether any social trends or headlines have been able to alter and manipulate the numbers across the board dramatically. Let’s look at this past fashion month’s credentials…
NEW YORK FASHION WEEK
The rise of the Ozempic trend in the US is still hanging around, three years since its first popularity – and it was quite apparent that the impact of this trend alongside the return of archaic phrases such as ‘heroin chic’ and ‘skinny is back’ hugely altered the messaging at NYFW back in 2022. After a lot of backlash, they more than doubled their numbers for curve models to 70 models later in that year, but their numbers have been decreasing ever since – averaging at around 40 models each season in 2024. Last Feb we saw a 50% drop and now the later part of 2025 we are back to our low average.
Gone are the days when the US were leaders when it comes to size inclusivity on the runway, so it is a real shame to see the big apple plummet back the past few years. Again in 2025, there was also no male plus-size representation, which is highly disappointing from the city that used to be the forefront of inclusion.
With over 117 designers showing this season and an average of 40 looks per show, there were around 4680 looks on the runways.
46 of them were considered curve or plus.
The designer loyally flying the flag for representation season after season is Christian Siriano, who cast eight plus-size girls on his runway this season. Jade Ward had four curve models, Michael Kors, Kim Shui, Bach Mai, Christian Cowan all had three models each.
Launchmetrics.com/spotlight
[ad_2]
Felicity Hayward
Source link -
The Hampstead Heath ponds debate sets a dangerous precedent for trans rights
[ad_1]
A shocking but entirely unsurprising development has emerged in the ongoing rollback of transgender people’s rights in the UK.
The City of London Corporation (CLC) has launched a consultation on transgender swimmers’ access to Hampstead Heath swimming ponds, which could result in them being banned from using the ponds designated for their gender. It appears to have come as a response to Sex Matters, a group of anti-trans activists, threatening legal action on the basis that the service is not, in their view, applying to the recent Supreme Court ruling on gender. Currently, trans men and women are allowed to use the pond that aligns with their gender identity under existing policy. The consultation presents six possible models, some of which would restrict or remove trans-inclusive access.
In addition to preventing trans people from using the ponds in the way they are currently permitted, another degrading possibility laid out by the CLC is to allocate times during which the ponds will be trans-inclusive. I couldn’t help but find this approach – its perverse, half-acceptance of our presence – to be particularly distressing. I felt this way because I know policies such as this are designed to make blatant transphobia seem fair and reasonable.
Should the vote result in trans people being banned, it would clearly enforce and justify segregation – a policy that should concern anyone who wants to live in a society that does not dehumanise minorities, particularly by law. On my social media feed and in group chats, I have seen many other trans women, friends and allies share the consultation, pleading to keep the ponds trans-inclusive, and for us all to resist dehumanising practices. This is crucial: in a time of such hostility towards my community, it is more important than ever that we rally the troops to genuinely Protect The Dolls whenever we witness their rights being stripped back, and this consultation is a clear indication of precisely that. I also can’t help but feel complex about the method we are using in this instance to protect the trans community.
The consultation itself is dehumanising. Trans people are degraded the moment there is a vote or open debate about whether or not we deserve the same rights as other members of society. Any conversation that poses the possibility of excluding trans people from public spaces, even if both sides of the argument are heard, entrenches the idea that segregation is a respectable, fair and justified approach. The consultation does worse than suggest the potential of trans people’s legal separation, it normalises public displays of violence as a solution to cisgender peoples’ discomfort with our mere existence.
The consultation uses the mission of Sex Matters as a serious framework to develop a discussion about trans and women’s rights. Sex Matters claims that their goal is to protect women on the basis that “sex is real, binary, immutable and important”. Their crowdfunding to sue the CLC is a direct contradiction. In March 2024, over 200 members of the Kenwood Ladies Pond Association (KLPA) attended a meeting during which they rejected a motion proposing that their spaces were for cisgender women only. The report read: “A resolution to change the definition of ‘woman’ in our constitution, in a way which would have excluded transgender women, was resoundingly defeated.” This was a democratic vote that relied on the freedom of women to meaningfully share their perspectives.
Sex Matters didn’t like this. That the organisation responded by threatening legal action would be laughable if it weren’t such a depressing reflection of our culture’s confused, misogynist lens on trans people and our allies. As a group, they are the clearest example we have of how anti-trans policy requires the silencing of cisgender women and the homogenisation of their voices. What about the women who wish to exercise their right to sit side by side with trans women – with their trans friends, family, or partners? It is infantilising to tell them they cannot make the decision themselves. Enjoying a trans person’s presence should not be an illegal act, but by caving to the muddied logic of anti-trans activists, the CLC could make it so.
Some may be compelled to boycott the ponds for the vote on trans people’s exclusion. However, I think this would be a shame. Trans people deserve to experience the pleasure of swimming just as much as cisgender people, and I want this enjoyment to continue in our lives for as long as possible. This type of pleasure is a huge and important part of the trans experience. In water, our surgery scars are visible, our transformations are uncovered; it is often where we feel most free and finally comfortable in our skin. For centuries, the ponds in Hampstead have been sites of physical and social pleasure for everyone. It is deeply sad to consider how its legacy might change.
[ad_2]
Alexandra Diamond-Rivlin
Source link -
Zepeda: Building thriving workplaces through recognition, growth | Long Island Business News
[ad_1]
In Brief:
- Overwork culture (996 philosophy) destroys value; engagement creates it
- Recognition, authentic feedback and role clarity boost employee fulfillment
- Empowerment fosters innovation, accountability and problem-solving
- Companies that prioritize culture outperform those relying on fear and long hours
- Future-ready workplaces measure success in resilience, growth and shared purpose
In my last column, I discussed the lesson of 996 culture, an overwork philosophy that destroys value. Now, the next question is obvious: what actually creates it? The answer isn’t complicated, but it does require courage. Sustainable business success comes from workplaces where people feel valued, fulfilled and empowered.
When employees feel their contributions matter, engagement rises. Recognition —done consistently and authentically—has outsized impact. It reinforces purpose, reduces attrition, and strengthens alignment between individual effort and organizational goals. Treating people like replaceable parts leads to disengagement. Treating them like essential partners creates loyalty.
People don’t want to just get paid. They want growth, challenge and meaning in their work. Fulfillment doesn’t require grand gestures; it comes from clarity of role, opportunities to learn and visible pathways to progress. When employees believe their work connects to something bigger than a paycheck, they bring energy and creativity that no time clock can measure.
Micromanagement and fear extract effort. Empowerment multiplies it. Giving employees autonomy, trusting them with decisions, and equipping them with resources creates accountability and innovation. Empowered employees aren’t just compliant—they’re invested. They solve problems before they escalate and spot opportunities others miss.
Decades of organizational research show the same pattern: Workplaces that invest in recognition, growth and empowerment outperform those that rely on pressure and long hours. They adapt faster to change, recruit more effectively and retain their best people longer. In today’s economy, talent isn’t just a line item— it’s the competitive edge.
Executives face a choice: Chase the illusion of productivity through overwork, or build durable systems where people thrive. The companies that win the next decade won’t be the ones squeezing extra hours. They’ll be the ones creating cultures of clarity, trust and shared purpose—where success is measured not just in revenue, but in resilience.
The future of work is not about grinding harder. It’s about working smarter, leading better, and building organizations where people can excel without sacrificing their health or humanity.
Want managers who maximize effectiveness with clarity, not fear? Let’s talk!
Jaime Raul Zepeda is EVP, principal consultant for Best Companies Group and COLOR Magazine, part of BridgeTower Media.
Wondering whether your organization is on the right path to win? Talk to us at Best Companies Group so we can analyze your organization’s health, your team dynamics, and your leadership’s effectiveness. We’ve helped over 10,000 companies understand and improve their workplace using data-driven strategies. Send me a note at [email protected].
[ad_2]
Opinion
Source link -
Dr. Fit And Fabulous’s Guide To Protein, Creatine, & Recovery
[ad_1]
Balancing her roles as a busy doctor and mother, Seeman keeps her workouts efficient, typically lasting 45-60 minutes. Currently training for a bodybuilding competition, she focuses on strength training complemented by high-intensity interval training (HIIT) and active recovery. Her morning routine involves an early morning workout, followed by a nutrient-packed breakfast of protein, healthy fats, and a portion of carbs to fuel recovery and muscle growth.
[ad_2]
-
Only the privileged get to ‘put politics aside’. For some, simply existing is political
[ad_1]
There’s an iconic moment in British TV history, when Chris and Stephen from Gogglebox are watching the espionage thriller Homeland. Chris casually remarks, ‘We all like a bad boy, don’t we?’, to which Stephen replies, ‘Yeah, but not a terrorist, Chris.’
This is how it feels discussing the legacy of 31-year-old Charlie Kirk, the right-wing US commentator and Trump ally who was shot dead at a rally in Utah on Wednesday afternoon. Though we are all united in the belief that what happened to him was horrific, we are at odds on how we decide to remember him.
I’ve been told many times that Kirk’s politics were just different from mine. That he had an alternative opinion, and that should not sully his legacy or interrupt this period of mourning. However, how can I not when he so proudly despised people who looked like me? A difference in opinion is: ‘Love is Blind is better than Love Island’, not ‘Black women do not have the brain processing power to be taken seriously.’ It feels like overnight, the word opinion has adopted an entirely new meaning that now includes hate speech.
The past 24 hours have felt like an unravelling. My feed is filled with people I once saw as allies, who are now posting compassionately about someone who truly hated people like me. What is going on? Christians are referring to him as a Martyr, and others are understandably devastated for his family. The thread linking every mournful post about Kirk is the insistence that we put politics aside and remember he was just a ‘human.’ I can’t argue with Kirk being a human, but I have to acknowledge that so were the people he directed hate and vitriol towards. In mourning this man, why have we suddenly lost the ability to extend the same sympathy to others?
When Charlie Kirk said, “It’s worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment,” weren’t all those who died from gun deaths human too? When he mis-quoted scripture calling for gay people to be stoned to death, “God’s perfect law”, are queer people not humans? When he called George Floyd, whose brutal recorded death was broadcast across the world, sparking a wave of protest, a “scumbag” who wasn’t worthy of the attention, where was the compassion for his personhood? Is it because these are people who hold much less power, rendering their lives unimportant?
Kirk’s legacy is defined wholly by his words and actions. How he is remembered, spoken about, and enshrined in history is all a result of the way he used his platform. So I don’t understand how re-sharing his firmly held and fiercely argued beliefs means we are celebrating his death? More than anything, this is a question about privilege: who gets to die a hero despite spending their life as a villain to many? Those who are white, male and wealthy. When we ask people to canonise someone so hateful by disregarding their politics, we not only signal to people that it is OK to be hateful because in death you will be revered, but we also rewrite history, which is a dangerous precedent to set.
Being able to say ‘who cares if he spent his time travelling the country comparing abortion to the holocaust or denigrating trans people‘ shows that his words are meaningless to your lived reality. Being able to separate his politics from his legacy tells the world you are lucky enough to never live in fear that your very identity was a threat. The pieces praising him as a skilled debater who was unafraid of confronting people who disagreed with him gloss over the way his words became weapons for those on the receiving end of his attacks. For those of us without the political power to protect our communities, seeing the way people have been quick to disregard the politics of Charlie Kirk has been painful. It feels like we are learning in real time how much our lives are irrelevant when compared to preserving the legacy of white men.
Politics is not something most of us can just opt out of. It’s happening to us every day in ways that we have little control over; from legislating women’s bodies to the racist immigration and asylum policies. If you are from a marginalised community, your entire life is defined by the politics happening to you. There is no separating the violence that the state can inflict from the rest of your life: it is your life. When I see people sanitise the history of those who have spent years building a career out of making those most affected by politics feel unsafe, I wonder if they truly know the weight of their actions.
[ad_2]
Chanté Joseph
Source link -
Kate Middleton, wigs, and why it’s no one’s place to ask
[ad_1]
It’s never surprising when a famous person’s new look sparks online conversation. So, when Catherine, Princess of Wales (Kate Middleton to most of us) stepped out with a new head of blonde hair on Thursday, it quickly became a matter of breaking news for several publications.
The Princess of Wales has been a brunette for as long as we’ve known her, so the debut of an image revamp outside the Natural History Museum had people talking.
However, social media comment sections also found that the colour of Kate’s hair was not the only noticeable change – many have claimed that her new look comes courtesy of a wig.
‘LOL, that’s a wig,’ reads one of many comments, with countless others mocking the shape and styling of her hair in the various pieces of footage released from the paparazzi moment.
Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images
As someone who’s been on the internet since childhood, I’m not surprised – I know that nothing’s off-limits when it comes to sharing unsolicited opinions on the web.
However, I do wish we’d exercise a little more restraint with vocalising these assumptions in such public forums – especially when we have context for why Kate is possibly using hair enhancements.
Kate announced last year that she’d been diagnosed with cancer after it was discovered by doctors during abdominal surgery. After that, she underwent a course of preventative chemotherapy and has made infrequent public appearances since.
One of the most common side effects of chemotherapy is hair loss, so it’s not impossible that Kate would use enhancements in the months and years afterwards. But either way, the onslaught of comments and critiques of this possibility is evidence of a lack of empathy in internet culture.
There are plenty of things to criticise the royals for, and I’m definitely no fan of the British monarchy – but thousands of people making the same public remark in a sort of ‘gotcha’ moment feels unnecessary, and implies that there is something wrong if Kate is wearing a wig.
[ad_2]
Nicole Vassell
Source link -
Brands have fallen out of love with queer content creators like me, so what’s next for us?
[ad_1]
I always knew that corporate allyship and the “pink pound” wouldn’t be a magic solution to changing attitudes. While beneficial for increasing visibility, they were never going to change the world on their own. Yet, even this small piece of the puzzle seems to have fallen away. The shift is palpable. Talking about being queer or trans outside of Pride Month seems discouraged. The executive order by President Trump to end “wasteful Government DEI programs” in the United States sent a ripple effect across the globe, validating organisations to roll back their inclusive efforts. Brands that once championed LGBTQIA+ causes are now ghosting collaborators, with some even stating that diversity and inclusion are not a priority. This isn’t just about my personal career; it’s a systemic problem that affects the entire community.
This year has been a stark reality check. For freelancers like me, it’s become a weekly occurrence to have promising opportunities vanish without a trace. Brands would reach out, eager to show their support, only to ghost us after multiple meetings and creative sessions. This isn’t a new phenomenon, but it’s now more widespread and brazen. The irony is not lost on me: often, these opportunities started with a desire to “do the right thing,” only for the brands to become the very problem they were trying to solve.
This isn’t just a personal grievance; it’s a movement to eliminate LGBTQIA+ inclusion. It affects everyone, regardless of their online visibility. My work as a writer and content creator is built on the premise that organisations want to openly discuss the experiences of queer people. When that support disappears, I’m left questioning my path. As trans people’s existence is being challenged globally, our allies have gone silent, creating a void where transphobic narratives can flourish louder than ever before. This silence forces queer and trans people to pivot in their careers and, more importantly, leaves our community more vulnerable than ever.
I know I’ve been fortunate to have worked in this space for so long. It’s a job rooted in fun and frivolity, and creativity – but it’s one that ultimately feels too ‘political’ to be seen as creative anymore. My existence, our existence, is no longer neutral, and my desire to tell stories and provide a fun, light-hearted resource for other people to find comfort or joy in is depleted. The time has come for me to shift my focus. I am ready for a new challenge. I could bend to the current climate and become a more “palatable queer” to secure more work, but that’s not who I am.
Instead of feeling like my online presence needs to tick boxes, each post orchestrated to achieve career progression, or even risk enmeshing my digital success and view of my professional self with my personal desirability, maybe (just maybe) I will be able to be in a place again where I can just fall in love with myself and my community online, rather than seeing it as a role I must filfill 24/7.
[ad_2]
Jamie Windust
Source link -
How Notting Hill Carnival taught me to embrace my body
[ad_1]
The first time I attended Carnival was in Toronto; I was a pre-teen. And oddly enough, as young as I was, I think I needed that visual reminder of the freeness Caribbean women possess. At Carnival, bodies are governed by no one but their owner, and the confidence in the air is palpable. It’s in the encouraging smiles of women in their 50s playing Mas with their group of girlfriends, it’s in the self-assured posing when approaching them for photos, and it’s in the suggestive dancing.
Beauty standards be damned, cellulite and rounded tummies baring stretch marks from carrying new life into the world were on display for all to see.
Moving from Jamaica to Canada, America, and eventually, England is when I realised the beauty standard wasn’t a reflection of myself. As a teenager, I was always too tall, I towered over classmates, and this random growth spurt left me with stretch marks on my hips – an act I thought could only happen after childbirth (boy, was I wrong). In my late twenties, breasts far too big for my body settled in, my stomach took on a new unfamiliar roundness and every now and then, I spied the cellulite on my thighs when I crossed them.
My body was changing, curving in ways I wasn’t accustomed to; it made me uncomfortable, especially because I was slim my whole life.
Want to hear something messed up? In Jamaica, my current body type is described as slim, a body I had written off as curvy because social media told me it was. This is why Notting Hill Carnival is such an important event for me; for two days out of the year, I am surrounded by an entire spectrum of body types on women of all ages and nationalities.
More importantly, the rainbow of every shade of Black and Brown women proudly flaunting their melanin without feeling lesser is a sight comparable to no other. Carnival is a boisterous reminder to be gentle with myself, accept my body, and just live no matter what the beauty standard says.
So, here’s to the parade of gyrating bodies covered in brightly feathered, barely-there bikinis that continues to empower me and change my relationship with my body for the better.
[ad_2]
Kedean Smith
Source link