Tits Up Magazine

UP! LETS TALK ABOUT SEX BABY- UNLESS YOU’RE A WOMAN - THE ICK WHEN LIFE GIVES YOU LEMONS INTERVIEW - SAVE WOMEN, STOP MEN ART BY; AMANDA BJORN, MEGAN GEORGIA SMITH, JESS HAZEL AND MANY MORE.

THE EVERYDAY ISSUE

TITS

Cover photo by Amada Bjorn For full feature see page 44

EDITORS LETTER

IT HAS BEEN LIBERATING TO SHARE STORIES OF TRUTH AND REALNESS FROM WOMEN ALL OVER THE WORLD. AFTER AN INCREDIBLY CRAPPY YEAR FOR MOST, TITS UP WAS CREATED AS A LITERARY AND VISUAL REVOLT AGAINST THE SHALLOW FAÇADE OF MAINSTREAM MEDIA. WHICH IS A SMART-ASS WAY OF SAYING THAT THIS MAGAZINE WAS CREATED BECAUSE I WAS SICK OF SEEING EVERYONE LIVING THEIR BEST LIFE WHEN LOCKDOWN HAD TURNED ME INTO A LAZY, UNSOCIABLE OAF. THAT’S WHY TITS UP IS A SPACE FOR UNFILTERED IMAGES AND UNCENSORED CONVERSATION. IN THE STYLE OF REBELLION, WE HAVE THROWN OUT THE TYPICAL ‘COVER GIRL’ AND OPTED FOR AN IMAGE THAT REFLECTS WHAT MOST OF THE BRITISH PUBLIC HAVE LONGED FOR OVER THIS LAST YEAR - A HOLIDAY. CAPTURED BY THE TALENTED AMANDA BJORN, THE PHOTOGRAPHY SERIES IS A HOMAGE TO OUR SOON RETURN TO SAND IN PLACES WE DIDN’T KNOW POSSIBLE. ISSUE 1 OF TITS UP DISCUSSES EVERYTHING FROM DATING DILEMMAS TO POLITICAL UNREST AND FEATURES ART AND PHOTOGRAPHY FROM INCREDIBLE WOMEN WHO HAVE MANAGED TO CAPTURE TRUTH IN THE WORLD AROUND THEM. FROM ONE HOT MESS TO ANOTHER, I HOPE YOU ENJOY READING THIS MAGAZINE AS MUCH AS I ENJOYED MAKING IT.

FARRYN STOCK, EDITOR MAY 2021 TITS UP EVERYDAY

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WEAR HONEY: GET THE BAG SIS The Online Shop Space for Independent Designers.

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EDITOR

FARRYN STOCK

THNX

TO WRITTEN CONTRIBUTORS

ART CONTRIBUTORS

Lydia Dronsfield

Bloo Steel Illustrations

Masie Lockwood

Masie McDermott

Holly Morris

Megan McWilliam

Therese Mullighan

SquinkPrints

Megan McWilliam

Lia Bentley

Lucy Peacock

Natasha Quarmby

Lily Egleton

Cassie Collier

Niamh Griffiths

Lucy Jenkins

Perry Beard

Megan Harrison

Emilie Mendham

Lotti Stock

Emma-Marie Smith

Gurpreet Longani Kaur

Amanda Bjorn

Lucy Harrington

Tayla Swan

Sorcha Frances Rider

Zara McIntosh

Masie Lockwood

Cicely King

Nina Klaff

Constance Kelly

Sarah Hollamby Zara McIntosh Jamilla Woodley Costance Kelly

SPECIAL THANKS

Caitlin Wyatt

To Mike McNally and Urjuan Toosy for helping me bring this magazine to life.

MAGAZINE COVERS

Plus a gigantic thank you to every one of my family and friends who proof read work, gave their advice, listened to me moan and generally kept me sane through this process. Tits Up would not be here without you.

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Amanda Bjorn Grumpy Girl Graphics

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Editors Letter

05 THNX TO

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44 An Afternoon at

Marta Parszeniew

No More Social Pleasers

CONTE Bratty Behav iour

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Tik Tok: Something For The Girls

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Amanda Bjorn

NGL... I lie Everyday

The Ick

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The Everday Playlist

16 Say Goodbye To The Old Everyday

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Fluffy Floofs

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Failure to Lauch

3O

Female Superheroes

Girls Need Music

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Playa De Bossa:

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52 Megan Georgia Smith

Save Women Stop Men

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* content some many find distressing*

Navigating the Social Constructs of Drinking

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What’s the point of Plus Size?

A letter to my 20 year old Self.

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62 Jess Hazell 66

Lets Talk About Sex Baby

78 WLGYL:

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Macie Emery

Dunja Relic

Inside My House, Out of My Mind

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ENTS Intersectionality Because White Feminism isn’t Feminism

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Hot Boy Winter

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The Real Cinderella Story

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The Feminist Househusband

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Thrift +

News Flash Hollywood: Women are More Than Just Love Stories

Tories Out

Things By Jam

Cook With Love

Snog Marry Avoid

My Biggest Fight Is to be A Woman

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Body Dismorphia

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Female Pleasure, Feelds and ‘Fake Doms’

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BRATTY BEHAVIOUR I want bratz doll lips Plastic n fantastic Invincible Zero decay Plumped to perfection Sure to give em an ...

Knock me out I’m terrified of needles All I need is a pot of Vaseline and the midday sun Cooked ‘em red raw Lips risen like a Victoria sponge Oozing out layers of pus and blood Cocooning into an easy-peeler I always finish off my Vaseline pots Buy my shedding skin off eBay Please Ur my OnlyFan

By Tayla Swan

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TITS UP EVERYDAY KINGSKOUNTRY ON ETSY

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ATTACK OF THE ICK

ART BY ZARA MCINTOSH

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*SORRY THIS ISN’T GOING TO WORK*

We all know the feeling. You’ve met someone and you’re super excited. You both have so much in common. They like ice cream and you like ice cream, they can’t stand Donald Trump, and neither can you. Match made in heaven! You can already see the wedding day, you’re dressed in your finery, gazing at yourself in a gold-gilded mirror and helpful birds flutter around fixing your hair, like a scene straight out of Disney. Perfection.

Except, now you’re both on a date and you’re staring at them lovingly, as one does, imagining the faces of your future children – ‘will they have my blue eyes or their brown ones?’ – when something happens. Just as you’re getting lost in the deep pools of their eyes, they take their fork, wedge it between their teeth, and flick out a large chunk of spinach. It lands on the tablecloth with a sickening squelch. You blink, disgusted. Now everything they do is tainted – that hair flick you used to find so charming? On second thought, it makes them look as if they’re having some sort of odd neck spasm. And their cute, tinkly laugh? It’s actually kind of grating. You freeze as it dawns on you – you’ve got the ick.

and carried away in a sea of flattery. Everyone wants to feel special, ‘me? You’ve chosen me?’, but just because someone wants to be with you, doesn’t mean you have to want to be with them. This person may be nice, they might be attractive, but so what? If you don’t like them, you don’t like them. There’s a tonne of nice, attractive people out there, you can’t envision fake weddings with all of them.

As soon as you find yourself thinking ‘Maybe they’ll grow on me? I’m sure they’d treat me right,’ or ‘I don’t think I’m that into them, but they are lovely though,’ stop. In this case, the ick is your saving grace – get out. Settling equals (not to be dramatic but) lifelong misery. Unless you’re one of those people who is obsessed with being perceived as a ‘tortured soul’ because they think it makes them look ‘edgy’ and they can use it as inspiration for their terrible art that is nowhere near as deep as they think it is – leave. Now.

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- a horrible, goosebump inducing feeling that crawls up the back of your neck and nestles inside your brain, contaminating all thoughts of that romantic interest with a heaped tablespoon of revolt.

But why do we get it? Because the universe hates us and never wants us to find love and eternal happiness? Maybe. But there are some other reasons too:

.2 You’re too picky. Try to visualise your ideal partner in your head. If you’re thinking something along the lines of ‘loyal’, ‘kind’, ‘good sense of humour’ then you’re fine, that all seems pretty realistic.

However, if your mind went to ‘must have dirty blonde hair the exact same colour of the sand on that beach in Thailand that I went to in 2004’, you need to re-evaluate. There’s nothing wrong with being ambitious, in fact, it’s to be applauded, but there is a difference between ambition and delusion. Think about it, has anything ever turned out exactly how you’ve imagined? If you say yes, you’re lying. I don’t care how ‘perfect’ you think your ‘sweet sixteen’ was, those napkins were the wrong shade of pink and you know it.

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Most likely the route of your pickiness is one of two things – a) you’re a control freak or b)

THE ICK

.1 Perhaps you just don’t actually like that person. It’s very easy to get swept up

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you have commitment issues. Now, no one’s judging – I can’t relax unless every book on my bookshelf is positioned at its designated angle and I’d rather eat my own foot without ketchup than commit to anyone right now.

However, maybe it’s about time that we stopped setting intentionally unattainable standards and telling friends that we’re searching for that non-existent ‘perfect’ partner and went to see a therapist instead.

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.3 You want to stay single. This may be the era of self-love selfies – heart eyes, heart eyes, heart eyes – however let’s be real, being single is still seen as a stepping stone, not a destination. Announce to the world that you’re happily single and they’ll nod and smile, but they’re secretly scoffing behind your back and envisioning you wailing in a dressing gown à la Bridget Jones whilst suffocating beneath a mountain of cat fur. But, shockingly, societal ‘norms’ aren’t actually that normal. Not everyone wants a partner. Take Whoopi Goldberg for example, who epically declared ‘I don’t want someone in my house’ when asked why she never married. The person you’re on a date with may be perfect, a God sent down from the heavens to charm you, but if you don’t want a partner and that’s what they’re trying to be, the ick cannot be escaped. Nor should it be something you try and escape. That’s just how you feel.

Live your life how you want to. Yes, your Great-aunt Bessy may spend the entirety of family gatherings tutting at your single status but who cares? Sod her, she’s married, and look at her – miserable.

Words by Lydia Dronsfield

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GIRLS NEED MUSIC After a year of lockdown streaming, it couldn’t be clearer that Girls Need Music.

Music has always been a way to form connections, to each other, to your thoughts, and to something bigger. Therefore, when the world went into lockdown last year, we reached to music to comfort us and bring us out of the four walls of our homes and into a better place. People experimented with all the ways music could bring us just that little closer together. As a result, Spotify streams rose by 21.5bn and thousands of makeshift raves and gigs were held over Instagram live, along with endless playlists being made for friends. As always, the creative industries proved their indispensable value under a government that perceived them as nothing more than frivolous pastimes. The power of music had prevailed once again.

Long aware of the benefit that music can have on the world is Maya Gough, founder of Girls Need Music. Addressing the significance that music has had during the last year, she explains, “I believe music has provided a level of comfort for many during a very uncertain time in our lives. Listening to music is a great way to escape from reality and to tap into our emotions and feelings, especially for those who may find it difficult to express them. It’s also scientifically proven that music releases dopamine in the brain so whether you’re listening to a happy

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or sad song, it still makes you feel good. So, no wonder people have gravitated to music during this weird time in our lives!”

With a growing following of just over 2,000 on Instagram, not only has GNM (Girls Need Music) linked many individuals to great new artists, but they have also created a platform that offers those within it a safe space to share and listen. Maya shares that the purpose of GNM “is an inclusive online platform with an aim to empower women, nonbinary and other female-identifying individuals who have a passion for music.” As a recent study from the UK Music Diversity Report found that the ruling majority of those in music were female, (according to the respondents) it begs the question as to why platforms such as GNM aren’t flooded with more people eager to learn of fresh new female talent. One of the obvious answers is that despite the many female-identifying individuals that make up the industry, few get the recognition they deserve. In fact, in the top 10 highest-paid musicians, GQ found that only 2 were women, both of which were white.

Such statistics only emphasise how Maya’s mission of “providing visibility and representation for up-and-coming female artists, and

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for those who are marginalised in the industry, such as the LGBTQ+ community and POC artists” are still extremely important. As a platform made to encourage those who feel marginalised within the music industry, the GNM Instagram makes sure to share all genres and features anything from techno remixes to exercise (courtesy of Panorama Barre) to the jazz-infused, indie pop tones of Arlo Parks. The styles of music are not selective but the people GNM chooses to highlight are.

Women, non-binary POC, and those within the LGBQT+ community. In reality, it’s a refreshing spin on all the die-hard music pages that only share white indie boys and their acoustic guitars. No shade. The platform also spans across a website (www. girlsneedmusic.co.uk) where they “post articles, interviews with artists, album reviews and track reviews”, Maya states.

The lack of representation and diversity within the music industry was something that Maya explains she became passionate about during university. Sharing how it inspired her to create the community space, Maya explains, “I thought of the concept for GNM whilst I was studying at university. I was frustrated with the lack of women who shared the same music taste as me and passion for music. So, I decided to create my own platform to connect with other women who shared the same love for music, as well as using the page to share artists and music that I enjoyed listening to.” If it was connection Maya was looking for, she’s found it.

Although still running GNM solely, Maya is quick to point out the “few lovely ladies that support her with the platform by providing write-ups, content for social media, artwork, and mixes for radio show takeovers.”

Giving her own special mention to DJ’s Saachi Bains and Laura Zuanella, writer and creative assistant at West One Music Group Ellie Carter, and Graphic Designer Thea Bryant and many more.

Just as it has done this last year, Maya and GNM are the proof that music has always represented so much more than just something to listen to. As a platform that empowers those within its vicinity, Girls Need Music is an example of just what women working together can achieve.

After a year of listening to the same thirty songs on repeat, it’s also a chance to experience musical bliss for any girl who needs it.

Words by Farryn Stock

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THE TITS UP EVERYDAY PLAYLIST

PLAYLIST

TWO NIGHTS – JOY CROOKS TAKE YOUR TIME – MOM TUDI, SAHRA, QUINN QULTON MEDICATE – ELLE YAYA I DON’T BLAME YOU – CAT BURNS GIRL – KAYTRANDA RUN RUN – RAY BLK FOOL TO LOVE – NAO NOT FAIR – LILY ALLEN MAKE ROOM – MIRAA MAY PENG BLACK GIRLS REMIX – EENNY, JORJA SMITH MAKE ME CRY – PIP MILLET SOBER – MAHALIA GIVE ME AWAY – ELLE YAYA FUCK ME PUMPS – AMY WINEHOUSE SMILE – LILY ALLEN FOUNDATIONS – KATE NASH SUNDOWN – RAELLE ON MY MIND – JORJA SMITH, PREDITAH STRONG WOMXN - POPPY AJUDHA FOCUS - HER

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COVER FOR THE LATEST ALBUM BY ELLE YAYA- ‘PHARMACY’

WOULDN’T IT BE NICE – LILY DENNINGS

SAY GOODBYE TO THE OLD EVERYDAY

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As we step into a new way of life postlockdown, it felt important to take a minute and reflect upon the last year.

For the past 525,600 minutes, the entirety of the UK has been kept in the confines of their homes. A reality no one had ever seen coming.

Nor do we hope to ever see again.

Therefore, as we make our way back to normality, it seemed only fair to give a second to recognise one of the most difficult years, as a world, we have just endured. A year that will certainly not be forgotten.

Creative Direction: Farryn Stock Photography: Gurpreet Kaur Longani Model: Sharmee Shah

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FLUFFY FLOOFS THROUGH THE AGES To shave or not to shave? That is the question.

Female body hair – a topic so controversial that, if you (a female) forget to shave your armpits one day and then put on a sleeveless top, you’re unwittingly making an ‘edgy’ political statement. But why is this? Why are we all so painfully aware of women’s fuzz? Why do us women spend a gazillion minutes – not an actual statistic, don’t sue me – of our lifetimes twisting ourselves into ungodly positions in the shower just to ensure our shaver hasn’t missed a spot? This hairy conundrum goes back a lot further than you may think.

body hair increased the risk of frostbite; the little hairs would trap water, which would then freeze against the skin. Thus, it had to go.

In the Stone Age getting rid of hair was particularly unpleasant. They would use a sharpened object, such as a shell or animal tooth, to literally scrape away the hair – and, I imagine, scrape away quite a few layers of skin too. Hard core exfoliation at its finest.

The year is 30,000 BC, we live in caves and hunt mammoths for tea. Picture your stereotypical cave woman. She’s hairy, right?

Practically a walking ball of fur? Wrong.

Contrary to popular belief, the people (men included) during the Stone Age didn’t have much body hair. This wasn’t because of aesthetic purposes, they weren’t worried how their legs would look as they paraded around in their animal skin frocks, it was due to practicality.

Aesthetically motivated body hair removal seems to have first emerged in Ancient Egypt.

Although there were some practical reasons for removal – hair traps heat, which isn’t ideal in a hot climate, and also attracts lice – appearance played a big part. Body hair, especially pubic hair, was deemed uncivilised, unhygienic and a sign of being – shock horror – ‘lower class’. Cleopatra was so dedicated to ensuring her body looked nothing less than baldly regal that she even shaved her head, an act which was swiftly copied by ‘fashionable’ folk.

Firstly, all head hair was kept closely cropped.

Combat played a big part in their lives and long hair was a weakness as it could be easily grabbed by an opponent. So, they shaved it all off. The same can be said for body hair – the shaving part, not the grabbing; your leg hair would have to be rather luscious for an opponent to be able to do that. In the winter,

The Ancient Egyptians used a surprisingly familiar form of hair eradication – waxing.

They concocted a sugar-based formula, whacked it on a patch of hair, waited for it to dry and then boom, ripped it off. So, next time you’re lying on a beautician’s bench, legs splayed, horribly anticipating your Brazilian, you know who to blame.

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Ensure “that no rude goat find his way beneath your arms and that your legs be not rough with bristling hair” – Ovid, Roman poet, 2 B.C. Proof that men have always been over dramatic (yes, not all men, we get it). Jokes aside though, unfortunately, with The Roman Empire came the notion of body hair being used to shame women. Aristocratic women (because, obviously, peasant’s hoo-has were simply doomed to be furry) were expected to keep their genitalia free from hair at all times as a sign of their purity.

Basically, according to Ancient Roman logic, a fluffy floof = whore. This is particularly disturbing when taking into consideration the age that Roman aristocratic women were expected to marry. The minimum legal age for marriage was twelve, though, no one really bothered to uphold this law, so ‘meh’ if a girl was married off younger – direct quote from Julius Caesar (I’m joking, don’t sue me).

Therefore, many of these women (well, girls) were pre-pubescent, thus had no pubic hair when they lost their virginity in their marital beds (usually to much older men). They were then expected to maintain this girlish ‘innocence’ forever more, even after reaching sexual maturity. So, to sum it up, Roman aristocratic men wanted their wives’ vaginas to look like a child’s in order to be reminded of their wedding night. Disturbing.

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PHOTOGRAPHY BY LOTTI STOCK

Anyhoo. Let’s move on.

“Why is her forehead so big?”

“Because it contains so many secrets.”

Well, this may be the case for some, but it wasn’t for Queen Elizabeth I. Elizabeth’s forehead was so large because, being a fan of the receding look, she shaved her hairline back by at least an inch, believing a big brow elongated the face. Cue women all over England scrabbling for a razor so that they too could look like they were on the cusp of balding. Eyebrows weren’t safe either. In order to make that forehead look even more immense, they were sheared off too. However, the hairless look required a lot of pesky maintenance. To try and stop irksome bristles from sprouting, Elizabethan women would soak bandages in a mixture of ammonia, walnut oil and vinegar and apply them to the face. Not quite up to the scent standards of Lush but hey, each to their own. Despite such efforts being taken to obtain hairless faces, women left the rest of their bodies untouched, meaning pubes were permitted to grow freely.

Fast forward to The West in the 1900s. This is the period of hair removal that, arguably, most influences today’s attitudes. The stance on body hair was relatively relaxed until WWII. Then, during the war, there was a shortage of nylon, which meant a scarcity of TITS UP EVERYDAY

stockings. Thus, women had no choice but to walk around with bare legs – a rather chilly misfortune. As legs were suddenly thrust naked into the limelight, it was decided they were unseemly unless shaved. Great news for razor companies, bad news for women’s self-esteem. Their marketing teams decided the best way forward was to shame women into purchasing their products – rude but, unfortunately, effective. Body hair was described using lexis such as ‘embarrassing’, ‘ugly’, and ‘unwanted’, searing into women’s mind that their innocent fuzz was disgusting and needed to go.

As the 1900s progressed, hemlines got shorter and articles of clothing smaller. It was a time of liberation, well, unless you were a pube.

The more body parts on show, the greater amount of body hair forced, glistening, into the sunlight. But, naturally, it wasn’t allowed to glisten for long. To save everyone’s eyes from such a ghastly sight, the hair was swiftly hacked off. Whether it was ripped, plucked, burned, shorn, it didn’t matter, as long as women were saved from the utter ‘embarrassment’ of someone finding out that they sprouted hair anywhere other than their heads.

Of course, there was backlash to this attitude.

The 70s saw the return of the untamed bush and feminists and ‘hippies’ roamed the streets, armpits gloriously carpeted. However, 21

this view on body hair, although heavily publicised, was still considered radical. The spine of society’s message remained that women should be pleasantly hair free.

Now we reach the present. We reside in an apparently ‘woke’ society (emphasis on apparently), yet it took until 2019 for a razor company (Billie) to actually use real body hair in an ad campaign. Prior to this, razors were demonstrated in adverts by, essentially, showing us how well they could glide through thin air. Armpit hair is widely considered bearable – though still rather alarming – but if a woman were to do something ‘extreme’ like – god forbid – grow out the fuzz on her top lip, that would be a little too much for people to endure. Basically, female body hair is (sort of) acceptable in small, polite doses.

So, what can we take from this brief insight into the history of female body hair? Honestly, that the ‘rules’ are a load of trivial, fabricated nonsense. Unless you’re planning to charge into battle or run around naked in harsh, wintry conditions – in which case, I would advise taking a leaf out of the cave women’s book – do whatever you want. Prefer being smooth and silky so that you can slip and slither around the place? Wonderful. Tickled by the idea of housing a ‘rude goat’ under your armpit? Brilliant. The world is your oyster.

Words by Lydia Dronsfield

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What is the inspiration behind these collages?

My biggest inspiration behind these would be trying to figure out myself and where I fit in. And trying to define myself as woman in times where what “being a woman” means is so divisive and convoluted.

Of course, soviet era art and DADA have had a huge influence on my process.

What draws you to Soviet Eastern Europe?

Both my parents grew up during communism, which ended just two years before I was born. Imagine living in a post war country, where Soviet Russia has taken over everything and you have to pretend to idolise these tyrants, live by the rules, speak to one another as a collective of people instead of individuals. There is something that has always drawn me to propaganda imagery. How many Soviet painters were absolutely amazing in their skill, yet that was their bread and butter. As always adversity breeds creativity.

Do these collages you’ve sent have titles?

To be honest I have never been a fan of naming my work. I was always under an impression that a titled piece of art instantly puts a tiny seed of information into the viewer creating a clue to what this should represent.

MARTA PARSZENIEW

Why do you chose to use the art medium of collages?

Meet Marta Parszeniew. A Polish born collage artist taking inspiration from Soviet era art to explore what it means to be a woman in society today.

Tate modern is a big, big, big one! Just imagine that! Having a solo exhibition would also be a big dream. I would also love to have something shown at Bauhaus in Germany.

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How do I answer this one? Have a look at some images in magazines from 1960’s or 1980’s and think about how people are represented.

For example, in nowadays fashion magazines woman barely smile, they pull a very suggestive face over-sexualising a handbag, where in the older magazines consumerism was represented by happiness.

Photoshop didn’t exist, there is a texture in all the pictures, lack of perfection. Cutting these, and building compositions is the best thing in the world. Also, the idea of repurposing something vulgar or beautiful and using it for my own means feels so much more powerful than just creating something new. In a world where over consumption of everything is a huge problem, why can’t art also be held up to this process.

If you could have your collages featured anywhere, where would it be?

Interview by Farryn Stock

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MARTA COLLAGE

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TIK TOK: SOMETHING FOR THE Tik Tok has undoubtedly become one of the most used social media apps within the last year. With girls taking to the platform to share honest stories and unfiltered videos, has this become one of the first social apps to finally account for the female gaze?

Social media consumes us. On average, according to Review42, a person will spend just under 2 and a half hours a day on social media alone. For those between the ages of 18-24 those numbers are even higher, with the average person spending over 3 hours on social media. Three hours scrolling, swiping, liking, and sharing, absorbed in the life of those who we wish we knew or better yet wish we were. It’s a depressing reality. When put into perspective, most people spend roughly 8 hours working every day, which means that the little time we are left with, outside of that, we are choosing to spend disconnected with the world. Maybe that’s the point. When our days are filled with polite conversation and soggy, overpriced sandwiches, maybe there’s a part of us that enjoys disconnecting from reality and watching people live out the lives we dreamed for ourselves.

However, there’s a different theory and that is, for the most part, social media is making people miserable. All this self-comparison and filtered bullshit leaves us all a little deflated.

Which is certainly the case for the majority of our readers, who when asked how social media made them feel, stated “frustrated”, “inadequate”, “rubbish”, “unsure” and so on. Social media such as Instagram has been transformed from simple entertainment to a guilty addiction that we associate with success.

And so, we find ourselves trapped in this

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masochist ritual that we undertake each time we open an app. Through the comparison of others’ highlights vs. personal realities, social media has found its market for feeding off of insecurities to reinforce the negative cycle that so many of us find ourselves caught in.

The saying ‘comparison is the thief of joy’ could not be more relevant than it is today.

Apps such as Instagram have enforced into society a belief that self-worth comes from the approval of others and for many women that means being in constant competition with each other. A competition that is built to appease the male gaze.

Nevertheless, a shift does feel like it’s beginning to happen. Witnessing a gap in the market, a new app has found its footing (either intentionally or unintentionally) as a space where girls feel liberated to share a much more vulnerable and honest side to themselves. A side that perhaps other social media hasn’t seen. That app is TikTok. The 2016 phenomenon that now has 689 million monthly active users worldwide, has become home to some hilariously relatable content from women. Of course, TikTok has its own flaws of brain-numbing stupidity and the potentially dangerous “what I eat in a day” videos. Also, there is still without a doubt a certain level of fakery that can be expected from all social media. Be that as it may, there is another side, a positive side to TikTok that definitely needs recognition.

In its last year of real take-off, young women have swarmed to the app in their masses because it offers the chance for the female gaze to FINALLY come into play. Women creating videos for other women may be

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the most refreshing thing to have come from social media since Instagram teased us with the possibility of removing likes being seen on pictures (something that seems to have been an empty promise). Accounts such as @gbkbarry, @underratedhijabi, @laurensaddington, and @averagefashionblogger all bring humour and realness to TikTok, through sharing personal stories or honest clothing hauls. The stories are often slightly embarrassing but also are extremely relatable. They are a reminder to the majority of women who feel rejected by apps such as Instagram, that actually there is more to life than perfection. When we have become so reliant on other’s approval to feel validated, seeing girls like these be liked for being honest and not always flawless, has offered a window of opportunity for other girls to feel accepted.

Sure, it’s a far cry from Emily Davison throwing herself in front of a horse to protest against women’s suffrage. But it is a start. By sharing stories of one-night stands or sarcastic re-enactments of celebrities, what these women are doing is exploring social media through the realms of the female gaze. It is a small victory for girls to take a space within social media that is entirely just for us when the media have spent decades perpetuating ridiculous idealistic standards for women to uphold. Most importantly, it’s a healthy reminder to not take life too seriously. No one is perfect. Don’t be fooled by social media, life kicks the shit out of everyone sometimes.

Words by Farryn Stock

NGL …

I LIE EVERY DAY Here’s what happened when I attempted being 100% honest for an entire week.

“I’m not gonna lie…”

It’s a phrase that I use a lot, especially when I’m with my best friends. It’s the perfect phrase to use in sarcasm, lighthearted humour, overdramatic statements of attraction or emotion. For example: “I’m not going to lie, if Chris Evans turns up on my doorstep in ten years and asks me to run away with him, I’m leaving my husband and children without a backwards glance.”

Funny, relatable, but also with underlining tones of sincerity. It’s good humour, and anyone who uses it, either in person or over text (abbreviated to NGL), I instantly take a liking to.

Over the past couple of weeks, however, I’ve come to a realisation: I do lie. I lie every single day. And I’m pretty sure you do the same. That sounds ominous, but a

fascinating TED talk by Pamala Meyer gave me the statistic that human beings are lied to between 10 – 200 times a day, simply because it is a natural reaction or defence. When I heard this, I’ll admit I fell into a bit of a spiral of questions. “Do I lie to myself and other people about everything? Does everyone know I’m lying? Who even am I?” Totally not being overdramatic.

I decided that for a week I would note down: when I was lying, what I was lying about, and who I was lying to. Then, I would make a conscious effort, to tell the truth in those moments, even if that meant I instantly contradicted myself. I also asked a couple of my friends to do the same, partly so I could get some insight into how other people perceive lying and partly so I wouldn’t feel so bad about what I was about to discover.

I have to say, over that week I continuously surprised myself. I lied about a lot of stuff,

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and half the time I didn’t realise I had lied until about twenty minutes later. I would lie to my mum about doing jobs later by saying I was busy, when already in my mind I was thinking of ways of how I could avoid doing them for the rest of the day. Ten minutes later I’d walk back into the kitchen and confess that I had been trying to get out of helping her. Unfortunately for me, the week involved me doing a lot more washing up than I would like, but it did make my mum happy.

I instinctively lied about plans with friends, how much uni work I’d done that day and if I was happy that everyone was coming home for the holidays. The reality was I didn’t want to spend time with that person because I’d rather watch Wandavision. I’ve done barely any uni work, and no, I‘m not excited about everyone coming home for the holidays because this past year, I have become so used to being in my own company, the idea of seeing people makes me feel sick.

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PHOTOGRAPHY BY FARRYN STOCK

The biggest thing I noticed was that I lied a lot to myself. Sadly, I would allow myself to think and say self-degrading comments about my appearance, which would influence my choices for that day. I was horribly bloated one day, yet I forced myself to wear jeans for the morning because I was telling myself that I was being overdramatic. I was in so much pain, it hurt to breathe. A red mark from my belt formed all around my waist because it was cutting into my skin that much. When finally I got changed into joggers after having realised what I was forcing myself to do, the relief was intoxicating. My outfit wasn’t going to turn heads, but I could sit down now without having the desire to take an aspirin.

It seemed that I wasn’t the only one who caught themselves doing this. After the week, I got lots of texts from my friends telling me all the stuff they’d lied about. Like myself, they’d discovered habits of lying about their self-worth or image throughout the entire

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day, and it seemed to have shocked us all.

It was easy being honest with other people, but when it came to ourselves, it was a slap to the face. Much of our insecurity was being perpetuated by letting these lies mask themselves as truth.

I was brutally honest with myself that week; I’ll admit, sometimes too honest. But being deliberately truthful made me aware of the times I was kicking myself in the shin.

Progressively through the week, I became more aware of my emotions and mental health, which allowed me to care for myself when I needed it.

I’m now fairly sure, if you looked for moments when you were lying, you’d discover a multitude of moments of self-deception.

Physiologically, it’s normal, and telling yourself those small porkies are a part of our everyday. Just like right now, I’m lying to myself by saying I’m going to do more work.

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I’m not. I’ve got a season finale of Line of Duty to watch, but I have decided to own that. Being honest with yourself will shift your perspective entirely because it will make you more aware of people around you and yourself. Telling a lie is easy, but by telling the truth, we create opportunities to better ourselves.

This week, call yourself out. If you’re saying, “I’m not gonna lie,” then mean what you say.

Listen to your body. Be gentle with yourself if you need time to relax. Get to know yourself better as a human being and watch yourself start to heal and thrive. And finally, wash the damn dishes, they’ll take twenty minutes, and you’ll be doing something lovely for your mum.

Words by Holly Morris

FEMALE SUPERHEROES

ART BY SQUINKPRINTS 30

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In a world where girls are taught to wait for a prince to save them, superheroines are the validation that saving yourself is okay.

Some parents read fantastical storybooks to their daughters, about princesses and dashing Prince Charming’s determined to rescue their true love. Some parents read their daughters cautionary tales, including classics like Little Red Riding Hood. But no, instead my dad read me old copies of Peter Parker AKA Spiderman and Daredevil.

Although I always appreciated protagonists like Spider-Man and Daredevil, they weren’t the characters that drew me in. Instead, I was fixated on characters like Black Cat and Black Widow. At only four-years-old or so, I was captivated by their sass, their attitude and how they could fight crime whilst still looking fabulous. Even though I- like most little girlsenjoyed movies like The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast, princesses weren’t my idols.

Instead, I looked up to superheroines that were just as capable of fighting for what they believed was right like men were.

After reading more and more comic books throughout the years, I realised that while my favourite female superheroes were often portrayed as fierce women, they were also often cast aside. Confused and disappointed as to why superheroines were rarely the starring role in the exceptionally popular Marvel and DC movies, I decided to research this and consider how they were portrayed and why.

Despite superheroines being a key part of comic books since the 1930s, superhero movies neglected their female characters for a long time. Although the superhero genre has only received global acclaim in the last few decades, comic books hit the screens as early as 1941 in a 12-chapter serial called Adventures of Captain Marvel, which featured the character we now refer to as ‘Shazam’.

Arguably, it wasn’t until 2008 with the release of Marvel Studios’ Iron Man starring Robert Downey Jr. that superhero movies became a phenomenon. Yet, even with this spike in popularity, Marvel and DC seemed hesitant to release a female-led superhero movie. Since the poorly received Catwoman movie in 2004, 14 DC superhero movies and 34 Marvel movies were released by 2017.

However, it wasn’t until 2017 that another TITS UP EVERYDAY

superheroine had her solo movie with the release of Wonder Woman. As a female viewer, seeing Wonder Woman be portrayed just as strong and confident as every male protagonist that occupied the screen up until this point, I felt a sense of awe whilst sat in the cinema. If Wonder Woman could reach this level of success within her solo movie, that meant there was hope for every other female character who had been neglected.

More importantly, it meant there was hope for every woman in the audience, hoping to make something of themselves in a male-dominated world. Gadot’s Wonder Woman was a woman of motivation, courage, and a genuine desire for justice. There was no doubt that she was worthy of admiration and respect, and every time I think of the portrayal of Wonder Woman I am reminded of how great and awe-inspiring not just superheroines are, but women are.

Soon after the release of Wonder Woman, Marvel Studios followed suit and released Captain Marvel (2019), boasting $1.128 billion at Box Office, and proving that female characters are just as worthy of hitting the big screen as their male counterparts. With figures like these, it begs the question as to why it took so long for Marvel and DC to alter the male domination of the superhero genre.

Not all superheroines have had quite the success though. When Iron Man 2 came out in 2010 I was only nine years old or so. Having loved the character of Black Widow my whole life, I was bursting to get to cinemas. I remember the disappointment I felt when I watched the movie. She had little characterisation, a lack of dialogue, only one memorable fight scene, and wasn’t even referred to by her alias throughout the entire movie. I felt like the character could have been anyone, not the superheroine that I admired so much. All that time I hoped that she would get her own solo movie.

If other superheroes like Thor and Captain America and Hulk could get their movies, why couldn’t Black Widow? As a child, I didn’t truly understand that this was a gendered issue.

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The fact that her solo movie is being released soon still fills me with pride as it does every time a badass female character gets her spotlight. I hope that all the little girls out there who will watch the movie will feel the same admiration for Black Widow I did when I was a child reading the comic books. Yet, I can’t help but feel saddened that when I was a kid, I never got to see my favourite superheroines steal the show, instead having to sit through each and every male-dominated movie instead.

So why did it take so long for Marvel and DC to transfer their superheroines from comic books to screen? One reason could certainly be the failure of Catwoman. However, it’s interesting to note that many male-led superhero movies have also flopped. Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2012) grossed only $132 million (almost half of its predecessor), and Daredevil (2003) which grossed an unimpressive $179 million. Yet, this did not lead to a halt in male-led movies. This alone suggests that there is little lenience when it comes to female-led movies and prior to Wonder Woman, there was an expectation they would not gross as highly as male-led superhero movies.

Due to their uncanny popularity, audiences of all genders rush to the cinemas to experience these movies. Therefore, it is equally as important for superhero movies to have female leads as it is for them to have male leads. The Marvel and DC franchises have become two of the most valuable parts of pop culture. As a result, the limitation of female characters who star in their solo movies is not just a limitation within the superhero genre but a limitation within pop culture.

Portraying strong superheroines is an exceptional statement after years of female characters being portrayed as the “love interest” or the “sidekick”. For the sake of all the girls out there watching Thor and Iron Man, I hope that Marvel and DC continue to produce female-led movies to give them the role models that they deserve.

Words by Lily Egleton

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SAVE WOMEN MEN STOP

When the statistic was released, in early March, that 97% (later amended to 86%) of women had been sexually harassed according to a study by the United Nations, women were not surprised. Do you know who was surprised? Men. TITS UP EVERYDAY

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Astonished, appalled, and downright in denial, one of the first responses uttered out of the lips of our biological others were:

but it’s not working. The sad actualities of life are that women are still being harassed and abused. EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.

“Well, what counts as sexual harassment then?”

Therefore, when the news broke that on the 3rd of March Sarah Everard went missing when walking home, a chord was struck with women everywhere. Not because this hadn’t happened before, but because it was a reminder to us that no matter the efforts we take in order to keep ourselves safe, women alone are not enough. Our safety can no longer just be a responsibility upheld by women; it must be upheld by society as a whole. But where do we even begin?

Realistically, it’s a fair question. Seeing as not one of us in this god-forsaken country grew up with any real social skills being taught at school, it’s not exactly a shock that a lot of men do not know where the line is drawn.

Therefore, on the off chance that those of the male species happen to be reading this, here is the Tits Up definition of sexual harassment: Any behaviour that is degrading, predatory or inappropriate towards another being without their consent or positive participation. As this definition potentially leaves open space for interpretation, it is important to note that if you ever feel unsure on whether your actions could be considered as harassment, the best option is to refrain from that behaviour entirely.

The government’s reflex response of placing more police on the streets was probably one of their stupidest decisions to date (and that’s coming from a long string of terrible decisions all year). However, one of the less idiotic resolutions was the passing of misogyny as a hate crime. Although a small victory to

You see, it may be tricky for men to know where the lines are drawn within sexual conduct but it’s not for the 86% of women who have experienced having those boundaries broken at least once.

This is why despite the shared disappointment in such a statistic, it came as no great revelation to women that misogynistic behaviour on this scale was still occurring every day.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY NATASHA QUARMBY

This is nothing new to us. Ever since we were 13, in school uniform, getting whistled and shouted at by grown men passing by have we been made aware. “It’s a joke”, they would say. No, no it’s a compliment in fact. Lucky us for being deemed attractive enough to be made to feel vulnerable when just walking home from school.

The occurrence of such predatory behaviour, once a shock, soon becomes an expected reality of daily life. So, we prepare ourselves, sharing the tips and tricks that pass from mother to daughter, friend to friend, about how to prevent such harassment or assault. Rules such as not walking alone at night, not having headphones in if it’s quiet about, crossing the road to avoid groups of men, covering drinks so they don’t get spiked, the list is endless. We do all these things, almost intuitively, to protect ourselves from being harassed on a daily basis

women and possibly a great deterrent for such behaviour, punishment does not help to understand why it is happening in the first place. Therefore, the rectification in the individual’s behaviour can only happen once the crime is committed, at which point it is already too late. Punishment does not work alone. What needs to be explored are the ways in which this sort of behaviour can be prevented. That all begins with reforming sex education.

Based on a recent survey held by Tits Up, 96% of you stated that you were not adequately taught the importance of consent or the severity of sexual harassment and assault. In fact, one individual claimed that she received not a single lesson on consent, as she was taught sex education by a priest. Ridiculous. In a country that laughs at its own awkwardness

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and lack of sexual understanding, boys being clueless about the female anatomy or how to communicate their attraction, was for the most part seen as comical. Nothing like awkward teenagers trying to navigate the realms of raging hormones and sexual urges to make a good comedy sketch.

Instead of learning communication, what British adolescents were taught was to hold in all that sexual energy and emotion till the point of complete inebriation and then hurtle themselves at the said partner of attraction.

True, school may have taught us that condom= no baby and no condom= chlamydia, but what about the rest of it? What about the conducts of dating? What about teaching the difference between a girl feeling sexy and a girl being sexualised? Where was the lesson on what to do if someone (like many cases) was too drunk to give consent or to know what they were consenting to?

For so many of us in our 20’s the half-assed education, we received left us turning to modes such as porn and exaggerated stories from those around us, to give an idea of how sex really worked. This only made the lack of education in schools a hundred times worse.

With Pornhub recently reporting to have found over 650,000 videos of sexual abuse on their website in just 2020 alone, this constant exposure to behaviour that should be disturbing has been normalised. As found

by Kara Rodenhizer and Katie Edwards, 4 out of 5 studies done within western countries, prove that exposure to sexually violent pornography and rape pornography result in greater rape acceptance.

Pair this with the lack of sex education within schools and what you result in is the shit-show figures of sexual harassment that we see now.

As one young woman, Poppy explains, ‘We have been harassed and belittled since Adam and Eve. Been raped and forced into sexual altercations since records began. Fast forwarding into the 2000s, women getting groped and taken advantage of in nightclubs is ‘standard’ and simply accepted into a night out.’

Rape culture has become so far ingrained into society that when you begin to look, you notice it everywhere. On TV, in music, even (until

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Some of my earliest recollections of sexual harassment began yet again in school.

Innumerable accounts of misogynistic behaviour were passed off as a ‘boys will be boys’ mentality. For instance, a “game” was created by boys which was called the frigid test. The game entailed running their hand up a girl’s skirt until they told them to stop.

Depending on which point of the girl’s leg they would reach, it would determine whether or not they got branded as “frigid”.

A boy (who is probably in prison now) which I was made to sit next to for months in a class continued to do this repeatedly. When I’d push him off, he would retaliate by stabbing me with a compass, when I shouted, I would be told by my teacher (my female teacher) to be quiet. Then, when I finally plucked up the courage to ask her after class to be moved, explaining my reasons, she responded with “but he works so well sat next to you”, and that was that. A woman that I believed would understand disregarded me entirely. Screw my safety, as long as he knew Of Mice and Men well.

Girls all through the summer were forced to wear tights causing chafing and heat rash so that boys could not look up our skirts and see our underwear. Again, skirts had to be worn long so that equally boys couldn’t see up them when walking up the stairs. Girls were tormented, teased, and left to feel as if it was no one’s problem but their own. But we weren’t alone. Similar stories from all over the country followed similar patterns of standardised sexual harassment. Did anyone listen? No. Shortly after the Sarah Everard case was released to the public, more disturbing figures began to amount in relation to sexual abuse.

On a website called Everyone’s Invited, testimonies began being made from survivors of ‘rape, sexual assault, and abuse’ within schools, universities, and organisations.

With figures now reaching over 15,000, the prevalence of sexual harassment and abuse within schools is only reinstated. Founder of the organisation Soma Sara began Everyone’s Invited after sharing her own experiences of rape culture, in June 2020, and receiving floods of responses from young women who had also gone through similar ordeals. The multitude of testimonies took the incidents from a 1v1, ‘he said she said’ that could be brushed aside, to an outcry that could no longer be ignored.

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Interestingly, the organisation also believes ‘growing up we were socialised to believe that this behaviour was acceptable’ and it is because of that, that we see a culture that ‘normalises and trivialises these actions.’ Again, we see the lack of understanding at the most formative of ages create the foundations for wider acceptance within society for misogynistic, disrespectful attitudes towards women. Being trapped in a destructive cycle of uninformed adults teaching impressionable children about sex will get us nowhere. Something has to change.

PHOTOGRAPHY TOP IMAGE BY LIA BENTLY AND BOTTOM IMAGE BY CASSIE COLLYER

3 years ago) in newspapers. We grew up in the generations of page 3 girls, because that’s what was missing from the news…tits. Due to the charms of media women’s bodies have been reduced to a commodity constantly and we have witnessed it all. Boys have witnessed it all.

Fortunately, there is still hope. Director General of Early Years and Schools Group Andrew McCully spoke to Tits Up about the lack of curriculum support for sex education within schools and what is being done to enforce a change. In email McCully stated: “To prepare children for life in modern Britain, pupils need to understand the world in which they are growing up. We want to support all young people to lead happy, healthy and safe lives and to foster respect for other people and for difference. That is why we made the new subjects of Relationships Education (for primary school pupils), Relationships and Sex Education (for secondary school pupils) and Health Education (for all pupils in statefunded schools) compulsory from September 2020.”

The subjects cover, along with other things, “the key aspects of the law relating to sex.

These key aspects should include the age of consent, what consent is and is not, the definitions and recognition of rape, sexual assault and harassment, and choices permitted around pregnancy. The curriculum also covers sexual exploitation, abuse, grooming, coercion, harassment, and domestic abuse and how these can affect current and future relationships”, claims the Director General.

Although this is of course not an issue schools can tackle alone, it is evident from personal and shared views of many women that they are a great place to start. Education is the key to finding a solution, as all behaviour that is learnt can certainly be unlearnt.

Systemic issues such as misogyny, racism and violence against those in minorities are not fashion fads that can be news today and fish and chip paper tomorrow. These issues have gone on for too long ignored or subsided for the sake of comfortability in the unknown.

Women will no longer tolerate being treated this way and that has been made perfectly clear by the vigils and protests and research that has compiled over the previous months.

However, this conversation cannot end here.

People must continue to speak up about sexual harassment and keep informing each other, because that is the only way progress

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will be made. With compulsory education in place, we can only hope that a new generation will find contentment in the understanding of what rape culture is and what is the correct sexual conduct. Being clueless is no longer a funny British trait. Ignorance is dangerous as we have been proven time and time again.

So please, educate your sons and protect your daughters.

Words by Farryn Stock

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BY NATASHA QUARMBY

BY NATASHA QUARMBY TITS UP EVERYDAY

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PHOTOGRAPHY BY NATASHA QUARMBY

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PHOTOGRAPHY BY LIA BENTLEY TITS UP EVERYDAY

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NAVIGATING THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTS OF SPIRITS I go to a bar and order a whiskey.

I get complimented and criticised in equal measure.

“That’s a very masculine drink for such a delicate young lady. Are sure you don’t want something else? Perhaps a spritzer?”

I smile and turn my head away from the person attached to the opinion I never asked for.

Laphroaig in hand.

The next time I’m out it is with friends celebrating.

We order cocktails, shots and anything that comes with fruit.

I watch the back of a bar tender free pour half the amount of vodka we pay for and ask (nicely) if they would use a measure and make the drink in front of us.

I do this not because I am cheap, or because my experience behind a bar has taught me to gage the volume of peach schnapps required for a ‘Sex on the beach’; But because last time I had cocktails, an unexpected ingredient slipped into my friend’s Pina Colada causing an unusual degree of amnesia and an unresponsive manner to her limp, unconscious body.

Thankfully, we all went home together.

That time.

To the staff and everyone else however, we were just young girls sipping cocktails and taking selfies.

Easy money, easily pleased and easy prey.

With my parents I share wine.

A rich merlot or dry sauvignon blanc, depending on the meat of course.

It is acceptable, respectable and unquestionable.

It is safe.

A work’s night out is always a wild card.

I start off with prosecco, again it is expected, polite.

Then wine if there are others daring to have a glass.

If not, it’s cider or beer, subject to the mood and company.

When the games commence you know there is no hope of a few Gin and Tonics sitting down at a table, admiring the floral aromas and the juniper berries swimming around your glass.

If everyone is drinking one thing, you cannot drink another.

It works in rounds, you see.

We split into groups and cordially respect the rules: You buy the next lot of drinks for those who have previously bought drinks for you.

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Quite Biblical really.

Yet, as the only identifying female in the group, the pressure to keep up is immeasurable.

If I do, I’m a legend, one of the lads, but my femininity is called into question.

If I don’t, my limitations as a woman are confirmed, paradoxically both gaining and losing me respect.

There is no way in which I can succeed in this situation.

Thus, the conundrum continues.

Uni was different.

There was equality but we were on a budget.

Wednesday afternoons saw Lidl workers hold their breaths as the herds of students swarmed through their doors, grasping at single figure spirits and cans that looked almost identical to our favourite brands: Woodgates, Baywoods and everything in between “Bottle of wine before 9” was standard for Pre’s and at under £4 a litre, it was worth the trek home.

Beer Pong had no limitations, anything alcoholic was allowed.

Every gender, sexuality and ethnicity danced on tables after £1 Jägerbombs, throwing their VK’s into the crowds in a salute to our freedom.

Once the hangovers kicked in, things were different but Wednesday nights were euphoric, unparalleled, utopian.

I wasn’t scoffed at for ordering a pint because it was “unladylike”.

I could drink out of a bottle as it wasn’t deemed “common”.

If I drank wine I wasn’t “predictable”.

If I drank pink gin I wasn’t “basic”.

The incredible thing about being broke in a student house is that almost everyone around you was also broke in a student house and nobody cared about your preferences.

It is only outside of this environment that I have experienced the bushy raised eyebrows of concerned onlookers as I sink a Dark Fruits like it was Ribena.

Only at home do I second guess my Rum and Coke for fear of attracting attention.

Navigating the social constructs of drinking is difficult and exhausting.

I shall be doing a Masters next year.

Words by Niamh Griffiths

PHOTOGRAPHY BY LUCY JENKINS

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PHOTOGRAPHY BY MASIE MCDERMOTT 42

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NO MORE SOCIAL PLEASERS When we have been conditioned since birth to always please, learning to say no can be the biggest challenge...but a necessary one.

As a self-confessed social pleaser, I often like to feel motivated and revel in the completion of other people’s requests. If anything can be done to gain approval and avoid conflict, you bet, I will do it. I often look back and linger in disgust over the five sets of apologies I send in the same email, in desperation to keep the associations I have with acquaintances and loose links intact.

This busy body lifestyle may seem harmless, and in some respects rewarding, but the concentration on the needs of others often prohibits me from spending time on myself and important self-care practices, creating a damaging habit that can leave you in a vicious cycle of stress and anxiety.

Being a people pleaser runs in the family. Playing hostess and needing to care and attend to the demands of everyone but yourself, goes even as far as my great grandmother, but is this personality type a result of the gene pool or a gender norm constructed to hold further power over women?

Social conditioning and gender construction could be the answer to more women identifying as people-pleasers than men. From a young age, we as women, are told to stay quiet, to comfort and avoid conflict, silencing a voice that is only just beginning to be heard. The relationship that society has with the media has had one of the biggest influences on this way of thinking. The prominence of male creators and their power to represent gender and cultures has meant that the presentation of women as social pleasers has become a normality.

Watching Margot Robbie parade through The Wolf of Wall Street was a real eye-opener for me. Robbie’s present yet passive character poses as the perfect woman, a Stepford wife, whose purpose is to serve and please her husband, predominantly through sexual acts. Roles like this, created through the male lens, have maintained women’s gender role as social pleasers in contemporary society and the age of social media.

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Although the internet allows for every woman’s voice to be heard through becoming individual content creators, ‘meme culture’ has meant that platforms, with thousands of followers, can now promote damaging gender roles and female representation under the cover of humour. The ‘make me a sandwich’ meme (Yes, it is as stupid as it sounds), is used to mock women and “put them in their place”, AKA the kitchen. Although this meme peaked some time ago, similar images and comedic sayings are still noticeable today, especially in male lead meme pages, presenting a worrying example of how young media consumers could adopt the toxic male ideology that women are required to attend to the social pleasing role.

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omen should not be forced into a position where they feel they need to make everyone else happy before themselves.

Women should not be forced into a position where they feel they need to make everyone else happy before themselves.

Although men still dominate the imagery of women and how they are perceived, the Andrea Arnold’s and Juno Calypso’s of the creative world are rising.

Taking a stand against the patriarchy, women such as these are presenting an unapologetic view of women through the feminine lens. With more platforms recognising these women as talented creatives and presenting their work, a change in the water, which subverts constructed gender norms such as people-pleasing concerning femininity, is slowly occurring.

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You can also be part of this change. Although it may seem impossible, the ‘Disease to Please’ (as described by Dr. Susan Newton) can be cured, through changing your way of thinking and learning the skill of saying no. I find it extremely difficult to say no even in uncomfortable or potentially dangerous situations, and I know that many women that feel the same. The fact that we even think about the reaction of others when refusing something that could damage our mental and/or physical health is concerning. Therefore, I stress how valuable the word no can be, to break this habit and disrupt this representation surrounding our gender.

This cycle can be broken in different ways, the first step is to be aware of when you want to say no, or when you would like to work on yourself that day, rather than focusing on others. By practicing awareness in this way, you may feel more in touch with yourself and your needs, which can be rewarding in terms of the journey of self-acceptance and growth.

Let’s be honest, the saying ‘give them an inch and they will take a mile’ is true. Setting boundaries of how much you can do for people, even those who are close to you, is also helpful. Letting people know your limits can not only protect your mental health from overloading but it can be empowering for you to recognise that people should not take advantage and walk all over you.

Although saying no can be a difficult task to start with, a weight of responsibility will be lifted, your body and mind will thank you. Women are powerful and do not need to be polite princesses caught up in the hostess game. We shall be seen and heard, voicing our needs, and recognising when we need to look after ourselves.

Words by Masie McDermott

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Photographs by Amanda Bjorn

An afternoon at Playa De Bossa

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Amanda Björn is an artist and curator interested in the connection between bodies and space. She works in images, music, films, and movement seeking to build relationships with the fragile world around us. She is the founder of Women Photo Tours, leading photography and art trips for women artists in various locations in Latin America — Cuba, Guatemala, Mexico, and Panama. At the start of 2021, Björn joined as the platform art curator for @Feminist.

The series “An afternoon at Playa De Bossa” is an attempt to capture a different side of the infamous White Island in the midst of the 2020 pandemic.

Whilst known for its infamous clubs and party scene, Ibiza also holds home to many citizens who have found normality in amongst the mayhem. Björn captures a glimpse of reality away from the filtered glamour. Although those captured within the photographs are strangers, there is a sense of familiarity felt when first observing the photos, as though they could potentially be acquaintances of some kind. This sense of connection, as though they could be old family photos, is what makes the series all that more engaging.

The nostalgia and amusement conjured up by ‘An Afternoon at Playa De Bossa’ also embodies how holidays have for so long felt like a thing of the past, like a happy memory that we have clung to in hopes of it soon becoming a reality again. Luckily, for the UK holiday’s are now closer to becoming a reality than they have been for an entire year, which means dodgy suntans and Lays and a cocktail on the balcony are within reaching distance.

All of Amanda’s photography can be found on her website www.amandabjornphotography.com., where her work is available to buy.

Words by Farryn Stock, adapted from Amanda Bjorn

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Photography by Amanda Bjorn

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PHOTOGRAPHY BY LOTTI STOCK

FAILURE TO LAUNCH 50

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* To make clear this article’s research refers to heterosexual sex. Our dissapointment therefore stands only with straight MEN*

Every girl experiencing sex will tell you the same thing: it is not how Hollywood shows you. At least, not at first anyway.

Let’s make it clear, I am not claiming to be a bounty of knowledge when it comes to sex.

However, as an avid reader of secular books, a self-proclaimed film, and TV buff, and have quite a few friends with active and consenting sexual relationships, I can, confidently claim that women have been sold a lie about their experiences of pleasure. More importantly, it’s lack thereof.

In 2015, Prof. Osmo Kontula asked over 8,000 women in Finland about their sexual experiences. Kontula discovered that only onequarter of them had experienced an orgasm during intercourse within the first year that they started having partner sex. A total of 14% of women under the age of 35 had never even had an orgasm through intercourse. This was reported on MedicalNewsToday, and studies from around the world continue to prove these rather unsurprising numbers. Women are just not getting the pleasure from penetrative sex that they deserve.

I want to clarify now that this is not slander against those opposing monogamy. The science of a woman’s body has proven to be engrained with their emotional and intelligent wellbeing, making it more difficult for casual or new sexual relationships to produce frequent pleasure. Like any relationship, for many couples, sexual pleasure coincides with time and trust. The issue I have with all of this: It does not match with the fantasy that people are sold to believe. The truth behind the complexity of female pleasure is hidden from us.

Furthermore, it goes right back to the structure of our education and the lack of time given to teaching about female anatomy. I’m not saying third-period health class should teach teenagers how to generate orgasms, but I didn’t know that the clit played a part in orgasms until I was 16. Instead, for every one health class about women anatomy, I had to sit through two that were for men. I knew

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how to put on a condom before knowing about the importance of sexual arousal and how biologically it allows women to orgasm easier.

Obviously, it’s crucial to be taught safe sex at a young age, but what is the point if there’s no acknowledgement about how to make it enjoyable for BOTH participants?

Yet again, this doesn’t fit with the fantasy.

When I started reading fan-fiction at 12 years old, it wasn’t long before I came across the coveted smut tag, attached under stories with warnings of “for readers over the age of 16.”

Naturally, I read them, and that was where I got my first expectation of what an orgasm was. Whilst researching this topic, I re-read some of these scenes, and I couldn’t help but laugh. In one particular story, the woman experienced multiple orgasms after thirty seconds of penetrative sex that lasted for over five minutes. That is not normal.

That is undiagnosed Permanent Sexual Arousal Disorder (PGAD), and it is not as desirable as it sounds. However, reading that as a young teen, made me believe that was what would happen. A scientific study reported by Forbes magazine showed that the average orgasm lasted between 10 – 59 seconds, with not every woman experiencing a climax.

Which meant not only did I have to come to terms with the fact that I would never get to sleep with a Weasley twin, I also had to accept that orgasms are not easy to achieve.

It isn’t just shown in studies, however. If you have sexually active friends, start an open conversation and ask them how often they experience orgasms through penetrative sex.

If you want an honest answer, don’t ask this in front of their sexual partner (it doesn’t end well), but I guarantee you their response will rationalise your concerns.

A couple of my friends have only recently started having sex; one in a committed relationship, the other having casual sex.

The one in a committed relationship has experienced more frequent orgasms than my other friend. However, what she admitted is that this development had only been recent

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in their six-month relationship. When asked why, she stated it was because she had finally established open communication and trust, which allowed her partner to understand her body and what she enjoyed. I’m not saying it’s only possible for causal sex to result in a one-sided climax, but you have to be truthful.

It’s as simple as this; If you’re not enjoying what your partner is doing, you are not going to orgasm. Do you know how to fix that? Tell them. Just tell them. You’re not being mean, you’re being honest.

Women, I know it can be intimidating to see the illusion of sex in the media. Porn distorts the reality of sex into the belief that orgasms are as easy as breathing. Books make it seem as if everybody’s sexual desires and activities are the same. Films make it seem like sex is constant fireworks. It’s not fair to expect these unrealistic standards of yourself because biologically, your body is unable to do that at the drop of a skirt. Invest in your body and your sexual journey; give it time. Unfortunately, in real life, few partners will be able to arouse you that much the first time. That would be the same as expecting you to speak Spanish fluently after watching Coco once.

You deserve to orgasm. You deserve to enjoy sex.

Your body is complex because you, as a human, are complex. Don’t just lie there and hope it happens; make it happen! Communicate, allow for there to be a learning time, never doubt for a moment that you deserve to feel sexually satisfied. Let’s make 2021 the year of sexual pleasure; we’ve earned it.

Words by Holly Morris

TACTICAL CHUNDER, 49cm x 49cm, Acrylics on Canvas, 2021

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MEGAN GEORGIA SMITH

The artist exploring what it means to be part of working class Britain shares her paintings ‘centred on class, youth culture ‘and the tragic condition of being human.’

Growing up in Aldershot, Hampshire Megan’s paintings play into the stereotypical viewpoints that she believes surround the working-class youth, which she identifies herself with most. Not shying away from the realities of what working-class Britain are viewed as the oil on canvas paintings walk that fine line between what we see and what we assume. It is a homage to those who like Megan identify as working-class youth and witness the scenes that she depicts so perfectly.

However, as Megan makes clear it is important to always challenge and critique those stereotypes that are placed upon us, particularly in under-represented demographics. Just like the working class, minorities of race and gender find themselves targeted as the ones often stereotyped, in order to place within a box that is digestible for wider consumption.

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The sort of stereotypes that Megan focuses on are that of alcohol and substance abuse, gambling away their lasts of money on lottery tickets, and vulgarities.

By magnifying these beliefs in such a way, Megan explains “I also illustrate my dark sense of humour, mocking the idea that every working-class/ young person can be categorized this way (when of course - they cannot).” However, the artwork is much more than satirical symbols, it also gives an opportunity for working-class individuals to be seen in a space that often excludes them. By divulging her own experiences of being working class, Megan finds a way ‘of glorifying its citizens yet highlighting their struggles.’

Words by Farryn Stock

PULL UP IN THE COZY COUPE, 40cm x 50cm, Acrylics and Oils on Canvas, 2021

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NEVER GOING TO WIN £1MILLION, 29.5cm x 29.5cm, Acrylics on Canvas, 2020

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SOS: SAVE OUR SOLES, 100cm x 100cm, Oils on Canvas, 2020

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what’s t point of size?

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the

PLUS From conversations surrounding whether plus size clothes should cost more to plus sizes models not being big enough, the debate surrounding women’s bodies never seems to stop. The newest argument? Should plussizing be integrated into core lines? This isn’t a new conversation either, it all started in 2015 after a survey of UK shoppers found 61% of plus-size consumers would rather shop in the main section than a specific plus-size section.

The conversation now is really all about the myths surrounding whether it is truly necessary to have plus-size sections in stores.

Though at first, this discussion seems to be another divulge into fatphobia from the general public, there does seem to be a legitimate argument to be had here.

This isn’t about the 2016 H&M scandal where they decided plus-size wasn’t selling, but instead the conversation of whether plus size clothing is actually singling people out for being plus size for no reason. We’ve all seen the likes of PLT and ASOS having an alternate listing for the same dress, one in the plus-size section and one in the regular section. Many people for the last few years have been calling an end to this and calling it outdated. The main feeling being that they shouldn’t be treated like the minority or a special group.

After all, 68% of shoppers determine themselves plus-size yet they are not being represented on our high street or online. As well as that many reported it is embarrassing having to shop from a specific section. But is it the perception of plus-size that needs to change rather than the sizing details?

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I think to the untrained eye it can definitely look like there is no reason to have plus-size sections of the same clothing items. However, independent plus size clothing can be a lot more damaging, it shows what the retailer deems size-appropriate. From maxi dresses to full coverage bland clothing, it decides that they should dress differently to a size 8 person.

Plus-size says nothing about preferences of style, colours, or design. It simply means a larger garment, so having the same clothing is actually a better idea than a separate range in most cases. Mini skirts, bold patterns, and tube tops should not be size exclusive, as the age-old cliche says ‘every body is a bikini body’ and our retailers need to get on board.

Plus size can also be an important way to show what the clothes actually look like.

With different sections, we can see how clothes can look on different models, from petite sections with petite models showing how the dress will look on a different body to plus-size sections showing the same. There is a long way to go for our high street sellers to accommodate different people and represent fairly, but plus-size sections need improving instead of removing.

There are also steps forward being taken

by ASOS to show all the different types of bodies. It is no longer the outdated view that there is only normal and fat, there are hundreds of different ranges for the hundreds of different bodies that exist. With their new section on the website, ‘Shop by body fit’ it is a step forward in the fashion industry

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understanding the consumer. PLT also has a similar section with PLT shape for those that struggle with getting clothes that fit the curvier customer.

Another reason plus-size sections are a valid and important part of shopping is not just being able to see it on a body that looks like your own, but from a technical standpoint too. I spoke with a designer and pattern cutter who said that it is poor form to make one item with a size range from 0-30 because grading doesn’t work like that, in order to make a clothing item fit well simply making it better isn’t going to cut it. It’s all about proportions from the waist size to the shoulder size.

As Emma Grede (CEO of Fashion Brand, Good American) says in an interview with Refinery29 “You can’t apply the same metrics and ethos as you do to straight sizes. I think that’s really where people go wrong,” For a lot of people, it’s important to remember that though hopefully one day this won’t be necessary, plus size can also be a crucial signpost to those looking for clothes that they can’t normally find. In terms of SEO, if you type in plus-size clothing into google looking for something to buy it can help to know instantly which clothes offer these sizes and which don’t straight off the bat.

Words by Emilie Mendham

A Letter to My 20-year-old Self MISSCARIAGES About Love, Heartbreak and Baby Loss PIECE

PHOTOGRAPHY BY MEGAN HARRISON 60

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Dear twenty-year-old me, I know your heart has just been broken. I know you are hanging by a thread, working fifty hours a week at a job you hate, and sub-letting a room with people who only speak to you via notes left on the fridge. I know you can barely bring yourself to make food, let alone wash the dishes, and I know you have tried to give your love away and it has been thrown back in your face.

But that love he hurled back at you, along with your keys? You must pick it up. You’re going to need to dust it off and keep it safe. I know you don’t feel like it, but it is yours. It never belonged to him – he was just renting it, and he never kept up with the payments.

You may not believe this, but you’re going to meet someone deeply good, who takes the love you offer him and treats it with respect, even when he has to hand it back to you. In the early days, you’re going to forget to take your contraceptive pill, and you’re going stare down at the little blue plus sign on the plastic stick and feel your whole life shift around you.

Your mother is going to stand at your hospital bed, cradling your baby in her arms. She’s going to remind you of all the nights you tucked your soft toys into bed as a child. She’s going to say, ‘I always knew you were meant to be a mother,’ and you’re going to whisper back, ‘I can’t do this.’ But you can.

You’ll feel like you have misplaced the love, every time your new baby wakes in the night and your eyes itch with tiredness. But it is still there, it is just hiding. Just when you think it is lost forever, that tiny face will break into a smile or laugh at an innocuous household noise and you will find it again. The love will help you through a few more hours.

Over the years, that love will grow, and you’ll be glad you kept it. Eventually, you’ll feel you have more to give, and you’ll see that blue plus sign appear again. You’ll know what to expect this time. You’ll know the next three months are going to be a blur of nausea and fatigue, that you’re going to search your underwear for blood every time you go to the toilet, convinced that something is wrong.

But you don’t expect the blood to come, and when it does, you’ll ignore it. You’ll ignore it until it’s impossible to ignore. You’ll know that one in eight pregnancies ends in miscarriage, but you’ll convince yourself you’re not going to be one of them. You’ll go to A&E, already fearing the worst.

You’ll soon know you have lost your baby. You’ll know when you lie on the table and the probe goes in, when the technician turns the screen away from you when the midwife hands you a yellow box with tiny footprints printed on the lid and tells you to ‘pop the foetal remains in the freezer’ until you’re ready to bury them. You thought your heart was broken before, but that was just a scratch. This will hurt like hell.

For days you will bleed, and it won’t be like a heavy period. It will be like birth because it is birth. The pain will be almost intolerable, but it is nothing compared to how broken you’ll feel inside. For weeks you’ll do nothing but cry and sleep, as your body adjusts to no longer being pregnant. You’ll still have morning sickness, and this will feel like a cruel trick of nature. Your breasts will be sore and swollen, and you’ll wear sanitary towels for almost two months.

When the pain thaws, the kindness of others will bring you comfort. Your brother will send you a box of your favourite snacks and you’ll feel a glimmer of happiness. Your child will hug you and you will smile. You will talk and heal and gradually start to pick up the shards of love scattered around your bed. You will find that when you put them back together, they make a whole.

It’s not going to be an easy decade, but if you pay attention, you will find value in all your experiences. You will get stronger, and your love will continue to grow. Look after it. Cherish it, nurture it. Share it with the people closest to you, even after they’ve gone. Give it away if you want but think twice about who you trust to take care of it.

Most of all, never think that it is lost.

Yours truly,

Thirty-year-old me.

Words by Emma-Marie Smith

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JESS HAZELL TITS UP EVERYDAY

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Jess Hazell is a self-taught painter living in East London. Having been painting now for 5 years, Jess began with painting scenery pictures on the coffee table in her home. Fast forward 5 years and she is a selfconfessed “feminist artist working every day to dismantle the patriarchy, societies beauty standards and teach new ways of self-love and care.”

In her bio Jess states: “Purple is my thing, I don’t know why. A purple nude painting happened one day and I never went back, I love the energetic quality it gives my work.

It sort of strips back the flesh of reality and propels the viewer into a spiritual and auradriven narrative.

I want my paintings to give strength and courage. I want them to show the many sides of women that aren’t always portrayed as ‘beautiful’. I want people to feel powerful when they look at them like they can see themselves in it and walk away with a fire in their step. Unstoppable! Your inner goddess loves you for it.”

All Jess’s art is available on her website www.jesshazellart.com where she offers commissioned pieces. Alongside this, Jess is also selling prints with the proceeds going to charity.

Words by Farryn Stock

I’ve always struggled with my body image and mental health, it’s something I’ve learned to live with and work through, and using my art as a tool to combat this and help other people through it has become my passion project.

Every day I can create new work that sets a fire inside someone’s inner femme. Connecting to that side of ourselves is so important to me, it’s emotional, intense, wild, and powerful, and I think that’s such a magical and empowering journey to embark on.

Purple is my thing, I don’t know why.

A purple nude painting happened one day and I never went back.

I love the energetic quality it gives my work. It sort of strips back the flesh of reality and propels the viewer into a spiritual and aura- driven narrative.

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LETS TA L K ABOUT

SEX BABY UNLESS YOU’RE A WOMAN 66

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My first sexual encounter was largely instrumented by self-pressure. Pressure to be liked… by my boyfriend and my peers, and to like myself.

From early on, society had moulded me to believe that a young girl’s role in a relationship was to please the male. I feared being called “frigid” by peers at an age when I barely even knew my body and what sex involved.

I began to view my body as a sexual object for the male to use to his desire. Losing my virginity as a young teen was an unsatisfying, degrading, and embarrassing experience – yet I left the situation still extremely pleased.

Above everything else, I was happy to no longer be a virgin. Here, began the journey of pushing my own pleasure aside to prioritise pleasing the man.

Looking back now it pains me to see how I valued my sexual partner’s experience over my own. I had a complete lack of self-worth and respect. But why?

I think a lot of pressure to sexualise yourself as a young girl stems from adolescent conversations and assumptions surrounding sex. During school, sex is such a pinnacle part of discussions and often dictated certain romantic and friendly relationships.

Countless girls were either categorised as a “slut” or “frigid” and neither term was one you would ever want to be labelled. Being easy was dirty and shameful, yet being a prude was boring. No matter what, everyone had something to say about your sexual life (correction – your sexual life if you were a girl) and you could seldom win.

Over time, it became pretty obvious to me that this problematic perspective on sex had largely derived from the influence of media consumption. Sexualisation of women’s bodies across the media was often paired with ideals of beauty and success. The female protagonist in our favourite movies wore clothes that accentuated her figure in order to impress the boy she liked (a prime example being Sandy from Grease, who ditches her clean “virgin” image for tight leather trousers and red lipstick). A perfume or make-up advert usually involved a half-naked girl in a sex-driven setting.

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These portrayals of women were harrowing for young people’s views, as I, and many of my peers, would watch these young girls and equate their beauty and worth with their sexual experiences, forcing us to believe being sexual was not only desirable but essential.

Living in a world that shames women for being sexual but normalises the sexualisation of our bodies for self-pleasure, and personal gain does not make it easy to be a woman. But, once we unlearn the shame that has been drilled into us, we can transform sex and sexuality into a pleasurable experience.

The irony of it all was the ownership that men were taking of women and their sexuality. It became okay for men to sexualise women when it served them – in adverts, music videos, or female characters in their own stories - but how dare we ever attempt to be sexual in our own right. Look at Britney Spears for example… when she tarnished her girl-next-door image with revealing outfits and promiscuous relationships she was slammed repeatedly by the media, but when her record label put her in a “sexy” schoolgirl outfit for her ‘…Baby One More Time’ music video it was suddenly okay for her to be portrayed in a sexual way. It was situations like these that made me believe that it was okay for men to sexualise me but I could never choose to be sexy for myself. It was as if I didn’t have control over my own body.

Over time, enough was enough. I grew tired of what the media had to say about women and sex, and I soon learnt that my peers would always have an opinion on what I did with my body – no matter what. As I grew older, I began to be sexual for myself and not for male approval. I wanted to say a big fuck you to

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the patriarchy and take back my own sexual experiences. For me, this meant having casual sex. I am also more open about my body and sexuality; I wear more revealing clothes and post half-naked photos on social media.

Using my body to feel sexual is empowering; it makes me feel good about myself and has allowed me to reclaim my sexual experience as my own.

Of course, for this I have been met with scorn from men; I was a “slag” to my ex-boyfriend, “easy” to my male peers and disappointing to my father. I found it highly ironic that I was once called “frigid” by men for not being sexual enough and was now facing scorn from them for doing the opposite. It became painstakingly obvious to me that, in the eyes of men, it was only okay for females to be sexual when it served them or they were the ones doing the sexualising. Once I learnt this truth, it became exceptionally easier for me to no longer let male critique affect me.

Living in a world that shames women for being sexual but normalises the sexualisation of our bodies for self-pleasure, and personal gain does not make it easy to be a woman.

But, once we unlearn the shame that has been drilled into us, we can transform sex and sexuality into a pleasurable experience.

Are you being sexy to get the attention of males? Are you being sexy to feel good in your own body? Are you not being sexy at all because you don’t feel comfortable or you just don’t WANT to? The point is it doesn’t matter. Do what you want with your own body – it is your choice and right – and sex is just as much for the pleasure of the woman as it is for the man. I wish I could have told my younger self this so that I did not have to fake an orgasm every time my boyfriend “pleasured” me. Be a slut and proud or a prude and proud – just live your truth and normalise that men have no right to dictate the choices you make.

Words by Lucy Peacock

The Feminist Househusband “When I grow up, I want to be a housewife.” Cue gasps of horror from feminists everywhere and female CEOs dropping to the floor mid-strut in absolute shock and dismay. But why? If a woman wants to be a housewife, why can’t she be one? Feminism is all about giving women the freedom to live exactly how they want to.

Firstly, before we get into the nitty gritty, let’s just establish that having the opportunity to be a stayat-home partner is an economic privilege which many do not and will not have. Also, jumping straight into the life of housewifery – i.e. leaving school and getting lost in the whirlwind of 1950s-style married domestic bliss – is not the wisest move. Unless you’re fortunate enough to have a hefty trust fund (in which case, boo you, you lucky sod) it’s important to gain the skills and experience needed to procure a job.

Speaking as someone who gets rudely slapped around the face by the realities of life almost daily, things don’t always go to plan.

In fact, they rarely do. So, it’s important that if shit does hit the fan, you have the ability to support yourself.

Practicalities aside, let’s delve into why ‘housewife’ has evolved into a dirty, rage-riling word that has radicals foaming at the mouth, campaigning to scribble it 68

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*In this article ‘women’ refers to ALL women.

Transphobia isn’t tolerated here*

from society. Traditionally, housewives are (in heterosexual relationships) financially dependent on their husbands, meaning that they are women who rely upon men. Although being fully dependant on anyone is certainly not healthy, dependency to some degree is unavoidable. No one is an island, and those who try to be usually end up metaphorically drowning.

For any relationship to work, romantic or otherwise, you must be willing to be vulnerable and once you expose yourself like this, you have created an opportunity for that person to let you down. Of course, entering into a legally binding marriage and trusting your partner to financially provide for you is a bit different to drunkenly spilling your deepest, darkest secrets to a stranger at the pub. However, the point is money isn’t everything (which is why I whittle mine away on candles and cookbooks – I’m taking a very noble, philosophical stand.)

It is often, if not always, assumed that the power dynamic between a housewife and her husband is husband first, wife second. Why? Because he makes all of the cash. This belief completely disregards every other aspect of the relationship. Whilst a housewife may not be bringing in any revenue, she provides love, warmth, support, care for their children and much, much more. These actions may not fill the bank, but they provide a richness and safety to the husband’s life that goes beyond monetary value and is something that he depends upon. Thus, he relies just as heavily on her and she holds an equal amount of power.

This troubling issue extends further than just husband and wife though. Feminism can often label a woman only worth our ‘woke’, ‘girl power’ time if she’s got a ‘proper job’ bringing in some money. Got a career as a teacher? A cook? A cleaner? “You go girl, look at you hustling.” Doing all of that combined day in, day out for your family for free? “Oh dear honey, you are just not on our l-e-v-e-l” *sashays away swinging Balenciaga handbag*.

By buying into this attitude, feminists are unwittingly carrying on the traditions of the system that they’re supposedly trying to smash. For thousands of years women have been dismissed by men because they ‘only’ participated in the domestic domain. Fobbed as less imperative than the providers; men actually went out and did things, made things, women simply popped out babies and nurtured the world’s future generations. Not integral at all. This attitude still remains.

Certainly, there is no denying, that the continually growing presence of women in the workplace and positions of power is incredibly positive and something worth celebrating. Yet, currently, this is just serving as a fancy façade. Men have, ever so graciously, allowed us to enter the provider’s prestigious club, yet our membership level is standard, whereas theirs is V.I.P. You see, we may have been permitted to take on a new set of ‘manly’ responsibilities, but we are still expected to uphold our ‘womanly work’ as well. Most working mothers feel pressured to take on the majority of child-rearing and household responsibilities, despite having demanding careers. This is because domestic duties have been so belittled by the patriarchy that they aren’t seen as proper, integral work, just women’s frivolities.

To combat this, we must applaud housewives.

You choose to stay at home with the kids and cook, clean, carpool, be a member of the PTA… etc, etc? That is hard work.

Acknowledging this fact is how we obliterate the patriarchy. We can’t just paste women into traditional male roles and give ourselves a pat on the back, we must finally recognise that the provider and the carer are as crucial as each other.

The definitive blow, how we’re really going to slay the patriarchy, is by addressing that these traditions have been incredibly harmful to men too. In the UK, men between the ages of 45-49 have the highest rates of suicide. It’s not unjust to speculate that this is largely due to their ‘provider’ expectations. If we are going to commit to feminism, the true definition of feminism, we must also give men the freedom to choose to be a caregiver without judgement. Transitioning from the provider domain to the carer’s is not a downgrade, nor is it women’s work. Just like how we believe that women are as capable as men, they are equally as capable as us. The assumption that men can’t be maternal is a fabricated myth.

If a woman should be respected for being a housewife, so should a man for being a househusband – that’s equality.

Words by Lydia Dronsfield

ART BY CAPTAINPANDAPANTS TITS UP EVERYDAY

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SASHA SEEN PHOTOGRAPHED IN PRETTY DRESS COMPANY FROM THRIFT + NECKLACE AND TRAINERS MODELS OWN EARRINGS BY PRYA PHOTOGRAPHED BY NINA KLAFF CREATIVE DIRECTION BY FARRYN STOCK

THRIFT + THE REAL CINDERELLA STORY

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On the morn of March 13th, as pigeons coo and engines roar, Cinderella stumbles to find the cigarette she’d hidden for safekeeping. Last night, for the first time in over year, she was released from the confines of her home. Skipping past the bin men and fumbling through her purse Cinderella began to piece together the last memories of her night. A text, sent into the group chat, ‘Pub @ 12?’ . ‘It was only supposed to be a few drinks’, she thinks to herself. At least everyone loved her Thrift+ dress she’d been desperate to wear for months. As the sun started to break between the clouds and trickle down onto her face, Cinderella smiled at the new numbers in her phone, thinking ‘forget a prince, this year it’s hot girl summer.’

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NEWS FLASH HOLLYWOOD:

WOMEN ARE MORE THAN JUST LOVE INTERESTS

When I was in sixth form, my favourite thing to do with my best friend was to go to the cinema. We would sometimes go up to three times a week, driving across the city in my little car, our bags full of diet coke and magic stars, and we’d immerse ourselves in dozens of different stories until tears were pouring down our faces and our hearts were full and warm.

As I get older and continue to watch a lot of films in my free time, I can’t help but notice that in 2021 a concerning number of female characters continue to have one common driving motivation or purpose: pleasing men.

I don’t mean instances like Katniss Everdeen, who just so happen to find love whilst having her own story – I mean characters whose whole purpose is to ensure that whatever they do pleases and satisfies men.

Sometimes this character arc is deliberate; for goodness sake, the rom-com genre would die out if we ceased to make female characters like this. When it is in the correct context and written well these characters can still be enjoyable to watch. However, these stories are deliberately rooted in the audience knowing that this is what they’re paying to see. It’s the whole reason we watch rom-coms in the first place – we expect the end goal to be a happy relationship. Unfortunately, this perspective of female identity being primarily in men has become an automatic characteristic of underlining women in every film genre.

I know what you’re thinking: Holly, this isn’t a new topic, it’s been something that has

been challenged for years, and Hollywood is starting to show a significant shift in recent years in female characters, opening up more opportunities for women to play a variety of roles. And you’d be correct. However, fixing the obvious in a problem but ignoring the details is like painting over mould without killing the spore – it will always seep back through.

Take these well-known examples: James Bond and his revolving door of women, the persona of Megan Fox in Transformers, Baywatch, most Martin Scorsese films; they all follow the same narrative that women are there for the male protagonist and male audience’s benefit. These characters are glorified for their bodies and how they use them. They are put in tight, revealing outfits, have sultry voices and damaged backgrounds that make them desperate for the praise and attention of men, which then depicts the following ‘romantic’ scenes to be ‘desirable’. Once their body has been exploited, they seize to exist.

Until, finally, they have to make a choice that propels the movie forward, either benefiting the man or triggering their death.

This ensures the director doesn’t have to give them any more screen time, which would eventually expose her to be a two-dimensional, lazily written story filler. Not only this, but the narrative is also continued by the subtle actions that perpetuate this ideology further.

Such as the shocking moment when a

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woman can out-fight a man, or when they’re uncovered as the mastermind behind a plan that no man could think of. It’s obvious that such films are made by a man. Not only for their lack of originality but because women do not see the need to prove to others that we’re equally as dynamic or as smart as men. We are comfortable knowing that we are. What we would like is for this to be reflected on screen.

This is not to say that there haven’t been improvements, with characters ranging from Moana to Black Widow to Jo March who are all fleshed out, complex individuals whose identity is rooted in them-selves. They are still a minority though. It’s not because no one is writing them; it’s because Holly-wood doesn’t want to relinquish an ideology that has made them billions of dollars for decades, and it has been conditioned into us as an audience.

To put it bluntly, making a woman’s entire identity and worth about a man is, quite frankly, degrading and dull, and it doesn’t seem to be stopping anytime soon. It’s infuriating when women are written into a story simply to give an excuse for tight-fitting dresses, shower sex scenes and bad-ass shots where male protagonists are depicted as a hero as he saves her from mortal danger because she’s unable to do it on her own. These women are only seen as relevant because they provide the man with something, and yet when they’re not needed they’re easily replaced with another woman, only this time she’s brunette instead of blonde. As a society, we are fighting so hard to prove that women are more than sex, yet it is glorified on our TVs and cinema screens for profit.

When I’m a mum, I want to show my children incredible stories through film. I want them to see themselves in characters and find confidence and reassurance in who they are in whatever stage of life. I want my sons and daughters to look at a woman on the screen and see a complex, layered, imperfect yet unapologetically real human being.

We, women, deserve our own stories. We deserve to see ourselves on the big screen and see everything it means to be a woman because we are more than our relationships.

We are more than our approval from men.

We are more than a convenience, we are more than our bodies, and we are more than the forced narrative of being nothing more than sex symbols.

We have to keep unapologetically pushing for change. To quote Wild Child, “you can’t just rock the boat. You have drive it up onto the rock, set fire to the galley, and dance on the burning deck – you have to take it all the way.”

Words by Holly Morris

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PHOTOGRAPHY BY SORCHA FRANCES RIDER TITS UP EVERYDAY

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when LIFE gives you lemons 78

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On April 2nd Dunja Relic stepped off the train at Morden station in South London, for what was her first ever photoshoot. Dressed in straight leg jeans, a white long sleeve top and navy sweater vest, with Dr. Martens, the effortlessly cool persona was in fact real. Yet, with a smile from ear to ear there was no mistaking the sweet girl that was captured in those photos from her first years in Croydon, all that time ago.

By 24 Dunja has contributed more to society than most of us will ever contribute within a lifetime. She has been part of the UK Youth Parliament, the National Council of Women, visited the United Nations conference, and started her own organisation aimed at helping first-generation immigrants within the UK. Believe it or not, that’s not even all of it.

You’d think that such a do-gooder in life would radiate with smugness, projecting an air of superiority that those such as world peace advocates and volunteer workers are entitled to. However, in Dunja’s case that couldn’t be further from the truth. The young woman sat (virtually) across, humbles any preconceived judgments, as she reflects on her naïve optimism through this pandemic. Like many of us, Dunja admits to believing that after the first lockdown there was “no way in hell they would put us through that again”. Lockdown three almost finished; she may stand corrected but Dunja’s longing for freedom is clear. “I don’t want anything else dictating how I live my life”, she states. A reaction that much of Britain can undoubtedly relate to.

However, it seems that this lockdown may have come as an unrequested blessing in disguise for this law student. Having spent so much time before lockdown immersing herself in volunteering work, mentoring programmes, or as Dunja liked to put it “basically doing everything but uni”, when it all came to halt in March 2020, she finally got the break she needed to focus on her degree. “I was literally watching lectures until they released the exam questions in May” she shares. Recalling those lengthy hours spent catching up, Dunja confesses “I’m really bad with time management, so lockdown actually came at a prime time, otherwise I would’ve flopped second year”. Seems doubtful. Yet, for an individual with such an inventory of accomplishments, Dunja seems only marginally aware of her brilliance and has no fear in sharing her struggles.

a 2-year-old in tow and no idea how they would make it work.

However, with the knowledge that turning back was not an option and a work ethic that mattered more than any kind of privilege, Dunja’s parents found a way. “Since we came here, my dad works three labourbased jobs, they have no connections, no one to ask for anything”, she explains. Her story is a stark reminder of the adversities that so many immigrants within the UK, like Dunja’s family, face. A journey almost unimaginable to those who have the luxury of being born into a life of open possibility. Nevertheless, despite the severity of the story she tells, Dunja still finds time to make light of the situation. “It’s not the typical ‘oh they came in the back of a lorry, or they came on a boat, or something’ story”, she chuckles. Adding that friends of hers had much more elaborate anecdotes for how they came to the UK. However, Dunja shares that it is this unmeasurable sacrifice from her parents that drives her to work as hard as she does. “They obviously came here for a better life for us, and we know that they don’t have any connections, so if we are not working to better our future then their sacrifice would mean nothing”, she explains. Yet it seems that it’s more than just a repayment, as Dunja states, “you want to make them proud, and this is what they want you to do and they are your everything. We don’t have extended family here, so if these are all the people I need to make proud, it’s a lot for me”. Understandably so, it seems that Dunja is not alone, as she explains many first-generation immigrants feel this personal pressure of making their parents proud. Openly she shares, “there’s an acceptance that you’re constantly looking for from them, like what can I do to make them happier or prouder because they’ve done so much for me”.

Offering no disguise, or façade for her own reality, what Dunja gave instead was a free pass to delve into her passions in life and the driving force behind it all… her family. Having been born in Serbia, Dunja’s parents struggled with work, as they missed the opportunity for university because of the Balkan war. She explains “they had me really soon after the war, so my dad just started working straight away because they didn’t have the time to figure out schooling”. Unfortunately, with Serbia still recovering from a war and a shortage of jobs, money was tight. As she leans in, Dunja retells her mum’s words saying, “there were days when I didn’t have anything to feed you with, we just had the bare basics like milk and bread and it was just too much, we couldn’t take it”.

It is clear listening to Dunja that she cares deeply for the people around her. It is this tenderness towards helping others and aspiration for positive change in the world, that began Dunja’s journey into politics. “So initially I started my volunteering experience when I was in a UK Youth Parliament, so I was like 16, in sixth form, and my focus was on getting more girls to understand politics. I went to an all-girls school and all they knew was that Conservatives were blue and Labour was red, and I just thought that was so tragic. Everyone talks about women getting the vote and that it’s this massive thing, but no one’s informed at this all-girls school. PSHE lessons aren’t really doing their jobs anyway, not even just politics but everything and I thought this is really something I want to focus on”, she declares. The out-dated education system is something so many of us remember only too well. With archaic teaching methods and ancient viewpoints, it’s no surprise that Dunja felt frustrated.

It was at this point that Dunja’s parents made the life-altering decision to move away from their home, to the UK, for a better future for their daughter. After being asked by friends, Dunja’s parents realised that moving was their only possibility for a greater life. “They were like there’s nothing here for us, they have no school, and my dad can’t find any other jobs. We have nothing to lose because we have nothing right now. So, we should just go and try”, and with that, they had packed their bags and left on a plane to the UK within the next 24 hours, with

Yet her ambition for change stemmed from more than that. Dunja explains that her interest in politics and application into UK Youth Parliament also comes from a much more personal place, “because I’m from Serbia the issue of women’s rights is still a really big thing back there. I think there’s still severe gender roles like the man’s the breadwinner and the wife is there to breed and clean and cook”. Not quite the life she imagines for herself in the future. Yet her apathy for that lifestyle doesn’t stop Dunja from understanding, “I sympathise

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Dunja in Croydon (1999)

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because it must be hard for people who don’t see it any other way but that obviously brought about my interest in political stuff, and I was elected by some miracle.” After that Dunja went on from representing Hounslow in the UK Youth Parliament to being a prestigious group member for London within it. Cheerfully, she recalls the number of girls that ended up as Youth Parliament for Hounslow after her leaving, stating that previously it had always been male dominated sector “but the year after I finished there were 18 candidates, 17 of whom were girls. Since then, there has always been a girl voted in for Hounslow”. A clear example of the power that representation holds. Careful not to take any glory for the matter though, Dunja is a reminder of how girls are so often taught to shy away from applauding themselves for their own achievements.

girls an opportunity to build the foundations that they need in order to succeed in the world. With a steady take-off over these last couple of years, Dunja explains that the organisation is about quality over quantity. “If I can make the difference to one person honestly, it’s not about a target for me to reach. I think that’s where we lose a lot of compassion and empathy for a project. I don’t want to set a target; I will try my best to reach as many girls as possible but in the long run, if that means I only changed one girl’s life I will be okay with that”, she says.

However humble she may be, it doesn’t really matter because Dunja’s list of achievements speaks for itself. Determined to continue being the change she wishes to see in the world, after leaving the Youth Parliament, Dunja joined the National Council of Women. An organisation that makes up “1 of 6 leading female organisations in the UK” and who “have an accreditation status with the United Nations”, it is because of them that Dunja shares she “went to the United Nations that year”. Yep, that’s right, at just 20 years old Dunja travelled to New York alone to partake in the United Nations conference. Eyes wide and gentle, absorbed in the memory of an experience she holds so dearly to her heart, for the first time Dunja appears almost at loss for words. “I cannot even describe how it is, it’s really overwhelming being there, but it was the best experience”.

Once given a taste of what could be out there for her, Dunja began venturing even further.

Until one day she was poised with the question “what can I actually do, what would be something I would start”, and that is how ‘When Life Gives You Lemons’ was born.

Dunja explains, “I think there is something so special and unique about each and every one of us and if we recognise it when we are 16 or when we are 30 it doesn’t matter. There is something that is so special about all of us and as soon as you recognise that you don’t have to change the person you are in any way, no matter what anyone tells you, the better. If you know in your heart that you want to do something this is your journey and no one has those particular attributes and no one has those particular life experiences that you have, that make you the person you are. You can give something back to a community that is so special to the people that surround you once you recognise that”.

So, what’s the one piece of advice she would give to a young woman?

It’s a quote that Dunja shares resonated with her – “No one is you and that is your power”.

An individual wise beyond her years, it is incredible to think that Dunja is as young as she is. Despite an uncertain future for us all, there is hope in knowing that there are still people out there just trying to do what they can to make life a little easier for those who need it most.

Words by Farryn Stock

Stating that she wanted to create something that she wished had been around, when she was young, Dunja shares that the passion project was about giving other first-generation immigrant girls the foot-up that she didn’t have. “I’m a first-generation immigrant and I really struggled at the start”, she says. “I think my life started like I started to understand the world more when I got into Youth Parliament. I was like right I need a CV, I couldn’t ask my parents and had to make it myself”. As far as school help went, Dunja confesses the support was minimal. “I remember my careers adviser giving me some book that was published in the 70s about how to write a CV”. Having to rely on her initiative, Dunja exclaims “I think because I know no one and I have to email, it has conditioned me to be this way. Whenever I go to an event or something, I always email someone after to stay in touch, just to build a repour”. It is these invaluable skills that Dunja knows could help so many others. “That’s another reason why I started WLGYL because I recognised that although I’m a first-generation immigrant and I’ve had all these difficulties, I have also been in positions and had amazing opportunities and I’m somewhat confident to go for them, but I am aware that some first-generation immigrants don’t have that confidence”.

Doing everything from one-to-one mentoring schemes, to CV conferences, to setting up LinkedIn, WLGYL offers young immigrant

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WLGYL INTERVIEW

“I will try my best to reach as many girls as possible but in the long run if that means I only changed one girl’s life, I will be okay with that.”

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Dunja in Croydon (1999)

PHOTOGRAPHY BY LUCY HARRINGTON TITS UP EVERYDAY

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INTERSECTIONALITY

BECAUSE WHITE FEMINISM IS NOT FEMINISM. What is a feminist? I wouldn’t call myself a ‘typical’ feminist (whatever that is). However, in studying Gender Identity Politics and Feminism within my History degree and trying to decide my future, I have encountered a lot of conversations around the way in which women are discriminated against and how gender norms and stereotypes plague the society I am a part of.

For example, the discrimination that I experience as a working-class and cisgender female is very different to the experience of a black transgender woman, or a woman who is Asian and deaf. Although, she who must not be named (J.K.) would probably not agree. The notion and solidarity of feminism is helpful in some ways, but in a lot of ways it grouped a huge proportion of women, whom have incredibly different experiences and struggles, under one umbrella. This is dangerous in that it suggests women have one universal ‘White’ experience, which could not be further from the truth. To truly attempt diversity and inclusion in our education, organisations, lives and society we have to address issues intersectionally. Otherwise, we risk overlooking those most disadvantaged by models of discrimination such as race, gender identity, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation and (dis)ability.

When discussing intersectionality or feminism it is beneficial to talk through the ‘wave’ system that has anchored groups of feminists to certain time periods.

Personally, I am not convinced by the ‘wave’ narrative. It feels reductive in its suggestion of peaks and troughs in feminist activism and women’s experiences.

To me, feminism is a myriad of complex ideas, feelings, thoughts and movements, that often conflict one another- reducing it to waves just doesn’t seem satisfactory. Nevertheless, the 1st, 2nd,3rd and 4th wave metaphors are helpful in coming to where we are today as feminists. For that reason we shall start at the beginning.

A deeper and more specific version of intersectionality is Alice Walker’s ‘Womanism’ (1983). The theory is associated with the experiences and identities of women of colour. In trying to understand other women’s experiences, there is some danger of entering cultural appropriation. However, an argument can be made that no matter what background we should try to understand the experiences of other women, especially those who are different to us. In this respect, I have to agree with Kathy Davis, that ownership over intersectionality is not important but the conversations and ideas that it confronts are. For instance, as a British White Female, I can never fully understand the notions and discrimination experienced by the women that identify with Alice Walker’s ‘Womanism’. However, does that mean I shouldn’t try to understand it and not educate myself on other women’s struggles? Absolutely not. By committing to understanding other women’s experiences I can tackle my own biases and broaden my understanding of the experiences of other women, not just the ones I identify with. This is how we make progress.

Disclaimer: This is a very brief outline of the waves First-Wave feminism is associated with The Suffragists (1897) and The Suffragettes (1903) who campaigned for women’s right to vote. ‘Deeds not Words’ characterised The Suffragette movement as they found The Suffragist movement too peaceful – they were most definitely Hot Girls. The Suffragette’s chose militant tactics such as vandalism, arson and terrorism. Yet it was Emily Davidson’s tragic collision with the King’s horse at Derby Day (1911), that many associate the suffragette movement with. Intentionally or unintentionally, Davidson catalysed the vote for women over 23. We can only stan. Which we do. According to a King’s College study by Rosie Campbell, the average voter now in the UK is female.

Then comes Second-Wave feminism in the 1960s - 1980s. A time characterised by ‘The Personal is Political’. This saw the introduction and viability of the contraceptive pill. In 1961 ‘the pill’ was available on the NHS for married women only – sooo progressive!! Thankfully, it was later made available for all women in 1967. Hence the Summer of Love. Plus, with the help of Betty Freidan’s ‘Feminine Mystique’, Second-Wave feminists also began tackling gender stereotypes such as the ‘housewife’ narrative. The housewife vs. ‘boss babe’ being a controversial topic for women even today.

The newest and shiniest wave of feminism is what we are experiencing today. Chronologically, it is obviously the Fourth-Wave. (also known as PostFeminism). This ‘version’ of feminism is characterised largely by empowerment.

We see this more recently in hits like WAP. Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion dismantle gender stereotypes in the very first line of WAP, exclaiming, ‘I don’t cook, I don’t clean’. Not only does WAP slap, but it is also empowering and a celebration of women – which, personally, was very welcome at the end of Lockdown 1.0. Fourth-Wave feminism is also associated with activism such as #MeToo and Amber Rose’s Slutwalk. If anything in my 22 years (bar my own experiences) has shown me how prevalent sexism still is, it’s the #MeToo movement, originally started by Tarana Burke. The solidarity of those women who stepped forward, helped so many see that they were not alone.

What bothers me is the comparison and competition of women is a byproduct of patriarchy. Traditional patriarchy keeps ‘career women’ under a ‘glass ceiling’ where they are paid significantly less than men and forced to take on the extra burden of what Hochschild called the “Second Shift”. And more recent patriarchy condemns women who don’t go out to work and ‘grind’ (whatever the accepted notion of ‘work’ is). Women can’t win either way.

So, how do I interact with where feminism is today? We are often perceived as a ‘snowflake’ generation (Ok, Boomer) and encouraged to accept ‘everydaysexism’ as a joke or even worse, a compliment. Whilst I still have my reservations about categorising feminism into “waves”, I am without doubt that these women and their battles have given us all the chance to engage with feminism however we please. I would not be sitting here writing this without them. So, in honour of those women- challenge things that make you feel uncomfortable. Educate yourself. Understand your privilege. Tackle your own prejudices. Think critically about what you consume and who it affects negatively. There is a long way to go but to achieve equal opportunities for all we have to approach gender issues and sexism intersectionally, to account for those who ‘slip through the cracks’ most often. For women to be truly uplifted, we have to uplift them all. In a society full of so much noise, champion those who are the quietest or even worse, mute.

Third-Wave feminism is the original 90’s baby of all the waves and what brings me to my point of intersectionality. Elizabeth Evans, a feminist scholar wrote that ‘the confusion surrounding what constitutes third wave feminism is in some respects it’s defining feature’. There are a lot of conversations happening in this period and the most conflicting is ‘white feminism’ and ‘intersectionality’. A focus on women in this period, unfortunately, became a focus on white women.

Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, an amazing advocate for women and civil rights coined the term ‘Intersectionality’, arguing ‘if we aren’t intersectional, some of us, the most vulnerable, are going to fall through the cracks’. Although intersectionality is often labelled as a buzzword in issues surrounding diversity and inclusion, it is crucial. So yes, “equalling” the playing field for men and women is important, but even after this equalisation, women who are discriminated against in more ways than one still fall through the cracks.

Words By Perry Beard

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Photography by Sarah Hollamby TITS UP EVERYDAY

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BLOO STEEL ILLUSTRATION 86

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I’m not quite sure about this one He really isn’t my usual type He hasn’t the tall nor dark part Was this really worth the hype?

It wasn’t until he said it Something I didn’t know I needed to hear I had to ask him to repeat it Boyyyy say it loud and clear.

Did he really mean it?

Did he mean something else instead?

But he cleared his throat and with honesty and pride ‘I’m a feminist’ he said.

HOT BOY WIN TER

By Therese Mullaghan

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THINGS

BY JAM COLLAGES

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ART BY JAMILLA WOODLEY TOP LEFT: ‘VENUS FLY SNATCH’ BOTTOM LEFT: ‘BUTT PLUG’ PAGE RIGHT: CAMEL TOE

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SNOG MARRY

PHOTOGRAPHY BY LOTTI STOCK

AVOID

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SNOG, MARRY, AVOID? and the makeover show phenomenon...

W

e all remember Snog Marry Avoid?

right? The popular BBC 3 show that you’d find yourself binging on the couch after a long, not very hard day of school, alongside a selection of random kitchen cupboard snacks. With the recent announcement of the relaunch of the longgone BBC channel, I was reminiscing the many interesting shows that it brought us in the late 2000s. Known for its outrageous reality TV such as Don’t Tell the Bride and Young Dumb and Living Off Mum, it had me questioning what our younger, impressionable selves were really indulging in, and I don’t mean the snacks!

I would have recalled Snog, Marry, Avoid? as being a light-hearted show that explored young girls’ and boys’ more subtle sides in terms of appearance. However, it did so much more to not just those featured on the show, but to those of us watching from the comfort of our homes. The show’s description reads: “Jenny Frost, strips girls from their layers of makeup and skimpy clothes” and that it did.

Yet, in reality, the show was literally based around stripping young girls and boys of their personality and authenticity to make them more admirable and “snoggable” to the males and females of their local town. If Mark, 23, from Bristol deemed a young girl, the product of the work of POD, worthy of a kiss, or even better, as “wife material” then the show’s work would have been considered a “success”.

Success in what exactly, you have to ask?

Certainly not in uncovering an individual with originality and personality because that is what they all began with. When you look through the episode guide you see drag queens, vintage thrifters, wig wearers, punk rockers, and 80’s fashion enthusiasts all “transformed” into the same style of what could only be described as conservative office attire. Everyone who appeared on our screen seemed to follow the same process of having their hair dyed a different variation of brown, then being stuck in a floral frock or highcollar blouse and paraded off to the praise of the public eye.

In an episode in one of the later seasons, the show introduced us to Jasmine who was labelled the ‘Queen of Charity Shops’. She TITS UP EVERYDAY

described her style as “vintage and colourful” and stated not even 1 minute into the show that “ever since I was young, I’d always wanted to be different”. She explained that the size of her brows equated to the size of her confidence, and alongside the many layers of eye-catching, second-hand prints and vintage accessories were a big pair of brows. So, what did the show do? They put her in an all black and white outfit, gave her tiny eyebrows, and told her that now 100% of the public would snog or marry her, as opposed to a previous 10%. I couldn’t help but wonder, if the show had really been about “toning down” girls why was a monochromatic outfit the solution for a girl who raves about colour. Furthermore, what did compromising her confidence just to make her more appealing to men, say to those young girls watching the show.

Seeing it like this made me think about all of the many messages this sent to our younger selves. Telling us that we should not express ourselves through funky clothes, accessories, or hair colours. That we should dress to appeal to others. That being desirable to others is worth compromising our individuality for.

All sorts of red flags popped up in my mind when re-watching the show, and it became increasingly obvious just how much the entire show is based around male validation and the act of conformity.

With the target audience for the show being 16–30-year-olds, there will have been many young girls and boys who will have emerged into their late teens with potential damage from this negativity around self-expression.

Multiple other shows, both on BBC 3 and other channels followed similar lines of “make-under” / “makeover” ploys. Think 10 Years Younger or Trinny and Susannah Undress. I’m sure many can relate to me when I state that dressing differently from societal “norms” and styling true to yourself doesn’t always come without remarks. I’ve found that there is still a level of judgment to alternative, out the box, unique dressing that Snog, Marry, Avoid? once fuelled with each season. They profited from “normalising” individuals and led us viewers to believe that this made them more desirable to men (the ultimate goal after all).

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With 6 seasons of the show being aired, so many of us probably consumed hours’ worth of this ideology. Admittedly, through some of my teenage years, I did believe that I had to dress and look a certain way in order to be found attractive by boys, something I’m sure others will have experienced too. A belief instilled in us from a young age that elaborate outfits and bright hair colours should be looked down on and are not suitable for attaining a relationship, friendships, or jobs.

I like to believe that this is the kind of show that we can collectively look back on and think to ourselves “how did they get away with that at the time?” As entertaining as it was, the ideas it communicated to younger audiences were not setting us up to be the most accepting and expressive adults. It introduced us to comparison culture long before the era of Instagram and online influencers. We often point the blame straight to social media for the self-critiquing behaviours so many of us have developed, as it seems like the most obvious culprit. In reality, these ideas of having to question our fashion choices and appearance were being instilled into us long before we even knew what filters or likes were!

Watching your everyday girl be told on telly that she has to fit into this physical mould will have planted a seed of self-criticism and shame surrounding expressing ourselves in so many of our minds at such a young age. A seed that may only have grown when social media came into play and a generation of fashion influencers emerged, hinting at how to dress. This is probably just one amongst many examples of media that has negatively impacted the way we view ourselves without us even realising.

It’s very important that we consciously put a stop to these underlying messages surfacing again, in not just makeover shows, but in the media as a whole. Though Snog, Marry, Avoid? is no longer being filmed, we should give makeover shows a makeover, and no longer allow them to promote fitting society’s standard and make self-expression the new “norm”.

Words by Zara McIntosh

PHOTOGRAPHY BY MEGAN HARRISON

BODY DISMORPHIA How COVID-19 positively (yes, positively) impacted my Body Dysmorphia

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BDD, also known as Body Dysmorphic Disorder, is a mental health condition where a person spends a significant amount of time fixated on ‘real’ or perceived flaws in their appearance. It is sometimes confused with vanity. I must admit to thinking of myself as shallow, especially as an empowered female, who champions everyone else but really struggles to champion herself, over what?

Being pretty? This internal conflict, where I was desperate to be pretty but also desperate to not care, has plagued me since childhood and ruined much of my teenage years. And with that my diagnosis in 2016 started out as one of my worst experiences but has recently become one of my most meaningful.

Due to being bullied I never felt beautiful.

And now being in my 20s I obviously know that being beautiful is not the most important thing in the world, but in high school it felt like the be all and end all. A lot of pressure is put on young girls to be beautiful and I often wonder in whose standard am I not. I wasn’t born thinking I was ugly, I was told. Why kids do this to other kids is beyond me, but I have come to realise that they were probably hurting too. It’s not excusable, of course, but if someone told me pigs were flying, I wouldn’t believe them, so why do I listen when they tell me something about my appearance that might not even be true?

At my lowest, I was trapped inside my own head, with no escape. I wasn’t being bullied by anyone anymore but myself. Instagram inevitably made all of this ten times harder with a plethora of accounts to compare myself to. Nevertheless, my self-loathing became so frustrating and unbearable that I finally plucked up the courage to go to the GP. Though it was probably the hardest thing I have ever had to admit to someone, especially a stranger, that was the beginning of my journey to self-love. I received CBT for over a year and a half, and I am not ashamed to say I had to return back to it in my second year of uni. This massively helped my obsessive behaviours that plagued me, even just looking

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in the mirror caused me severe distress. The comparisons lessened and after nearly five years of diagnosed B.D.D and probably 10 in total (undiagnosed but presenting behaviours) I began to accept myself.

Naturally, with any world-wide, scary pandemic, it is very easy to slip into regressive behaviours with the reopening and closing of the outside every few months, thanks Boris xo. However, I think if this pandemic has taught me anything it is to be kinder and more understanding of others but most importantly, myself. Pre-covid I would often get really busy to distract myself from my own mind, but the lockdowns forced me to face my mental health disorder head on. I always looked at my B.D.D as a weakness, something that was holding me back. But I’ve realised in the last year having spent so much time with myself, thanks to COVID, that there are actually a lot of things that I like about me that are not connected to how I look. And so, what I see in the mirror matters less. Now, I know lockdowns haven’t been a source of reflection for everyone and they’ve been entirely shit but if you just made it through, that’s an achievement in itself.

That being said, with the world opening up again, inevitably there’s going to be photos taken, seeing acquaintances, tighter out-out jeans that haven’t been worn in 6 months and a dose of hangxiety that adds a certain je ne sais quoi to the self-loathing on a Sunday morning. But I am vowing that I will be kind to myself through all the change, and I hope you do too. We have all just got through an incredibly shit year, some of us with mental health conditions, some of us losing loved ones, some of us losing jobs, some of us losing relationships and we have all made it to what feels like the 100th reopening. Go at your own pace, don’t succumb to FOMO or the pressure to be ready for summer (fuck a summer body) and be kind to yourself, you absolutely deserve it.

- Anonymous

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INSIDE MY HOUSE

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BY MACIE EMERY

MACIE EMERY SPENT HER FINAL YEAR OF UNI IN LOCKDOWN. AS HER FINAL PROJECT, SHE CHOSE TO RE-ENACT ALL OF THE MOMENTS MISSED OUT ON DUE TO ISOLATION.

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Macie Emery is a student photographer based in Hertfordshire.

After 3 years in Southampton for university, Macie is about to graduate with a BA in Photography. Her work specialises in portrait photography, particularly focusing on self-portraits (given the current circumstances). Macie’s final project ‘Inside My House, Out of My Mind’, has encapsulated the struggle that much of Britain has felt within the last year, whilst kept inside our homes.

In conversation with Tits Up, Macie explains the message and process behind her work and what she’s looking forward to most now that the world begins to open up again.

of my creativity) and hid myself in inconspicuous areas of my house, trying to crawl out and shine once more. This project got me out of the uninspiring hole I had found myself in and made me want to keep creating.

What is the process behind making this series?

I originally studied art in school and there was a unit where we had to combine photographs with our artwork and I immediately fell in love with the medium. I think I was drawn to how quickly I could capture an image compared to the hours you have to put in for a painting. Since then, I have been studying photography at GCSE, college and university.

“Inside My House, Out Of My Mind” was really a labour of love. I would have to plan the shoots weeks in advance, so I knew I had all of the props and costumes necessary. Usually, the day before the shoot I would set up the scene because the day of involved hours of changing characters and taking the photos. I took individual portraits of each character as well just to make things harder for myself haha. Then, I would try and edit the images the next day, another very long process but I really enjoy using Photoshop. It was definitely not an easy project to make but I honestly enjoyed the process so much, especially walking down the stairs as some questionable characters and seeing my family’s reactions.

What is the inspiration behind the series featuring in the magazine?

What are your plans once you graduate from university?

I, like most other people in the world, have missed out on various events over the past year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This inspired me to recreate these events but within different rooms of my house, seeing as this is where I have been trapped for the past year. I wanted to play all the characters in each scene, not only for convenience as we can’t meet others, but to represent that I have had to spend more time with myself than ever before.

I would love to go straight into a photography graduate job (although I’m aware that’s easier said than done). However, I think I’m just going to go with the flow and keep creating work that I love until that happens. I have faith that everything with fall into place, fingers crossed!

What got you into photography, to begin with?

What have you personally missed most about lockdown?

I have definitely missed going out with my friends and having a good old boogie. Especially as I am in my final year at university; I feel like I have been robbed of my last year experience. And of course, seeing my family and celebrating different milestones.

How much has lockdown influenced your art/photography?

Considerably. Since being in lockdown and having no other option but to use myself as the subject of my images in various projects, I have come to realise how much I enjoy self-portraiture. I would always be trying to plan shoots and contact different models etc which can get quite stressful. By doing everything by myself on my own time I made me reconnect with the side of photography that I originally fell in love with.

How have you managed to keep creative whilst in lockdown/ or have you struggled?

Initially, I struggled a lot with feeling creative. I was stuck in a dull student house for a while with no motivation to create any work. I took these emotions and turned them into a project of mine titled “The Unseen”. Here I transformed myself into a pink character (representative

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What is your favourite one of the series?

I think my favourite image is probably the festival. Festivals are the event I’ve missed out on most as they are always the highlight of my year. Even just pitching the tent in my parent’s room made me so excited for when I can be doing it in the real world, hopefully, this year! The characters from this scene were the most fun to portray as well. I wanted to embody all the different types of people I have experienced while being at different festivals from the hippy types to the ‘Lads’.

Finally, is there is anything else you think we should know about your photography?

I’m also a huge fan of photographing live music and concerts! Before the pandemic, I would constantly be at gigs and events shooting the bands and artists. I really hope live music will be able to happen again sooner rather than later as everyone in the industry has taken a hit, from the artists to the venues. I love taking portraits but there isn’t a feeling like walking in front of the barrier at an arena show and being completely immersed in the atmosphere.

To see the full collection of work visit Macie’s website: macieemery.co.uk Interview by Farryn Stock

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“I HAVE DEFINITELY MISSED GOING OUT WITH MY FRIENDS AND HAVING A GOOD OLD BOOGIE. ESPECIALLY AS I AM IN MY FINAL YEAR AT UNIVERSITY; I FEEL LIKE I HAVE BEEN ROBBED OF MY LAST YEAR EXPERIENCE.”

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FEMALE PLEASURE, FEELD, AND ‘FAKE DOMS’ When I was 22, my ex-boyfriend spat in my face during sex without warning and asked me to forget it and move on when I expressed discomfort. Embarrassed, I brushed it off as a failing on my part for being too ‘vanilla’. In the years since, I’ve experimented with apps like Feeld, a BDSM and kink-based dating app, under the impression that I would be entering a consent-focused, sex-positive space. Instead, what I found were scores of men expressing strong desires to inflict pain and domination over women, and, more worryingly, a disregard for boundaries whilst using the app, such as gaining consent before engaging in sexual conversations.

When speaking to female friends about their experiences, it became clear that, more and more, men are engaging in acts of BDSM like spitting, spanking, and strangulation during sex, without gaining consent or applying aftercare. Like many other experiences of women, what I previously assumed to be a one-off act, an ex who spat on me seemed to fall into a wider theme – heterosexual men engaging in degradation or acts of violence during sex, without consent. It made me question, has the ‘5o Shades effect’, porn

and social media trends desensitized men to BDSM acts? Or are some men hiding behind BDSM to mask violence against women?

The ‘kink community’, albeit not an established group, therefore difficult to define true membership, are typically those who engage with online kink forums, kink-based apps like Feeld, shared interest sex parties, and, crucially, abide by the core principles of BDSM. For members of this community, respect, communication, safety, and consent are strictly enforced. Dominance and submission of any kind are pre-discussed, consent is explicitly given, and boundaries are expressed, without any coercion present. Aftercare is important – true ‘doms’ follow up with their submissive after any form of domination play, to ensure that they are okay. Importantly, both parties are in control – submission is not assumed and may be stopped at any point.

Once confined to fringe groups, BDSM has entered the mainstream in the last decade. ‘50 Shades of Grey’ introduced many within the public to dom/sub relationships for the very first time, and opened up millions of women to a new kind of sexual exploration through toys,

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pain, and restraint. As far as BDSM principles go, 50 Shades is an inaccurate representation– Christian Grey uses coercion over Anna to get what he wants, her consent is not fully present, and their agreement is based on his desires only. Openly embraced by the average woman, the lust women placed in Christian is unlikely to have gone unnoticed by the everyday man, who may have taken this as a framework of what women want – without understanding the real-life foundations of consent enforced in BDSM. Outside of mainstream media, men often first learn about sex through porn, in which there is no doubt that female desire is, for the most part, secondary. Once only accessible to those actively seeking more extreme content, the internet has allowed for mass viewing of violent or degrading sexual acts against women. For young boys first learning about sex, this may give the impression that ‘good sex’ with women involves some level of violence. Consumption of violence against women is not limited to men - stats from Pornhub indicate that women are more than 100% more likely than men to search for violent terms such as “hardcore” and “gangbang”.

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*NAMES CHANGED TO REMAIN ANONYMOUS*

But it’s not just within overtly sexual fiction or porn in which BDSM is seeing a raised profile. Social media is helping to destigmatize sex, particularly for women, but equally, it’s beginning to provide a platform for extreme sexual acts. TikTok, whose highest concentration of users sit within the 16-24 bracket, with some users as young as 10, offers for many young people their first point of contact with discussions of sex, often without regulation. Acts seen as subversive even by adult standards are reaching a large audience of young people on the app – the hashtag #spitinmymouthplz has been used over 3.3m times, whilst audios making light of letting celebrity crushes spit in the (mainly female) users mouths have gone viral, alongside multiple ‘POV’s in which the assumed female viewer is submitted to sexual domination by the male creator.

The overriding message coming through porn or social media trends is that female desire is expressed through ‘allowing’ men to dominate them. Female TikTokers don’t talk of wanting a man to spit in their mouth – they talk of ‘letting’ them. Christian Grey doesn’t draw up a mutual contract with Anna based on their shared desires, he coerces her into agreeing to his needs through her lust for him.

But is this affecting ‘real life’ BDSM practice?

Even within the kink community, a rising number of members describe encountering ‘fake doms’ – men who enter kink-friendly spaces with a sole desire to dominate women, without adhering to the principles of communication, relationship building, and consent necessary to engage in dom/sub relationships. Submissive women describe facing both online and offline harassment or coercion from fake doms, who assume consent and demand submission from women, simply because they have publicly expressed submissive desires. Seemingly common, submissive women are warning others on how to spot a fake dom, through blogs, reddit threads, TikToks and Instagram pages. For fake doms, BDSM appears to act as a safe excuse to enact violence against women.

Experimental BDSM is also encroaching on ‘normal’ sex. From my ex spitting on me to multiple friends who have had men choke, slap and spit in their mouths without warning, men engaging in kink without consent is not a phenomenon restricted to the kink community.

Amongst the women I spoke to, the men they encountered showed no prior signs of violence.

Phoebe*, 24, described an incident with an otherwise normal man: “He was on top one TITS UP EVERYDAY

night and grabbed a pillow and shoved it over my face… with enough force for me to struggle out of it…honestly he showed no signs of any kind of typical behavior that signals anger at women or domination over them”. Talking to men, it became clear that these actions don’t necessarily signal aggression towards women but may stem from male sexual vulnerability: “Its insecurity, and inexperience…the feeling that is what is needed for good sex or to be perceived by the girl as experienced or good in bed” (Jasper, 29).

There are real implications for women experiencing this– Phoebe survived domestic violence as a teenager, and described being smothered as triggering at that moment. “We’d never spoken about breath play and it was very out of the blue…I have previous experience with guys and immediately just shouted do you hate women? It was a ‘what?... No’ kind of response and shrugging it off like it was nothing”. For women who have experienced trauma, non-consensual kink may cause lasting emotional consequences.

The most vital aspects of BDSM, communication, and aftercare, are currently missing. Men are testing their partner’s desire to engage in BDSM in the moment, rather than negotiating boundaries beforehand explains Pheobe, “If he’d had wanted to do any sort of kink and had spoken about it or had explained that’s what it was after it happened, I’d have been more open to him or listened”.

Again and again, it is women, not men, who are faulted for not enjoying BDSM. Women are expected to manage sexual boundaries, leaving the pressure off men to communicate consent effectively. When consent is negated, it is women who blame themselves.

The fleeting nature of online dating may be amplifying the absence of sexual communication – Mandy*, 28 went for a date with a man from Hinge, who revealed he would like to become her ‘master’, or dom, as they walked home, with no prior indication: “He had no interest in communication at all because he obviously just wanted it to be sexual…there’s a lot to be said in what we communicate when we’re on Hinge, which is extremely ambiguous as to what people want.

There is nowhere to put what your kinks are… sex just isn’t at the forefront of conversation”.

Whilst she was happy to experiment, Mandy’s date gave the impression of romantic intent when he simply wanted to experiment with sexual domination - and like other women, Mandy internalized his ambiguity: “I wasn’t sure if I completely missed the mark and had 103

been completely disrespected, but I got what I wanted which was penetration”.

There are dating apps that remove any question around personal desire. Feeld, a kink dating app, describes itself as ‘open to everyone looking to explore their dating desires in a safe and private space’. Users can list their specific desires on their profile, from dominance to voyeurism, and match with like-minded people. My female friends and I signed up, thinking users would be consent-focused, respectful, and open-minded. Whilst there were many people like this on the app, there were also some concerning themes emerging.

Our consent appeared assumed, and we were bombarded with extremely sexual messages from men, at all hours of the day.

Much like the submissive women who warned of ‘fake doms’, simply being a woman present in a kink-friendly space meant that some men felt able to encroach their sexual desires on us, often without any response indicating interest back. The app seems to pander to male desire – when straight male friends joined the app, all female profiles shown were initially set with the age of 18 – seemingly to lure new male users in and encourage them to stay. Users who want to meet are not given safety controls or guidelines, rather, it is assumed that app users are appropriately educated on consent, safety, and aftercare. Evidently, online kink spaces are not the safe havens for women exploring sex that they claim to be.

These acts have wider consequences - women’s sex lives do not sit in a vacuum and misogyny during sex can fall within wider misogynistic patterns. It is only very recently that the ‘rough sex’ defense has been made illegal in the UK, which argued that violence or murder during sex was a result of consensual BDSM. Even for men who are not harboring any underlying violent predilections, more understanding needs to be gained of the emotional consequences for women when testing out more extreme acts during sex. Whilst sexual exploration can be positive and fulfilling, any act taking place without enthusiastic consent falls within the spectrum of sexual assault.

Words by Cicely King

ART BY MEGAN MCWILLIAM 104

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TORIES OUT *WARNING: CONTENT SOME VIEWERS MAY FIND DISTRESSING*

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f this year has taught us anything it’s that the conservatives are monumental shit houses. Of course, most of us “sane” people knew this and have since Margaret Thatcher decided to destroy the working class with her #girlboss attitude and shite haircut.

a day to quite frankly do fuck all. This has proven is all a game of who you know instead of what you know within Britain as a whole.

If you grew up with mammy and daddy’s trust fund and shagged a pigs head as part of some bizarre private school ritual you’re set for life.

For others it’s only taken a pandemic to actually realise the government does not care about us; not the fact one in four children now live in poverty, the number of disabled homeless people has increased by 53 per cent or even the fact the NHS has been underfunded for 10 years.

Golden boy Rishi Sunak proved to be just that when he became Chancellor of the Exchequer, for a moment Sunak “won” over the public being presented by the media as a superhero who would save our economy but forgetting the fact Sunak himself was extremely wealthy and his wife was richer than fellow leach Queen Liz. Quite frankly I think it’s rude for someone with so much wealth to have control of the government’s money when they themselves have never experienced extreme poverty or had to work particularly hard in their lives but that might just be the socialist inside of me leaking out.

It seems as though the conservatives have not even tried to hide their blatant corruption this year, for a start we have Dominic Cummings breaking lockdown to travel 25 miles to Barnard Castle and getting away with it when many working class people were risking catching COVID to get on packed buses and privatised shonky trains to work in jobs labelled as unskilled just because they don’t fit the middle class mold.

That’s what’s annoyed me the most about this pandemic, the fact jobs deemed unskilled for years have now been relabelled as “key workers”, when in reality they’ve always been essential. Apparently not essential enough as BoJo and Hancock believe claps do actually pay NHS workers bills but consistently fork out multi - million pound contracts to their neighbours and pals with no prior experience in PPE. Speaking about money and the misuse of such, test and trace - the love child of a rich business woman who just mysteriously happened to be married to a Tory MP, yes you’ve guessed it, Dido Harding. A £37bn service that didn’t even work in the end, but are we surprised? I’m bloody not! While key workers struggle to make ends meet test and trace consultants get paid a whopping £1000 TITS UP EVERYDAY

Similarly good old Rishi continued to fuck the country up with his amazing Eat Out To Help Out which saw Wagamama reducing prices and even including an extra side of Corona Virus. I’m not being biased here either, the University of Warwick did a study and found that between 8 and 17 percent of new cases in August and September were caused by the scheme. Once again the tory’s put profit over lives but only when it’s convenient for them.

While the public were let loose to fill their gobs with half priced food, disadvantaged working class children were left to starve over the holidays. Following the footsteps of mega bitch Margaret Thatcher Boris Johnson’s government decided children didn’t deserve to be fed and voted against footballer Marcus Rashford’s campaign to extend free school meals over the holidays despite many families being hit hard by furlough or even being let go with the death of the high street.

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The conservatives hate of the working class was further solidified with MP’s rushing to defend their decisions, for example massive twat and Tory Ben Bradley responded to a tweet, this is how the following conversation went : “£20 cash direct to a crack den and brothel really sounds like the way forward with this one”, Bradley tweeted: “That’s what FSM vouchers in the summer effectively did …” Not going to lie I’ve never met a drug dealer who accepted free school meal vouchers in return for crack. This further proved to the general public that they do not care for us, it’s us vs them, not us vs immigrants or us vs people on universal credit.

In January we saw measly Oliver Twist style portions given to kids on FSM once again showing how far away from real life the conservatives live, with half a coin bag of tuna and one 34p carrot parents were just expected to get on with it. Because that’s what Britain’s good at isn’t it, “getting on with it”, I feel as though we just grasp at anything that relates us to the war because patriotism hides the racism, sexism, homophobia and classism ingrained into the UK. I’ll leave this somewhat rant here as I could go on for pages and pages about how corrupt the government are and additionally how delusional the general public can be. For the last 10 years the Tory’s have proven their corruption by offering us promises to fund the NHS properly, to feed our children properly and to keep us from being unemployed and then in reality doing the opposite. They’re like a shite avengers, full of patriotism but actually not very helpful.

Words by Megan McWilliam

COOK WITH

LOVE Recipes by Constance Kelly

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1. Dissolve the yeast in the warm water with one teaspoon of sugar. Set aside for 10 minutes or until it is frothy. In a large bowl beat the eggs with the sugar, salt and olive oil. Add the yeast mixture and combine.

2. Stir the seeds into the flour leaving aside 10g of each or atleast a good handful. Now add to the bowl gradually until a soft dough forms.

3. Tip this onto a floured work surface and knead well for a good 10-15 minutes until it is smooth, stretchy and has lost its stickiness.

4. Place in an oiled bowl, cover with a tea towel and leave in a warm place for 2 hours or until doubled in size.

5. Prepare a large baking tray by lining with greaseproof paper.

6. Gently ease the dough onto a floured surface and divide into three pieces. Set two aside and begin rolling the first gently into a long rope about 3 cm in thickness. Replicate with the other two pieces. Lay all three ropes out together, pinch the one end of the strands together and plait them.

7. Transfer as smoothly as you can to the baking tray and tuck the edges underneath. Either arrange the plait into a ring or semicircle or leave as is. Cover with a tea towel and leave to rise for another hour.

8. Preheat the oven to 180° C and place a 5cm deep tray in the bottom. When the dough has risen brush lightly with the last beaten egg and sprinkle liberally with the remaining seeds.

9. Place in the middle of the oven and before you close the door pour a glass of cold water into the tray at the bottom and shut the door as quick as you can (this will create some steam and make the challah all fluffy).

10. After about 40 minutes the bread should be golden and fragrant, (the loaf is ready if it sounds hollow when you tap the bottom). Cool a little before you serve it, if you can wait that long...

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After a year in lockdown, a meal with friends is more than just sharing food.

As lockdown restrictions ease and we draw ever closer to returning to a new normality, it is the small moments that we once took for granted that are now being cherished. For keen cook Constance this means the privilege of a meal with all her friends. Like many all over the country, Constance uses cooking as a way of connecting to those around her and showing her love and support to those who need it. Having had experience in Ottolenghi kitchens, she has not let her experience go to waste through lockdown. Running a takeaway dinner service for families in her area, Constance shares “I have learnt a tonne and have created a bit of a community.” Her next venture will be with friend and fellow cook Rosina, opening a supper club to raise money for charity and part fund their future travels to Turkey. For the rest of us who look forward to nothing more than dinner with friends, Constance shares her favourite dinner party recipes.

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Photography by Constance Kelly

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1. Begin the night before by soaking the beans in a bowl of water. The next morning tip the contents of the bowl into a saucepan, top up the water a little where the beans have soaked it up.

2. Add the onion half, the bay leaves, a generous pinch of salt and a drizzle of olive oil. Place over a medium heat and simmer gently until soft.

3. Preheat the oven to 180°C. Wash the leeks, trim the top and bottom off each and peel off the outermost layer.

4. Line them up in a large baking tray, drizzle with olive oil and salt and place in the oven for a good 40 minutes until they are soft and sweet and golden brown in places.

5. To assemble the dish rinse the wild garlic stalks and then stir into the bean broth to wilt them. Ladle some of the beans and wild garlic with the liquid into a lipped serving platter and arrange the baby leeks on top. Squeeze the lemon juice on top, scatter with parmesan shards and finish with a final drizzle of olive oil.

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1. Preheat the oven to 180°C and grease a 24 cm loose bottom tart case.

2. Start by preparing the pastry: rub the flour, polenta, sugar, salt and lemon zest with the butter until it resembles breadcrumbs. Add the cold water and bring it together into a smooth dough. Shape into a square, wrap in greaseproof paper and rest in the fridge for at least an hour.

3. Wash and roughly slice the rhubarb stalks into 3cm pieces. Toss these with the sugar, lemon juice and tarragon sprigs in a baking tray. Roast in the oven for approximately 20-25 minutes or until the rhubarb melts to the touch.

4. Dust your work surface lightly with flour and roll out the chilled pastry until about 1 cm thick. Roll the pastry loosely around the rolling pin, hover over the tart case and gently unfurl making sure that the pastry remains at a right angle to the tin and does not warp.

5. Press into the sides of the tin and patch up any holes that may have formed (don’t worry, any messiness will be well hidden). Chill in the fridge for another 30 mins.

6. After it has rested, cover the pastry with greaseproof paper and pack with baking beans making sure they rest snuggly against the sides. Blind bake the pastry for 15 minutes and when the sides are beginning to look a little golden, remove the baking beans and bake for another 10 minutes.

7. Meanwhile, prepare the custard: Scrape the vanilla seeds into the cream, throw in the pod as well for good measure and warm until steaming on a medium heat. Whisk the egg yolks with the sugar. When the cream is hot, whisk into the egg yolks bit by bit until fully incorporated.

8. Pour back into the saucepan and place over a low heat. Stir attentively in one direction for 15-20 minutes until it is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon.

9. Lower the oven temperature to 160°C. 10. To assemble the tart (this is the best bit) spoon the roasted rhubarb into the base of your pastry case and pour over the custard. Bake in the oven for approximately 1 hour until the custard is set and retains only a little wobble in the centre.

11. Allow the tart to cool before removing from the case. Dust with icing sugar and decorate with flowers or fruit as you wish.

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Homage to the ones who advocate equality, Morality being ousted by the prejudices.

So much love that could be given, Yet, we count so far so much violence received.

My biggest fight is to be a woman.

We ask me every day to be pretty, Why not interrogate me on what I would like?

Why with me no one is loyal?

Yet, I just asked to be loved.

My biggest fight is to be a woman.

“Why studying when we can cook?”

“Why let us vote even though we are not able to think?”

This is the animal cry of a kidnapper, Who made us his factory prisoner.

My biggest fight is to be a woman.

Yet, we count so many talented ladies, Some of them were only 20.

Witness of war, witness of tyrants, They die every day to protect their child.

My biggest fight is to be a woman.

The peace warriors, the painters of summer, They paint canvas with the liberty paintbrush.

The art murmur that the griefs are erasing, The woman that the traditions are passing away.

The obstinate scientists, The devoted politicians, Teach us to say “no”, Whatever our name is.

And there are the ones in the shadows, The ones we do not talk enough about: Determined workers: “I can’t pay my rent”, Yes, they cry it from their rubbles.

It is not because I was born a woman that is a fatality, It is not because I have breasts that I should be raped.

This chest, this heart, help me to breastfeed, The life I have the chance to create.

It It If If

is not because I am a woman that I have no life, is not because I am a woman that I have no desires.

I want, I can success like Marie Curie, I want, I can run away to save my life.

It is not because I am a woman that I am not strong, It is not because I am a woman that my tongue should be dead.

It is because I am a woman that I can say “I abort” It is because I am a woman that I deserve a horde.

-Anonymous

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