Pantone’s Colour of the Year is more than just a design choice; it’s a cultural marker, reflecting the collective mood, direction, and energy of the moment. Each selection is meant to capture where we are and where we’re headed.

Which is why the announcement of Cloud Dancer, or 11-4201, a delicate, almost spectral white, as the 2026 choice has left many feeling perplexed.

White, after all, is the quintessential neutral—a colour traditionally linked with purity, clarity, and simplicity. Yet, Laurie Pressman, Vice President of the Pantone Colour Institute, contends that the choice symbolises “a calming influence in a frenetic society rediscovering the value of measured consideration and quiet reflection.”

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Enter the Kate Middleton discourse, a topic that has subsequently sent the internet ablaze with confusion. Yet, there is an undercurrent of something – a hint of petulance that feels both unwarranted and perhaps speaks of something deeper.

The discourse started on September 8, on the anniversary of the late Queen Elizabeth’s death. Kate was seen stepping out with husband Prince William to a local Women’s Institute, an organisation that was reportedly close to the late monarch’s heart.

Within the hour of the two being sighted, the internet had already weighed in with their many thoughts on her very public change.

Did Kate Middleton Change Her Hair?

During an outing for the Natural History Museum in London on September 4, The Princess of Wales was seen with noticeably different strands. Her hair was seen looking significantly brighter than her signature chestnut locks, in a sun-lit blonde hue.

What began as soft summer-highlights or (“bronde”) earlier this year has since shifted into her lightest, longest hair to date, unveiled in late August during a visit to church near Balmoral, and fully confirmed amid her return to public.

What Is The Current Discourse on Kate Middleton’s Hair?

Notably Kate has been in recovery from a very public battle of cancer, which has sparked debate of if this was a mere personal vanity choice or perhaps a reaction to the expectations of maintaining a certain appeal in the public.

When Kate changes her hair, it mirrors back to us how her life choices reflect our own heightened expectations to conform to our own social roles.

It also gives us pause to investigate what may be going on beneath the surface, to dig into the more hidden and salacious details of her life.

Morbidly, this seems to be the case, with social media alight about the status of her hair, questions on her possible failing health, or if she may be wearing a wig have been touted ad hominem.

In an impassioned op-ed for Grazia UK, the late Princess Diana’s hair stylist, dear friend and MBE, Sam McKnight weighed in on discourse speaking on how we have lost our sense of decorum when it comes to analysing the appearance of those in the public eye.

There is a sense of entitlement, where we feel we are owed certain information, and the sanctity of one’s private health journey is compromised. McKnight went on to say in his essay,

“When someone is facing cancer, her hair is more delicate, more politically charged than ever. It’s an important part of the cancer journey, and people handle it very differently”.

Why Is The Public So Emotionally Invested in Kate Middleton’s Hair?

Our attachment to Kate’s hair reveals how entwined our emotions are with female public figures. We rarely dissect a prominent male figure in the same regard. Yet, when it comes to a female’s hair we feel the need to weigh in. So what’s really behind it?

Part of this is a projection that has been embedded in our own ideology on the codes of “appropriate” style for those in the public, particularly those of royals and other dignitaries.

This system is created on a confusing constellation of standards that stem from the curiously aspirational to the outdated and bizarre, and the need to scrutinise is baked in the middle.

In this case, we categorise her personal style choices into either camp of something to revile or hold in higher regard about the world of monarchy and celebrity itself.

And then of course, there is the issue of intimacy, we’ve watched her for over a decade, through marriages. pregnancies, and public scrutiny. Her hair is one of those few accessible markers of her inner world, so we latch on with relentless interest.

The post Why Is Everyone So Emotional About Kate Middleton’s Hair Transformation? appeared first on marie claire.

I wanted to hear their thoughts on tradwives and femcels, on spicy Sabrina Carpenter album covers and dystopian abortion bans, but I received few replies. The silence in my inbox was deafening.

Which was surprising, because these were the kinds of women – activists, authors and social commentators – usually eager to share their big opinions. Perhaps, I resolved, it was a reflection of the load women are carrying in 2025, of their 720 unread emails, circus-worthy juggling performances and limited bandwidth to dive into another debate.

Had I posed the same question a decade ago, I’m confident I would have been inundated with responses. Back then, feminism was the word on everybody’s lips.

Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TED talk “We Should All Be Feminists” had been watched by millions, its message of inclusion so powerful that every 16-year-old in Sweden was given a copy of her book of the same name.

Beyoncé sampled the rousing speech on her track “Flawless” and performed it at the VMAs in front of a giant, lit-up FEMINIST sign.

“The next time a man asks me what Beyoncé has done for feminism, I will sit him in a chair and make him watch this performance for 24 hours,” was the overriding consensus on Twitter, back before Elon Musk turned the platform into a misogynistic cesspit.

Christian Dior would soon name Maria Grazia Chiuri as creative director, the first woman to helm the fashion house, and send slogan T-shirts down the runway declaring “The Future is Female”.

“Feminism – the F-word – is simultaneously simple to define yet loaded and complex.”

Corporate capitalism leaned in too, as per Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg’s directive to women to crack their own glass ceilings, while Nasty Gal founder Sophia Amoruso ushered in #girlboss culture and the millennial-pink-tinted promise of female ambition.

Feminism was everywhere – yes, heavily commercialised and often doused in gloss and glamour – but its presence was all-pervasive, a sign that the women’s movement was powerful and important, a cause and collective you wanted to be a part of.

Feminism – the F-word – is simultaneously simple to define yet loaded and complex. At its core, it’s about achieving equal rights for women and men, or, as feminist thinker bell hooks wrote in 1984, “Feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression.” In Western society, the movement has risen in waves, the first of which crashed through in the mid-19th-century demanding women’s suffrage.

Second-wave feminism fought for reproductive rights, workplace equality and liberation from rigid domestic roles, while the third wave was angrier and more self-aware, focused on intersectionality and sex positivity.

The fourth wave kicked off around 2013, fuelled by the internet and online mobilisation that saw millions of people march to protest the pussy-grabbing US president Trump in January 2017, and to support survivors of sexual abuse in the #MeToo groundswell later that year.

The vibe has since shifted so dramatically you may be suffering from whiplash. Leaning in was superseded by leaning out – the former overlooked structural barriers and was leading more women to burnout than the boardroom – and #girlboss culture was cancelled for being fake-woke.

In its place came tradwives, a rising subculture that celebrates a return to traditional gender roles, female domesticity and shirred milkmaid dresses. At a conservative women’s event in Dallas, Texas, in June, attendees wore pins saying, “My favorite season is the fall of feminism”, while a MAGA/MAHA influencer preached, “Less burnout, more babies, less feminism, more femininity.”

Meanwhile, the closest we’ve come to celebrity-fronted “feminism” in 2025 was the Blue Origin NS-31 space stunt that saw Jeff Bezos’ band of blow-dried women “putting the ass in astronaut”, to quote Katy Perry.

The pop star was a curious inclusion in the all-female crew, given she repudiated feminism in the early 2010s, eventually conceding: “I used to not really understand what that word meant, and now that I do, it just means that I love myself as a female and I also love men.” So, she still doesn’t understand what it means.

More significantly, despite the global uprising for women in the late 2010s, the overturning of Roe v Wade in 2022 ended decades of federal protection over reproductive freedom in America. At the time of writing, 20 US states have banned abortion or restricted parameters around the procedure, with far-right and populist politicians around the world attempting to do the same. “Are people giving up on feminism in 2025?” pondered an SBS think piece in March.

It’s a valid question, given that a decade of A-list advocates and viral rallies haven’t translated into political, social or economic equity. Australian women earn on average $28,425 less than their male colleagues (that’s 78c earned to a man’s dollar), and hold just one in 12 CEO positions in the ASX300. We bear a disproportionate share of unpaid care and have 25 per cent less in our superannuation accounts, all while rates of gender-based violence rise.

According to a survey by market research firm Ipsos, 43 per cent of Australians (51 per cent of men and 35 per cent of women) believe that “when it comes to giving women equal rights with men, things have gone far enough in my country”.

In 2019, only 31 per cent of Australians co-signed the same statement. But feminism has always cycled in and out of public favour, with periods of protest (and progressive politics) followed by an equal and opposite backlash.

In the ’80s, an era of popular conservatism, editors of the feminist bible Ms. magazine said that even they sometimes shied away from using the F-word; in 1998 Time ran a cover story titled “Is Feminism Dead?” It would be worth interrogating whether the editors were male, and how fragile they were in their manhood, because feminism doesn’t exist in a vacuum.

Right now, marked by rising rates of male loneliness and suicide, a crisis of masculinity is unfolding. It’s a widespread challenge that benefits no-one – though nor does the lazy inclination to frame women’s liberation as the problem. Men struggle to forge close friendships? Blame feminism. The dating landscape is dire? Blame feminism. Low birth rates? Feminism, again. Manual labour jobs are declining? Those feminists!

In the aforementioned survey, 52 per cent of Australian men (and 27 per cent of women) said they believe men are being expected to do too much to support equality.

While young girls were fed images of high-flying women in power suits, boys weren’t shown aspirational models of stay-at-home dads and homemakers

And that’s really the crux of the current conversation: as gender norms shift, what is a man/woman’s role in the home (in hetero relationships) and in the workplace? Millennial and gen Z women grew up being told they could rule the world and, more than any generation before them, they came of age with the genuine option to be financially independent.

But while young girls were fed images of high-flying women in power suits, boys weren’t shown aspirational models of stay-at-home dads and homemakers, creating a gap that nobody can work out how to fill. It’s why some women are ruling out motherhood altogether, while others are choosing to return to traditional domestic roles, a subject of endless fascination, derision and debate.

Such debate doesn’t always serve us. Feminism’s current model is far from perfect – it preferences privileged voices and lacks true intersectionality – but its core purpose of achieving gender equality can get lost in over-analysis and nit-picking (read: 3421 think pieces and TikToks on whether Sabrina Carpenter’s latest album cover is degrading, subversive or just horny. And the reality that any public-facing feminist will at some point be burnt at the social media stake for getting something wrong).

A quick scan of the internet today brings up stories such as “My feminist guilt about laser hair removal” and “Am I a terrible feminist for being an Oasis superfan?” Self-reflection is noble and valuable, but it highlights how women are drowning in guilt. Imagine if men picked at themselves with the same earnest introspection. “Am I contributing to sexual violence if I listen to Drake?” “My favourite video game reinforces rigid masculine ideals … can I still play it?”

One thing for women to stop and take heart in is the fact that we have a movement. While gender gaps in nearly every metric still favour men, women unequivocally outperform men on feminism, a centuries-long fight that’s seen us rise up, change the world and improve our lives without hurting or killing anyone.

Progress may feel slow, but it’s happening. Since this magazine launched in 1995, the proportion of women in federal parliament has risen from 9.5 to 46 per cent; more than 50 per cent of university graduates across the country are now female; paid parental and domestic violence leave schemes have been introduced; ongoing reform in consent law is strengthening protections against sexual violence; and attendance at women’s sporting events, along with media coverage, has shot up from, well, zero to record-breaking.

And we did that. In the words of the great British feminist Caitlin Moran, “Feminism is at its best when it looks like freedom. When it remembers that you must never underestimate the importance of progress looking like it could, among other things, be fun.

When it’s the place where women can feel relaxed, and hopeful in their bones. When they feel so connected with each other that, sometimes, they can go up to strangers on a train at 10am on a Tuesday, happily shouting about how they have just discovered another new, brilliant thing about being a woman.”

I don’t hold anything against the women who declined to contribute to this story. The world is burning, the discourse is never-ending and the feminists deserve a break. Although really, my question only required a six- word response. We should all still be feminists.

The post What Does It Mean To Be A Woman In 2025? appeared first on marie claire.

They lean in towards you – the moment is finally here – and in a low voice say those three magical words: “Just between us …” To be on the precipice of a good piece of gossip is electrifying. Are you about to hear of a friend-of-a-friend’s illicit affair? Or has someone been caught stealing? Maybe you’re about to find out who comes from family money (that would explain everything!) or maybe someone you both know has just done something really weird. It almost doesn’t matter what the piece of gossip is, you must know everything.

That’s the exact concept behind American journalist Kelsey McKinney’s podcast, Normal Gossip. Listeners leave her three-minute voicemails, detailing the juiciest piece of gossip they’ve heard about someone they know. McKinney retells the story to her podcast guest, who gasps and laughs and cringes as she expertly recounts the details, ensuring all parties are kept anonymous.

There was the girls’ trip through South East Asia that was clearly doomed from the start and gets more wacky as it goes on; there was the girl whose boyfriend’s father had an affair with his son’s former schoolmate, and whose wife came home to find the young pregnant girl in her house; and the camping trip that involves an affair in a tent and a dog named Pancake.

Listening to these low-stakes morsels of gossip is like pouring triple-distilled joy straight into your ears: it goes down smooth and leaves you with a happy buzz, and a smirk that is probably suspicious to the other people on your bus.

Now, McKinney’s written a book, You Didn’t Hear This From Me: Notes on the Art of Gossip, in an attempt to redeem the practice’s bad reputation. She relies on academic research, historical texts, politics, urban legends, conspiracy theories and Bible passages – with a healthy dose of Real Housewives, Britney Spears, social media and Doja Cat lyrics – to prove that gossip is a fundamental human behaviour that deserves to be taken more seriously and offered more critical thinking. It’s an evolutionary tool, social glue, a bonding tactic, a warning system, a way to share values, and – in its most simple interpretation – fun.

Gossip has long been demonised as the idle talk of simple women who have nothing better with which to fill their minds than the business of other people. But its true meaning is anything that’s said about someone in your social network who isn’t present. With this definition in mind, researchers have found that we all do it – men and women in equal measure – and that we’re adept gossipers by the time we’re five years old.

A 2019 study found that people spend more than 50 minutes a day on average gossiping, which means anyone who thinks themselves superior and says they don’t gossip simply calls it something else. (A bunch of guys down at the pub talking about their favourite footy players? That’s gossip.) If you don’t think you gossip, just try getting through a day without being in a conversation about someone who isn’t there. It’s impossible.

The British anthropologist and evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar believes that humans developed language for the distinct purpose of gossiping. Back when we lived in caves, it was a way to pass on useful information about who to trust and to encourage cooperation – people are better behaved in front of gossipers because they don’t want to be their next subject. “Language is primarily for maintaining social relationships, rather than just conveying information and facts,” explains Professor Nick Enfield, a linguistics director at the University of Sydney’s Social Sciences and Humanities Advanced Research Centre.

“Language is designed for persuasion, it’s for getting people on your team and managing social relations.” The crucial thing about gossip, he says, “is that it’s you taking a stance on the things you’re talking about. You’re telling the other people in your social network, ‘Isn’t this outrageous,’ ‘I disapprove of this behaviour.’” Far from being a practice of the small- or empty minded, gossiping is an advanced social skill that requires emotional intelligence, social awareness and curiosity about other people’s lives (as opposed to being self obsessed).

To be a good gossip, a person needs to have elite communication skills in order to relay information in a way that isn’t misconstrued and is easy to remember, so they don’t risk starting a dangerous game of Telephone. Note that in the title of her book, McKinney refers to gossip as an art. This is exactly how she treats it. A colourful raconteur, McKinney says that what drew her to gossip was never so much what the story was, but how it was delivered.

She’d practice her inflections, her tone, rehearse pauses and landing the punchline, turning gossip into performance. But she also refers to gossip as an art because it’s something that needs to be considered and taken seriously. “We tell one another stories, we always have,” writes McKinney. “That is how we make sense of the world, with ourselves at the centre reaching outward trying to connect with others … What is art if not a reminder that we are not alone here on this earth?”

We tell ourselves stories in order to live, said Joan Didion. And we tell each other stories in order to work out how we should live. Are we doing it right, or are they doing it wrong? Where a good gossip is like a curator – holding each piece of information up to the light to see its true purpose and then displaying it in service of others – a bad gossip is driven by ego or virtue signalling, with the reputation of their target simply collateral damage of their self serving agenda.

“Gossiping can be used to strengthen cooperation, but it can also be used for competition, to destroy someone’s reputation,” says Bianca Beersma, a professor in organisational behaviour in the Department of Organization Sciences at VU University, Amsterdam.

That duality of gossip is what attracted her to research the topic. “People gossip for different reasons – some are neutral or even somewhat noble, whereas others are clearly negative. The reason someone gossips may tell you more about that person than the fact that they gossip.” And the types of gossip you’re drawn to say a lot about you, too.

As everyone finds out at some point, you can’t gossip with just anyone. “Gossip requires a kind of mutual vulnerability, an innate trust,” writes McKinney. “When we gossip with someone, we bring them information in the hope that they will trust it, knowing that they will judge us based on its quality and verifiability.”

“The reason someone gossips may tell you more about that person than the fact that they gossip”

Professor Bianca Beersma

We’re also trusting that they won’t use the information in a way that’s going to cause trouble for the subject – or ourselves. Secrets are important for bonding, adds Enfield. “When someone gossips with you, they show that they trust you. It’s saying, ‘I know something you know and no-one else knows,’ and that brings us closer together,” he explains.

As a child growing up in an Evangelical church in Texas, McKinney was taught that gossip was an affront to God. On the scale of sin from one to 10 – one being dancing, nine being adultery and 10 being murder – gossip was definitely higher than five. And yet she could never help herself. “For years, I prayed that God would take away my desire to gossip,” she writes.

She scrawled on her mirror the bible passage Ephesians 4:29: “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths.” When it came to finally choosing between her faith and her gossip, it felt more like a choice between her religion and herself. She chose herself.

Now that she gossips for a living, she sees how institutional disdain for gossip can be a way to preserve the status quo. As gossip seeks to hold people to account for their actions, it’s a threat to those in power. Just think of the whisper networks that eventually kicked off the #MeToo movement.

“For years, I prayed that God would take away my desire to gossip”

Kelsey McKinney

Gossip has historically been an important tool for women and minorities, acting as a subtle warning system about who is safe and who should be avoided. Research from the University of California, Berkeley, named this specific type of gossip “prosocial gossip”: it’s used to warn others and can lower rates of exploitation. Gossip can be a check on power and a source of solidarity, but gossip’s bad reputation means whisper networks can also fail.

When people in power get a whiff of the gossip circulating, by branding it as such they can allude to it being a rumour perpetuated by simple-minded women, sucking all the air out of it. McKinney also delves into the world of celebrity gossip, which she calls “entitlement gossip”. “Our curiosity is at odds with their desire for and perhaps right to privacy,” she writes.

The history of celebrity gossip is a messy one, with real harm done to many an A-lister. In the 1990s to mid-2000s, the gossip industry was swollen and running on the fuel of its own enthusiasm. We knew it was an invasion of their privacy, but we couldn’t get enough. “[Celebrity gossip] allows us to believe that the rich and famous are no better than the rest of us,” writes McKinney.

Ros Reines was a gossip columnist for years. Her name was synonymous with celebrity gossip, and her speciality was the Sydney business and socialite beat. A transcript of our interview shows that within just two minutes we were already gossiping about industry people we both knew. Reines believes we’re drawn to celebrity gossip “to make ourselves feel better when they mess up”, she says, referencing a high-flyer with a beautiful wife who can’t stay out of trouble. “It shows us what life’s really about: it’s not always rosy, we mess up. I also think gossip is simply fun.”

Now that celebrity gossip has mostly moved to social media platforms, Reines is enjoying its democratisation. “Before, it would have been manufactured gossip where [a publicist] goes straight to a magazine and gives them a line, but now there are more citizen gossips: people from film sets or who knew someone who was on set.” These days it all takes place over blind items sent into Instagram accounts like @deuxmoi. There are also dedicated screenshotters posting to @commentsbycelebs.

For Reines, celebrity gossip isn’t nasty, it’s entertainment. With her book, McKinney wants to remove the moralising and stereotypes from gossip. It’s not an inherently trivial or negative behaviour that exists within women’s circles. Sure, it can be nasty, but it would be impossible to refrain completely. Instead, Dr Khandis Blake, an evolutionary psychologist with a background in women’s studies, who works at the University of Melbourne, says it’s about taking a more nuanced approach. “As much as we could take a moral stance and say, ‘Don’t say anything disparaging about anyone else,’ sometimes people do bad things and you do have to talk about it.

It would be better to come at it with some critical thinking, and look into the truthfulness of the gossip.” Enfield agrees. “It’s not so much about trying to refrain from gossip, but being more mindful of your use of language,” he explains. “Gossip is useful, but you need to understand what you’re doing so that you can make choices about the risks involved. Don’t cross any lines you wouldn’t normally cross. And don’t do it over text.”

Related articles:

• Why Are We So Obsessed With Celebrity Relationships? A Psychologist Weighs In
• Female Feuds Sell, But What Does That Say About Us?
• The Toxic Truth To Our Treatment Of Female Celebrities

The post Forget Everything You Know About Gossiping – It Might Be Good For You appeared first on marie claire.

The episode opens with Griffin saying he’d rather have a partner who was free from the apparent shackles of gainful employment “unless she wants to work.” The line is delivered over an aesthetic B-roll of a woman sifting through CDs (!!!) in a box with bubble wrap – assumedly selected as a a visual representation of the burden that Griffin so graciously offers an alternative to as the episode continues.

As motivational music plays in the background, Griffin explains that instead of his partner coming home from work and complaining, “when we don’t need you to make the money because we’re sorted,” he wants the eyes of his significant other to “light up with excitement” when he drops his working-man briefcase and asks “how was your day babe?” And what would he like her answer to be? “Whatever the fuck it was,” he shrugs, before regaling us with every gals dream: “I collected four postcards today!”

To this, his equally as passionate co-host, Wade Papenfus chimes in with an enthusiastic “And that’s energy too. It’s so good!” and for a second, we thought they were going to high five and boop each other tenderly on the nose. But alas, the words kept coming.

“It’s the calm, it’s the harmony, it’s the peace and love that a man that’s got a busy life, that’s chasing his dreams, needs when he’s trying to wind down.

“This is why I heavily encourage ‘hot girl walks’. I would love my partner to go on a hot girl walk with her friends every day,” he tells Papenfus, who contributes an “awesome” in return.

Griffin explains (for those unfamiliar with the term) that they help women to reconnect with their “feminine energy” and “have a bit of excitement about their day.” Now, don’t get us wrong – we love a “hot girl walk”. What we don’t love though, is being told to take one so we’re easier to manage by 5.30pm.

Why Is The Pocket‘s Message So Problematic?

Shockingly, Griffin’s comments struck a nerve – and not just because of the phrasing. In dressing up their patriarchal drivel as a motivational clip describing control like it’s a love language, it ignores the real-world consequences of discouraging financial independence.

On the surface, it might seem like a modern take on support: “If she doesn’t have to work, why should she?” But that logic conveniently ignores the reasons so many people have to work – financial safety, personal autonomy, and a basic right to self-determination among them.

Kic co-founder Laura Henshaw was among the first to call Griffin out for the harmful and outdated messaging. She’s right. You can’t empower your partner by disempowering her. Suggesting that a partner should stay home so they’re better equipped to care for you emotionally isn’t just misguided – it’s a gendered version of outsourcing therapy.

“As women, we don’t exist to ‘serve’ our partners. To live our days so we can be in a ‘good mood’ for them,” she shared in response to the episode.

“It’s really important women (all people) people empowered to work to: (1) Not be completely financially dependent within a relationship which can lead to financial abuse (2) Be empowered to establish a career so if you do separate you have built skills so you can get a job to support yourself (3) Build up our superannuation for retirement.”

Importantly, Henshaw also noted the fact that women over 55 make up Australia’s fastest growing group of unhoused people – a glaring statistic that’s reached epidemic levels.

In response to Henshaw, Griffin decided to double down by refuting her claims that the messaging was “toxic” and insisting he wanted to “provide, protect and lead with strength.” Adding, that there were “too many weak men out there” – a phenomenon he argued led to the birth of “toxic femininity” or – what he calls “the hyper-independent, ‘I don’t need a man’ culture.”

“Men and women are equal, absolutely.” he continued. “But we are not the same. Pretending we are strips away our natural strengths and creates confusion instead of connection.”

We can’t stress enough that there’s nothing wrong with choosing a slower lifestyle, or opting out of traditional employment. But that decision should be made with equal power – and understanding – on both sides. Not because your boyfriend listened to a couple of podcasts and decided “feminine energy” and “collecting postcards” was the answer to his emotionally unregulated woes.

If men like Chris and Wade really want a partner who is “calm” and challenge-free then might we offer a revolutionary thought? Try supporting your partner’s ambition and respecting they’re independence. Encourage them to build a career – not because she has to, but because she gets to. Because until men stop romanticising control and start advocating for equity, women will keep paying the price, sometimes with their livelihoods, and far too often, with their lives.

And in the meantime, let’s normalise men swapping mics for diaries of the unrecorded kind, please and thank you.

Related articles:

• Dear Men, Please Stop Expecting Us To Educate You
• So You Want To Leave Your Career To Raise A Family?
• Unpacking The ‘Ballerina Farm’ Article Backlash

The post What The Pocket Podcast Got Wrong About Women Working appeared first on marie claire.

A group of young men in the United States have reportedly invented competitive sperm racing, where they put two semen samples head to head under a microscope, and see which has faster sperm. Per the Sperm Racing website, they’ve invented a “microscopic racetrack that mimics the reproductive system”, complete with hi-res cameras for our viewing pleasure. Add in live-streaming capabilities and a leaderboard, and bob’s your uncle—we have a sport!

To be honest, I’m still not entirely sure it’s not a joke. (If it is: Congratulations, it’s pretty funny.) But The Cut ran an article about them raising US $1.5million for their new sporting venture, and their Instagram has a trailer for the first “fight” to take place next week. They’re even selling tickets for anyone who wants to watch it all unfold at the Hollywood Palladium.

But, hey, if you were thinking this was just about guys with too much time on their hands, trying to find a productive outlet for their masturbatory urges—you would be wrong! There is altruism beneath it all!

The Sperm Racing manifesto (indeed, the what?) claims the sport serves to spotlight the underserved issue of men’s declining fertility.
To be fair, in some lights, male fertility is a cause worthy of attention. Unfortunately, it is not this light.

To begin, it seems these enterprising young upstarts (some of whom are still teenagers) have discovered something that is new information to them (declining male fertility), and figured the reason they’ve never heard of it before is because nobody is talking about it. It couldn’t possibly be because, oh, they just learned something new? There could even be many, very qualified people who know a lot about male fertility—and we bet they would love $1.5 million to help their cause.

Unfortunately, one also can’t talk about ‘sperm racing’—an idea conceived by young men working in tech and finance—without touching on the tech world’s booming obsession with fertility, as modelled most efficiently and disturbingly by the industry’s marsupial-faced poster boy, Elon Musk. As far as we know, Musk has at least 14 children but aspires to a “legion-level” of offspring “before the apocalypse comes”. It’s all tied to his perceived idea of an underpopulation crisis, and probably more so to his desire to contribute to a master race, one he believes will help populate Mars. While Sperm Racing has no direct ties with Musk (that we know of…), fertility conversations in the tech world are certainly hard to view in isolation of his influence. And making biological functionality into a competitive sport does contain a whiff of the same doctrine.

However, if we were to give Sperm Racing the benefit of the doubt and assume it was genuinely interested in helping men with their fertility journeys, the question then becomes whether the best place to broach this chat is in a stadium full of presumably raging fans?

Far from the goals of its founders, not only could sperm racing not be very interesting (the sperm could just flub around, chase their tails and die), we could also end up with some very upset young men who’ve just found out they have slow sperm in front of a stadium full of people. Let’s hope part of that $1.5million is set aside for trauma counselling. Perhaps for us all.

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I’m not the only mother who held their child a little tighter when they read the news that Charlotte, a 12-year-old student, had died by suicide. She was in year 7. Her life was just beginning. I’m not the only mother who is terrified by the thought of their child going on social media. Right now, my girls don’t use social media, and their life feels lighter. They don’t have the burden of comparison. Of needing likes and comments to feel validated.

We’re all social media guinea pigs. None of us know what the long-term impact of being glued to our digital devices will be. A lack of concentration and intimacy, loneliness – that’s all a given. We know social media increases depression and anxiety.

Georgie McCourt

It’s human nature to want to be liked. It’s nice to be liked. But it’s not normal to seek approval from people who you wouldn’t recognise if you passed them on the street. We put our lives out there for all to see on social media and then wait for the praise and, when it doesn’t come or it’s not as much as we’d hoped for, we feel shit about ourselves. Our mental health is suffering because we’re seeking validation from people we don’t know – and, more importantly, who don’t know us. And if we find it hard as adults, imagine how difficult it is for our kids?  

We’re all social media guinea pigs. None of us know what the long-term impact of being glued to our digital devices will be. A lack of concentration and intimacy, loneliness – that’s all a given. We know social media increases depression and anxiety. We know the apps we use load us with dopamine, a chemical in our brain associated with pleasure and reward systems. Dopamine is digital crack. It’s addictive. It makes us feel happy, so we reach for more. We want instant gratification. But it doesn’t last long, so we impatiently return for another hit. But it never fulfills us. Our mental health – and that of our children – is suffering because of it. 

Portuguese footballer Cristiano Ronaldo doesn’t let his 14-year-old son have an iPhone or social media account because those things “will make it harder for him to reach his potential.” He’s speaking the truth we all need to hear as parents.

The parents of Charlotte, have come forward with their story, alleging that relentless bullying at school and online contributed to their daughter’s death. The family claims that despite raising concerns with Santa Sabina College in Strathfield, where Charlotte was a Year 7 student, the issue was not addressed. And I hear this time and again. Relentless bullying just gets pushed aside.  

“We lost our baby girl in the most awful of circumstances,” Charlotte’s parents said in a statement to 2GB radio host Ben Fordham. “No words can ever describe what that is like, and life for us will never be the same again.” 

It won’t. It will never be the same. And my heart breaks for the life they thought they’d have. For thinking they were sending their little girl to high school to begin a new and exciting chapter of her life, only to lose her.  

In the wake of this tragedy and growing concerns about youth mental health, the Australian government is now considering legislation to impose a minimum age for social media use. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has indicated that the government is exploring an age range between 14 and 16 for social media access. 

Why has it taken a heartbreaking incident in Sydney to reignite discussions about children’s access to social media? The federal government should have imposed age restrictions on social media platforms years ago. These are our children, and they’re too young. End of conversation as far as I’m concerned. 

“We know that it’s not simple and it’s not easy. Otherwise, governments would have responded before,” Albanese told ABC News Breakfast. He emphasised the need for a coordinated national response to address the issue. 

“The evidence shows early access to addictive social media is causing our kids harm. This is no different to cigarettes or alcohol. When a product or service hurts children, governments must act.” 

South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas

The proposed legislation, expected by the end of the year, follows similar moves by the South Australian government, which recently suggested fining social media companies that allow children 13 and under to use their platforms. Personally, I think 13 is too young. I think no smartphones should be allowed before high school. I think phones shouldn’t ever be allowed while at school. And there’s a reason for all of this – the pre-frontal cortex part of the brain is still developing in teens. In fact, it doesn’t complete its growth until people are in their twenties. The prefrontal cortex controls reasoning, planning, judgment, and impulse control.

Both major political parties now support some form of age restriction on social media use. The federal government is currently trialing age verification methods for social media and adult websites, with the results set to inform the final legislation. 

South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas stresses that the matter is urgent – and he’s right. “The evidence shows early access to addictive social media is causing our kids harm. This is no different to cigarettes or alcohol. When a product or service hurts children, governments must act.” 

We need immediate action to protect young people online. The heartbreaking loss of Charlotte serves as a shocking and deeply tragic reminder of the real-world consequences of cyberbullying and the challenges facing today’s youth. I don’t know about you, but this is the kind of thing that keeps me up at night.

If you or someone you know needs support, please contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800. 

Help Is Available:

• If you require immediate assistance, please call 000.
• If you’d like to speak to someone, contact Lifeline on 13 11 14
• If you’re under 25, you can reach Kid’s Helpline at 1800 55 1800 or chat online.

Friday, May 9 is Do It For Dolly Day. Go Blue to End Bullying by wearing blue and registering your local community group for the cause. Every dollar raised helps Dolly’s Dream deliver anti-bullying programs and support services for young people, families, and schools across Australia. Doitfordollyday.org.au

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When early interviews resurfaced of Rachel Zegler discussing the Snow White remake’s modern approach, corners of the internet latched onto her words as evidence that she was disrespecting the original 1937 classic. Daring to express the need to bring the film’s outdated themes into a contemporary context, she said “There’s a big focus [in the original] on her love story with a guy who literally stalks her. Weird! So we didn’t do that this time.”

Further inciting the fury of the internet, she responded to those who labelled her comments as “woke”, admitting that “People are making these jokes about ours being the PC Snow White, where it’s like, yeah, it is – because it needed that.”

What followed was a storm of outrage, painting her as an entitled, ungrateful actress biting the hand that fed her. Disney, rather than stepping in to defend its star, seemed content to sit back and let her take the heat.

But here’s where the story takes an unexpected turn: people started seeing through the smokescreen. Instead of swallowing the narrative whole, many began questioning why a then-21-year-old actress was bearing the brunt of the film’s supposed failure, while the billion-dollar studio behind it escaped scrutiny. All the while, the film had yet to see a cinematic release.

Mirror, Mirror On The Wall…

It’s a striking contrast to what the world witnessed play out with Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni’s adaptation of It Ends With Us, where online vitriol ran rampant, with little interrogation of how much of the outrage was manipulated, misplaced, or outright manufactured.

Lively, a woman with a decades-long career and a history of carefully curating her public image, found herself suddenly branded as “too old” and “miscast” in the film, despite Colleen Hoover – the book’s own author – personally selecting her. Soon enough, what began as passionate ‘discussion’ around a beloved character, turned toxic, as the post-film pile on developed into an orchestrated attack on everything from her press wardrobe and body language, to her interview responses.

The discourse surrounding It Ends With Us revealed just how easy it is for the internet to latch onto a smear campaign, even when the accusations don’t hold up under scrutiny. And just as with Zegler, there was an eerie willingness to turn a single woman into the villain of a much larger, systemic issue – whether that be Hollywood’s obsession, and the public’s subsequent fatigue, with IP-driven content (Snow White) or the challenges of adapting a book with a controversial narrative (It Ends With Us).

The difference this time around? We’re getting better at recognising when we’re being played.

Bait & Switch

The initial backlash against Lively’s casting relied on an aesthetic critique that barely engaged with the actual substance of the film. The backlash against Zegler, on the other hand, quickly exposed something more sinister: a pattern of media manipulation where women – particularly young, outspoken ones – are thrown under the bus for corporate failures. And this time, people didn’t just accept it. They started asking why.

The situation escalated when Jonah Platt, son of Snow White producer Marc Platt, publicly criticised Zegler in an online rant, blaming her for the film’s box office flop. In a now-deleted post, he not only called her “narcissistic” but also claimed that her political activism – specifically, her past comments in support of Palestine – played a role in the film’s struggles.

This wasn’t the first indication that Disney was uncomfortable with Zegler’s stance. In August 2024, after sharing the teaser trailer for Snow White on X, she ended the post with, “and always remember, free Palestine.”

Commenters from across the internet flocked to her reply section, voicing their disdain, with grown adults such as one Joel M. Petlin, responding: “Rachel Zegler is trolling her much more famous and beautiful Snow White co-star Gal Gadot. Disney continues to hire the wrong actors to represent their brand. Rather than promoting a film, they choose to embarrass themselves and the studio.”

Instead of addressing the broader political complexities or defending their lead actress from what was clearly becoming a politically charged smear campaign, Disney remained silent, allowing Zegler to take the brunt of the controversy. Reports suggest that Disney executives pressured her to stay silent on the issue, fearful of potential backlash and market consequences.

Film critic Kelechi Ehenulo called Zegler a victim of “culture wars” in a BBC interview, where she also mentioned that Zegler was “not the first and certainly not the last actor to be speaking about politics.”

Similarly, agreed critic Conor Riley in the same interview, Zegler “became a lightning rod for controversy, not just due to her own actions, but because Snow White landed at the intersection of Hollywood’s creative stagnation, racial politics, international conflict, and America’s deep ideological divide.”

A Changing Tide

This shift in public perception is significant. For years, Hollywood has relied on a cycle of blame, where actresses – think Anne Hathaway during the Les Misérables era, or Brie Larson during Captain Marvel – become figureheads for criticism that has little to do with their actual performances.

But in 2025, with increasing awareness of how narratives are shaped and weaponised, audiences are pushing back. They’re questioning why Zegler, who didn’t write, direct, or market Snow White, is the one being raked over the coals. They’re recognising that Lively didn’t single-handedly greenlight It Ends With Us. They’re understanding that what we’re witnessing is less about the individuals and more about how Hollywood – and the internet – are still all too comfortable turning women – especially women of colour – into collateral damage.

That’s not to say the tide has fully turned. Misogyny in media coverage is far from eradicated, and the speed at which the internet can turn on a female celebrity remains frighteningly fast. But the fact that people are beginning to call it out in real time, to ask who benefits from these narratives, and to push back against them? That’s progress. And it’s a sign that Hollywood’s old tricks might not work forever, if we can help it.

Related articles:

• Female Feuds Sell, But What Does That Say About Us?
• Why Do We Keep Hating On Smart, Successful Women?
• How Will America’s Broligarchy Effect Women?

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Such is the parenting complex these days, that there’s very little one can say to avoid such a treacherous road. You’re damned if you do, and damned if you don’t – and don’t even think about commenting on the state of play if you’re child-free – no sirree!

So what, pray tell, has Chappell Roan done to deserve such furore? According to the always-balanced and never-judgemental views emerging from the depths of the digital mother’s group, she dared to offer up an anecdote about kids, that she’s observed in her own friendship group.

“All of my friends who have kids are in hell,” Roan told host Alex Cooper. “I actually don’t know anyone who’s happy and has children at this age … I’ve literally not met anyone who’s happy, anyone who has light in their eyes, who has slept.”

Come again? A 27-year-old, whose own – assumedly similarly-aged friends – are still fighting for their lives in the early childhood trenches and being honest about it? Where’s the lie?

If you, too, are still struggling to see the point of contention here, then it’s likely you’ve also served in the same battlegrounds. And, have either emerged from them with enough hindsight to hold space for those yet to, or are wading through the mess in real time, yourself.

To ignore (or even protest) such an experience makes light of the statistics that tell us otherwise. Globally, about 20% of new mothers experience mental health disorders such as depression and anxiety, a societal oversight that clinical psychologist Frances Bilbao says, only serves to reinforce the status quo.

“There’s much emphasis on pregnancy and birth, but insufficient attention to what follows —sleep deprivation, hormonal shifts, and identity changes,” she says of the often-unspoken toll one’s postpartum reality can take.

“There’s a misconception that struggling with the challenges of motherhood means you don’t love your child. We need to change that narrative.” Of course, sharing the pitfalls of parenting should be considered just one of myriad ways parenting can alter our sense of self, and as in all aspects of life, a singular story never provides the whole picture.

In the days following that Chappell Roan Call Her Daddy episode, there’s been some big feelings bubbling up to the surface that run the spectrum from “not all mothers” to accusing Roan of betraying her friends with her “insensitive” remarks.

One TikTok user @thisisittv called out Roan for failing to provide a “safe space” for her friends to vent. Another praised Roan sharing her views on motherhood, and where it fits in with her own aspirations, as a personal choice that doesn’t impact anyone apart from her.

“Chappell Roan doesn’t need to hold your hand when she says things. If you’re angry at people for choosing a child free life, you need to do a bit of soul searching and figure out where you went wrong. Society lies to women all the time, and every time one of us exposes that lie to the light of day, the ones who fell for it start to kick out in an effort to convince themselves and others that the status quo must continue,” writes TikTok user @tailor_and_paws.

As a mother of two under seven myself, there’s no one I know in the same boat, who would judge anyone for feeling one way or the other – especially when research tells us just how significant the cost of childrearing can be across all aspects of a woman’s life.

Throw in a cultural shift that’s paved the way for the rise of Tradwives and their blissfully curated portrayal of motherhood and domestic life, and we’ve created yet another impossible set of standards to pile into the pressure cooker of parenting perfectionism.

Is it any wonder, then, that Chappell Roan’s own views are being shaped by the disorientating, divisive and frankly, unachievable expectations of mothering she’s (rightfully) observing? Or are those joining the chorus of discontent just trying to quiet the noise inside their own head that’s telling them otherwise?

It goes without saying that, while no one’s road to parenthood is as clear cut as some might strive to achieve (or believe), and that the joys of childrearing are undeniably great and many, there’s nothing mutually exclusive about either experience, and we would do well to remind ourselves of that.

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According to the internet (and certain corners of the media that should really know better), these two women are at war. The evidence? They both have lifestyle brands. They both…give interviews? They both like oat milk, probably? If you think that sounds flimsy, congratulations – you’re not the problem.

The apparent hostility came to a head when Paltrow was asked about Markle’s own Goop-esque ambitions in recent interview with Vanity Fair. Responding to the inane question with a perfectly acceptable “I don’t know her at all,” Paltrow was swift in putting an end to the line of questioning, with a telling, “I was raised to see other women as friends, not foes.”

Because the internet has absolutely no chill, “hidden meanings” were instantly attributed to her words, and don’t even get the comment section started on the “subtle shade” and “coded digs” allegedly displayed in the cooking video Paltrow captioned: “My cleaner take on a classic breakfast.”

The outrage continued until Paltrow responded with the ultimate social media silencer, which, for the record we’ll just leave below.

Of course, we’ve been here before. The Hailey Bieber vs. Selena Gomez saga has dragged on longer than some celebrity marriages, despite both women repeatedly insisting they’re not fighting. And yet, the narrative of two women locked in a passive-aggressive battle for the ages is just too irresistible for the public to let go.

Case in point the viral 7-part TikTok series created by an – anonymous – user, fancy that? Determined to paint Hailey as a “psycho stalker” whose marriage to Justin was a culmination of a decade-long plot to lure and coerce the unsuspecting Biebs into a lifelong partnership, the videos continue to dredge up tired comparisons that neither are able to escape.

We can’t seem to collectively accept that famous women might simply coexist without wanting to topple each other.

There’s something uniquely exhausting about the way female celebrity feuds are framed. When men in Hollywood disagree, it’s called a “creative difference.” When women do it, it’s a catty and calculated, complete with breathless speculation, anonymous “insider” gossip, and think pieces (yes, including this one – hello, irony).

And let’s be real: these so-called celebrity feuds rarely exist outside the fevered imaginations of tabloids, X (formally Twitter), snarky Reddit posts, and that one friend who still hasn’t gotten over Gossip Girl ending.

The saddening reality of celebrity feuds spans centuries – just take your pick from history (Mary Queen of Scots and Queen Elizabeth), literature (Joan Didion and Eve Babitz), fashion (Donatella Versace vs. almost every female designer), film (Sophia Loren and Jayne Mansfield), and even sports (Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan).

Who could forget the tired trope cycled through Hollywood’s hills – see Jennifer Anniston and Angelina Jolie, J-Lo and Jennifer Garner, Kim Cattrall and SJP, or Taylor Swift’s never-ending list of supposed enemies? The bland beat goes on… and on.

The obsession with pitting women against each other isn’t just boring – it’s regressive. It’s a relic of the Mean Girls era, dusted off and repackaged for the social media age. It also conveniently keeps the focus on interpersonal drama instead of, say, the structural issues that make it so much harder for women in the industry to succeed in the first place. Why have a conversation about the lack of female directors in Hollywood when we could speculate on whether Florence Pugh liked Olivia Wilde’s Instagram post?

It’s also no coincidence that the women most frequently caught up in these faux feuds are the ones who refuse to play by the unspoken rules of likability. Gwyneth is “out of touch” (read: a successful woman who doesn’t care what you think). Meghan is “calculating” (read: a woman of colour who dared to leave an institution that made her miserable). Hailey is a “mean girl” (read: married to someone the internet thinks she doesn’t deserve). The playbook is so obvious it might as well be printed in Comic Sans.

So, why do we keep falling for it? The short answer: misogyny, but make it fun. The slightly longer answer: we’ve been conditioned to see women’s success as a limited resource, where one person’s win must come at another’s expense.

This isn’t an accident. It’s the same old patriarchy at work, ensuring that women are too busy tearing each other down to collectively dismantle the system that keeps them fighting for scraps. Throw in Australia’s proclivity for a touch of Tall Poppy and we’ve got ourselves the perfect recipe for a delicious – albeit manufactured – rivalry.

But here’s a radical thought: what if we just…stopped? What if, instead of gleefully dissecting the latest alleged celebrity feuds, we asked why we’re so eager to believe it in the first place? What if we let women be complex, ambitious, sometimes messy people without immediately assuming they must hate each other? What if we—stay with me—cared about literally anything else?

As controversial as that may be, the truth is, female celebrity feuds only have as much power as we’re willing to give them. And right now, they feel less like juicy drama, and more like a tired rerun of a show we should’ve cancelled seasons ago. Maybe it’s time we changed the channel.

Related articles:

• Is Mean Girl Culture Really Dead? Or Has It Just Had A Makeover?
• Why Do We Continue To Glorify Female Rivalry?
• The Toxic Truth To Our Treatment Of Female Celebrities

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It is a term used by Dr Jilly Kay, an expert in feminist media and cultural studies at England’s Loughborough University, in a paper published last year. Kay has been researching a reactionary turn among young women, and how a backlash against mainstream feminism has created new spaces online.

In the femosphere, instead of “incels” (male involuntary celibates) there are “femcels”, and instead of “pickup artists” there are “female dating strategists” and so-called “dark feminine” influencers who encourage women to find men to support them financially.

Most corners of the femosphere explicitly describe themselves as feminist, so Kay said she was surprised to see that their values seemed conservative, and their philosophy mostly anti-gender equality. “The logic that they adhere to is that men and women are fundamentally different,” she says.

In the femosphere, as in the manosphere, there’s an overarching belief that life is about survival of the fittest, that men will always hurt women and that will never change, so strategies are needed to conquer the opposite gender.

Kay looked at Female Dating Strategy, which started in 2019 as a Reddit forum (and now has about 260,000 members) and expanded into social media and a podcast. It has a six-point ideology for members to subscribe to, which includes ideas such as: men should always pursue women, women should seek financial contributions from men, and the majority of men have no value.

Mainstream feminism in recent decades has been “very consumer-oriented, all about individual empowerment, emphasising things like women being confident, successful, and women having all the things that men can have”, says Kay. In other words: “girlboss feminism”.

But since about 2018, Kay says, there has been a growing rejection of that idea. She saw beliefs discussed and shared in online forums and via social media influencers that echoed the logic of the manosphere – particularly when it came to dating and relationships.

“Ideas like men are the gatekeeper of relationships and women are the gatekeepers of sex,” she says. “So women’s currency in the sexual marketplace resides in her withholding sex from men, and you diminish your value if you have casual sex.”

Or the idea that, to counter women’s lesser earning power (the gender pay gap in Australia is 21.8 per cent), rather than fighting for pay equality, a man should provide for a woman financially, and women must “embrace feminine energy” to secure a husband. “It’s incredibly conservative, but it’s trying to reframe it as being this empowering strategy,” says Kay.

She also looked at “dark feminine” influencers such as YouTuber Thewizardliz and Sydney-based Kanika Batra. In recent years, Batra has criticised liberal feminism.

In one post, she explained why she had “left feminism behind” and said: “The manosphere is incredibly loyal to everybody within it.”

In another, Batra laments the state of modern dating and the ways it has changed men and women’s roles. “I used to be a feminist before I saw the effects of third wave feminism,” said Batra. “This has forced women into masculine roles where they are pursuing men. This is not natural, and it seems that there are more and more people not starting a family.”

Thewizardliz, meanwhile, makes videos with titles such as “How to become more beautiful”, “How to become rich”, “How to become extremely seductive”. In “How to receive princess treatment”, the influencer advises followers who want to be “spoiled” to say to their male partner: “I would appreciate it if you gave me some money, like an allowance.”

There are clear reasons women and girls might be drawn to this thinking, says feminist theorist Dr Sophie Lewis, whose recently released book, Enemy Feminisms, explores moments in history when feminists have aligned with unlikely groups, such as colonial regimes and even the Ku Klux Klan.

Of the femosphere’s ideas, Lewis says: “There’s an actual offer, a promise that should not be sniffed at. There’s a promise to deliver women from what political economists have called the double shift.”

After liberal feminism’s vision that women could have it all, “women are now saddled with both productive and reproductive labour”, she says. Lewis has studied some areas of the femosphere, particularly “tradwife” influencers. “The so-called trad life is genuinely seductive to women who rightly hate the endless grind,” she says. “That’s something that liberal feminism needs to recognise it hasn’t provided a solution to.”

She is discouraged by the lack of hope and “anti-utopian” thinking in these spaces, with ideas about new ways of living often disparaged as foolish. Kay and Lewis are not the only ones interested in this growing corner of the internet. Professor Emiliano De Cristofaro and Professor Jeremy Blackburn are two of the authors of a data-driven analysis of “toxic” women’s communities online.

They had already worked on the manosphere and other “dark corners” of the internet. They noted some of the same patterns as Kay, and found “sort of analogues of the manosphere”. Some communities even mirrored the manosphere in the advice given to members. “The narratives with respect to dating strategy are very similar – it’s a game and you try to outsmart the other gender and win,” says De Cristofaro.

Some of the language used is also similar. Being “red-pilled” is often discussed in the manosphere – the idea, based on the plot of the Matrix film, of suddenly being able to see reality – and “black-pilled” is used by incels to describe the idea that their situation (which is, as they see it, being undesirable to women) is inescapable. In the femosphere, these have been reframed as the “pink pill”.

Accusations of toxic language and hate speech have led to some female groups, including femcel groups, being banned from Reddit. Just like manosphere groups before them, they then set up independent platforms of their own. “Usually that community reduces in size, but becomes more radicalised and more toxic, because of a lack of moderation and less exposure to more moderate positions,” says De Cristofaro.

The researchers noted that, among some femosphere members, “feminism is a key part of their identity” but – as Kay noted – this doesn’t necessarily mean they hold progressive views. Some more traditionally feminist groups have aligned with non-feminist groups who share some of the same views – notably, the union of Christian fundamentalists and far-right figures with some gender-critical feminists.

“Just because something is the enemy of liberal feminism, does not necessarily mean that it’s good for women”

Dr Jilly Kay

This is something we’ve seen throughout the history of feminism, says Lewis.

“You might almost call this anti-feminist feminism. That’s what I see in the femosphere a lot,” she says. “It’s important to understand a long lineage of women, especially middle-class white women, making a calculation that they might be able to individually find a foothold within patriarchy by accommodating themselves to a certain set of disciplines in exchange for provisional protection, while throwing other women under the bus.”

Kay sees parallels with Canadian writer and activist Naomi Klein’s recent work on the digital world, where she identified that many of these new communities contain a mix of ideas from both the left and right of the political spectrum.

“In this case, certain ideas from left feminism seem to be getting mixed up with reactionary conservative ideas,” says Kay. “It’s part of broader reactionary politics, the role that digital culture is playing in rearranging traditional coordinates of left and right.”

This aligns with other research, such as that of Dr Alice Evans, a senior lecturer at King’s College London, who showed last year that gen Z is extremely progressive on some issues and extremely conservative on others, with a gulf particularly forming between young men and young women.

There’s no evidence to say that the femosphere is radicalising its members in the same way as the manosphere, which has seen members committing shocking acts of real-world violence and fuelling populist political movements. But there are reasons to be wary. De Cristofaro says more research is needed, but “exposure to toxic content has been shown overall to increase radicalisation”.

Kay adds, “It’s important that people understand it and recognise it, partly because at first glance it can seem quite appealing, especially to feminists. Liberal feminism has been rejected for good reason – it has failed to deliver gender equality – so it makes sense that you’d want to find an alternative. But just because something is the enemy of liberal feminism, does not necessarily mean that it’s good for women.”

Related articles:

• Much Like ‘Adolescence’, Australian Boys Are Falling Victim To The Manosphere
• So You Want To Leave Your Career To Raise A Family?
• The Terrifying Rise Of Alt-Right Female Influencers

The post Inside The Dangerous World Of Femcels & The Femosphere appeared first on marie claire.

Whether you’re reading this as an avid follower of TikTok drama, or you’re late to the pity party that was Jack McIntosh’s truly staggering response (as I confess to be) – here’s a little background information to get you in the mood.

Posting a video to her TikTok, Jordan Tan described an exhausting encounter she’d recently had after two Perth-based men who were “apparently in the mental health and wellness space,” sent her a voice note out of the blue.

Aside from those two little titbits, she kept the identity of the men anonymous. Instead, using the voice note to emphasise the perplexing sense of audacity that its message, and the men behind it, were displaying.

Tan’s crime, according to their apparent disbelief? Her refusal to meet up with them to, simply, “talk about some things.” And no, detail hasn’t been omitted here, that is how truly nondescript the request was.

“Yeah it would be awesome to hear your perspectives and hopefully give some of our perspectives, and learn from each other,” one of the men said, after stating they’d “seen her socials” where they’d noticed she shared some “strong opinions of men.”

“Because I’m sure you don’t want to feel that way for the rest of your life, and I’m sure you want to be listened to,” the note continued. And as “two men in the space of mindset and mental health,” they felt like they were the right people to offer that to chance to Jordan.

After she replied to say she wasn’t exactly comfortable meeting up with two random strangers to “share perspectives” – as if it warranted a response at all – she asked what it was they intended to achieve from the meeting, to which the men replied: “Yeah, the intention is to literally just understand the perspective and maybe we can give a bit of our perspective. It might help each other learn something.”

How anyone could resist such an alluring proposal, we just don’t know.

“Being the kind person that I am, I gave them the opportunity to walk away with some kind of dignity,” explained Tan. “I said, unfortunately this doesn’t align with me, and I don’t picture an outcome that I’m fulfilled by, but if you’re really interested in my perspective, feel free to continue on following my social media journey.

“I would also recommend reading some literature written by women or donating to charities that support us. I’ve attached some links…”

Further explaining that she’d sent through links to texts such as Clementine Ford’s Boys Will Be Boys and Men Who Hate Women by Laura Bates, because, as Tan noted in her piece to camera, if the two were serious about being interested in her perspective, then they would try harder to understand it on their own. Without *sigh* having to rely on a woman to educate them about their privileged place in this world.

“This guy started his rejection therapy journey and posts all about it online,” said Tan of one of the men. “So I said to him ‘for someone who supposedly practices rejection therapy you don’t seem to handle it very well'”.

“It doesn’t feel like they actually want to listen to me or learn from me. It seems like they just want to project their own deeply insecure beliefs on how ‘not all men’, so that I don’t have to ‘live like this for the rest of my life’,” she continued. “Like how is it that you think that I live? Because I live a pretty fucking happy life. Why on earth would I agree to this?”

It’s a tale as old as time, isn’t it? Man gets podcast. Man makes claims about ‘doing the work’ but still expects women to offer up their labour for free. Man gets sad when women aren’t nice to him and don’t shower him with praise for doing the bare minimum.

Why Can’t They Just Get It?

In a move that will surprise no one, despite Jordan Tan explicitly keeping the authors of the voice note anonymous and not tagging any accounts in her video, content creator and apprentice sparky-turned-mindset ‘coach’, Jack McIntosh went and outed himself as one of the men on the recording.

In a now-deleted (but linked here for your viewing pleasure) TikTok, McIntosh posted a five minute mess of an ‘apology’ where he attempted to crawl out of the giant hole he’d dug for himself by – get this – letting everyone know that he was “literally just a guy, doing a thing. Trying to be better. Trying to inspire people as much as possible.”

The video begins with McIntosh sobbing into the mic – a teaser for the emotional journey to come – before being comforted by an unknown blond man who is assumedly the other man on the voice note sent to Tan.

Just when we think he’s about to crumble and won’t possibly make it through the next four minutes and 58 seconds, he pushes the random blond man (who we later learn is Egan) away and bravely reassures everyone that “it’s all good… it’s all good, I can talk”. Phew!

“The reason I decided to message Jordan – Jordan Tan – was to have a conversation,” he begins. “To give context to that, Egan and I catch up with strangers all the time. It’s one of our passions. ,

“We love talking to strangers. Getting to know their story. Understanding perspectives. Isn’t that what we’re hear to do? Share stories? Share experiences? Share knowledge? Learn from each other?”

Great for them. Not so great if you’re a woman who’s had to deal with a lifetime of wondering if the men they’re seeing, or walking beside, or just existing in the world with, might assault, rape or murder them, but fine.

“First of all, for all the comments that want to come at me and slander me, have a look inside as well,” he implored. “Do you truly know me? When you said that the values didn’t align, and you didn’t see a good perfect-picture ending. The reason I asked why is because I was genuinely curious. I’m a fucking curious person I just didn’t see the harm in it.”

And therein, Jack McIntosh – and fellow men of the world – lies the problem.

Assuming that women owe you anything, let alone their time, resources, labour, or even breath to respond to such a request, is audacity in its highest form and yet you still don’t get it.

Expecting women to bear the brunt of your inadequacies, shortfalls or knowledge gaps under the guise of “being an ally” is literally the opposite of what an actual ally could and should be doing every day of their lives if they’re in any way genuine about their feminist intentions.

But what of the texts? Surely Jack “understanding perspectives” McIntosh jumped at the chance to learn from this experience? Well, we’re sad to report that not only did he not follow up on Tan’s suggestions, but he got so overwhelmed by the concept that it turned into quite the distressing ask.

“I’ve never read a book, so when you send me these books it goes over my head,” he admitted in the video. “When people tell me to read any book, whether I have a fear of reading books, I don’t know… But I have never read a book before, I learn through conversation. Other people. Good or bad… That’s just me.”

Now, don’t get us wrong, we’re not blaming the guy for admitting he struggles to read, or allegedly, doesn’t read at all. Having a grasp on basic language is a challenge for most of us. And, who are we to judge if the man genuinely has difficulty reading?

However, we will say, that perhaps when it comes to this small matter, that he could have benefited from keeping it to himself – or, as we might remind children – ‘that’s an inside thought’.

As a sidenote, for anyone else out there who suffers from Bibliophobia, which is a very real condition according to Cleveland Clinic, there are fantastic audiobooks these days, or heck, even podcasts, that might be able to help you overcome your fear of books.

Oh, and after removing his original video, McIntosh posted a follow up ‘apology’ where he noted he was “taking accountability.” He said: “My approach was very naïve. I’m now taking the time to educate myself and try and be better every single day. I just wanted to try and spark a conversation with Jordan and learn from her experiences as I am a mental health advocate. I would never want anyone to feel the way that I made Jordan feel and for that I’m truly sorry. Thank you.”

It appears he won’t read books, or the room.

The post Dear Men, Please Stop Expecting Us To Educate You appeared first on marie claire.

The devastation sweeping Los Angeles right now, as five separate wildfires ravage parts of the city, is simply unimaginable.

The Pacific Palisades blaze in particular, has seen over 1000 buildings destroyed, as an estimated 180,000 flee with 200,000 more on evacuation watch in what’s being considered the most destructive fire in L.A history. 

As uncontained fires continue to ravage the area with no end in sight, the famously well-off region home to several celebrities, has seen conversations online already take a dark turn, devoid of compassion and tainted with a distinct distaste for the wealthy.

As news broke many comments online carried an ‘eat the rich’ sentiment. On a post by the BBC one reads, “Awwww poor rich people” before another adds “Lol good, zero sympathy for rich celebs” and a third says “Can you imagine losing your 4th house! Must be hard. Thoughts and prayers”. 

Famously dubbed TinselTown, L.A may be perennially synonymous with the celebrity set, but the city’s socio economic demographic is far from that of suburban pockets like Hollywood and the Pacific Palisades.

A large portion of LA’s population is considered middle or working class, with the median household income according to the U.S. Census Bureau sitting at $80,000, some $19,000 less than that of Australians.

So no, it’s not just the rich who are losing their homes, belongings and even loved ones to this tragedy.

Misconceptions about L.A’s socio-economic standing aside, our empathy towards those affected by the fires should be unbiased. 

Having the means to rebuild does not make the loss of a home any less devastating. A home is more than bricks and mortar, it’s the sum of its most intangible parts, a place made of memories. And then, there’s the loss of the irreplaceable, money-can’t-buy assets; family heirlooms, childhood photographs, hand-made treasures.  

Hollywood’s biggest celebrities may lead lives far more glamorous and privileged than ours but they’re no less human and no less deserving of empathy. 

So, while Miles Teller or Adam Brody may be financially fit to face the physical loss of their Pacific Palisades homes, it may serve to remember fires this destructive take more than just what we can see from the outside. Above all, our humanity and empathy towards others shouldn’t be tied to someone’s dollar worth.

The post Why Social Media’s Reactions To The LA Fires Are So Disturbing appeared first on marie claire.

Though quite bizarre, the Pavel Durov to IVF pipeline isn’t as left-field as one might initially think.

Earlier this year, the tech CEO revealed that he had fathered “over 100 biological kids” across a 15-year period in a post shared to his own platform, Telegram.

“The boss of the clinic told me that ‘high quality donor material’ was in short supply and that it was my civic duty to donate more sperm to anonymously help more couples,” the post continues.

Durov’s post – which has 16.6 million views – also outlined his plans to “outsource his DNA” in the hopes that his biological children could find each other, if they wanted to, before concluding the post with a mobilising call.

“I also wanted to destigmatise the whole notion of sperm donation and incentivise more healthy men to do it, so that families struggling to have kids can enjoy more options. Defy convention – redefine the norm!”

Sounds admirable, right? Well, yes … on one hand attempting to dismantle the still very real stigma many people face when going through IVF is applaudable, but on the other hand, it seems to point to a growing trend, or rather, fascination bordering-on-obsession, with increasing the global birth rate.

Chief member of the tech billionaire boys club, close Trump supporter and father to at least 12, Elon Musk, has been increasingly vocal about falling birth rates and his will to reverse the figure as a matter of urgency, even offering up his services to Taylor Swift in an unhinged tweet that read: “Fine Taylor … you win… I will give you a child.”

So when Durov offered to partner with the AltraVita clinic in Russia to finance IVF-related procedures for those willing to participate, it felt like a step up from the usual repopulating rhetoric.

The website advertising the service also makes mention of its “exclusive right to store and use biomaterial of Pavel Durov.”

As we know, the pathway to IVF parenthood can be hindered by multiple obstacles, not least its associated financial costs, so offering to cover costs sounds great on paper. The catch? You must be willing to use the tech CEO’s donor sperm or “biomaterial” – the product of “one of the most famous and successful entrepreneurs of our time,” according to the clinic’s website.

While to many, this type of assistance could be lifechanging, it’s also – as with any medical procedure – not without its risks, not to mention the whole thing truly sounds like the makings of a dystopic sci-fi thriller.

Who Is Pavel Durov?

Successful he may be, Durov’s platform Telegram stands accused of being a technological touch point for criminal activity.

In September this year, The New York Times published an analysis of more then 3.2 million Telegram messages, and the results were alarming to say the least.

“The company, which offers features that enable criminals, terrorists and grifters to organize at scale and to sidestep scrutiny from the authorities, has looked the other way as illegal and extremist activities have flourished openly on the app,” the report begins, before labelling the Durov-created app as a combination of “the anonymity of the dark web, with the ease-of-use of an online marketplace.”

Pavel Durov created the toxic platform as a response to alleged government interference in people’s online activity. In a post in defence of the app, Durov wrote: “Were it entirely up to us, we would always give our users what they ask for: access to uncensored information and opinions so that they can make their own decisions.”

In August, the tech CEO was arrested and charged with failing to prevent illicit activity – which includes crimes relating to distribution of child sexual abuse material, drug trafficking and fraud – just to name a few.

The platform was also the point of focus of security researchers, who were monitoring the app for “threats of violence” in the lead up to the US election – which is also a telling indication of the type of content shared across the platform.

So no tech bros, women don’t want your sperm, and this is why.

The post No, Tech Bros, Women Don’t Want Your Sperm Thank You appeared first on marie claire.

Usually I take most criticism far too personally, but in this instance I decided that if you are criticising this very-easy-to-get-on-board-with issue, that’s a huge problem and not something I can even begin to address.

I always encourage people to have good discussions about my work. The issue is not criticism but harassment and bullying. I try not to engage with disingenuous criticism, which is not easy because I enjoy trolling a troll and giving it right back to them.

Trolls are cowards. They don’t ever do it in person. I’ve had hecklers, I’ve received bomb threats and death threats at my events, but no-one has ever come in person to be combative. The fat-phobic trolls, the racist trolls, the antisemitic trolls, they never have the courage to say it to my face. It’s surreal to see the bravado and the level of cruelty and antagonism that all of us – including me – are capable of online, versus how we interact face to face.

I often find that it’s something completely innocuous that people lose their minds over. I had an advice column in The New York Times called ‘Work Friend’ and one thing I wrote that really got under people’s skin was [in response to a letter from a woman] at the beginning of COVID.

The woman wanted to know if it would be rude to ask her housekeeper, Maria, to wear a mask while she was at her house. I felt that there were racist undertones to her question because she noted that Maria was Mexican and the implication in the letter was that because Maria was Mexican, she might have had more exposure to COVID.

I received so many emails saying, “How dare you accuse this woman of being racist.” The silver-haired set was irate. Nothing makes white people more upset than feeling like one of their brethren are being called racist. Oddly enough, the woman who wrote the letter wrote to me the other day – three years after I wrote the column – to say that she cancelled her New York Times subscription because of that letter, and that I should really rethink the consequences of calling people racist because she’s not, she’s just an elder person worried about getting sick. Funnily enough, you can be old and vulnerable, and also f***ing racist.

At the moment, there are two women who I feel have been unfairly subjected to public criticism. The first is Ketanji Brown Jackson, an associate justice of the US Supreme Court, who received free tickets to see Beyoncé and was publicly vilified for doing so. If Beyoncé sent me four tickets, I’m taking them. I thought that was unfair.

WNBA rookie Angel Reese also gets a ton of criticism that I feel is undeserved. It’s frustrating because she’s passionate and she plays hard, which is something we celebrate in our male players. But when a woman – especially a Black woman – does the same thing, it’s a problem. It’s not a coincidence that both of these women are Black.

It’s challenging to consistently put work into the public sphere, especially as a Black woman. You get used to the criticism, but on the other hand it chips away at your defences.

I try to avoid all of the discourse around my work, because my work is my contribution to the discourse. I’ve taught myself that my responsibility is on the page and not anything beyond that.

The post Roxane Gay On Public Criticism & Online Hate: “Trolls Are Cowards” appeared first on marie claire.

My mum bought tickets to the Paralympics, and we went out to Homebush to watch some events. I couldn’t believe what I saw: elite athletes at the top of their game, who also happened to be disabled. It was the first time I felt truly seen. I was 14. Up until then, I hadn’t really seen people with a disability – like me – in the spotlight, let alone on a podium.

I was born with dwarfism, and seeing the athleticism at the Paralympics flicked a switch inside me. I had always loved swimming – and I was quite good at it, unlike other sports – and after watching the Paralympics, I knew I wanted to compete at the Games.

I stepped up my swimming, joined a squad, climbed the ranks and eventually started training at the NSW Institute of Sport. I’m not exaggerating when I say swimming changed – and likely saved – my life. For the first time, I felt like I was actually good at something.

I’d never been academic, and I was heading down a bad path before the revelation at the Paralympics changed my course. I trained my arse off and qualified for the 2004 Athens Paralympics. I was 18.

I clearly remember touching the wall at the end of the women’s 50m butterfly S6 event. I looked up at the stands to see my parents, brother and his girlfriend. The crowd roared. I’d won bronze and got to stand on the podium in front of my family, my coach, teammates and hundreds of spectators. Time slowed down and I felt every tiny emotion very deeply.

I was relieved, stoked and enormously proud to be an Aussie. Oi, oi, oi!

After Athens, I went on to compete at the 2008 Beijing Games and the 2012 London Games. Back then, prize money wasn’t a thing. In fact, until just a few years ago, Australian Paralympians didn’t receive any payment for representing their country and doing us proud.

It was only after a campaign in 2020 that the government introduced pay parity so medal-winning Paralympians would be awarded the same bonuses as Olympians.

This year, the Paralympics are being broadcast on Channel Nine – a mainstream network! – and I’ll be in Paris to help with athlete welfare support.

We’ve come a fair way, but there’s still further to go. A lot of people still use the Olympics and Paralympics interchangeably, but they’re not the same. When people mistakenly say I competed at the Olympics – I think they mean it as a compliment – I’m quick to correct them. I’m proud to be a Paralympian. We are elite athletes in our own right.

Terminology matters. That’s part of the reason why I wrote the kids’ book ABC Disability, which came out in June. I was never taught about disabilities or diversity when I was a kid, and I wanted my children (who are able-bodied) and their mates to have a different experience.

It’s my dream for this book to sit on bookshelves in schools, day-cares, libraries, cafes and homes around the country – and the world. It’s a fun and colourful introduction to an alphabet of disability terms, and a timely reminder that there’s no shame in being different. I honestly think this book will change lives, in the same way the Paralympics changed mine.

ABC Disability (Hachette, $24.99) by Sarah Rose with Alley Pascoe, illustrated by Beck Feiner, is out now.

The post “We Are Elite Athletes in Our Own Right”: Sarah Rose On The Power of the Paralympics appeared first on marie claire.

It all started when Italian boxer Angela Carini forfeited her match against Algerian Imane Khelif within 46 seconds. Carini, who refused to shake her opponent’s hand and cried “it’s not fair” to her team. For those who weren’t aware of what she meant,  Imane’s next opponent, Hungarian Anna Luca Hamori, was much more direct. Ahead of her match, she shared a series of extremely transphobic posts calling Khelif a ‘man’ and positioning her as a beast. In the days following, a blaze of news media and a few unfortunately loud voices on Instagram and TikTok came forth to fuel the fire and share their opinions—rife with misinformation—about Imane. Among those was Harry Potter author JK Rowling, whose problematic history of commentary on trans issues has been well documented. 

“A young female boxer has just had everything she’s worked and trained for snatched away because you allowed a male to get in the ring with her,” Rowling levelled at the International Olympic Committee. “You’re a disgrace, your ‘safeguarding’ is a joke and #Paris24 will be forever tarnished by the brutal injustice done to Carini.” 

The kicker in this controversy is that Khelif is just a woman. An incredibly talented woman, but a woman. She is not transgender, she was not born with male sex organs. Despite a lot of misinformed news that she was disqualified from another tournament for allegedly having an XY chromosome, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has debunked these gender-testing methods as “illegitimate” and thrown their full defence behind Khelif. She was born and raised, and remains a woman. 

So, how did we get here?

Unfortunately, Khelif’s treatment is the complete convergence of ‘white feminism’—a type of ‘feminism’ that ignores broader power imbalances of class, race, gender diversity and more, to focus single-mindedly on the ‘battle of the sexes’. Over the course of a few days, we’ve seen how racism, transphobia and misogyny has led to the most inflammatory attacks on a woman who, in reality, was just really good at boxing.

Starting with transphobia: Even though Khelif is not trans, she has found herself at the receiving end of the vile rhetoric too-often levelled against the trans and gender diverse community. While I’m tempted to throw my hands in the air and say, “but it makes no sense” (which it doesn’t really, given—once again—Khelif is not trans), it is still transphobic. Not only do these arguments uphold any notion that being trans is ‘wrong’, it inflames those existing wounds for the trans community, reigniting the already damaging and frustrating tensions around gender and sport that, frankly, shouldn’t have a place in this chat. 

This brings us to racism and misogyny. Khelif is a brown woman from Algeria. Any misguided ideas about Khelif’s gender come back to people deeming her appearance ‘unacceptable’ in relation to her gender. Critics have specifically used the feminine optics of her competitors, Carini and Hamori, to demonise Khelif. Amid the social media rampage, an American model shared a bikini photo of Hamori—posed seductively by a pool, blonde hair flowing—alongside the caption, “This is the girl who is fighting the male boxer tomorrow”. Meanwhile, JK Rowling has shared post after post of Khelif beside a crying Carini, hoping the visual could somehow support her argument that the power balance between these two Olympic-level boxers is somehow off. Once upon a time, the same accusations were levelled at Serena and Venus Williams, whose bodies were also deemed ‘unacceptable’ but their racist/misogynist detractors. The subtext of their abuse and Khelif’s is the same. How dare they not posses the Victoria’s Secret-style frames made desirable by a patriarchal media complex? How dare they threaten our obviously-fragile system of arbitrary gender identification?

While I’m glad to see many people coming to the defence of Khelif on my own social media feed, I’m devastated that misinformation has continued to run rife across all platforms and many mainstream media outlets. I’m disappointed that there’s a good chance I’m only seeing this part of the argument because an algorithm wants me to, and that those who could benefit from it will never see it. But mostly I’m infuriated that, by existing in a body that isn’t white, and by daring to be brilliant at her sport, Imane felt so threatening to her competitors that this is the approach they took. I’m furious that this is the hate campaign they took, one they knew would be validated by a culture that insists gender expression look and be just one way.

The arguments against Khelif are non-sensical, but more than that, they are damaging to all of us in some way. They represent our body image struggles, our race relations, our freedom of self expression, the difficulties of all women in sport, and really most women, who, like Khelif, have struggled to be heard or seen in public discourse. But this is particularly risky for Khelif, who now faces risks to her safety at a global level because of this conversation.

In the words of Jameela Jamil, “I hope Imane is ok. And then when she feels better, I hope she sues the living hell out of everyone with a big platform who incited hatred against her using misinformation.”

The post The Imane Khelif Controversy Only Proves The Problems Of ‘White Feminism’ appeared first on marie claire.

“It’s a Fritz Bernaise. Ladies, I just don’t think we can do any better,” Helen exclaims to the surrounding bridal party, while Annie (played Kristen Wiig) inspects the eggplant-toned gown to discover an alarming $800 price tag.

If you’ve ever had the privilege of receiving the honorary ‘Bridesmaid‘ title, then you’ll be familiar with the financial burden the badge bears. From the dress to the hens, accomodation to a wedding gift, saying ‘I do’ to joining a wedding party comes with an equally heavy financial commitment, that sadly does not come with a prenup.

“I’ve spent $7,884 attending bachelorette parties and weddings this year,” says bridesmaid Shann Detrick, who took to TikTok to provide a cost breakdown of her bridal party obligations.

“I spent $965 on a three night bachelorette in Palm Springs and then an additional $916 for the actual wedding. A second wedding bachelorette in Miami cost me $1425 with an extra $522 for the wedding itself. Following that, I attended a bachelorette in New Orleans for $1536, with an additional wedding cost of $2210. I’ve also just paid a $310 hotel deposit for a bachelorette party I’m attending next year. This total does not include wedding gifts, bridal showers or bridesmaid dresses.”

“This sounds about right,” comments one TikTok user in response to Detrick’s video. “It’s not realistic to assume all bridesmaids and friends could afford that,” argues another.

According to online wedding planner, The Knot the average bridesmaids reportedly spends a sobering $1,900 to maintain her coveted bridal party spot, with a third of bridal party members going into debt to cover related expenses. Raising the argument, how much are you expected to fork out for someone else’s big day?

What costs are you expected to cover?

You’ve spent the past few months tightening your belt, sacrificing your annual holiday and knuckling down on your finances. Then you get the call. Your best friend is holding up her ring finger and even though you’re elated at the news, you feel yourself beginning to calculate the financial set back this wedding will cost you.

“If you are having bridesmaid’s it is absolutely your responsibility to pay for them,” argues Claudia in a viral TikTok. “If you are requiring people to be in your wedding and you want them to wear a specific dress and shoes then you have to be prepared for pay for that.”

While an zero-cost obligation is ideal, it’s certainly not the norm. As a general rule, you should accept the honour of standing by your friends side with the understanding that there will be an expectation to cover certain costs. This will likely include your dress, shoes, accomodation, wedding gift and a contribution to organising the hens party.

How to set realistic expectations

Before planning has even began, you likely already know what side of the barometer, between extravagant affair and backyard bash, that your mate sit’s at.

Based on this assessment, and especially if your friend has Anant Ambani’s wedding on her Pinterest board, you need to make sure you manage expectations. While an outfit and bachelor party have become standards costs for a bridesmaid to cover, a destination hens or a designer dress is a huge ask especially in the current cost of living climate.

Making sure you are on the same page as the bride before you put your hand up for the job is important. If you are unable to agree on the cost, then you need to flag with your friend that rather than create resentment and sacrifice the friendship, unfortunately you need to turn down the honorary position.

Where can you cut costs?

You’ve said yes to the (bridesmaids) dress and now you have a $500 teal bias cut dress hanging in your closet. Rather than let it haunt you as a ghost of financial regrets past, consider selling it on Facebook marketplace or Depop to give another bridesmaid the opportunity to cut corners. Not only will you avoid living out your own 27 dresses hellscape, but you can then use the money to buy a dress from your own wish list (or put it towards your next bridesmaid dress…)

Alternatively, before you are added into the ‘bridesmaids 2025’ group chat, have a conversation about renting dresses and shoes rather than shopping new and investigate whether the bride is open to purchasing pre-loved.

While the hens is arguably the biggest expense in any bridal party, it’s also the hardest place to cut costs. If the bride is set on a certain destination, plan ahead and see if there are seasonal deals online or if there is a more budget-friendly alternative that offers a similar experience.

Remember, you are not responsible for bankrolling your friends big day. The best support your can offer your mates is your shoulder and not your salary. Now, bring on the baby showers!

The post Has Becoming A Bridesmaid Sent You Bankrupt? appeared first on marie claire.

Since the launch of Netflix’s 2024 documentary series America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, there has been criticism of a culture where body shaming is alive and kicking (literally – have you seen their split kicks? Ouch).  

I don’t know what I expected when I sat down last Saturday night to watch a show about cheerleaders, but it wasn’t overt body-shaming and tearing down women. I guess I expected more empowerment, inclusivity and diversity. More, I don’t know, fun? Instead, it was like the original Barbie was back – way before Mattel got slammed for the lack of diversity in their dolls.  

Are We Back to 90s Body Shaming?

I sat there, horrified, feeling like the clock had stopped in the 90s, and someone forgot to restart it. You might remember the appalling body shaming that went on in the 90s. Cue Nicole Ritchie being interviewed on the red carpet and asked by a reporter:  

“On TV, you are a little fuller… How do you feel about the fact that maybe the thickness may hinder you from getting certain parts.” 

Or Victoria Beckham getting asked mid-interview if she was back to her ‘normal’ weight. When she awkwardly replied yes, the journalist asked her if he could check and pulled out some scales. “This is horrible,” she replied.

Yes, Posh, it’s bloody horrible. 

I don’t want my girls to ever watch the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders documentary because all it does is reinforce a world where girls aren’t valued, and the size of their bodies determines their self-worth. No, thanks. I’ll pass.  

Why Was Veteran Cheerleader Victoria Kalina Picked On?

The show featured one cheerleader Victoria Kalina, who opened up about her struggles with disordered eating, anxiety, and depression. Her vulnerability was so raw, I almost wanted to fly to Dallas and give her a hug.  

“When I look at myself in the uniform, I’m always like, oh, man, I need to lose at least three pounds,” she said in the series. To deal with her depression, she’s struggled with binging and purging food. “It’s a binge to get that feel-good, that empty feeling filled again, but then game time comes, so then you just gotta get into those baby clothes, get into that baby uniform and that cycle just keeps going.” 

Who Is Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders’ Director Kelli Finglass?

Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders’ director Kelli Finglass is the focus of the show and honestly, she’s not likeable. “Each cheerleader has a custom-made uniform for her shape and they are hand-tailored,” she said. “And outside of just trying to make that uniform fit and and have the best, most beautiful lines, we don’t talk about weight or things like that.” That’s not what I watched on TV. The body-shaming was extreme.  

Finglass has said she “does not make excuses for our standards… It is a highly visible organisation with very elite dancers and the uniform is amazing and beautiful and custom-tailored to each individual figure… I’m not making any excuses.”  Wow, what a role model. Good for you Kelli – you go girl!

How Does The Series Reinforce Outdated Beauty Standards

Ultimately, the series reveals a troubling history of body shaming that dates back to the squad’s inception in the 1970s. And while the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders organisation claims to have moved past explicit weight requirements, the immense pressure on the women to maintain a certain body type is uncomfortably obvious. The organisation’s current expectation is for cheerleaders to “look well-proportioned in dancewear”.

Could someone please define well-proportioned?  

Of course, I realise this issue extends far beyond the DDC. Professional cheerleading as a whole seems to be grappling with outdated beauty standards and practices that prioritise appearance over athleticism and wellbeing. The DCC, as one of the most high-profile squads in the world, has both the opportunity to lead the charge for change. And judging by what I saw on Saturday night, there’s not much change happening.  

What’s Next For the DCC?

I live in Australia. My girls will not be cheerleaders. But as tweens, they’re already conscious of their bodies. What I want them to see is diverse athletes who truly embody the confidence and empowerment they’re meant to represent. 

I’m not the only one who has found the body shaming and general degradation of women hard to watch.

Finglass’ Instagram page is full of comments: “You need to be a better advocate for these women or retire with dignity,” one woman wrote.

The comments continued.

“The DCC are extremely underpaid, and your methods and unreasonable body expectations cause eating disorders and anxiety and you think this is all justified by ‘passion’ for cheerleading. You are a woman exploiting women,” said another.  

“Shame on you for failing and body shaming young women,” wrote another.

 In the end, it’s clear that the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders—and the broader world of professional cheerleading—are at a crossroads.

The question now is whether they’ll choose to lead the way into a more inclusive future or remain stuck in a past that’s long overdue for retirement.

As one fan aptly commented on social media to Finglass: “It’s time to be a better advocate for these women or retire with dignity.”

Indeed, it’s high time for cheerleading to cheer for change.

The post Let’s Talk About The Extreme Body Shaming Of The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, Because It’s Wild appeared first on marie claire.

Coughlan is our cover star this month and, as she says in her interview, Bridgerton is all rather posh, which makes for some fabulous escapism. “Bridgerton often makes people think I’m fancy. In reality, I’m just a girl from a village in the west of Ireland. I’m not really fancy at all,” she tells our features writer Harriet Sim. Season three (out now) sees Coughlan come into her own after playing the role of a wallflower in seasons one and two. Perhaps this is the very thing that makes her so intriguing. We all love seeing a wallflower bloom.

This issue we are also thrilled to announce the winners of our inaugural Sustainability Awards, in partnership with Volvo. Turn to page 46 to meet these eco stars from categories spanning fashion to parenting. Celebrating brands, organisations and people who are working to create a better planet is something marie claire is passionate about. For me, the philosophy behind NZ label Maggie Marilyn (our fashion winner) sums it up: “Buy as you need, repair what you can and repurpose what you can’t.”

SHOP: Esse coat, $1,250. Toteme pants, $740. Celine bag and sunglasses. All jewellery from Pandora.

As I write this, I’ve just read that Molly Ticehurst is the 30th woman to be killed in Australia this year. Every four days, a woman is murdered by a current or former partner in our country. Less than 10 days before Molly’s death, five women and one man were brutally murdered in Sydney’s Bondi Junction, after a man went on a stabbing rampage. It was an ordinary Saturday afternoon and the victims could have been anyone. Only, that’s not entirely true – his behaviour indicated he was targeting women.

These were mothers, wives, daughters, friends, partners, sisters, carers. If this all makes you feel uncomfortable, it should. It makes me so angry yet I also feel totally exhausted. How much louder can we scream? The gender-based violence needs to stop. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said, “Australia must do better,” and at marie claire we won’t stop fighting until we see change.

Finally, I also want to encourage you to sign Are Media’s petition for carers, because they are not valued enough. A primary carer will lose on average $175,000 in superannuation and $392,500 in lifetime earnings by the age of 67. Seven in 10 carers are female, which means women are primarily the ones who increase their financial vulnerability to look after someone they love. With your support, we’ll be asking the government to pay superannuation to recognised unpaid carers in Australia.

Please join us and sign the petition at change.org/costofcaring

See you next month.

Georgie

On My Autumn Wish List Right Now

01

Adidas Originals Gazelle Indoor leather and suede-trimmed nylon sneakers

from $280 at Net-A-Porter

The ‘Gazelle Indoor’ sneakers from adidas Originals first debuted in the 1970s as footwear for indoor sports, and over time, they’ve evolved into an iconic must-have for streetwear enthusiasts. This version features saffron nylon paired with suede and leather accents, all sitting atop gummed rubber soles.

Shop now

02

Mango Double-breasted Wool Coat

from $499.95 at Mango

The epitome of winter chic, this wool mix coat blends elegance and warmth in a fashionable statement piece.

Shop now

03

Agolde jeans

from $480 at Net-A-Porter

The ‘Dame’ jeans are crafted from denim in a highly adaptable ‘Fortune Cookie’ wash. Featuring a high rise and wide legs with stitched hems for a flawless cuff.

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04

Veronica Beard’s ‘Draya’ T-shirt

from $370 at Net-A-Porter

Veronica Beard’s ‘Draya’ T-shirt is cut for a close fit from stretch cotton-jersey with a finely ribbed finish and neutral stripes throughout. The gold-tone button embellishments add a touch of polish along the shoulder.

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05

Toteme scarf

from $330 at Net-A-Porter

The fringed scarf from TOTEME is a cozy essential for cooler weather, boasting a versatile hue that effortlessly complements any coat, jacket, or sweater. Crafted from soft wool in a generous size, it offers multiple styling options – wear it draped over your shoulders or wrapped snugly around your neck.

Shop Now

06

Everlane Tote Bag

from $435 at Everlane

Made of premium leather, the Studio Bag features functional details like an adjustable shoulder strap, a snap closure, and an interior and exterior pocket. Its roomy shape fits everything you need—plus all those just-in-case additions.

The post Georgie Abay’s Editor’s Letter: June appeared first on marie claire.

For many women, the annual celebration can serve as a reminder of heartbreak, absent parents or ‘what could have been’ dreams. Despite fertility issues affecting 1 in 6 Australian couples, for many women it’s a topic still shrouded in stigma.

“It can be heartbreaking to watch patients who have gone for many years without a diagnosis and by the time I see them, they’re racing against the clock to get pregnant. Early diagnosis and treatment is so critical,” explains Dr Genia Rozen from leading fertility clinic Genea.

Hoping to break the stigma and help make women feel less alone this Mother’s Day, two women open up about their long road to motherhood after being diagnosed with endometriosis and Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS).

Letitia’s Story

Letitia Comello, now 31, grew up hearing that the painful periods she had been experiencing since she was 14 was ‘just the way it is’, but deep down she knew something wasn’t quite right.

Unfortunately, Comello’s story is an all too familiar one as more and more women speak about their journey with undiagnosed endometriosis. And as Letitia found out, it would have much more impact on her future plans than she ever would have realised.

“No matter how many people told me that the pain was just normal, that didn’t sit right with me. I know my own body,” she said. “Thinking back, there are so many things that make sense now in addition to the abdominal pain. Like not being able to sit cross legged, my IBS, the pain down the back of my leg and pain during and after intercourse (dyspareunia) – I’m not going crazy, there was a reason for all of it!”

The teacher decided to take matters into her own hands, but that didn’t mean it was a smooth road to diagnosis.

Her decision to advocate for herself over many years saw her sit in front of an army of five gynaecologists, pelvic floor physios, psychologists, psycho sexual practitioners and many GPs who couldn’t give her answers. She had resigned herself to a life of pain after being told many times to “just get on with it”.

In 2015, after a chance meeting at a cousin’s wedding, Letitia started dating Travis, now 34. By 2017 they were engaged, after he popped the question during a European getaway. “I couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t let me carry the backpack all day,” recalls Letitia.

Women are taught in school that it’s easy to fall pregnant from young but this isn’t always the case and we’re proof of that. If I’d known all of this, we would’ve started trying earlier.

Letitia

After they were married in 2021, Letitia and Travis decided it was time to start trying for a family. By August they were pregnant, however, sadly the couple experienced a devastating loss in that September. A missed miscarriage was diagnosed at eight weeks – their baby had stopped growing at five weeks.

“I was devastated. Although we hadn’t told anyone it still felt real and was a really hard time for us both.”

Letitia underwent a D&C (dilatation and curettage), but it wasn’t until later that her endometriosis would be discovered. After the couple recovered from their loss they decided to start trying again. This time it was eight months without any success and Letitia noticed her period pain was getting considerably worse.

“I did so much research, trying to get to the bottom of what was going on but I knew that it was time to see a fertility specialist so I booked an appointment.”

To ensure the couple didn’t waste any more time, Dr Rozen ordered a number of tests prior to their first appointment, including a HyCoSy (Hysterosalpingo Contrast Sonography), which was what actually enabled the diagnosis of Letitia’s endometriosis.

She also helped explain an extremely low Anti-Mullerian Hormone (AMH) test result, which measures a woman’s egg reserve, saying that endometriosis can have an impact on the results and we may need to move a bit quicker than someone with normal reserve. But at the end of the day it only takes one good egg!

“Although I was grateful for a diagnosis, I was also in a bit of shock when provided what options we had on the table. I went down a research spiral, joined Facebook groups and other forums.”

Ultimately, Letitia decided to proceed with a laparoscopy in June 2023. The 2.5 hour procedure identified severe deep infiltrating endometriosis. There was no question. 17 tissue samples were taken and 14 of those had endo. It was across multiple areas – left uterosacral ligament, pouch of Douglas, right and left pelvic side wall and bladder peritoneum.

“Mum and I are really close, she lost her Mum when she was 10 years old so knows how important Mums are in your life – she was there holding my hand for all of it. She’s told me she feels a bit responsible for me not having answers sooner but how could she have known? None of us are told about this and so many women are dismissed when they seek medical care anyway”.

Letitia’s pain subsided after her second period post-procedure and at the six week follow-up appointment they were sitting down with Dr Rozen who gave them the all clear to start trying naturally again.

Letitia and Travis cancelled their four month follow-up appointment after just three months, receiving the greatest news of all – they were pregnant again.

“We’re due May 15th so it might just be a Mother’s Day baby surprise! What we do know for sure is that little bub has a full head of dark hair just like both of us. We can’t wait to meet our beautiful bub”.

Letitia has been passionate about telling her story to ensure other women know they’re not alone. Her journey to motherhood has been a bumpy one and shows that awareness and advocacy for your own health journey is so important and can have a significant impact on the outcome.

“Women are taught in school that it’s easy to fall pregnant from young but this isn’t always the case and we’re proof of that. If I’d known all of this, we would’ve started trying earlier!”

Shannyn’s Story

After coming off the pill at the age of 19, Shannyn Werner (now 33) didn’t get a period for eight months. This should have been a sign that something wasn’t right, especially after experiencing irregular periods since she started menstruating, yet her GP at the time told her it was just her body adjusting and that she could address it later when she was looking to start a family.

“When you speak with a number of medical professionals who all dismiss it as a non-issue, you start believing it. It definitely put me off seeing a doctor to really get to the bottom of what was going on,” says Werner.

Shannyn is no stranger to healthcare either, practicing as a cardiology nurse in Richmond. It’s a story so many women have encountered and continue to experience when it comes to PCOS.
And because Shannyn didn’t display any of the other usual symptoms such as weight gain and excess facial hair, the silent medical condition was passed off as something to ignore.

Fast forward six years to 2017, at the age of 25 Shannyn was introduced to Carl through friends at their engagement party. And in 2020 they were engaged.

“It was a COVID engagement – we managed to get up to Byron for Christmas and Carl popped the question. We thought the pandemic was done and dusted so planned to marry in November 2021.”

That wasn’t to be, especially with family over in the UK and interstate but they finally married in March 2022 at a beautiful winery in Mount Macedon.

“We started talking about starting a family pretty soon after getting married as Carl was already six years older than me. We were really keen to get started.”

Shannyn had still been experiencing very irregular periods – between 7 to 12 week cycles. This time she hunted down a great women’s health focused GP who had experience in ovulation disorders.

What a difference the right doctor makes – the GP took her time to do blood tests and ultrasounds and talk about her symptoms. The Anti-Mullerian Hormone (AMH) test came back extremely high (in the 80s) so all signs were pointing to PCOS. She wasted no time getting a referral to a fertility specialist.

In September of 2022, the Preston based couple sat down with Dr Rozen to talk through their options medication was their first port of call.

“It was as if my period knew it needed to be on time for once in my life – I was prescribed Letrozole and couldn’t start until the first day of my next period, and guess what, it came that next day!”

Ultrasounds were conducted to track the follicle development, “date nights” were scheduled and then a pregnancy test two weeks later. This was the reality of life for the next eight months for Shannyn and Carl. Not as romantic as we’re led to believe!

“As each month went on, it got harder and harder to stay positive. We had already been trying for seven months before the treatment and this went on for another eight months. Friends were
announcing pregnancies and I was so torn between being happy for them and sad for us. It was a really rough time.”

Shannyn and Carl scheduled another appointment with Dr Rozen to talk about the next steps. Knowing there is more than one path to conceiving, she encouraged them to hang in there instead of moving onto IVF. What’s important given everyone is unique, she explained, is being educated on the various options available to patients. 

Looking back, I wish I had pushed harder with the medical professionals to help diagnose my PCOS – at least I would have had more knowledge earlier and been able to plan things differently

Shannyn

It was the Friday before the long weekend and early that Friday morning Shannyn decided to take a home pregnancy test. They were heading away and she wanted to do a quick check before indulging in some wine during their getaway.

“I peed on the stick, put it on the sink in the bathroom and just went back to sleep and forgot about it. When I woke up and saw the two lines, I was in shock! I quickly woke Carl up and said ‘I think I’m pregnant’. Of course he had no idea what was going on, half asleep and not knowing that I actually did a test.”

Shannyn tried to be pragmatic about it and decided to take another test the next morning. Safe to say, no wine was consumed that weekend as the test returned another positive result.

The gorgeous baby Renn was finally born on 19th February 2024.

“Looking back, I wish I had pushed harder with the medical professionals to help diagnose my PCOS – at least I would have had more knowledge earlier and been able to plan things differently.”

The experience affects women like Shannyn deeply. What many people don’t consider is that it’s not just the clinical aspect. At the age where lots of friends are having babies, she started to get anxious about meeting up with friends or scrolling through social media – relationships were impacted.

Shannyn was always wondering how she would respond to hearing about pregnancy or birth announcements. After seeing a psychologist who specialised in infertility, it helped her come to terms with her feelings and gave her the tools to help better manage conversations and challenging situations.

“I’m so glad we’re out the other side but I also think it’s so important to make sure women know they’re not alone, there are other women out there who have walked this road. I would say go and see a doctor that they trust, talk about anything they may be concerned about and if they don’t get the answer they want, keep pushing for it.”

Shannyn is celebrating her first long awaited Mother’s Day this year and Carl has organised a surprise event with the couple who they met through at the engagement party back in 2017. It feels like they’ve come full circle and are exactly where they’re meant to be.

For more information or to book an appointment with a Genea specialist go to genea.com.au

The post Fertility Diaries: Two Women Share Their Challenging Paths To Motherhood appeared first on marie claire.

It wasn’t bad by any stretch of the imagination, and if I’m completely honest, it was more that it was difficult for my family to accept that any place would be good enough – we always wanted the best for Mum.

This facility was also more confronting because it was permeated by a sense of finality. Typically, such places are a person’s last residence before they pass. Because of Mum’s age – barely 60 years old – it was hard to come to terms with the fact that she would now be living in this kind of home.

The other residents were mostly quite a bit older than Mum and suffered from various conditions: some had dementia, one woman had Parkinson’s disease, and another woman had had a fall and needed assisted living. We were pressed for time, though, and no other suitable options had presented themselves. This meant the choice had kind of been made for us.

I’ll admit to having mixed feelings about Mum’s time in that home, but equally I’ll admit that it quickly became a place where we spent a lot of time and made some lasting memories.

Among all the sadness, we did have some beautiful moments with Mum. Taking her outside and sitting with her became an important part of our routine.

I loved sitting with her in the fresh air, even during winter – when it was cold, I’d take a blanket to cover her. Besides, there always seemed to be a spot of sunshine for us to sit in, and as the sun moved throughout the day, we would follow it.

When the grandchildren came to visit, which was most weekends, they would run straight to their bobba. They would all get the chance to push her wheelchair in the garden. The kids learned from an early age to always go and say hello and give Bobba a hug as soon as they saw her.

They also knew where the biscuits were and would inevitably have their treat in the sunshine with Mum. The kids seemed to develop a sense of empathy from a young age, a beautiful gift that I see them demonstrating in their lives today.

Dad would keep some soccer balls in his car so that when the kids came to visit, they could spend hours kicking them around a patch of grass, challenging each other to mini soccer matches. That garden became their playground, and their memories of visiting Bobba are filled with hours spent playing in the open air, rather than sitting inside a depressing old-age home.

They would even bring their bikes and scooters and go riding around the outside paths, going faster and faster, seeing who could do the fastest lap. On weekends, Dad would always stop off at his favourite produce shop and buy dried mango and other fruit for everyone to enjoy; he loved spoiling the kids and seeing them share treats with Bobba.

It soon got to the stage where it was too difficult to take Mum out on her birthday or on Mother’s Day, so we celebrated these occasions, as well as anniversaries and Jewish holidays, at the home – we brought the celebrations to her. We would bring a cake or other sweets, or Dad would pick up fish and chips from a shop down the road.

On Kol Nidrei night, Dad and I would go and eat our last meal before the fast with Mum at the home. Even though she wouldn’t be fasting with us, it was important to us that she was still a part of our traditions.

We missed the food that Mum used to prepare for the occasion – chicken soup, roast meat and vegetables, and a round challah – but we’d have to settle for chicken that Dad would pick up from a Kosher place nearby.

At times it felt like Mum’s battle with Alzheimer’s would go on forever, that there was no timeline. But while it could be all-consuming, the rest of life had to go on. I was building a career, having started my own business, and work was important to me.

When I was at work, I felt more or less in control, which was something I craved after spending time with Mum. I tried to stay social, too, and hang out with my friends when I could. And then there were times, after a long day of work, when I just wanted to go straight home and be alone, when I simply didn’t have it in me to visit.

I don’t regret that. While I had to sustain Mum, I knew I had to sustain myself as well.

One thing I did religiously was visit Mum every Saturday and Sunday. It became part of my weekend routine, and I looked forward to the afternoons we would spend together, and with the rest of the family. It was actually a time when Greg, Ricky and I could reconnect.

Over the years we’d split our time with Mum so she was alone as little as possible, which meant we rarely had quality time together as siblings.

Now we were spending much more time together as a family. I also think those afternoons with Mum at the home enabled me to take a break from everything else in my life, to simply stop and breathe, cosy in my family’s little shared bubble. I enjoyed the stillness of not doing anything, of not needing to rush, or to be anywhere else.

Keri Kitay’s book The Long Goodbye: Lessons on humanity from the grips of Alzheimer, Hachette, $34.99 is out now.

The post How My Mum’s Battle With Alzheimer’s Led To An Important Lesson In Human Connection appeared first on marie claire.

You see, as I quickly realised, there is nothing that can prepare you for new motherhood. It’s the hardest competition of your life, where no one wins and everyone feels they have the right to mark you on your performance. 

You can’t go to university to become a good mother. It doesn’t matter what grades you got at school. How smart you were. Or sporty. We’re all in the club, left feeling rather perplexed by our firstborn.

I should add that there’s also no good or bad way to mother. The only thing that helps is laughing at yourself, and others, constantly. Humour will be your most wonderful tonic, closely followed by gin. 

SHOP: Ralph Lauren Tartan Plaid Wool Blazer, $1,199. Ralph Lauren Striped Cashmere Short-Sleeve Sweater, $399. Ralph Lauren High-Rise Straight Fit Jean, $399.

I was the kind of person who had yearned for a baby her entire life. Because of this, I’d imagined I’d be quite good at it, simply because I’d wanted it so much.

I was the kind of woman who loved holding other people’s babies. Who screamed with excitement when someone told me they were pregnant.

When my firstborn Arabella arrived and my eyes were opened to the shocking reality of sore nipples, sodden nappies and puffy eyes, I was left with the realisation that all of it was so much more complicated than I’d imagined.

Well-meaning women on the street would stop and tell me to enjoy every moment, because it goes so fast. But I felt stuck in time, unable to move. Nothing was going fast. I just wanted to sleep.

SHOP: Ralph Lauren Monogram-Logo Striped Jersey Tee, $148. Ralph Lauren Stretch Chino Sailor Pant, $499. Ralph Lauren Chambray Shirt Dress, $189. Ralph Lauren Striped Cotton Shirtdress Navy, $169.

Often, we spend so much time organising the first, second and third trimesters, that we forget about the fourth trimester – the one between birth and 12 weeks – which is perhaps the most important of all. It’s the one where you meet the person you’ve been carrying around for nine months (seven in my case – both my girls were premature).

As British writer Pandora Sykes once said, ‘The “baby bubble” is not just a term; it is a physical and biological necessity.’ It’s the trimester where we’re introduced to our new life and co-worker (the baby), without any training or guidance, and left to get on with it. 

I began to fear going to bed, knowing what was ahead of me. I’d often be so close to drifting off, so close to the utopia of sleep, only to hear a little stirring in the bassinet.

Georgie Abay

In those early days, because my baby had shocking reflux and didn’t sleep, I began to fear going to bed, knowing what was ahead of me. I’d often be so close to drifting off, so close to the utopia of sleep, only to hear a little stirring in the bassinet.

I’d ignore it, pleading with her to just sleep. The murmur would get louder and louder, until there was no choice but to get up and settle her.

Sometimes, it had only been 20 minutes since we’d last repeated this routine. It was easier just not to go to sleep. To stay awake until 6am. It was only then we’d both crash and finally sleep for a couple of hours.

SHOP L-R: Ralph Lauren Striped Cotton Shirtdress Pink, $169. Ralph Lauren Striped Cotton Shirtdress Green, $179. Ralph Lauren High-Rise Straight Fit Jean, $399. Ralph Lauren Crest Cashmere Cardigan, $699.

Looking back, the post-partum period was like one big blurry hangover, only there was no party and I’d been sober for months.

I don’t think I ever thrived during the first year of motherhood. I just tried to survive. I felt constantly jetlagged and like I was losing my mind, all the while pretending I was okay.

The old me wanted to dress up in nice clothes without fear of avocado being catapulted across the room at me – how had the kitchen turned into a war zone where I was the unarmed target and the assassin was a pint-sized baby?

Georgie Abay

We don’t like to talk about how hard it is becoming a mother for the first time. Or the second. Or the third.

This lack of awareness around not only the fourth trimester, but also the first year of motherhood, was one of the reasons the old me and the new me struggled to get along. It was like a long, bad first date. They had nothing in common. The chat was awkward. The old me couldn’t believe the underwear the new me was wearing. The old me wanted to dress up in nice clothes without fear of avocado being catapulted across the room at me – how had the kitchen turned into a war zone where I was the unarmed target and the assassin was a pint-sized baby? The new me was grappling with an identity crisis. The enormous skin-coloured underwear didn’t help. 

SHOP L-R: Ralph Lauren Chambray Shirt Dress, $189. Ralph Lauren Plaid Wool Twill Utility Jacket, $1,199. Ralph Lauren Striped Cashmere Short-Sleeve Sweater, $399. Ralph Lauren Stretch Chino Sailor Pant, $499. Ralph Lauren Striped Cotton Shirtdress Navy, $169.

What I wasn’t prepared for, as I hopped aboard the mothership armed with a fail-proof plan of my new life, was just how raw and open motherhood leaves you.

As clichéd as it may sound, motherhood irreversibly changes you – and it changed me more than I can ever possibly describe.

Sykes pointed out to me that yes, it’s a cliché, but ‘clichés are clichés for a reason. I didn’t realise how much motherhood would change not just my life, but my own self, at a completely fundamental level. It colours absolutely everything – from logistics to love.’

It does colour every aspect of your life, like permanent markers that never come out in the wash, no matter how hard you scrub. 

SHOP: Ralph Lauren Plaid Wool Twill Utility Jacket, $1,199. Ralph Lauren Striped Cashmere Short-Sleeve Sweater, $399. Ralph Lauren Stretch Chino Sailor Pant, $499.

What did I learn? Ultimately, we cannot plan what becoming a mother for the first time looks like, and some paths feel deeply unfair, while others appear annoyingly effortless (the babies who sleep through the night from week one, I’m talking to you).

When social media feels overwhelming, turn off the noise. When you feel you’re at breaking point, get help. When you feel lonely, call a friend. I know to imply it is all this simple is naive, and privilege makes motherhood a very different narrative, but just knowing that being a parent has a plan of its own that we can’t control and that nothing lasts forever, for me, has always been hugely comforting. 

I did make it through my first year of motherhood. And second. And third. I’m still climbing up and down Everest most days. All I know is that motherhood has been the making of me. It has gifted me the greatest two loves of my life. And the best bit? It keeps getting better.

In partnership with Ralph Lauren

The post Everything I Wish I Knew About Becoming A Mother appeared first on marie claire.

Simple, Anna. The stairs.

As a visibly physically disabled woman (I navigate the world in a wheelchair) there is perhaps no greater signal that people like me are not really all that welcome in the worlds of fashion, culture and the currency of how an invite into the upper echelons of power, fame, wealth and influence are won, than those goddamn stairs. We don’t belong. We are not worthy. That’s the message of the inaccessibility of the Met Gala telegraphs.

I’ve been to the Met Museum, seen the entrance on a cold winter’s day in New York and had to enter through the back. The most accessible way. Sure, that meant I got to see some of the building’s secrets invisible to the everyday eye, but there’s something about always having to use the tradesman’s entrance that starts to wear on a person. It left me wondering – if a disabled person was ever deemed high-profile enough by you and the powers that be, to attend the Met Gala, would they have to enter through the back as well? Robbed of the red carpet that sits as the beating heart of an event, built entirely on the value of seeing and being seen?

I don’t know if you have ever not felt seen by the world, Anna. Perhaps in the beginning of your career or in your girlhood but as one of the most recognisable and powerful figures in pop culture, I doubt it’s anything you would’ve felt for decades now. But me? I have spent my entire life fighting to be seen. Fighting for the representation and visibility our community has always deserved. People like me are silenced. Invisible. Institutionalised. Erased. But you see that’s not going to fly anymore in 2024. Not with me.

Now, I know what some people might be thinking. There’s no one that’s disabled who merits an invitation. Designers would struggle to create something that looked and felt like it belonged in the high calibre of outfits for someone in a wheelchair. A dress can’t exactly have a flowing train if it risks being caught in the wheels. You’d have to change the entire layout of the event and signal to the world your belief and Vogue’s as a brand, that disabled people deserve a seat at one of the most lavish tables in the world.

This is where I remind you that Edward Enniful made that statement with groundbreaking covers of British Vogue early last year. Sinead Burke is also a tour de force and a legend of the disabled community. Her advocacy has smashed open so many doors across entertainment, fashion and representation including with her historic appearance at the Met Gala. As the first physically disabled person to grace the red carpet, she sent a powerful message that our community belongs wherever power is.

With that being said, there’s still a huge gap between where we are and where we need to be across accessibility, inclusion and representation In an op-ed, Sinead noted: “Tonight marks the first time that a little person has attended the Met Gala. It is surreal, inspiring and humbling to be gracing the infamous red carpet. I am so grateful to Gucci, Vogue and Anna Wintour for their empathy and openness in thinking broadly about my accessibility needs.

Prior to tonight, I practised the stairs, and did an accessibility audit of the seating, bathrooms, elevators and corridors to figure out where and how we could ensure that I am as independent as possible on this very glamorous night. (Speaking of glamorous – my footstools have been decorated to seamlessly blend with the Met Gala furniture.)” So let’s keep this momentum going, Anna?

You’ve taken a lot of risks in your career, Anna and I know that because without them you wouldn’t be where you are. You’ve taken risks on countless men and women, your green light the one they need to become titans with epic careers. So, although this may be bold, I’m asking you to take a risk on me, a writer, actor, advocate and fellow Editor In Chief. On Daphne Frias, a force of nature whose determination and persistence knows no bounds. Of the millions of disabled people around the world who, contrary to popular belief, would very much like to be included in conversations around fashion, beauty, entertainment and culture.

With our inclusion, not only would you be transforming ALL of those industries forever, but you’d transform how the world looked for anyone who opened Instagram or used the Internet on the first Monday in May.

The only question is … are you brave enough to do it? I hope so too.

Love, Hannah x

This piece was originally published on Missing Perspectives and republished here with permission.

The post Disability Advocate Calls For Change At The Met Gala appeared first on marie claire.

A scroll through TikTok’s #BeautyTok will reveal thousands of videos made by beauty content creators—many of whom are children. These girls, who seem to be in their early to mid-tween years, talk their viewers through their rather complicated skin care routines.

It’s not unusual to watch a 10-year-old wash their face with a $200 cleanser before applying hydrating serums, moisturisers and toners from whatever the cult beauty brand of the month might be. 

Then, there are the get-ready-with-me videos, which sees young girls expertly apply their makeup with a supply of products that would put most grown women to shame. 

These videos tend to leave adult viewers with the same sense of discomfort that you might get from watching a children’s beauty pageant—the troubling vision of womanhood being thrust upon girlhood. 

For younger viewers, things are a little more complicated. It’s one thing for children to see adult women talk about their beauty routines but an entirely different thing for them to see girls of their own age do so.

It’s the reason we’re now seeing 10-year-olds drag their parents to Sephora with hundreds of dollars worth of products on their wish lists. 

Of course, the majority of these cult products weren’t created for young skin, which in most cases, hasn’t even gone through puberty yet.

TikTok’s child beauty influencers, like Kim Kardashian’s daughter North West, are using products specifically formulated for ageing skin, made with ingredients that help with wrinkles, discoloration and pigmentation. 

While it’s hard to know whether the children using these products are genuinely concerned about ageing skin, or are simply wanting to buy a product they have seen their favourite influencer use, I worry for a generation of girls who start thinking about their future wrinkles at the age of 10. 

What notions of beauty and ageing are we sending them off into the world with? Certainly not ones of self-acceptance. 

The post Why TikTok’s Child Beauty Influencer Culture Is A Problem appeared first on marie claire.

Ford, who wrote newly released book I Don’t: The Case Against Marriage, made the comments during an appearance on The Project.

“My biggest issue with marriage is that I think that it’s a fundamentally flawed institution that is built on the oppression of women,” she said.

“But also, that it’s presented to people now as something that it never has been, which is something that we need in order to have happiness and love.

“Love marriage is only about 200 years old, so the idea that somehow marriage is an essential thing that will elevate our life to something better is historically wrong.”

The controversial comments have ruffled a few feathers, considering that 60 per cent of the modern-day Australian population is married or partnered. It’s not nice to think that a union entered into with love is facilitated due to the patriarchy (or even, continues to perpetuate it).

Ford isn’t wrong about the long and ruddy history attached to the institution of marriage, though. Let us not forget the way women have been traded and bought like chattel throughout the years, for the sole purpose of tying them to a man.

These days, where the majority (not all) Australians enter marriage with free will, the sticking point is more often about equality. While couples may attest that their marriage is built on mutual support and fairness, statistics, like the 2021 Census, tell us that often it is the women in heterosexual relationships who suffer the lion’s share of the domestic work and mental load.

Ford says that she is not against “people falling in love and forming families” but that marriage is not necessary. However, the devil’s advocate would admit that non-married couples (de facto couples and couples who are dating) face similar inequity struggles as those who have tied the knot.

It makes us question, is the institution of marriage the oppressor, or just men?

Project host Waleed Aly asked Ford about non-married couples, to which she responded, “It’s a good question Waleed, well, maybe the plan is to go for de facto relationships next.

“My goal is to really get women to see something bigger and better for themselves than just being someone’s partner or wife.”

Perhaps then, the issue is not whether marriage was built on old misogynistic codes, but how we can break the codes that still exist today in many heterosexual relationships – be they married, de facto or dating.

There’s an insidious, worn in, cultural expectation placed on women, which Ford describes as a wish for women to be a “glorified all-in-one appliance for [men].” Potentially it’s this expectation, ring or no, that we need to challenge.

There’s no denying that Ford’s interview and her book I Don’t, are designed to be incendiary. Her comments are constructed to hit hard and break assumptions.

Given the fairy-tale story of marriage we’re fed in Disney movies as children, it’s probably something we need to hear to accelerate larger, and maybe more nuanced, conversations about marriage, partnership and equity.

Whether or not you agree with the specifics, there’s no denying that the purpose of Ford’s book is to act as a catalyst for change. And that’s something we can all get around.

The post Clementine Ford Says That Marriage Is Built On The ‘Oppression Of Women’ appeared first on marie claire.

Don’t get us wrong, Margot is the epitome of success – with the culture-defining success of the Barbie movie, her production company LuckyChap and gin brand Papa Salt – what an absolute powerhouse she is. But four times in a row?

The magazine, which is the sister of the original American publication, has released their hot list every year since 2012, aiming to rebrand it away from being about ‘sexiness’ and towards the substance of the women on the list.

These days it’s described as a “definitive list of Australia’s most influential, successful, powerful, newsworthy, talented and beautiful women this year.”

The magazine’s editor-in-chief Santi Pintado said in a statement that they chose the list by the “aptitude, intellect, humour, headlines, sassiness, and overall incredible talents” of these women.

However, while the list goes under a new-age ‘woke’ guise, there’s no denying that the ranking of Australia’s successful women against each other leaves a bitter taste.

Robbie is followed by Matildas star Sam Kerr in second place, and singer and Netflix actress Delta Goodrem in third.

The list continues with the likes of Sophie Monk, G Flip, Jessica Mauboy, Kaylee McKeown, Ariane Titmus, Abbie Chatfield and MAFS’ Evelyn Ellis all making the top 10.

The fact that most of the women in the top 10 are thin-framed or sporty is not lost on us.

While MAXIM Australia says that the list is focused on the ladies’ achievements, we can’t help but feel that there is a thinly veiled focus on looks.

The inclusion of the likes of Grace Tame (at number 26) is jarring. Her achievements are profound — hell, marie claire Australia named her one of our 2021 Women of the Year. But there’s no getting around the fact that Maxim is better known for pin-ups and salaciousness. Is it really appropriate to put a sexual abuse survivor and tireless campaigner on their hot list?

Adding female politicians like Foreign Minister Penny Wong (number 96) and Queenland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk (number 99) to the list is equally jarring. Women in politics have spent decades trying to get both the country and their male colleagues to take them seriously. Are we really putting them in a “hot” list?

While it’s clear that MAXIM Australia is aiming to steer the list away from being a hot-and-heavy ranking of women based on looks, the ranking of women in this way is still an unnecessary perpetuation of competition between women. It’s even more obvious in a year when we have shown exactly how we lift each other up: Barbie, the Matildas, Beyoncé and Taylor Swift, to name a few cultural phenomena.

Celebrating the women on this list isn’t about asking ‘who did it best’ and ranking them in a magazine read mostly by men. It’s about celebrating that women are dominating the cultural zeitgeist, together.

Our take? Lists like this are so 2012.

The Full Maxim 100 ‘Hot List’ For 2023:

1. Margot Robbie
2. Sam Kerr
3. Delta Goodrem
4. Sophie Monk
5. G Flip
6. Jessica Mauboy
7. Kaylee McKeown
8. Ariarne Titmus
9. Abbie Chatfield
10. Evelyn Ellis
11. Mackenzie Arnold
12. Caitlin Foord
13. Mary Fowler
14. Hayley Raso
15. Ellie Carpenter
16. Cortnee Vine
17. Paris Raine
18. Bianca Censori
19. Costeen Hatzi
20. Narelle Maree
21. Mollie O’Callaghan
22. Sarah Snook
23. Elizabeth Debicki
24. Casey Boonstra
25. Ellie Cole
26. Grace Tame
27. Jess Fox & Noemie Fox
28. Ellyse Perry
29. Minjee Lee
30. Moraya Wilson
31. Olivia Frazer
32. Gabby Epstein
33. Harriet Dyer
34. Rose Byrne
35. Rebel Wilson
36. Sonia Kruger
37. Amanda Keller
38. Chrissie Swan
39. Shiralee Coleman
40. Miranda Kerr
41. Jennifer Hawkins
42. Natalie Roser
43. Melissa Leong
44. Anna Torv
45. Sports Presenters
46. Alexa Towersey
47. Celeste Barber
48. Nicole Kidman
49. Cate Blanchett
50. Samara Weaving
51. Ruby Rose
52. Amy Shark
53. Peach PRC
54. Sarah Magusara
55. Brooke Satchwell
56. April Rose Pengilly
57. Emily Scott
58. Emily Weir
59. Kylie Minogue
60. Jackie O
61. Ruva Ngwenya
62. Isla Fisher
63. Chantelle Otten
64. Donnell Wallam
65. Tamika Upton
66. Erin Phillips
67. Tess Magden
68. Molly Picklum
69. Erin Molan
70. Kate Ritchie
71. Carrie Bickmore
72. Ricki-Lee Coulter
73. Celia Pacquola
74. Julia Morris
75. Jessica Ferguson
76. Kitty Flanagan
77. Sandra Sully
78. Georgie Tunny
79. Sarah Harris
80. Allison Langdon
81. Sarah Abo
82. Natalie Barr
83. Melissa Tracina
84. The Real Housewives of Sydney
85. Heather McCartney
86. Kodi Buckley
87. Jacinta Nampijinpa Price
88. Linda Burney
89. Liz Ellis
90. Jacinta Allan
91. Vanessa Hudson
92. Dani Laidley
93. Jodie Haydon
94. Michelle Kimberlee
95. Molly Moyies
96. Penny Wong
97. Bec Judd & Kate Twigley
98. Lidia Thorpe
99. Annastacia Palaszczuk
100. Michele Bullock

The post Why Maxim’s Thinly Veiled ‘Woke’ Take On A Hot 100 Women List Misses The Mark appeared first on marie claire.

Essentially, you don’t deliver big reports, undertake new strategy meetings, or call the big shots, instead choosing to work from home and focus on answering key emails, sending key deliverables and then low-key logging off. Instead of the extra hours of work, you might read, clean the house, walk the dog, meal prep or other home-based and relaxing tasks.

While it might sound great, the notion of bare minimum Mondays itself takes the inch of flexibility we’ve been given after the Covid pandemic and runs a mile, causing employers to question whether they should renege on these perks.

As such, bare minimum practices have the potential to place hard-won benefits that parents, carers, and overworked Millennials have clung onto post-pandemic in good faith, such as working from home and flexi hours, in peril. It is a potentially devastating consequence for those who choose to do the right thing (even when they too feel the Sunday Scaries).

What Are Bare Minimum Mondays?

Bare minimum Mondays are designed to tackle burnout and act as an antidote to hustle culture. The trend is going viral on TikTok, with over three million views. It happens when workers will half work and half sort-their-life out on a Monday, allowing them to have more mental space for the rest of the week and avoid the so-called ‘Sunday scaries’ (anxiety about the impending Monday felt on a Sunday afternoon).

The videos have garnered countless ‘stitches’ where other TikTok users either share their own bare minimum Monday routine or critique the practice itself.

There is some research to suggest that a bare minimum Monday, when endorsed by a company, is not such a bad idea.

In May 2023, a study into the concept of a four-day work week ended in ‘overwhelming’ success, with the majority of the companies who undertook the trail choosing to uphold their new working structure. In fact, 95 per cent of companies said that it achieved less stress for workers without impacting on productivity.

This concept is not that different from the bare minimum Monday, with Monday acting as a surplus day where a little bit of work and a little bit of home-tasks get done.

It’s something TikTok user Caitlin Winter (@caitlinjwinter) has seen first hand, with her team feeling so much happier for having a boss-approved bare minimum Monday.

“I realised this was my opportunity to stop some of the things that I really hated at work in my younger years…and that hustle culture that made me terrified to go to work on a Sunday. I would have anxiety and I wouldn’t sleep well,” she told her followers. “The introduction of bare minimum Mondays has been amazing for my team.”

However, it’s when the company doesn’t endorse the process that problems start to arise.

Bare Minimum Mondays Contribute To Privilege Gaps

The first port of call is acknowledging the inherent privilege that comes with being so ‘cushy’ in your job that you can take a whole day to barely get anything important done.

While hustle culture is a dangerous game that far too many of us subscribe to, that does not mean that doing the opposite is the way forward. It’s balance, that is key, not overdoing it one way or another.

If you have a job where you can slightly coast by one day a week, rather than abuse that privilege, why not be thankful for the extra time and see if your colleagues need a hand?

Secondly, there may be people, even within the same company, with differing workloads. If one of your colleagues is taking a bare minimum Monday, while you work your butt off to get projects over the line, that is wholly unfair.

On top of this, many workers will commiserate with the feeling of just getting the bare minimum of their gargantuan workloads done, without bathroom breaks or lunch breaks and still filling up more than their eight-hour shift. To them, the idea of a bare minimum day is ludicrous, because it would only mean twice as much work the next day.

The truth is that without regulation and fairness, the bare minimum Monday’ ends with a privileged few taking an unauthorised four-day work week, while everyone else needs to pick up the pieces.

Bare Minimum Mondays Are Why We Can’t Have Nice Things

Remember back at school when the naughty kid would do something that ended up with your whole class staying back to pay for it? Well, that is kind of an allegory of how abusing hard-won work privileges plays out in the long-term.

If a few people consistently use their work from home privileges for unauthorised ‘days off’, even if it’s just a half day, employers will be less inclined to offer those privileges to the whole company.

For example, Managing Director at U & U Recruitment Partners, Craig Sneesby, recently told news.com.au, that bare minimum Mondays create ‘entitlement culture’ in the workplace.

“These kind of work perks have really gone too far. It just is not sustainable,” he says.

For the employees who are battling it out every Monday to get their daily deliverables across the line, having their opportunity to work from home and maybe get a walk in before their scheduled hours, or to simply avoid a commute could be taken away.

These are perks that would especially tax those who do not have the luxury to take their jobs for granted. For example, many parents and carers rely on their flexible home-working structures to make life manageable.

Why Bare Minimum Mondays Are Not The Answer

There is something to be said if you happen to work at a company that gives you (and your colleagues) so little work that you can literally work one day less a week. In that specific instance, maybe bare minimum Mondays are a feature they’ve unknowingly built into their workforce?

But, for most workplaces, all workers need to be firing, at least at mid-strength, during their paid hours for the greater group to thrive.

While workplace happiness and worker mental health must be of the highest priority in workplaces, a bare minimum Monday encompassing unauthorised time off work for the few brazen employees who practice it, is not the way to do it.

Instead, perhaps it is time to prompt honest discussions with managers about processes that work better for you.

If you suffer from the Sunday scaries, perhaps a work from home day is required on a Monday, and maybe even you can get approval to start a little later or end a little earlier and take on more hours throughout the rest of the week. It may also mean looking around for other more flexible workplaces that can suit your needs.

Without these honest, eye-to-eye agreements between colleagues and management, it breeds mistrust and potentially unfair workloads between teams. A scenario where some workers are consistently working overtime while others coast along is any boss’ worst nightmare.

Potentially, the answer lies in getting rid of the moniker bare minimum and instead opting for a simple ‘work from home Monday’. This may mean that a worker is spared their commute, for many in Australia this can be a few hours a day, to do something for their mental wellbeing.

Whatever, the solution, doing the bare minimum is certainly not the pathway to happiness.

The post TikTok Is Loving ‘Bare Minimum Mondays’, But It’s Pretty Damn Unfair appeared first on marie claire.

It was all eyes on Black Panther: Wakanda Forever star Angela Bassett, who was one of the favourites to win the award. Bassett was the only nominee to not show her outright joy at fellow actor Jamie Lee winning the award, and her demeanor has some people’s knickers in a twist.  

When the audience stood up to applaud Jamie Lee, with the likes of Cate Blanchett standing in solidarity, Bassett was easily spotted in her bright purple Moschino dress, still firmly planted in her seat.  

So, why didn’t Bassett clap, and is it fair that she was upset to lose the award? Well, the internet has a lot of opinions.  

Should Angela Bassett Have Celebrated Jamie Lee?  

It is the ‘done thing’ at award shows for nominees to clap and celebrate one another when someone wins the award. With five nominees all vying for the same title, there are always going to be more losers than winners at the Oscars, and it is seen as gracious to celebrate another’s win.  

“Regardless of who won that Oscar … Angela Bassett could have clapped for the winner. To just sit there and not clap because you didn’t win… ,” one person wrote on Twitter.  

“Angela Bassett not standing up for Jamie Lee Curtis is kinda shady. I get you’re upset for not winning but damn,” another added. 

There have been a few tension-filled situations in recent years of a popular star missing out on an award. May we never forget Kanye West famously interrupting Taylor Swift’s VMA win to say that Beyoncé should have won. Then, of late, Harry Styles was heckled at the Grammys after he beat Beyoncé in the Album of the Year category. 

The truth is, there is something else at play here.  

Award Shows Have A History Of Discrimination, Especially The Oscars 

In 2015, the #OscarsSoWhite hashtag began to go viral, bringing attention to the lack of diversity in Academy nominees and winners. There’s a reason that Michelle Yeoh made history at this Oscars, and that’s because not a single Asian woman has ever won Best Actress in the entire 95 years of the award. She is only the second Asian woman to even be nominated, and the second woman of colour to win at all (Halle Berry won in 2002). 

Many people on the internet have been backing Angela Bassett not immediately clapping for Jamie Lee Curtis’ win, because yet another Black actress had been passed up for the award. It is important to note that Bassett, 64, has only been nominated twice for an Oscar —this year for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and in 1994 for Best Actress for her role in What’s Love Got To Do With It.  

It’s been a long time between drinks for the star, and fans had hoped this was her opportunity.  

“Good for Angela Bassett not smiling nor clapping. Y’all expect Black women to not only be exceptional, but be happy for others who get accolades we deserve over and over,” one person shared on Twitter.  

Others also spoke out about the criticism coming her way, considering that she didn’t make any explosive movies, she just didn’t clap.  

“You would swear Angela Bassett got up and said FUCK THE OSCARS the way these ppl carrying on. At least everyone gets to see the magnitude in which Black women are expected to perform and how our every emotion is policed. Decades in and she’s not even allowed to fight back tears,” another tweeted.  

It’s important to note that Black Panther: Wakanda Forever had special significance for Bassett as well. Her co-star Chadwick Boseman died after filming the show due to colon cancer. Producers decided not to recast his role, with one of the producers, Kevin Feige, saying that his performance was “iconic and transcends any iteration of the character in any other medium”.  

Fans rushed to Bassett’s support given this context. “The Academy is SO nasty like first y’all ROBBED Chadwick Boseman after his death and then you rob Angela Bassett of her Oscar that she was nominated for in a movie that honors Chadwick?? Every member of The Academy got a permanent spot in hell,” read another tweet.  

It appeared that Bassett was looking forward to the ceremony earlier in the night, and she was joined by her husband, Courtney B. Vance and teenage twins Slater and Bronwyn.  

Slater said of his mum, “I just I think it’s long overdue and I really want to see her be honoured the way that I know she should be.” 

The Debacle Has Made Some Reconsider The ‘Done Thing’ 

There’s no denying that an Oscar is a huge achievement in the world of acting, an award that many people work towards their entire lives.  

Many could relate to that feeling of being let down and disappointed directly after losing out on the thing they’ve worked the hardest for. It’s a universal feeling. Luckily, most of the time the average joe doesn’t have a high-tech camera shoved in their face collecting their every move and broadcasting it to the world.  

Some viewers jumped online to share that they don’t think it’s fair to judge the actor’s response to someone else’s winning.  

“It’s amazing how some people look at Angela Bassett in this picture and see ‘“sore loser’”.  I look at the picture and see hurt and disappointment. And it’s ok to express that in the moment. #StopJudging” one person tweeted.  

“Angela Bassett’s reaction to Jamie Lee Curtis’ name being called … you can tell how much that Oscar would have meant to her. She is, was, and always will be incredible. I better see her on that stage SOON,” another added.  

Whatever you think of Angela Bassett’s behaviour in those few seconds after Jamie Lee Curtis’ name was called, there’s no denying that she would have been feeling a lot in the moment.  

Potentially it’s a reminder that it’s time we give nominees a second before broadcasting their immediate reaction to the world, because while they might come round to being happy for the winner in time, it’s ok to have a knee-jerk moment of sadness when the thing you’ve worked the hardest for doesn’t come true.  

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