On January 17, 2010, Joshua R. Beharry stood on a British Columbia bridge, attempting to end his life. Luckily, his attempt failed, and today Beharry is a mental health advocate and Project Coordinator of HeadsUpGuys, a British Columbia-based campaign to support men who have depression. He tells his story so that men, and all people with depression, can feel empowered to…
As the Future of Climate Change Becomes Daily Reality, Poor Women Feel the Heat
The more privileged residents of the Global North have a strange sense of time. Even as the storms get fiercer and the forest fires burn, climate change is often seen as the reality of a cataclysmic future. At the same time, many Global North people—particularly the rich, the white, and those without much contact beyond more…
Do You Have to Forgive to Move On?
My mom had one response to our childhood complaints of schoolyard mean girls: “They’re probably having problems at home. Let it go.” I, of course, wasn’t having any of it. “But they’re mean to me,” I would wail. “Can’t you take my side?” Now that the grade school social scene is firmly behind me, I understand that…
Chokhri, a New Sexual Health Project, Maps Marital Rape and Abortion in India
There’s a scene about birth control in the questionably feminist 2017 Hindi flick Lipstick Under My Burqa that stuck with me. Shireen, whose abusive husband rapes her and refuses to use condoms, goes to the gynecologist for another abortion. The gynecologist tells her she can’t keep having abortions and using the morning after pill, and the only other form of available birth control…
Piece on Toxic Masculinity Reposted at The Good Men Project
With the #MeToo movement dominating the headlines over the past few months, many of us have had to ask tough questions about our own experiences of gender, power, and relationships. While women have taken the forefront of the movement, it’s also been a moment of reckoning for men. The movement has not only provided an…
Seven Reasons Consent Apps are a Terrible Idea
Feminists: making everything harder for god-fearing gentlemen who feel entitled to get laid. We’ve come a long way from the good old days when men had a right to sex with their wives regardless of women’s opinion on the matter (marital rape was legal in the US until the 20th century). With the evil witch-hands of feminism continuing…
The Anxiety of Treating Yourself: When Self-Care Becomes Problematic
Forty dollar, potentially toxic “raw” water. Pricey massages. A $400 juicing machine that doesn’t even juice. These days, wellness is big business. The average person is constantly bombarded with hot new wellness trends promising to make them healthier, happier, and more relaxed. Many of these products and services praise the benefits of self-care, or prioritize the self…
Humans from Time Immemorial have Loved Penetration with Vegetables. Into it? Here are Some Tips.
The Christmas I was fourteen, my mom gave me and my sisters the best gift you can give to a bunch of teenage girls: A copy of Our Bodies, Ourselves. I was a budding feminist, an avid reader, and obviously super interested in sex, and so I spent days—months—years even, poring over that book and learning…
Is There a “Gray Zone” in Consent?
If you’ve ever made a formal complaint of gendered violence, you might have felt that translating raw experience into the language of law is like describing a walk through the forest using only the formal scientific names of the trees. Whereas in lived reality, you saw the sunlight filtered green through the leaves, noted the precise…
Who Gets to be Naked at Harvard University?
Every semester at Harvard University, students take their clothes off. The event is called Primal Scream, and it happens on midnight before the first day of final exams. As the hour approaches, there is a palpable buzz in the central quad, the Harvard Yard. Students gather in various states of undress: towels and trenchcoats, gym shorts…
How To Survive a (Friendship) Breakup
“A friendship between college girls is grander and more dramatic than any romance.” So says Hannah Horvath, Lena Dunham’s character in the hit TV show Girls, which follows four women in their twenties through romance, career — and most importantly, friendship. It’s not just college women who have grand and dramatic friendships. While friends tend to…
The Unexpectedly Positive Attributes of Anxiety
We all get anxious sometimes: first-date butterflies, taking a test worth 33% of our final grade, or driving away from home only to wonder if we really turned off the stove. Most of the time, these everyday worries pass. But if you have an anxiety disorder, daily worries can take over your life. From work performance to social…
