Hi, I'm Rachel Hills.
I'm a London-based (via Sydney, Australia) writer, researcher and contributor to publications including the Sydney Morning Herald's Sunday Life, Cosmopolitan, Vogue, Glamour, Jezebel, Alternet and more. I'm also writing a book about Gen Y, sex and identity. This is my blog.
I'd love to hear from you. Submit a question to my Ask Rachel column here, send me an email here, connect with me on Twitter here or find out more about my paid work at www.rachelhills.net.
I'm a London-based (via Sydney, Australia) writer, researcher and contributor to publications including the Sydney Morning Herald's Sunday Life, Cosmopolitan, Vogue, Glamour, Jezebel, Alternet and more. I'm also writing a book about Gen Y, sex and identity. This is my blog.
I'd love to hear from you. Submit a question to my Ask Rachel column here, send me an email here, connect with me on Twitter here or find out more about my paid work at www.rachelhills.net.
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Posts tagged "articles"
I seem to be the only person out there who actually liked the new Sarah Jessica Parker flick, I Don’t Know How She Does It. I also seem to be the only person out there - or the only person paid to write about it at least, the lay people I’ve spoken to feel differently - who didn’t like the film adaptation of We Need To Talk About Kevin (the book is one of my favourites, though).
Anyway, here’s a story I had published last weekend, looking at the changing cultural narratives around “superwomen” and ”having it all”. Go check it out!
Remember that sex survey I asked you to help me out with a month or so back? Well, the resulting article is published in Sunday Life today. Here’s a taster:
But there’s another reason these stereotypes appeal, and that is because on some level they tell us exactly what we want to believe. We may click our collective tongue at the “out of control” sex lives of anyone who happens to be younger than us, whether we are 55 or 23, but there is an element of delight – eroticism even – in our derision.We expect young adults to have sex not only because they are physically mature, but also because the spectre of young people having sex whenever they like, with whomever they like, is consistent with the broader fantasy of youth as independent and unfettered by responsibility. As Tom, 21, puts it, there is an expectation that this is “the time of [their] sexual lives”.
I also have the mag’s lead cover story, on the upcoming ABC/BBC TV adaptation of Christos Tsiolkas’s compelling novel The Slap. (I’m not usually one for online video, but I highly recommend this conversation between Tsiolkas and former Meanjin editor Sophie Cunningham.) And finally, also in Sunday Life this weekend is the hilarious and delectable Clem Bastow on why she gave up Facebook (and Tumblr, and Twitter).
Sex survey stats (and further reflections on the story) to come in the next couple of days.
Related: Help me out with a story I’m working on?
Sex, social change and the “window of opportunity”
Kids today, they don’t know how slutty they are!
I have the lead story in The Spectator Australia this week: a look at the anti-carbon tax lobby and the rise of conservative grassroots activism in Oz, starring my old student politics jousting buddy, Tim Andrews.
A teaser:
Andrews’ email list alone has almost 25,000 subscribers – small change compared to GetUp!’s 370,000, but they are ‘very, very active’ he says. Each time Andrews sends out an email, he receives at least 300 in return, to which he responds personally to as many as possible. Besides, he adds, the Left have had decades of practice building these kinds of campaigns – through the union movement, student activism and so on.
And a quote from Tim that gave me pause for thought:
“When people say we need a centre-right GetUp! in Australia, I tell them GetUp! is where politics in the US was in 2004. The problem with the GetUp! model is that it is very top down. And it doesn’t work. They don’t have what I think is necessary, which is a two-way communication where it’s your supporters who are driving the change and you’re providing the support for them to pursue their ideas rather than setting the agenda for them.”
Two stories from me in the latest issue of Cosmopolitan. Why being catty is “cool” in many parts of the blogosphere (and what to do if it happens to you), and why 27 is the age at which many people think, “Oh crap, I’m a grown up now!” (for me the big ages have been 18, 24 and maaaaybe 29).
Related: On 29 and “feeling old”
I’m a little bit in love with the layout of my Caitlin Moran cover story in Sunday Life today. Caitlin is the kind of hilarious, outspoken woman who makes for such good interview copy that my editor asked me to add an extra 600 words to the original version of this story. I like to think of her as a kind of British Tina Fey. Or Clementine Ford.
Oh wows. I have the lead story on the Sydney Morning Herald website right now.
(Young people. Sex. Clicky clicky… You know how it goes. Still - that was unexpected.)
Read the longer, bloggier version here.
