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.
Featured Posts
Recent Tweets
@rachelhills
Posts tagged "gender"
Advice for young feminists? Do something else besides feminism. I’m serious. The feminist blogosphere is oversaturated in my opinion. Please, find something else you love and take feminist theory there. It gets lonely over here in tech and video games – I have a great crew of other feminists but we are a little island in a vast sea. We need more feminist minded business bloggers, feminist theory wielding finance bloggers. Labor organizers with a feminist lens blogging. Can you imagine what Deadspin (the sports blog) would look like with a feminist on staff? Restructure writes about science, tech and feminism – join her! Publish a blog doing literary criticism with a feminist lens! Take on the NYT! Talk about class issues and feminism. Whatever it is, apply your feminism in a different space.
I’m quoted in the Independent today. “Has spent the past three years travelling to three continents, interviewing more than 150 young people to see how realistic our current views of sex and porn actually are” sounds so much more glamorous than “spends her days writing magazine articles from her couch”. Although both are technically correct.
My latest at Daily Life.
I would not dismiss them. I think one wants to subvert them.
The Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel on women’s magazines.
In news that will not shock you in the slightest, I agree. And I know more than a couple of ladymag editors who feel the same way.
Mann writes about her daughter’s complaint that today, not working outside the home and enjoying motherhood is looked upon with scorn. What I see is the wider issue that most of our choices, as women, are looked upon with scorn. To work, or stay at home. Have a “career”, or a “job”. Have children when we’re 20, or when we’re 30. Send them to nursery while we work, or spend all our time with them. Pursue personal interests, or have none. Be open about enjoying sex, or be open about having issues with it. Society sets us up to judge the choices of others, creating “wars” and “catfights” rather than encouraging us to press for change. And it is this that often prevents us from seeing the bigger picture, so keen are we to assert the validity of whatever choices we’ve made.
Hannah Mudge: The Fifties: a warning from history
bellesbookshelf Asks:
I would love your opinion. I have always been what is traditionally considered "feminine" but I have also always considered myself a feminist. I haven't felt that the two were mutually exclusive, but lately I've been starting to worry. Is there anything wrong with wearing makeup & being "girlie" as a feminist? I've also seen radfem statements that heterosexuality is antifeminist. What's your take on this? I can't help being hetero - and my relationship is very equal and independent. So confused!
rachelhills Said:
I think you know the answer to this already, but of course! Are feminist arguments about make-up and compulsory heterosexuality valid? Sure. It is absolutely true that we inhabit a culture that tells women that we are prettier and altogether better people if we wear make-up (or if we just look like we’re wearing it). It’s also true that we live in a society that makes it a hell of a lot easier to be heterosexual than, well, anything else.
But that doesn’t mean that putting on make-up or dressing yourself in a traditionally feminine way can’t be a positive and (dare I say it?) empowering experience. And there are certainly plenty of women out there who are heterosexual… because (shock, horror) they just like having sex with men. I definitely don’t buy the argument that heterosexuality is innately sexist or disempowering.
I’ll leave you with a quote from Tavi Gevinson: “girls … think that to be feminists they have to live up to being perfectly consistent in their beliefs, never being insecure, never having doubts, having all the answers… And this is not true. And actually recognising all the contradictions I was feeling became easier once I realised that feminism was not a rulebook but a discussion, a conversation, a process.”
She’s a smart cookie.
See also: We’re all bad feminists, really.
