Hi, I'm Rachel Hills.
I'm a London-based (via Sydney, Australia) writer, researcher and contributor to publications including the Sydney Morning Herald, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Marie Claire, The Atlantic, Girlfriend 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, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Marie Claire, The Atlantic, Girlfriend 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 "politics"
“Gay rights are human rights, and human rights are gay rights…America is at its best when we champion the freedom and dignity of every human being.” - Hillary Clinton
(via fyeahpolitics)
(via thesexmyth)
“The comings and goings of different cohorts of voluntourists results in the children experiencing constant instability and inconsistency in their emotional care. They are also left with empty promises, as many volunteers promise to return, but the majority do not keep in contact and are soon…
What Lyrian said. See also.
“The goal is not to be perfect or to be right. Because we’re never either one of those things all the time.” - Amy Poehler.
(via smartgirlsattheparty)
If you go by the discussion in the UK leftie-sphere this week, it is: obscure, elitist and overly technical, something that boxes off feminism from the masses and makes it relevant only to an academic elite. (See this article for a good example of the kind of argument I’m talking about, and this, this and this for the current context.)
But I think the language debate is a diversion. As far as I can see, no one is asking professional feminists to pepper their books and newspaper articles with the word “intersectionality.” When people complain about a lack of intersectionality in popular feminism, they’re complaining a feminism that focuses on the experiences of white, middle-class, usually professional women at the expense of all others.
I completely reject the idea that in order for feminism to be relatable, it needs to be reduced to the media staples of body image and raunch culture and women on boards; that, as the editors of Vagenda argue, “intersectionality isn’t going to have much dice if some of the teenage girls in the audience are pregnant, or hungry, or at risk of abuse.” (It that’s the case, aren’t the girls in question living intersectionality? In which case, I think they’d be perfectly capable of discussing how factors like class and race have shaped their position.)
(On the other hand, I also reject the climate of ideological purity that often accompanies these discussions. I want my thinkers and public figures to get things wrong from time to time. It’s only through wading through what is wrong that we can eventually get to something closer to right. And I don’t think shouting people down for using the wrong language does anyone any good.)
Incorporating intersectionality into your work doesn’t have to mean having esoteric, insider-y discussions like the one I’m having right now. It just means taking into account perspectives other than your own.
Elsewhere: I don’t care if you were born a woman or became one (The Guardian)
In defence of Caitlin Moran and populist feminism. (New Statesman)
Pissers vs Wankers: The state of left-wing feminist debate? (Glosswatch)
Head/Parapet (Not writing, but blogging)
[S]hocking as it may seem, [Romney’s] strategists weren’t blowing smoke when they said they were going to win; they were just clueless. Until now, Republicans and Fox News have excelled at conjuring alternate realities. But this time, they made the mistake of believing their fake world actually existed. As Fox’s Megyn Kelly said to Karl Rove on election night, when he argued against calling Ohio for Obama: “Is this just math that you do as a Republican to make yourself feel better?
Well done, Maureen Dowd. (Although this suggests she may be inventing a somewhat imaginative narrative of her own.)
