kandacesiobhan

This article was originally posted on Kidpallas.com on June 19th 2014. When I first began to delve into the discourses surrounding ethnic identity and beauty, I found many of my long-held worries, fears, anxieties and discomforts given vindication and explanation. Growing up not-White, there is an ever-present awareness of what is not for you, and it is mostly everything. I knew when I opened up a women’s magazine that the make-up tutorials were not for me. A smoky eye never looked right no matter how carefully I followed instructions. Walking up to a make-up counter to find only one...

Today, I changed the tagline of this blog from Equality, literature and style to Liberation , literature and style . The reason behind this is simple: equality should not be, nor can it be, the goal of feminism or any struggle that seeks to end institutional oppression. When discussing the feminist movement and its goals, the word "equality" is used often. Too many times, I have heard a girl assert, with no ill intent, that the goal of feminism isn't to give one gender rights over the other but rather to level out the playing field, so that both...

In 1914, a large portion of the industrial workforce was sent abroad and women were forced to fill the gap. While men donned battle fatigues and went off to war, women put on trousers and shirts and went to work. Women were forced to absorb aspects of masculinity into their gender identity during wartime as they moved into previously male-dominated industries and escaped the confinement of the domestic sphere. Yet, at the same time, men only experienced the affirmation and glorification of the hyper-masculine reality of war. Where the feminine became less practical, the masculine became more desirable. This...

Concerned parents everywhere are taking to their media outlet of choice to churn out lazily-constructed think pieces on Miley Cyrus' transformation from a former Disney star into a "sex symbol". What will they tell their children? What they are telling their audiences is to ostracise Miley Cyrus, to excommunicate her in favour of more acceptable role models. The problem with all this concern is that, in reality, it is nothing more than a poorly-veiled (if not entirely conscious) attempt to preserve gendered and racial power dynamics. Black culture, in particular, has become the antithesis of "high culture" which is...