the edit
46 stories, and counting.
"Rebranding conformity to our own oppression as empowerment does not make it liberation"
With the busyness of life, I only just managed to see the Beatriz Gonzalez retrospective at the Barbican before it closed on 10th May. It happened to be the same day as the local council elections, and I was going to head off to the polling station straight after the
Talking with friends recently I’ve noticed quite a few of us had stories about their family hiding snacks in inconspicuous places so that their brothers wouldn’t devour it all by themselves ; or even about being forbidden certain foods their brothers were allowed to eat. Those instances reminded me
As an art historian, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed seeing all of the art historical references threaded across this year’s Met Gala carpet. The theme, “Fashion Is Art,” responds to the Costume Institute’s current exhibition, “Costume Art” that explores the embodiment of art in fashion and the dressed body.
What is the 'online rape academy'? In short: every woman's worst nightmare. Perhaps a nightmare you had not even thought of yet. In 2024, Gisèle Pelicot become an icon of feminism when she waived her right to anonymity, and bravely allowed her rape trial to be public. She said she
Mother’s Day has just passed on Sunday 15th March, and while we are appreciating our mums and caregivers, it feels like a great opportunity to look at their rights: namely, maternity leave. In this article, I will explore why maternity leave is so crucial, what maternity leave means in
by Charlie Summers As a trans student, you can understand my hurt to learn via email that the college chose not to fly the trans flag this year. To find out through a notification on the Venn that enough students flicked through the Moodle page easily selecting the progress flag,
by Amber Gooding
TW: disturbing content, sexual abuse “Pleas[e] help us. We are Korean students. No woman is safe in Korea.” [Modification by me. Find the original tweet on https://x.com/WomenLeisure/status/1828034029653840363] Late August 2024, this message was shared on Twitter by user @WomenLeisure. Like them, several accounts from
Algerian boxer Imane Khelif recently made headlines after her match against the Italian Angela Carini during the Paris Olympics Games. After only 46 seconds of fighting, Carini forfeited, stating that the pain was too much for her. Media outrage sparked not long after, with people claiming that the fight was
"Rebranding conformity to our own oppression as empowerment does not make it liberation"
046 - Style Over Substance: On Vanity, Conformity and the Illusion of Empowerment - by Camille Saunders
With the busyness of life, I only just managed to see the Beatriz Gonzalez retrospective at the Barbican before it closed on 10th May. It happened to be the same day as the local council elections, and I was going to head off to the polling station straight after the
045 - Exhibition Review: Beatriz Gonzalez at the Barbican Shows the Enduring History of Political Corruption - by Eleanor Getting
Talking with friends recently I’ve noticed quite a few of us had stories about their family hiding snacks in inconspicuous places so that their brothers wouldn’t devour it all by themselves ; or even about being forbidden certain foods their brothers were allowed to eat. Those instances reminded me
044 - Meals & Misogyny - by Inès N'Cib
As an art historian, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed seeing all of the art historical references threaded across this year’s Met Gala carpet. The theme, “Fashion Is Art,” responds to the Costume Institute’s current exhibition, “Costume Art” that explores the embodiment of art in fashion and the dressed body.
043 - Did Kim Kardashian Mean to Honour Misogynistic Artwork at the Met? - by Eleanor Getting
What is the 'online rape academy'? In short: every woman's worst nightmare. Perhaps a nightmare you had not even thought of yet. In 2024, Gisèle Pelicot become an icon of feminism when she waived her right to anonymity, and bravely allowed her rape trial to be public. She said she
042 - The 'Online Rape Academy' Is One of Many - by Camille Saunders
Mother’s Day has just passed on Sunday 15th March, and while we are appreciating our mums and caregivers, it feels like a great opportunity to look at their rights: namely, maternity leave. In this article, I will explore why maternity leave is so crucial, what maternity leave means in
041 - Maternity Leave Saves Lives, and So Does Parental Leave - by Camille Saunders
by Charlie Summers As a trans student, you can understand my hurt to learn via email that the college chose not to fly the trans flag this year. To find out through a notification on the Venn that enough students flicked through the Moodle page easily selecting the progress flag,
040 - Rebuttal Against the Gonville & Caius Flag Proposal - by Charlie Summers
by Amber Gooding
039 - Spiking: an Infographic - by Amber Gooding
TW: disturbing content, sexual abuse “Pleas[e] help us. We are Korean students. No woman is safe in Korea.” [Modification by me. Find the original tweet on https://x.com/WomenLeisure/status/1828034029653840363] Late August 2024, this message was shared on Twitter by user @WomenLeisure. Like them, several accounts from
038 - South Korea's Porn Deepfake Crisis - by Inès N'Cib
Algerian boxer Imane Khelif recently made headlines after her match against the Italian Angela Carini during the Paris Olympics Games. After only 46 seconds of fighting, Carini forfeited, stating that the pain was too much for her. Media outrage sparked not long after, with people claiming that the fight was
037 - Gender Policing in Sports - by Inès N'cib
Give Anastasia's incredible original song a listen here: I'm okay, I'm fine thank you That's what I always say Know that you're not listening How are you Like you give a damn Feel your eyes judging me I believed that we were fine Hear your lies passed down to me
036 - Your Lies - by Anastasia Serrell-Watts
This essay was written as a response to an incident with my US history professor. I noticed his use of the word "n*gr*" in one of his articles to refer to Black people. I mentioned it to him during our following class but instead of the receptive ear I
035 - Evil Words & Their Evil Use - by Inès N'cib
Please find the performance below these beautiful lyrics written and performed by Shiksha Teeluck. Once upon a time Lived in an angel in disguise He was sweet, but flawed, divine Woke up, guess he's a lie Hear me out, I beg Picture perfect, I'm not Poured my heart into your
034 - Emotional Punching Bag - by Shiksha Teeluck
Welcome to the NOUS International Women's Day event 2024! Whether you are participating live or are watching it later, please know that we are so grateful for you taking the time to support us and all the women involved. 0:00/1×
033 - International Women's Day
Please find below the wonderful playlists compiled by Maya Calcraft for NOUS, launched on International Women's Day but to be enjoyed forever! Empowerment https://spotify.link/yJufXhccHHb 0:00/1× Reflection https://spotify.link/HZ83ZjdcHHb 0:00/1× Queer Joy https://spotify.link/pL48suecHHb 0:00/1×
032 - The Playlists - by Maya Calcraft
This vibrant piece of artwork by Georgia Beale can be seen, with all our other feminist art on the page 'The Gallery', which you can find in the drop-down menu on your phone, or at the top of the homepage on your laptop. We hope you feel inspired by the
031 - Nous London (alt logo) - by Georgia Beale
This absolutely beautiful piece of artwork by Byapti Nandi can be seen, with all our other feminist art on the page 'The Gallery', which you can find in the drop-down menu on your phone, or at the top of the homepage on your laptop. We hope you feel inspired by
030 - Untitled - by Byapti Nandi
This moving piece of artwork by Romy Sokolow can be seen, with all our other feminist art on the page 'The Gallery', which you can find in the drop-down menu on your phone, or at the top of the homepage on your laptop. We hope you feel inspired by the
029 - Stove Burning - by Romy Sokolow
I wrote this poem in my first week of university reflecting on the 2 years of school prior, which was a period of time in which London and the UK in general was swept under by a wave of sexist abuse in schools, which is what made us make Nous
028 - Privileged Young Ladies - by Camille Saunders
by Camille Saunders In my whole life, the book that has most impacted me is The Book of Queens, by Joumana Haddad. It is about the Armenian genocide and its impact on 4 generations of women, each represented as one of the queens from a deck of cards, and on
027 - Biting Your Tongue - by Camille Saunders
Summer is a great time to do a social media detox, in any way you want! Either by deleting all your accounts permanently (like I did!), or by reducing your daily hours, or by only using it at weekends, you can do yourself a lot of good. Social media, sadly,
026 - Summer Social Media Detox - by Camille Saunders
For a long time now, I have wanted to come to Norway to experience why it has consistently topped international charts relating to human rights and gender equality (#1 overall when taking into consideration the 2023 Freedom in the World Index, Index of Economic Freedom, Press Freedom Index and Democracy
025 - What Norway Taught Me About Women - by Camille Saunders
To celebrate the many voices of Pride, Nous will be dedicating this page to all of YOUR voices and why Pride is so important! If you would like to contribute, feel free to just DM us on Instagram on @nous_ldn or email admin@nouslondon.co.uk !
024 - Why Pride Matters! - by all of you :)
Introduction by the poet, Aiste Mizgeryte: "Endless Breath" is a poetic piece that traces a soul's voyage from birth to death, illuminated by pivotal moments punctuated by the simple act of inhaling and exhaling. With a deeply personal touch, this autobiographical verse strives to capture the essence of the human
023 - Endless Breath - by Aiste Mizgeryte
TW: violence, death and Holocaust denial This week, on Wednesday 19th April, marked 80 years since the Warsaw ghetto uprising against the Nazi occupiers in Poland in 1943. Now in 2023, the German, Polish and Israeli heads of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Andrzej Duda and Isaac Herzog, met in Warsaw to
022 - Commemorating the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 3 Women - by Camille Saunders
TW: breast cancer It’s time to talk about what we’ve been taught is the fairy godmother of modern feminism, The Pill. Introduced in the UK for married women in 1961 and extended to single women by prescription in 1974, it has undoubtedly advanced the social rights of women
021 - What You Weren't Told About the Pill - by Camille Saunders
TW: contains mention of violent practices. The only description is a medical definition that has been left to the reference section at the bottom so you only have to read it as a choice. This week seems an appropriate time to launch our new column on the NOUS Blog about
020 - FGM and the Questions It Raises - by Camille Saunders
We asked our friends and followers on Mother’s Day to ask their mums a few questions about their journeys to motherhood, in the hopes of collecting some stories about the wonderful people who brought us into this world! It is my belief that if we don’t take the
019 - Motherhood: getting to know our mums' journeys - by Annabelle Saunders
It is important to remember when listening to Gina Martin’s story that she began it a normal girl going to a festival with her sister. There is no reason why this should have led to her needing to catch the stranger who took a photo up her skirt, take
018 - Gina Martin, And Why You Need To Know Her - by Annabelle Saunders
by Tya Gitanjali Raikundalia i) The Approach of Police Investigation Each case will have different facts; consequently, it can be reasonably assumed that the police’s approach to investigation will differ greatly as well. They will differ based on the individual facts and the domestic law of the State where
017 - International Human Trafficking Law: State-Centred or Victim-Focused? Part 2 - by Tya Gitanjali Raikundalia
by Tya Gitanjali Raikundalia (a) Introduction It is widely assumed that slavery is a vestige of the past.[1] Despite abolition’s legacy, slavery endures around the globe, albeit in somewhat different guises.[2] For decades, modern slavery has posed a threat as one of the largest hidden crimes on
016 - International Human Trafficking Law: State-Centred or Victim-Focused? Part 1 - by Tya Gitanjali Raikundalia
by Camille Saunders TW: mentions of gender based violence, death and rape In 2020, “Nunca más sin nosotras” (“never again without us women”) captioned the wave of unrest gripping Chile’s streets, with more than a million women protesting for equal rights. La Coordinadora Feminista 8M, the country’s largest
015 - "Nunca más sin nosotras": Chile's fight for women's rights - by Camille Saunders
TW: mention of domestic violence, non-explicit Fourteen beams of light, one for each victim of the École Polytechnique Massacre, was shone into the sky above Mount Royal in Quebec on Monday night, commemorating the anti-feminist mass shooting of the 6thof December 1989. Having entered the École Polytechnique de Montréal, the
014 - Canada 32 years after the École Polytechnique Massacre - by Camille Saunders
by Camille Saunders Last year, the Italian parliament’s lower house approved a progressive bill that would classify all acts of violence based on gender, sexual orientation or disability as a hate-crime. This was nicknamed the Zan bill, after Alessandro Zan, who is both a lawmaker for the Democratic Party
013 - What does the Italian Hate Crime Bill really mean for personal freedom? - by Camille Saunders
by Camille Saunders NB: this article speaks in cis/heteronormative terms, but the victim-survivor can be of any gender, as can the perpetrator, and all situations are equally valid and harmful both to the individual and society Since the Year of the Woman in 2018, women’s rights have repeatedly
012 - The #metoo backlash: the latest brand of gaslighting survivors into silence - by Camille Saunders
by Bianca St Pierre NB: .docx is a segment where writers can express their true experiences to encourage others to speak about their own. Readers are advised to continue at their own discretion and heed trigger warnings. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TW: emotional ab*se, s*icide references Usually, when I write I
011 - .docx My emotionally ab*sive relationship - Bianca St Pierre
Please keep scrolling for the original Spanish below -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In Pedro Almodóvar’s film ‘Everything About My Mother’ [1999], femininity and the lives of women are some of the work’s key themes. Not only do they reflect the female psyche, but also the social scars of the Franco dictatorship
010 - Femininity in "All About My Mother" - by Camille Saunders
There is a lot of debate around how technology and new inventions changed the lives of women; some people cite the popularisation of contraception, the legalisation of abortion, or the ability to go to university, as the most crucial factors for women’s liberation in the US. However, in a
009 - Women and work: how the washing machine paved the way for women's liberation - by Tessa Todd-Hinton VII
During the late 1970s in India, a woman named Hardeep Kaur was murdered, burnt alive, at the age of 21. She was one of 200 brides-to-be that year who were murdered, victims of dowry deaths. Dowry deaths are a phenomenon still present in India and other south Asian countries today,
008 - Seven Lives and a Dream: capturing feminism in 1980s India - by Aaniya Vaswani
“You are a woman with a man inside of you. You are your own voyeur.” - Margaret Atwood The term ‘internal male gaze’, pioneered by film critic and feminist Laura Mulvey in her essay Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, has revolutionised the way women define and view themselves. The male
007 - The Paradox of the Internalised Male Gaze - by Ash Prabaharan
In 2014, Nasty Gal founder and self-made businesswoman Sofia Amoruso published her memoir, entitled “#Girlboss”. According to Amoruso, a “girlboss” is “someone who has big dreams and is willing to work hard for them.” [https://www.elle.com/culture/career-politics/a12716/nastygal-sophia-amorusa-girl-boss/] The term went viral on twitter, becoming a
006 - The rise (and fall) of the GirlBoss - by Esmee Brooke
“There’s not a man I meet but doth salute me. As if I were their well-acquainted friend.” The Comedy of Errors, Act IV Scene II - by William Shakespeare This quote from The Comedy of Errors has a lot to say about the power of grammar. In a couple
005 - No Grammar is Neuter - by Maddie Stoll
Vivien Leigh as Blanche duBois in "Streetcar Named Desire" leaning against a doorframe in a lacey dress, smokingTo agree with this comment is to wholly misjudge Williams’ intentions when writing the character of Blanche DuBois, and instead perpetuates the cruel impassivity and total lack of empathy so emblematic of the
004 - Blanche duBois is a weak, vulnerable and, ultimately, passive victim - by Camille Saunders
In both “Beautiful Little Fools” by Jorja Smith and “The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories” by Angela Carter, female identity is seen as being quenched by male superiority, for example by the oppression of Laura Mulvey’s male gaze. The notion that women can only exist in the shadow of
003 - How the lyrics of Jorja Smith reflects Carter's ideas of female identity - by Camille Saunders
Keep scrolling for original French interview below -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Firstly, regarding French, how would you say bilingualism has helped you, for example at work? I would say that speaking French helped me mostly when I was working in France, not so much when I started working in England, but in any
002 - Essi Siamevi - Bilingualism, colonialism and feminism: what's the link? - by Camille Saunders
5 female leaders stand smiling and giving speeches, including Jacinda Ardern and Angela MerkelPicture 1, Source: The Guardian During these unprecedented times, we are witnessing a change in our perceptions about what constitutes a powerful leadership strategy. Countries with female leaders have suffered six times fewer confirmed deaths from the