During the 2010s, there has been a surge towards well written female characters and stories in film, TV and books, especially since the #MeToo movement in 2017. Ones that jump to mind include Wild by Cheryl Strayed (portrayed by Reese Witherspoon in the 2014 movie), Promising Young Woman, written and directed by Emerald Fennell, Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale, HBO’s Game of Thrones, Crazy Rich Asians and Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine.

These books, films and TV shows give audiences well written female characters who are flawed and have to learn about themselves to move forward.

However, there are also well…

1. I originally thought it was for teenagers — a period drama version of Gossip Girl, set in Britain. It’s not just for teenagers. Adults over the age of 25 could enjoy this, including me.
2. Diverse period dramas are possible and popular so let’s have more of them. Please. Whilst Bridgerton is set in a slightly alternative universe than ours, it is right about one thing — Black people were living in Great Britain, especially in London. The show starts in 1813, and Black, Brown and mixed-raced people had been living in Great Britain long before that.
3. Bridgerton is an excellent…

There are spoilers of the Big Bang Theory in this story.

In the fourth episode of the eleventh season of the Big Bang Theory, Howard and Bernadette discover that their second baby is a boy. The episode revolves around the idea that Howard worries he won’t be able to be a good enough dad to his son because he’s not typically masculine; he doesn’t know how to play sports (except Quidditch), doesn’t do DIY jobs, or any of the typical ‘manly’ stuff society expects from men.

I have a problem with this episode, mainly the assumptions Howard makes regarding his…

Earlier this year I published this story.

I liked writing the story and wanted to take it a little further this year, breaking it down by each quarter. I have started tracking my finances in even more detail than I did in 2020 and find the results quite interesting.

I also think it’s a good idea to highlight that the majority of people earn a low income, including myself. Not every writer on Medium earns thousands of dollars every month from their writing. …

Blackpool, Lancashire. 1997, maybe 1998. Waterstones book shop. I’m in the children’s section, my parents elsewhere in the shop, all of us looking at the books, wondering how many we can buy before it becomes ridiculously expensive.

I pick a book off the shelves and flick through it. At least, I think I did. I was only six, maybe seven. It’s a book longer than ones I’ve read, or have been read to me, but it’s about witches and wizards and the cover looks interesting.

So I go over to my mum and ask if I can get this book.

…

In March 2021, British TV presenter, and mum of three, Rochelle Humes presented a Channel Four Dispatches documentary about the disparities between maternal death rates between Black and Brown woman, against maternal death rates of White women.

In a broad overview, the UK is a relatively safe place to be pregnant and have a baby. In 2016, 547 women, out of 2.2 million women who gave birth, died as a result of complications that arose from their pregnancy, during or up to a year after childbirth.

However, Black, Brown and Asian women in the UK are 5 times more likely…

Back in 2013, I was working three different jobs simultaneously, spending a lot of time on public transport and struggling with increasing anxiety, low self-confidence and esteem, and unpredictable IBS. I also had an iPod shuffle. My iPod and the 40 tracks I had on it soon became a lifeline to me. I depended upon it daily and severely struggle if I couldn’t use it for whatever reason.

Since 2013, I’ve upgraded to using Spotify on my smartphone, subscribing to the music app monthly. …

2012. London Olympics. Queen Elizabeth II diamond jubilee.

I also graduated in 2012 from university with a bachelor’s degree in English with Drama. By the time 2013 started, I was slap bang in the middle of my first stint in unemployment.

Many of us have been there. You graduate and celebrate, pack up your belongings, move back in with your parents because you can’t find a job. You spot something in the paper or on social media and you think, hey I could give that a go.

For me, that ‘something’ were two different multi-level marketing schemes, though at two…