I don’t write about my faith much. It’s deeply personal and I often don’t feel like I can find the right words to convey how I experience it. I am also aware that as a Christian I hold privilege in my society and I try to quiet my privilege when I can. However, Christians are being quiet when we ought to be using our voices to protect others. More than using our words we should be showing our faith in our actions. …

July was a sobering month for many. Not only the hottest month ever recorded but also held the earliest Earth Overshoot Day to date, July 29th, the day on which we began to consume more resources than the planet can annually renew. Our global obsession with continual growth has long since passed the degree of sustainability. GDP can no longer be used as an indicator of success when the cost of growth is the Earth itself.

And what has been the response to this? Business as usual. Exploitation is lucrative, and we’ll keep doing it until it’s gone. Case in point, deliberate fires in the Amazon to make way for beef production; the relentless depletion of oceans; the delay or refusal to declare a climate emergency despite months of millions…

Listen, I’m a feminist, or to precise, an intersectional feminist. Unfortunately, it’s still necessary to make this distinction because the term feminism or feminist has been conflated with White Feminism. Most people already know what I’m talking about but just to be clear, you do not need to be white to take part in White Feminism…

“It is the type of behavior that rests under the guise of feminism only as long as it is comfortable, only as long as it is personally rewarding, only as long as it keeps “on brand.”[…] …

Lucky.

I am lucky to be white. Lucky to be straight-ish. Lucky to be Christian. Lucky to be able bodied. Lucky to be middle class. Lucky to be cis-gender. Lucky in lots of other ways.

Lucky isn’t better. Lucky is having an advantage through chance, rather than effort. These aspects about myself give me an advantage in this society that aren’t due to any effort on my part. They are due to an accident of birth, as my grandfather would say. Chance. Luck.

I point this out because I have a journey that has been described as impressive and held up as an example of how people can thrive despite a rough beginning. While it is true that I have worked hard to get where I am, I have also been aided every step of the way by my situation in the world — by luck. These advantages have allowed me to overcome my challenges through hard work but the hard work might not have been sufficient had I been given another set of circumstances. …

Unlike most of tinder’s population, I don’t think there anything especially unique or interesting about wanting to travel. The desire to break away from the familiar is basic. Personally, I prefer big trips alone. I’m an introvert; naturally independent; and while I love my friends dearly, there’s nothing quite like making your own schedule and taking the time to self-reflect in an unfamiliar culture. You could say it’s my most expensive self-care routine.

To take a trip across the world requires time, money and knowledge. Being European, summer holidays overseas (over-channel) has been a part of my life since I can remember. …

What working at a for-profit has taught me that I didn’t fully experience working at non-profit and government agencies is that women are getting shafted. I knew that intellectually, I saw it across fields in the statistics, and I heard it from my friends but it wasn’t until I moved into the for-profit world that I felt knocked down by it. The women in leadership at my company, and there are quite a few, are working hard as hell, have been working that hard for years or decades slowly moving up, and are incredibly competent. By comparison, the men in leadership at my hospital are under qualified, not terribly capable, lazy, and for the most part are being propped up by women. …

Sudanese born Yassmin Abdel-Magied arrived in Australia before she was two years old in 1992, at the time her family was one of only two Sudanese families in Brisbane. She has described herself as “the most reviled Muslim in Australia”. Yassmin Abdel-Magied is many things. The “most reviled Muslim in Australia” was also named the 2007 Young Australian Muslim of the Year, and in 2010 Young Queenslander of the Year. She is a known writer, broadcaster and engineer. She has also driven and helped design racing cars, enjoys boxing, football and philosophy.

“voice in my head told me by exercising, throwing up, losing enough weight, I would finally become the “right” size to leave the house”

Hello, my name is Dolma Lhamo and I am a Nepali illustrator based in England. My drawings weave together topics of women, beauty standards and it’s negative impacts on women’s mental health.

I try to use my medium to urge women to put themselves first. To stop letting other’s judgements define them, to stop being so critical about their exterior spacesuits, and instead to look within themselves to find their own voice as an individ- ual. Find such strength in the quality of their interior, that at every different size their body goes through, their “pretty” is always plenty on the exterior. I’m currently going through this transition mentally, and it feels glorious. …