Our writers recommend...(28/09/20)

ARTICLE: 'Buying Myself Back: when does a model own her own image?' - Emily Ratajkowski, The Cut

https://www.thecut.com/article/emily-ratajkowski-owning-my-image-essay.html

In this essay, Emily addresses the frustrating situation of who actually owns the images she poses for. From paparazzis to gallerists to hackers, she discusses just how freely people have used and abused both her image and her physical body over the years for their own gain and satisfaction. This is mostly due to her career choice as a model (‘if you’re a model, surely you love that we’re publishing pictures of you and getting your image out there?’ is their argument) and also due to her confidence in being pictured semi or fully nude. This is such an emotional read as I can not even begin to imagine what it is like to have people (mainly men she has never met in her life) claim to have the rights to sell and exploit images of her body for money. Ratajkowski opens the essay by discussing how she was sued by a paparazzi for sharing a pap picture of herself on her Instagram story. It is infuriating to see how disrespectful and downright disgusting people can act purely due to her career choice and her love of her own body. I found this essay so powerful and I hope it highlights to people that a model’s willingness to be pictured either fully clothed or nude is not an invitation to exploit them for the sake of ‘art’. 

Abby Gilchrist 

TV SHOW: Get Organized with the Home Edit 

Available on Netflix

Whether you love organisation and a clean space or you are completely the opposite, I believe this show can appeal to everyone. The two women who run the Instagram-based company The Home Edit, Clea and Joanna, visit people’s homes and rearrange and clean their spaces, whether that be Khloe Kardashian’s garage or Reese Witherspoon’s closet. It’s hard to make a show about cleaning sound too interesting, but I can guarantee it is the most satisfying and addictive program, particularly in a time in which we find ourselves stuck in our own homes. Whether this show is the push for you to rearrange your room or to purge some of the items you’ve had since childhood, I can guarantee the humour and dynamics of the female business partnership is one to watch. 

Amy Knowles 

 BOOK: 'A Little Life' by Hanya Yanagihara

 This is one of the most harrowing, challenging books I have ever read, but one that has stayed with me since I finished it in April. Set around the lives of four young men - Jude, Willem, Malcolm and JB - living in New York, it is an intimate story of pain, friendship, family and betrayal. The story jumps throughout the book from the childhoods of these men, to their time in college, to them navigating life in the adult world. It focuses mainly on Jude, who, after being abandoned at a monastery as a baby, suffers hardship after hardship throughout his life, and the story focuses on how these traumas affect him and his relationships as he grows up and gets older. This is an incredibly difficult book to read due to the shockingly heavy topics that it deals with, and at times I had to put it down and take a break from it for a while, but it is also so beautifully written and is such a powerful story of love and pain that it will cause you to look at life in a very different way once you finish it.

TWs: sexual assult, self-harm, abuse

Ellie Williamson

ARTICLE: 'How to stay organised and productive while you're taking online classes' - Emily Torres, The Good Trade

https://www.thegoodtrade.com/features/how-to-take-online-classes

I am someone who struggles to remain organised and prepared for uni, even when there isn’t a worldwide pandemic and I’m not confined to my flat. I find it hard to concentrate when in my room (the proximity of my bed to my desk and my prepaid Netflix subscription is all too tempting) and so I found this article really helpful in suggesting a few tips to simulate university settings. Things such as clearing your desk so you have the study space you need, or drinking your coffee (or in my case, tea) from a travel mug like you would if you were in a lecture. These things sound small and silly, but I am eager to try them out in the next month or so when my online seminars commence. 

Abby Gilchrist