Alturus

The Anatomy of a Troll

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Packed train. 5pm. Commuter rush hour. My cheek is mashed into the arm of an older white man in his late 50’s as he focuses on his phone. Eyes down, music blaring into his ears, he disconnects from his surroundings and lets his fingers move across the screen. The unspoken rule of commuting is in play - anything on a phone during rush hour is fair game.[...]

Do Nice Guys always finish last?

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At university, being a nice guy (at least according to my beautifully curated social media avatars/metrics) seemed like the perfect fit. I was the quintessential nice guy; academically my performance was perfectly adequate and I had a sizeable, thoroughly decent group of friends. Thus far, I have passed every exam, dotted every ‘i’ and crossed every ‘t’ on m[...]

How To Truly Be An Ally

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As more and more people take a serious interest in the progress, improvement, and restructuring of archaic and oppressive social and cultural standards, namely dismantling the systematic workings of racial injustices, they wonder how they can help in a way that is constructive and positive. A growing, prominent number of black people across the world are not[...]

Are Boobs News? Why are they in a Newspaper?

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Exciting news just in - The Sun newspaper has taken its first baby step towards removing the outdated, sexist, narrow-minded, patriarchy-perpetuating “institution” that is Page 3. In what can only be described as an incredibly minor achievement on a still-long road to victory, as of this week the paper will clad its Page 3 models in bras and bikini tops. [...]

Why we should we stop labelling women as 'Crazy'

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Some years ago I was out with a close male friend when he decided that he wanted to have sex with me. We were both very drunk, and I was a virgin. I didn’t like the way things were going, and told him so. He persisted. I made it very clear that I had no intention of sleeping with him. He pleaded, negotiated, trying to bring me to his way of thinking. He took[...]

You Are not a Princess

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At the intersection of pop culture, race and gender politics, there is the advertisement for Mercy Academy. Mercy Academy is an all-girl preparatory school in Louisville, Kentucky (USA) the largest city in the rather rural commonwealth. Recently the school released an ad campaign entitled "You're Not a Princess". The five piece print ad depicts pastel-colore[...]

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