Hello you curious and beautiful little soul! Thanks for coming here, you're welcome back anytime.
I love writing as it is both so cathartic for me and helpful to others all at once. My dream one day is to be a novelist. I hope you'll follow me on this journey.
I love writing as it is both so cathartic for me and helpful to others all at once. My dream one day is to be a novelist. I hope you'll follow me on this journey.
Fuck This, I'll Be A Stripper
Just before my family read this and have a heart attack, no I am not actually becoming a stripper but yes I have seriously considered it.
A little trip down memory lane and I remember graduating high school as if it was yesterday. Being accepted into University seemed like such a massive milestone and I knew that the next four years was such a long time to get my shit sorted, gain a world-class tertiary education and land the job of a lifetime. Oh how wrong I was.
It's graduation season for most of my peers. All the sleepless nights and broke-ass days are over, right? Cue the Tui ad.
We're in our early twenties but have individually accumulated debt the size of a potential home deposit. Seventeen years of education later and we're tossed out into the real world with a saturated job market, ultimately looking for anything that will pay the bills. We may not necessarily end up in the field from which we specialised in at university, but money from any income source is an ideal situation.
Which leads me to my stripping fantasy. In an ideal world, I wish I was that girl you hear about through friends of friends who was able to pay off her student loan in a few months. She had her days free for living life however she wanted, had a great disposable income that never seemed to dry up and did it all with an air of confidence about her. Theoretically, I wouldn't care what people thought and could better my future with this kind of opportunity. I'm going out on a limb here and going to assume that I'm not the only female in my twenties who has thought along these lines.
I recently landed my first big girl, full-time, corporate job. It's been a shock to the system to say the least and in all honesty, as much as I act like I have my shit together, I still have absolutely no idea what I'm doing. My online life is perfectly manicured but underneath it all I'm sitting at my desk from Monday through to Friday with an internal monologue which sounds a lot like "what the fuckidy fuck fuck fuck am I fucking doing?".
I work way too many hours each and every week to be as poor as I am. I check my payslip fortnightly only to reminded how much of it is taken out to repay my student loan (boo) and to prepare for my future with kiwisaver (yay).
This stripper fantasy I have comes with many day-dreams. I swear if I was being paid in cold hard cash, I would be driving that cute little mini cooper I dream of instead of my 1996 Nissan Lucino (which may I add has a broken left indicator, no radio and no working passenger window). I'd be taking weekend trips to the islands instead of an hour north of Auckland. I'd be able to let out a sigh of relief, only truly known to those who are financially secure.
All of this however, comes at the cost of being such a proud individual that I refuse to accept handouts and have bought everything that I own by myself. The majority of my friends through school/uni were given cars by either parents, had holidays paid for them and all the luxuries I envied. What I was bitter at back then, has shaped me into realising the value of money all these years later.
It's funny when I think back to high school me. I swore by age 22 that I'd have everything so well set for life. Upon reflection though, the older that I get, the more I realise that none of us have any clue of what we're doing and we rely on making it up as we go. Adventure steps in when guarantees step out. Let's ride the roller-coaster of life my friends, one dollar at a time.
Stop with the slut shaming!
Today it was announced that George FM radio hosts Thane Kirby and Kara Rickard had been suspended for comments made during their show. They took a direct target at a 20 year old woman based on her Instagram photos. They described girls who "sit around posting half naked pictures of themselves" as "do nothing bitches". Of course there was immediate backlash for their terribly offensive and unwarranted remarks, and they quickly responded with a statement saying they were sorry.. (yeah, right).
This brings up an important matter though. Slut-shaming is all too prevalent in today's society. Publicly or privately insulting a woman based on her expression of sexuality is unacceptable. If you remove all negative connotations with the word, then a 'slut' is purely a woman who has had sex with multiple partners. But who in this world holds the right to police a woman via what is considered normal or acceptable boundaries for female sexuality. It is an individual choice for how one dresses and behaves.
It should never be a woman's burden to avoid being seen as slutty, instead it is everyone else's responsibility not to call a woman a slut. Stop with the name calling and the double standards, you're making yourself look like an absolute twat (not that you haven't done so previously, Thane & Kara). In the age of social media, acts of slut-shaming are easier than ever before to accomplish. I've never quite understood why it's perfectly acceptable to upload and share bikini photographs, but never the same with lingerie. In reality, the same amount of skin is being shown, so why the big issue?
It's easy to judge someone based on their social media activity, I understand that. But I know all too many women who are also perpetrators of slut shaming as well. What women fail to recognise is that the act of infighting among oppressed groups is what keeps those groups oppressed. Internalised sexism breeds hate between women and a fight for male attention/approval. Slut-shaming other women for your own personal gain is not rewarding in the long run.
I've been a victim of slut-shaming through the form of Instagram myself. I'm comfortable in my own skin and tend to post photos that some people may deem inappropriate. A reputation acquired from this does not really bother me, but when I hear of innocent women around the same age as me being publicly scrutinised, I feel the need to speak up. How many times has rape been discounted because a woman was deemed a slut? How many times are women called whores whilst their partners physically assault them? How many times does a woman's sexual history get used against them? The consequences of slut-shaming go a lot further than we initially think.
Personally, I'm disgusted at what was said on air by the George FM radio hosts. Yes, they've apologised and been suspended. But in my opinion this really isn't enough. If they are allowed back into their positions, it leaves the lasting impression through-out New Zealand that slut-shaming is both acceptable and forgivable. I beg to differ. I hope that for once, the issue is widely acknowledged and appropriately dealt with.
Today it was announced that George FM radio hosts Thane Kirby and Kara Rickard had been suspended for comments made during their show. They took a direct target at a 20 year old woman based on her Instagram photos. They described girls who "sit around posting half naked pictures of themselves" as "do nothing bitches". Of course there was immediate backlash for their terribly offensive and unwarranted remarks, and they quickly responded with a statement saying they were sorry.. (yeah, right).
This brings up an important matter though. Slut-shaming is all too prevalent in today's society. Publicly or privately insulting a woman based on her expression of sexuality is unacceptable. If you remove all negative connotations with the word, then a 'slut' is purely a woman who has had sex with multiple partners. But who in this world holds the right to police a woman via what is considered normal or acceptable boundaries for female sexuality. It is an individual choice for how one dresses and behaves.
It should never be a woman's burden to avoid being seen as slutty, instead it is everyone else's responsibility not to call a woman a slut. Stop with the name calling and the double standards, you're making yourself look like an absolute twat (not that you haven't done so previously, Thane & Kara). In the age of social media, acts of slut-shaming are easier than ever before to accomplish. I've never quite understood why it's perfectly acceptable to upload and share bikini photographs, but never the same with lingerie. In reality, the same amount of skin is being shown, so why the big issue?
It's easy to judge someone based on their social media activity, I understand that. But I know all too many women who are also perpetrators of slut shaming as well. What women fail to recognise is that the act of infighting among oppressed groups is what keeps those groups oppressed. Internalised sexism breeds hate between women and a fight for male attention/approval. Slut-shaming other women for your own personal gain is not rewarding in the long run.
I've been a victim of slut-shaming through the form of Instagram myself. I'm comfortable in my own skin and tend to post photos that some people may deem inappropriate. A reputation acquired from this does not really bother me, but when I hear of innocent women around the same age as me being publicly scrutinised, I feel the need to speak up. How many times has rape been discounted because a woman was deemed a slut? How many times are women called whores whilst their partners physically assault them? How many times does a woman's sexual history get used against them? The consequences of slut-shaming go a lot further than we initially think.
Personally, I'm disgusted at what was said on air by the George FM radio hosts. Yes, they've apologised and been suspended. But in my opinion this really isn't enough. If they are allowed back into their positions, it leaves the lasting impression through-out New Zealand that slut-shaming is both acceptable and forgivable. I beg to differ. I hope that for once, the issue is widely acknowledged and appropriately dealt with.