An American plastic surgeon has created a product to numb the pain incurred while wearing high heels. Produced by Biochemistry, Dr Randal D. Haworth’s Heel No Pain spray boasts that ‘no matter how high your towering stilettos… high heel pain will soon be a thing of the past’. The product came about after Dr Haworth’s…
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Good things come to those who wait. For intersex Australians, the months and months it has taken the Federal Senate to compile a report into the involuntary or coerced sterilisation of intersex people has come to fruition. The senate was compelled to investigate the issue following a report into the forced sterilisation of girls and…
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Whenever I start a new job and fill in paperwork that asks whether I have any medical conditions, I always pause for a moment. I don’t have epilepsy, I’m not deathly allergic to anything, nor do I have diabetes. But I do have bipolar disorder. I was diagnosed seven years ago after a manic episode…
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Have you ever come home after a long day at work, and figured it would be easier to eat cheese on toast, than to cook something healthy? We’ve all been there – groceries take time, it’s too hard to think of stuff to make, and frankly, eating badly is often cheaper. Those are all pretty…
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Wearing a dress every day for each day in October, you say? For a girl who maintains the theory that you can easily get a good five days out of a pair of jeans, the thought of frocking-it-up for a whole month is daunting. Luckily there are some pretty cool birds out there doing exactly…
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OK, you “wellness” spruiking quacks. Enough. As Nicole Kidman giggles and prances across my TV screen in cowgirl boots toting a bunch of freshly dug carrots, I ask (out loud to no one): ‘Why does she need vitamins if she’s eating all those root vegetables?’ Why indeed. The ad is for Swisse and it is…
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Today is World Contraception Day, and there is no better time for couples and sexually active people – particularly young people – to be informed about sex, reproductive health and contraception. The motto of the day is: ‘It’s Your Life, It’s Your Future, Know Your Options’. It seems like a pretty simple message. Contraception, whether…
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This piece is an excerpt from Ambivalent at Best, a longer memoir work. Every summer my family and I spent time in the Alaskan wilderness, living in a cabin my father had built in the 1970s, which we improved and amended over the course of about six summers. The first summer there I was nine…
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This post was sponsored by JuJu Menstrual Cups, but all opinions are held by the author. If you have a question about sponsored posts, email Zoya at [email protected]. * So, periods. They’re not the most fun are they? Even the most deeply feminist, empowered, confident, happy woman has to admit that bleeding for a week…
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Elaine Riddick’s uterus was removed without her consent when she was 14 years old. Doctors sterilised Riddick following the caesarean birth of her son, who was conceived of rape. It was 1968 and the decision to sterilise was authorised by the North Carolina Eugenics Board. Riddick’s story is just one of an estimated 7,600…
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I am not usually one for fear tactics: for telling people what to wear, where they should feel safe, what health means for every body. However, a recent article on the dangers of commercialized beauty by injury attorneys based in the United States caught my attention. Over the past year, researchers have worked with a…
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**Trigger warning: Discussion of eating disorders** (middle school) The tiles were cold against my skin. In the pitch-black of the night, in our tiny box of a bathroom, I sprawled out. The scratchy blue rug – the old one my father had been begging my mother to throw away for years – acted as my…
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The doctor drew the curtains, asked me to remove my pants and underwear and position myself, legs apart, on the exam table. It was my first pap smear, I was 18, and I did as he asked. (But I refused to remove my sunglasses. Smear chic, y’all.) ‘There’s no need to be nervous’, he said….
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2013 Australian of the Year Ita Buttrose has discussed misogyny, dementia, and women on television in an interview with the ABC radio’s Libbi Gorr. The former Cleo editor laughed off the suggestion that she had influenced the likes of Oprah when it came to creating a pathway for ‘controversial’ women in the media. However, she…
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