required reading
recs include: ibs politics, adam levine, beauty's dirty secret.
Hi reader. How’s your weekend going so far? As promised, I have a new batch of Required Reading for you. I hope you enjoy and, as always, let me know if you have thoughts on any of the picks.
Sick to Our Stomachs: Why Does Everyone Have IBS? by Natasha Boyd for The Drift. A must-read for sure. One favorite quote from the piece below.
“The cultural rise of IBS also makes sense in the context of wellness and body positivity — it’s no longer kosher to insist that ‘nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.’ Women are supposed to love themselves too much for that. Instead they have to declare that they shit their pants if they eat gluten or dairy, so that abstention from those foods is seen as an act of self-care, and not disordered eating. Instead of choosing not to eat, people with IBS just can’t.”
The Beauty Brands Backing Abortion Bans by Jessica DeFino via her newsletter The Unpublishable. Surprise! Your favorite beauty companies and mega-retailers (Amazon… Walmart…) are supporting anti-abortion legislators.
Here we go again, and again, and again by Rayne Fisher-Quann for her newsletter internet princess. It uses the Adam Levine drama to talk about the ritualistic public shaming women face for cultural sport. A favorite quote below.
“In this way, moral impurity is forced onto women by virtue of our existence. This is why we must learn to resist the spectacle of public shaming and mass misogynistic humiliation regardless of whether its victims are morally pure or not. Feminist principles that are subject to change based on whether or not individual women can be proven to be objectively and ontologically good are not principles at all — they’re fashion accessories, as flimsy and permeable as tissue paper.”
How Catholicism became alt-fashion's saviour by Biz Sherbert for i-D. It’s an interesting take on what they call the “cool-girl-gone-quasi-Catholic” aesthetic and why it’s become increasingly popular.
Finally, I have some print work out in the latest Mission Magazine (Issue 8). It’s an indie mag so it’s a bit harder to find if you’re not NY or London-based, but here’s a list of where they sell it. You can also download a digital version of the magazine.
That’s all I have for you today, folks. I’m going to enjoy the rest of this rainy day. See you Friday.