At night, when the house was quiet I’d use my plastic, neon orange torch to give myself enough light to watch as the glossy, fuchsia pigment ran over my lips. It didn’t make me feel pretty by any means, but it made me feel like everything I did from that moment forth would be poised and polished. Womanly and mature. Just like the lipstick was.

My mother never found the lipstick either, it was kept in a tiny drawer in my desk which no one ever went through that ended up holding years worth of junk that I’d only end up cleaning out when we moved to Australia.

The lipstick was, to me, a token of womanhood that I’d someday inherit. And maybe then, it would feel pretty, like it was supposed to.

I think this belief came largely from watching my mother. Her vanity was covered edge to edge in eyeshadow, all kind of lip products and perfume. Yet, they’d just sit there, collecting dust more often than not. Mothers at school pickup would come with eyeliner and a lip done. Mine would come in leggings with her hair in a bun. My mothers confidence is perhaps the one trait I’ve always found enviable in a person. I tell myself that it is impossible to actually stop caring what people think about you, but I doubt those beliefs in their entirety when I see her. Its not like my mum didn’t have the means to come decked out in makeup and her best dress to those pick-ups, she simply decided it was too much effort for too little time.

When she’d go out with my father I’d prop myself up on the little collapsable stool that sat under her vanity and did my makeup— of course I never blended anything properly, used shades that looked horrible on me and applied far too much of all the products.

And while I didn’t understand those were the makeup made me appear so horrible at the time, I lead myself to the understanding that I’d never be a woman without the ability to beautify myself with the products made to do just that.

What good is a woman if she has not the means to be womanly?

I was twelve the first time my mother let me start wearing makeup. She got me a palette with blush, contour and highlighter, some brushes and lipgloss. Ironically, Nani was staying with us at the time and yelled at my mother for letting me use products so young. My mum paid her no mind, as per usual.

I don’t think the makeup even did anything to my face looking back on it. Except, maybe for adding some glow with the highlighter.

Either way, in my last couple months living in India I felt extra grown-up. You know the feeling when you’re on the cusp of something? You gain a freedom so irrevocable you feel untouchable. And every action, every word, every breath you take is engrained in your mind. That is exactly how I felt in those last few months, in addition to being on the cusp of a move to a whole new country, I was also on the cusp of womanhood.

My makeup skills went from bad to worse in Australia. I blame this largely on the fact that no one ever taught me how to be a girl. My parents were always hell bent on letting me discover myself and keep their worldly beliefs completely separate to mine. However, the downside of this was that I didn’t fit in anywhere. Most kids had their parents to go to and rely on for questions about the world. It sounds extremely privileged— and it is, but my parents forcing me to think left me with more questions than answers. No one ever gave me the rulebook on how to be a girl correctly, I often wonder when exactly all the other girls got it and I missed out.

The very first purchase I ever made was concealer and eyeliner. I didn’t know how to apply eyeliner at all so it would smudge often and the concealer just looked grey and didn’t really conceal anything, actually.

When I started middle school in Australia I didn’t do makeup. We weren’t allowed any in India and I saw no relevance between how my face looked and my learning. In eight grade i decided to wear my skirt higher and do lip and eye makeup. Smudged, badly applied eyeliner and lip tint in a shade that looked horrible on me. The very first time was on my thirteenth birthday. Many of my male friends asked me what I’d done to my face.

“It’s my makeup, cause it’s my birthday!”

They didn’t seem all that convinced. But what do they know?” I told myself. Turns out, more than I thought.

The one occurrence turned into an everyday thing. I’d put on thick layers of eyeliner and my lip tint and head to school. Eventually my friends accepted my bad makeup as a regular occurrence, and no one commented on anything.

I didn’t feel pretty yet, but I didn’t feel ugly either. Maybe this was womanhood.

At the end of the first semester I was at the lowest point I’d ever been at. I won’t go into the details to focus on the point of this post but everything that once was, suddenly no longer mattered or existed to me in any sort of meaningful way.

I was getting less than three hours of sleep a night, eating pure junk and constantly screaming and fighting just to get a reaction out of people.

Amidst all my problems, I’d lost touch with routine. I no longer did my makeup. I went to school bare faced, not even moisturiser.

I never realised it at the time, but by then most of the girls in our grade were also wearing makeup to school everyday. So suddenly I was the odd one out again. It wasn’t that I suddenly grew an aversion to makeup, I just didn’t have the fucks to give.

I’d often get “you look really tired” comments. And while it was true, and I was extremely sleep deprived, the comments ended up being largely about how my skin looked dull or that my lips weren’t very bright.

People were most critical of my appearance when I was suicidal. And the best part is I didn’t care. Not one single fuck. I never achieved the whole confidence thing till my life was teetering on the edge of a tightrope.

I gained a new confidence, albeit with negative effects. I struggled that year, and then it got better. I wish I could tell you I knew how, and I wish I could tell you it’ll get better for you soon too. But the truth is life is in fact just as the poets describe. It comes in waves, and in waves it will go.

I started wearing makeup again at the end of the year, it was still an extremely poor attempt at doing myself up and I gained no confidence from it.

At the start of ninth grade I learnt how to do makeup. I ditched the eyeliner for a bit, did just mascara and gloss. It looked good on me.

For the first time since I’d moved, boys began to look at me as more than a friend. I can recount the first time I went to my ex-boyfriend’s house in full detail to you, it’s a memory that will stay forever. I went home that evening and looked in the mirror and didn’t question my beauty for once. I took the mascara off and still saw beauty.

For a while, I thought that being loved was what makes you love yourself. So then why, that I’m single and sitting completely barefaced on my floor right now, can I look in the mirror and not feel the need to conceal my under eyes or over line my lips?

I think it’s because I realised that while maybe people see your beauty most when you’re trying to show it to them, being able to become apathetic towards your appearance is amongst the most freeing things I’ve ever experienced.

I can sit here and tell the middle school girl who may or may not be reading this that you have to fix your mindset, and that she is so incredibly beautiful and people admire her. But I know those words meant nothing to me when I was younger and insecure.

We crave acceptance because it is the only thing that makes us feel secure. I killed the version of me whose eyes were constantly black with eyeliner and lips were over pigmented because I didn’t care enough about myself to want acceptance.

No one cared that I was fighting for my life everyday, they only cared that my lack of concealer made me look “dead”

People treated me differently because we as women have taught ourselves that makeup is for “us”. Then let me ask you, why can’t you leave your house without it? I know so many of my girlfriends panic when I tell them their mascaras rubbed off, that their lipgloss has faded. Because at the end of the day the same patriarchal values that dictate women who don’t do their hair and makeup are “unkempt” are the same ones that control most teenage girls today under the guise of self care and “doing it for themselves”

I leave the house without makeup all the time now. I’m not saying it’s this radical act, but it makes no difference to me. Sometimes I still get told I look dead or really tired. But I’d rather be happy with no makeup than miserable with layers of it. When I look in the mirror now, barefaced, I see the womanhood I was waiting for.

When the pandemic hit, everything got worse for me. I understand now I was in fact, just an annoying and awkward eight-year-old but to me, the constant critiques I would get from teachers about “being a smart aleck” crushed my spirit slightly. My parents would tell me to not correct teachers, not to ask questions. Because adults didn’t like being corrected, especially not by a kid.

When school started up again, the only people I knew in my class were two boys. They were extremely kind and intelligent boys who meant well in their actions. Those two boys, naturally, gravitated towards being friends with other boys. Ten-year-old me wanted to tag along— and they let me. Why wouldn’t they? To them, they didn’t really see me as a girl anyhow. This was fine by me since I didn’t really see them as boys either. I don’t tend to factor in a person’s gender when I befriend them. I was taught that a true friend is one that holds you to no expectations, and there were certainly no expectations these boys held of me.

I cut my hair off at the age of six after a girl in my class lied about donating her hair for cancer patients. I, however, did donate my hair to cancer patients. My hair went down to my hips and when I cut it off, it was reduced to a bob. A hairstyle I kept till two years ago (even though it looked horrific).

Aside from my rugged appearance, I had played football from a young age and inherited my dad’s love of Marvel and Star Wars. I fit in perfectly with that group of boys. I didn’t see myself as a girl trying to pose as a boy or wanting the attention of boys. I just saw myself as adapting to the world around me.

So in fifth grade when the “pick-me” labelling started it did affect me more than I would’ve liked. The worst part however was being slut-shamed by a teacher.

Now, I don’t know what this woman’s problem was but she was one of those teachers who just hated kids. She would regularly tell me to seek out more female friends, scream at me till I was crying, ask me which boys attention I wanted and perhaps the worst of all— after a football match she once told me my football shorts were too short (they weren’t my jersey just covered them because I had to bend down for the team photo). Asked me if I knew what type of woman I looked like and left me sobbing for the rest of the day.

She never apologised for her actions but you know who did? My friends. My all male friend group of fellow ten year olds comforted me afterward and reminded me she didn’t play the sport. She didn’t know football shorts have to be above the knee in case you get tackled and they get pulled down.

My situation didn’t improve all that much in middle school. I was used to the boys antics and it stopped fazing me. Their parents were either fascinated or annoyed by me and I didn’t really care which one.

But suddenly I was around a group of far more mature people. But for every mature senior I’d talk to there’d be one that was even meaner to me.

The incident I still think of was this one time I was sitting in the cafeteria with my friends and this girl who was in 10th grade came up to me with her friend.

She said hey and then immediately launched into how she thought me hanging out with guys was so cool and that I “wasn’t like other girls!” I rolled my eyes at her. Middle school me was in fact fearless. I asked her if she didn’t have anything better to do.

I knew that girls boyfriend. I was often in charge of MC’ing events for school because teachers marked me off as a good speaker. He was in my school house and seemed like an alright guy. I never told him about the incident with his girlfriend even though I could’ve. I thought it was unnecessary and petty— in fact I never told anyone.

The biggest betrayal was hearing what other girls would say about me. It’s not like I never wanted female friends. I still often cry myself to sleep asking “why, why, why?”

I find that girls in my grade often have preconceived notions about me. Every so often a girl will talk to me and realise people are wrong in their assumptions about me (most of them at least). I love being friends with girls. The conversations you have with other women stay with you long after they’re out of your life. In fact, I think I find it easier to befriend men because their words don’t impact me in the same way those a woman’s do.

I’ve been called a slut, a bitch and an attention-whore all before the age of ten by men. None of those words have affected me as much as the word “pick-me” out of a woman’s mouths

Once in elementary school we were on a four night trip. I was in a room with some other girls who i considered friends but apparently they didn’t feel so amicably about me. So much so they passed a very lengthy note about how much they despised me about while I sat right next to them. I cried myself to sleep that night when another girl told me. I was only nine.

I saw myself in characters like Jo March. I felt my gender was a confine which I could never truly break out of. I didn’t want to be a boy per se, I just wanted people to accept my version of femininity. The kind that didn’t necessarily come with a pink bow.

I didn’t hate the colour pink, I didn’t hate the idea of painting my nails or wearing my hair out long. I just didn’t want that for me.

I never understood why girls would get so upset when their mothers would make them get a haircut to trim off an inch of their hair. I never understood the emotional attachment to the length of your hair or nails. But I also didn’t understand why that made me less of a girl.

The pick me labels don’t phase me anymore. And why should they? They come from people who don’t know me, who don’t want to know me. My whole life I have been slapped with labels and it’s taken a while to realise those labels are null and void when they come out of the mouths of people who are comfortable in the same confines that I hate.

So to the little girl who loves wearing black nail polish, wearing her hair short and likes superhero movies— your femininity is not encapsulated by your appearance and personality. It’s amongst the best gifts on the planet to be a woman. I could never ask for a life different to this one, and if that means being a pick me, so be it.

The Devil Wears Prada is based off an intern’s time serving as the assistant to Anna Wintour at Vogue. “Runway” is Vogue.

Then came the slap in the face that was this year’s September issue of Vogue. Kaia Gerber and Homer Gere shot by Steven Meisel. Yeah sure, it’s classic to have Meisel shoot but when you open the actual story, it’s just the two of them talking about their nepotism from cover to cover.

For those of you who are not big into fashion, Steven Meisel is a photographer who’s been around since the 90s’ capturing classic photos that remain timeless but not pretentious in their humane and playful nature.

And also for those of you who are not big into fashion, the September issue of Vogue is the issue of the year. This is mainly because the new fall season marks a sort of reset which rolls out what the year’s biggest hits are going to be.

The rollout was disappointing and underwhelming but it got me reminiscing on the significance print press like newspapers and magazines had on my own childhood. Growing up in the early 2010s’, my favourite Disney classics were on DVD and you could buy the paper with your cigarettes at a thela (Indian roadside store) for not more than 30 rupees.

Papers that were delivered to my house often were The Hindustan Times, Times of India, and The Indian Express. My dad would sit every morning and read the financials, sports and politics sections and once every few weeks a man would come by to take the papers for recycling.

At my grandmothers house the paper was delivered in Marathi, and downstairs at my Great-Aunt and Aunt’s house, Time magazine would always be somewhere waiting for toddler-me to gape at in awe of the colours on the glossy pages.

I then considered when exactly the gift that is physical press seemed to disappear from my life and the solid answer that I found was, you guessed it, Covid.

Covid made everything vulnerable. I stopped waking up to find the paper outside because God knows what could have carried the virus.

And after everything calmed down around 2023, the world just seemed to not pick up where we left off. Online articles were easier to access, and the rollout of AI made information seem endless.

I miss zine’s even more though. How often have you watched an old movie or tv show and theres a teenage girl who’s always getting yelled at by their teachers for always having their nose in a magazine?

I often looked at those girls with their brushed out blowouts, bubblegum and colourful nails and associated magazines with their coolness. I imagined the brand of people who’d flip through those vibrant, glazed over pages as independent women and men with access to all the glamorous fashions they were reading about right in their very own closets. An Elle Woods sort of situation.

Newspapers sustained the nations economists, but magazines sustained its dreamers.

Even though as a child I often didn’t understand the content I was reading in the paper, when I first saw a digital version around halfway through Covid, something felt different to me. The words didn’t hit you with the same mouth-dropping, eyebrow-raising factor that they did when you’d hold the physical paper in your hands.

Sure, you can download a digital copy of a paper, but it doesn’t read the same. More often than not we don’t even check the news unless something truly groundbreaking is happening (RIP Dolly Parton, I wish it was Trump instead). You don’t get to experience the format of a newspaper anymore. The days stories all compacted into one in their sections that can be easily dived up depending on your interest.

I think the only time I actually even see a newspaper is at a café near my house which stocks a copy of The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Daily Telegraph. And I find that when I do read them, the articles don’t carry the same heaviness they did in the 2010s’. Almost like the people writing them know that only a small percent of the population still bothers. Like the publishing and journalism industries know that people are far more bothered to read Gemini AI summaries on Google rather than even clicking on links to a website anymore.

While this article may largely be me feeling nostalgic, I do seriously think the rise of anti intellectualism links to this. People accept anything AI tells them without bothering to fact check and when I asked my friends if they could name three newspaper publications most of them came up blank.

Statistics, opinions and true reporting doesn’t matter to the majority of people, even though the truth is all those things are in fact the backbone of our modern society.

The feeling of writing out a crossword isn’t the same as doing it on the NYT games page. And while this most likely won’t convince any of you to get a physical paper subscription, I believe there’s a certain joy in having your hands slightly inky after you’re done flipping through the pages for the day, knowing that when all else fails the paper will be at your door the next day at 6:00.

The very first time this sentence was used as feedback for me at a parent-teacher conference I was in the third grade. Eight-years-old for those of you wondering.

I was the talkative, loud, opinionated child. Adults could never really fault me because technically I wasn’t doing anything wrong.

At least, I looked bloody brilliant when compared to the rest of my classmates who were trying to hit the lights on the ceiling of our classroom with their shoes.

No, I was just extremely sure of myself and not very shy when it came to letting people know exactly where they went wrong. My teachers didn’t enjoy this very much, and I can probably write a whole separate article on how being systematically slut-shamed by a teacher at my fragile age of ten affected me. But the journal factory hasn’t exploded, so for now, just this.

I can largely attribute my plethora of thoughts I yammered about to the fact I was always a reader. My first Shakespeare was at six (abridged albeit). First Brontë at ten, and Kafka at twelve.

I recall in fact, that in fourth grade, we had a test in which we had to write about a childhood story our parents read to us. I wrote about A Midsummers Night Dream, (I was nine at the time I’ll have you know) mostly because my mother never read me books after a point. My reading was done largely in solitude.

I wasn’t just above my reading grade though. In India where the average height for a fully grown woman is 5’2, I was quickly approaching that height while still in elementary school.

There are other things I can say in regards to the matter of me not looking my age— at least not in India but I’ve always found it curious that these comments seemed to come largely from men, hence I won’t be talking about how my very young body was akin to that of a woman because, well, it wasn’t.

I haven’t gotten any “you don’t look your age” comments since I immigrated to Australia, at least not from Australians. But one desi uncle asked me what college I attended (I was twelve).

The inspiration for this article seemed to hit me at work the other day. I work a volunteer job occasionally and its a largely family run joint. My manager’s mum was working and I’d never met her previously. After we started talking, along with two other women we work with, she mentioned my manager was my same age when he started working. I mentioned this and there was immediate uproar. They all thought I looked to be 17-18.

The same shift, I kept getting told I was extremely responsible for my age. It got me thinking how being constantly reminded of my physical, intellectual, and sometimes emotional leg up over the rest of my peers affected my perception of me.

If you asked me maybe two years ago I would tell you how much I secretly loved it. If you asked me now I’d smile politely and giggle and think about how if I have to hear another man tell me how mature I am I might throw my future away at the chance of being average.

I never really got how I was “mature” to begin with. Is maturity just civility repackaged as superior intelligence?

I’ve always been a worrier. Even though I’m told I don’t have anything to worry about, I like to stress I think. Stressing means you care, means you’re trying. Pushing myself to the point of collapse every time an exam date draws closer is what makes me sure that I’m worthy of the grade I’m getting. Could I not study and get the same results? Absolutely. Will I let myself believe I deserved that A*? No.

My grades have always been a sort of balance in my life. They were a constant reminder that if all else failed, I’d still have my brains. I’d still be able to talk about Shakespeare’s use of blood as a metaphor for guilt and the Franco-Prussian War, even if I was getting less than 3 hours of sleep every night.

Realising my grades wasn’t the only thing that was going to get me to the one place that mattered: uni— was a slap in the face. A very, very hard one that has left swelling that is yet to go down.

I’m still scrambling to get over my anxiety and try to get further involved with school, and volunteer, and join clubs. But I often wonder if I’d be more put together if the people around me weren’t constantly reminding me how much better I was than people my age. And I’d like to say, I don’t take pleasure in it now.

You know how awful it is to watch someones parents talk about how witty you come across knowing damn well their kid is going to get a “Why can’t you be like her!” speech because of you?

Somedays I worry that my dreams are not my own. I’m really good at chemistry for whatever reason. Could I have pursued STEM if I wasn’t being constantly told by everyone that writing is my God given gift? Theres still time to find out the answer to this. It’s not a one way street, but it feels like an obligation. Do I like science as much as I like the written word? No. But is that an opinion of my own making? Maybe I’ll never know.

The people in my life have an awful lot of expectations for me. For where they see me in five years.

Fémis studying screenwriting. CalArts or NYU. An internship in Paris at a media company. Travelling around Asia. These all seem highly aspirational but trust me, with the conviction people say it with, they can make it happen. That’s another thing. Did picking a field of study so closely related to what my parents do revoke my own right to get to places myself? I can work for things but I always have the safety of knowing that all the things I mentioned can be made possible for me.

In fact, is my so called maturity just a direct result of feeling like I need to be ahead of the curve. After all these years of loud opinions, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and my “God given talent.” What a disappointment it would be to go out in the world and discover I’m just mediocre.

I’d never felt so represented as I have when I read Jo March’s story. I often wondered if Jo and I would be friends, if the people in school would stick her with the same labels they’d stuck me with. Loud, boyish, a pick me. To me those adjectives never appeared to contain the defaming effect the people around me pre convinced that they did. And on Jo, they bounced off like light on a shining surface.

I began to wonder how labels really affected me. Especially considering the juvenile age I was when they were first introduced as the recurring judge of character people generally had about me.

I don’t think women realise what they’re doing when they stick the “pick me” label on other girls. Femininity doesn’t come packaged in a pink bow. It doesn’t proclaim itself within the lyrics of a Taylor Swift song, and it doesn’t reflect in the makeup on your skin. Believing a girls femininity is defined by the stereotypically “girly” affairs one participates in is misogynistic in and of itself.

I recall a close friend talking to me about their struggle to embrace traditional femininity during their early childhood and how they were often shunned and labelled with the same names I was often referred to. Turns out, they aren’t a woman at all. It really strikes me how young girls are condemned to such criticism of character based on their interests or dressing choices and even if they have male friends or not. And even more so how they get it in their heads that other young girls should be held to that same critical standard that is in fact just another patriarchal tool. You want a word to slap against women who crave male attention? We already have the term narcissistic. The fact of the matter is the words slut should never be used to describe an eight year old girl with predominantly male friends.

I found solace in Little Women and I’ve found that every time I re-read or rewatch I see a bit more, or concur a bit more with the behaviours and personalities of the girls. I remember finding Amy insufferable the very first time I engrossed myself in the world of the March Sisters.

Now I realise I am her.

I resonated with Jo not solely due to our shared defiance against society’s expectations for women of both our times, but because of her undying loyalty and commitment to a cause.

To me, Jo didn’t care for material possessions or typical elements that surround the idea of a woman’s beauty. I found them admirable traits.

I learnt one of my first lessons in life from Jo March. Never to settle.

I realise now that a large portion of Jo’s actions through the flashback sequences of the novel are not independent choices but the ones she felt obligated to make for the better good of her sisters and Laurie.

And no, I don’t believe she was ever truly in love with him. Not in the way Laurie used to love her.

Perhaps Jo March would’ve had a personality a far cry from the one Alcott gave her if she was born in modern society, although, I doubt it. Jo March was the abolitionist of the family. The loudest voice in a room full of those who had not the strength to carry their own.

I often see people online using Jo’s monologue about women out of context. They always use the part where she says she’s “so lonely” as an incentive. A sort of “this is what’ll happen if you pick your career over marriage”. As if they’re not both independent events that can exist on their own.

Jo might’ve not been the fairest or most just of all the March Sisters. But I will hold the belief that she was the most undying in everything she did.

I imagine she’d participate in the suffrage movement later on and if she was alive today would petition for reproductive health care. Jo was, to me, the very idea and encapsulation of feminism.

I fail to see people mention how all the girls are in fact feminists. Jo just tends to be more vocal than others.

It took me the longest to understand this about Amy.

I often thought Amy was a traditionalist. Aunt March’s favourite, married rich, and had a child.

I find the book explores far better about Amy’s intense desire to become a great artist. She contained the same, if not more, talent that Jo held in her pen and Beth in her music.

Amy was the lonely child. Overlooked and underestimated. I’ve seen people say she was spoiled. But she was living under the same household as the rest of the girls till Beth got Scarlett fever. No, Amy just craved a life of riches far more than the rest of the girls. And I don’t think she should be held in contempt for that.

After all, isn’t everything we do for ourselves in some way?

Amy’s monologue revealed something to me. That at the end of the day, her own survival came first. And there is no shame in that.

We so often shame women for not doing the most for the people around them. Amy choosing herself was an act of feminism that was incredibly bold. And I think only she knew it.

Amy grew up around struggle and didn’t want that same life if she could avoid it.

“I’ve always known I would marry rich.” She said.

If the March sisters were in the same economic struggle as they were back then I believe they’d be living paycheque to paycheque.

You may argue that marrying rich isn’t a solution. That education should be one’s highest priority as a woman. And I’d wholeheartedly agree. But the girls didn’t have access to good education. Jo taught Beth at home and later, Amy as well.

Amy March knew what she needed to do to survive, and that’s okay.

I learnt from Jo never to settle. And I learnt from Amy that sometimes settling can be in your best interest.

Someone I’m still trying to figure out is Meg. Meg is the typical girly girl.

Kind, considerate, a “lover girl”.

I was always somewhat envious of Meg. She was pretty, loved by everyone, found her true love. I no longer feel the same envy for her I did at the age of ten, I’m more curious than anything now

The line that really got me was on the day of Meg’s wedding, when Jo’s helping her get ready. Jo begs Meg to not go through with the wedding, to Jo independence means complete solitude.

That line both amazes and confuses me. Meg talks about wanting to get married to John (who is a good man I will say) and start a family.

The thing is, that never comes at the sacrifice of a job. Whether that’s by choice or by necessity.

Meg continues to work as a school teacher. A passion all the girls shared was making sure that women had access to a good education. A thought beyond its time.

I don’t have as much to say about Meg as I do the rest of the girls.

I suppose I’m still finding out how I resonate with her. I have to be able to resonate with something to write about it.

I relate to her desire to be loved. To have stability. But unfortunately I don’t believe that’s an option for me, or most women if I’m being frank.

I think Meg would be a choice feminist of sorts today.

I can probably write a separate article on that matter.

And finally, the most under appreciated and understated: Beth March.

Beth’s life was short, criminally and cruelly so but I believe she would have no regrets.

You might wonder how I can consider her an advocate for anything give how little time she had in comparison to the other sisters.

But she is! My evidence boils down to one particular event. The very reason Beth’s life was taken in the first place.

Marmee goes to visit the girls Dad after finding out he’s ill and leaves the responsibility of caring for the impoverished Hummel family with the girls. Leaving it to them to take care of their food, medicine and warmth.

While the girls make a promise to honour their mothers wishes, only Beth actually sees to the families necessities.

This told me one thing: Beth was far stronger than the rest of them.

Quiet, reserved, humble Beth. It’s a cliché but Beth knew her actions spoke far louder than her words.

Doing the job no one else wants to do. Isn’t that the life of all women?

And she never once complained. She never stopped showing up for that family and she never incentivised the rest of her sisters to go with her. An act of extraordinary strength and perseverance the rest of them lacked in my opinion.

Little Women is and always will be my classic of choice. I believe it beats the Russians out by tenfold. I don’t need Gogol when I have the March Sisters. Little Women has always been more than a coming of age story to me— rather a story of the incredible power women hold in their actions. I think it’s a novel every young girl needs to read, and re-read as their lives progress. You’ll find lessons that will stay with you for life.

I’m not attempting to appeal to the ‘sad girl’ stereotype that seems to accompany most struggling teen girls who are just trying to find comfort in the world around them. But what I most loved about Coppola’s movies was exactly that. The way they made it feel like the melancholy and devastation that seems to accompany most girls in their teenage years was not a sole experience. I looked at Lux Lisbon and thought “I understand you”

Incels all over the internet will tell you otherwise. But never has Copolla said she makes movies to appeal to a male audience, and ironically the movie of hers that guys seem to really enjoy—Lost In Translation, I found to be an appalling accessorisation of Japanese culture (no wonder they like it so much)

So, Marie Antoinette, you’re probably familiar with the last queen of France. The woman who would fuel the fire of the French Revolution and end up being beheaded by the same revolutionaries.

I would like you to put aside all previous knowledge you have on the topic of The French Revolution and Marie Antoinette because this article is not intended to be a history lesson and it is not in defence of the real Marie Antoinette, but rather the girl Sofia Coppola made a movie on in 2006.

_{via The Sofia Coppola Archive}

The film took Coppola and Dunst to Cannes, initially Coppola recount’s being excited about the movie being showed in Palais.

“We were so proud going in there” She told W Magazine in a recent interview.

The movie was famously booed at Cannes and its often written off as a flop.

But I often think the movie wasn’t taken seriously due to a lack of understanding from the audience themselves. Critics at the time said that the modern pop music mixed with the vibrant pastels of the movie was the reason it was met with an unsavoury reaction.

The thing is though, Coppola was never trying to make a biography. She was encapsulating an experience that has otherwise been neglected by most of the textbooks we have surrounding this period of history.

The soundtrack which entailed The Cure, Siouxsie and The Banshees and my personal favourite, The Strokes was meant to bridge the gap between the 18th century and the early 2000s to create a relatable image to the audience it was targeted at, which I believe was not the pretentious nitwits at Cannes.

The movie is not about the woman who brought the French economy to a collapse but about the fourteen year old Austrian girl who was forced to marry a man she didn’t know and live in a home that was not hers.

I’m sure at some point this year you’ve seen Olivia Rodrigo’s music video Drop Dead shot at the Palace of Versailles by Petra Collins, another creative genius. In the video Rodrigo runs through Versailles expansive halls, freely and leisurely. And even though they were shot in the exact same location, Coppola’s cinematography has the opposite effect of Collins’s.

The extreme closeup shots are made to make the viewer feel detached and suffocated. The money Antoinette spent on cakes, clothing and lavish hairstyles was spent out of boredom. A need for material possessions to make up for the lack of human connection due to her husband not wanting to touch her for years into their marriage.

_{via Marie Antoinette (2006)}

The film features consistent shots of Marie being almost entrapped by her loneliness even in a room full of people that are supposed to be her court and new family.

Coppola said that Versailles was meant to feel like a school hallway. Where you’re constantly surrounded by endless scrutiny and an evident lack of a safe space or person.

The audience sees Marie’s youthful optimism shift to dread as the movie progresses when she begins to realise the true face that lies behind the lavish life she was promised upon her marriage to Louis XVI.

I find it extremely hypocritical critics main argument seemed to be that Coppola shouldn’t have been romanticising a woman so deceitful. As if Cannes was not the same playground that housed and protected men like Harvey Weinstein and Woody Allen.

Versailles existed before Antoinette. She was not the sole responsibility in the downfall of the French economy and her peers knew that but instead of blaming the fact that the king inherited a budget deficit from his father and his advisees allowed it to sink into the ground, they found it more convenient to blame the woman.

I’d like to repeat that this is in no way a defence of Marie Antoinette. But the same tabloids and reviewers that uplift the film industries most evil men are the same ones that critique a movie because it’s, well, too girly for them.

If you haven’t watched this movie, I’d recommend it highly. Its definitely not Coppola and Dunst’s best project together but it does what it set out to do. It encapsulates the loneliness that often accompanies girls who are constantly surrounded by people but never truly fit in, and I think that’s beautiful.

So for my first article, I’m going to repeat my speech that I presented today in less hinged words.

Growing up in Mumbai, a city always bustling, noisy with the sound of bazaars and traffic, even as a child your senses are always overwhelmed with how bold all of it is. What always seemed to grab my attention as a kid was the clothes everyone was wearing. Some of my earliest childhood memories are sitting to get mehndi done for two hours at a time for a relative’s wedding, and watching my mother drape a Sari for a Diwali party. From early on I learnt that the clothes on peoples backs represent far more than just coverage. From the lengha, to jhumkas, to the lungi, South Asian fashion knows no creative bounds. The country with the world’s fifth largest economy has extreme influence over what the year’s defining trends are. So why are we so often being taken for granted? What happens when the clothing we’ve seen our parents, our neighbours, the lady at the bazaar, and even the dhobi wear are rebranded to us and pushed out in the spring collection?

I can trace this back to the fashion rental app Bipty put out a TikTokcalling what was clearly a lengha and dupatta (a traditional south asian dress and scarf) a “Scandinavian dress and scarf”.

Via Elle India

They were immediately met with backlash on the internet by the South Asian community but the issue died down before it began, as most “cancellations” on social media do.While this incident occurred early last year, this isn’t a first offence. Companies have been repackaging South Asian aesthetics under different names for years to be made easily digestible enough for westerners to pronounce. In fact, the very same fabric your school skirts were probably made of were not tartan, but madras cotton made in India. A fabric first introduced to the USA in the 60s’ under the guise of Scottish tartan checks.

Similarly, Ralph Lauren rebranded the Jhumka as “vintage chandelier earrings” and even the likes of Kendell Jenner and Gracie Abrams came to the red carpet wearing lenghas by designers like Dior and Chanel rebranded as “two piece embroidered tops”

One of my immediate thoughts was that this all stems from how having your own unique identity gets you labelled as performative. I made the assumption that people would rather fit into society’s perfectly crafted box rather than be unique. I suppose I also assumed this because it was better than the latter option— lack of morality. In Edward Said’s 1978 study “Orientalism” he speaks of the arrogance that seems to accompany acts of modern day colonialism: “The western consumer believes he is entitled either to own or to expend (or both) the majority of the world resources. Why? Because he, unlike the Oriental, is a true human being.”

This deep dive made me wonder how often people blindly believe what they see on social media. You can see it so very clearly if you look up something like current affairs, people on both ends commenting regurgitated info they found while on their nightly doomscroll without taking the two seconds to look it up online to check if it’s been verified by news outlets. So it doesn’t surprise me that people genuinely believe the kurti that I have fought my mother over wearing (“It itches, Ma!”) is some Scandinavian summer dress. The same social media that feeds us our information is the same one that makes this all so dangerous to minorities.

I’ll put it this way, in the past two years anti-south asian hate speech incidents have doubled online from 23,000 incidents to 46,000 according to the ABC. Another study by Stop AAPI Hate found that 60% of all racism online is directed towards South Asians. The issue speaks for itself. You cannot hold us in contempt while simultaneously choosing parts of our culture to accessorize.

To so many of us, our clothing, the clothing of our parents and our grandparents carries generations of stories we only know today in the fragments left for us to piece together. We as consumers hold the responsibility to appreciate, respect and commemorate what we choose to invest in. This issue doesn’t stop at just South Asians, it affects minorities on a whole. Cultures worth more than the 15 minutes of fame they get off videos on social media continue to go uncredited. The simplest thing we can do as responsible consumers is to maintain authenticity. If you really want to achieve the “Scandinavian” aesthetic, buy from South Asian owned brands, call your clothing what it actually is and most of all, wear it with dignity, both for yourself and the culture you’re wearing.

You can say I’m taking this out of proportion. That clothes are indeed, just covering. But to me, and to more than 2 billion people across the globe, South Asian fashion is more than a microtrend. The clothes we wear are representative of a struggle to reclaim the aspects of culture that have been repeatedly scrubbed by those who’ve arrived at our shores. To me, watching it go uncredited is truly heartbreaking. It’s not just about clothing, it's about a whole way of life that matters so much to so many, and I think it's important to honour that.