We all know that catcalls of Hey, beautiful, can turn into Didn’t like you anyway, in a heartbeat, if we choose to ignore the attention from an entitled man; their opinions of us can turn on a knife-edge if we don’t give them what they want. Smile honey, it might never happen — it’s a coded threat that all women recognize for what it is. What we really hear is — act compliant and look pretty, or I’m gonna turn nasty.

We all exist in superposition like Schrodinger’s woman; simultaneously perceived as a goddess or garbage depending on our response…

I got dumped recently. It’s not something that has happened to me very often. And it made me realize that in the past I’ve sometimes thought of my single status as being between relationships rather than a valid option in its own right.

When you’re single you should relish it as a time for growth and not as a stagnant position of waiting until someone else comes along to be your other half. You are already whole on your own.

There are so many advantages to being single, at any age. If you’re still licking your wounds after a breakup…

Does it take you hours to make a simple decision? You might have FOBO. Fear of missing out has a more anxious sibling that could stop you going to social events — or choosing what to have for dinner. So what is behind the fear of better options and what can you do about it?

The Fear Of Better Options is a modern dilemma, and it’s a biggie. From making decisions about relationships, to college applications, new jobs, or choosing takeout coffees, multiple options can be overwhelming and cause the most decisive people to freeze and falter.

Science shows, the…

We all love to check our symptoms on the internet and go down the rabbit-hole of all the possible illnesses we might have. I’ve got a strange pimple- is it cancer? I coughed a couple times- is it coronavirus?

Google has been creating hypochondriacs since 1998.

I’m totally pro-vaccines, they save countless lives. We’ve eradicated smallpox on a global scale, to name but one killer disease. Many others are much less common thanks to vaccines.

But I’ve not been feeling so great about the AstraZeneca vaccine that my immune system is at war with right now. …

Trigger Warning: this article contains descriptions of sexual harassment and abuse that may not be suitable for all readers. Fearless community, please read with care.

Boys and young men are allowed and enabled to get away with harassment and abuse on a daily basis. Girls are sent home from school for wearing “provocative clothing” but what have we been doing to tackle the problem of the boys who are behaving inappropriately in schools? A big fat nothing.

Until now.

Britain’s elite schools are now at the centre of a major Whitehall investigation involving police chiefs and government officials over their…

When I sat down to write this morning, I was side-tracked by a question posed in a Facebook writers’ group asking what we would all be doing if we were not writers. I started thinking about my ambition to be a sign language interpreter and off I went on one of my non-writing tangents.

Half an hour later I realised I had learned 100 basic sign language gestures on YouTube instead of writing 100 words. Oops, I did it again.

But hey, here I am writing about it now.

Some of the most famous people of all time have been…

We’ve just celebrated International Women’s Day again, designated the 8th March, when women’s achievements are highlighted. It’s also a day that acts as a focal point in the movement for women’s rights.

To mark this day every year, Jess Phillips stands up in the British parliament debating chamber and reads out the names of all of the women killed by men in the UK over the previous year.

Year after year, the list gets longer.

“I read these names not only to continue to highlight how male violence can terrorise ordinary women’s lives but to pay tribute to them and…

It used to be a lonely existence for a writer. It still can be sometimes, but it doesn’t have to be that way.

It’s no longer necessary to be the stereotype of a struggling author, holed up in a draughty garret, working on a hefty manuscript long before the hope of any publication looms. Now anyone can publish their work simply by hitting a button on a screen.

“Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers”. — Isaac Asimov

Thanks to Medium and a multitude of writing platforms and online communities, whatever you choose to write about, you can…