Having bad acne made me realise that I don’t need perfect skin to be confident
by: Precious Mishombo - 3 April 2017
One minute, I would be crying. The next, a voice in my head would scold me, “What the fuck are you crying for? Snap out of It!” Then I’d wipe the tears off my cheeks, and sit up straight as if nothing had just happened. This would be after another encounter with yet another stranger giving me...
Read moreHuman Rights Day is a reminder that I may not carry a dompas but inde lendlela still
by: Athenkosi Guntu - 20 March 2017
“You have the right to Equality”, “You have the Right to Human Dignity”, “You have the Right To Education”. These are a few rights in our Bill Of Rights that I found myself thinking about this Human Rights Day. I thought back to the long road we, as a country, took to get here. How back...
Read moreFree the nipple
by: Guest Contributor - 15 March 2017
Kuthwa isizathu sokuba singanxibi iibhodi is because ziyadura, and asinamali, asizi afford-i. Ayisuba yichoice yethu. Kodwa enyinto endidikayo kuyo yonke lento is the fact that if you’ve got saggy boobs then you’re not allowed to, “apparently”– like?!? What is the meaning?? Oh also, they don’t want to see everything. VALA AMEHLO MNTA’ SEKHAYA, XA UNGAFUNI...
Read moreOn why I became an atheist at 12
by: Carlos Ncube - 8 March 2017
For a while I did not even know what an atheist was. I used to be a devoted Christian attending church with my uncle out of my own will. I loved the services for the music. But I would get headaches after church. Trying to find an explanation for the headaches, my family said I...
Read moreI nearly died doing missionary work in Afghanistan, and why I’ll probably do it again
by: Thembeka Makhubela - 28 February 2017
Two weeks into my missionary trip to Afghanistan, I stood with about 30 people in a burning church. A woman who had been teaching children in a back room came to our side of the church screaming that the church was on fire, and that we needed to get out quickly. At the time we...
Read moreColoured people have an obsession with not being black
by: Maxine Bezuidenhout - 17 February 2017
Identity politics in South Africa has always been a contentious issue. This is largely attributed to the history of oppression in this country. The Apartheid government intentionally separated “coloured” people from “black African” people. The legacy of this division is still alive in the fabric of our society despite black consciousness activists like Steve Biko...
Read moreWhat working in Braamfontein taught me about being comfortable in my own skin
by: Courtney Rehman - 5 December 2016
By the end of my first week, all the rules about what is acceptable at work had been broken. I’d already seen a guy at a coffee shop with purple hair, my male colleague was rocking high heels better than most women I know and another girl at the office had her arm covered up in...
Read moreI don’t need to speak an African language to be African
by: Geraldine Amoko - 2 December 2016
Not speaking an African language made me feel alienated from my family and friends. I was born and raised in South Africa to Ugandan parents. Whether I was in South Africa or visiting relatives in Uganda, not speaking an indigenous language made me feel like I didn’t have a passport into my culture as an...
Read moreBeing retrenched at 23 with a journalism qualification was a wake up call to up my game
by: Lebohang Morake - 29 November 2016
I was 23 years old and at the start of my career when I got retrenched because the first company I ever worked for went bankrupt. Just this week I heard that another magazine, Grazia, also published its last issue. All this got me thinking, am I working for a dying industry? My big wake...
Read moreI couldn’t participate in #FeesMustFall protests because of my anxiety
by: Nkhensani Manabe - 22 November 2016
Last year in UCT, and this year at Wits, I found myself on the outside of both the Rhodes Must Fall and the Fees Must Fall movements. As a humanities student, I saw the protests as a tangible manifestation of the theories we grappled with in class. Yet I chose not to attend mass meetings and...
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