MAGAZINE

Personal narratives, a philosophical-feminist tie-in, and a surprise Marxist twist

Nowadays, it is considerably more difficult to avoid talking about food. Our food and nutrition standards and practices have become hot-button topics, thanks to debates on GMOs and the merits of organic versus non-organic food, trends like juice cleanses, and the rising obesity rate, which is a serious cause for concern. Spawning countless documentaries about the consumption and production of food, together with a variety ...

I still remember the exact moment I decided to call myself “Angela.” I was in Grade 3, and my teacher had just announced to the class that Stormy would like to be called “Anastasia” from now on. This was my chance. I raised my hand. “Um, I would like to ...

I was eight at Jewish summer camp when the girls in my cabin threw a waxing party. I opted out. Still, when I got home, I told my mom something would have to be done about my leg hair. Hair removal was happening, and it was happening now. My mother, ...

For a long time, I thought I had no one to help me learn how to be. As I tread deeper into “womanhood,” I feel less and less certain about how it is I should be, and more and more fearful of being how I should not be. I know ...

What is it about vaginal bleeding that makes everyone so horribly uncomfortable? Sure, it can be gross if you don’t like blood, but in the end it is still a biological process that roughly 50% of the population deals with. From advertisements of women frolicking in a meadow while supposedly ...

The summer before I moved to St. John’s, Newfoundland, was the summer I was a fiddle player in a folk band. I had plans to start at Memorial University’s School of Music in September for violin, something that both excited and terrified me. I was invited to join the band ...

There’s a complicated joy and loss attached to September that makes it such an interesting month of both promise and finitude. Here with some resignation, I’m compelled to acknowledge the relevance of Green Day and how Billie Joe Armstrong was onto something when he sang “Wake me up when September ...

This memory isn’t mine, and it never will be. But somehow I miss this city in my dreams, an image obtained through years of listening to my mother’s dinner-table performances for our immigrated family from her unusually detailed memory.

I haven’t left UofT yet, but I feel like I’ve already written an elegiac love letter in my head, a lamentation for the fading experiences that have formed me into the person I am.