I don’t think you can escape the notion of appearance; even if you try not to discuss it, it’s all around you. But in the environment I grew up in, with my mother and grandmother, it was about the beauty of internal life; your intellectual pursuits and your own evolution rather than beauty as this sort of destination – this island of unattainable perfection. I also went to a school where girls were encouraged to try everything. We never, for example, combined our school plays with boys’ schools because our principal was adamant that we’d end up playing the ‘girlfriend’ roles in frivolous musicals that had no good parts for women.
Living in Australia also meant I was growing up under a massive hole in the ozone layer, so one of…
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Red UK (Digital) - 1 Issue, October 2023