Girls Like Us, Issue 14

Girls Like Us is an independent magazine turning the spotlight on an international expanding community of women from all genders, within arts, culture and activism. Through personal stories, essays and vanguard visuals Girls Like Us unfolds feminist legacies in arts and writing. Mixing politics with pleasure, the magazine is mapping new routes towards a feminist, post-gender future.

In this issue:

The feeling of disappointment is not only close to regret, sadness, and dissatisfaction – a feeling of loss, an uncomfortable space (or a painful gap) between expectations and reality – we also understand it as a rattling in the rusty machinery of a society whose fuel is extraction and oppression. Considered an ‘ugly feeling’ by society’s norm, we’re not supposed to vocalize what and who is letting us down. We’re supposed to stay positive, get organized and act, instead of lingering in negative emotions. We’re supposed to be productive. But making space for disappointment can be a strategy of dissensus. Instead of wallowing in impotence, to make explicit what is not meeting expectations for this world can be an act of renouncing and making cracks in the status quo, while not giving up allegiance that another world is possible.