The long and short of it is: no, obviously not! However, if you'd been reading the blog waiting for an emotional, lengthy essay on my political beliefs, some impassioned piece on electorate participation, you'd have sadly been disappointed.

This is probably for a few reasons. Firstly, I had so many conflicting thoughts on what was going on. I was outraged and confused as to what would happen and cheering on certain people who were doing well, and I felt as if I couldn't articulate these into a piece that would be understandable and wouldn't misrepresent myself or the policy that I would have chosen to comment on. It's not as if I became politically disengaged, on the contrary, in person I offered plenty of healthy debate, but I found it difficult for whatever reason to actually produce something.

Secondly, I feel that, especially in the format of a written opinion piece, it feels as if it's an extension of the currently-on-hiatus 'Amber Rants' series (only on a hiatus because I'm less bored and more zen and can't really find much to rant about). Sure, maybe it doesn't matter at the moment, as our blog is still growing, but I want to start as I mean to go on. I've been thinking of how I could perhaps make it seem less like I'm forcing my views on you, and more like a presentation of what I think in a more open and encouraging-of-discussion way, since I do debate and it just seems a little ironic for me to present a closed essay.

I don't care if people know my political views (I actually love Jeremy Corbyn so much), but I respect that our audience would not necessarily share my views, and I think it's hypocritical to stand for free speech, but only if they align with one's own views. This is a particular facet of entitlement that I often see and always hate, no matter how much I oppose the view.

Added to all of this, I have had exams and exam stress and exam revision and... yeah, you can get the picture. It seems as if I've been in a hamster wheel of constantly studying, then taking the exam I have been studying for, then studying for the next. Especially having been ill this year, I have definitely felt the pressure, and almost all the rest of my time has been given over to sleeping and watching mind-numbing programs to unwind. This is also why you might have seen our post amount drop a fair bit.

Sooooo, the overall thing is that I'm probably going to work on a different way of doing election commentary for the next time one rolls around (soon by all accounts) and feel free to leave a comment with some advice. I'm thinking maybe of taking the stance newspapers and magazines do of an endorsement, and then possibly posting various people's views.

What is an inspirational woman?
What is a strong woman?
How do these differ from strong and inspirational men?
What is a feminist?

Inspiration lies around us wherever we are in the world: in order to live a fulfilling life, I believe it is necessary to be inspired and watch others be inspired and thus inspiring.

We live in an age where inspiration and feminist and strength and all these other descriptors, when applied to women, take on a rather arbitrary meaning. Beyoncé and Rosa Parks and Emma Watson, Marie Curie, Kim Kardashian and Caitlin Moran, Christiane Amanpour, Amal Clooney, Emmeline Pankhurst and Malala Yousafzai. All described, by varying media sources, as all of these adjectives. I won't get into the convoluted back-and-forth of 'are they - aren't they' for some of these women, as I think it rather undermines the whole process, yet it is undeniable that without more of a clear cut idea, these words are lazily thrown around.

Celebrity culture is, therefore, partly to blame for the bastardisation of a word, that, even when applied to men, connotes a wholly less vacuous meaning. 'inspirational male celebrities' brings up Muhammad Ali, a sportsperson and Richard Branson, an entrepreneur, as opposed to 'inspirational female celebrities' which suggests that Guiliana Rancic from Fashion Police (who was racist about a red carpet look by Zendaya) and Taylor Swift (arguably one of the least feminist feminists around). Even these simple searches show that the parameters for the key words I highlighted are just different, based on gender.

For a woman to be strong, as has been said many times, she has to act more like the perpetuated view of an ideal man. Yet in practice when a women acts in this way (assertive, dominant, confident etc) she is labelled a bitch, bossy and that almost certainly she is on her period.

I disagree with this perception of what a strong woman looks like: it's another attempt to pigeon-hole women and shame them into one certain model. It's like when members of the feminist community dictate what a feminist is: no, that is equally harmful and oppressive as a patriarchal society telling the population what a man and a woman should look like. It isn't difficult to be strong, in fact you almost have to disprove yourself to become 'not strong': cowardice isn't borne through action, but rather inaction. Take myself: I am strong, in certain ways yes, yet am I inspirational? Most certainly not. Therefore there must be some difference.

In a roundabout way, I am trying to show that 'empowering' labels such as strong will never be empowering until they mean the same for all genders.

'Inspirational' is an easier word to define. Young people are naturally less likely to be inspirations, as they have done less in their shorter lifetimes, but surely if we take the idea that oppressed groups within society 'work' harder just to exist (i.e. each day been more of a struggle, due to prejudice, institutionalised discrimination etc) it is easy to see why when someone from an oppressed group within society does something amazing, they are lauded even more highly. Let's apply this model to women: a female, ethnic minority CEO is thus surely more inspirational than a white, male counterpart, as the struggle within society to reach that point is harder. It's like when you run on a treadmill, but there's someone next to you in the gym running on an incline: when they're doing equally well, this is a result of greater effort.

This is why the words 'inspirational woman' or 'strong woman' are used regularly and interchangeably. I think it's also important to remember that 'celebrity' and 'inspiration' are also not equivalents: an inspiration can be anyone, and you may be inspired by one tiny part of a person. I think that wanting women to be strong and recognised as strong can never be a bad thing, so long as those that aren't strong aren't looked down upon for not fitting this new female ideal.

Essentially the crux of this column piece has been the simple line of: 'you do you', and to try and separate out some of the messy descriptors given to women. For it is better to be strong and not to have lived a hugely inspiring life, than it is to be inspirational for celebrity or something like that, and weak.

Thanks must go to my friends for putting up with my political meme spam!

Klar and I thought that in typical fashion we'd review a whole year! 2016 has widely been regarded as a highly crappy year (something about Mercury in retrograde lmao??) and some of this review does reflect that, but we also have our favourite albums, memes and other lovely things!

Favourite meme

A: Joe Biden memes for sure. My friend Ana and I especially enjoyed them, but in a dark time of political turmoil, I love how the world reduces the current Vice President of the USA to the world's most passive aggressive man.
K: Kermit 'me to me'

Most annoying meme

A: Damn Daniel without a doubt
K: 'fucking damn Daniel'


The general consensus here was that it was an unfunny thing in the first place, which was then done TO DEATH but couldn't be made any funnier or create different jokes.

Favourite purchase of 2016:

Best artist we discovered:

Favourite song:

Favourite album:

A: The Ride by Catfish and the Bottlemen. CATB are one of my favourite bands (roll on Reading next year!!) and I wanted 7 as my favourite song, but so did Klar so I settled for the whole album which I adore. Contains the beautiful Soundcheck, Oxygen, and Emily which I put on a mixtape I've made for my friend Emily :)
K: I Like It When You Sleep For You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware Of It by The 1975- so beautiful, read our review of their live performance with the Philharmonic Orchestra here

Pre-debate Thoughts:

First Impressions:

Fact Checking: