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Women have to plan there nights around how they will get home when they are alone compared to men who can walk anywhere alone with a low chance of confrontation.

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An explanation on levels of education based on races

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An explanation on levels of education based on races

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Women have always been judged based on their weight, and although many of us don't like to admit that we compare ourselves to others, many still do.

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Women try guessing each other’s weight | A social experiment

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As new abortion laws are coming into affect many women are taking a stand to make the decision for themselves for what to do with their bodies.

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In India over 45% of girls are married before the age of 18 crushing their futures and self esteem but with activists trying to help change is possible.

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In India, the country with the most child brides worldwide, an estimated 47 percent of girls are married before age 18, putting their physical, emotional and mental health at risk. Although it is illegal in India for girls under 18 and boys under 21 to marry, the tradition remains entrenched.

For a long time now, ChildFund has been working in partnership with three partner organizations in the state of Madhya Pradesh, which has one of the highest rates of child marriage in India, to sensitize tribal communities and help children gain the self-respect, self-esteem and confidence they need to help them stand against early marriage.

Village monitoring committees have been formed, made up of community elders and youth club members. These committees act as watchdogs in the community to prevent early marriages. And to intensify the ongoing movement, ChildFund India recently launched Anmol Jeevan, an awareness campaign that went on for 100 days in 75 villages of the project area. The campaign drew together support from the community, especially the village leaders and parents.

At the inaugural event of the campaign, youth members who had been active in the fight against child marriage were recognized before local government officials and thousands of community members who were there to support the cause.

One of the youth members recognized at the event was 17-year-old Sonam, who received an award for addressing the issue of early marriage actively and also for standing up against her own marriage. "ChildFund has changed my life - it came as a ray of hope and has given me courage to dream about my future," she said while accepting the award.

When her parents insisted that she get married, she protested, and together with her youth club members who had taken an oath to become role models for others by not becoming the victims of early marriage, she spoke with her parents. Sonam shared that she did not want to get married before reaching the legal age of marriage and also wanted to study longer to achieve her dreams. After a lot of persuasion, Sonam's parents were convinced. With their support, she is now preparing for exams, with plans to become an engineer and help her village.

Sonam has been involved with ChildFund India since the beginning of the project, for more than six years. She has actively participated in several of ChildFund's programs, inlcuding awareness camps and meetings on early marriage. She also encourages mothers to get their children immunized and provide nutritious food. She also has been actively promoting literacy in her village by doing door-to-door counseling, visiting schools and getting children of her village enrolled in the local schools. With Sonam's and her youth club members' persistent efforts, more than 62 community members have learned to read - out of the 142 illiterate village members they had identified.

"If convinced properly," says Sonam, "parents will support their daughters' wishes to study instead of getting them married at an early age."

And when they do, those girls will be able to make enormous contributions within their own communities - just as Sonam has.

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In India, the country with the most child brides worldwide, an estimated 47 percent of girls are married before age 18, putting their physical, emotional and mental health at risk. Although it is illegal in India for girls under 18 and boys under 21 to marry, the tradition remains entrenched.

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16 year old Greta Thunberg is trying to make a real change in the battle against climate change.

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Greta Thunberg has excoriated world leaders for their "betrayal" of young people through their inertia over the climate crisis at a United Nations summit that failed to deliver ambitious new commitments to address dangerous global heating.

In a stinging speech on Monday, the teenage Swedish climate activist told governments that "you are still not mature enough to tell it like it is. You are failing us. But the young people are starting to understand your betrayal."

Days after millions of young people joined protests worldwide to demand emergency action on climate change, leaders gathered for the annual United Nations general assembly aiming to inject fresh momentum into efforts to curb carbon emissions.

But Thunberg predicted the summit would not deliver any new plans in line with the radical cuts in greenhouse gas emissions that scientists say are needed to avoid catastrophic climate breakdown.

"You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words," a visibly emotional Thunberg said.

"The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us I say we will never forgive you. We will not let you get away with this. Right here, right now is where we draw the line."

As the summit spooled through about 60 speeches from national representatives, it became clear that Thunberg's forecast was prescient. Narendra Modi, the prime minister of India, told delegates that "the time for talking is over" in announcing a plan to ramp up renewable energy but didn't announce any phase-out of coal - a key goal set by António Guterres, the UN secretary-general who convened the summit.

Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, did set out the end of coalmining in her country but only by 2038 - a lengthy timeframe that disappointed environmentalists.

Meanwhile, China declined to put forward any new measures to tackle the climate crisis.

Emmanuel Macron, the French president, called for the European Union to deepen its emissions cuts and said that France would not make trade deals with countries not signed up tor the landmark Paris climate agreement. "We cannot allow our youth to strike every Friday without action," Macron said, in reference to Friday's global climate strikes.

Despite Guterres' efforts, the summit was somewhat overshadowed by its absentees - most notably the US, and Jair Bolsonaro's Brazil, whose representatives were reportedly not selected to make a presentation there because of Brazil's failure to outline plans to strengthen its efforts to counter climate change.

Donald Trump did visit the UN on Monday but only briefly dipped into the climate summit to see Modi's speech before attending a meeting which he had called on religious freedom.

As he arrived at the UN, Trump crossed paths with Thunberg, who fixed the president with a hard stare.

The summit was designed to accelerate countries' ambition to address the climate crisis amid increasingly urgent warnings by scientists. A new UN analysis has found that commitments to cut planet-warming gases must be at least tripled and increased by up to fivefold if the world is to meet the goals of the 2015 Paris agreement of holding the temperature rise to at most 2C above the pre-industrial era.

The world is currently on track to warm by as much as 3.4C by the end of the century, the UN warned, a situation that would escalate disastrous heatwaves, flooding, droughts and societal unrest. Major coral reefs and many other species face extinction.

"There's a big dissonance between every leader saying to Greta 'we hear you' and the commitments they are putting on to the table," said Isabel Cavelier, a former climate negotiator for Colombia who is now senior adviser at the Mission 2020 climate group. "China said absolutely nothing new, India mentioned commitments made in the past, the US, Canada and Australia aren't here. We are seeing governments showing up empty-handed. There's a feeling that the big emitters are holding things back."

There were a few signs of progress. A group of nearly 90 large companies promised to reach net zero emissions by 2050, while a handful of countries said they will be winding down coal use. But it became apparent that most of the ambition was coming from developing countries, rather than the major polluters.

Trump has vowed to pull the US out of the Paris agreement, while other major powers are wary of making further commitments ahead of key UN climate talks in Glasgow next year.

Thunberg's speech was "very emotional and grounded in science", said Alden Meyer, director of strategy at the Union of Concerned Scientists. "If I were a world leader I'd feel very uncomfortable. But we've seen nothing from the big national leaders, the G20 players. It's hard to say the summit moved the needle on the emissions curve."

"Other countries must follow our lead," said Hilda Heine, president of the Marshall Islands, a country situated on coral atolls in the Pacific that is extremely vulnerable to sea level rise. "Falling short will represent the greatest failure humanity has ever seen. The summit must be the moment we choose survival over selfishness."

But delegates at the summit warned that the international effort to stave off dangerous global heating was being undermined by a wave of nationalism. "If you look at the US and Brazil, it's a result of populist politics that is turning its back on the climate," said Cavelier. "That needs to be made explicit and isolated from the world."

Amid the stunning rise of the youth climate movement, Thunberg, who arrived in the US last month on a solar-powered yacht, has directly castigated Congress and leaders at the UN, as well as spearhead the largest ever climate protest last week.

On Monday she joined 14 other children to lodge a formal complaint under the UN convention on the rights of the child.

The complainants, from countries including Argentina, the Marshall Islands, France, Germany and the US, claim that countries' failure to address the climate crisis violates the international convention. "Each one of us had our rights violated and denied, our futures are being destroyed," said Alexandria Villaseñor, a 14-year-old from New York who has taken to protesting outside the UN headquarters every Friday.

Thunberg said that world leaders were endangering children by ignoring climate breakdown. "They promised to protect the rights of the child and they have not done this," she said at a media conference at the offices of Unicef. "The message is that we have had enough."

This article was amended on 1 October 2019 because an earlier version misdescribed the 2015 Paris agreement goal of limiting global heating to at most 2C above the pre-industrial era, as limiting global heating to at least 2C above the pre-industrial era. This has been corrected.

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Greta Thunberg condemns world leaders in emotional speech at UN

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Greta Thunberg has excoriated world leaders for their "betrayal" of young people through their inertia over the climate crisis at a United Nations summit that failed to deliver ambitious new commitments to address dangerous global heating. In a stinging speech on Monday, the teenage Swedish climate activist told governments that "you are still not mature enough to tell it like it is.

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Women are standing up for themselves and will no longer be silenced as me too was created.

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how 2018 became the year of #metoo - cnn video

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How 2018 became the year of #MeToo - CNN Video

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From the fall of Harvey Weinstein, Matt Lauer and Al Franken, to 'Time's Up' and the Kavanaugh hearing, 2018 was marked by the power of the #MeToo movement.

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Women are still only making 80 cents for every dollar a man makes, showing the privilege males have.

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The difference in men's and women's median earnings amounts to $500 billion per year, according to a new report.

The gender pay gap has narrowed by less than a nickel in the 21st century, with women today earning 80 cents for every dollar paid to a man in the U.S., according to a released Tuesday by the American Association of University Women.

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This pay gap, defined as the difference in men's and women's median earnings, means women miss out on $500 billion in earnings per year and impacts women across all demographics, though the gap is bigger for women of color and for older age groups, according to the report.

"While the nation's unemployment rate is down, and the number of women working is up, the wage gap is sadly remaining stagnant," AAUW CEO Kim Churches said in a press release. "It's unacceptable. There is no gender differentiation when it comes to quality, skills and talent," she added.

Financial managers, physicians and surgeons and accountants are examples of professions with the largest collective gender pay gaps, AAUW found in the study. Women who are financial managers only make 65 percent of what men holding that title are paid.

Among the professions with the largest percentages of women, retail sales supervisors have the largest pay gap, making 74 cents to the dollar. Registered nurses and elementary and middle school teachers have the lowest pay gap, earning 92 percent of what their male counterparts take home.

The pay gap also varies widely by state. In 2017, women in California who worked full time were paid 89 percent of what men were paid when evaluating median annual earnings. In Louisiana, women earned 69 percent of what men were paid.

Besides Louisiana, Utah, Indiana, Alabama and West Virginia also have some of the highest pay gaps. States with the smallest wage gaps include California, New York, Florida, Delaware and Vermont.

U.S. News & World Report also measured the income gap by gender in its 2018 Best States rankings using 2016 U.S. Census Bureau data. The results were similar, but New York had the lowest gender pay gap, followed by California.

The AAUW report also evaluated states based on their equal pay laws, which were indicative of their gender pay gaps. California, for example, is one of the states with the strongest equal pay laws, whereas Louisiana's are considered weak and Alabama and Mississippi don't have any such laws, according to the report.

Casey Leins, Staff Writer

Casey Leins is a staff writer and producer at U.S. News & World Report.

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California's a Good Place for Women to Work

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The difference in men's and women's median earnings amounts to $500 billion per year, according to a new report. The gender pay gap has narrowed by less than a nickel in the 21st century, with women today earning 80 cents for every dollar paid to a man in the U.S., according to a released Tuesday by the American Association of University Women.

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Being a non-heterosexual couple trying to adopt children, especially of a different race, can prove to be a large challenge.

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Live Mutual: Gay Couple Adoption Story | MassMutual

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Men are privileged because they primarily focus on work while women work, clean, cook, and take care of the kids.

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Being a child of multiple races can often times lead to feeling like you never fit in anywhere. You don't have the privilege of being white, or the disagvantage of being a minority

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It's tricky to nail down exactly what makes someone feel like a "racial impostor." For one Code Switch follower, it's the feeling she gets from whipping out "broken but strangely colloquial Arabic" in front of other Middle Easterners.

For another - a white-passing, Native American woman - it's being treated like "just another tourist" when she shows up at powwows. And one woman described watching her white, black and Korean-American toddler bump along to the new Kendrick and wondering, "Is this allowed?"

In this week's podcast, we go deep into what we're calling Racial Impostor Syndrome - the feeling, the science and a giant festival this weekend in Los Angeles that's, in some ways, all about this.

Here's how we got started down this track. A couple months ago, listener Kristina Ogilvie wrote in to tell us that "living at the intersection of different identities and cultures" was like "stumbling around in a forest in the dark."

She asked, "Do you hear from other listeners who feel like fakes?"

Good question. So we took it to our audience, and what we heard back was a resounding "yes."

We got 127 emails from people who are stumbling through that dark, racially ambiguous forest. (And yes, we read every single one.)

Here are excerpts drawn from a few of the many letters that made us laugh, cry and argue - and that guided this week's episode.

Let's start with Angie Yingst of Pennsylvania:

"My mother is a Panamanian immigrant and my father is a white guy from Pennsylvania. I've always felt liminal, like I drift between race and culture. When I was young (20s) and living in the city, I would get asked multiple times a day where I was from, where my people were from, because Allentown, Pennsylvania, clearly wasn't the answer they were looking for ... It always felt like the undercurrent of that question was, 'You aren't white, but you aren't black. What are you?'

"But truthfully, I don't feel like I fit with Latinas either. My Spanish is atrocious and I grew up in rural PA. Even my cousin said a few weeks ago, 'Well, you aren't really Spanish, because your dad is white.' Which gutted me, truly. I identify as Latina. I identify with my mother's culture and country as well as American culture. In shops, I'm treated like every other Latina, followed around, then ignored at the counter. I married a white guy and had children who are blonde and blue eyed, and I'm frequently asked if I'm the nanny or babysitter. And white acquaintances often say, 'You are white. You act white.' And I saltily retort, 'Why? Because I'm not doing your lawn, or taking care of your kids? You need to broaden your idea of what Latina means.' "

Jen Boggs of Hawaii says she often feels like a racial impostor, but isn't quite sure which race she's faking:

"I was born in the Philippines and moved to Hawaii when I was three. ... I grew up thinking that I was half-Filipina and half-white, under the impression that my mom's first husband was my biological father. I embraced this 'hapa-haole' identity (as they say in Hawaii), and loved my ethnic ambiguity. My mom wanted me to speak perfect English, so never spoke anything but to me. After she divorced her first husband and re-married my stepdad from Michigan, my whiteness became cemented.

"Except. As it turns out, my biological father was a Filipino man whom I've never met. I didn't find out until I tried to apply for a passport in my late twenties and the truth came out. So, at age 28 I learned that I was not half white but all Filipina. ...

"This new knowledge was a huge blow to my identity and, admittedly, to my self esteem. 'But I'm white,' I remember thinking. 'I'm so so white.' After much therapy, I'm happy and comfortable in my brown skin, though I'm still working out how others perceive me as this Other, Asian person."

Indigo Goodson's mom is Jamaican and her dad is African-American. She wrote about the way people's perceptions of her change based on where she lives:

"Culturally we grew up as Jamaican as two California-born black American children could have in the Bay Area. ... We ate mostly Jamaican food (prepared by both our mother and father), our Jamaican family lived with us growing up, and it was my mother that told us Anansi stories and other tales or sayings popular in Jamaica.

" ... Both my parents are black, so no one ever asked 'What are you?' ... But then when folks would meet my mum they would say things like, 'Oh I thought you were black!' or 'You do look Jamaican!' And I would tell people I'm still black and clearly Jamaicans look like black Americans because we are both the descendants of enslaved West Africans. Now that I live in New York City, where if you're black people assume you are first generation Caribbean, I often have to remind people that my dad is black American and so am I."

Helen Seely is originally from California. She told us what it's like for her to interact with different groups as a light-skinned biracial woman:

"White people like to believe I'm Caucasian like them; I think it makes their life less complicated. But I don't identify as 100% white, so there always comes a time in the conversation or relationship where I need to 'out' myself and tell them that I'm biracial.

"It's a vulnerable experience, but it becomes even harder when I'm with black Americans. It may sound strange - and there are so many layers to this that are hard to unpack - but I think what it comes down to is: they have more of a claim to 'blackness' than I ever will and therefore have the power to tell me I don't belong, I'm not enough, that I should stay on the white side of the identity line.

"You know that question we always get asked? 'What are you?' Well, I still don't know. I've never had an answer that I can say with confidence; I still don't know what I'm allowed to claim."

Natalia Romero echoes some of those feelings. Her family left Colombia for the U.S. when she was 9 years old, and she says that while she doesn't consider herself white, she gets treated like she's white all the time:

"My mother doesn't speak English and so when I am home all we speak is Spanish and act like a bunch of rowdy, tight knit Colombians ... I grew up experiencing what many poor young immigrants face - bad schools, hunger, poverty, a lack of resources - but eventually managed to pay my way through college and work now as a musician and teacher, often very white communities.

" ... When people talk about the current political climate, they speak to me as if I were white, not someone who is terrified of the hatred of Latinx and Hispanic people, someone who walks around with my green card in my wallet, knowing that until I am a citizen (which I morally have a huge problem with) I am not safe. I exist and inhabit these white spaces, but my experience is not white. My experiences comes from being the sole English speaker in my house at age 9 and having to speak for my parents at the bank, at school, in apartments. My experience is from pretending my youngest sister wasn't part of our family because the apartment complex only allowed 4 people to a 1 bedroom apartment and we couldn't afford a 2 bedroom one. I come from a place where people speak poorly of Latinx people around me not realizing I am one ... "

Everyone's story is different, and as is discussed on the podcast, we're still learning how to talk about identities that fall outside of our traditional understandings of race in the United States. Luckily, for those who are confused, you're in good company.

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'Racial Impostor Syndrome': Here Are Your Stories

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We got more than 100 letters from our listeners about how y'all feel like fakes. Here are some of our favorites.

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Youtuber Sierra Schultizze talks about the struggle of being a plus size woman in 2019 when being skinny is considered beautiful.

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As a woman of color learning to love your hair you're born with is hard, especially when it isn't society's idea of beautiful.

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Afro hair is political. It is steeped in cultural history and, for black and mixed women, how they choose to wear their hair can be a deeply personal expression of identity.

But many black and mixed race women find it hard to love their hair. We live in a society that venerates European standards of beauty; fair skin, slim build, silky straight locks. Kinky, coily, dry or course hair doesn't fit that mould. If your hair doesn't flow down your back like a Disney princess - then it isn't seen as beautiful.

Black women in the UK are taught from a young age that their hair is difficult or problematic. It is an obstacle to being beautiful - rather than something that enhances their beauty.

Even the language around black hair reinforces this message. Rather than celebrating the versatility of afro hair, we're told it's 'unmanageable', 'wild', something to be 'tamed'. This animalistic imagery is common, and gives the impression that afro hair is shameful, barbaric, or less than human.

Despite the snide comments, uninvited touching and overt discrimination that our hair elicits - black women are reclaiming their hair as a symbol of beauty, individuality and empowerment.

It just might take us a while, that's all. Learning to care for and love your afro hair - natural, braids, weave or buzz cut - can be a long and arduous journey. These women all got there - but it wasn't easy.

Taylor, a journalist from Lewisham, says going natural is the best thing she's ever done.

'Like a lot of black women, my relationship with my natural hair has been complicated,' she explains.

'I grew up idolising my mum and using her as my reference of beauty. My mum is Bengali and had long, flowing, straight hair whereas mine was nothing like that.

'I longed to fit in with the Asian side of the family, and would wish so hard for my hair to be like theirs.

'My best friend introduced me to perms in secondary school, and I begged my mum to let me get one. She had always worked hard to ensure I was happy with the hair I was born with, but she finally caved.

'I remember feeling so excited at the very idea of finally starting to look like the women I saw in magazines and on TV. I remember trying my hardest not to wince at the burning sensation on my scalp because I was determined to have the smoothest hair possible.

'In Western society, our hair is never seen as normal or accepted. From the films and TV we consume to music videos and even the dolls we played with. How was I meant to embrace my natural hair when I never saw it being positively represented in the media?'

It was politics and the treatment of black people globally that persuaded Taylor to leave the chemicals behind and embrace her natural curls.

'The death of Trayvon Martin in 2012 and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement deeply affected the way I saw myself and the world. I wanted to fully embrace my beliefs, so alongside reading up on police brutality and the criminal justice system, I also read about the history of black hair.

'Without sounding super corny, I started to look deeper within myself and saw that my straightened hair was birthed through media propaganda, constantly telling black women they are not beautiful unless they are lighter or had straighter hair. I decided enough was enough.

'I started to love my hair after discovering the online natural hair community. It was filled with countless beautiful black women, teaching me how to embrace and properly take care of my curls.

'I took their tips and tricks as gospel and soon, I started to see all the hard work and effort pay off as I transitioned out of my damaged, straightened hair to my healthy, natural curls.'

Vee, a mother of four and a brand and marketing consultant, loved her afro from a early age. She says growing up in Wandsworth and seeing loads of other black girls at school helped normalise her hair, and helped her feel beautiful.

'I loved my hair. I had it pressed with a hot comb when I was young. I also have fond memories of enjoying treatments at hair salons with my mother from a really early age,' says Vee.

'The struggles I faced with my hair were mainly related to time management and the products - more so as I reached my late teens. Hair management and maintenance takes some serious time.

'The cost of relaxing hair properly and also treating it, whilst looking after a little one, studying and working was a lot to keep up with.'

After leaving the security of her school friends, Vee found that navigating the corporate world with natural hair was more of a challenge.

'When it came to managing my personal brand in the workplace, colleagues always had something to say about my changing styles.

'Being in senior branding and marketing roles and heading up teams meant I always had to look the part (on their terms). This meant that, in corporate land, whilst a weave was allowed, I could never consider dying my hair or doing something out of the "ordinary".

'Certain styles I've had in more senior roles as an employee, have certainly raised a few eyebrows and left me feeling a bit awkward. But that's one of the reasons I started my own business.'

Vee decided to go for the big chop because she felt it was easier to manage whilst juggling a busy professional career. But that wasn't the only reason.

'I'm not someone who is bothered by the opinions of others, one of my core values is centred around the importance of authenticity and embracing who you truly are.

'Recently at a family party, relatives were asking what made me decide to cut my hair off. I said "me". I decided to cut my hair off because I define myself and I like it. I don't think anyone expected me to say that.

'But when I decided to cut my hair off, it wasn't to please society or to make any kind of statement, it was to please myself.'

Marketing consultant and digital influencer Charlotte, used to equate straight hair with professionalism and sexiness.

'Going to an event, interview or even work with my hair in its natural straight was unthinkable,' Charlotte tells Metro.co.uk.

'I've never relaxed my hair, but I spent most my early twenties with straight hair, straightening daily with GHDs and a lot of the time with a half head of weave to make it long and luscious.

'When I was younger I found my hair really difficult because I didn't know anyone who had hair like mine. I didn't actually realise it was curly until I was around 15 years old as my mum always brushed my curls out and plaited my hair.

'All my white friends had long, straight hair and my black friends and family had straight, relaxed hair, so I found my own hair quite confusing.'

It was a new arrival to the family that caused Charlotte to change her relationship with her hair and explore different ways of caring for it.

'My brother and his wife had their first daughter, and she had a head of beautiful curls - just like how my hair looked when I was little. My sister-in-law has long straight hair and I knew that my niece would grow up wanting what she doesn't have.

'So, I decided to go on a journey to grow my hair and keep it healthy and full. If I loved myself then I felt she would have someone to look up to and try to emulate, someone that I didn't have.'

'Looking back on my relationship with my hair makes me laugh. To think I didn't feel sexy or attractive with my hair in it's natural state is so funny to me as now I hate seeing my hair straight.

'My hair grows out of my head this way and it's healthy and always styled, what's unprofessional about that? I am able to look back and see that my mindset was unhealthy and I am now totally comfortable in my own skin which is extremely liberating.'

Fitness blogger Elle, chemically straightened her hair for years. It was only when the damage from all the chemicals started to really take effect, that she began thinking about other options.

'My hair was chemically straightened from the age of nine to make it more manageable and to allow me to look more presentable for school as being an only child in a single parent family, I often had to get myself ready.

'All the chemicals used on my hair were starting to have a negative impact; my hair was damaged and prone to breaking so I decided to have the ends bleached which was fashionable at the time, knowing that the result would be having to cut my hair shorter due to hair loss.

'I ended up having a graduated bob style, which I loved and one day, something clicked when a non-black friend told me I should just "go natural".

'I figured that the hair I was born with couldn't possibly look that bad, and from that day on I resolved not to have my hair straightened any more.'

'There were no positive images or narratives of black women loving their hair in any form of media. The only message that was mainstream was that having long straight hair was the ideal.

'There are still so few mainstream images and personally, for someone who likes to be active, there is an even bigger gap.'

She says the decision to go natural and turn her back on harmful chemicals has been emancipating.

'I've never looked back since growing out my natural afro hair. It's been almost five years now, and it's definitely a journey of experimenting to find what works well for me.

'It's great to see so many products available that don't use harmful chemicals and that are readily available in high street shops or from small independent retailers.

'I wouldn't say my hair is easier to manage now but it's worth the effort. Having natural hair has also given me a sense of freedom I never had before.

'I was able to learn to swim, aged 30, and I've been able enjoy holidays, swimming in pools and in the sea, like I never got to through all my years growing up because of my straightened hair.'

When Sonnah was younger, her relationship with her hair was all about fitting in. Now she has her own company, designing accessories, but back then she felt like a bit of an outcast.

'Growing up as a black girl in Feltham, I had only two other black kids in my year in primary school and was often made to feel different or ugly because I wasn't white,' says Sonnah.

'One morning my mum did my hair into a ponytail with an afro puff and I begged her to plait it into a more compact bun, probably to conceal the characteristics of my hair. I have a lot of hair, but I wanted it kept under wraps.

'My mum had this rule that my sisters and I were not allowed to relax our hair until we were 16, which almost made it feel like a right of passage.

'I got a curly perm, which I hated. After three months I got the roots relaxed, which was the worst mistake ever.

'My hair was falling out in the salon, the front completely looked like a razor had been put to it - it was so blunt. Luckily, because I had so much hair, it wasn't too bad, but I lost length and texture.'

Over the next few years, Sonnah experimented with weaves, colours, chemicals and a whole range of different styles. She loved changing her look, but it all began to take its toll on her hair.

'It was like a cycle. My hair would get unhealthy and damaged, and I would cut it in a bob and start again. I did that at least four times.

'When I was 22, I decided I had had enough. I didn't want to be that black girl who says things like, "my hair used to be like this". I literally cut of all my hair off without warning or a plan.

'I grew my hair, bought some wigs and started to take pride in my hair, and my journey.

'Now at 28, I never touch relaxer. I try different looks with wigs from time to time but my natural hair remains thick and long underneath.

'The jobs I have had over the last few years often made me feel like I had to conceal my blackness, including my hair.

'It stemmed from being the only black girl - never understood and always having to explain. I would get great comments when wearing a long, wavy wig, but when I wore my natural hair people would say I was having a "bad hair day".

'Now I love the skin I'm in, and expressing myself in all creative ways possible.

'I am a role model for my younger cousins, who are going through exactly what I did. I want to be a promoter of self-love, because I feel that if I had had the same thing my journey would have been different.'

19-year-old actress Doyin, struggled with accepting herself when she was at school. Her identity was tied up in her hair and she did everything she could to hide it.

'For years I would go to lengths to hide my natural hair from others and even myself,' Doyin explains.

'My hair was something I had been hiding and policing for years because of a fear of showing others, and myself, the true me.

'I was also conditioned by my family to always have my hair "done", which involved hiding my natural hair because it was deemed messy, unprofessional and a lazy look to have.'

Doyin's family were reticent when she first decided to stop straightening her hair - they didn't understand where she was coming from.

'The day I went natural my mum scheduled an appointment for my hair to get straightened, so I told her to cancel it. Her initial response was "But why? You don't know how to look after it and it's nice to get your done."

'She said that it won't help me in finding someone. It made me realise that I used to think having my natural hair would make me less attractive to the opposite sex. That it wasn't possible for me to be beautiful with my natural hair.'

As an only child, Doyin turned to social media and online tutorials to learn more about her hair.

'I watched countless natural hair tutorials and saw the beauty in it. It made me realise that of course it would suit me - it grows out of my scalp so why wouldn't it?

'As I started to learn more, my love for my hair grew and so did my confidence. I knew that I wasn't hiding anything and how my hair looked was based on what I felt like doing, not on what I needed to do to please others. The freedom of choice is so liberating.

'With my hair texture, my curls can be defined - I began to see how other black girls saw that as "lucky" - which is something I had never felt about my hair. It showed me that I'm not the only who has so much unlearning to do.

'The best thing about it is having strangers compliment your hair, or having your mum call you to talk to another black woman who also has natural hair to exchange tips.

'I'm comfortable in who I am, my blackness, and now I feel like I celebrate myself everyday. Putting my hair into a puff reminds me that I am powerful, strong and beautiful.'

Growing up, mine and my sister's hair was a constant source of stress, drama and anxiety.

My mum is white and we didn't live with my dad for most of my childhood - and none of us knew what we were doing. My sister and I spent hours pinned between my mum's knees as she battled the mounting tangles and knots - all three of us in tears.

I grew up in a predominantly white area, and dreamt of a long, swishy ponytail that bounced when I ran like my friends' did. My hair has a complicated, mixed texture, the curls underneath are looser and softer, the curls on top are tighter and frizzy. I didn't know what to do with it.

At 16 I got my hair relaxed for our Year 11 prom. The reaction at school was intense, no one could believe it was me. I was ecstatic - long, straight hair - it was everything I had always wanted.

That was until it started breaking. It was the noughties, so obviously I was GHD-addicted and burnt the hell out of my hair. That, combined with the chemicals proved too much, and a lot of my hair snapped off at about halfway.

When I was 22, I moved to London. That was a game-changer. In the capital, no one seemed to care what anyone thought of them. It was a melting pot of eccentric styles and I loved it.

Over the next year I stopped straightening it and started to embrace my curls. I had no idea what I was doing, or how to take care of it - when I look back at pictures from that time now, I can see my hair is dry and matted - but I was trying.

I educated myself, I read blogs and had long conversations with my new-found black friends, who were unbelievably helpful and patient with my ignorance. I found a hair care routine that worked for me, and products that made my curls manageable and softer.

I often think about the time that I lost - more than two decades of feeling like I couldn't be beautiful because of what was on my head.

My mum would tell my sister and I over and over that we had beautiful hair, she always wanted us to show off our curls. I wish I had listened to her earlier.

But I had years of conditioning to unlearn before I could truly see what she saw in me. Conditioning from the media, movies, adverts, celebrities, that taught me that beautiful women didn't look like me.

The more we normalise black styles and diversify our standards of beauty, the easier it will be for little brown girls to accept themselves. I wouldn't want anyone else to feel as though they had to jump through impossible hoops in order to be perceived as beautiful.

MORE: Sajid Javid using divisive language is more damaging than racism from white politicians

MORE: Nine ways workplaces in the UK are failing women of colour

MORE: Companies might be forced to reveal their ethnicity pay gaps - this is why they absolutely should

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Afro hair is political. It is steeped in cultural history and, for black and mixed women, how they choose to wear their hair can be a deeply personal expression of identity. But many black and mixed race women find it hard to love their hair.

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Mothers just wanting to feed their babies are being kicked out of public areas because it offends others, especially men.

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Single moms are automatically oppressed compared to the stereotypical family because they have to do everything alone.

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Stranger Things S1E3 - Will Tells Joyce To Run (HD 1080p)

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In China they are only allowed one child to cut down on the massive population. This has led to many abortions when parents find out they are having a girl, as they are automatically seen as weak and useless to families.

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Although men can have a beard, mustache, and hair covering their arms and legs women are supposed to have clean shaved bodies to be beautiful.

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I remember distinctly when I first learned that women are "supposed" to get rid of their body hair. I was in sixth grade, and overheard two other sixth-grade girls complaining that their moms wouldn't let them shave until high school. I had two older sisters who shaved, too. But technically, I didn't know exactly what they shaved, and my classmates didn't indicate what body part, either. So later that night, my younger sister and I, determined to shave something, locked ourselves in the bathroom, found a razor, and each shaved one arm. I then proudly showed my older sisters that I'd finally shaved, too - and I've never lived it down.

The "feeling" that female body hair must be eradicated has nothing to do with "needing" to get rid of it. We learn early on that all women are "supposed" to be softer, smoother and nicer-smelling than all men. (We conveniently ignore the fact that we've been shaving our bodies and coating them with scented lotion for decades, which likely aids in our "natural" good scent and smoothness.)

But cut to today, where in spite of decades of women reclaiming our legitimate right to have body hair wherever we want, many still feel bad about it. "Women like me," Mona Chalaba confesses in a piece at The Guardian, "have been keeping a secret." The secret is not that all women secretly love giving handjobs in their spare time, but rather that having facial or body hair in the wrong place comes at great personal cost. "It's a secret so shameful that it's hidden from friends and lovers, so dark that vast amounts of time and money are spent hiding it," Chalabi continues. "It's not a crime we have committed, it's a curse: facial hair."

The secret: Female facial hair is the worst of all. Chalabi focuses initially on hirsutism, or excessive body hair on women that follows a more male pattern (like on the face), which is no fucking picnic. Women who deal with it get called things like gorilla, monkey, werewolf and Sasquatch. One study she cites from 2006 found that women who do grow facial hair spend 104 minutes weekly trying to deal with that shit. And 75 percent of them feel anxiety to a degree that would meet clinical definitions.

Not a secret: Some women rock this condition proudly.

JD Samson of the dance band Le Tigre, who has had a mustache as long as she can remember, recommends not just accepting female facial hair, but respecting it:

She advocates for finding the one thing that makes you most uncomfortable with yourself and celebrating that thing. Not a secret: This attitude makes people very very angry.

"This bitch is so repulsive hahaha," reads the first comment on the video.

The second offered a lesson in the rules of attraction:

"There is a reason mustaches are not good on women; not feminine. If you are competing for a male's attention (males are masculine) you want to appear as feminine as possible (opposites attract). If you are not concerned with that, that's okay. There are probably a few people out there that will find you attractive regardless. I don't mind a tiny shadowy moustache on a woman, but this chick is too much for me. Bleaching is another alternative to waxing."

The stigmatization of hair on women is made worse by the fact that women of color tend to be hairier. According to research, Chalabi writes, hairiness on women from most to least goes in this ethnic order:

But of course, you don't need to be a woman of color. White Italian women, for instance, tend to have more hair in unwanted places than WASPY women. I am a white woman of northern European descent with fine light body hair that doesn't stand out. By all the above standards I don't "need" to shave, and yet, even I have fully internalized the idea that shave I should. And especially that not shaving is still a transgressive act. (If Lena Dunham and Miley Cyrus growing out their armpit hair in 2015 was seen as radical, you know we haven't come that long a way, baby.)

The secret is that having body hair makes you feel unfeminine. The secret is that having body hair makes you feel dirty - like a "dirty ethnic" girl, according to one of Chalabi's sources. The secret is that having the wrong body hair means on some level, you're not really as feminine as hairless women, which really means not as white. The secret is, you'll spend a lot of money and time privately eradicating it to meet the standards society has set; hair removal in America is a nearly $1 billion dollar business annually.

The secret is that growing out hair and shaving that hair is a pain in the ass, and can result in itchiness, infections and other stubbly misery. The secret is when you decide to let your armpit hair grow out, people do a double take when you lift your arms up because it's still that rare. The secret is some guy inevitably points out that you have hair there - or on your vulva, if you're having sex - as if that somehow obligates you to explain why.

A secret: Debates over what women should or should not do with their body hair - among women themselves - have become so politicized that women who don't shave feel bad, and women who do shave feel bad:

It's none of my business if women choose not not shave. It isn't unhygienic at all. However, I don't think it's fair to shame people like myself who prefer to shave. I think it's silly. Just do what makes you feel comfy. It's a personal preference, not a social statement.

- AMBY (@AmbyCakes84) December 4, 2017

Of course, it should be noted that not all women see their body hair existence or removal as a terrible secret; it's just a reality. When I polled my friends to ask how much work they do to deliberately hide the fact that they have hair, they all said pretty much the same thing: I get rid of the hair I have during personal grooming, but I'm not going out of my way to hide it intentionally per se. As a woman, you tweeze an errant hair from a mole or nipple, shave your legs, or make your pubic wax appointment so often and on such autopilot that maybe you don't think about it anymore.

Lots of women don't shave anything, live their lives and don't give a fuck what anyone thinks. But regardless, all women have internalized that the hair is bad, and they embrace that or they reject it, but never without knowing that, if you're a woman, whatever you do to your body hair, whether keep it, wax, flaunt it or ignore it, you're still doing it wrong. That's as immutable a fact as the hair itself, and probably always will be.

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Hey Guys, Here's What You Don't Know About Female Body Hair | MEL Magazine

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I remember distinctly when I first learned that women are "supposed" to get rid of their body hair. I was in sixth grade, and overheard two other sixth-grade girls complaining that their moms wouldn't let them shave until high school. I had two older sisters who shaved, too.

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Men are always expected to pay for everything when going out. This is still based off the traditional values that women are the homemakers and men are the bread winners.

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Who Pays on a First Date? - Matthew Hussey, Get The Guy

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It has been expected that males propose marriage to a women up until very recent times. It dates back to the Stone Age when women were seen as property, and men as owners, and yet this tradition still stands.