Latest Stories
Most recently published stories in Viva.
The Modern Woman's Struggle
Being a woman is hard work, with all the societal beauty standards and pressure to look a certain way it can be overwhelmingly hard to keep up with the next trend for women; there are all kinds of issues that women have to deal with in today’s day and age. You have men thinking they can tell you what to do with your body like we don’t know how to run our own lives, women have been running houses for years so I think we can manage our own bodies. It’s not just the men either, you have women who are ready and willing to tear another woman down rather than come together and try to make the world a bit more female-friendly. The struggles that a woman has to go through may not seem all that bad to some people but for the woman who is going through it it can feel like the weight of the world is on her shoulders. I want to talk about a few of these struggles and how they have been affected over the last few years, because yes, these issues have been touched on in one way or another and they need to be shown for how they have affected women.
By Brittney Mckinney4 years ago in Viva
A Bra To Change Your Life
Hey, you! Are you wearing a bra right now? How does it feel? How do you feel about the bra? Are you someone who takes it off the second you get home? Someone who agrees with all those memes about how taking off your bra at the end of the day is the best feeling in the world?
By Jenifer Nim4 years ago in Viva
A Feminist Examination of "Twilight"...By a Man. Top Story - September 2021.
The reputation of the 2008 cinematic adaptation of Stephenie Meyers’s Twilight precedes it, for worse and for better. Sometime in middle school, I attempted to read the original novel. Popular as it was, I found it dull and couldn’t bring myself to finish it. As such, when I was assigned to watch the movie for a college class, my expectations going in were rather low. Much to my surprise, I found myself actually liking the film somewhat. Director Catherine Hardwicke paints very beautiful cinematic pictures, and I found quite a few of the characters rather endearing—specifically, Bella and Jacob’s respective dads, Bella and Edward’s respective moms, Edward’s adoptive sister Alice, and Bella’s friend group at Forks High. And, for all the crap she has been given, I thought Kristen Stewart did well as Bella. All that said, Twilight still has its issues. Viewed through a feminist lens, though it is by no means a masterpiece, it is not completely without merit either.
By Frank Macaluso4 years ago in Viva
Fangirl Culture Made Me The Badass Woman I Am Today. Top Story - September 2021.
Originally published on Odyssey Online The first iteration of my Facebook page when I was fourteen included an expansive list of the fandoms I belonged to: Whovian, Potterhead. Directioner. Sheerio. The list went on and on. I listed my fandoms as my good qualities on a resume.
By Alisan Keesee4 years ago in Viva
Accidental Gardening for The Soul
That day in Bunnings I let my feet take me to the gardening section. Surreptitiously I watch real-life gardeners go about their business; knowledgeable creatures hefting bags of potting mix onto laden trolleys, discussing watering systems with each other and casting experienced eyes over compost bins. They use exotic terms like ‘wetting agents’ and ‘slow-release.’ Someone says the words plant food, and I picture giant, thorny roses devouring people whole, like perfumed anacondas.
By Michelle Tuxford4 years ago in Viva
American Black Woman
There are many things about me that make me unique to my fellow counterparts, my sense of humor, my style of dress, and how I handle certain situations, however, the thing that makes me the most unique is being a black woman in America. Black women are as far down the list as you can get because of the labels that are placed upon us, like the angry black woman or loud and ghetto, these are things that could be true for some but not all. It’s not just how we act either it’s also how we represent ourselves whether it be the way we wear our hair to the type of clothing that we choose to dress in, we are looked at as less than because of it. Now here is where we really get down to it because we are looked at with so much animosity by not only other races and ethnicities but by our own as well with having to compete for jobs and resources. Being a woman is hard right now but being a black woman is even harder because we are looked at to be these strong independent women who can do it all and that may be true sometimes but not all the time and not always for the right reasons.
By Brittney Mckinney4 years ago in Viva
