Lifestyle

Dear President-Elect Obama, As a group of women leaders who have given our lives to the transformation, protection and empowerment of women in the United States and globally, we want to begin by congratulating you. We are honored and proud to have you lead the nation during this historic time. We also welcome your call to action, reminding us of what we have always known — that as global citizens we cannot solely rely on any one administration's ability to bring about change, but must be steadfast in pushing forward our own vision and agendas. We represent an historic movement for change: millions of women across the globe with innovative ideas, influential constituencies and collaborative solutions. We are calling on you to ensure that women are equally represented in everything, from...

Ms. Huffington: In recent days, The Huffington Post has unceremoniously re-branded its LGBT news section, "Queer Voices." Its previous name, Gay Voices was deemed to be too exclusionary, as not everyone under the sexual minorities umbrella considers themselves to be gay. Yes, ma'am, I'm talking to you. The problem is, "Queer" as a word carries a lot of baggage, most of it quite negative. To many--and I'm one of them--it's plainly offensive, particularly if used by others to define me. If a person wants to identify as "queer?" Knock themselves out. Don't assign it to me. If a gay organization or publication wants to use the word or a "Q" or a variant (such as Queerty)? It doesn't bother me. It's from the community, for the community. There is no hint of malice. But when it's a...

Dear Gais and their children, We’ve always known that our steaks are low compared to our fair-skinned sisters, the holy Gai. For centuries we have been subjected to unfair treatment simply by virtue of our skin colour. Yet, nobody even bothered to ask us how it felt to be treated like a piece of beefcake. Not a single feminist organisation came to our rescue or raised slogans on our behalf. If Cow is your Maa, doesn’t that make us your aunty? Is this how the world’s greatest culture that gave the world Cowmasutra, treats its aunties! Is being born dark such a great sin that you’ll focus only at our inner boti and harbour unholy thoughts about us! We’ve suffered the indignities heaped on us with silence. We tolerated the blatant racism that even our shit is subjected to. Despite...

To Coldplay and advertising team. As a educated and angry chimpanzee, I am writing this open letter on behalf of PETA and the world's chimpanzee population. I would like a written apology from the popular band Coldplay for their patronising and derogatory portrayal of us chimpanzees. The tone of their promotional clip Adventure of a Lifetime shows us in a very bad light and could even lead to undoing all the good work that has been put in place over the last few decades. I can tell you, it's got everyone going bananas in the office. Quite frankly, the below par CGI effects hark back to the dark days when us chimps were often used as grinning advertising tools for human amusement/erotica. We chimpanzees are intelligent animals and would never dance around in hats, playing...