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Psychology

Essays and videos offering insights into the self, relationships, cognition and neuroscience
AddictionAgeing and deathChildhood and adolescenceCognition and intelligenceConsciousness and altered statesFamily lifeGender and identityLanguage and linguisticsLife stagesLove and friendshipMental healthMood and emotionNeurodiversityNeurosciencePersonalityPleasure and painPsychiatry and psychotherapySelf-improvementSex and sexualitySleep and dreamsSocial psychologySpiritualityTeaching and learningTechnology and the selfWellbeing
A young girl in a pink dress stands on a step, holding the hand of an adult. Four adults are partially visible around her.
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essay

Biography and memoir

The adoption paradox

Even happy families cannot avoid the reality – my reality – that adoption is predicated on transacting the life of a child

Fiona Sampson

Five young men leaning against a wall at night.
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essay

Human rights and justice

My elusive pain

The lives of North Africans in France are shaped by a harrowing struggle to belong, marked by postcolonial trauma

Farah Abdessamad

A sepia photograph of a woman from the 19th century, sitting on an ornate wooden chair, wearing a ruffled dress with buttons.
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Stories and literature

The real Miss Julie

Victoria Benedictsson assumed a male identity, achieved literary stardom, and took her own life. Then Strindberg stole it

Elisabeth Åsbrink

A group of girls walk past the Washington Monument on the National Mall in Washington, DC
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Gender and identity

Silencing of the girls

Girls are still in a bad bargain with patriarchy: the price of relationship is keeping their true thoughts to themselves

Carol Gilligan

A double-exposure image of a dancer on stage against a black backdrop, his body is lit and partly shot in motion blur
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Genetics

Artists of our own lives

The genome is the starting point for a performance we enact over a lifetime, not a blueprint we’ve got to follow

Richard O Prum

Rubens painting Venus and Cupid reimagined with Venus on the left gazing in a mirror at her mastectomized breast. A cherub like Cupid to the right holds the mirror
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Illness and disease

More than pink

The culture around breast cancer is full of positivity and femininity. But it comes at the expense of the marginalised

Philippa Hetherington

Two stick figures, one purple and one white, touching heads with scribbled lines above them, depicting a heated argument.
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video

Gender

When aggression is viewed as brilliance, it hurts women in science, and science itself

5 minutes

Elderly person with a serious expression and a cigarette in their mouth, wearing a grey sweater, standing in front of a house with a curtain and wooden chair.
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video

Gender

The ‘sworn virgins’ of Albania who trade femininity for freedom

10 minutes

Construction workers sitting and standing around, some wearing hard hats, during a break outside a building, with a temporary orange safety fence visible.
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Gender and identity

A manly divorce

Straight men rarely write about the end of their marriages. Our enduring ideas about gender explain this silence

Joshua Coleman

Cartoon of an adult and two children in a kitchen, standing near a fridge with a drawing and a stove with a boiling pot.
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video

Gender and identity

‘I didn’t fall in love with a couple of body pieces’ – on marriage and transition

3 minutes

A woman and a child looking at a photo album together, with one image showing two children and the text “No matter our differences…”
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Gender and identity

Disarming transphobia

‘Rapid-onset gender dysphoria’ is a popular weapon in the anti-trans arsenal. It is nothing but unscientific bunk

Quinnehtukqut McLamore

A minimalist drawing of two women in robes, reaching out to each other against a beige background.
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video

The ancient world

Sappho’s homoerotic poetry was beloved in ancient Greece – and burned centuries later

5 minutes

Illustration of a figure standing in front of a colourful blurry image with a large abstract face in the background, blending vibrant hues of red, blue, and pink.
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video

Gender and identity

Timothée built his identity around his absent father. What happens when they meet?

17 minutes

Black handprints on a white background, creating an abstract and high-contrast pattern with various hand positions and details.
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video

Gender and identity

‘When you’re done, you stay human!’ What gender transition means to John

6 minutes

People watching a projection of a black-and-white image featuring a nude woman in an art installation setting.
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Art

Her body is a problem

When 1970s women artists put the female body under the female gaze, why did the critics see only obscene monsters?

Lauren Elkin

Abstract artwork of a person lying on a vintage couch, with a colourful and patterned background and vivid highlights on the blanket and hair.
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video

Art

A mindbending trip that summons the forgotten women of surrealism

17 minutes

A man in glasses and a purple garment with gold embroidery touches his chin thoughtfully, with a blurred figure in the background.
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video

Gender and identity

What happened when a gay Black man joined the Metropolitan Police in London

25 minutes

Woman gazing at her reflection in a hand mirror, wearing pink earrings and lying on a patterned red rug.
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Teaching and learning

The vulva dialogues – inside a sex-ed class that rebels against genitalia shame

11 minutes

Elderly person wearing a tiara and a “Prom Queen” sash, smiling at a dance, with balloons and a chandelier in the background.
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video

Gender and identity

LGBTQ+ retirees celebrate their hard-earned self-acceptance at a belated prom night

14 minutes

Drawing of a man and woman in Victorian attire, both wearing top hats. Three more figures are seen in the background.
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Gender and identity

George Sand’s boots

How the rebellious novelist left behind her provincial self to learn about life, charging around Paris dressed as a man

Belinda Jack

Female basketball player in a green jersey jumps to shoot a ball near the hoop, with a team player in yellow defending.
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video

Sports and games

You’ve likely never heard of the only woman drafted into the NBA – and that’s fine by her

22 minutes

A woman with red hair and a blue jacket looks at a wall of framed black-and-white photos and documents.
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Thinkers and theories

The view from her

Is there something special about the way women do philosophy or is that just another essentialist idea holding us back?

Elly Vintiadis

Crowd of people reflecting on a glass window in a city setting, with buildings and signage in the background, creating a layered effect.
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Philosophy of mind

You are a network

You cannot be reduced to a body, a mind or a particular social role. An emerging theory of selfhood gets this complexity

Kathleen Wallace

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Stories and literature

Shameful

Women who write about their pain suffer a double shaming: once for getting injured, twice for their act of self-exposure

Katherine Angel