Ellie Anna Tattersall

Female swagger, to XCX, comes with insecurity, because no matter how much bravado she displays, she must navigate overwhelming societal standards and expectations for her behavior. Brat , then, is about how hard it is to be a brat—to project untouchability and ambition in a world that relentlessly questions successful women.

I think there’s a safety in girlhood, in the mistakes and the naïveté, the youth and maybe even the beauty, which is all pushed by the media we consume,” Ms. Reese said. “Womanhood, meanwhile, is seeped with this lack of playfulness, seriousness, aging — the horror, right?”

architects are now taught to design houses, not homes, thus contributing to the uprooting that feeds into our growing inability to genuinely connect with the world. There is a “poetics of home”—linked to memory, emotions, dreams, identity, and intimacy—that functional architecture and “modern living” have foreclosed

When you are a woman, the things you like get used against you. Or, alternatively, the things that get used against you have all been prefigured as things you should like. Sexual availability falls into this category. So does basic kindness, and generosity. Wanting to look good—taking pleasure in trying to look good—does, too.