The chocolate bar has become a staple item with which to rejoice during the holidays, to nibble on in instances of late-night cravings, and to gift for almost any special occasion. It brings comfort and is universally associated with pleasure and indulgence. Yet, behind the joy that chocolate brings, there exists a dark industry plagued with neocolonial incentives, systemic violence, and continued exploitation. Though social responsibility is often but an afterthought when re

The exercise of visualizing modernity in cities often leads one to picture skyscrapers, grandiose bridges, and urban housing developments with tall glass windows. These have become the urban living infrastructures we know to be modern — those we crave, value, and race to build. Yet, there is an increasing cluster of African architects, designers, and engineers who are contesting these images of modernity as being neither desirable nor fit for public spaces in our African citi

The 2023 Global Femicide Report, released jointly by UN Women and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, recorded a staggering 51,100 intentional killings of women and girls across the world that year. These killings were found to not only be overwhelmingly carried out by intimate partners or close family relatives but also to majoritarily occur in no other place than the victim’s home . Being confronted with the deep intimacy of both the home as a place of death and c

Among the many lessons that the genocide in the Occupied Palestinian Territory has exposed us to, a poignant one is the realization that wherever prolonged warfare exists, women suffer war wounds that only their bodies can speak to. From the trauma associated with resorting to period-delaying pills to escape the scarcity of wartime menstruation to elongated bleeding after giving birth, the women of Gaza are our living reminders that we are answerable to what happens to women

Over the last three months, we have borne witness to Palestinian men carrying the shredded pieces of their relatives’ bodies with their bare hands, mothers crying over their children’s dead remains, and caught sight of bodies being buried in mass graves. If one was not familiar with the image of a skull crushed under the rubble or had not looked at steel torn through human flesh prior to October 7, it is likely that they have an intimate relationship with such sights today. B

In 2007, a Dolce & Gabbana advert was released depicting a woman being pinned-down by an oily, shirtless man while four other men looked on. This scene quickly sparked international debate for portraying images of impending gang rape while simultaneously eroticizing violence against women. And while that is question enough about the incentives that drive our purchasing habits, there is no question here about the likelihood of such an occurrence under a patriarchal society wit