I won’t lie, hope has been hard to come by this year. And yet we persist. Reading Prishita Maheshwari-Aplin’s debut book Roses For Hedone has been a great source of hope for me. Their vision of pleasure as a practice of solidarity, and the foundation of our collective liberation, is needed now more than ever. It may seem frivolous to some, but I’ve felt the most connected, alive and joyful on sweaty filthy dancefloors – special shoutout to Joyride Rave at Corsica Studios. These moments allow me to get back into my body, shake off the panic of looming fascism for a moment, and leave me ready to come out fighting again.
Ashley James, campaigner and author of Bimbo
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What has carried me through hasn’t been one big moment or one person, but the women around me – my sisterhood. When life feels heavy, it’s my friends who raise me back up, and we rally around each other when everything feels too much. Whether we’re navigating sleepless nights, affairs, current affairs or the impossible juggle of childcare, we don’t do it alone.
Trekking through the Sahara with CoppaFeel! was a reminder of how sisterhood carries us through the hardest moments – calm words of encouragement, listening ears, and shared strength as we navigated exhaustion, fear, laughter and heat, step by step. Seeing what some of those women have been through with their own breast cancer journeys – some still ongoing – and watching them get up each day and take one step forward was a profound reminder of resilience. A reminder that we can push back, and that we must – not just for ourselves, but for those who don’t have the freedom or platform to do so, like our sisters in Afghanistan.
This sisterhood feels like a slow, systemic shift towards something more matriarchal – a world that values care, healing and connection. Maybe this is what women have always done: sticking together, quietly rebelling, and surviving systems that were never built for us. And right now, that feels like hope.
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