Beyoncé queen of the world.

Beyoncé may have just done the whole world a big favour. After years of men and women pushing against a stereotype for feminism being hateful and pointless a pop queen made it look very, very cool. Last year I wrote about how Miley Cyrus' performance at the VMAs was sad and uncomfortable to watch, this year I'm writing about how Beyoncé made a huge statement that affects people everywhere.

I'm not a big fan of her music so I've never really paid attention to Beyoncé's pop fame but her recent publicity act is one that has certainly caught my attention. "We teach girls that they cannot be sexual beings the way that boys are. We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls ‘You can have ambition, but not too much.’ You should aim to be successful, but not too successful, otherwise you will threaten the man,” said the voice-over, accompanied by words from the talk on a large screen.  “Feminist. The person who believes in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes.” Enter Beyoncé with enormous white lights behind her reading 'FEMINIST'. She didn't even need to sing after that. That one intro would have been enough of a statement on its own. I think the entirety of the female population now understands that Beyoncé is a super fairy princess with magic super powers. Actually, we now all realise that we are the same Beyoncé just came to this realisation a lot sooner and will proceed to teach us our magical ways. 

I've seen many tweets pointing out that had Beyoncé not been a wealthy, beautiful, powerful, famous, talented pop star she wouldn't have been noticed. She would have been another sad, young woman shouting feminism to the wind where no one hears her. This is entirely true, she had the public lined up to receive her message. We were all ready and waiting. The thing is she also happens to be a wealthy, beautiful, famous, talented pop star who used her power to push an incredibly important message. And she did it with so much sass I think the world, the Western world at least, stopped and stared for a while to appreciate the beauty of what she was doing. Never before has feminism reached such a high status. It is now mainstream. It was reaching that status, but with a little help from pop culture Beyoncé pulled it up from the crowd and held it up for everyone to see. 

How many young people searched the word feminism after her performance and experiences their first feminist moment? How many people swallowed their words when they realised such an influential figure could use feminism to define the belief in equality? 

In a way it is sad that such effort had to go in to produce enough belief in feminism. But it's happened now and I truly believe that such a powerful statement made by such a powerful woman will go along way. Feminism has always been cool. Belief in equality for all is cool. I think Beyoncé just disproved anyone's doubts that it hadn't been cool in the first place. Thank you, Beyoncé. And for the first and last time in my life thank you pop culture and marketing, you finally got something right. 

That little bit of madness.

I am a nervous person. Not when meeting new people, certainly not when giving my opinion and not even when taking important exams. But I have a peculiar history of nervousness that can occasionally creep up on me when I least need it to. I used to be clinically ill with anxiety to the point where I could barely leave the house for an often irrational reason. That period, thankfully, is over but it does mean that I will forever be a little bit stranger than normal.

I suppose that when travelling far away from home one is bound to feel a little disconcerted, and so I am likely to feel fragile for a time. However, like a large amount of the population who have suffered from clinical panic attacks I often teeter on the edge of "I am a rational person who will deal with this uneasiness"which could potentially fall into "I am actually going to die here right now on this spot this is so unbearable I can't breathe I can't think help me." Which, understandably, can be rather unpleasant. I recently felt unstable in America, but I am now home and alive so one can only assume I survived various ordeals unscathed.

I have now spent years avoiding that awful feeling of being utterly out of control through various strategies and experience. This means that when it does creep up on me I can quickly push it away and stay calm in any scary situation I might find myself. I essentially walk around with a bomb in my head though handily the bomb disposal unit is right next door. I find myself a little bit weird because most of the things the average joe would find terrifying I think nothing of and in the situations most would shrug off I want to immediately find my mummy.

What I have learnt from all of my nervousness is that it's absolutely alright to be a little bit mad. Even quite a bit mad. Because not only are you actually in the majority, but it teaches you a great deal.