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The sneaky ways Apple it trying to make tech friendlier for women


Naomi Hirabayashi who, with Marah Lidey, cofounded Shine, an app designed to make self-care a daily habit, doesn’t hesitate to describe the value of Entrepreneur Camp: “It’s validity,” she says. “Apple is the world’s most iconic brand, and when they elevate someone or something, it holds so much weight because they are on the pulse of innovation.” The company’s support helped when she and Lidey were marketing the app and won a “best app of the year” designation; Apple also helped them sweat the design details, especially about accessibility, adjusting for things like people who read right to left instead of left to right, or changing icons or notifications so they are visible for people who are color-blind. The upgrades—and their mission to never be “preachy, presumptuous, or pricey” and to assert that self-care is “more than taking a bubble bath at the end of a long day”—have helped them build an audience that is more representative than most, with black women making up some 20 percent of their community, Hirabayashi says. Now Shine is the largest self-care membership in the world, she says, reaching 4 million people in 189 countries every day.

Lactapp founder Maria Berreuzo Martinez, from Spain, was also looking for community when she created her app to support breastfeeding moms. Just a month after giving birth, she was in a car accident that left her hospitalized for two months. She couldn’t see her baby but wanted to continue breastfeeding, so she pumped every day until she was home and could resume nursing. It was possible, she says, because “I had information and support—I had mothers around me that really supported me. Every woman should have that.”

So Martinez set out to create a virtual version of that, spending more than a year to develop an app that would answer questions customized to each mom and the age of her infant. Now Lactapp answers 35,000 questions a week, through live chats and with the help of AI. They’ve also identified key signs a mom may be experiencing things like postpartum depression and, in the next iteration of the app, hope to incorporate information and referrals to doctors for these often undiagnosed conditions. The app, Martinez says, already feels completely new after working with Apple. “We worked for three years on this, and after one session we were like, Oh! We can do this better,” she says. Martinez is mission-driven, but she’s not shy about this being a business (smart since app developers earned $30 billion in the last year alone). “Right now the system makes money when breastfeeding fails,” she says. “What if breastfeeding succeeds? Nobody thinks that way. We have to open a lot of minds.”

Progress on women’s issues, says Kim Azzarelli, cofounder of Seneca Connect, has been “too damn slow. Technology is what’s going to bring us that leap forward.”

photo courtesy of Apple

Kim Azzarelli, cofounder of Seneca Women (alongside Melanne Verveer, the ambassador-at-large for global women’s issues in the Obama administration), admits she wasn’t a tech native when she first had the idea of launching an app, but that didn’t deter her because she felt such an urgency for change. “Those of us who have been working in women’s issues a long time know we have a lot of the solutions, but unfortunately, we’re not able to scale the ideas quickly enough,” she says. “If you want to be part of designing the future, we need women at the table. And to do that we need women in technology.” Azzarelli and Verveer already had a book, Fast Forward, and a newsletter, but that wasn’t enough. An app, Azzarelli explains, offers “the ability to be interactive, to poll people, and to reach the community, but also the ability to be more direct and send daily, more snackable information. In a newsletter we can give people thoughts, but here we can give people something to do, right away.” Apple advised on their Seneca Connect app, which provides tools and resources for female entrepreneurs around the world, and includes the ability to shop from women-owned businesses. The company helped with engineering expertise, and Azzarelli brought her decades of knowledge about women’s issues to the table. Azzarelli has other ideas about AR to help bring these ideas and information to life, but she’s mum for now. “We are coming up to the 100th anniversary of [women getting] the vote…and [progress] is just too slow, too damn slow,” she says.

For her, it would be irresponsible not to use technology to help further the Seneca goals. “Susan B. Anthony traveled all over this country by horse and buggy, not Uber and Lyft,” she says. “They really made sacrifices for 50 years to get us the vote. My fear is that we’re at this moment where [activism is] just in vogue. If we don’t give people actionable things to do and leverage technology, the action we’re seeing now could become another fad, and people will say, ‘Oh, we did that.’ No we didn’t—we’re still stuck. We don’t want the appearance of progress…. Technology is what’s going to bring us that leap forward.” Like the other developers, she found a new community at Entrepreneur Camp, or E Camp, as some call it. “I’ve been in a lot of rooms full of women,” she says. “At E camp, I was with another 15 women-led businesses, from all over the world. You just feel like you’re in something together. You feel like you’re building the future.”



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The Peru Water Crisis Steals Time, Money and Safety from Women


To learn more about how the water crisis is impacting women in Peru, I traveled to Lima with Water.org and Stella Artois as part of their #PourItForward campaign. After visiting women in the suburbs, I learned that the water crisis doesn’t always look the way you might think.

Imagine living in the suburbs of a major metropolitan city: You have a nice two bedroom house on a tree-lined street, just up the hill from a lush green park with views of the ocean. You have a sunny, covered courtyard—the kind of place you might have a barbecue, filled with a few potted plants and a spacious picnic table. You have a cozy kitchen with bright blue cabinets stacked high with sparkling dishes. You have all this, but you’re missing one vital thing: running water.

When we talk about the water crisis, it’s often in the context of polluted rivers or remote villages that force women to walk for hours each day just to find clean water. Those are major issues but the full picture of the water crisis is a lot slipperier. In the suburbs of developing countries like Peru, the problem isn’t as simple as digging wells or installing water filters. Here, the water crisis has more to do with money and infrastructure—the actual pipes that bring clean water from the city’s water source into showers and sinks throughout the area—and money.

Lima’s water infrastructure is so overburdened that you can’t flush toilet paper—a fact I learned when faced with this sign in the airport bathroom.

“The water system is here but the challenge is that it’s tilted towards the affluent and middle class,” says Gary White, co-founder and CEO of Water.org, a social good organization that pioneers financial solutions to the global water crisis. That means residents in towns outside of the city limits often don’t have access to running water in their homes, either because they can’t afford to install a sink or toilet, or because the water pipes simply aren’t there. (Or both.)

In the peri-urban areas of Peru, three million people lack access to clean water and five million lack access to sanitation like a bathroom in their home. These are the suburbs we’re talking about—imagine driving to a neighborhood two hours outside of New York City and finding that hand-dug toilets and bucket showers are the norm. Even in the most low-income neighborhoods, that would be unfathomable but in developing nations, it’s not uncommon.

Women often face the biggest burden of the water crisis. Globally, women and girls spend 200 million hours every day collecting water and another 266 million hours finding a place to go to the bathroom, according to Water.org. In areas like the neighborhoods outside of Lima, they might live on a nice block with a park around the corner and still not have access to a bathroom in their home. “It doesn’t always have the face of total desperation you’ll see in rural areas where people are walking six hours [to find clean water] or drinking out of a hand dug well,” says Matt Damon, co-founder of Water.org. “It’s the day-to-day grind and what that does in people’s lives.”

Without running water, women often have to haul heavy buckets from large communal water tanks (which can cost 10-15 times more to fill than it would cost for direct water access from a water utility) and find safe places to use the bathroom. Sanitation is a major issue. “The lives of girls are totally changed because they’re spending their time in this daily grind. It completely robs them of their potential,” Damon says. And it’s not just time-consuming, it’s often a safety issue: Imagine having to walk around your neighborhood alone in the middle of the night trying to find a place to pee, or having to bathe without any privacy.

Treelined street in the suburbs of Lima.

Even in nicer suburbs with tree-lined streets and green parks, access to running water is still out of reach for many families outside of Lima.

Photo of a bathroom in the suburbs of Lima.

Giovanna, 47, and her family live in a nice house. But until they were able to get financing for a proper bathroom, they had to use an open hole out back—a safety and sanitation risk.

Giovanna helps her grandson wash his hands.

A loan through the WaterCredit program helped Giovanna and her family put in two bathrooms, an improvement that’s helped make their home safer and cleaner—and afforded Giovanna the opportunity to grow her business selling cosmetics.

The solution isn’t about digging wells or trucking in more clean water. To truly fix the problem and remove that chronic daily grind from the shoulders of women, Water.org argues financial empowerment is the key. In 2013, they launched the WaterCredit program, which works with banks in places like Lima to help women and their families get micro loans—the average size of which are just $1,200—to make home improvements. In areas that do have access to water pipes, it’s as simple as getting the few hundred dollars it takes to tap into the main line and install a faucet or toilet in their home. In more rural areas, a loan can help women pay for a water tank that will provide running water for luxuries like showers and toilets.

What the Water Crisis Looks Like

If you stand directly in front of Grecia’s house, it looks like the kind of cute starter bungalow you might find outside of San Francisco: the angular facade looks like it’s been freshly painted and the sunny front porch has a verdant shade tree. Grecia, 26, lives in the airy white house with her husband and their two-year-old son and one day, she hopes to run a pharmacy for the neighborhood out of her home.

White stucco house with tree and fence.

Grecia’s home outside of Lima.

Turn to the left, and it’s clear Grecia’s home is the outlier on the block. The streets in her neighborhood aren’t paved and the majority of the homes on the block have tin roofs and wooden slats for siding. Everything surrounding Grecia’s house is brown and lopsided. Until recently, she didn’t have so much as a water tap let alone a shower or toilet.



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Men Can’t Sit Back While Women Fight Alone for Reproductive Rights


Chris Cuomo with his wife, Cristina Greeven Cuomo, and their three children

Courtesy of Chris Cuomo

One of the first cases that came up after Roe affirmed that women could make their own decision. Planned Parenthood v. Casey asked whether or not a woman had to tell her husband before she got an abortion. Why? Because the idea that she needed permission was an extension of our patriarchal society, the notion that a woman is chattel and does what a man says. I’ve raised my daughter to never, ever seek a man’s approval for anything.

I used to joke that I was a shotgun-and-shovel kind of guy: If you’re coming to my house to date my daughter, you better be hands-up and have packed a lunch because it’s going to be a long day for you. But I evolved because as she got older, I realized that I didn’t want to insulate her—I wanted to equip her to make the best choices. Now I tell her: You do whatever you want as long as it’s on your own terms. And if you’re not sure, you can talk to me or talk to your mom (she’s the smarter one anyway).

The cascade of abortion bans completely contradict what I’ve told her that her reality should be. I’ve always tried to make her feel assured that there are no limitations on who she wants to be. That nobody gets to define her except herself. This is not about being pro-choice or pro-life—that’s not an accurate reflection of what this fight is about. This is about pro women’s choice and anti women’s choice. There are people who believe women should not have this choice. That’s what motivated her to go down and march—her fear for herself, her future.

I let her go to the march. She stopped by my office afterward, safe, tired, and hopeful. My fears, however, haven’t dissipated. I worry, of course, that she’ll lose the right to control her body and reproductive health. But increasingly that’s the least of my concerns. If we allow our society to decide that people don’t have determination over their lives, their futures, their bodies, where does it end? Where will that lead us? If you can tell somebody, “I’m sorry, sweetheart, you can’t have this procedure,” what’s next? We don’t know. Maybe: We’ve decided we don’t like physical augmentation either; we don’t like you changing how you look because it’s not how God made you. We’ve decided you must always submit to men, to your husbands, because that’s what scripture says. And on and on.

I’m also afraid for her generation and how this might jaundice their views of our democracy. What is a more powerful and corrosive way to make people not want to participate than to rob them of their most personal, intimate, and profound choices? How can we move forward when a generation could feel so disempowered from making decisions?

The parenting struggle I have now is that I have to help my daughter understand that she lives in a society that doesn’t necessarily agree about what’s best for her. That’s not easy. I tell her she has a right to feel the way she does, and that sometimes you have to fight for things that you shouldn’t have to fight for at all.

But I’ve also told her I will fight with her. I will ask men to stand alongside her and her fellow protesters. Nobody’s saying we want abortions because we’re in the people killing business. Nobody’s happy to have an abortion. We’ve had difficult pregnancies, we’ve had things not go our way. We’ve had to agonize about what to do. We know the pain of it. My wife had to suffer, and I suffered by her side. There’s a pain in the powerlessness of how little we men can help.



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These Running Safety Tips from Women Are So Smart (And Heartbreaking)


When many women get ready to go for a run, their prep looks something like this: put on favorite running shorts, lace up shoes, pick a playlist, grab a weapon, head out the door.

You read that right. Headlines about women being attacked by men (or even animals) while out for jog are a steady drumbeat in the news cycle; for women, running safety is often top of mind and for many, that means running with products that could help them stay safe in the event of being attacked while on a run.

In a twitter thread posted earlier this week, women began sharing the things they carry to help them feel safe when they run—everything from running with dogs to running with knives—and it’s getting a ton of attention on social media. “One of my mom groups has a thread that is just women listing and recommending which kind of protection they take when them when they go out running (i.e. pepper spray, alarm necklaces, whistles, etc.) in case you wondered what being a woman is like,” writer Amanda Deibert posted earlier this week before asking: “Also, women: what do you use when you go out running?”

The thread prompted a flood of responses from women that are infuriating and heartbreaking—women are carrying knives in the pockets of their running vests just to feel safe while out for a run. But their recommendations are also incredibly practical. “I won’t wear headphones so I can be more alert to my surroundings,” one woman wrote. “Would be nice to listen to music though.”

Here are some of the best running safety products for women recommended by women (and where you can get them).

Safety whistle

“The whistle I use is called the Whistles for LIFE Tri-Power Whistle,” one woman recommended. “I have yellow because I feel it’s more visible then red.”

REI

Whistles for LIFE Tri-Power Whistle

Buy Now

Self-defense claw

“I use two,” one woman shared. “One in each hand.”

Self-defense keychain

“My daughter starts 6th grade in August and will need to use the school bus for the first time. The bus doesn’t come to our house, meaning she’ll need to walk and wait at the end of our road every morning,” one woman wrote. “She now has a cell phone, rape whistle, and one of these. She’s eleven.”

The Home Security Superstore

Self-Defense Keychain

Buy Now

Personal alarm

Amazon

HUMUTU Safesound Personal Alarm

Buy Now

Pepper spray glove

“I like that it’s really only a partial glove and that I don’t have to grip/hold the pepper spray the whole run,” one woman said. “I definitely feel safer running with it.”

Amazon

Self-Defense Pepperspray

Buy Now

Medical kit

In the event that something does go wrong on a run or hike, several women mentioned carrying a few first aid supplies.





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5 Women Try Meghan Markle's Favorite Lipstick


The “Markle Effect”—i.e. the phenomenon of royal stans rushing to buy every outfit Meghan Markle leaves the house in—has been well documented by this point. Who hasn’t seriously considered impulse buying a tuxedo dress? But one of the less discussed abilities Markle holds is the power to make certain beauty products fly off the shelves. Take Tatcha’s Rice Polish, which promptly began selling out after headlines declared her love for it.

Unfortunately, Markle’s becoming royal means she’s no longer able to openly discuss her routine (which is why the source of Kate Middleton’s blowout was nearly impossible to pinpoint for so long). Luckily for us, because of her years spent in Hollywood, we already have some intel on her favorite products and makeup preferences—the biggest being the reason you’ll never see her in red lipstick.

Last year, Markle’s makeup artist Daniel Martin shared with People why she tends to favor nudes over bold shades like red or plum. “She likes to talk and she’s not a fussy person, so she doesn’t want to have to worry about anything,” he said. Naturally, you can imagine this sent the Internet into a tailspin, and rumors flew abound about what her mystery shade could be. And while we’ll never have official palace confirmation, word on the street is that her perfect nude is Charlotte Tilbury’s Matte Revolution Lipstick in Very Victoria.

Max Mumby/Getty
Megan Markle Nude Lipstick
Chris Jackson/ Getty Images
Meghan Markle Nude Lipstick
Samir Hussein/ Getty
Meghan Markle Nude Lipstick
Pool/Samir Hussein/ Getty

It’s a makeup artist favorite, constant best-seller, and it’s actually got a rather interesting connection to one of Markle’s wedding guests. Like many of Tilbury’s lipsticks, the shade is named after one of her celebrity muses—which in this case, refers to the woman formerly known as Posh Spice. Very Victoria is designed to compliment Victoria Beckham’s signature smoky eye, and has a dusty-pink tint to give it a bit of warmth, which helps make nudes feel more wearable. It’s also got a reputation for looking great on a range of skin tones.

It’ll probably only be matter of time until Tilbury creates a custom lipstick exclusively named after Meghan. In early 2018, she made a satin-finish tea-rose pink lipstick called The Duchess, inspired by Kate Middleton’s go-to nude. She’s also got a Matte Revolution shade designed after the head of the monarchy, herself, The Queen, a cerise-pink matte that instantly became a top-seller.

Until then, there’s Victoria. To see if the Markle Sparkle carries over to those of us who aren’t legitimate royalty, we had five Glamour staffers put Very Victoria to the test. Read on for our honest thoughts.

charlotte tilbury very victoria
Michaela Oshaughnessy

Michaela Oshaughnessy, senior social media manager

I’m a huge fan of every Charlotte Tilbury product I’ve ever tried, and Very Victoria is no different. Firstly, I loved the creamy texture and how moisturizing it felt on my lips, especially for a matte lipstick. As for the color, as someone who usually goes for a bright lip, I actually really loved this one. It picked up the pinker undertones on my skin and wasn’t as brown on my lips as it was in the tube which was a pleasant surprise.

Charlotte Tilbury Very Victoria
Khaliha Hawkins

Khaliha Hawkins, producer

This lipstick is very similar to my all time favorite lip color, Nars Sheer Lipstick in Falbala. They’re both very similar to my natural lip color, but this one is a little more matte and pink. It was easy to put on and didn’t require a lot of effort to make it work, but didn’t have as much hydration as my usual lipsticks.

charlotte tilbury very victoria
Tara Gonzalez

Tara Gonzalez, associate commerce editor

It’s hard to find a good neutral lipstick but this one is perfect. Not only does it match my lip color nicely, but I thought it actually made my lips look a little bigger. I was also worried it would look strange with my colored eyeliner (I’ve been wearing a different color every day, recently) but it really pulled the look together. This may just be my new go-to.



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15 Porn Sites for Women That You'll Really, Really Enjoy


There’s no shortage of porn on the Internet but it’s hard to find something you actually want to watch. On a lot of free sites, it often feels like you have to wade through video after video (and pop-up after pop-up) of people degrading, insulting, and violating women before you can find decent porn sites for women. Given what a task that is, it’s no wonder more men than women still watch porn. But this is changing, thanks to the rise of porn for women. Finding hot masturbation material should not come at the cost of feeling like an object (unless that is specifically what you’re looking for—and even then it can be done in a feminist way).

Much of the best porn for women isn’t free, but a lot of free porn isn’t produced ethically. Paying for porn is not only going to be safer for your computer, but it makes the entire industry more female-friendly for the performers and the viewers.

Here are some porn sites to check out if you’re looking for female empowerment, mutually respectful sex, and lots of content to help get you off:

Cindy Gallop created this site to show real sex among real people, not actors doing things that don’t represent how sex happens IRL. Couples submit videos of themselves having sex, which you can rent for $5, and half of the money will go to the stars themselves. “We are not porn—porn is performance (often an exceedingly delicious performance, but a performance nonetheless),” its website reads. “We are not ‘amateur’—a label that implies that the only people doing it right are the professionals and the rest of us are bumbling idiots. (Honey, please.)” We love that attitude. And these vids.

This award-winning queer porn site provides “real dyke porn, lesbians, femme on femme, boi, stud, genderqueer and trans-masculine performers, transwomen, transmen, queer men and women engaging in authentic queer sexuality, whether it is with safer sex, strap-on sex, cocksucking, kink and BDSM, gender play and fluidity, and always authentic orgasms.” You can become a member (which lets you stream all the videos) for $9.99 to $25 a month.

Erika Lust, a filmmaker who explained why porn can be feminist in this great TED Talk, gives us porn videos—made largely by female directors—that show all of the passion, “intimacy, love, and lust in sex,” where “the feminine viewpoint is vital, the aesthetic is a pleasure to all of the senses, and eroticism and innovation are celebrated.” She also accepts viewer “confessions,” which she turns into videos for her XConfessions series. You can watch Lust’s work for $16.66 to $34.95 a month.

Instead of your standard video format, this site features GIFs for quick, free consumption of “palpable desire, unbridled passion, and body-positive eroticism.” It also offers sex-toy reviews, a NSFW coloring book, and other resources from sex educator Elle Chase.

The “female-friendly” sections of mainstream porn sites are often just proof of how low our standards are. Anything where a woman feels a modicum of genuine pleasure tends to get categorized this way, even when the images overall are clearly geared toward straight men. But Dane Jones’ videos are some of the best options you’ll find under this category. They’re sensual, romantic, and focused on the women involved (though they tend to have shots that linger on men’s bodies as well). You can become a member for around $20 to $30 a month, but many videos are free.

The women-run Indie Porn Revolution—formerly known as nofauxxx.com—is committed to involving a diverse array of actors, showing safe sex (a rarity in porn), and casting frequently typecast people in non-stereotypical roles. Membership is $16.67 to $20 a month.

“Ms Naughty,” the filmmaker behind this production company, calls it, “a deliberate attempt to show all the good stuff that we love about sex—intimacy, laughter, connection, and real pleasure.” The videos feature the silly, awkward side of sex as well as the hot and steamy side. The camera zooms in on men just as much as it does on women, and the scenes focus on the buildup of sexual tension couples experience before sex, so you can feel the heat rising. To see beyond the previews, you have to pay $28.22 for the first month and then $12.24 a month after that.

Listen to enough fake porn moans and you can start to wonder what real people actually sound like when they’re masturbating or having sex. Fortunately, this site clears all that up. For no cost at all, you can listen to dozens of audio recordings of masturbation sessions. Some include dirty talk aimed at pleasing the listener, and others include entertaining attempts to count backward from 100 to 0.

The feminist sex-toy store Good Vibrations makes an effort to cater to women’s diverse desires, and its video collection is no exception. You can search specifically for feminist porn, women-directed films, and even sex-ed guides—something very needed in a world where way too many people learn everything they know from some pretty unrealistic porn. You can pay per minute or rent each video for $5 to $10.

At Bellesa, women can easily access sexual content that is true to how they see themselves—as subjects of pleasure, not objects of conquest. It’s not just about the porn, though. They’re a platform that is aimed at helping women fulfill their desires, share intimate and erotic stories, and even engage in a community with other like-minded women looking to freely express their sexuality on the internet. If you’re looking to try your hand at erotica stories, you can submit your content here, or you can simply browse through their women-friendly porn, whether you’re looking for something sensual, passionate or, dare we say, even a little rough.

This female-founded app is that is aimed at creating elevated feminist audio—think: Audible for erotica—that allows you to find a sexy story for whatever situation you’re in. You can search for audio porn to listen to alone in bed for a solo session; stories perfect to listen to before a date to get you into a flirty headspace; even erotic stories appropriate for listening to on your commute home to help you switch off from a day at the office. Dipsea’s stories feature a broad range of preferences, perspectives and interests—and they’re fun, safe, and full of enthusiastic content that prioritizes female pleasure. You can subscribe for $47.99 per year—which is less than $4 a month.

Sexuality is a spectrum, and the best porn should reflect that. SPIT’s queer porn collection nails it on two levels, showcasing different types of content—videos, photos, and erotica—which showcase a variety of experiences. Their content is developed ethically and the company is dedicated to creating consensual, equitable, and intersectional feminist spaces in the sex industry. That’s definitely a great reason to join for $19.65 per month.

Reddit isn’t always the friendliest place for women, but on the r/chickfixxx subreddit you can women posting their favorite female-friendly X-rated videos. You can even make requests—if your tastes are more specific or you’re looking for a particular kind of video, it may just be easier to ask your fellow sexperts here instead of browsing for hours. You are most definitely welcome.

For porn on the artistic side (yes, it’s a thing and it’s great), check out the photography, and short films on A Four Chambered Heart. Unsurprisingly, some of the stills are pretty enough to hang up on your walls — if you’re not too busy getting off to them, that is.

Images and audio are great but sometimes there’s nothing better than reading some good old fashioned erotica. Literotica isn’t your grandma’s scandalous paperback, however. The free resource provides some of the hottest erotic fiction and fantasy on the internet from a variety of authors and points of view. Their standards for stories are high so you can be sure that the stories featured here are, ahem, quite useful.



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