Why is breast augmentation still so popular?
The procedure has an uneasy relationship with contemporary feminism
Kia ora and welcome to The Weekend, your Saturday morning guide to great writing on The Spinoff and around the internet. This week I’ve been contemplating how good I am at being attached to my phone, thinking about stupid little puns — does this content make me content? — while lying on the couch, stupefied by the amount of things I could read, my thumb tired from scrolling. This is possibly better than having to send multiple people texts about how frustrated I feel about American foreign policy because I have listened to too many podcasts about events I have no control over, which also happened this week. I am not sure if this newsletter is an antidote to doom-scrolling or rage-texting but putting it together did make me feel more calm and grateful for the quantity of thoughtful writing that exists. Find yourself a beverage — I would suggest our sponsor Coffee Supreme — and let’s get into it.
-Shanti Mathias, staff writer
Why breast enlargement is so popular
“We talk about ‘boob jobs’ a bit flippantly, forgetting they are relatively major surgical procedures to healthy bodies. Having one means making a lifelong commitment to breast surgery, as the implants will almost certainly need replacing,” writes Gabi Lardies, in this piece about breast augmentation. She spoke to Lucy, a woman who underwent the procedure, about her experience of needing to be nursed and supported in a wheelchair for weeks as she recovered. Around the world, breast enlargement has never been more popular; Lardies situates this fact in the history of feminism and the complexity of how something that feels empowering for an individual may be oppressive for women as a whole.
The legend of Heath Davis
In the 1990’s, Heath Davis was a man from the Hutt Valley who was an astonishingly fast bowler — good enough to be selected for the Black Caps squad multiple times. After a short international career, Davis played cricket for the Auckland and Wellington teams, then disappeared from the public eye. In a documentary released on The Spinoff this week, Davis talks about how he experienced those years of cricket, and how his sexuality made him feel out of place in the sporting world. As well as the documentary, Madeleine Chapman has written a feature about the legend of Heath Davis in New Zealand cricket, and how national sporting institutions at the time weren’t set up to give athletes support in all areas of their lives. It’s a remarkable, compassionately told story.
Queer women in sport need support too, says Alice Soper
Rotorua wants tourists — and tourists want Māori culture
Spinoff staff writer Charlotte Muru-Lanning spent the weekend in Rotorua a few weeks ago, on a trip organised by Tourism New Zealand. There are a whole lot of thriving Māori owned businesses there — a reminder that Rotorua has been a popular tourist destination for more than 150 years. The food is incredible, and the geothermal activity is lively (if you’re looking at a geyser) but also relaxing (if you’re sinking into a steamy natural hot pool). Rotorua is the city of my birth, and Charlotte’s story transported me to the wide streets and the smell of sulphur. But she also explores the complexity in this tourist hotspot where businesses rely on commodifying their own culture to generate income.
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Number of the week: 110 years
This week, the New Zealand government released the National Adaption Plan, which went into detail about the options the government is considering to support communities in areas that will be the hardest-hit by climate change. But while the urgent effects of climate change are being felt now, the phenomenon of human-induced global warming has been a scientific fact for more than a century. A newspaper clipping from 1912 declaring that “coal consumption is affecting climate” periodically goes viral online — and it’s from a New Zealand newspaper. But while it’s this particular newspaper clipping that the internet loves, the history of scientists acknowledging the reality of climate change is even longer. Toby Manhire traces the history of this news item — spoiler, it appeared in an Australian newspaper first — and talks to two science communicators about how acknowledging the climate crisis is different to taking action on it.
How the Sky Tower became an icon
I’ve never known the Auckland skyline without the Sky Tower, a piece of architecture so iconic that it’s now the subject of a game on Auckland Twitter. On childhood visits to Auckland, my siblings and I would always try to spot the Sky Tower, no matter where we were in the city. This week, Spinoff staff writer Chris Schulz has written a mini-series about the tower. I asked him what inspired him to learn more about the building. “It’s always there,” Chris says. “If you’re ever lost in Auckland you can just look up, find it, and know work out where you are. As the Sky Tower turned 25, I wanted to ask the people that made it what is was like to be responsible for something that has affected the city so permanently.” After talking to the architect who designed the building, Chris got a behind-the-scenes tour. What I liked most, though, was this photo essay documenting how the Sky Tower was built.
Meeting the Aucklander who got a Sky Tower tattoo
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Everything else
How did it feel to live through the Tinder decade?
I loved this thoughtful essay about the politics remaking Delhi, mostly because it made me desperately miss that remarkable city
This column where people reveal their search history makes me feel some solidarity about my compulsive doomscrolling
A children’s book author wanted to use the gender neutral pronouns in her story. Her publisher didn’t agree.
Poem: setting the world back into place
The government wants to use Shortland Street to recruit nurses. But what have we learned about nursing from the show already?
When you’ve been a kumari — a Nepali living goddess — what do you do next?
Hear us out: celebrities should only be allowed to be on one reality show and the Commonwealth Games should feature random PE teachers
Why is the story about Kylie Jenner and Taylor Swift’s private jets so important?
A quest to discover New Zealand’s most popular karaoke songs
The US spends billions on international aid, but it’s remarkably ineffective. (Different, but related: Blowback, the best podcast documenting the atrocities of the American empire, has a new season about the Korean War)
And finally, do you need something to watch this weekend? New to Streaming has you covered.
