We're so obsessed with how ageing looks, that we're often unprepared for what it feels like. Following her 40th birthday, Amil Niazi explores the privileges, pleasures and regrets of reaching middle age.

The Cut is the premier destination for women with sharp, stylish minds. No matter the subject, they address people's lives head-on, with generous wit, unflinching honesty and undeniable power.


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We’re getting midlife all wrong

The opulent time-telling industry is becoming more crypto-like by the second.

The rich can have pretty much anything their hearts desire unless it’s a big fancy watch. It doesn’t matter how much money you have; you need to have the right connections. Alina Dizik delves into the world of luxury watch dealing.

Not even the rich can buy fancy watches

"I want to do this for someone else."

Paid gestational surrogacy is not a new phenomenon. However, it's fraught with controversy, with one side arguing that it commodifies women's bodies, while the other believes it's essential for reproductive freedom and LGBTQ rights. To provide additional perspectives, Tessa Somberg meets with three New York women who chose to carry a baby for another.

Three women on carrying pregnancies after New York legalized paid surrogacy in 2021

We're addicted to swiping. 

With Tinder turning 10 in September 2022, it's clear that online dating has shaped the majority of our romantic lives. Allison P. Davis reflects on the ever-present urge to delete and redownload over the years with her experiences on the app. 

How did a dating app become my longest running relationship?

The radical decontextualization of the fetus has broken US politics.

Marjorie Dannenfelser has been a critical figure in the conservative fight to take away reproductive rights and outlaw abortion, but she started her career working for a Democrat. Now teetering on the edge of success, Kerry Howley reflects Marjorie Dannenfelser’s single-minded pursuit of an end to abortion.

The woman who killed Roe

How do we define, harness, and conquer ambition?

People are working harder than ever before. However, as proven by 'The Great Resignation' that followed the coronavirus pandemic, many are no longer willing to sacrifice their well-being for the American pipedream. Amil Niazi reflects on how this global paradigm shift has affected her attitude towards ambition, making it clear it was time to re-assess her priorities.

Losing my ambition

According to TikTok, anyone can leave behind the daily grind well ahead of their twilight years.

The switch from childhood freedoms to work and adulthood obligations is jarring for every generation. However, today's young people are more overwhelmed by debt than their parents, and the majority are unlikely to ever get on the property ladder. And now, with rising inflation and the pension age being pushed further and further back, retirement is an almost inconceivable idea. This is where the #EarlyRetirement movement comes in.

Courtney Runn meets with early retirement proponents to discover the sacrifices, including aggressive saving, investment, and frugality behind their goals and how TikTok has helped the movement gain a new audience, new traction and new ideas.

What it takes to actually retire by 30

Many of us need them to thrive.

A work best friend can become your closest ally and even a reason to stay at a less than ideal company. Yet these friendships have almost disappeared after two years of lockdown. Jessica Goodman reflects on this valuable and unique type of friendship.

Where are all my work friends?

It’s becoming impossible to stop turning pleasures into chores.

Technology When did it become a Reading tracked through social apps can be both motivating and stressful. Jess Thomson reflects on her unachievable reading goals and the added pressure of the watchful eyes of her Goodreads followers.

Reading is a competition now

Will any of us survive it?

Trends are constantly shifting; there have already been at least four in the 21st century, including the hipster phase and the woke era. Now, as we emerge from the pandemic into the horrors of climate change and growing tensions in Eastern Europe, Allison P. Davis discusses how a sense of doom is almost certainly shaping our post-COVID aesthetic. In other words, our heels are getting higher and partying harder the closer we inch to death.

A vibe shift is coming

The power of an ice-cold, unflinching gaze.

Molly Fischer pays tribute to the late Joan Didion, who passed away in December 2021. Here, she explores her style of cool scrutiny and reflects on how her legacy will be continued through her writing model, which has become an influential model for a generation of tiers who have grown up writing online.

Joan Didion’s greatest two-word sentence

She has done what many black women wish they could do: fight back and win.

The duchess's battle with tabloids and trolls is about more than just her right to privacy. As the courts reject Mail on Sunday's appeal, author and Co-Director of the UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry, Safiya Umoja Noble, explores the case's significance and the harms that come to Black women and girls from Big Tech companies.

The fight of Meghan Markle’s life

When does a model own her own image?

Emily Ratajkowski is more familiar with seeing herself through a photographer's lens than with her reflection in the mirror. Since 2013 when she starred in a viral music video, she became accustomed to paparazzi lurking outside her home and men jumping out from corners to try and snap the perfect picture. 

Following the publication of her memoir, "My Body", we visit this honest piece in which she explains her fight for autonomy over her image and the tension between empowerment and objectification.

Emily Ratajkowski: Buying myself back

After a lifetime of silence, she's now ready to control the narrative.

Huma Abedin's memoir "Both/And: A Life in Many Words" is a political and personal coming-of-age tale, which started after the suggestion of her close friend, Anna Wintour. For Abedin, the book is a chance to tell her side of the political and personal tumult she witnessed and participated in, previously only shown by the media.

Here, she talks candidly with Lisa Miller about her earliest life in Michigan and upbringing in Saudi Arabia, the day she walked into the White House as an intern, and the public breakdown of her marriage — but, nothing in her experience could have prepared her for what was to come.

Huma Abedin is ready to tell you who she is

Sometimes, not much.

Is your work ethic motivated by drive, or fear or both? Is there a difference between the two? Katie Heaney explores the relationship between the two and reflects on the complexities of setting high expectations for yourself.

What’s the difference between anxiety and ambition?

What comes next?

We are in a post-girl boss era. In 2020, a reckoning began to occur in the world of women-led start-ups that drove the movement — with many CEOs stepping down due to accusations of toxic cultures. Now the movement is seemingly over, Samhita Mukhopadhyay reflects on how the trope was infantilizing and sexist, but it was also essential for many women.

The girlboss is dead — long live the girlboss

Is the notion of burnout too narrow?

For those who can afford it, quitting has become the ultimate form of self-care. Katie Heaney reflects on how the term has turned into a complicated catchall with a predominantly white-collar status. Here, she argues for a more contemplative approach to the feelings surrounding work exhaustion.

The clock-out cure

Face-to-face meetings between a victim and an abuser may prove helpful.

The question of how to respond to domestic violence have has come up short, the criminal justice system is the only option and many cases do not make it to court as victims are scared to relive their trauma. But, a far more effective course of action could be on the horizon.

Amelia Schonbek explores the practice of restorative justice: a form of conflict resolution that brings together survivors and offenders with a focus on repairing the damage done.

“Restorative justice is a modern interpretation of a very old idea: Its central principles resemble the conflict-resolution methods of Navajo and Maori people, among others. Its contemporary western form can be traced back to one spring night in 1974, when two teenage boys slashed tires and broke windows all through a Mennonite community in Ontario. A court officer named Mark Yantzi was handed the case. After the boys pleaded guilty, Yantzi noticed that the legal system offered no mechanism for them to literally repay their debt to the people whose property they’d damaged.”

Will you ever change?

Get to know the pros and cons surrounding the media tool of the era.

Creators are monetising their personalities and cutting their attachments to publishers. But is this really the future of journalism? Molly Fischer explores how the financial promise of email newsletters has launched countless micro publications - and created a new genre.

Here, she questions whether the absence of editorial professionals, who helped launch some of the world's best writers into the literary stratosphere, leads to an emptiness in the world of online media commentary.

The sound of my inbox

Will our phones become our therapists?

An overwhelming demand for counselling has spawned slickly marketed companies promising a service they cannot possibly provide. The rise in 'digital behavioural health' has put a huge price on mental wellness after raising $1.8 billion in venture-capital funding in 2020. Molly Fischer explores how this has given birth to a wave of apps promising to help, even when they can’t.