It's long time for female cycling to take the stage. 

Kick-started by sponsor Zwift, women will return to the Tour de France for the first time in over three decades. With women's sports trending worldwide, Amanda McCracken reports on this historic moment for women's cycling. 

Published by the Washington Post, The Lily is a newspaper written by women for women. The articles are perfect for the curious minded and those who want to be heard.

The Lily

The Tour de France finally featured women again — after 33 years

"My mind will not turn off."

Not everyone experiences the disorder the same way, and no matter how your anxiety presents itself, it doesn't make it less inauthentic. To help break the stigma, Crystal Preston-Watson discusses her personal experience with anxiety, including her diagnosis, coping mechanisms and what she wishes people knew about the world's most common mental illness.

This is how I experience anxiety

"Your story is always going to be important."

Life is anything but ordinary for this 19-year-old California native and Stanford freshman. Madeline Weinfield interviews Alexandra Huỳnh, the newest national youth poet laureate. They discuss how she found her voice, widening the platform of the youth poet laureate and finding hope in 2022.

National Youth Poet Laureate Alexandra Huỳnh’s message to other young people

Do abortion bans empower women?

Nearly 50 after the US Supreme Court's decision to protect a pregnant woman's choice to have an abortion, Mississippi's top lawyer, Attorney General Lynn Fitch's, is arguing that they prevent women from reaching their full potential.

Ahead of the SCOTUS' 2022 decision on Mississippi's potential abortion ban, Caroline Kitchener delves into Fitch's life, career and views on abortion.

The woman who could bring down Roe v. Wade

Here are ways to cope.

Take back the joy in your festivities. 2021 has allowed for far-flung family and friends to be reunited for the holidays, but this festivity can also be fraught with emotional minefields. In this instalment of Happier Holidays, Soo Youn guides you through navigating the mental, financial and interpersonal problems the winter holiday season can bring.

The holiday season can come with grief, burnout and more

Sex ed, but with a time limit.

When curious young adults struggle to find answers about their bodies at school or on older corners of the internet, it’s no surprise they turn to TikTok for some help. Julia Moore explores how the platform is filling an education gap. But worries, that like anything else, it has its limitations.

Teens don’t always get sex ed at school — TikTokers are stepping in

Collective feelings of exhaustion are likely to get worse before they get better.

Soo Youn reveals that feelings of relief and reflection over the pandemic will likely heighten feelings of exhaustion. In this insight into how professionals examine this pandemic-induced phenomenon, they also offer her expert tips on combatting burnout.

Why burnout won’t go away, even as life returns to ‘normal’

An interview with Time Magazine’s 'Kid of the Year'.

Gitanjali Rao won the title for her achievements in science, which include building a device that detects lead in drinking water. Anne Branigin interviews the 15-year-old to find out more about her latest projects, the current state of science, and how the rest of Gen Z will shape the future of tech.

At 15, scientist Gitanjali Rao made history: "You don’t need a PhD to make a difference"

The dangers of stereotyping.

The Atalanta spa attacks have sparked fear and anger across the Asian American community. Erin Chan Ding talks to spa business owners and analyses how deep-seated stereotypes of the spas are to blame for increasingly violent racist interactions.

Women who work at Asian spas are reeling from the attacks: ‘It’s scary’

The dangers of generations of objectification.

Christine Liwag Dixon explains how the Atlanta spa shooting is a reflection of the dangerous effects of discrimination and hyper-sexualisation that all Asian American women face. In this deeply personal piece, she explores the first steps in dismantling these harmful stereotypes.

The man charged with the spa shootings was quickly humanized. What about the victims?

Recently, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Evan Rachel Wood have been speaking out.

After a year of lockdown and heightened political contention, many of us have experienced overlapping traumatic events. But how do we know whether intense experiences have resulted in post-traumatic stress disorder? For The Lily, Sunny Fitzgerald provides ways to recognise and, if needed, heal from trauma.

“The trauma response is intended to protect us, but it can become harmful if it stays activated even after the threat is gone. 'If our trauma is untreated, we remain in that hypervigilant state,' Robinson says. 'If we stay in that activated state for a prolonged period of time, the body cannot sustain that. It will have to work hard to maintain that level, and eventually we will burn out'.”

We’ve been hearing a lot about PTSD — here’s how to recognize and heal from trauma

Model and author Chrissy Teigen and singer John Legend recently shared the loss of their third child.

"Fans responded quickly, offering sympathy. The candor of a celebrity who shared her pain so openly deeply struck women. Many commented on her posts across social media that they too had suffered a similar loss and thanked her for helping destigmatize pregnancy loss." Soo Youn of The Lily ponders how the couple's experience of pregnancy loss reflects reality for many expectant parents.

Chrissy Teigen was deeply honest about her pregnancy loss. Her rawness struck a chord.

A personal reflection on our collective 'need for closure', and how to best deal with it.

After discovering an ex-boyfriend had passed away years ago, Akanksha Singh was left with a desperate search for closure. In this piece for The Lily, she talks to experts, who offer methods to help ease the pain associated with the unexpected end of a relationship.

I looked up an ex during lockdown. He’d died years ago — and it sent me on a desperate search for closure

For one expert, the decision had all to do with 'strategy'.

Sexual assault and harassment have been central issues for the Democrats in the last two elections. But in August's Democratic convention, which saw Joe Biden confirm his presidential nomination, #MeToo wasn't mentioned, not even once. Caroline Kitchener explores the potential reasons in The Lily.

Why wasn’t #MeToo ever mentioned during the Democratic convention?

For one scholar, the debate has become a game of 'political strategy'.

"There's a lot riding on this debate. While antiabortion groups also lay claim to other suffragists, they tend to focus most on Anthony. This makes sense, said Tracy Thomas, a professor at the University of Akron School of Law, who has studied the suffragists' views on abortion: Of all the women in the suffrage movement, Anthony is 'the name everyone knows.' If you were taught about any one women's rights leader in school, it was probably her." Caroline Kitchener analyses this for The Lily.

Was Susan B. Anthony antiabortion? Two sides are dueling over the answer — and the definition of feminism

When a phone call doesn't go well in this line of work, it could be a matter of life or death.

A coronavirus contact tracer is "part disease detective, part social work, part therapist," and more often than not the majority of them, who constantly navigate thorny issues of trust and health, are also women. Rachael Allen explores for The Lily.

A day in the life of a contact tracer

The Lesbian Switchboard was a critical emotional bolster for women in the throes of questioning or crises.

Chloe Lula for The Lily, covers the rise and fall of the Lesbian Switchboard, a Brooklyn based hotline operation that gave queer women support and advice, operating for more than two decades, between 1972 and 1997.

This historic hotline offered lesbians support and advice for decades — this is the story of its rise and fall

A night with a Georgetown student protester at the White House

A night with a Georgetown student protester outside the White House.

"Friedland made her way to the front as soon as she arrived in Lafayette Square for the first night of protests on Friday. It's terrifying to be a few feet from a long line of police officers, Friedland says, who for years have scared her so much that she holds her breath when she drives by their cars. Before last week, Friedland had never been to a protest with violence. Neither had anyone else in her Georgetown group." Caroline Kitchener, writing in The Lily, reports.

Pepper bullet wounds, stinging eyes: a night with a Georgetown student protester outside the White House

What's the world like on the road for those on the front line?

These travelling key workers still have to gamble with their own safety and showing up for duty. Jessica Militare, writing in The Lily, offers this diary of a female truck driver who did 3,481 miles on the road during the coronavirus pandemic.

3,481 miles on the road with a female truck driver during coronavirus

For new mothers, isolation means after giving birth no recovery support or visits from family and friends.

"Postpartum depression is the No. 1 complication of childbirth, affecting 15 percent of new mothers, according to the American Psychological Association. Symptoms can include feelings of sadness and hopelessness, appetite and sleep changes and, in rare instances, thoughts of self-harm. Researchers say it can be caused by plummeting postpartum hormones, sleep deprivation and emotional stress." Juli Fraga investigates in The Lily, the effect coronavirus is having on mothers after giving birth.