Earlier this month, pop culture website Pedestrian.tv ran an article on 'living your best life when your life is all over the joint', listing a number of tips to maintaining health through times of stress. Between points emphasising the importance of sleep, regular meals and vitamins were scattered mentions of a Clinique eye cream. Essentially, this was a native advertisement masquerading as a self-help guide.
The marketing of such products functions much in the same way. From health spa day trips that ask you to 'pamper yourself and reward your staff' to Kit-Kat's long-running slogan 'Have a break', the need to relax and recuperate is perceived as a vulnerability ready to be exploited.
Self-care is conflated with any number of items and experiences we can buy our way into, in our pursuits of health and happiness.
In medical professions, the term 'self-care' originated in reference to the self-management of illness, its treatment and prevention.
Self-care, however, also exists in the context of social justice, extending beyond physical wellness to cater for a holistic approach that includes emotional, mental and spiritual fulfilment.
The need for this is rooted in the burden of oppression. Systems that arose from the subjugation of others have caused mass inequality, where marginalised people suffer transgenerational trauma, shorter life spans, and higher prevalences of physical and mental illness.
The same structures that created this inequality perpetuate it by denying their victims the tools to survive and thrive in this world.
A study published in the Medical Journal of Australia in 2014 looked into the racism prevalent within health care for Aboriginal communities and its psychological detriment. Refugees who have escaped poverty and genocide also face medical neglect. Poor and remote communities suffer inequity too when it comes to health services. In short the system frequently fails those who need it most.
Disparities hinging on race, class, gender and sexuality are a pertinent issue, but not a new one. Those who endure oppression have long fostered a culture of caring for themselves and their communities where external forces will not, reclaiming power in the process.
In her book A Burst of Light, the radical feminist writer Audre Lorde (pictured) wrote 'Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.' Feminist author Sara Ahmed deconstructs this quote beautifully, acknowledging that 'the struggle for survival is a life struggle and a political struggle. Some of us, Audre Lorde notes, were never meant to survive.'
In this sense,