Melis Layik: Feminist Activist, Writer and Queer Icon

Have you read this week’s article? It is about diet culture and how companies profit off of the insecurities they have planted in us. About how diets can endanger our health and damage our relationship with food.

Well, Melis Layik is speaking out about it too. This Turkish, Melbourne-based writer has written several on-point, crucial articles on diets and eating disorders. Because it is not an individual problem anymore, when a whole part of society suffers from it. She should be more informed on the subject and we should be able to speak freely about it. Keep going Melis!

We said Melis was an activist, and it is true. On top of her fight against diet culture, she is also speaking up for queer, and more specifically, bisexual rights. Yes, this queer icon is one flamboyant bisexual and she is not taking any prejudiced comments.

Oh, and have we mentioned that Melis is denouncing Islamophobia as well? She is pointing Western Islamophobia and contradictions, especially concerning the Taliban’s coup in Afghanistan. Specifically, she is exposing Western’s hypocrisy and the way they exploit human disasters to create an anti-Islam narrative. But she says it way better than we ever could, so why not have a look at her article directly?

Another of her fights - why pick one when you can do it all, are we right? - is against the patriarchy. Melis is adamant: her body is hers, and she can do whatever she pleases with it. Being dressed like a vintage secretary, growing her hair or manifesting at the Slut Walk. You go, queen!

Writer, activist, feminist, queer icon, what is there left to do, we began to wonder? Well, it turns out that Melis is also a model. Recently, she has done an alien photoshoot, and the caption that went with the result goes ‘Take me to your leader (Dolly Parton)’. It is so perfect, it does not even need further comments from us.

Just browse down below for a taste of her universe: colorful, bold and resolutely activist!