"I actually get really annoyed with the entire concept of the 'female gaze.' It often feels like a way for brands to use me to check off their HR boxes, and I don't appreciate that at all. I also find it to be such a disservice to women photographers because it was meant to take women outside of a box, but it just ended up putting them in another. There is this idea that women only shoot pastel colors, glitter, fruits as vaginas, period art, naked everything, and anything derivative of Petra Collins (I love her work, and this is by no means an attack on her. I'm just stating the obvious). It's annoying because that is not the kind of work I am attracted to, but brands will still ask you to change everything about the way you shoot so you fit this aesthetic in order to come across as woke. There are so many ways to be a woman and experience womanhood, and for that reason, we need to have space for these images to exist and conversations to happen so we can become better at understanding each other as human beings."