CONTENT WARNING - Dear Diary, Welcome to Being a Woman is a collection of raw, vulnerable diary entries following a girl from age 8 to 25, a journey through what it really means to grow up as a woman in a world that silences, shames, dismisses, and controls us. A journey through 25 years of unspoken rules.
Every entry in this book is drawn from truth, shaped by real experiences and real voices. It isn’t one woman’s story, it’s every woman’s story. Not every detail, not every chapter, but every woman will find something in these pages that feels painfully familiar. Some entries will make you angry. Some will make you cry. Some will educate you. All of them are true.
I wrote this book because I am tired and angry. Tired of the unspoken rules, the fear, the expectations, the silence. This is the reality of being a woman, raw, unfiltered, and true. These are the stories we’ve been forced to carry alone. But not anymore.
“Welcome to Being a Woman.” We’ve all heard it, when we’re harassed, dismissed, ignored, hurt. It’s the phrase they throw at us to explain the unfairness we’re meant to just accept. This book takes those moments and writes them down. This book is for women, who are tired, healing, scared, fighting, feeling alone. It’s for all of us.
And to the men reading this. Thank you. Keep reading. Keep listening. Let it make you uncomfortable. This isn’t an attack. It’s an invitation, to understand, to learn, to stand beside us. You have the power to do better. To be better. To raise better.
If you have a mother. A sister. A wife. A friend. And especially if you have daughters. Women you love who carry these fears, these stories, these scars, please listen. Believe us. Support us. Speak up for us when it matters most. Educate your male friends. Call them out. Stop the jokes, the comments, the silence. Because doing nothing makes you part of the problem. This isn’t just our burden. It never should have been.
And if you don’t agree. Feel attacked, feel it’s unfair, or are offended by this. Go write your own fucking book.
This is not fiction. This is reality. Welcome to being a Woman.
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You can view the whole book on my website: abbyjhilton.com
Illuminate: Non-Alcoholic Cocktails -
This project was created in response to the BrandOpus Hatch Competition brief, which challenged designers to develop a non-alcoholic drinks brand that doesn’t feel like
a compromise.
Inspired by real experiences and research into women’s street safety, I created Illuminate, a brand that goes beyond just a drink, sparking conversation and challenging societal norms.
Because a woman’s safety shouldn’t be a privilege, it should be a right.
I created Illuminate because I wanted to use design to highlight a reality that’s often ignored. The idea came to me while walking home from university at night, when a man purposely made me feel uncomfortable and unsafe. Sadly, it wasn’t shocking, just a familiar fear that so many women carry every day. That moment made me realise how normalised this experience has become, and how wrong that is. Almost every woman I know has their own version of this story, the fear of walking alone, the small precautions we take just to feel safe. Illuminate is my response to that, using something as simple as a drink to spark reflection, connection, and a much-needed conversation around women’s safety.
CONTENT WARNING - ExploitHub: Misogyny in Pornography - This work uses the bold colours, typeface and design of Pornhub to expose the misogyny and aggression faced by women in the porn industry. A cast of a woman’s 3D body, covered with shocking titles sourced from Pornhub’s home page, highlights the degrading and unrealistic ways women are portrayed and treated with violence and reduced to harmful labels like “slt” and “whre” in porn.
The sharp words and colours dominate, hiding the women beneath and challenging the audience to confront the pervasive misogyny in porn. It reveals how these depictions are far from fantasy, affecting real women and shaping harmful societal behaviours.
It is very shocking and this is its aim. This subject is shocking and people need to know this. Society can no longer just push this subject under the rug because it is uncomfortable to talk about. It has huge real life consequences, it’s a social problem that needs addressing. These are the types of videos young adults (as well as children) are watching as their form of sex education.
