Welcome to Unstyled. I'm your host, Christine Barberick, co-founder and global editor-in-chief of Refinery 29.

Each week, I invite a notable person to come in and talk with us as we explore the funny, inspiring,

sometimes heartbreaking tales of life, work, and love, as told through the things that we wear.

Here's what you need to know off the bat about Cecily Bowen.

She's a writer at Refinery 29, who covers entertainment and pop culture through the lens of a gender studies scholar.

She's a born and raised Chicagoan who told me recently, she talked before she walked.

She's a strong young woman in her words and her presence.

Her laugh is infectious, and she's not at all afraid to take up space.

Most importantly, to me, she's redefining what it is to build a career and blaze a trail with your voice. Sometimes simply by translating subjects like The Bachelor and Chris Brown into larger discussions of more complex issues,

like race, body image, and misogyny in our everyday lives.

A self-described fat black queer woman and trap feminist, Cecialy is just as willing to dissect our often messy cultural relationship with beauty standards,

as she is the latest episode of Insecure, or her own personal style,

which by the way totally inspires me.

Cessaly didn't start out thinking she would or could be a writer.

In her early 20s, while working as a national campus

organizer for Planned Parenthood, she began to spend more and more free time honing her

point of view on the screen. But it wasn't until she was brought on as a columnist at Feministing.com

that she started to seriously consider a bona fide path as a writer. And that was just the beginning,

with later gigs at Metro, Oxygen, and now Refinery

29. Cecily's devotion to her personal mission has remained constant. In her own words, she says she

likes to keep it simple, writing like a black girl, for black girls. And whether that's about race,

politics, or her own unique slant on feminism,

...