radiofree.asia

Category: Misogyny

  • Four cops face misconduct inquiry over alleged abuse victim found dead

    Four police officers are under investigation over their conduct in relation to the death of Harshita Brella. Brella contacted Northamptonshire police in August 2024 to report that her husband, Pankaj Lamba, was abusing her. According to the BBC, Lamba was arrested, then released on bail:

    with conditions not to contact his wife, and issued with a domestic violence protection order.

    Brella’s body was found in the boot of a car on 14 November 2024. It is believe she was strangled four days earlier.

    The BBC said:

    The Northamptonshire force later referred itself to the IOPC [Independent Office for Police Conduct] – a mandatory step because of officers’ previous contact with Ms Brella.

    Police have case to answer of gross misconduct in abuse inquiry

    That initial IPOC found that disciplinary action was merited:

    Having examined all available evidence, it is our opinion the two detective constables have a case to answer for gross misconduct.

    We believe a police disciplinary panel could find the officers didn’t appropriately review the case, set investigative actions, seek supervisory advice, or keep Ms Brella sufficiently updated.

    They added:

    Our investigation also concluded there is a misconduct case to answer for a sergeant and chief inspector over their supervision and review of the domestic abuse investigation and associated risk assessment for Ms Brella.

    Officers to face disciplinary action

    Derrick Campbell, IOPC director of engagement, told the BBC:

    Our independent investigation examined Northamptonshire Police’s response to the disclosure made by Ms Brella that she’d suffered domestic abuse.

    It has scrutinised their investigation strategy, actions taken, communication with the victim, and any safeguarding considerations.

    After a thorough review of the evidence, we have determined four officers should face disciplinary proceedings.

    The police track record on domestic violence continues to fall short. An IOPC report from 2024 found:

    victim-survivors continue to describe poor experiences when reporting their abuse to the police, despite a number of new initiatives and measures by the police.

    A 2023 report by Baroness Casey found “institutional racism, sexism and homophobia in the Met” and that “predatory and unacceptable behaviour has been allowed to flourish”. This was compounded by a “culture of denial”.

    The British police as a whole have a culture of extreme impunity. And repeated inquires and trials have so far failed to change it. The Brella inquiry is yet to report. But the overall cost of these endless ‘failings’ is measured in lives ruined and lives lost.

    Featured image via ITV

    By Joe Glenton

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Sky Sports patronises female fans with sexist new TikTok channel

    Sky Sports has launched a new TikTok channel, and less than 24 hours later, thousands of female sports fans are mad.

    Sky Sports

    Firstly, what makes Sky Sports think that ‘female sports fans’ want to watch videos of male athletes?

    At the time of writing, the account had posted 12 videos, six of which featured predominantly male athletes or politicians.

    @skysportshalo the ultimate combo 🍵 #haaland #footballtiktok #matcha ♬ original sound – Cierra | The Perfume Geek

    And secondly, they must think women can only relate to sports when the caption is “How the matcha + hot girl walk combo hits”

    And some of the comments ate:

    Actually, no wait, can someone explain to me what a grand slam is as the caption is no longer written in pink , so I’m confused 🤔

     

    I don’t understand?? 😭😭😭 can you explain it in Dubai labubu chocolate terms for the girls please 🎀💗

     

    wow i love how women catered this is! how insightful! what a way to amplify female voices and perspectives!

    I would have loved to be a fly on the wall in that meeting. How can we encourage more women to engage with sports content on social media? Of course, make the captions pink.

    Not only is it sexist as fuck, but the language and tone are patronising.

    And the page’s main presumption seems to be that women are not intelligent enough to understand sports in the same way as men.

    I would have put a large amount of money on a middle-aged white man being behind the account.

    However, She Kicks reported that Jo Osborne – head of Women’s Sport for Sky Sports, is in fact the woman behind it, alongside Andy Gill, audience development and social media head.

    And I’m not sure if that makes it better or worse.

    Social media stars

    Female athletes are already dominating social media. In the Women’s Super League (WSL), 35% of total social media engagements came from players’ personal accounts. In comparison, in the Premier League, that number is only 27%.

    And of the world’s 50 most marketable athletes, female athletes accounted for 61% of all TikTok views.

    Yet, in 2022, only 13% of sports coverage hours across the main sports channels (BBC One, BBC Two, Sky Sports Main Event, Channel 4, and ITV) were dedicated to women’s sport. Although this was an increase from 10% in 2021 – it is still pathetic.

    In the same year, 8.4m people watched live WSL football. None of those people watched any Premier League games.

    Additionally, 1.3 m only watched women’s matches at the Rugby League World Cup.

    This shows the appetite for women’s sports is there. Yet still, the major sports channels only allocated 13% of their airtime to women’s sports.

    A better way

    Of course, women want to be included and have access to a variety of sports content. But is a shitty TikTok channel with pink text really the way?

    Instead, Sky Sports could increase the amount of time they spend broadcasting women’s sports, along with the variety of sports they are showing. Additionally, if they had actually engaged with female fans or potential fans before launching the channel, they might have realised it was a bad idea.

    Of course, Sky Sports’ commercial interests will always come first. However, they could play the long game. England winning the Women’s Euros back-to-back has shown us that when you increase the visibility of women’s sports, people start to take a greater interest.

    Feature image via HG

    By HG

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Mainstream media are responsible for creating a racist rape culture around grooming gangs

    The grooming gangs inquiry coverage has been deeply flawed, with corporate media spearheading vicious xenophobia. They’ve jumped at the opportunity to attack migrant communities, spewing Islamophobia whilst not actually paying attention to the facts of the grooming gangs themselves.

    Far-right misogynists like Elon Musk, Tommy Robinson, and Nigel Farage have used the grooming gang cases to leverage yet more anti-migrant sentiments, inflame public tensions, and paint whole communities of Pakistanis and Muslims as rapists. They’ve done all this whilst erasing the survivors of sexual violence and grooming perpetrated by men of all races – brown, white, or otherwise.

    The truth is, failure to safeguard girls and women in England is a flaw of the British government and the British media. Instead, what has unfolded has been a toxic and pernicious attempt to conflate all rape, particularly through organised grooming gangs, as solely the domain of Pakistani and Muslim communities.

    Grooming gang inquiry is a litany of failures

    Even the grooming gang inquiry itself has, horrifically, further pushed aside survivors. Women on the inquiry panel made it clear they were uncomfortable with the idea of police or social workers being involved in any capacity. This comes as little surprise, given that End Violence Against Women reported that:

    73% of rape survivors say police treatment worsened their mental health.

    And, the media is hardly any better, as writer Emilie Buchwald described rape culture as:

    A society where violence is seen as sexy and sexuality is seen as violent.

    Undoubtedly, corporate media has a significant role to play in upholding said rape culture. They had the perfect opportunity to examine why police, in particular, are central to facilitating rape culture. Doing so would have helped to shift public narrative in a manner that centred the experiences of survivors.

    Racialisation of rape culture

    However, the media is culpable for much more, still. We’ve all seen the headlines, splashed across front pages, that align grooming gangs as solely the reserve of Pakistanis and Muslims. But, there were no such headlines about the grooming of Shamima Begum and her now murdered friends Kadiza Sultana and the missing Amira Abase.

    The three girls were groomed, trafficked, and handed on a plate to ISIS. There were multiple state failings that led to this. Rather than being treated as a victim of grooming and trafficking, Shamima has become a pariah in the UK. A denial of her experience would have been one thing, but the British state removed her citizenship – leaving her stateless.

    Surely those who feel strongly about grooming of teenage girls, should be concerned about failing all teenage children. Survivors are not treated equitably by the media: white girls are ‘groomed’ but brown girls are ‘radicalised.’

    British negligence from the state supported child trafficking of Shamima Begum. But, it was the media that manufactured consent for constructing the narrative that Shamima had been ‘radicalised,’ rather than groomed. These girls were failed by Britain, not Bangladesh, or any other country their parents were born in. If the school girls were white, there would have been uproar. And, even when it comes to white victims of grooming, as the current sham of an inquiry shows, even those survivors are being abandoned by the media in favour of a breathlessly racist focus on brown men as the sole savage rapists.

    Sidelining of survivors

    The ideas that solely men from South Asian and African communities are inherently sexually abusive towards children and women is deeply flawed. White survivors are also detrimentally affected by this racist rape culture. When a white survivor of sexual assault got onto a podium at a far-right march and said she had been raped by middle aged white men, the microphone was ripped from her hands. She was heckled, and quickly rushed off stage. Empathy towards her was dismissed from the crowd and the media, as her lived experience did not fit their agenda of scapegoating migrant communities as the sole perpetrators of sexual violence.

    If they were genuinely concerned about the wellbeing of brave young woman who stepped forward to share her experience, they would have treated her with compassion and sensitivity. Instead, political point scoring is the name of the game. The girl who spoke up at the rally was perceived as a nuisance to be shoved out of sight, and out of mind. The men present were not sensitive towards the abuse of young women and girls. Instead, they were more interested in the ethnicity of the perpetrator fitting a specific narrative.

    Mainstream media has a responsibility here

    Mainstream media has been focused on sensationalism and creating divisions across Britain. Suddenly migrants in hotels become the issue at hand, men from Global South communities in Britain become the sole boogeyman and the root of the problem.

    The jurisdiction of the inquiry should be scrutinised for resources to be utilised productively, instead of a PR exercise where recommendations are shelved, and never heard from again. The inquiry not having the power to prosecute any perpetrators is the typical merry-go-round of inquiries in Britain: offering solutions with no haste or appetite to implement them. This is further evidence, were it needed, that the safeguarding of children from all groomers online and in-person is not being taken seriously.

    For mainstream British media to have genuine concern towards survivors, it is vitally important survivors of grooming by perpetrators of all ethnicities are taken just as seriously. Mainstream media newsrooms are rushing to spotlight only stories of rape when perpetrated by men of colour. Of course, this haste is only present when the rapists involved are Pakistani or East African, or from somewhere else in the Global South.

    That is undoubtedly an example of racist rape culture which damages survivors of all races.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Shareefa Energy

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • The British state sent a “rape gang” of cops to abuse women campaigning for a better world

    British authorities have too often failed to bring male abusers to account for their crimes against women and children. And that’s hardly a surprise when they actually sent a “rape gang” of undercover cops to abuse women for decades simply because they wanted a better world – also known as the Spycops scandal.

    Spycops: ‘a boys’ club of rapists’

    Spycops.info‘s Tom Fowler has been closely following the inquiry into the British state’s unjustifiable targeting of hundreds of left-wing groups with a decades-long political-policing project in service of the rich and powerful. And he told the Canary about the misogynistic culture of abuse at the centre of the Special Branch and its Special Demonstration Squad (SDS), insisting that:

    Misogyny is something that goes to the heart of the society we currently live in… Women’s bodies are disposable objects as far as a great deal of men are concerned. And I think that the police in general are a particularly egregious example of that.

    Ex-spycop Graham Coates, for example:

    said the attitudes towards women, minorities, and homosexuals within Special Branch was much worse than the rest of the police, and that the attitudes within the SDS would have been shocking even within Special Branch. So we’re talking a pretty extreme sort of views.

    Fowler added:

    It was a boys’ club. And from what we’ve heard – particularly from [whistleblower] Peter Francis – about the language that was used, it was a rape gang that was covering for each other and celebrating the sexual conquest they had of women in the field.

    In 2015, after a years-long legal struggle, women whom police had spied on finally received an admission from the Metropolitan Police that officers’ behaviour had not only been “abusive, deceitful, manipulative and wrong” but also “a violation of the women’s human rights” and “an abuse of police power” which had “caused significant trauma”.

    The dark depths of establishment extremism

    Spycops weren’t just “professional groomers” with “huge resources behind them”, as film-maker Madoc Roberts told us in 2024. Racism and self-interest were also at the core of their activities, leading them to spy on people with “no political connections or persuasions” like the family of Stephen Lawrence rather than going after his far-right killers. As Fowler told us about the Lawrence case:

    the police were looking to protect their reputation, because they weren’t doing their jobs properly when it came to investigating racist murders. They weren’t targeting the far right in any way. The underlying reason’s because of institutional racism. And when that was called out, they were deploying undercover police against the people who were calling it out, to try and neuter that threat.

    And because they felt invincible, there were few limits to what they would do. For example, one spycop stole the identity of dead children even when it was no longer a regular practice. Another, meanwhile, was undercover for “about five years” but “stayed in touch with two of these women [he had deceived] for 20 years”. This spycop, James Thomson, “would send occasional emails asking for explicit photographs, and then meeting up for romances and sex with one of these women”. His deception continued even after the inquiry had started.

    The British state enabled all of this, simply to protect the interests of the rich and powerful. But by sending extremist police officers to undermine left-wing groups, it didn’t just ‘fundamentally change Britain‘ and traumatise good people in the process. It also exposed the sickening entanglement within the establishment of power, misogyny, and racism. And if we’re going to challenge that successfully, we must learn the lessons of the spycops scandal.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Ed Sykes

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • The Canary went deep inside the Incel forums – and we found the next UK terror threat

    Content warning: this article contains discussions around violence, sexual assault and rape, suicide, and extreme misogyny that some readers may find distressing
    ‘Is rape actually traumatic for a female?’

    What a fucking question to start my morning with. The single, jaw-dropping question, pulled from the first page of this particular incel forum, was my grim, nauseating introduction to this world of hatred. This wasn’t just your everyday, run-of-the-mill misogyny. It was a casual, pseudo-intellectualised discussion of sexual violence, which should have prepared me for just exactly what I was going to find on this website.

    I went into this to investigate ‘involuntary celibates’ – aka incels – but what I found wasn’t an online support group or place for lonely guys to vent. It was a cesspit of weaponised self-hatred. A tightly locked echo chamber of dangerous rage, actively grooming young men, many living right here in the UK, towards a life of extremism and, more terrifyingly, frequent justification of sexual and lethal violence.

    And the replies reflected it.

    incel

    The black pill is pure poison for incels

    Forget the 1990s origins of the term ‘involuntary celibate.’ Today, the word ‘incel’ has become something entirely different, shorthand for a radicalised, online terrorist movement where young men (usually straight, angry and isolated) have ‘swallowed the black pill,’ which makes them see women as the enemy, and violence the only way to fight them.

    This ‘Black Pill’ is at the heart of this horror.

    This fictional pill is the incel belief that, if you’re an unattractive guy, you are eternally doomed never to get laid and never to get a girlfriend. And on these forums, they frame it as a scientific truth, a medicine you have to swallow and say that looks are the only things that matter to women. This belief, that women only want the top few attractive men, which they call ‘Chads,’ means that this fate, for the vast majority on these websites, is inescapable. It is the ultimate rejection of hope, using it to justify their intense anger and violent outlook.

    And it’s not just about self-pity, it’s a disgusting dogma that claims a man’s worth and entire future (his success, his happiness and access to a ‘mate’), are determined only by physical features such as his face and height. It is the ultimate cop out. A way to blame women for their own shortcomings, encouraged by over 34,000 other men on over 19 million posts.

    They believe that society has become dominated by feminism and what they call a ‘gynocracy,’ which has created an impossible mating environment. Their core belief is sickeningly simple, built around the 80/20 rule.

    The 80/20 rule

    Incels claim, above all else, that 80% of women are all fighting over the same 20% of ‘Chads’ (those with superior genetics, handsome, who have high status). This leaves the other 80% – the incels – with nothing. This statistic is ripped from any form of context and twisted into gospel on these forums, used to justify a deep-seated hatred against women, as well as other men they perceive to be more successful than themselves.

    This ideology provides a weird, perverted comfort, telling them their problems are inherent, that their issues with women and dating aren’t their fault. It’s society. Society and those women who have it so much easier than they do. Ironic, I thought, as I read how another one of them would like to violently rape a woman because she wore a skirt. In short, the Black Pill shifts the blame entirely away from reflecting on themselves and straight onto women.

    Dehumanising slang and incel code

    Reading through the thread on these forums is like walking through fucking minefield. I had to stop so many times, partially for my own mental health, partially because of the language they have adopted. They have developed a unique, disgusting language of their own, which functions as a tribal code, further detaching them from what they call ‘normie’ society.

    incel

    They don’t call us women, they talk about ‘Femoids’ – a fucking disgusting shortening of the term ‘female humanoid organism.’ This term is deliberately clinical, utterly devoid of humanity, and it instantly tells you everything you need to know about the cold contempt they hold for the opposite sex. To these guys, we are not people, we are objects of sex or blame.

    But women aren’t the only characters in this sick world of fiction they’ve created. I found the ‘Chad and Stacey,’ the supposedly genetic elite. These are what they call those they perceive to be beautiful, above them. And they fucking hate them, but it doesn’t stop them tracking their ‘success,’ like a weird, unreachable league table.

    Oh, and then we have the ‘Becky.’ That’s the average woman, who you think would be safe from their hate, but they hate her purely because they believe she has more dating power than they do.

    But some of the more chilling terms are those they direct towards themselves, reflecting their echo chamber’s absolute lack of hope.

    An echo chamber of despair?

    ‘Lay down and rot,’ seems to be the incel’s horrific mantra. It’s the way in which they acknowledge defeat, absolutely submitting themselves to the Black Pill. On every single one of these forums, it is discussed with a matter-of-fact acceptance and even encouragement of self-harm.

    But that is nothing on ‘rope/roping.’ It was when I came across these particular discussions that I needed to close my computer, grab a drink and go for a walk. To put it simply, this is a popular term in the ‘manosphere’ which they use to imply suicide, a devastating reflection of the poor mental health of their disgusting community. And to make it worse, it’s actively encouraged as these men act as a fucked-up catalyst to push people to end it, actively discouraging seeking mental health support.

    And lastly, ‘Looksmaxxing’ – the desperate pursuit of improving your own looks. This isn’t harmless preening; it’s the active encouragement of extreme, often medically obscure procedures. One such one I came across was ‘bonesmashing,’ or dangerous self-administered surgeries, which seems to be driven by the fucked up belief that having a slightly stronger jaw will somehow unlock their destiny. This terrifying bullshit proves that, although these men are evidently suffering, the only cure they seek is more poison.

    From online rant to UK terror

    But don’t mistake that tiny scrap of empathy for me validating them. This isn’t just venting from these men. These forums are an incubation chamber for extremism, and we have seen the lethal consequences of them on both sides of the Atlantic.

    The name Elliot Rodger haunts so many threads on these forums. The disgusting US perpetrator of the 2014 Isla Vista massacre is held with a god-like status by incels, calling him the ‘Supreme Gentleman.’

    Rodger didn’t just kill six people and injure fourteen; he provided the incel manifesto, the template for the violent and misogynistic retribution these men seem to crave. They rally under his name; his ‘Day of Retribution’ is a dark holiday for them.

    And this poisonous ideology has landed right on our doorstep.

    Jake Davison

    Possibly the most crucial example is Jake Davison, who carried out the 2021 Plymouth mass shooting and murdered five people in cold blood. Davison was steeped in the Black Pill rhetoric. He spent a lot of time on these forums, spoke about Rodgers frequently and was quoted as saying, ‘This is why incels were more prone to killing themselves – or going on a killing spree.’ This was not a random act of madness; this was fucking inevitable.

    And it isn’t just me saying this is dangerous. UK Counter-Terrorism Policing now explicitly classifies incel-driven violence as a terror threat. The US Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center also recognises the gravity of this threat. This rhetoric is only rapidly picking up speed, with a recent study analysing the language on these forums found a near 60% increase in the use of the terms/codewords relating to acts of mass violence. The stats are undeniable – this hostility and violence are growing.

    Furthermore, this hatred is pretty much entirely focused on women, with 89% of users found to be explicitly supportive of sexual violence against women.

    How does a British bloke fall down this incel hole?

    So how the fuck does a young, isolated man end up internalising an ideology that celebrates suicide and calls for mass murder?

    The path to radicalisation isn’t fast. It’s a slow, isolating descent that begins with genuine pain.

    It begins with vulnerability and isolation, with many incels who report experiencing high rates of social trauma. 86% of them report being bullied, over double the 33% the general population reports, coupled with 48% of them reporting being as lonely as they possibly can. These monsters were once men, desperate, lonely, and craving a community.

    So they turn to their computers for comfort. They search forums and websites for answers to their problems and perceived failures, ultimately drawing them into the broader Manosphere ecosystem. And it’s comforting there. They are told that their problem isn’t their behaviour, but a world full of women, feminists, and a society that hates them. On these forums, they are radicalised, forced to swallow the Black Pill and their own self-hatred is externalised and turned on women.

    incel

    This constant barrage of reinforcement from the community is the killer blow to their sanity. It’s a closed-feedback loop of utter bullshit and pseudo-science where peers constantly celebrate extreme views, hatred, and violence.

    And this cycle will continue.

    Right now, there’s a young lad online, his mind being warped by twisted fuckers behind disgusting display pictures. I’ve worked with so many of them, and in my next article, I am going to tell you some of the changes I have seen in the younger generation over the last few years. We are going to break down why young men are falling foul of Inceldom and what we can do to combat it in a world that is chronically online.

    Featured image and additional images via the Canary

    By Antifabot

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • National Union of Journalists collaborating with the cops

    In an email to its members, the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) advertised a training session with the Metropolitan police.

    The email read:

    Dear colleague,
    There’s still time to register your interest in attending the London Metropolitan Police Training Centre with the NUJ on [date and location]. The visit will cover Public Order and Public Safety and include training on public disturbances and civil unrest.

    This is part of the NUJ’s ongoing engagement with the Metropolitan Police, other police forces, and the National Police Chiefs’ Council. The union seeks to develop a mutual professional understanding between journalists and the police, with officers upholding the right of bona fide newsgatherers to report as part of a free press, and journalists acting in a way that does not impede officers in the course of their duty.

    Now, on first look, this might seem innocent.

    But when you look at the bigger picture of increasing police violence towards protesters and journalists, it’s nothing short of messed up.

    A problematic institution

    The Canary has previously reported on the Met’s hidden culture of misogyny and racism.

    Louise Casey conducted a report after a serving Met police officer, Wayne Couzens was charged with the kidnap, rape, and murder of Sarah Everard in 2021. It found that the Met police were institutionally racist, sexist, and homophobic. Casey found a pervasive culture of “deep-seated homophobia” and predatory behaviour. Female officers and staff had to “routinely face sexism and misogyny”. She also warned that the force could still be employing rapists and murderers. Additionally, Casey found that the majority of the white and male force had not treated violence against women and girls seriously enough.

    Then, in 2023, the courts jailed another Met officer. David Carrick went down for life for dozens of rapes and sexual assaults stretching back two decades.

    Since then, another Met police officer was let off with a suspended sentence after using cameras to spy on a 14-year-old.

    As the Canary’s Joe Glenton previously reported:

    The Met’s problems extend beyond a systemic hatred of women. On 2 October a  BBC Panorama documentary showed how racism and far-right ideas thrived in the force.

    The Met police have been found, time and time again, by organisation after organisation – and even by themselves – to be violently and institutionally racist.

    This all raises the question, why are the NUJ collaborating with such a shit-show of an organisation?

    Spinning the agenda

    Of course, the NUJ want to “develop a mutual professional understanding” between its journalists and these violent pigs.

    The next part from the NUJ is comedy gold. Who’s writing this skit?

    with officers upholding the right of bona fide newsgatherers to report as part of a free press,

    That would be the same Met that regularly violates the rights of journalists to do just that. The Canary could draw on countless occasions, but our own journalist Nicola Jeffery’s recent encounter with the Met makes for a clear example:

     

    View this post on Instagram

     

    A post shared by Canary (@thecanaryuk)

    Clearly, when push comes to shove, the Met violently manhandling journalists is a bit easier than upholding their ‘bona fide reporting rights.’

    Furthermore, the Met have historically not respected or upheld the rights of journalists reporting on their abusive behaviour while policing protests.

    This little piggy went to a protest

    The Met has also repeatedly spun narratives to fit its abusive policing agenda.

    The Canary has repeatedly challenged its version of events in policing protests, because it being fast and loose with the truth is a time-old police pastime.

    Take, for instance, policing at recent Defend Our Juries protests. The Met has a penchant for smearing protesters with allegations of abusive and violent behaviour. However, we’ve called it as we’ve witnessed it: the Met has acted abusively and violently towards protesters.

    And as usual, we have the receipts. A powerful institution spinning the facts? You don’t say!

    And then the real kicker? The NUJ wants its journalists to learn from the Met how to act:

    in a way that does not impede officers in the course of their duty.

    That could mean many things, of course. Like eating up the Met’s PR lines and pumping them out to the public like indisputable facts. Or perhaps not investigating its crimes, systemic racism, misogyny, and ableism. Wouldn’t want to impede those good cops – kindly protectors of the peace’s work now, would we?

    A spokesperson for the National Union of Journalists told the Canary:

    The NUJ has never been slow in challenging inappropriate or unacceptable behaviour by any police force, including the Met.

    Engagement in training in no way compromises the ability of the NUJ to promote the safety of journalists. Refusing to engage with those charged with protecting journalists would be both foolish and irresponsible.

    This statement would suggest that working with the Met police, that hallowed violently racist and sexist institution, is the only option. If, unlike the NUJ, you weren’t born yesterday, you’ll know that organisations like Green and Black Cross provide a range of training on knowing your rights at protests, how to train as a legal observer, and host extensive resources on current protest laws. Advocacy organisations like the Network for Police Monitoring, otherwise known as Netpol, also have extensive resources available on how to safely be around police officers.

    Journalistic integrity

    And Canary journalists will be damned if we don’t ‘impede’ the work of a violent Met pig assaulting protesters. Our job isn’t to be passive witnesses to violence, journalistic integrity and basic human decency for that matter, demands we step in and stop state violence wherever we see it.

    Journalism is about holding the powerful to account, including the Met police – a famously powerful institution. It’s clear the Met was never there to protect communities. They are there to protect the status quo.

    The NUJ, collaborating with the Met, blurs the lines – lines which are necessary for journalistic integrity in holding the powerful to account. It is nothing short of an absolute shitshow.

    Featured image via Daily Record/YouTube

    By HG

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Transphobia is breaking feminism apart, while fascists lurk nearby

    For many of us who have lived through the 70s in Britain, the rise of fascism today brings back many disturbing memories, whilst making us aware of the important differences between the National Front of the 70s and the fascists of today.

    Not only is massive corporate power and money backing today’s fascists, they are a global movement that target Muslims, people of colour across the board, asylum seekers, and that small and extremely vulnerable minority, trans people.

    Fascists and the feminist movement: trans people’s rights in the crosshairs

    The vicious attacks on trans people, particularly trans women, have become commonplace. A Supreme Court judgement in April this year has partly fuelled this. It ruled that under the Equality Act 2010, the protected category of women refers to biological sex only. This ruling implies that trans women cannot legally use women’s spaces such as toilets, male police officers can strip-search them, and in case of miscarriages of justice, the state can hold them in male-only prisons. Notorious transphobe, billionaire author J.K Rowling, reportedly partly-funded the legal case. She sinisterly named it “TERF VE Day”.

    The effect on trans women’s lives is catastrophic. Shortly after the ruling, one anonymous trans woman outlined plans to leave the UK:

    I’m a senior health professional with a career I love. I’m a married woman with a husband I love. I’m a daughter, sister and friend. But all this has just been shattered.

    The ruling is clearly a victory for an increasingly far-right establishment. But the response to the judgement from older cis feminists of colour I spoke to has been varied. It has ranged from eager acceptance “the law will protect real women”, to confused dismissal “possibly being trans is just a young people fad which will go away”, to anger that masculine-presenting women will now face more humiliating questions in women’s toilets than ever before; to an encouraging total rejection – in the words of one Muslim lesbian, “I stand against hate. All kinds of hate!”.

    Feminist movement has never been a monolith: a long history of racism

    But this is to be expected. The feminist movement of which I regard myself a part has never been monolithic. In the 70s and 80s, it was the issue of racism which divided us.

    When Asian women from Awaz, the first South Asian feminist organisation in Britain, spoke at meetings of the racism we faced, and how for us race and gender were inextricably linked, white women often cried or felt personally attacked – just as JK Rowling and her fellow transphobes today claim to feel attacked by trans people online.

    At times it seemed that we were being told that being accused of racism was somehow far worse than facing racism. The question of what are ‘women’s issues’ was frequently raised. Was it right to speak at feminist meetings about the physical and psychological violence of immigration laws, for example, or should we stick only to the violence we faced in our families and communities?

    However, there were also divides among Black and Asian feminists. In 1989, at a time of rising Islamophobia preceding Bush’s Gulf War, Southall Black Sisters (SBS) joined others to set up an organisation called ‘Women against Fundamentalism’. Many of us from other feminist organisations felt that the raison d’etre, and even the name, of the group was hugely problematic, since ‘fundamentalism’ had already become a byword for religious Muslims in public discourse.

    This stigmatised many feminists who were practising Muslims and reinforced the idea that Islam was the exclusive source of patriarchy. The differences became increasingly stark as the oppression of Muslim women became a way of legitimising the invasion of Afghanistan, and the war on terror in Britain brought narratives on the excesses of ‘Muslim’ patriarchy often shaped by neoconservative groups like the Henry Jackson Society.

    Filia conference: where white feminism and transphobia collide

    Today while some of these differences over racism and Islamophobia still linger, battles over transphobia and overt Zionism have joined them. Southall Black Sisters have publicly supported the trans exclusionary A Woman’s Place UK for instance. These new fault lines led, earlier this month, to the spectacular implosion of a 2,500 strong conference in Brighton. Openly transphobic organisation, Filia had organised the event.

    Filia holds annual conferences which it describes as the largest annual grassroots feminist conferences in Europe. These gatherings are clearly well-funded and seem very far from any grassroots organising. One of Filia’s most beloved supporters, mentioned with great excitement in their publicity material, is Rowling. Alongside her transphobia, Rowling has also recently publicly revealed her support for Israel. As Lowkey has noted:

    JK Rowling’s agent, head of her company and chair of her charity, Neil Blair, fronts an organisation which is funded by the Israeli government and claims to “advance synergy between Israeli bodies & respective agencies & institutions in the UK.

    Among other core members of Filia is Julie Bindel, another longstanding transphobe and Zionist.

    Filia’s choice of Brighton, which has a strong trans rights movement, was, in the words of Green Party MP Sian Berry, “clearly provocative”. The night before the conference started, trans rights activists allegedly targeted the venue, a council building. They spray painted it with the words “Feminism is the refusal to define women” and smashed a window. Trans rights activists continued protesting outside the venue for most of the conference.

    Indoors, it all kicked off right from the first plenary with a speech by Rahila Gupta from SBS – also the author of an official Filia book – a supporter of Palestine who maintains an explicitly anti-Hamas position. Her carefully calibrated speech, calling in effect for a two-state solution, was met with loud shouts of “What about the hostages!”

    Transphobes supporting genocidal Israel

    Maryam Aldossari, academic and SBS trustee who also spoke at the conference, told me:

    when Rahila asked women to stand up for a free Palestine only about a hundred out of 2500 did so, I was shocked!

    On Saturday, a group of women supporting Palestine held a vigil outside the venue. The vigil was met with aggression, Maryam told me:

    They were shouting “You are Hamas! You are not feminists”. Later we held a separate meeting at a community centre elsewhere in Brighton.

    Meanwhile, Israel supporters led by Julie Bindel held their own external meeting too. But this was not all. At the Filia disco party, a woman with a Palestinian flag joined others on the stage and Sathi Patel from the anti-imperialist feminist organisation Total Women Victory (TWV) also stood with her in solidarity. Filia organisers called the event’s burly male security guards, and Sathi was according to a TWV statement:

    grabbed by her hip and thigh and lifted offstage her feet dragging on the ground and left with bruises.

    On the last day Maryam wandered into a room in the venue where a meeting was in progress. There was an Israeli flag in the background. Maryam said that a Filia volunteer was running it. Filia meanwhile emailed attendees that “men’s wars” should not be allowed to divide women. Clearly the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian women Israel has killed in the genocide didn’t count as women. Moreover, nor did the many female IOF soldiers who were perpetrators of the genocide.

    Filia has most recently issued a statement invoking the Charity Commission and suggesting, in what could be interpreted as a veiled threat against SBS, that all those who support Palestine are pro-Hamas. This, said Maryam:

    is exactly what imperial feminists do to deflect from the genocide.

    SBS has also issued a public statement.

    Trans people at the heart of the feminist movement

    If Filia’s party descended into a display of anti-Palestinian aggression, there was another ‘celebration’ which went according to plan. This was a session celebrating the Supreme Court judgement on trans people which Filia had supported wholeheartedly. It involved a discussion between those who had campaigned for the law: ex-SNP MP and Filia Trustee Joanna Cherry, and Kate Barker-Mawjee, CEO of the LGB Alliance.

    Cherry once argued that trans young people:

    must be treated like any other children with psychological problems.

    She has called for Scotland’s only gender identity clinic to be closed. LGB Alliance is a rightwing organisation allegedly close to Boris Johnson.

    The overt message of the panel and of Filia as a whole was that trans women were merely recent encroachers in the feminist movement. As veteran of the Gay Liberation Front Frankie Green has written:

    There were trans people there from the beginning, of course, just as there have always been trans people and there always will be…Why should even a fraction of the fury that should rightly be directed at perpetrators of the epidemic of male violence against women and femicide and the institutions that enable them, the governments who cut funding to refuges or don’t punish rapists, and systems that subjugate women globally, be targeted at trans women?

    Palestine: a ‘defining issue for feminism’

    In contrast to Filia’s transphobic perspective, feminist organising must centre trans women, as US-based trans journalist Meredith Talusan urged in an impassioned 2018 essay:

    A successful feminist movement must include us not merely as token individuals but with our full selves and the revolutionary perspectives we represent.

    Will Filia’s implosion mean anything for the future of the feminist movement in Britain? For me, Filia is a turning point which allows us, cis and trans, young and old, to reaffirm our feminist principles. Specifically, the importance of self-determination, or as the spraypainters outside the conference had proclaimed, that “Feminism refuses to define women”, and the centrality of anti-colonial struggle, today epitomised by Palestine.

    As Palestinian feminist Afaf Jabiri reminds us, in the context of the ongoing Nakba:

    the losses that we mourn are not only those who were martyred, but those who were never lucky enough to be born… Given that settler colonialism threatens both potential and future, and that feminism must confront the pressing issues of our time in order to shape a better future, Palestine becomes not only a feminist issue but a defining issue for feminism.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Amrit Wilson

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • CCTV footage released in relation to new Walsall ‘racially motivated” rape case

    A woman was raped in Walsall in what police are calling a racially aggravated attack. On 26 October, West Midlands police released CCTV footage of the suspect.

    Detective Superintendent Ronan Tyrer said it was “an absolutely appalling attack on a young woman.” He added:

    While we are following multiple lines of enquiry right now, it’s vital that we get to hear from anyone who saw a man acting suspiciously in the area at the time.

    In September, a man and woman were arrested in connection with a rape in neighbouring Sandwell. Police have previously also described that attack, on a Sikh woman, as a racially motivated.

    As the Canary reported at the time, the Sikh Federation (UK) said that as she was raped, the attackers told the woman:

    You don’t belong in this country, get out.

    ‘Not linked to previous attack’

    The BBC said they were “not linking” the latest attack to “other offences”.

    Labour MP Preet Kaur Gill expressed shock at the news:

    Journalist Murtaza Ali Shah said on X that “these are not isolated events”.

    They show how racism is being fuelled by hate and the growing influence of fascism.

    Ch Supt Phil Dolby of Walsall Police said:

    Walsall is a diverse area, and we know the fear and concern that this awful attack will cause in our communities.

    Commenting on the previous attack, our own Maryam Jameela wrote:

    The attackers of the Sikh woman who was raped will undoubtedly have been emboldened by how normalised violent racism has become in this country. The attack was a horrific and repugnant act of violence. To rape someone whilst telling them to get out of your country?

    What a hateful thing to do. But, it was done with the normalisation of racism from politicians and the mainstream media on the backs of the attackers.

    Featured image via Unsplash/Asim Rehman

    By Joe Glenton

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Met’s decision to not investigate online hate will make life even harder for marginalised people

    Last week, Graham Linehan was all over the media again as he was informed that no further action would be taken over his hateful social media post. Back in September, the ex-writer turned loser transphobe was arrested whilst returning home for a hate crime trial.

    This time, instead of his in-person bigotry, he was arrested for his hate-filled tweets, which often incite pile-ons. The particular tweet he was arrested for instructed people to punch anyone they suspected of being a trans woman in “female-only” spaces. Linehan, known as Glinner online, was at the time banned from tweeting, but this lasted mere days.  He was originally arrested over a “potential crime offence”, but it was later downgraded to “an investigation into a non-crime hate incident”.

    In light of Glinner’s case being dropped, and the most divorced man ever threatening to sue, the Met Police this week announced that they will no longer investigate what they call “Non-Crime Hate Incidents” (NCHIs).

    In a statement, a Met police spokesperson said:

    The commissioner has been clear he doesn’t believe officers should be policing toxic culture war debates, with current laws and rules on inciting violence online leaving them in an impossible position

    They continued that the change would:

    provide clearer direction for officers, reduce ambiguity and enable them to focus on matters that meet the threshold for criminal investigations.

    Discrimination isn’t just schoolyard name-calling

    A Non-Crime Hate Incident is any action or speech which is designed to create hostility towards someone based on their race, religion, gender, sexual orientation or disability. This includes:

    • verbal abuse
    • bullying or intimidation
    • abusive gestures
    • online abuse on social media
    • refusing to work with someone or treating them differently
    • or malicious complaints based on someone’s protected characteristics.

    Until this point, the role of police in investigating NCHIs was to identify repeat offenders in particular areas in order to prevent escalation to hate crimes. The Met also (supposedly) used them to safeguard vulnerable people who could be exposed to exploitation. Another vital part of NCHIs was that they could be used to build evidence for prosecutions in cases of hate crime, where proving motive and hostility is already hard enough.

    By claiming this hate is just “culture war debates” the police are belittling the treatment and abuse anyone seen as different faces every single day. And, they’re showing potential victims that something which plays a significant role in their lives will be treated as nothing more than a silly trifle that they merely need to grow up and get over.

    NCHIs were originally introduced in the aftermath of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry to help ensure early intervention and prevent an escalation into hate crime. The decision to no longer investigate them, especially on the back of a high-profile bigot having his case dropped, shows just how little the police and society take the issue of ever-rising hatred seriously.

    Disabled people will face even more barriers to justice

    But what does this mean for people who are experiencing these “non-crimes”? Well, as you’ve guessed, it’s not good. Essentially, people like Glinner who target trans people online will be emboldened to be even more hateful under the guise of free speech. Disabled people have also expressed concern, as the government and media’s hatred of us ramps up even more; we’re subjected to horrific levels of online abuse, which often translate into real life too.

    Disabled people already face massive systemic barriers to justice, and disability hate crime figures are horrendously low. As John Pring reported on Disability News Service, despite there being over 56,000 disability hate crimes reported in England and Wales last year, just 297 faced prosecution, with an even worse 214 convictions.

    There’s also the fact that the police are already massively biased towards disabled people within the Met. In the Casey review, it was found that 33 per cent of staff with a disability or long-term illness had been bullied by other officers. The report stated

    disability discrimination is the most frequent claim type brought against the Met. But there is no willingness to learn from these cases.

    How are we supposed to trust that the police will take disability hate crime seriously when, not only will they refuse to investigate incidents that can lead to crimes, but are also demonstrably a bunch of ableist arseholes themselves?

    Bowing to pressure

    As a disabled, queer woman who supports trans people and migrants very publicly on social media, I know all too well how much hatred is incited by those who wish to silence us. I can’t go a few days without being told I’ll be next.

    Instead of bowing to the pressure of dangerous, hateful, high-profile bigots, the police need to be paying more attention to the threats they’re making to those who can’t stand up for themselves than being worried about them making the Met look bad.

    The Met have already got that job covered.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Rachel Charlton-Dailey

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Major family court law change finally puts children’s safety above parental ‘rights’ of abusers

    In a win for the welfare and well-being of children, the government plans to repeal the legal principle which enshrines presumption of parental involvement within the family court system. Put simply, this means that in cases of domestic abuse the court will not assume that it is always in the best interests of children to have contact with both parents. Instead, evidence will be considered on a case by case basis.

    The move will reform the long-problematic ‘pro-contact’ culture. Crucially, it will prioritise for the first time children’s safety over the parental rights of perpetrators of domestic abuse. Before this change, courts have operated on the presumption that having contact with both parents is in the best interests of a child.

    Family court law change will finally put children’s wellbeing first

    On Wednesday, the Ministry of Justice announced the plan to repeal the ‘presumption of parental involvement’. In 2014, parliament had introduced this into the Children Act 1989.

    In principle, this meant that in contact cases in the family courts, the court had to presume that the continued involvement of both parents would be in a child’s best interests.

    However, domestic abuse campaigners have long been raising the alarm over its dangers. Because in reality, the result has been a system which has placed the rights of abusive parents – primarily fathers – above the safety and wellbeing of children.

    The government’s announcement coincided with the anniversaries of the deaths of two children from these legal failures. Domestic violence survivor and Women’s Aid ambassador Claire Throssell MBE has tirelessly campaigned for the repeal of this legal principle. 11 years ago to the day of the announcement (22 October 2014), the abusive father of her two children killed her son Paul. On 27 October 2014, he then killed their son Jack. The presumption had effectively sidelined Throssell’s warnings that he was a danger to them. However, the repeal could have prevented their homicides.

    Repealing the ‘outdated’ presumption of parental involvement

    At the announcement, Throssell said:

    For almost a decade, Women’s Aid and I have worked together, campaigning to change the family courts and improve laws, to ensure that children at risk of further harm from abusive parents have a brighter, safer future, free from fear and oppression. Every child deserves to be heard, seen, supported, and believed; to have a childhood and to live.

    Successive governments have failed to protect children, standing by an outdated presumption that it is in a child’s best interests to have contact with both their parents, even when there have been allegations of domestic abuse. We have campaigned tirelessly to have this presumption removed from the family law and practice, because until this narrative changes, more children, like Jack and Paul, will continue to die.

    Although today’s announcement can never bring back Jack and Paul it will give children further protection against preventable harm in their lives. No child should have to hold out a hand for help in darkness to a stranger and say that they have been hurt by someone who should love and protect them most. No parents should have to hold their children as they die, from the abuse of a perpetrator, as I did a decade ago.

    A pro-contact culture that prioritised the parental ‘rights’ of domestic abusers over children

    The ministry brought forward the decision off the back of the recommendations from the 2020 Conservative government’s harm panel. This had found that the pro-contact culture:

    placed undue priority on ensuring contact with the non-resident parent, which resulted in systemic minimisation of allegations of domestic abuse.

    Consequently, the panel advised the government “urgently review” the presumption of parental involvement.

    Of course, since the panel recommended this, family courts have placed many more children at risk of harm.

    In July, domestic violence charity Women’s Aid published a harrowing report illustrating the abominable consequence of this pro-contact legal principle. Titled 19 More Child Homicides, the report detailed the tragic and avoidable deaths of 19 children the family court system had utterly failed. The children, aged between just over three weeks old to age 11, had been killed by parental perpetrators of domestic abuse.

    Significantly, the report found that there had been a spike in the number of families facing these avoidable child deaths. Notably, this had risen 50% in the previous 10 years. As such, it pointed to the devastating impact of this legal presumption.

    The Bureau of Investigative Journalism highlighted a further report published earlier this month. Domestic abuse commissioner for England and Wales Nicole Jacobs tasked academics at Loughborough University to produce the report based on a pilot study they conducted. The reports findings compound the concerns Women’s Aid raised in its research.

    The pilot study analysed more than 300 family case files. Notably, it found evidence of domestic abuse in 87% of them. Despite this, it identified in more than half of these cases, judges were sending children to stay with potentially abusive parents.

    A significant step, but it must just be the start

    While the move marks a significant step in the right direction, the repeal alone will not overhaul a system that has deeply-embedded this pro-contact culture. The 2020 harm panel itself noted that before parliament introduced the statutory presumption:

    it was already well established in case law that the involvement of both parents in a child’s life will usually further the child’s welfare and that compelling reasons must be demonstrated for the court to suspend contact.

    For too many poor, chronically ill, disabled, and racially minoritised mothers and caregivers, the systemic violence and marginalisation of the family justice system has long put them and their children at unconscionable risk. Family courts will continue endangering the lives of children until listening to and amplifying their voices and the voices of domestic violence survivors is the standard. This repeal should only signify the start of such reforms.

    Featured image via Unsplash/Suzi Kim

    By Hannah Sharland

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Trump apparently cools on idea of Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs pardon

    The Trump administration has reportedly cooled on the idea of a pardon for rapper Sean ‘Diddy’ Coombs. The rapper was sentenced to four years in prison for “two counts of transportation for prostitution” in 2025.

    On 21 October, music magazine TMZ reported that Trump was weighing a pardon:

    According to our source, the President is “vacillating” on a commutation. We’re told some of the W.H. staff are urging Trump not to commute the sentence. But, our source states the obvious — “Trump will do what he wants,” and we’re told Trump could set Diddy free as early as this week.

    But that story cooled within hours following denials from the Trump camp. An official quoted by USA Today said:

    there is “zero truth” to the claims in TMZ’s story. The president, not anonymous sources, is the final decider on pardons and commutations.

    Diddy’s potential appeal

    On 20 October, it emerged that Combs was appealing his 50 month sentence.  During the trial:

    More than 30 people, from government agents to ex-girlfriends, sex workers and hotel employees, took the stand in Manhattan over the course of seven weeks as prosecutors presented their case that Combs allegedly led a “criminal enterprise” that operated on sex trafficking, kidnapping, drug offenses and forced labor, among other crimes.

    Combs in one of a number of alleged and convicted sexual dangers Trump has past links to:

    Others include Jeffrey Epstein:

    And Maxwell’s longtime fixer Ghislaine Maxwell:

    Caught up in the same web of suspicion is Prince Andrew, the King’s brother. Andrew recently had a number of titles stripped away as he continues to somehow be the black sheep of the Windsors. But, the  bar is in hell at this stage.

    On 22 October, it was reported that the shamed royal was struggling to afford maintenance on his 30-room lodge. Never mind.

    Rape culture

    The fact that it was even feasible that Trump may pardon Diddy – as he has with plenty of other people – says a lot about rape culture. Diddy’s trial has seen sensationalist coverage of a high-profile trial, with as usual, little attention paid to the experiences and needs of survivors. Trump’s own long, long history of sexual misconduct allegations does little to dispel concerns that Diddy may be pardoned. Regardless of what happens next one thing is clear: rape and sexual abuse is not enough to exclude someone from political office, celebrity status, or some other form of high profile public life. Whether it’s abusive presidents, cops, or anyone else, the problem is endemic.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Joe Glenton

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Over 200 protest outside UK’s only female migrant detention centre

    Over 200 people showed up at the gates of a Durham immigration detention centre this weekend, in a powerful display of solidarity with migrant communities. The demonstration, held on 18th October outside Derwentside Immigration Removal Centre (IRC), also known as Hassockfield, called for the release of the women trapped inside and:

    an end to the traumatic, unnecessary and expensive practice of immigration detention.

    Solidarity outside detention centre

    Derwentside IRC, as the Canary reported last week, is the sole women-only immigration detention centre in the UK and is on the site of the former Medomsley Detention Centre, where a very different type of atrocity took place for young men in the 80s and 90s.

    The event, organised by The No to Hassockfield Campaign, These Walls Must Fall and Right to Remain, brought people together from cities all across the North – Newcastle, Durham, Manchester, Liverpool and Sheffield – to Derwentside IRC. For those who couldn’t attend, local events took place all over the country, from London to Glasgow, as part of a national day of solidarity to end immigration detention.

    The day highlighted that contrary to what the government and media are portraying, many of the public do have solidarity and support people who are subjected to the cruel immigration in the UK, and call on the Government to stop ‘ramping up the hostile environment’.

    First hand testimony

    Protestors heard from those with first-hand lived experience of the deep trauma of detention centres. Speeches highlighted the treatment of women inside Derwentside, many of whom are survivors of trafficking, sexual abuse, violence, and exploitation.

    One speaker told the crowd:

    The moment you step in there, you are called by a number. You don’t have a name. When you go in there, you come out your life will never, ever be the same. Even when you have your papers, you will still be traumatised. You cannot live in a house with a bunch of keys because the sound of keys will remind you of that detention. That is what we are fighting against.

    Another said:

    I’ve been in there. To be in there is trauma, it’s depression. It’s inhuman. I’ve been in this country for 20 years, they tell me to go, where should I go? This is my community, I’ve been here, I’ve been helping in the NHS, I came here fleeing a tyrant and I find the same oppression here.

    She continued

    We are one family, let’s unite and build the country together, let’s treat each other with dignity. We are gathered here as one family to fight the system. It’s inhumane to be in here, the people who are in here are not criminals, they are seeking sanctuary.

    ‘Set her free’

    The day was a particularly emotional one for campaigners from women’s group 4Wings, in Liverpool, who, whilst preparing to attend the event, had been hit with the shocking news that one of their own members Arjeta, a trafficking survivor and vital part of the community, had suddenly been taken to Derwentside. Demonstrators chanted “set her free” as Arjeta spoke from inside the detention centre on speaker phone to the crowd outside, telling them the women inside could hear their songs and chants.

    As well as powerful speeches, the aim of the event was to show the women inside that they are not alone, that people are fighting for them. As well as wearing bright colours and holding colourful posters, the crowd sang, chanted and let off orange smoke flares so they could be seen and heard from inside the centre. They also highlighted how unnecessary and wasteful detention is, when the majority of detainees are released back into the community, and evidence shows alternatives to detention are better for everyone.

    Maggy Moyo, campaign organiser at lived experience campaign group These Walls Must Fall, said:

    Today was important for us to show solidarity to women detained not only in Derwentside but in many other detention centres. Detention compromises people’s mental health permanently, it’s not a policy but a punishment tool that our government uses to punish already vulnerable communities.

    Dr Helen Groom from the No to Hassockfield campaign drew attention to the government’s involvement in creating the narrative against immigrants. She said:

    Whilst this government and right-wing agitators ramp up the hostile environment, we remain steadfast in campaigning to shut it down. In a world riven with conflict it is no surprise that vulnerable and desperate people are seeking sanctuary.

    She continued:

    Kindness and compassion should be our watchwords. At No To Hassockfield we remain steadfast in our campaign to end the cruel practice of detention. The protest was vibrant, peaceful and loud: we made sure that the women imprisoned in Derwentside know that they are not forgotten. We will not stop protesting against Derwentside IRC whilst it remains open.

    Featured image via Simone Rudolphi 

    By Rachel Charlton-Dailey

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • It’s not immigrants that are a threat to women and girls. It’s men, whoever they are.

    Women and girls have a legitimate reason to feel increasingly unsafe in our society, but it’s not because of immigrants and foreigners, it is far simpler than that; it’s because of men.

    I can hear the protestations already, ‘Not All Men’, and of course, that would be ridiculous to assert. So then, why do we feel so comfortable to slap a label on all male immigrants, simply because the establishment tells us to?

    When we dig just a little deeper, it very quickly becomes obvious that the ‘threat of the immigrant’, touted by the mainstream press and far-right pundits is as baseless as their moral consciences. Trust me, it would be wonderfully helpful if there were identifying characteristics that could help women and girls stay safe, but that is a complete fiction.

    Stop saying its Black and brown men when it’s not

    Just in the last few days, a 61-year-old man, Gavin Shaw, from Woolston in Warrington stabbed a 55-year old woman, subsequently being charged with attempted murder. In the same week, a 64-year old man, Graham Jones, was sentenced to 21 years in prison for years of sexual abuse against a young girl, starting from just age nine.

    That is just from my hometown, yet where is the moral panic in the establishment media about this ongoing and accelerating pandemic of violence against women and girls? Nowhere to be seen.

    It becomes ever more suspicious and infuriating, as a woman and mother of young girls, when we dig into the statistics around sexual offences.

    The Office for National Statistics doesn’t differentiate between ethnicities so it can be more challenging to refute the accusations made by the likes of Farage, Trump, Musk and Tate. However, a brief glimpse of the breakdown of offences is provided for the period of April 2021 to March 2022 where offences are broken down by ethnicity.

    During this period, there are 2,079 sexual offences perpetrated by white men, and 171 of Asian descent. That accounts for 8.25% of sexual offences being carried out by other ethnicities compared to the ‘patriotic white British male’. However, as a proportion of the population, our Asian demographic represents a higher 9.3%, which simply does not support the moral panic we see in the media and wider society.

    Nevertheless, sexual violence is on the rise for all women and girls and this issue is one that legitimately warrants our focus and serious attention. We cannot allow what is a very real and present fear for women and girls, to be weaponised for furthering the agenda of the far-right.

    ‘Immigrants’. Really?

    Between April 2023 and March 2025, in cases related to domestic abuse, all categories of offences saw a reduction year on year, all except for sexual offences, which on average has seen a 25% increase in occurrence.

    Domestic abuse is a serious issue, accounting for 54% of rape crimes between April 2024 and March 2025, with the remaining being committed by men over the age of 16. There is also a marginal difference between the likelihood of being attacked by a stranger or an acquaintance, making it a minefield for vulnerable women and girls.

    In the last 20 years, sexual offences have increased: from 970 against young girls under-13, and 8,192 against women over 16 to 5,067 and 49,075 respectively. When looking at all rapes, crimes have increased by 511%.

    In fact, rape offences doubled between 2014 to 2019, rising from 29,420 to a horrifying 59,999. There is a slight reduction seen in 2020/2021 down to 55,685, during COVID and lockdown periods, before shooting up to 70,031 the following year.

    Perhaps most concerningly, the government doesn’t even collect the data on the ethnicity of survivors and victims of sexual assault and rape, either. However, it is thought that Black and brown women are over-represented.

    These figures are truly horrifying and should have people protesting across the country about the rising violence of men in western culture.

    Criminal justice failings

    Victims of sexual assault are equally finding it harder and harder to engage with the criminal justice system, or even in just speaking to their own friends and family about what they have endured.

    In order to try to provide women and girls, and men, a safe space to tell their story without fear of misplaced judgement or negative impacts on their relationships, a website, Outcry Witness, is now set up to help address this largely unspoken and unduly ignored issue.

    But we should be most concerned by what it says about our society that more and more women and girls are having to deal with these very real traumas and pain in secrecy, with little to no confidence that they will be safe in the criminal justice system as a victim. This is supported by a recent study that found that more than half of victims felt that the system was ineffective.

    If we were to believe the right-wing press, then we should surely see proportionate increases in population as we do in the increase of crime. Yet, we haven’t seen an increase in male population of 511% to coincide with the huge increase in sexual crimes.

    So what have we seen an increase in?

    Society and men are the problem

    We have seen a huge increase in the platforming and amplifying of blatant misogyny, in society and in politics, with repeated examples of derogatory treatment towards women in power.

    We have arguably seen an increase in the objectification of women, with even the introduction of services like OnlyFans.

    We have seen the widespread glorification and pedestalling of abusive and morally questionable men, like Boris, Trump, Tate, Farage, and Musk, seeking sensationalism over sense.

    All whilst failing to platform men that actively speak up against these behaviours amongst their gender, creating a gross public perception of what it is to be a ‘proper man’.

    As Ed Sykes reported at the start of 2025, toxic men, alongside toxic narratives and institutional practice, are what is at the heart of this urgent issue, not ethnicity or politics.

    Our media has long had issues with creating moral panics, creating a disproportionate perception of fear amongst the public in order to increase engagement, but it is seriously failing right now when we have a very serious cause for great concern in our society.

    Rising misogyny, and the reduction in access and confidence in the justice system for victims, and the continued willful ignorance of the media to all crimes against women and girls, regardless of religion or skin colour, have increased the prevalence of threat in society.

    If women and girls are the far right’s concern, then we should be talking about this very serious issue, and focus on the one factor that unites them all – their gender.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Maddison Wheeldon

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Nigel Farage is getting in deep with American anti-abortion Christian fundamentalists

    Continuing his bid to become Britain’s sad intimidation of Donald Trump, Nigel Farage has been forging ties with an American fundamentalist Christian group that’s seeking to ban abortion in the UK.

    The Reform leader spent 3 hours this week before Congress in the US, testifying against the UK’s free speech laws. His presence there was the work of the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a major conservative Christian organisation. The far-right group helped overturn Roe V Wade, resulting in millions of Americans losing their right to an abortion.

    The ADF’s UK branch reached out to invite Farage to give evidence in the US. It then contacted the House Judiciary Committee, passing on his interest. Farage testified alongside an ADF lawyer, helping to build a case against what they characterised as increasing government censorship in Europe.

    Free speech for me

    The Alliance is reportedly seeking to strengthen conservative Christianity in the UK and on the continent. However, it recognises that anti-abortion messaging doesn’t go down as easily in Britain as it does in America. Instead, it’s seeking to worm its way into British discourse with ‘free-speech’ rhetoric.

    ADF lawyer Lorcan Price said:

    What’s emerging in the U.K. is a free-speech alliance of disparate groups who are all, for various reasons, shocked that we’ve ended up in the position we are here now.

    Both the left and right in Britain have complained about limits on free speech in recent years. On the left, we’ve seen government crackdowns on pro-Palestine protests, and the right have whined that they’re not allowed to tell migrants to die in the sea. For the ADF, free speech is a gateway issue that could be used to eliminate buffer zones protecting UK abortion clinics from anti-abortion zealots.

    So, apart from a shared interest in outspoken bigotry, what exactly has the Reform leader got in common with the ADF? Short answer: the fundamentalist lobby group has influence and deep pockets, and Farage would sell out his own grandmother for a pack of cigarettes, never mind a shot at being PM. As Zoe Williams put it in the Guardian: 

    When Farage was head of the Brexit party, it had no stance on abortion. The New York Times could find no record of his having done so, anyway, and knowing him as we all do, you can’t imagine it: it doesn’t chime at all with the smoking, pint-loving, British pound sterling and sovereignty guy, to be digging around in women’s business.

    Yet as if by magic, suddenly last November, he wanted to talk about rolling back the abortion time limit “given that we can now save babies at 22 weeks” (the time limit is 24). By May this year, the current limit was “absolutely ludicrous” , according to Nigel. Although he did say to New York Times reporters that it was “bollocks” to say he had found a new interest in the topic of reproductive rights.

    Call it what it is

    The Liberal Democrats are already calling on Farage to explain his ties to the US fundamentalists. Deputy leader Daisy Cooper urged that:

    Nigel Farage needs to come clean … and explain if his party would weaken women’s rights if he came to power.

    The Liberal Democrats will stand up against these attempts to turn Trump’s America into Farage’s Britain and roll back the clock on decades of progress.

    She also requested that parliament have the US ambassador explain this “blatant attempt to interfere in the UK’s domestic laws”.

    Pro-choice activists in the UK have already been speaking out against Farage’s mounting anti-choice rhetoric for months. After he gave a speech calling the 24-week abortion deadline “ludicrous” back in May, the British Pregnancy Advisory Service warned that there was “no clinical justification for reducing the time limit”.

    Likewise, Labour MP Stella Creasy said:

    There is a shed load of cash coming into anti-abortion activism, so everyone who thinks this could never happen in the UK needs to understand they are not coming in saying they are going to stop all abortions, they are saying ‘babies could live at…’ or ‘shouldn’t women see a doctor before they have one’, and it all sounds very reasonable.

    But in reality, it is a way of restricting access.

    The national pro-choice campaign Abortion Rights also called out his slimy ‘pro-family’ framing:

    Let’s be absolutely clear:

    • “Less abortion” means more state control over pregnancy.
    • “Less divorce” means trapping people in relationships.
    • “Pro-family” means defining who counts — and who doesn’t.

    And when Farage says these things out loud – and still gains popularity – we can’t afford to look away.

    He’s not just talking. He’s building a movement. And if he gets power, the consequences will be real.

    As if it wasn’t obvious already, there isn’t a level of betrayal that Nigel Farage won’t stoop to if he thinks it will get him one more point in the polls. Every single one of his values is for sale, and his party’s policies along with them.

    The man is a real and present threat to civil liberties and human rights in the UK. The fact that he’s in bed with the ADF if just further proof that his bigotry has no limits.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Alex/Rose Cocker

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Young US Republicans caught praising Hitler and rape

    An exposé in Politico has drawn attention to young Republicans making some incredibly unseemly comments:

    Running the gambit from gross to genocidal, the leaked messages show that young Republicans aren’t much different to the Republicans of 1925.

    Young Americans

    Although they refer to themselves as ‘young’, these people range from 18 to 40. This is probably fair enough, however, given that the sitting Republican president is 79.

    As you can see below, a lot of the messages are seemingly ironic, using a similar tone to message boards like 4chan or 8chan:

    While ‘irony’ has long been used to excuse this sort of talk, it’s beyond apparent that these people want a world which matches their rhetoric.

    It’s not for nothing that these youngsters support a president who is black bagging citizens and banishing them to an El Salvadorian torture facility; a president who is clamping down on free speech and freedom of expression; a president who let Israel conduct a genocide for months before growing tired of the blowback and bringing Netanyahu to heel.

    Speaking on this same point, Politico interviewed Joe Feagin, a sociology professor who’s studied racism for the past 60 years. This is what he had to say:

    The more the political atmosphere is open and liberating — like it has been with the emergence of Trump and a more right wing GOP even before him — it opens up young people and older people to telling racist jokes, making racist commentaries in private and public.

    He added:

    It’s chilling, of course, because they will act on these views.

    Others have commented on the story too:

    A fish rots from the head

    It’s not surprising that Young Republicans would have opinions from the 1930s when this is their leader:


    While America gagged at the content of these chat logs, vice president JD Vance engaged in a bit of ‘whataboutism’:


    While the message Vance highlights is pretty bad, it’s hard to argue it’s worse than ‘I love Hitler’.

    You know – unless you also feel some sort of way about Hitler.

    This would make sense, I guess, given that Vance once compared Trump to Hitler, and now he’s the president’s yappiest lapdog.

    Although Vance has struggled to diminish the repulsiveness of these messages, he has made one thing clear; it’s not just the young Republicans who are comfortable with this sort of thing.

    Featured image via Politico

    By Willem Moore

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Farage kicking off about vegan tampons shows just how much period stigma still exists

    Nigel Farage’s comment about tampons and the reactions to it have shown us how much stigma still exists around periods.

    Farage may be attempting to distract us from that thing he doesn’t want us to know about (ahem, Nige knew about the Russian bribes). Instead, though, he has highlighted two very real problems. One – far too many people in this country cannot afford period products. And two, there is still a massive stigma around menstruation.

    Period poverty: and vegan tampons are the problem?

    According to ActionAid, period poverty has risen dramatically in recent years. Period poverty is when someone is unable to access period products, hygienic facilities, or education due to either the cost associated with doing so or stigma. In 2023 alone, period poverty rose from 12% to 21%. Since then, the cost-of-living crisis has only intensified.

    Access to sanitary products is a fundamental human right. Yet in the UK, 40% of girls have had to use toilet roll in place of period products at some point, because they cannot afford proper sanitary products.

    As if that isn’t bad enough, 14% of girls did not know what was happening when they got their first period. An additional 26% did not know what to do.

    The real issues here are a lack of education and poverty. Not ‘vegan tampons in men’s toilets’.

    So, aside from the fact that the National Trust put tampons in men’s toilets for any trans men who may have their period, anyone using the bathroom who has friends or family who cannot afford period products can take some. And what about the single Dads who can’t afford period products? Or the women experiencing homelessness who have male friends who can grab them a few extra pads? Or the person with endometriosis who is bent over the toilet in agony, who texts her partner to grab her a tampon?

    I think we all know how Farage would react if all these people decided to free bleed. He’d be disgusted – as would the majority of men.

    But once again, we have a rich white man making comments about an issue he has never personally dealt with.

    Gynaecological health conditions add more pressure

    Around 10% of women and girls have endometriosis, and up to 20% have adenomyosis. Both are agonising and debilitating conditions, which cause extremely heavy bleeding – often for far more than the two to seven days of a standard period. Some people bleed for weeks or months at a time.

    This means that the cost of sanitary products can be enormous for people with these conditions. Added to the cost of having to take time off work, medications to control pain, fatigue and all the other symptoms – it’s safe to say that a male friend being able to grab you a few extra tampons or pads would make a massive difference.

    From the end of 2018 until 2020, I was homeless. I relied on free period products, from public toilets, from charities, and from the kindness of strangers and friends – of all genders. And as a woman who had both endometriosis and adenomyosis at the time, I got through them fast.

    I had a hysterectomy at the end of 2023, at the age of 28. Aside from not being in debilitating pain every single day and being able to live a relatively normal life now, I also must have saved thousands of pounds from not having to buy sanitary products.

    Stigma still exists – as Farage just showed

    Half of the population menstruates, yet so many people – yes, mainly men – are disgusted by them.

    Society teaches girls from a young age not to talk about periods. Women walk around terrified of wearing white clothing or leaking during their period because it’s embarrassing or shameful. But why? Do we laugh at toddlers who wet themselves, people who have had surgery, or men who spill a coffee on their crotch during a meeting? No, we don’t.

    Why? Probably because, of course, women are just sexual objects. How dare they bleed from their vaginas?

    And if period blood upsets you – that says a hell of a lot more about how society has taught you to see women’s bodies, than about the blood itself. Oh, and you might want to sit down before I tell you where you came from.

    Not to mention innuendos like ‘that time of the month’, ‘shark week’, or hearing ‘she must be on her period’ because a woman dares to show an ounce of emotion. All these euphemisms do is add stigma – they emphasise that periods are something to hide. They lead to more embarrassment, young girls being afraid to ask for help, and reinforce that periods are disgusting and not to be talked about. Do we have the same euphemisms for digestion? Or breathing? Both, like menstruation, are normal bodily functions. Stop beating around the bush and call it what it is.

    The fact that Farage is married to a woman astounds me – because he has clearly never listened to one.

    This is yet another example of how Farage and Reform’s “protect women and girls” mantra is complete bullshit. If he really cared about women and girls, he’d be supporting access to period products.

    Feature image via Monika Kozub/Unsplash

    By HG

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Tim Westwood will stand trial for 4 counts of rape, 5 years after allegations first emerged

    This article includes discussion of rape and sexual abuse

    On 9 October, the Metropolitan Police confirmed that former DJ and media personality Tim Westwood will face trial for multiple counts of rape and other sexual offences.

    The news comes more than 5 years after allegations of the presenter’s sexual misconduct began to emerge. The investigation into the claims was first opened over 3 years ago.

    Westwood has been charged with four counts of rape. He also stands accused of nine counts of indecent assault and two counts of sexual assault. The charges relate to crimes spanning from 1983 to 2016. They involve seven different people, of whom two were girls aged 17-18.

    The former DJ will appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on 10 November.

    Timeline

    As early as 2020, claims that Westwood behaved inappropriately with predominantly Black female fans began to appear on Twitter. The accusers used the hashtag #SurvivingTimWestwood.

    At the time, broadcaster Global Media came under fire for platforming the DJ and failing to investigate the allegations.

    In April 2022, seven women accused Westwood of sexual misconduct as a result of a joint investigation by BBC News and the Guardian. Then, in July 2022, BBC News reported allegations that he had raped a 14-year-old girl multiple times. The Sunday Times also reported allegations made by 17 individuals in the same month.

    The Metropolitan Police began an investigation of Westwood’s sexual offences in August 2022. They submitted evidence to the Crown Prosecution Service in November 2024.

    BBC director general Tim Davie characterised the claims as “appalling”. However, he insisted that no complaints had been made against Westwood while he worked for the BBC. A Freedom of Information request made as part of the BBC News-Guardian investigation revealed six complaints against the hip-hop presenter for harassment and bullying.

    Double disadvantage

    Black women face a double disadvantage of racism and gender inequality when they encounter the justice system. Like many minoritised groups, they’re more likely to have worse experiences and outcomes when dealing with the police and courts. In turn, this means that they’re less likely to engage with the system. As such, they’re then less likely to receive the support they need.

    Data for conviction rates for crimes against Black women and girls are not readily available. However, Operation Soteria – a police initiative to improve the investigation of rape – stated that Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) respondents were less likely to feel the police had looked at all the evidence in their case compared to their white counterparts. Likewise, police were less likely to make BAME respondents feel that a sexual assault committed against them was not their fault.

    In 2023, Rape Crisis found that 44% of minoritised survivors in their research had previously experienced discrimination at the hands of the police. Likewise, a 2023 Vulnerability Knowledge and Practice Programme (VKPP) study which explored police attitudes towards capturing the “voice of the victim” found that:

    personnel can hold perceptions about particular communities and victims which can negatively affect their perceived credibility and impedes the willingness of personnel to capture their voice.

    In 2022, Sophia Purdy-Moore wrote for the Canary:

    In this society, Black women and girls are not protected from violence. And they are not believed when they speak out about the harm they have experienced. This is rooted in a culture of racism and misogyny which sexualises and adultifies Black girls and young women.

    This is exemplified in the revelations of Met Police officers strip searching Black schoolgirls. Other officers took and shared dehumanising photos of murdered sisters Nicole Smallman and Bibaa Henry. Meanwhile, public services still fail to meet the needs of Black women and girls, and often put them at further risk of harm.

    This is precisely why Westwood’s alleged victims were afraid to speak out. We must listen to these women, amplify their stories, and hold all those who contributed to their abuse accountable.

    The offences of which Westwood stands accused were enabled by employers which habitually overlook allegations of sexual assault. They were facilitated by a justice system which discourages Black women from coming forward. The fact that it is only now that charges are being brought against Westwood is only further proof that Purdy-Moore’s words remain just as true today as they were three years ago.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Alex/Rose Cocker

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Met Police officer who spied on 14 year old girl won’t be jailed

    A Met Police officer who used cameras to spy on a 14 year old girl won’t be jailed. In July, Lee Hargrave was handed a suspended 13 month sentence. The sentence was later re-examined for being too lenient, but the appeal judges decided the sentence was correct.

    Hargrave will remain on the sex offenders register for ten years. He resigned from the Met in 2024. Hargrave was found to have installed a camera in the girl’s bedroom and was eventually convicted for voyeurism and making indecent images of a child.

    Systemic abuse

    The Met has been repeatedly rocked with allegations of cases or sexual abuse, misogyny and racism. The signal case of the last ten years was that of Sarah Everard.

    Everard was abducted and murdered in 2021 by an off-duty cop who used his police powers to ‘arrest’ her. Diplomatic protection officer Wayne Couzens was jailed for the murder. It was later found other officers had shared misogynist messages during in investigation.

    During the search for Everard, police violently suppressed a peaceful vigil held on Clapham Common. And it was subsequently revealed that police had long ignored internal allegations about Couzens, including that he had exposed himself three times.

    Endemic racism

    The Met’s problem’s extend beyond a systemic hatred of women. On 2 October a BBC Panorama documentary showed how racism and far-right ideas thrived in the force.

    The BBC reported:

    The evidence of misogyny and racism challenges the Met’s promise to have tackled what it calls “toxic behaviours” after the murder of Sarah Everard by a serving police officer.

    Panorama’s secret filming shows officers making sexualised comments to colleagues and sharing racist views about immigrants and Muslims.

    Hidden culture?

    But, as the Canary argued earlier this month, the BBC haven’t gone far enough in their critique of the Met’s ‘hidden’ culture of bigotry and prejudice.

    As our own Alex/Rose Cocker asked at the time:

    How many times do we have to write this same fucking article? It’s not one bad apple. It’s not one bad barrel. Its root and branch, tree and orchard. The Met is bigoted because that is there core of its mission.

    If the BBC can’t see that by now, it has closed its eyes and blocked its ears on purpose.

    By Joe Glenton

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • MPs must attend the POTS parliamentary debate – it’s a crucial moment for those struggling

    In 2017, I saw a cardiologist for the first time. I had been referred after a rheumatologist finally believed the issues I had been going back and forth to doctors for since I was ten, seven years later. An hour later, the junior cardiologist pulled in his senior just to check some things, who told me I had ‘naughty girl’s syndrome’ – I simply wasn’t drinking enough water.

    I was diagnosed with Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS) a year later, a chronic illness characterised by your heart rate increasing very quickly after getting up from sitting or lying down and causing symptoms like dizziness, fainting, chest pain, heart palpitations, and shortness of breath.

    My series of events is not uncommon. The time taken between seeking help and diagnosis stands at seven years, and national charity PoTS UK found in their 2025 survey that 85% of respondents struggled to access healthcare. This is only increasing with the number of patients acquiring POTS as a part of their long Covid presentation.

    POTS: dismissed and disbelieved, but not a rare condition

    POTS is not a rare condition, rather, significantly under-diagnosed. It is often seen as ‘just being a bit dizzy’ rather than the debilitating illness it is. As a condition affecting the autonomic system, which helps regulate many of the body’s processes, POTS has a wider-system impact than largely recognised in healthcare, including fatigue, nausea, and mobility challenges.

    Chronic conditions impact every aspect of life. Non-disabled people often believe these sorts of illnesses are only an internal experience, but that could not be further from the truth. Society is not built for chronically ill people: from the nine to five working day all the way to the tiniest things like lack of seating in public spaces.

    Having POTS and attempting to manage it takes up huge amounts of my time and energy, and costs significant amounts too. Scope’s latest cost of disability research found that disabled households need an extra £1,095 each month on average. For those with POTS, this can be in products and aids like expensive electrolytes, compression socks, shower chairs, or prescriptions, but it can also be the cost of time lost through being able to work less or time taken off for flare-ups.

    Dynamic disabilities like POTS – those where symptoms and needs change, often even day to day – are not taken seriously. Society believes that if one day we can look fine, the next we must be lying, or that our access needs must be less real than we express. Employment, education, even friendship – this sort of ableism infiltrates every area we are attempting to navigate.

    Parliamentary debate: awareness matters

    October is Dysautonomia Awareness Month, and on the 14th at 11am in Westminster Hall, MPs will debate healthcare and support for POTS patients. The debate has been secured by Labour MP for Lancaster and Fleetwood Cat Smith who herself has POTS, causing her to almost faint during Covid when MPs had to queue outside to vote.

    It is easy to assume that most MPs will not feel the need to attend this: it is hard enough to get them to attend some of the bigger debates in the main House. But this is a condition impacting an estimated four in every 2,000 people, only continuing to rise.

    It is also critical to note that studies have shown that women (or, those assigned female at birth) are more likely to experience POTS, making this an issue of the significant medical misogyny we see within the system. PoTS UK found that 50% of their respondents were misdiagnosed with a mental health condition before receiving their proper diagnosis, making it a far too common experience.

    MPs need to understand how debilitating a condition POTS can be, and how little support and treatment is given. Many patients are left without the care they need for years, when they could be living a life that is more manageable, or getting the accommodations and support they need from the systems we are forced to interact with.

    What can you do to help?

    The government is constantly pushing the importance of school attendance and employment. When 48% of under 18s with the condition lose over 3 months of school, and 37% of 25-50 year-olds have lost their jobs, it is crucial for systems to change how we are seen and supported.

    PoTS UK have built a tool to help you generate an email to your MP to tell them about the debate and the reasons why they should attend. The more emails they receive, the more likely this becomes, so do encourage others to send one too, whether they are your friends or family, or you shout about it on social media.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Charli Clement

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Just Stop Oil decry their own ‘institutional failure’ as they announce sexual abuse within ranks

    Just Stop Oil have written to supporters with details of horrific abuse from within the organisation. They wrote:

    Just Stop Oil has always stood for a vision that extends far beyond the climate crisis. At its heart, it has been a campaign for justice and hope, striving for a society free from prejudice, discrimination, and abuse. It is therefore with profound regret and anger that we must address a grave failure within our own ranks.

    We are writing to share deeply troubling allegations of abuse carried out by two individuals previously employed by our campaign.

    They detail that:

    Beginning in 2022, two men, named Aaron Gunning and Joseph Linhart, are alleged to have systematically targeted and abused young female staff and volunteers. Our HR team has compiled a list of serious accusations from multiple women, which include grooming, coercion, sexual assault, and rape.

    However, they appear to have deleted any mention of the abuse from their social media account – despite having initially tweeted it themselves.

    Just Stop Oil

    The group also don’t have the message sent to supporters on their site, or any other social media. Unfortunately, it would appear that currently the only way to view their statement in full is via Dorset Eye. Just Stop Oil describe the abuse as evidence of their “own institutional failure.” And, they state that:

    Our well-intentioned culture of radical trust proved inadequate, and in its place, a toxic culture of shame and silence was allowed to develop—one that protected the abusers, not the victims.

    We know that this admission comes too late for many. It is with a deep, burning anger that we recognise how incredible female talent was driven from our campaign as a result of the actions of these two individuals. Unfortunately, they may not be alone.

    The dynamic they describe is one that is typical in organising spaces. People subjected to terrible abuse have their experiences silenced, often for the benefit of supposed group harmony and commitment to broader political goals. Naturally, people who would otherwise object to Just Stop Oil’s existence and purposes have been quick to use this admission as evidence that the organisation is not fit for purpose.

    However, facile arguments like the above should not colour the response to the statement. The abuse that is described is not a problem Just Stop Oil have alone; it is the problem of rape culture that permeates into every possible part of society.

    Ongoing abuse

    The fact the information is no longer as widely available is extremely troubling. If Just Stop Oil are as committed to dismantling the rape culture within the organisation, where have the statements gone? Why aren’t they all over their social media? This is especially troubling given the fact that the original statement makes it clear that:

    For those reading this, you may have faced abuse from others not named here. You are right to question why only two names are mentioned. Please understand that this public statement is an extraordinary step. We are taking it because we believe abuse is ongoing and individuals within our community remain at risk. Should you believe further action is needed regarding other people involved with the campaign, we urge you to get in touch. We have implemented structural changes to ensure victims are heard, and our HR team now has our full trust and backing.

    And, alarmingly, they even warn other organisations from working with the two named abusers:

    Make no mistake: the fact that multiple courageous young women have come forward to name Aaron Gunning and Joseph Linhart as manipulative and abusive misogynists capable of sexual assault and rape is, in itself, a call for immediate action. They are now excluded from all Just Stop Oil circles, and we warn other campaigns to do the same.

    ‘No room for abusers in the future we are building’

    Just Stop Oil conclude that:

    As we look ahead, we are committed to learning from these devastating mistakes. It is with a sense of sober pride that we look at the team building our next campaign—a steering group led by a majority of brave, intelligent women. There will be no room for abusers in the future we are building.

    Women shouldn’t have to be brave merely to exist in these spaces. And, there will be many of us who have direct experience of the grooming, culture of coercion, and sexual abuse that is rampant in not only organising spaces, but more broadly in society. It is deeply troubling that Just Stop Oil refer to abuse they suspect is still ongoing, from abusers who are yet to be revealed.

    We cannot allow confronting the climate crisis to be placed above the safety and wellbeing of the people doing that work. Tackling rape culture is a heart-wrenching and incomprehensibly difficult task. And, more often than not, the people tackling it are not passive observers but survivors of grotesque sexual attacks.

    Featured image via Just Stop Oil

    By Maryam Jameela

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Lauren Southern accuses Tommy Robinson of lying to protect alleged ‘rapist’ Andrew Tate

    In July 2025, Lauren Southern accused Andrew Tate of raping her. Following the accusation, Tommy Robinson attempted to discredit Southern’s accusations. Now, Southern has returned to dispute Robinson’s defence:


    Lauren Southern: accusations

    Lauren Southern was touring English-speaking nations in 2018 and working with local far right figures. In this early part of her career, Southern was linked to the ‘alt right’ and accused of ‘tiptoeing at the precipice of outright white nationalism’. A year earlier in 2017, she released a video promoting the ‘great replacement theory‘, which is a white nationalist conspiracy theory.

    Southern made the accusations against Tate in her memoir This Is Not Real Life. Around the release, she released certain chapters for free via SubStack, with the rationale being she didn’t want to ‘profit’ from the accusations. Southern writes that she travelled to Romania with Robinson in 2018, which is before Tate rose to international prominence.

    In one of the chapters, Southern writes:

    I’d rather not give a detailed account, so I’ll keep it simple. He carried me back to the hotel room and asked me to sleep beside him. I said yes. I was incredibly intoxicated, and some part of me convinced myself that because he was Tommy’s friend he wasn’t particularly dangerous. It was a poor decision, but it happened. He kissed me. I wasn’t expecting it, and I wasn’t looking for it, but I kissed him back briefly and then told him I wanted to sleep. I was extraordinarily tired. He wanted to go further. I said no, very clearly, multiple times, and tried to pull his hands off me. He put his arm around my neck and began strangling me unconscious. I tried to fight back. He repeatedly strangled me every time I regained enough consciousness to pull at his arms. I’d prefer not to share the rest. It’s pretty obvious.

    Multiple women have accused Tate of raping and strangling them since he became a globally recognised figure in the 2020s. In her latest video, Southern claims to have a hospital report from 2018 documenting strangulation.

    Response to Tommy Robinson

    In her response to Robinson, Lauren Southern says:

    Tommy, long time no see. I appreciate you taking the time to respond to the claims I made recently with a video of your own… I apologise for my late reply, you know that old saying about the truth taking a minute to get its shoes on.

    Southern shows several clips in which Robinson claims Southern travelled back to Romania to see Tate after the alleged assault. Southern disputes this, saying:

    I went once to Romania with you – one entry, one exit – in 2018, when you took me to a business meeting to meet your pimp friend.

    Speaking on Tate’s alleged victims, Southern says:

    There are 40 plus victims – known victims – women and girls – British women and minors – the very people you claim to protect. This isn’t just about our egos or our reputations. This is a much bigger case than that.

    She also says:

    you are being lied to. You are being lied to by people who are stealing your money, defending sex traffickers and covering up their crimes, and who have very different missions privately than what they are telling you their missions are publicly.

    Southern claims she was taken to meet Tate under false pretences. She states she was there for a business opportunity, but alleges Tate “bragged” in a group chat he was ‘never going to invest a fucking dime because he’s a pimp who doesn’t give girls money’.

    HOPE not hate

    HOPE not hate monitors the activity of ‘far-right extremists’ in the UK. The group wrote the following on Robinson in 2022:

    Despite presenting himself as a protector of children and women, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon has repeatedly failed to confront child sexual exploitation and abuse within his own team and amongst his supporters.

    In that article, they report the following (note: they use Robinson’s legal name, which is ‘Stephen Yaxley-Lennon’):

    Lennon has consistently ignored or even defended occurrences of these crimes in his own ranks, proving that he is more concerned with attacking Muslims than actually combatting CSE or challenging sexual violence.

    Notoriously, in June 2010 Lennon’s close friend and ally Richard Price was convicted of making four indecent images of children, and possessing cocaine and crack cocaine. The vile images were found on his computer by police after he was arrested for disturbances at an EDL demonstration.

    Far from condemning Price’s crimes, the EDL launched a campaign for his release. Lennon himself wholeheartedly supported Price, claiming he had been “stitched up” and that “Price has no idea how they were on his computer.”[ii] When Lennon’s claims became untenable, he switched positions and finally condemned him.

    Lauren Southern addresses Robinson’s claim that HOPE not hate are paying people “tens of thousands of pounds” to discredit far-right figures, showing a video in which Robinson says:

    They liaise between the media and the person. So they’ll go give a girl 20 grand; then they’ll line up BBC to interview the girl.

    So BBC’s hands are clean. They haven’t paid anyone.

    In a second video, he claims “they paid the girls”, and speculates they’ve likely been in contact with every one of Tate’s accusers.

    Responding to this, Southern says:

    I know I didn’t get paid. And I know that there’s no proof for any of the other women getting paid – the 40 plus other known victims. Unless you have some? Feel free to post it.

    No one’s getting paid, except for you, actually. You got $30,000 from the Tate brothers, which is really curious. Or is it just 30 pieces of silver? You’ll have to remind me.

    Seriously, though, the only ones who seemingly are getting any money for any of this conversation are the ones supporting the sex traffickers.

    .Southern also says:

    No one knew who Tate was back in 2018 when you took me to see him for this business meeting. And yet that same year, I go and get a hospital report documenting strangulation five years before it would be reported publicly that that was what he did to other victims. …

    So is the idea that… these left-wing NGOs came and found me, and we all took a time machine back to 2018, because they needed that report then to do a hit job on him now in 2025?

    What are you talking about?

    It makes no sense.

    Featured image via James English (Wikimedia) / Lauren Southern (Wikimedia) / James English (Wikimedia)

    By Willem Moore

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Pride in Labour to protest women’s conference cancellation

    Pride in Labour will hold a rally titled ‘Conference Cancelled, Democracy Denied’ outside the Wheel of Liverpool on Saturday 27 September. The group will be there to protest at the Labour Party’s disgraceful decision to cancel the women’s conference.

    Labour Party women’s conference cancellation: a move to push trans women to the margins

    This cancellation is not just a scheduling issue, it is a deliberate attempt by the party leadership to silence women and shut down democratic debate, particularly on trans inclusion. Labour’s leadership has shown contempt for women members, denying them the right to meet, organise, and hold the party to account.

    Avery Greatorex, Co-Chair of Pride in Labour, said:

    Let’s be clear: cancelling the Women’s Conference is an attack on women, and especially on trans women, who are constantly scapegoated and pushed to the margins. It’s cowardly and authoritarian. Labour’s leadership is terrified of its own members, so it has decided to shut them out altogether. This is not the behaviour of a democratic party, it’s the behaviour of a leadership more interested in control than liberation. We will not be silenced, and we will not let them divide cis and trans women from one another.

    The group is holding the protest outside the Wheel of Liverpool at 3.30pm on Saturday 27 September. Pride in Labour is calling on Labour members, trade unionists, community organisations, and allies to join them to demand democracy, inclusion, and accountability from Labour’s leadership.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Surprise! Trump’s autism announcement is actually eugenics, again

    This weekend, Donald Trump said something very weird. Whilst this is a pretty regular occurrence for the US President, a ramble mid-way through his Charlie Kirk eulogy caused fresh alarm for disabled people:

    Tomorrow we’re going to have one of the biggest announcements, really medically, I think, in the history of our country.

    Besides this being a thing he decided to announce during the eulogy for his so-called friend, he continued:

    We’re gonna be doing it with Bobby and Oz and all of the professionals. I think you’re going to find it to be amazing. I think we found an answer to autism – how ‘bout that autism.

    Truly, the most incredible way to follow up, you’ve made an “amazing” discovery about autism is “how ‘bout that?” isn’t it? It shows just how much he’s announcing these things for applause. And nothing says medical professionals like the guy who got a brain worm and the TV doctor who thinks there’s arsenic in apple juice.

    Trump promises to make children with autism “better”

    He continued:

    Tomorrow, we’re gonna be talking in the oval office of the white house about autism, how it happens, so we won’t let it happen anymore. And how to get at least somewhat better when you have it, so that parents can help their child, their beautiful child. That’s something I’ve been bugging everybody over there, get the answer to that, y’know.

    This should truly strike alarm bells for everyone; he’s talking about a neurodivergent condition like it’s an illness and something you can “get better” from. He’s attempting to sound concerned to appeal to parents, but this is eugenics, plain and simple.

    He originally teased this announcement at a dinner on Saturday night, where he sounded even more dangerously chaotic:

    We have to make the announcement it’s so big, we can’t let people keep doing this, I don’t wanna wait any longer and if it’s wrong – its not gonna be wrong – but if it is wrong its fine that we have to do it, because we’re gonna have an announcement on autism, on Monday.

    It was unclear what he couldn’t “let people keep doing” in relation to autism, but most assumed it was simply have Autistic children – which, judging by what has leaked about the announcement, doesn’t seem too far from the mark.

    Eugenics and denying pregnant women pain relief in one

    The Washington Post reported that the Trump Administration are expected to reveal new plans to explore how:

    one medication may be linked to autism and another one can treat it.

    The Post spoke with four White House insiders who said that health officials will apparently be raising concerns about pregnant women’s early use of Tylenol (or paracetamol as it’s known in the UK), the most commonly used painkiller globally, and possible links to an increased risk of autism in children. This follows research by Harvard and Mount Sinai that says there is an “association” between the active ingredient in paracetamol, acetaminophen and autism.

    But as PBS pointed out, “association” and “links to” are very different to causation.

    Speaking to PBS, Dr Christopher Zahn, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists’ chief of Clinical Practice, said:

    The vast majority of the studies done on acetaminophen use in pregnancy are inconclusive and unable to confirm a causal relationship between the prudent use of acetaminophen during pregnancy and fetal developmental issues.

    The administration plans to advise pregnant women against using Tylenol in early pregnancy, unless they have a fever. What’s significant here, though, is that extensive research has found that the drug is the only safe painkiller during pregnancy, and therefore the only one doctors will allow expectant mothers to have. So not only is this a totally unnecessary step, but it’s also one that will leave women in more pain and discomfort during early pregnancy.

    The only time Tylenol will be advised is if the pregnant woman has a fever. An untreated fever in pregnancy has been proven to cause problems, including miscarriage – so they don’t want to stop babies being born, but they also don’t want them to be disabled.

    Eugenics wrapped up as science

    The other part of Trump’s apparent announcement will be a “treatment” for autism, with vitamins. Specifically, the administration will tout vitamin B9, or folinic acid, as a cure for autism. Again, low folates in pregnant women have been linked to autism in kids, as well as some people with autism having lower folates. Trials administering the drug to Autistic children have shown improvements in their abilities to speak and communicate.

    As well as the drugs, the National Institute of Health (NIH) is also gearing up to announce that 13 teams have been given grants to research into other causes and treatments of autism. These are apparently separate to the NIH’s broader autism research, which officials have said they don’t want to be rushed to coincide with the announcement.

    Robert F Kennedy Jr said in April this year:

    By September, we will know what has caused the autism epidemic, and we’ll be able to eliminate those exposures.

    The Secretary of Health has made autism a huge focus of his “Make America Healthy Again” agenda, which famously proclaimed all food as “poison”. Researchers have raised alarm at Kennedy’s proclamation, because, of course, not only can you not “eliminate” autism, but they also know that conducting research is a lengthy process.

    Another thing worth pointing out here is that bullshit tv doctor Dr Oz, who is in charge of the Centre for Medicare and Medicaid Services, owns a supplements company that sells folinic acid. Just a coincidence though, surely.

    Trump’s plans have nothing to do with helping Autistic people

    What’s important to look at here is that Trump isn’t proposing in any way to improve the lives of Autistic people, and none of his plans will have any positive outcome for them. Stopping Tylenol in early pregnancy won’t stop Autistic children from being born, but it will give people another way to blame mothers. The “treatment” would most crucially benefit those around Autistic kids, not the kids (or adults) themselves. It’s a way of sanitising Autistic people and making them more palatable and easier to be around for the neurotypicals.

    This has never been about helping Autistic people to navigate the world, it’s about squashing us into boxes so we comply, or as RFK put it: “eliminating” us.

    Whichever way you look at Trump’s plans, it doesn’t work out well for Autistic people.

    By Rachel Charlton-Dailey

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Colossal racist Conor McGregor up for sexual assault charges – again

    Professional thug turned hobbyist thug Conor McGregor has been given until 14 October to respond to claims he sexually assaulted a woman while attending a basketball match at the Kaseya Centre in Miami.

    Former MMA fighter Conor McGregor: sexual assault allegations

    The plaintiff, named as ‘Jane Doe’, alleges she was taken to the men’s toilets by an associate of McGregor, where he is then said to have “engaged in unlawful sexual contact” with her, during which he slammed her face against a bathroom stall. The woman had attempted to enact criminal proceedings against the former MMA fighter, but these had been dismissed due to a belief that they:

    would not be able to satisfy (the) burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

    Speaking to CNN in January of this year, Doe’s lawyer James Dunn said:

    A civil case is the only avenue that my client has to seek justice in this case.

    My client has thought long and hard about the decision to pursue this civil case, and is fearful of the effect it may have on her job on Wall Street. Nonetheless, her main goal in filing this suit is to raise awareness and encourage others to report sexual assault.

    McGregor had been invited to the stadium to perform as part of a marketing stunt, in which he was due to act out a ‘knockout’ of the Miami Heat team mascot Burnie. However, in typically loutish fashion, McGregor proceeded to actually pummel the costumed man, striking him viciously twice in an incident that left the victim needing medical attention. The incident was highlighted by Doe’s defence team to indicate McGregor’s rash behaviour on the night, and the failure of staff at the event to cease plying him with food and booze which further exacerbated his thuggery.

    McGregor: a colossal racist and violent thug

    McGregor was in the news again earlier this week, as he announced his decision to end his bid for the Irish presidency. In a rambling, at times unreadable statement released on Monday, he railed against “Establishment woke politics” (presumably meaning anyone who isn’t a colossal racist like him) and “the mainstream media supercharged Fake News” (perhaps voicing his displeasure at those who accurately report that he is a colossal racist). McGregor ultimately failed to secure the required endorsement of 20 members of the Irish parliament, or the backing of four local authorities.

    The washed-up brawler has sought to transition from the vicious arena of the octagon to the even more violent world of politics in recent years. He met with the world’s leading death dealer Donald Trump earlier in the year, along with recent violence enthusiast and recreational ‘Sieg Heiler‘ Elon Musk. His nativist politics align with the US genocidaire-in-chief, as he maintains a toxic X feed filled with “Ireland for the Irish” gobshitery.

    Not his first sexual assault

    Sadly, it seems unlikely we’ve seen the last of his immigrant-bashing venture into politics, as his statement went on to threaten that:

    this will not be my last election. You will see me canvassing again in the future, fighting for your rights and representing the best interests of our nation.

    This is not the end, but the beginning of my political journey. I am driven by a commitment to improve lives, defend rights, and serve the Irish people with dedication and integrity.

    I will continue to serve my people on the global stage lobbying for Ireland’s best interest’s socially and economically – of that there is no doubt.

    In the meantime, his more pressing concern is the further disgrace and financial hit another lost sexual violence civil lawsuit would bring. In November 2024, McGregor was defeated in his battle against another such case brought by Nikita Hand, which resulted in him being found civilly liable for raping her. He was forced to pay €250,000 in compensation in addition to her legal costs.

    Feature image via Youtube/BBC News

    By Robert Freeman

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • From maternity wards to unpaid care, Britain thrives on Black women’s silence

    Misogynoir is not just a cultural bias — it’s embedded in the UK’s institutions. Two recent scandals show this by systematically dismissing Black women’s pain and exploiting their labour.

    Misogynoir — a term coined by scholar Moya Bailey to describe the intersection of racism and misogyny that targets Black women — operates as structural logic in Britain. It shows up not just in media stereotypes but in policy decisions and daily encounters with state institutions.

    Two recent developments expose this clearly. The Black Maternity Experiences survey, conducted by campaign group Five X More and published in July 2025, reported that almost a quarter of Black women were denied pain relief during labour. Nearly half received no explanation. This was not anecdote but evidence — data from more than a thousand women across the country.

    At the same time, the Carer’s Allowance scandal exposed the situation of nearly 90,000 unpaid carers. They were disproportionately women, many from Black working-class backgrounds .The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) pursued them for repayments after minor administrative breaches. And, the state relied on their unpaid labour to sustain a collapsing care system, yet penalised them for earning just pounds over the threshold.

    Taken together, these cases show how Britain institutionalises misogynoir. The state extracts unpaid labour as economic strategy. It dismisses Black women’s pain as a healthcare norm. These are not isolated failings. They prove the British state functions through silencing and exploiting Black women.

    Black women’s pain ignored: misogynoir in maternity care

    The Black Maternity Experiences survey, published in July 2025 by Five X More, provides one of the clearest examples of misogynoir in action. The survey gathered responses from more than 1,100 Black and mixed-heritage women who gave birth in the UK between 2021 and 2025. The results confirm what campaigners have long argued: systemic neglect of Black women is not an accident, but a pattern.

    • 23% of women were denied pain relief they requested during labour.

    • 40% of those denied were not given an explanation.

    • More than half reported difficulties when dealing with healthcare professionals.

    One respondent summarised the consequences: “I was in agonising pain and I was treated poorly.” This is not only about bedside manner. The refusal of pain relief, and the dismissal of requests for it, reflect a historic stereotype. The stereotype suggests Black women are naturally stronger, more resilient, and therefore less deserving of medical intervention.

    Such assumptions have material consequences. The UK’s maternal mortality figures show that Black people are more than twice as likely to die during pregnancy or childbirth as white people. Despite years of inquiries, the disparities remain. This persistence indicates that the issue is not lack of awareness, but lack of institutional will to change.

    In this sense, misogynoir sets the norm in healthcare. Staff do not treat pain as a symptom to relieve — they treat it as something Black women should endure. By refusing care, the system enforces silence. It discourages women from asking for help because it has already shown it will ignore them.

    Labour exploited: Misogynoir in the care economy

    The maternity data exposes how misogynoir dismisses Black women’s pain. The Carer’s Allowance scandal exposes how it exploits their labour. In September 2025, the Department for Work and Pensions admitted wrongly pursuing almost 90,000 unpaid carers for overpayments, forcing them to fight for compensation.

    Strict earnings rules drove the scandal. When carers earned just a few pounds over the weekly threshold — often because of irregular shifts or payroll errors — the DWP hit them with demands to repay thousands. In many cases, the repayments drove families into debt.

    Most unpaid carers are women. Black women and women from migrant communities, concentrated in low-paid work, bore the brunt of these penalties. The state relied on their unpaid labour to keep the social care system from collapse, even as it punished the very people holding it together.

    Carers described the policy as punitive. Some cut back paid hours to stay below the threshold, sinking further into financial insecurity.  Others revealed how the state treated them as fraudsters while they carried out essential care it refused to fund. Misogynoir underpinned the system: it positioned Black women as an inexhaustible resource, forced to absorb both the unpaid care burden and the financial penalties.

    The same logic links this to maternity care. In both hospitals and benefit offices, institutions undervalue Black women’s contributions. They disregard Black women’s voices — whether raised in pain or protest — and treat their labour as endlessly renewable, no matter the cost to their health or security.

    Misogynoir as policy – Silence as infrastructure

    Taken together, these cases reveal misogynoir not as an accident of prejudice, but rather as a deliberate organising principle within British institutions. In maternity wards, it operates through the dismissal of pain. In welfare offices, it operates through the exploitation of unpaid care. Across both, it enforces a silence that benefits the state.

    These patterns keep repeating, and in doing so, they dismantle any claim that they are isolated failings. Researchers have documented maternal mortality disparities for years. Campaigners and auditors have repeatedly flagged the hostile design of Carer’s Allowance rules. Yet policymakers delivered only piecemeal reforms. Their repetition shows that institutions not only predict these outcomes — they tolerate them.

    This is why euphemisms like “disparities” or “oversights” fail to capture the reality. Misogynoir in Britain is structural. It keeps healthcare costs down by dismissing requests for care. It sustains the care economy by extracting unpaid labour. And it neutralises resistance by labelling Black women’s testimony as anecdotal rather than systemic.

    Ultimately, this makes misogynoir a form of statecraft. It is an economic strategy as much as a cultural prejudice. And its effects are measurable in both the statistics of maternal deaths and the financial precarity of carers.

    Featured image via Unsplash/freestocks

    By Vannessa Viljoen

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Right-wing grifter Thomas Skinner’s plan to endear himself to the Strictly audience is failing. BOSH!

    In times gone by, it used to be that the scandal of Strictly would happen after the show had started. The ‘Strictly Curse’ became a bigger part of the show than the actual dancing. However, in recent years the lovely dancing show has been marred by other controversy. Notably, we’ve had allegations of the professional dancers being abusive towards their female celebrity partners to the extent that we didn’t even know how the show would go on last year. It did, but with noticeably fewer female celebrities, and that’s before we get into the absolute weirdness that was the creepy Wynne Evans. And once again, the controversy surrounding Strictly Come Dancing has started before it’s even begun, this time with the divisive pick of “celebrity” contestant, right-wing grifter Thomas Skinner.

    Strictly’s most controversial contestant yet? BOSH

    If you’re unfamiliar with Thomas Skinner’s work, he’s a self-styled cheeky chappy who came 7th on series 15 of The Apprentice, though more recently he’s become known for his increasingly right-wing views on social media about immigration and benefits, ending all his tweets with “BOSH”.

    Most recently, he went viral for a bizarre now-deleted tweet claiming he was being targeted by the “tofu-eating woke brigade” who wanted to take away his favourite pastime of having a full English and “who think having a pint on a Friday is a hate crime”.

    Skinner likes to portray himself as just a working-class lad who’s just saying what other good, honest, hardworking lads are thinking. But he, of course, went to private school. His right-wing shenanigans meant he even met JD Vance a couple of weeks ago. So there’s been mounting pressure by the public on the BBC to axe him, and he’s not helping himself.

    Thomas Skinner gets paranoid during a press day

    Last week, during the press day for Strictly Thomas Skinner caused a stir when he grabbed a reporter’s phone and demanded to know why she was recording the interview, which is common practice for journalists. He then stormed out. He later apologised on Instagram, claiming he’d seen messages about his personal life on her phone.

    He said:

    I’ve been through some difficult times in my life, which I’ve worked hard to move on from. In that moment, seeing it there caught me off guard. I felt it was best to step away and gather myself.

    Which is all very well, until a few days later, the story seemed to have been uncovered when he gave a tearful interview to the Sun, admitting he’d cheated on his wife in 2022. In the interview, he says it was just a two-week fling and that it was a “moment of madness”.

    The “other woman” spoke out

    However, this is of course not true. The woman Thomas Skinner had a relationship with, beautician Amy-Lucy O’Rourke, told her side of the story. In the Daily Mail she explained that she and Skinner had actually been together for three months after meeting in 2022. Amy-Lucy said:

    Thomas told me I was the love of his life and sold me an absolute dream. He told me he was in a loveless relationship of convenience.

    She said that his “sweet talking and lies” convinced her that they were in love.

    Skinner married his now wife, Sinead, in May of 2022. However, he was still messaging Amy-Lucy days before the wedding; they were also in touch just eight days after. He told Amy-Lucy that Sinead was from a traveller family and that they would’ve killed him if he hadn’t gone through with the wedding.

    Lovebombing and lies

    Amy-Lucy says Thomas Skinner “lovebombed” her, forever telling her how much he loved her, calling her multiple times a day, but also that she never had to work with him around – her business suffered as a result.

    He eventually told Amy-Lucy he’d told Sinead everything and that they’d ended it amicably. He then began living with Amy-Lucy part-time. But then she discovered the truth.

    After an event that both he and Sinead were at, Amy-Lucy checked Sinead’s Instagram and saw photos of the married couple where they were clearly very happy together, and Thomas was wearing his wedding ring.

    She said:

    I felt sick and confronted him. He was so drunk he was struggling to lie and abandoned me in the restaurant. I was absolutely distraught. I messaged Sinead on Instagram as soon as I realised what was really going on. She replied immediately and told me Tom had warned her I would be getting in touch to tell lies about him.

    Skinner then showed up at Amy-Lucy’s door at 7.30am the next day. He repeatedly banged and shouted to be let in until she lost her temper and smashed his car windscreen.

    She said:

    I was so angry he’d come back saying he wanted a cup of tea and a cuddle after such a traumatic incident. I was furious and smashed his windscreen and all he did was laugh and drove away. He rang me moments after to tell me I’d never looked sexier. It was all a joke to him.

    She continued:

    I was absolutely broken when I realised how stupid I’d been – how I’d believed his lies.

    Despite this, they briefly rekindled their romance after Skinner managed to weasel his way back into her life, but she ended it and cut all contact. But he kept constantly texting and calling her to the point that she was so stressed she crashed her car.

    Amy-Lucy says that the relationship is still affecting her three years on and she’s speaking her truth now because:

    I’m glad to be over him now, but I believe the world needs to know what he is really like.

    Thomas Skinner tries to weasel his way out, again

    Thomas Skinner responded to Amy-Lucy’s claims on, of course, his Twitter, where he said he’s been made a target:

    I’ve noticed I’m being portrayed as public enemy number 1. They’re trying to break me and get me cancelled. And if I’m honest, I’m not sure why.

    Probably let’s be honest, Thomas, because not only do you have disgusting views on Twitter, but it has been proven you treat women like shit too.

    He goes on during his Twitter diatribe to say that the press is trying to ruin him and that he’s being backed into a corner. Most bizarrely, he says, “I’ve made mistakes and if you dig you’ll find more” which you just know the press are gonna do.

    In response to this and the abuse she said she’s received online, Amy-Lucy posted a story on her Instagram. She says in the post:

    At the end of the day, this absolute troll convinced me that he loved me and I’d saved him from his sad life and made me think I was in love with him! Absolutely broke my heart, played fucked up mind games till the very end, you don’t even know the half of what I went through the tears I cried.

    She continued:

    So tell me why should I have to keep quiet and watch him on a family BBC show banging on about how much of a lovely family man he is? The public deserve to know the real him.

    Stop platforming fascists and believe women

    Amy-Lucy is, of course, right. In a world where men who shout the loudest are given platforms, the women who speak out against them deserve to be heard even more. Many questioned why Skinner was picked for Strictly when he has such divisive views. However, it’s obvious that he was picked because of those views and that his appearance on the show would drum up more views.

    It’s disgusting that that’s where we’re at with what should be harmless reality TV, but let’s be honest, Strictly was platforming fascists before it was cool to with the likes of Ann Widdecombe back in 2010.

    Thomas Skinner was always a controversial pick for Strictly, but will it prove one controversy too far? Hopefully, if the BBC sees sense and stops platforming this right-wing manipulative prick.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Rachel Charlton-Dailey

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Belfast child-protecting vigilante is actually a far-right thug – who stabbed a child

    The current far-right modus operandi is to portray themselves as the noble protectors of women and children. Yet time and again they are revealed to be the last person you’d want anywhere near your son, daughter, or frankly anyone else – not least in Belfast.

    The latest case of a racist vigilante being unmasked in this way is Mark Payne, part of the East Belfast First Division. The group have been banned from TikTok, but can still be found on videos featured on the Belfast Nightwatch First Division Facebook page. These show large crowds on men roaming the city streets, with even comments from seemingly supportive followers questioning whether this intimidating mob would put anyone at ease. One wag suggested they might be attempting to track down Jeffrey Donaldson, the disgraced former Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader, who is currently facing trial for a serious of sexual offences.

    Far-right vigilantes in Belfast: unmasked as perpetrators of violence

    The group describes itself as:

    Concerned Parents, from all communities, working together, patrolling Belfast streets, for the safety and protection of our children and vulnerable people.

    The implication, or sometimes direct assertion, is typically that migrants – and increasingly anyone who is Black or brown – pose a danger to those supposedly at risk.

    Payne’s history of “protection of…children and vulnerable people” includes his involvement in the stabbing of a 14-year-old who was seriously injured in 2004 when Payne was 22 years old. The child suffered multiple wounds from the knife attack, resulting in serious injury.

    The Belfast Telegraph reported that Payne was:

    charged with intimidation of two female witnesses, stealing a kitchen knife, possessing an offensive weapon in a public place in connection with a burglary, and entering as a trespasser Grosvenor Rugby Club with the intention of inflicting grievous bodily harm against another man.

    He ultimately served four years in jail for the incident.

    Racist ex-convicts and murderers

    Payne was pictured outside Belfast’s Laganside Courts alongside fellow ex-convicts Mark Sinclair (armed robbery) and Glen Kane (manslaughter). Kane was convicted for his role in the killing of Kieran Abram, a Catholic man who was kicked to death in a sectarian attack in July 1992. Sinclair currently goes under the moniker Freedom Dad, where he has become known for turning up at pro-Palestine protests in an attempt to provoke those seeking to stop so-called Israel’s genocide in Gaza. He is the cousin of ‘Shankill Butcher‘ Billy Moore, who was part of a gang of sadistic killers that murdered Catholics during the 1970s and 80s.

    Their presence at the court was due to the appearance inside of another racist criminal who we are entreated to trust with protecting the safety of the vulnerable. Neil Pinkerton was appearing before a magistrate facing:

    three counts of common assault, two counts of using disorderly behaviour at Connswater Retail Park and at a McDonald’s fast-food outlet, trying to damage a car, harassment, possessing Class B cannabis and inciting hatred.

    These offences were alleged to have been committed on 6 September this year. Another incident of disorder in the Connswater area occurred on 8 September, as a racist mob forced a terrified man from his car and damaged the vehicle. Pinkerton also has an interest in hunting with dogs, and has faced trial over animal cruelty.

    Fitting a wider patter of far-right violence

    This fits a wider pattern among the far-right generally, with notorious Islamophobe Tommy Robinson (real name Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon) possessing a string of convictions including assault occasioning actual bodily harm, immigration fraud, mortgage fraud, and stalking, among others.

    In another recent edition of “every accusation is a confession”, the migrant bashing Manchester-based Lee Twamley was found to have a history of people smuggling, bringing four Vietnamese people into England in the back of his Ford Connect van.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Robert Freeman

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Facebook group Meta accused of violating women and children (again)

    Meta – the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp – has once again attracted criticism for its treatment of women and children. According to a report from Reuters, the company allowed and facilitated the creation of chatbots which imitated celebrities like “Taylor Swift, Scarlett Johansson, Anne Hathaway and Selena Gomez”. Reuters reports that legal experts believe Meta’s actions may violate the legal rights of these celebrities. Additionally, Hathaway is reportedly “aware of intimate images being created by Meta and other AI platforms”, and is “considering her response”.

    This case isn’t the first time that companies under the Meta umbrella have faced claims that they violated the safety or rights of women; it also isn’t the first time that an AI company has faced such claims.

    Chatbots and deepfakes across Facebook

    Describing the chatbots as “flirty”, Reuters unveiled that Meta AI tools were used to create “dozens” of them without permission. Regular users created most of those that Reuters identified, but they also report that a Meta employee created “at least three” – two of which were parodies of Taylor Swift:

    All of the virtual celebrities have been shared on Meta’s Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp platforms. In several weeks of Reuters testing to observe the bots’ behavior, the avatars often insisted they were the real actors and artists. The bots routinely made sexual advances, often inviting a test user for meet-ups.

    Disturbingly, they also found:

    Reuters also found that Meta had allowed users to create publicly available chatbots of child celebrities, including Walker Scobell, a 16-year-old film star. Asked for a picture of the teen actor at the beach, the bot produced a lifelike shirtless image.

    Emphasising another dark side to this story, Reuters:

    also told the story this month of a 76-year-old New Jersey man with cognitive issues who fell and died on his way to meet a Meta chatbot that had invited him to visit it in New York City. The bot was a variant of an earlier AI persona the company had created in collaboration with celebrity influencer Kendall Jenner.

    A history of harm

    In 2021, senators in the US accused Facebook of hiding research into its effects on teenagers. As reported by Euro News at the time:

    The research, first revealed by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), included the finding that 32 per cent of teenage girls said that when they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse.

    Teenagers also consistently blamed Instagram for rising rates of anxiety and depression.

    On average, one-in-five teenagers said Instagram made them feel worse about themselves. A quarter of British girls said the app made them feel much worse or somewhat worse about themselves.

    At the Senate hearings, Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen said:

    I’m here today because I believe Facebook’s products harm children, stoke division and weaken our democracy. The company’s leadership knows how to make Facebook and Instagram safer, but won’t make the necessary changes because they have put their astronomical profits before people.”

    Not long after the hearings, Facebook rebranded its parent company to ‘Meta’ and announced it would be focussing on the so-called ‘metaverse’. Commentators at the time suggested the name change was rolled out to draw attention away from the controversy. As the metaverse proved a disastrous financial failure for the company, there’s certainly an argument to be made that the project was announced way, way, way before it was ready.

    More recently in 2024, the EU’s European Commission began investigating Meta’s treatment of children, announcing:

    The Commission is concerned that the systems of both Facebook and Instagram, including their algorithms, may stimulate behavioural addictions in children, as well as create so-called ‘rabbit-hole effects’. In addition, the Commission is also concerned about age-assurance and verification methods put in place by Meta.

    It stated it would look at:

    Meta’s compliance with DSA obligations on assessment and mitigation of risks caused by the design of Facebook’s and Instagram’s online interfaces, which may exploit the weaknesses and inexperience of minors and cause addictive behaviour, and/or reinforce so-called ‘rabbit hole’ effect. Such an assessment is required to counter potential risks for the exercise of the fundamental right to the physical and mental well-being of children as well as to the respect of their rights.

    Facemash

    Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg worked on a project called ‘Facemash’ before turning his attention to the website which made him billions. Facemash was a “hot or not” website which allowed his fellow students to rank women. As BuzzFeed reported in 2018:

    According to a Harvard Crimson article written at the time, Zuckerberg built it by hacking into school facebooks (when that still meant a student directory) and taking students’ ID photos for the site.

    The site allowed students to rank their classmates based on their appearances.

    In a journal he kept on the site, Zuckerberg mocked some of the students’ photos as “pretty horrendous.”

    “I almost want to put some of these faces next to pictures of farm animals and have people vote on which is more attractive,” he wrote.

    Facemash was met with outrage and was quickly shut down.

    Zuckerberg might be taken seriously now, but the recent actions of his company suggest he’s still the same creep who steals women’s images for personal gain.

    Featured image via Anurag R Dubey – Wikimedia

    By Willem Moore

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Want to protect women and girls? Stay away from Reform

    Nigel Farage’s much-hyped Reform speech would apparently have something new to say in terms of policy. As such, it was covered extensively by the media, with the two major parties seemingly on extended summer breaks.

    But what was new? Maybe it was the more professional look? Although, the air hanger backdrop did make him sound as if he was in a literal echo chamber.

    But apart from that, he tapped into the current anti-migrant sentiment around hotels and spoke of the need for mass deportations, something that would necessitate the leaving of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). As the Canary previously reported, he announced the racist Operation Restoring Justice. Hardly new for Farage, then.

    Farage’s speech: his rancid racism has nothing to do with VAWG

    At one point he asked if society was interested in the safety of women and girls or the Human Rights legislation If we follow this ‘logic’, he is saying that it’s migrants who are responsible for violence against women and girls – a racist trope that’s highly offensive.

    And, equally alarming was the lack of pushback from mainstream media, opting instead for prime time radio and television coverage.

    Head of public affairs at the End Violence Against Women Coalition (EVAW) Janaya Walker said:

    We’re alarmed by ongoing rhetoric exploiting concerns about violence against women to further a racist, anti-migrant narrative. This not only harms migrants and racially minoritised communities but hinders work to address male violence and abuse, which is most commonly carried out by someone known to the victim.

    Every act of violence against women and girls is an injustice, but the racist idea that this is primarily an imported problem flies in the face of women and girls’ daily experiences in the UK. We’re incredibly concerned that this narrative is being endorsed by mainstream politicians from various political parties.

    With Labour’s remarks on an ‘island of strangers’, the Conservatives expensive Rwanda gimmick, and Reform’s proposal ofmass deportations, it does seem like these parties are trying to outdo each other in terms of how hostile, vindictive, and anti-migrant they can appear to voters.

    As such, it can feel like we’re being dragged, as a country, to the right. That feels troubling, especially as we look to the future.

    Leaving the ECHR: endangering women and girls

    If Reform was ever to win a general election, one of its first acts would be to make the UK into a pariah state by taking us out of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

    Civil liberties consultant solicitor Chris Topping said:

    The European Convention on Human Rights (“EHCR”) is 75 years old this year.

    In that time, it has become the cornerstone of the way in which our society has moved in a progressive way to bring equity and equality to those who would otherwise be the victims of discrimination and abuse.

    When the Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA) became law we began to see a greater prospect of justice moving from the illusory to reality, particularly for women.

    Take for example the victims of John Worboys (‘the Black Cab rapist’). They were empowered by the work of the Centre for Women’s Justice to bring litigation arguing that their rights under Article 3 of the EHCR had been violated by the egregious failures of the Metropolitan Police investigation. The changes that followed the landmark rulings in the Supreme Court have been for the benefit of everyone, women in particular.

    The suggestion that we could repeal the HRA or leave the EHCR is astonishing in its lack of understanding of just how important they are to the lives of women in the UK in 2025.

    Walker from EVAW reiterated these concerns:

    We are also alarmed by the threats to roll back on our collective human rights with debates about withdrawing from the ECHR and withdrawing the Human Rights Act. Survivors and the organisations that support them have long relied on the human rights act to hold the state and its institutions to account when they fail us – whether that’s the police or local authorities.

    Women and girls deserve better than this dangerous narrative which scapegoats communities and threatens to roll back the human rights protections we have fought for.

    Stay far away from Reform

    Farage and Reform’s disgusting new announcement began to fall apart within 24 hours. Confusion reigned over whether children would be part of these mass deportations. And, that’s to say nothing of the widespread accusations that the party is “ripping up” human rights laws.

    Leaving the ECHR will undoubtedly put the most vulnerable in our society, including women and girls, at risk. In particular, women and girls who have suffered sexual exploitation, violence, or who’ve been trafficked and let down by services such as the police.

    Human Rights and women’s rights are intertwined. Anyone who wants to protect women and girls needs to stay far away from Reform.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Ruth Hunt

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • In defence of Taylor Swift

    In case you somehow missed it, this week, Taylor Swift announced her engagement to her footballer boyfriend Travis Kelce. Along with the happy tears of millions of Swifties there was something else that emerged, as it always does when Taylor Swift lives her life.

    An undercurrent of resentment, even hatred for Taylor that as a Swiftie for over a decade I know All Too Well. And while some of the criticism is very valid, there’s a lot of it which very much isn’t.

    There are some valid criticisms of Taylor Swift

    So let’s start off with what is valid criticism of Taylor Swift and work our way out.

    Many dislike her because of one part of what she’s become the figurehead for – a capitalist system which makes it impossible for newer artists to break into whilst pushing out constant repeats of, lets be honest, the same merch. The excessive amounts of album variations, the same cheaply made cardigans because her and her management know fans will buy every single thing they can. It’s excessive and comes across as greedy. There’s also the sheer amount of money she has and makes off of every single album drop, merch drop tour and the countless variations. In a world of extreme poverty, richness of her level shouldn’t exist, it’s as simple as that.

    But there’s also what she’s done for the music industry. Before she started releasing Taylor versions there was very little awareness of how music ownership worked, and that the musician actually owned very little of the rights to their music, videos, and even image. Since this, many other artists have been able to fight for masters rights when negotiating contracts and reclaimed their own masters.

    I’ve seen a lot of criticisms around her owning a private jet, which again shouldn’t be a thing that exists when the planet is dying and being ravaged by carbon emissions. But it’s also true that Taylor bought double the amount of carbon offsets than she would need. Carbon offsets go towards things like planting new forests or conserving current ones.

    Many argue that if she didn’t fly by private jet she wouldn’t have to offset her carbon usage, but as the most famous woman in the world its impractical for airlines and not to mention unsafe for her not to. Just search her name on any social media site to see the sheer amount of hatred and threats this woman gets every day.

    Most criticism is thinly veiled misogyny

    But lets be honest, most criticisms of Taylor Swift aren’t about her wealth hoarding or carbon emissions: they’re deep-rooted in misogyny.

    It’s men who think a woman shouldn’t be so famous, shouldn’t empower other women to advocate for themselves, and know themselves. It’s the sort of men who will direct hatred at a woman for simply attending the football game of the man she loves. It’s the sort of men who will send her death and rape threats and we won’t bat an eyelid when the president of the United States incites hatred on her and her fans – until one man decides to take a machete to a dance class where her young fans just wanted to dance and sing along to her songs and make friendship bracelets and it’s suddenly all about “protecting our girls”.

    And there’s been a lot of criticisms about The Eras Tour, but there’s a lot to defend Taylor’s tour for too.

    Yes, she is a billionaire who became inextricably rich from a tour which lasted two years. But she worked herself to the bone for those two years, her tour created microeconomies and boosted the economies of the places she visited. All her staff on her tour were paid incredibly well, with them also receiving regular bonuses, she’s also had a lot of the same musicians, singers, backstage staff and team for most of her career.

    She has helped families buy houses, seen kids through college. Her charitable donations are also immense. She donated thousands to food banks and local grassroots charities in every city the Eras tour stopped at – and those are just the charitable donations we know about.

    Terror threats and how the Taylor Swift community uplifted each other

    There’s also the sheer JOY of the Eras Tour: getting to experience a stadium full of mostly women screaming our hearts out, dancing with our best friends, trading bracelets and sobbing with both happiness and grief and heartbreak is something I will never forget. Getting to do that with my best friend in the whole world is one of my most cherished memories.

    Taylor Swift is a woman who empowers other women so much that men feel the need to silence her in every way possible, including threatening the lives of thousands of her fans with terror threats. Her Vienna leg of the tour was cancelled after three teenagers were arrested for planning a terror attack during her shows.

    What came after the cancelled shows was a display of just how wonderful the fandom is. When the Southport attack happened, Swifties raised thousands for those affected for hospital care, funerals, and to support the hospital. They sent care packages and friendship bracelets in their thousands. When the Vienna shows cancellations were announced at such short notice, many fans were already in the city, so they all came together in their thousands to hold a vigil, sing songs, trade bracelets and hold each other in a show of grief and resilience.

    She has also empowered fans to stand up against the creep of fascism in America. Shortly after it was announced that the 2024 presidential race would be Trump v Harris, Swifties 4 Kamala mobilised, thousands of fans held drives to help their friends and neighbours register to vote and held mass planning and rallying zooms. The collective is still going now, renamed Swifties 4 Hope. Their mission is to “educate, advocate, activate and celebrate”.

    Having to justify cancelling shows due to terror

    Even after cancelling her shows to protect herself and her fans, Taylor Swift received scorn. Many criticised her having an armoured police escort around London, as if the lives of her, her team, and fans hadn’t been threatened days before. She was also bitched about for not speaking about the suspected attack and carrying on with her tour. She took to Instagram once the European leg of the tour had ended to clarify that she did this in order to stay safe:

    Let me be very clear: I am not going to speak about something publicly if I think doing so might provoke those who would want to harm the fans who come to my shows.

    She underscored her point with:

    In cases like this one, ‘silence’ is actually showing restraint, and waiting to express yourself at a time when it’s right to. My priority was finishing our European tour safely, and it is with great relief that I can say we did that.

    More than anything though, she just makes me feel seen

    But more than anything though, the reason I will defend Taylor Swift to the hilt is because she makes me and women like me feel seen. There may be a significant wealth gap between Dr Swift and me, but at the heart of it she’s also a woman in her mid thirties trying to make sense of life.

    A woman who has grew up under such deep scrutiny and never stopped writing and singing about the things that are important to her. In a world that tells women they should be happy with what they’ve got, settle and dull their sparkle to please men who are supposed to want them to thrive, she says “I love you, but i love sparkling”. She has created tapestries and given so many of us a new language to describe our hurt, anguish, pain, and joy. “Who’s afraid of little old me” became a rallying cry for all who’d been underestimated then had men attempt to silence and destroy them.

    And now after years of seeing her (from a distance) fall for man after man who wanted to use her for her fame and then have the courage to leave a relationship that’s failing, she’s found someone who truly adores her. Travis is a fan of Taylor Swift first and her boyfriend second, well her fiancée now – and people have still got a problem with it.

    And now Taylor Swift can’t even be happy and engaged

    From a weird part of the fandom there’s bizarre claims that she’s gone “tradwife” because she’s had the audacity to take a break from churning out music – after she was on tour for two whole years – and spent her time building a house with a man she loves. When if they look close enough, they’ll see a woman who is for the first time in a long time, living life on her terms.

    There’s also the criticism coming from a lot of the left that this was the wrong time for her to announce an engagement whilst the world burns, but newsflash the world is always fucking burning. Was she supposed to wait and have it leaked to the press, once again stripping her of her agency? Yes it is crass as fuck seeing newspaper after newspaper abandon headlines about Gaza in favour of the Tayvis engagement, but that isn’t Taylor Swift’s doing.

    The media bookending murder with her ring and speculation over who will design her dress is vulgar, but it’s a symptom of a media who will always find anyway they can to paper over atrocities.

    Swifties contain multitudes

    The criticism of Taylor Swift extends to her fandom. That we shouldn’t be all simping over another new album from a billionaire whilst children are murdered by Israel in Palestine, and that us focusing on how beautiful her engagement shoot is, means we don’t care about fascism on our own shores. But as Swift has shown, women contain so many fucking multitudes. We can highlight atrocities and raise awareness of systemic discrimination.

    I struggled with a Taylor Swift lyric to end this on but I think the most beautiful one, which typifies what she brings to the world and her fans is this:

    So make the friendship bracelets, take the moment and taste it, you’ve got no reason to be afraid.

    There are many reasons to criticise Taylor, but me and so many women like me will also be here to defend her.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Rachel Charlton-Dailey

    This post was originally published on Canary.