radiofree.asia

Category: Misogyny

  • 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.

  • The flag shagging, racist bellendery from the far-right is not patriotism

    We’ve had a spectacular bank holiday just gone here in England. As well as blazing sunshine, this weekend saw an ancient English tradition return, that of “we’re going to tell you it belongs to us because look at our flag” – dressed up as ‘patriotism’.

    Such custom harks back to the days of the Empire, the worst days in our history, which many would gladly go back to. This is despite them being poor and working class, so it would be even worse for them than it is now, though they’d at least be a bit more aware that the lord of the manor was pulling the strings.

    I don’t need to give you a history lesson, but this was of course, when jolly English explorers (read: murderers, rapists, colonisers) would jaunt on over to whichever island they fancied and plant a flag, claiming the land. This is despite it already belonging to culturally diverse peoples who, if they resisted, would be abused, starved, and enslaved.

    Though this time, they’re doing it on their own soil. Because after centuries of enslaving people from all over the world and bringing them here forcefully and illegally, racists now don’t like that England is home to many other races, religions, and cultures. To borrow a line from Bob Vylan, it’s a classic case of “loves a chicken korma, hates the hands that cook it”.

    Flag shagging, racist bellendery dressed up as patriotism

    So, for some absolutely unbeknownst reason other than sheer racist bellendery, the fash decided this weekend they would “remind everyone who’s country this is and if you don’t like it you can leave”. Because this country has gone to the dogs and you can’t even have a pint and a bacon sandwich without being arrested. And to prove we won’t stand for that absolutely not made up scenario, we’re going to *checks notes * paint a St George’s cross on a roundabout.

    All around the country, we saw definitely not racists strewing cheap tacky flags upside down on lamp posts, and defacing everything from roundabouts and zebra crossings to, bizarrely, nature information stands in parks. All in the name of PATRIOTISM.

    And of course it was never just about being proud of the flag. Racist losers who’d done things like paint a zebra crossing waited eagerly until Muslims crossed it to take photos and shame them on social media.

    But of course, it’s done under the guise of “protecting our girls”. Which is why it’s especially ironic that Tommy Robinson caused a mass pile-on of three young women who tore down flags on a roundabout, instructing his Twitter followers to “make the dogs famous”.

    Elon muscles in

    And in turn, other far-right gobshites are adding fuel to the fire too. The edgiest little edgelord Elon Musk decided to be soooo edgy and post an England flag on Twitter. Not content with getting a pedo racist into the Whitehouse, it appears he’s setting his sights on pulling the strings in British politics too. Yesterday, Musk shared a tweet from far right grifter Rupert Lowe which apparently detailed:

    85 cities in Britain where local authorities were complicit in the rape of children.

    Though this is a Reform investigation which surely enough does nothing to highlight the fact that most abuse is perpetrated by white men. Elon and Rupert have also conveniently ignored a campaign which is urging the government to not only stop weaponising violence against women and girls for racist means, but also hold those who do to account. But then, they’d be telling on themselves wouldn’t they?

    Raising a flag isn’t inherently racist

    The thing is, raising the flag in itself isn’t inherently racist. Our flag is used at times of national celebration and support (albeit usually connected to football) or commemoration of those lost to conflict. At its heart, raising your national flag should be a point of pride, “this is where I’m from and I’m proud of that”. Being truly proud of where you’re from isn’t racist, but in order to do that you have to also accept how gloriously multicultural England is.

    True patriotism comes from community-building, from looking after your neighbours and wanting to improve where you live for all. It comes from lobbying your politicians for better, for everyone, not just those who look and think like you. It’s supporting local businesses, being kind to strangers, and opening doors instead of building walls.

    Tying a hastily and shoddy-made flag your missus got on Temu upside down on a lamppost or drunkenly painting a roundabout whilst shouting about ‘protecting are girls’ isn’t patriotism. When raising your flag comes as a warning, that’s not patriotism, that’s a threat.

    But isn’t that what raising the English flag has always been about?

    By Rachel Charlton-Dailey

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • How the Toxic Manosphere is Grooming Adolescent Boys

    A Russian poster urging open your eyes - against women being abused.-- image usage permitted under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license. Attribution: Denitza Tchacarova: A Russian poster urging open your eyes – against women being abused.

    Over the past decade, the “Manosphere” — a loosely connected but increasingly influential network of blogs, forums, influencers, and online communities — has become a powerful vehicle for promoting traditional gender roles, male grievance politics, and opposition to feminism. Once considered fringe, its rhetoric has crept into mainstream politics, with some analysts crediting it with helping shape the cultural climate that helped elect Donald Trump in 2024. But its reach extends far beyond adult men: the Manosphere is now shaping how teenage boys think about gender, power, and identity — often before they’ve even had their first romantic relationship.

    While the Manosphere’s impact on adult men has been widely studied, its encroachment into youth culture has received far less attention. Increasingly, Manosphere-aligned figures and communities are targeting boys aged 15 to 18, giving rise to what could be called the “Teenosphere”: a youth-focused, reactionary subculture that echoes the language, aesthetics, and grievances of its adult mentors. This emerging movement repackages anti-feminist and hypermasculine ideology in teen-friendly formats — viral TikToks, Discord memes, YouTube rants, and Reddit threads — making it both accessible and appealing to adolescent boys.

    According to the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE), the grooming of adolescent boys is “mimicking the white supremacist Active Club (AC) movement.”

    This “’Youth Clubs’ network, consisting of at least 19 chapters representing 42 states, engages in the same real-world activism as the ACs, including MMA training, spreading neo-Nazi propaganda in public spaces, and attempting to recruit members online, including on TikTok.”

    “Emerging in 2022, the Active Club movement is a white supremacist transnational network of ‘sports clubs’ first conceptualized by American neo-Nazi Robert Rundo and Russian neo-Nazi Denis Kapsutin, the latter a key MMA organizer who is banned from the Schengen Area in the European Union for his track record of hate and violence,” GPAHE recently reported.

    “Active Clubs are small white supremacist cells, operating under Rundo’s ‘White Nationalism 3.0’ model, working at the local level and collaborating with numerous racist groups, including those with a penchant for violence, such as the Proud Boys, White Lives Matter (WLM), and Patriotic Front in the United States, Action Française and Identitarian groups in France, and the Hammerskins in Canada, Sweden, and Germany, creating alliances that strengthen the white supremacist movement globally. Shortly before Donald Trump’s inauguration, Active Clubs across the country called on him to follow through on his promise to conduct a mass migrant deportation operation.” (For more on the Active Clubs network, see “Active Clubs and Transnational Far-Right Extremism in 2024 and Beyond” @ extremism.gwu.edu/…; and “’Active club’ hate groups are growing in the U.S. — and making themselves seen” @ www.npr.org/…)

    GPAHE pointed out that “The majority of Youth Clubs created channels on Telegram between February and June 2025, with a few set up in 2024. According to a post by an umbrella account for Youth Clubs, titled ‘United Youth,’ created on February 24, 2025, Youth Clubs are a ‘network of pro social young white men nationwide’ that act as an ‘activist,’ ‘nationalist,’ and ‘fraternal and fitness network.’

    “At the time of publishing, Youth Clubs indicate that they only accept members between the ages of 15 and 18, and operate under the belief that ‘our (white) people are dying off and we are growing up in a world which does not care for us,’ referring to the racist, and deadly, ‘Great Replacement’ conspiracy theory, which, like the regular Active Clubs, serves as an ideological framework for activism. Youth Clubs believe that ‘Jews,’ ‘liberal sycophants and homosexuals’ are all responsible for these supposed problems, and act to ‘fight back against these great globalist evils.’ United Youth also shared a quote by Rundo about starting the Rise Above Movement (RAM), a violent street gang which had members arrested for their actions during the racist Unite the Right riots in Charlottesville, Virginia.”

    Some Youth Clubs are explicitly neo-Nazi, such as the Pacific North West (PNW) Youth Club and New England Youth Club.

    GPAHE noted that the growing “Youth Club network serves as a sobering reminder of the ongoing radicalization of young men in the United States, particularly in this volatile political environment. These teenagers are drawing inspiration from violent neo-Nazis like Robert Rundo during a time when the Trump administration is mirroring policies advocated by neo-Nazis and galvanizing the far right to call for violence against their political enemies, making these Youth Clubs the manifestation of a new generation of hate.”

    If we ignore the Manosphere’s growing influence on teenage boys, we risk allowing a generation shaped by misogyny, resentment, and grievance politics masquerading as empowerment. The online subculture is a recruiting ground for future ideologues, influencers, and voters. It will take a village made up of parents, educators, policymakers, and tech companies to be aware of and deal with the digital pipelines that funnel boys toward extremist content.

    The post How the Toxic Manosphere is Grooming Adolescent Boys first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Here’s the real reason DWP Universal Credit claims have soared

    Despite parliament being on their summer holibobs, the right-wing rags haven’t taken the summer off from spreading lies about disabled Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) Universal Credit benefit claimants.

    DWP: Universal Credit on the up

    This week, the Daily Mail reported (though it was seemingly first reported by Guido Fawkes):

    Jobless benefits claimants up by a million since Labour came to power

    This comes from DWP figures that show the number of people claiming Universal Credit has risen by one million since last July. This means that the total number of claimants, now eight million, is the highest it has been since the benefit began in 2013.

    The right media are, of course, wrongly claiming this is because people don’t want to work: that it’s easier to claim benefits than it is to work and more beneficial to do so. As the Mail felt the need to point out, a big chunk of the new Universal Credit claimants aren’t required to look for work: 46% of them to be exact. Which has got the right frothing at the mouth.

    But there’s actually a much more logical reason behind this.

    Let’s apply logic to this, though this is a challenge for the right-wing rags

    For the last few of years, claimants on legacy benefits have been migrated over to DWP Universal Credit. This ramped up last year, helpfully buried in the news cycle by the general election . This means those who previously were awarded Employment Support Allowance (ESA) because they are unable to work are now being forced to apply for Universal Credit, and in turn be judged all over again as to whether they’re fit for work.

    Over 2.1 million people in 1.59 million households have been sent migration notices. Of course there’s going to be a huge rise in Universal Credit claimants and those who can’t work, when those are the people who are being forced to claim it if they want to survive.

    However what’s important to note here is just how many have lost out. As the Canary has extensively warned and reported, almost a quarter of those forced onto legacy benefits lost their entitlement.

    Almost 400,000 have had their benefits stripped because they didn’t reapply for Universal Credit within the three month timeline. That’s 24% of claimants who were sent migration notices, 79% of these were women. The Canary also previously reported that Labour stripped 170,000 children of support since the migration from Tax Credits began.

    These people have all been left without support, either to get into work or to just fucking survive in a system that wants disabled people and single mothers to fail.

    Those who the DWP have moved over are worse off too

    What’s more, even those who have managed to migrate have found that they’re worse off than they were when they were claiming DWP legacy benefits.

    According to Policy in Practice, approximately 200,000 households that have been forced to move to Universal Credit are around £59.45 per week worse off. That’s over £230 a month that people are just expected to do without, whilst food and bills continue to rise.

    The report also found that disabled people will lose around £55 a week, or £220 a month.

    Right-wing rags doing Labour’s job for them again

    The fact is, as much as the media spin it, an increase in Universal Credit claimants isn’t because people are workshy layabouts; these are people who have been forced to claim this benefit and then smeared because they’re following DWP orders.

    And that is exactly how the government is turning the public against disabled people via the media.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Rachel Charlton-Dailey

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Shanti Maheshwari: Brutally Silenced Forever

    Shanti Maheshwari in a bridal dress; her husband Ashok Kumar is behind the bars IMAGE/voicepk.net VIDEO/voicepk.net/Youtube
    From beautiful bride, to victim of marital rape, this is the story of Shanti, a 19-year-old whose husband has been charged under the Domestic Violence (Prevention and Protection) Act of 2013. IMAGE/Inter Press Service (IPS)

    Shanti Maheshwari was a 19-year-old woman living in Karachi’s working class neighborhood of Lyari who got married to Ashok Kumar Mohan on June 16, 2025, after a two-year engagement. But for two days after her wedding, she was brutally, repeatedly, and unnaturally raped by her husband. Shanti was gruesomely wounded, and started to bleed internally.

    Her in-laws took Shanti to a health clinic but the doctor released her, and so they brought her home.

    On June 30, witnessing Shanti’s seriously deteriorating health, her family brought her back from her in-law’s house. Her parents came to know from Shanti that on June 17 and 18, she was a victim of “unnatural sexual acts,” i.e., sodomy.

    The assault complaint filed by Shanti’s brother Sayon with police stated that her husband “inserted a metal pipe” and then his “hand and arm” in her anus, and bit her breasts and neck. Her husband threatened Shanti with death if she revealed to anyone what he did to her.

    Najma Maheshwari, a social activist from Shanti’s locality, described the violence to which she was subjected to Zofeen Ebrahim of IPS (Inter Press Service):

    “Her insides were torn, she was bleeding profusely from her anus and writhing in pain. Hospital visitors urged us to move the gurney outside, complaining the stench was unbearable.

    “While cleaning her, medics removed worms from her gut—her injuries were that severe. I’ve seen much in my work, but never such horror or pain,”

    Najma (center), Sonya (head covered), and their brother (Najma’s right) were sitting on the pavement outside the trauma center where Shanti was fighting for her life. IMAGE/Seema Maheshwari

    (The violence done to Shanti brings to mind a similar case in 2012, a gruesome gang rape of a 23-year-old paramedical student in Delhi, often known as the “rape capital” of India. Amid huge protests, she was flown to Singapore for treatment, but could not be saved. As is customary for these type of victims, she was not identified by her own name but by courageous and noble names as: “Nirbhaya,” “Amanat,” “Damini,” and so on.)

    Shanti’s relative Sonia, who had arranged Shanti’s marriage, was surprised that despite her bleeding, the doctors released her from Anklesaria hospital where she had been taken.

    In South Asia, doctors are usually treated like God by most people. Why didn’t Dr. Rauf, Shanti’s doctor, care for the patient’s failing health? It’s not difficult to guess. The answer lies in three obvious reasons: Shanti was poor, Shanti was a woman, Shanti belonged to a minority — her Hindu name gave away her religion. These three factors might have caused the doctor to ignore Shanti’s critical condition. Of course, not wanting to get entangled in a medico-legal case could have been a factor, too, as there was clear evidence of anal trauma caused by sexual violence.

    Sayon and Najma took Shanti to the government-run Shaheed Benazir Bhutto Trauma Centre.

    Shanti was brought to the trauma center in “comatose” state, and placed on a ventilator. Her continual passing of stool worsened her wounds. The extreme violence inflicted on Shanti was verified by Karachi’s chief police surgeon Dr Summaiya Sayed who concurred that there was clear evidence of anal trauma caused by sexual violence.

    Mournfully, Najma remembers, “the last thing she asked for was a sip of water. Then she closed her eyes and never opened them again.” That was on 23 July.

    A Pakistani group Aurat March (Women’s March) issued a statement in the wake of Shanti’s painful and tragic death:

    “Shanti, a 20-year-old woman, has passed away today after 20 days of being in coma, and after 36 days of being brutally raped by her husband, Ashok Kumar.” “We had earlier posted about this case — about the horrible ordeal that Shanti went through, and the complicity of Ashok’s family, Anklesaria Hospital and Dr. Rauf, that has now resulted in her death.”

    In the Indian subcontinent, Pakistan tops the list with 85% of married women undergoing sexual or physical violence by their husbands, compared to India’s 29% and Bangladesh’s 53%.

    Globally renowned social activist and classical dancer Sheema Kermani of Tehrik-e-Niswan (Women’s Movement) Cultural Action Group joined with other women’s groups and civil society in protest. She said possibly Shanti would have survived if the doctor had treated her properly.

    In these kinds of horrible cases, celebrities come forward to express shock and show sympathy to the victims and her family or to condole the death. Some are genuine and others do it to enhance their fame. This time, actress singer Ayesha Omar was the only celebrity who mourned Shanti:

    “I’m sorry we failed you, Shanti. May justice be served.”

    “Praying that this misogynistic society can heal and transform for the better one day.”

    The Section 376-B of the Pakistan Penal Code considers rape a crime but it is not very clear on marital rape. Advocate of the High Court Mehwish Muhib Kakakhel points out: “A dedicated clause was proposed for inclusion in the Anti-Rape Act but was ultimately dropped due to complications around the issue.”

    She further noted: “Marital rape is usually not even considered rape because most people believe it is a woman’s obligation not to say ‘no’ to her husband,” she explained. “This mindset results in most cases going unreported.”

    To stop cases of marital rape, Muhib suggested: “Legal recognition would be a vital step in changing social norms and ensuring accountability.”

    However, laws are often made in social vacuum, and remain ineffective and even with strong laws on file protecting women, do not really protect women, because enforcement of these laws remains weak.

    Sexual and Reproductive Health education, along with mental health and emotional wellness programs are critical to change the fate of the Shantis of Pakistan.

    “Too many young people carry the trauma of childhood sexual abuse,” she said. “As they grow, that buried pain can manifest in troubling ways—some develop sadistic or masochistic behaviors, especially when exposed to unchecked pornography. It doesn’t heal them; it deepens the harm.”

    To fill this gap, she and a group of like-minded doctors at the Association for Mothers and Newborns (AMAN)*—the implementation arm of Pakistan’s National Committee for Maternal and Neonatal Health—developed Bakhabar Noujawan (Informed Youth), an online SRH program endorsed by the Ministry of National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination, launched in 2023.

    “We’re trying to introduce it in colleges, but convincing faculty is an uphill battle—they first need to grasp the course’s importance,” she said.

    Covering over two dozen culturally sensitive topics—from premarital counselling, child and cousin marriage, domestic violence, STIs, to teenage pregnancy—the programme doesn’t shy away from tough conversations. “We’re now developing a module on marital rape,” says Ahsan, head of AMAN. “The first draft is nearly complete.”

    Alongside SRH education, Sayed emphasized the need for mental health and emotional wellness programs.

    “Too many young people carry the trauma of childhood sexual abuse,” she said. “As they grow, that buried pain can manifest in troubling ways—some develop sadistic or masochistic behaviors, especially when exposed to unchecked pornography. It doesn’t heal them; it deepens the harm.”

    IPSNews

    Why did Ashok Kumar committed such heinous acts? Only a thorough psychological evaluation could throw some light on this terrible act. Delving into his motivations and intentions, could present a case history, when communicated to a wider audience, may prevent this somewhat in the future. Everyone knows, no such thing is going to happen, sadly.

    Shanti

    shanti, a word of Sanskrit origin, means silence, peace, …
    Shanti wasn’t at peace; her anatomy was torn due to sexual violence
    Shanti didn’t remain silent; she told her personal trauma to her parents
    Shanti’s milieu was poor; so the doctor’s conscience remained silent
    Shanti’s gender was female; so the patriarchy remained at peace
    Shanti, a teenager, was forced to lethal silence and finally … achieved shanti… deadly peace…

    The post Shanti Maheshwari: Brutally Silenced Forever first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Caster Semenya wins appeal as ECHR rules she didn’t get a fair hearing

    Olympic champion Caster Semenya has won an appeal at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). The court found that the runner did in fact have her rights to a fair hearing violated. Now, her original case will go back to the Swiss federal court.

    As Al-Jazeera reported:

    The original case between Semenya and Monaco-based World Athletics was about whether female athletes who have specific medical conditions, a typically male chromosome pattern and naturally high testosterone levels should be allowed to compete freely in women’s sports.

    Semenya has been subject to intense media and regulatory scrutiny over naturally occurring levels of testosterone in her body. She has been targeted by transphobes who argue that her testosterone gives her an ‘edge’ over fellow rivals. The athlete’s treatment is a perfect storm of misogynoir towards her as a dark-skinned Black athlete, and transphobia in relation to something she was literally born with.

    Semenya’s fight

    In 2023, the Canary’s Alex Rose Cocker reported:

    Two years after Semenya’s win at the 2009 world championships when she was 18, the IAAF (International Amateur Athletic Federation, as World Athletics was previously known) introduced new rules for the first time. They stated that hyperandrogenic athletes could compete on the condition that they display androgen levels below those recorded for cis men.

    And:

    Then in 2018, the IAAF made it mandatory for athletes to lower their testosterone levels via drug treatments to under 5nmol/l. Competitors would have to do this for six months in order to compete in international events from 400m to the mile. Notably, these are Semenya’s main distances.

    A couple of years later, Semenya is still beset by legal challenges for something naturally occurring in her body. Now, as a 34 year old that has moved into coaching, she says that her legal fight is for principle rather than her own direct gain. The fact that women must lower their androgen levels dependant in order to adhere to an arbitrary baseline is, as Semenya articulates, a disgraceful threat to women, both trans and cis.

    After leaving the court, Semenya said:

    This is a reminder to the leaders [that] athletes need to be protected.

    Before we can regulate we have to respect athletes and put their rights first.

    The athlete’s lawyer, Schona Jolly, said:

    As of today, the governance of international sport needs to sit up and take notice of an athlete’s fundamental rights.

    It’s not possible to put this aside and say ‘the substantive rights of the athlete don’t matter’. They firmly do.

    ‘Modern eugenics’

    The Economic Freedom Fighters, a South African political party, released a statement condemning the treatment of Semenya:

    What Semenya has faced is not about fairness in sport but about protecting whiteness and outdated ideas of femininity. Other African women athletes such as Christine Mboma, Beatrice Masilingi, and Annet Negesa have been similarly targeted, forced out of their events or into dangerous medical procedures.

    They added:

    These testosterone-based rules are modern eugenics: using fake science to exclude African women from global competition, and must be abolished.

    The group also wrote:

    This marks another important step in a long and painful journey that has exposed the racism and sexism entrenched in international sport…although the ruling does not overturn the discriminatory regulation outright, it opens the door for further legal challenges.

    It also strengthens the global movement against the policing of women’s bodies in sport.

    Back in 2023 when Semenya won a different discrimination case at the ECHR, Human Rights Watch called her victory:

    a human rights victory.

    They wrote:

    International sporting bodies set regulations with scant regard for international human rights norms, as if they are exempt from human rights standards. The European court decision debunks that, finding that the Swiss Federal Tribunal had ‘failed’ to uphold human rights norms despite ‘credible claims of discrimination’.

    Two years later, as Semenya wins another discrimination case it is apparent that athletics regulatory bodies are setting forth wild discrimination against Black women and women of colour more broadly.

    White supremacy

    The fact is that the misogyny, racism, and transphobia simply cannot be separated out when understanding how Semenya is still banned from her sport. The only options offered by athletic bodies wBlas for her to undergo unnecessary medical intervention. Transphobes often claim to be protecting the sanctity of womanhood and keeping women safe. But, as ever, they mean white women and women who further their white supremacist narratives on gender.

    As Florence Ashley and Blu Buchanan write in Truthout, there is a common link between the raft of rhetoric espoused by people who are simultaneously anti-trans, anti-abortion, anti-critical race theory:

     a fundamental belief that whiteness — both the category and those who occupy it — is under threat. The validity of this belief is less important than its influence; studies demonstrate that white Americans tend to see racism as a zero-sum game they are now losing.

    They argue that:

    White people, as a category, tend to think of themselves as victims in a “winner-take-all” battle between supposedly “natural” racial groups, in which survival (and reproduction) of the fittest determines the dominant group.

    From this perspective, any advance made by non-white racial groups is seen as a direct attack on white supremacy and the ongoing ability of white people to reproduce — not just children, but the power and privilege of whiteness itself.

    White supremacy underpins the bigotry on display when transphobes coalesce their racist efforts around policing the bodies of women. It is no accident that the women they police are women of colour: it’s by design.

    Featured image via YouTube screenshot/Guardian Sport

    By Maryam Jameela

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Women’s cancers get 20% less funding than male cancers, despite much worse survival rates

    New data reveals systemic gender bias in UK cancer funding. Notably, despite worse survival outcomes for women’s cancers, the funding for these fails to match up to the rates and reality. This is according to vital research from women’s bladder health brand Jude.

    Women’s cancer funding: not enough, not equivalent

    When it comes to cancer funding in the UK, you’d assume money goes where it’s needed most, to the cancers that are the deadliest or hardest to detect.

    But the latest data from bladder health brand Jude tells a different story.

    The public give male-specific cancers like prostate and testicular cancer significantly more funding per case than female-specific cancers, even when women’s survival rates are lower:

    Along the top: Gender Cases Deaths Survival rate Charity income £££ per Case Male: 58,230 12,258 79% £84,413,432 £1,450 Female: 79,097 19,526 58% £95,192,908 £1,203

    Jude’s determined this by reviewing charity financial information in the UK Charity Register. It also utilised public health data from Cancer Research UK.

    Its research revealed that:

    • Testicular cancer: 2,376 cases per year had a 91% survival rate and received £5,354 per case
    • Prostate cancer: 55,093 cases had a 78% survival rate and received £1,288 per case.
    • Ovarian cancer: 7,452 cases had a 35% survival rate and received £1,132 per case.
    • Uterine cancer: nearly 10,000 cases, but received just £63 per case in funding.

     

    Funding per case across cancers Testicular: £5,354 Brain: £2,579 Breast: £1,441 Prostate: £1,288 Ovarian: £1,132 Bowel: £288 Bladder: £94 Brain, bowel, and bladder all genders. Male-specific: testicular and prostate. Female-specific: breast and ovarian cancers.

    Across the board, male-specific cancers receive 20% more funding per case than female-specific ones. This is despite having 21% higher average survival rates.

    When cancer is ‘awkward’, it gets ignored

    One of the key reasons female-specific cancers are so underfunded is that they affect parts of the body we still don’t talk about.

    Gynaecological cancers, bladder issues, and anything involving women’s sex organs or bodily functions are often seen as taboo and that stigma has real consequences.

    It means fewer charities, less public campaigning, and reduced awareness. While prostate and testicular cancers have benefitted from high-profile awareness drives like Movember, there is no mainstream equivalent for ovarian, uterine, or vulval cancer.

    The result is a dangerous feedback loop: what feels “awkward” gets overlooked, and what gets overlooked doesn’t get funded.

    Jude’s Founder Peony Li said:

    As a female-led health brand, we did this research because no one else was asking the obvious question: why are the cancers affecting women’s bodies (particularly those below the waist) still so underfunded?

    The answer was painfully clear: stigma, silence, and a system that doesn’t see these issues as urgent.

    It’s time we had the equivalent of Movember for gynaecological cancers, something unapologetic, loud, and impossible to ignore.

    This isn’t about taking anything away from male cancers. It’s about funding based on need, not noise. Because when women’s cancers are treated as taboo, lives are lost.”

    Featured image via the Canary

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Self-testing rape kits in Bristol have deterred VAWG city-wide

    Rape is effectively decriminalized – less than 1% of rapists were convicted last year. It’s therefore unsurprising that of the 407,568 women raped last year, 5 in 6 chose not to report. However, according to university students, the presence of ‘Enough’ in Bristol, and the possibility of self-testing after rape, has created 70% deterrence in the city in just 4 months. The programme has had major ramifications for reducing violence against women and girls (VAWG) – and now more students are looking to implement it in their universities.

    ‘Enough’: supporting rape survivors in Bristol

    Students understand what critics do not – this is not about criminal justice; this is social justice. Enough gives survivors power and control, while sending a clear message that there are consequences for not having consent.

    620 reports have been made to the platform, with anonymous quotes shared via social media. Each survivor has been signposted to recovery resources and crisis information. 86% of Bristol students say they would report with Enough if they were raped.

    A University of Bristol student said:

    The presence of Enough on campus has started important conversations that were previously silenced. It’s the first time I feel reassured about this topic.

    How does it work? To start, survivors report to Enough simply and discreetly. They choose part to share anonymously on social media, creating deterrence. They can also self-test with a DNA kit.

    The presence of the kits and potential DNA held on file creates further deterrence. They can access free digital resources that will help them recover from trauma as quickly as possible.

    A University of Bristol survivor said:

    I wish that Enough had existed 6 years ago. This would have helped me on the days where
    things felt unbelievable and overwhelming and I just needed that validation.

    A powerful social deterrence to VAWG

    The government has pledged to halve VAWG in a decade, and needs radical ideas to make that happen. The National Police Chiefs’ Council’s report on VAWG in July 2024 stated that:

    VAWG is at such a scale that it cannot be addressed through law enforcement alone.

    More and more, leading policy makers, including MPs, are seeing that Enough could become another example of enormously powerful social deterrence. Mass communication of the breathalyser, alongside law enforcement collapsed deaths from drink driving from 5,000 per year to 200.

    Police and Crime Commissioner for Devon and Cornwall Alison Hernandez said:

    Radical ideas are welcome to combat rape. Too many victims do not come forward and are often suffering alone. I’m keen to see the evaluation when completed to see if it can be rolled out across the country.

    Enough is not a funnel into criminal justice, but could be revolutionary from that perspective too. A self-testing DNA kit can be admissible in court. Considering that less than 6% of survivors go to the police soon enough to have the potential for a forensic examination, Enough can give them something instead of nothing – frozen DNA, and a time-stamped testimony.

    Students want Enough across universities nationwide

    Enough is powered by teams of student volunteers who create deterrent content shared and viewed millions of times on social media. Students are asking if they can work to bring Enough to over 70 Universities across the UK, and the world.

    Enough provides free digital resources created with Clinical Lead Dr Maisie Johnstone PhD. These are based on cutting edge research and survivor requests, intended to support the 94% of survivors who suffer symptoms of PTSD in the first two weeks and 75% of whom will never access therapy.

    Enough is preparing to launch additional pilots with the support of proactive universities, ready for Freshers’ Week 2025.

    Featured image supplied

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • [Doris Bergen] Anti-Semitism, Anti-Black Racism & Misogyny

    Bigotry and hatred, fear and loathing, are on the rise. Vulnerable groups are being targeted. It’s happened before. Decades ago, speaking to the National Jewish Congress, Dr Martin Luther King, Jr said, “My people were brought to America in chains. Your people were driven here to escape the chains fashioned for them in Europe. There are Hitlers loose in America today, both in high and low places. As the tensions and bewilderment of economic problems become more severe, history’s scapegoats, the Jews, will be joined by new scapegoats, the Negroes. The Hitlers will seek to divert people’s minds and turn their frustrations and anger to the helpless, to the outnumbered.” Recorded at the University of Colorado.


    This content originally appeared on AlternativeRadio and was authored by info@alternativeradio.org.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • From manipulative love letters, to rape, abuse, and control – the allegations Andrew Tate doesn’t want you to hear

    Content warning: this article includes commentary on sexual assault, domestic abuse, and violence against women that some readers may find distressing. 

    As more and more allegations emerge about Andrew Tate, a dark, brooding picture is once again painted of the sex trafficker and prolific misogynist.

    Once under the influencer’s spell, many women have since come forward and reported serious allegations of rape, sexual assault, and coercive control, and in recent days, one woman has even claimed that she was held at gunpoint back in 2015.

    From adoring love letters, love-bombing, and Prince Charming-like behaviour, to a violent figure with a deep-seated hatred of women, it comes as no surprise that these are the allegations that are damningly levelled against the world’s most infamous misogynist.

    Brianna Stern: Andrew Tate’s ex-girlfriend speaks out

    One of the women who had unfortunately fell prey to Andrew Tate’s manipulative spell, is Brianna Stern, his ex-girlfriend, who has in recent weeks gone public with her allegations and lawsuit.

    Emotionally abusive, manipulative, aggressive, and menacing – Brianna’s relationship with Tate was, in no uncertain terms: domestic abuse.

    It was only in March this year that Stern came forward and decided to expose Tate’s conquest of abuse, that had continued to get worse as their relationship progressed.

    At first, like many abusers are, Tate was loving, kind, and charming. He took Brianna on dates, luxurious holidays, and bought her flashy designer items.

    In an interview with the Times, Stern opened up about the pair’s relationship, including Tate’s disgusting abuse.

    Within hours of meeting Stern, Tate claimed he had fallen in love with her, and said:

    you’re my girl now, we’re together, we’re going to be together for ever.

    Looking back and reflecting on this, Stern has said how she feels she was “dumb” and fell into a trap.

    But this was a trap that was convincingly set for her, as Tate promised her financial security and a life where she would never have to work. She said that:

    He was unlike anyone I’d ever met.

    However, despite offering her everything a girl could possibly dream of, from designer bags, to all-inclusive 5-star resorts, and flash cars, happiness was far from the picture.

    Manipulated by Tate: a barrage of love-bombing

    He said to Stern early on that he required monogamy from her, whilst he could go and enjoy himself with other women, sleeping and dating as many of them as he wanted.

    However, Stern was, like many victims of sexual assault and domestic abuse, taken in by Andrew Tate. He frequently sent her hundreds of affectionate messages, referring to her as “pookie”,”pumpkin”, and “pookiepumpkinprincess”.

    The love-bombing from here only continued to get worse. One day, he even wrote a sickeningly cringey poem for her, which began:

    across the seas, across the skies, two pookies live with loving ties.

    Recently, documents have emerged from an ongoing court case. These allege that Tate used a gun to threaten a woman at his sex cam business, and had raped and strangled four women over two years.

    Despite Tate having an immense following on social media, and his name consistently being in the news and public discourse, Stern has insisted that she doesn’t read the news, so wasn’t aware of the allegations against the Tate brothers.

    She was also manipulated by Tate to believe that the media was part of ‘the Matrix’ which:

    was out to get him.

    He consistently told her:

    don’t pay attention to whatever you see about me, it’s not true.

    He also told Brianna that he respects women. This is obviously an infinity away from the truth of his violent, chauvinistic personality, where he infamously said that women should “bear responsibility” for sexual assault, rather than the cruel and warped men who commit these violent crimes.

    Fearing for her own safety

    After a while though, Stern found herself more fearful for her own personal safety as she became aware of the allegations that were made against the brothers.

    She even spoke to Tristan Tate’s girlfriend at the time, and they confided in each other about their worries and concerns surrounding their romantic relationships with the brothers:

    We would ask each other, ‘are you sure they didn’t do this?’ We would always come to the conclusion that, no, they couldn’t have done that – they’re not monsters, they’re not capable of that.

    But over time, the picture once again started to change, and Stern began to fear for her own safety and even her life.

    After a while, the ‘honeymoon period’ had ended, and the true horror and reality of Andrew Tate’s real personality began to shine through. As the Times reported, Stern alleged that:

    Tate had become aggressive and controlling, demanding she hand over her social media passwords and download a tracking app so he could see where she was at all times.

    Stern also alleges in her lawsuit that Tate said:

    if I crossed him, he would ruin my life, rape me or kill me.

    But after moments of cruelty, like many abusers do after an outburst, Tate would blame his violent actions on Brianna. As Stern’s lawyers stated:

    like many abusers, Tate would often tell the plaintiff that his outbursts were her own fault.

    Further to this, it became clear to Stern that he used punishment as a way of controlling her, as he began to treat her like a caged animal.

    A series of text messages that were exchanged between the pair were shared in court, which revealed Tate’s sickening use of abusive language towards Stern, writing:

    You back talk too much whore, so I beat you
    I will hit you today, but I love you.

    Stern replied “Why the name calling?” and “Why the hitting :(“.

    Tate only doubled-down on the abuse, responding:

    Do you belong to me or not

    In another, Tate wrote to her:

    Because I want to beat the fuck out of you

    He followed this with:

    you will give me a child this year bitch.

    Trump’s America: rolling out the red carpet to the violent misogynist

    Soon Stern’s life became a living nightmare, as the Romanian authorities began to intensify their investigation into the Andrew Tate’s and their alleged sickening human trafficking ring.

    Many of the women involved in this investigation claimed that the brothers had coerced lots of women into doing webcam pornography and generated around $600,000, which the Tate’s mainly used for themselves.

    However, to this day, both brothers continue to deny the allegations levied against them.

    Soon the investigation had tracked Brianna down, and the Romanian Organised Crime Unit identified her as a victim of the brothers. It told her that she would be banned from any form of contact with him unless she recorded a video that denied this.

    In another red flag, Stern claimed that the video recording she then made had been directed by Tate.

    A few months later, Trump had won the 2024 US presidential election. It was a victory that was celebrated by Tate, who could almost taste the freedom on his lips, as he was:

    sure that he was going to be able to come back to the US in January.

    Despite deporting thousands of migrants for alleged crimes, Tate was, in Trump’s America, a welcome guest, whom the red carpet was rolled out for.

    As the administration essentially paved the way to Tate’s escape from exile in Romania, the brothers travelled by private jet to Miami on the 28 February, and were given a glamorous welcome as the press clamoured to get a photo of the Tate brothers stepping off their luxury jet.

    After spending a few days in the comfort of Miami, Tate also went to hang out with another MAGA magnet, Kanye West, the Nazi sympathiser, to record an interview with him.

    Tate’s sexual assault of Brianna Stern

    Following the interview, Andrew Tate met Stern in Beverly Hills, where Stern was sadly in for the worst night of her life, as a consensual sexual encounter turned into a serious sexual assault. Court documents revealed that:

    Tate began verbally degrading Stern as he routinely did.

    He said Trump was going to help him, and then he did but this time it was much worse, more aggressive and more violent. Tate began to choke Stern.

    He also began to aggressively shout at her and state:

    I beat you because I love you and your mine, why wouldn’t I be able to hit you?

    Distressed and petrified, Stern began to cry and begged for him to stop, but he would not.

    Tate continued to choke Stern harder and harder, making Stern nearly lose consciousness

    In disturbing text messages after the violence, Tate also said to Stern:

    I really love hitting you it’s very good for me

    Followed by:

    It’s relaxing don’t you think?

    Stern believes he didn’t stop this sadistic, brutal assault because he got sick sexual pleasure out of degrading and assaulting her to the point where she felt worthless and was crying.

    Following the attack, all Stern wanted to do was escape this hellish atmosphere, but like other victims of domestic abuse and sexual assault, Stern was completely and utterly terrified about what Tate might do to her.

    So, Stern decided to stay the night, and leave the next morning as though nothing had occurred and finally escaped from the shackles of her cruel abuser.

    When she was leaving the hotel, Stern alleged that Tate’s final words to her were:

    Shut the f*** up bitch, you will never backtalk me, you are my property.

    The sickening celebration of Andrew Tate in the MAGA ‘manosphere’

    In the weeks after the attack happened, Stern bravely took to social media after reporting the incident to the police, to post a photograph of her battered and bruised face. It displays her red cheeks and mascara running down from her eyes.

    Clearly in a distressed state, Stern also published medical records from a visit to New York hospital, where she claimed she was diagnosed with “post-concussion syndrome”.

    Speaking about the incident, she said that at many points during the relationship she felt like:

    silently leaving Andrew and say nothing, doing nothing because I was scared, and honestly It was so hard for me to accept that I was being abused.

    However, she decided to go public with her experience of sexual assault and domestic abuse at the hands of the toxic Andrew Tate, to help other victims come forward to expose their abusers.

    After filing her lawsuit, instead of being met with supportive messages, albeit a few, Tate’s manosphere of loving supporters gave Brianna a torrent of hurtful abuse.

    As a result of this, Stern was left fearing for her safety once again, and was forced to hire a private bodyguard for the first few days. Since then, she has had to let the bodyguard go due to expense.

    Speaking about the public’s attitude towards him and potential other victims of abuse she said:

    Some people in my life are so scared of him that they just don’t want anything to do with me now, which is really upsetting. It’s sad to see that this is what our society has come to

    VAWG normalised by the likes of Andrew Tate

    In response to Andrew Tate’s fans, who still protest his innocence (as does he denying all allegations), Stern believes that his fans and other women are:

    under his spell, just as I once was.

    Now, our society is arguably a place where violence against women is normalised and accepted, and where men are allowed to have a supreme sense of superiority above women, which Stern describes as “scary”.

    Overall, after mounting allegations against the brothers, it is evident that the ‘Tate Empire’ is one that is built on violence, extreme misogyny, and the monetisation of men’s insecurities. As shows like Adolescence expose the manosphere and incels, the consequences of letting this philosophy reign free are frankly terrifying.

    It is therefore paramount that governments around the world begin to act upon this sickening virus that is spreading rapidly throughout our societies.

    The warning signs are now in plain view; Tate is an immense danger to women and girls, and governments will be complicit if something much worse than this happens in the future.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Megan Miley

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Make no mistake: disability benefit cuts are a feminist issue

    The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) disability benefit cuts affect all disabled people – there’s no doubt about that. They will plunge thousands into poverty, isolate individuals, and without the ability to fund their disability aids, care, or therapies, impact their independence, and this is true for those across the community. However, for disabled women and marginalised genders and their families, it’s critical to understand the ways that the cuts are even more of a threat.

    To comprehend the context of the cuts as a gender issue, it must first be understood that disability itself is a feminist issue across the board. Women are more likely to be disabled, and often left undiagnosed or without the support they need for longer. It is also women who commonly bear the brunt of state underfunding.

    DWP disability benefit cuts: women are providing more care

    Just as women are more likely to perform household tasks and take on the burden of social reproduction – the unpaid and unseen work to keep society functioning – they are more likely to be providing care. Whilst social reproduction refers to a wider profile of tasks, without proper social care funding, the responsibility of care for disabled individuals often falls on the shoulders of families. Notably, this heavily primarily impacts women, who make up 59% of unpaid carers.

    For families providing care themselves, Personal Independence Payment (PIP) can be what keeps them afloat, to make up the difference in funds where they are caring rather than working. This is particularly true because Carer’s Allowance is still criminally low, and still places limits on how many hours can be worked to top up funds, as well as often being tied to eligibility of other benefits.

    In 2024, the Centre for Care found that the economic contribution of unpaid carers in the UK was £184 billion a year – whilst the combined NHS budget in 2021/22 was £189 billion. This makes unpaid care provision equivalent to a second NHS: to cut support to the bone to these families is shameful.

    For many, the disability benefit cuts will push them even further away from employment due to having to provide further unpaid care, or stop their ability to undertake part-time work. It means the impact on employment rates may have the opposite effect to what Reeves intends. When the reasoning for the cuts supposedly surrounds boosting employment, this is absurd: the cuts are not only to benefits, but to gender equality.

    The additional threats to disabled women

    For disabled women and marginalised genders, the disability benefit cuts also pose additional threats. Disabled women and marginalised genders are more than twice more likely to experience domestic abuse, and the cuts mean that these individuals are much less likely to be able to leave such a situation without access to funds.

    In particular, disabled women and marginalised genders are more likely to experience economic abuse, and are four times more likely than their non-disabled peers to have a partner or ex-partner stop them, or try to stop them, accessing benefit payments that they or their children are entitled to receive.

    Similarly, disabled women are over three times more likely to have a partner or ex-partner refuse to give child support or maintenance (or pay it unreliably) when they can afford to pay it normally. For many, PIP or similar benefits are a lifeline that keep themselves and their children out of poverty.

    290,000 of children in poverty are living in families on PIP, and children living in a family with a disabled person are more likely to be in poverty than those without. This shows the further devastating impact for families, and particularly the women within them, who are bearing the burden of care and labour much more heavily.

    It is fundamentally reprehensible for the chancellor to allow these cuts to have such impacts across vulnerable populations, and leave those who are multiply marginalised behind, in search of ‘savings’. While the government’s argument that they have inherited a difficult financial position is true, the reality is that this is not the only way they can fix that. Hitting disabled people, and particularly women and marginalised people the hardest, is something utterly unnecessary.

    The disability benefit cuts must be seen intersectionally

    It’s key for the cuts to be understood from an intersectional lens, and to be aware of the double burden these changes will have on women and those of marginalised genders.

    Similarly, it must be acknowledged that those who are also marginalised by their race will be more heavily impacted, and are often more likely to experience some of the issues discussed in this article. This includes living with certain conditions such as autoimmune diseases, and being less likely to receive needed painkillers and support.

    Disabled Black and brown women will also be hit harder by the disability benefit cuts. They experience the additional burden of racism that is often seen in the medical and benefit system, as well as lower standards of living than both their non-disabled or white peers.

    When discussing the cuts and advocating against them, we must understand this as not isolated to disability: this is an issue that feminists and those working in gender equality must also be a part of pushing back on.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Charli Clement

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Keir Starmer wanting ‘Adolescence’ shown in schools is a disaster waiting to happen

    An open letter is warning the government of the dangers of screening Adolescence in UK schools and has amassed over 1000 signatures.

    Adolescence 

    Adolescence is a Netflix drama which Labour Party PM Keir Starmer has mischaracterised as a ‘documentary’ on multiple occasions.

    The open letter – penned by Jaimi Shrive and Dr Jessica Taylor of VictimFocus has so far gathered the support of a wide range of professionals across a multitude of sectors. It expresses:

    serious concern regarding the proposal to roll out Netflix’s Adolescence as an educational resource in secondary schools across the UK.

    The authors point out that whilst the drama may be a hard-hitting one, the creators did not design it as an educational resource. Using at is such, would create a whole host of ethical concerns.

    They highlight the potential for harm and re-traumatisation. They saw this previously when schools showed similar films about child exploitation.

    A previous VictimFocus campaign #NoMoreCSEFilms highlighted the increase in traumatic responses in students who “struggled to process the distressing and disturbing storylines and imagery”. They also found that showing the films did not increase the number of disclosures about abuse or exploitation, or improve the responses to that exploitation. Fortunately, their campaign from 2017-2019 led to the nationwide withdrawal of these films.

    Adolescence: re-traumatisation

    One in three children experience at least one traumatic event before the age of 18. This means that there is a huge number of children sitting in UK schools which could potentially be retraumatised by watching Adolescence. Should a child choose to watch it in their own time, that is one thing. However, schools forcing a whole class of kids to watch it – with zero control over the environment or being able to leave could have devastating consequences.

    As the letter states:

    Victims and survivors could be retraumatised, silenced, targeted, or alienated if the content is delivered without trauma-informed support and skilled facilitation.

    UK schools are already struggling. Clearly, Keir Starmer sees this as a quick fix to a huge, systemic problem. But schools do not have the funding or support to offer this ‘trauma-informed support’ or ‘skilled facilitation’.

    Additionally, Starmer seems to have made this announcement over Adolescence without any evidence suggesting it will work:

    There is no framework, no evidence-base, no guidance pack, no expert-led materials, and no structured approach to delivering this series in schools. It has not been trialled in educational settings, nor has it been evaluated for safety, impact, or effectiveness.

    There is no evidence that this approach will work, and teachers have not been supported or trained to undertake this complex intervention with millions of students. No consultation has taken place with teachers, schools, parents, psychologists, or safeguarding professionals. Its rollout appears to be based on public sentiment rather than sound educational policy.

    Centring the perpetrator

    I have seen Adolescence, and what struck me throughout was the lack of focus on the victim. This is common in media narratives of male violence. Male achievements are glorified and little attention is given to the women and girls who have suffered at the hands of violent men.

    Adolescence may be hard hitting for the parents of young boys or teachers. However, for someone who has experienced trauma it is actually not that hard to believe.

    What started out at the start of the show as ‘I didn’t do it’, quickly turned into ‘I haven’t done anything wrong’. This is a common tactic abusers use to pin the blame on the victim. Whilst it’s important that such a popular Netflix show highlights that, it could have done far more in centring the victim instead of highlighting the fact she was a bully. This plays into the narrative that she somehow deserved it.

    The open letter highlights this:

    Katie, the murdered girl in the drama, is repeatedly framed as a bully and is denied any real voice. Her family are absent. Her suffering is largely excluded. Meanwhile, the boy who kills her is portrayed with emotional depth, vulnerability, and complexity.

    This imbalance risks reinforcing harmful narratives about victim blaming and male suffering. It sends a dangerous message that violence is understandable or excusable if a perpetrator feels bullied, isolated, or misunderstood. Many conversations, narratives, and blogs online have already argued that Katie deserved to be harmed, brought the violence upon herself, or that Jamie was justified in his anger due to her comments.

    Plenty of alternatives

    As the letter states, the government should instead be encouraging schools to show all children how to live ‘non-violent, compassionate, supportive, positive lives’ instead of using ‘graphic depictions of murder, violence, abuse, and trauma as a deterrent’ – via Adolescence.

    Additionally, they should be collaborating with professionals to develop alternative resources which do not cause further harm. Meanwhile, the government need to equip schools so they can take action against children who are violent or abusive.

    The letter acknowledges the significance of the documentary in sparking important conversations. However, the government treating it as an educational resource proves how little they understand what a trauma-informed school system should look like.

    It’s also characteristic of this government’s quick-fix approach to issues with systemic causes. And clearly, the drama fails to truly challenge entrenched misogyny and toxic masculinity. If anything, it has only fuelled them – so it’s neither appropriate, nor enough. The government can’t tackle male violence against women and girls with half-baked, ill-thought out, and reactionary ideas like this.

    Let’s face it – schools are not even equipped to deal with bullying. Ask anyone who has ever been bullied – no amount of ‘anti-bullying weeks’ ever make an ounce of difference. The fact that he thinks he can throw Netflix drama Adolescence at schools and they’re equipped to tackle an issue as huge and as widespread as violence against women and girls, is quite frankly hilarious.

    You can sign the open letter, here.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By HG

    This post was originally published on Canary.