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Category: Misogyny

  • 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.

  • They knew then, they know now: why the system still protects predators

    This isn’t about failure.

    It’s about design.

    The institutions built to “protect” children have never protected all children. They’ve protected order. They’ve protected structure. They’ve protected the image of safety — not the reality of it.

    And those of us who grew up inside the lie? We learned early that the moment your truth becomes inconvenient, you’re not just abandoned. You’re actively erased.

    It was never about not knowing

    They knew. They always knew.

    And not just the perpetrators. The teachers knew. The officers knew. The social workers, the heads of department, the child protection units — they all saw what we were up against. And they chose to look the other way.

    Because to acknowledge what was happening would have meant admitting the system wasn’t safe. And safety has always been more about optics than outcomes.

    So they denied it. Not because it wasn’t real — but because it was easier not to look.

    Silence was never passive. It was strategic.

    Institutional silence isn’t a byproduct. It’s a plan.

    It’s the way reports are minimised.
    The way disclosures are rerouted.
    The way inconvenient survivors are discredited.
    The way internal policies are written to close ranks, not open doors.

    It’s why high-profile scandals only come out when someone leaks a file, not when a child speaks. It’s why abuse cases are “historical” by the time they’re taken seriously — because time protects power.

    And the silence isn’t just situational. It’s generational. It gets passed down. Normalised. Professionalised.

    Safeguarding is PR

    Ask any survivor what happened after they disclosed and they’ll tell you: safeguarding wasn’t about safety. It was about containment.

    Disclosures trigger meetings, not action. Files, not protection. Strategy, not safeguarding.

    The institution’s primary concern? Risk — but not to the child. To their image. To their funding. To their reputation.

    This is how abuse becomes admin. How trauma becomes paperwork. How children become liabilities instead of lives.

    The outcome? The child gets moved. The perpetrator stays. The service “responds.” And the cycle quietly resets.

    Risk assessments that assess everything except risk

    A child is placed with a known offender. A family member raises the alarm. A referral is made.

    What happens?

    A strategy meeting is held. Risk is assessed. But not by survivors. Not by independent advocates. By those already invested in keeping the institution running smoothly.

    And more often than not? The outcome is a managed compromise.
    Not protection.
    Not removal.
    Not accountability.

    The system isn’t designed to stop harm. It’s designed to limit exposure — of itself.

    Credibility is a construct

    We’re judged on our tone. Our memory. Our presentation.

    Did we cry too much? Not enough?
    Did we pause before answering? Did we shout? Did we make someone uncomfortable?

    This is how credibility is measured — not by what happened, but by how cleanly we survive it.

    Survivors from care backgrounds, working-class communities, neurodivergent kids, kids with trauma histories — we are repeatedly positioned as unreliable.

    Not because we are. But because we don’t fit the system’s template for the “perfect victim.” And so we are filtered out, one by one.

    The blueprint never changed

    You can look at every decade and the pattern holds:

    He grooms.
    She speaks.
    They silence.
    He walks.
    She breaks.
    And the public moves on.

    The only thing that’s changed is the medium. Now it’s Snapchat. Discord. Instagram.
    But the method remains the same — and so does the outcome.

    Media complicity: headlines over humanity

    Even when these stories do make it out, the framing tells you everything:

    “She claimed…”
    “She alleges…”
    “The accused, a respected man in the community…”

    Media outlets have long participated in the erasure. Playing neutrality while platforming doubt.
    Survivors are reported on like suspects.
    Perpetrators are “family men” and “pillar figures” who’ve had “lives ruined by accusations.”

    The press might not be in the safeguarding meetings, but they’re in the room when public perception is shaped.

    And that shapes justice.

    Protection is political

    When the state fails to prosecute, when courts hand custody to abusers, when police don’t act despite evidence — that isn’t a resource issue.

    It’s a political decision.

    Protection in this country is tiered.
    Who you are. Where you’re from. What your voice sounds like. What they think you’ll become.

    That determines the weight of your safety.
    Some children are protected as future leaders.
    Others are managed as current liabilities.

    This is how institutional protection operates — on class lines, on cultural expectations, on reputational risk.

    The custody case that should’ve broken the system

    At the Grooming Files, one survivor shared her story.

    Groomed at 13. Controlled for 17 years. She escaped. She spoke out. She built a new life. She raised concerns when her teenage daughter was left in his care.

    The result?

    He was granted full custody.

    No pause. No review. No safeguarding check.

    A survivor who lived through grooming was disempowered again — this time, by a court of law.
    And this isn’t rare.
    It’s not rogue.
    It’s the system functioning.

    Historical abuse is still present tense

    We hear a lot about “historic abuse.”

    But for survivors, it’s not historic. It’s ongoing.

    It’s the ripple effect that never settles.
    It’s the custody case ten years later.
    It’s the social worker who still works in your area.
    It’s the school that never acknowledged what happened.
    It’s the police report you never saw.

    The trauma is present.
    The silence is present.
    The consequences are daily.

    Inquiry fatigue: when truth becomes trend

    We’ve had inquiries.
    We’ve had exposés.
    We’ve had reports with executive summaries and policy suggestions.

    And what changed?

    Some new safeguarding language.
    Some job reshuffles.
    A few headlines.
    And then silence, again.

    We don’t need more apologies from people who still have power.
    We need a system that doesn’t require public outrage before it acts.

    This isn’t just a safeguarding crisis. It’s a national shame.

    The UK has spent decades perfecting the art of appearing responsive while remaining inactive.

    We have safeguarding boards and frameworks.
    We have posters and slogans.
    We have hashtags.
    But what we don’t have is accountability.

    Predators still operate within schools, homes, clubs, and churches — protected by respectability, by bureaucracy, by fear.

    Children still go unheard.
    Survivors still carry the cost.
    And the cycle still repeats.

    We’re not waiting for you anymore

    We’ve watched this system protect itself for long enough.

    We’ve watched survivors penalised for speaking while perpetrators are protected through process.

    We’ve watched organisations posture while families crumble.
    We’ve watched truths watered down until they’re palatable enough to ignore.

    We’ve had enough.

    We’re not asking for your justice.
    We’re not begging for your belief.
    We’re not playing by your rules.

    We are naming you.
    We are tracking you.
    We are refusing your silence.

    This is not an awareness campaign.
    It’s a dismantling.

    If this sounds familiar — you’re not alone.
    Submit your story to the Grooming Files here.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Sophie Lewis

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Widespread toxic ‘bro’ culture of misogyny driving Gen Z away from social media

    Staggering levels of online misogyny is driving young people, particularly women, away from social media. This is according to new polling commissioned by Amnesty International UK and carried out by Savanta. Through the testimony of more than 3,000 Gen Z respondents, the findings paint a damning picture of the misogyny plaguing spaces meant for creativity and connection.

    It underscores the urgent need for tech platforms to overhaul their policies and take concrete steps toward ensuring safer digital communities.

    Toxic tech: social media rife with misogyny

    The polling, Toxic Tech: How Misogyny is Shaping Gen Z’s Online Experience is taken from the testimony of 3,024 Gen Z respondents from a nationally representative sample of the UK population.

    An overwhelming 73% of Gen Z social media users have witnessed misogynistic content online, with half encountering it on a weekly basis. Moreover, the problem is only getting worse. The polling found that 70% believe misogynistic and divisive language has increased on social media.

    Alarmingly, 55% expressed concerns about seeing misogynistic content. On top of this, less than half (49%) feel that social media is a safe space.

    The polling also uncovers the shocking forms of online harassment faced by Gen Z women, including:

    • More than half (53%) receiving inappropriate emojis (e.g., 🍆💦) on their posts and photos
    • 44% receiving unsolicited explicit images
    • 43% being body-shamed
    • 40% subjected to unwanted sexually suggestive comments
    • 32% experiencing hate speech
    • 27% reporting online stalking

    TikTok: the worst offender

    Among social media platforms, TikTok is seen as the worst offender. Specifically, 70% of respondents reported encountering misogynistic content on TikTok, rising to 80% for women. Instagram followed at 61%, then Twitter/X with 37%, YouTube 31%, and Facebook 30%.

    One young person said:

    As a woman it’s something women experience everyday. I no longer post on social media due to the constant hate and negativity. Even seeing the comments/hate directed towards somebody else is soul destroying.

    Another Gen Z respondent said:

    It’s so ingrained in society, that many people don’t recognise it when it’s happening – which is sad. The hatred of women is everywhere and dictates the way men behave online.

    Marginalised groups and intersectional risks

    Disabled Gen Z women are twice as likely as non-disabled women to spend more than ten hours a day on social media (11% vs 6%)

    Three in ten disabled women 29% who have experienced online misogyny, reported that they had received threats of violence online. By comparison, this was the case for one in five of non-disabled people (18%).

    Racially minoritised Gen Z women who have experienced online misogyny, are more likely to have experienced hate speech than their white counterparts (38 vs 31%).

    The mental health toll and coping strategies

    Online misogyny is having a severe impact on mental health:

    • 55% of those who have experienced online misogyny have blocked users in response to abusive content.
    • 44% of Gen Z women who had experienced online misogyny in the UK report negative mental health impacts from exposure to misogynistic content.
    • 35% have switched their accounts to private.
    • 30% have taken screenshots as evidence of abuse received
    • 22% avoid posting certain types of content.
    • 20% have avoided or left platforms altogether.

    The polling identified that 62% of Gen Z believe misogyny on social media mirrors real-world sexism. However, there’s a significant gender split on this belief with Gen Z women (71%) more likely to agree than Gen Z men (51%).

    One Gen Z man said:

    Anything online is a joke and people who cry about others rage baiting need a helmet.

    Another Gen Z man said:

    It isn’t that deep. It’s all a laugh.

    Whereas a Gen Z woman said:

    Online misogyny often reflects real life attitudes, it shouldn’t be taken lightly.

    Who Gen Z think is fuelling the problem

    Over 60% of Gen Z attributed the rise in misogynistic language online to statements or actions by political leaders.

    Meanwhile, 55% believed TikTok actively contributes to the problem. Notably, 61% of Gen Z women specifically pointed to the platform’s role in fuelling online misogyny.

    Public figures and influencers were also cited as driving divisive narratives, from a list of high-profile social media users:

    • Men most frequently named Andrew Tate (50%) as a key source of online misogyny
    • Women pointed to Donald Trump (58%) as a major contributor
    • 61% believe the rhetoric and actions of political leaders is fueling online toxicity
    • 47% blame statements and actions by tech leaders for worsening the problem

    In the last month, 57% of Gen Z men have reported they’ve seen content from Musk, 55% from Trump, and 41% from Andrew Tate.

    More women than men had seen content from Donald Trump (60% against 55%)

    What needs to change?

    Gen Z is demanding urgent action from social media platforms and policymakers.

    The polling found that 65% believe tech leaders have a responsibility to combat online misogyny, with concrete measures such as:

    • Harsher penalties for offenders (39%)
    • Stronger reporting and blocking features (37%)
    • Stronger content moderation and quicker removal of misogynistic content (33%)
    • Tougher rules and consequences (30%)

    However,  as well as pointing to the role of tech giants, 54% of Gen Z (and 46% of Gen Z men) think all men have either a lot, or full responsibility for addressing misogyny on social media.

    Time for action from Big Tech

    Recent changes in content moderation policies on Meta and X have sparked concerns that key safeguards against hate speech and abuse are being dismantled. In a bid to champion unfettered expression, these platforms have relaxed rules that once limited harmful content, creating an environment where abusive rhetoric can proliferate. This shift raises pressing questions about the balance between free speech and protecting users from online harm.

    In the case of TikTok despite having robust policies in place, enforcement remains inconsistent. TikTok’s algorithm, for instance, can inadvertently amplify harmful narratives, exposing a predominantly young audience to misogynistic content.

    These failures not only compromise user safety but also contribute to a normalisation of misogyny in digital spaces, leaving many women vulnerable to abuse.

    Amnesty is calling on social media companies to take urgent action to address the epidemic of online misogyny by:

    • Strengthening content moderation policies to swiftly remove misogynistic content.
    • Implementing more robust reporting mechanisms for victims of online abuse.
    • Holding offenders accountable through enforcing meaningful penalties.
    • Increasing transparency on platform efforts to curb harmful content.

    Online misogyny ‘does real world harm’

    Amnesty International UK’s Gender Justice Programme director Chiara Capraro said:

    This polling paints a deeply troubling picture of the digital world young people are forced to navigate.

    Tech companies continue to prioritise profit over people’s safety and the result is a barrage of misogynistic content which deeply affects young people’s online experience. A toxic ‘bro’ culture is driving many young women away from social media altogether.

    Gen Z are being inundated by a deluge of online misogyny, and these findings should be a stark wake-up call for tech leaders, who have either ignored the abuse their users are experiencing or, in some cases, actively contributed to letting it rip.

    Social media should be a space for creativity, expression, and connection—not a hostile environment rife with harassment and hate. It’s time for tech companies to step up and take responsibility for the safety of their users. Women’s rights are human rights and online misogyny does real world harm.

    She added:

    A toxic ‘bro’ culture is driving many young women away from social media altogether.

    Empowering change through music and community

    Despite the toxic environment, 40% of women said they have found support from other women through social media, and 36% of those who had found support in this way felt empowered to speak out more as a result.

    This underscores the resilience of online communities that push back against hate and create safer spaces.

    To spark dialogue and drive meaningful action, on Thursday 20 March, Amnesty International UK hosted an event. Mahalia Presents: Change the Record was a collaboration between acclaimed R&B singer Mahalia and Amnesty. Mahalia personally curated this one-of-a-kind event which featured some of the most exciting artists in the UK using their artistry to highlight that women’s rights are human rights and inspire audiences to stand together for change.

    Speaking of her own experience and involvement, Mahalia said:

    As an artist and as a woman, I see first-hand the ways misogyny plays out online. Like many women, I regularly get unwanted comments on my appearance, and I see vulgar name calling and attempts to silence and intimidate women just being themselves.

    Social media should be a place where we lift each other up, not a space that forces women to shrink themselves or hide.

    This research is a wake-up call—but more importantly, it’s a call to action. Women’s rights are human rights, and I stand with Amnesty in demanding we change the record.

    Amnesty is encouraging young people to stand up to misogyny whenever they encounter it and to help #changetherecord on misogyny.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Gareth Southgate’s speech was just the tonic young men need in today’s world

    Gareth Southgate might not have had a series of dazzling victories or a collection of gleaming silver trophies to hold up to the skies.

    But one thing is for certain, he is one of the greatest managers that England has ever had, with his ability to unify and build a team environment that represented the very best of us as a country, during some of our hardest moments.

    Gareth Southgate’s timely speech calls out misogynistic men

    In the wake of Netflix’s hit show Adolescence, Gareth Southgate gave a profoundly timely speech which was centred around the themes of “toxic masculinity”, men’s addiction and exposure to porn, gambling and misogynistic content, and an increasing absence of father figures.

    He believes that this is having a hugely negative impact upon men who are desperately in need of role models to whom they can look up to and seek encouragement from.

    In charge of the England football team for eight years, Southgate led the Lions to two finals in both Euro 2020 and 2024, and oversaw a group of players who worked together, laughed together, and cried many tears together.

    Through it all, Southgate was a shoulder to cry on, a father figure and a football coach all in one, and someone that will be remembered for his patience, kindness and statesmanship.

    This level of empathy shone through during his speech and is something that is hugely lacking in today’s society.

    Sports can empower young men in a positive way

    Men are instead radicalised by callous people like Andrew Tate, who believe that an alpha male is someone that invests in crypto, treats women like property, possesses a six pack, and owns countless material items.

    This arguably only leads men to perceiving themselves as catastrophic failures, when really, they are just normal men who are trying to survive in a climate that deems them as weak if they don’t adhere to these warped standards that Tate sets out for them.

    Southgate on the other hand, offers something completely different, and suggests that participating in a hobby such as sports, is an avenue that is far more empowering than being glued to a phone that sits neatly in the palm of your hand like a parasitic leech.

    This poison, that has taken over society like a menacing and calculated criminal, is the smartphone, a device that young people are often taken prisoner of for fourteen hours a day, wreaking havoc on relationships, health, and wellbeing.

    With just one touch, men can access porn, obsessively game and gamble to their hearts content, getting into crippling debt, and as a result, feel completely cut off and alienated from the rest of the world.

    Perhaps the most heartbreaking element of his lecture was his focus upon young men who are suffering from poor mental health due to the Andrew Tate rhetoric that men should:

    not show emotion and never show weakness.

    As a result of this, more and more men are turning to their phone, rather than the people who really love and care about them such as their friends, family, teachers, bosses and coaches:

    Young men end up withdrawing, reluctant to talk, or express their emotions.

    Young men ‘fail to try, rather than try and fail’ due to Tate-like figures

    Southgate, a man who has been faced with multiple setbacks and failures in his life, suggests that failure is the only way young men ever learn to grow a sense of resilience and strength, and as a result, become better versions of themselves.

    In the lecture, he reflected on his crucial missed penalty at the Euros in 1996, and stated:

    That pain still haunts me today, and I guess it always will.

    Southgate said it was a “watershed moment” when he missed the goal, but ultimately this failure forced him to:

    dig deep, and revealed an inner belief and resilience I never knew existed.

    But he also added that currently young men fear failure because of how they will be viewed by society, and instead:

    fail to try, rather than try and fail.

    Firmly railing against Tate, and other figures like him, he said that:

    we have to show young men that character is more important than status.

    In this sense, Southgate offered words of solace for young men, who might not have missed a penalty, but will all, at some points have experienced failure and setbacks.

    He encouraged men to not just view success through the lens of social media which bombards men with unrealistic and harmful content of people lifting trophies, winning fights, or driving beaming Lamborghinis and Ferraris out of car showrooms, and instead wants them to see success as:

    how you respond in the hardest moments.

    Gareth Southgate’s speech: a tonic against toxic masculinity

    It’s no wonder therefore that young men feel lost, with more and more parents raising concerns about the fact that young men are clearly suffering and are:

    grappling with their masculinity and with their broader place in society.

    Speaking from his own experiences as England manager, he called on society to help create more leaders who can:

    set the right tone and to be the role models we want for our young men.

    To craft a society that is nurturing of young boys and men – often trapped in poverty or experiencing marginalisation – he proposed investing in schools, youth clubs, and family relationships that foster a true sense of connection and belonging.

    Social media feeds are not validating men and are only pushing them further towards extremism where influencers consistently bombard them with content that pushes a certain narrative of what masculinity really looks like, which is an extremely insular view.

    Southgate overall, makes a rallying call for there to be less monetisation of masculinity, less marketing figures, and less virulent algorithms.

    It is no wonder, that in an ever-growing capitalist world that pushes gym bodies, videos of cash being thrown around by influencers like confetti, that marginalised young men feel failed, worthless, and indifferent to the world.

    Instead of this, society should be striving towards a world where men feel valued beyond the realms of what capitalism constitutes as success and Southgate offers a welcome tonic to the current climate that we must listen to, before more young men are lost to dark voids that they can’t ever escape from.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Megan Miley

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Policing pornography: how Labour is trying to criminalise sexual entertainment – and our desires

    A new government-commissioned Review – Creating a Safer World – the Challenge of Regulating Online Pornography – recommends overhauling the government’s approach to online pornography, giving the state more power to police sexual content and its use. Conservative peer Baroness Gabby Bertin led the Review, scrutinising current pornography and the legal response to it. 

    Waving it through

    National news outlets have welcomed the Review, and we are yet to see any public figures question the Review’s recommendations. The Guardian, Independent, and ITV describe the Review and give it a broad thumbs-up. BBC News dedicated two sentences to a worry about policing sexual tastes, quoting from content creator Madelaine Thomas, but otherwise praised the recommendations.

    The Daily Mail headlined their piece with the shocking claim “Teenage boys are asking teachers how to CHOKE girls during sex,” a claim repeated in the Independent, BBC, and on Women’s Hour by BBC’s Home Editor. This claim appears multiple times in the Review itself, but the actual question a teacher reported being asked was: “How can I choke someone safely?” Every reference to this claim thus far has removed the word “safely”. It’s a small difference, but completely changes the meaning. The alteration of the quote, and its repetition, is an effective way of heightening public panic about our children, thus easing a jump to the ill-justified extension of state power. 

    Government ministers are promising urgent action, and the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology indicated a readiness to use new powers to remove illegal content and punish providers, adding: “if I have to adapt the law in response to any gaps that emerge in these powers then of course I’ll act as swiftly as I can.”

    Baroness Bertin might have expected resistance to the Review, but judging by the reception so far, it seems it could be adopted rapidly with little pushback. 

    Policing pornography

    Currently, pornography is legislated through the Online Safety Act 2023, Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008, and Obscene Publications Act 1959. The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) restricts publication of offline content, and Ofcom deals with online content. The Review recommends expanding the remit of these bodies: BBFC would moderate online content, passing it to Ofcom to enforce. 

    The Review recommends a new legislative Review to ensure “effective prosecution and enforcement” of possession offenses. Currently, police largely target individuals for possession of illegal pornography when that person is suspected of a different crime. This approach is likely to generate a distorted impression of who uses illegal pornography. The Review recommends: 

    Illegal pornography offences should be accurately tracked in the police database and a nationally agreed and consistent approach should be implemented across police forces in the UK to better record incidences of these crimes. This would improve the understanding of links between illegal pornography and other offences, particularly those of a sexual nature.

    What would this “consistent approach” look like? We don’t know, but given the Review’s assumption that pornography is linked to violence, and given how Stop and Search powers are used, we should be worried about how police will target and investigate pornography possession. 

    Broad and vague

    The Review proposes making some content illegal (choking, and incest pornography) and making some content harder to find. The aim is to make anything that the BBFC wouldn’t classify offline, illegal online. This wouldn’t just apply to choking and incest porn, but also to anything considered currently “legal but harmful.” This category is broad and vague, and I am pessimistic about what the government may decide should count. These decisions will affect people on both sides of the screen.

    Parts of the Review acknowledged existing injustices, including stigmatisation and de-banking of pornography performers.

    De-banking is where your bank closes your account without your consent. This can be devastating; preventing people from paying rent, buying food, and receiving wages and essential financial support. It is all too common for sex workers to be de-banked, even if their work is legal. Unfortunately, the Review suggests that only “illegitimate debanking” need be combatted. Apparently de-banking some workers is okay, if they work in the wrong kind of porn. 

    Current policy relating to pornography sits in multiple government departments. The Review recommends putting pornography squarely under the Home Office. This treats pornography as an essentially criminal matter. We should be very concerned about a policy shift that treats sexual entertainment, sexual labour, and sexual desire as matters of national security. 

    Dangerous myths

    The message throughout this Review is: pornography is dangerous, and though we don’t have the data (yet) to prove how harmful it is, we need to act to protect our children.

    When we treat sexual material as uniquely dangerous and dirty, we reinforce the stigmatisation of sex workers and misogyny more broadly. The myth that sexual desire is vulgar, and that good girls don’t engage with pornography, is a key element of the patriarchal standards that drive slut-shaming and violence against women, especially sex workers. 

    Many women do watch pornography. According to PornHub’s 2024 statistics, women users are more likely than men to search for ‘hardcore’ and ‘bondage’. We must not perpetuate the myth that real women only desire romantic, vanilla sex, and only consume softcore, high-brow erotica. Women’s tastes are varied, and the urge to police what counts as virtuous sexuality only empowers oppressors. 

    Giving the state the role of differentiating good, feminist content, from bad, misogynistic content, will never end well for marginalised people. The 2014 Audio-Visual Media Services Regulations aimed to draw up a list of violent and obscene content. This disproportionately impacted queer pornography and representations of women’s pleasure (sparking the spectacular face-sitting protests). Why should we think that next time they’ll get it right?

    Similarly, utilising ‘proactive technology,’ as the Review advocates, is asking for trouble. Technology replicates the prejudices in the society that designs it. For example, Instagram’s algorithms for censoring content have yielded multiple scandals. Sex workers find their posts removed and accounts limited, even if they broke no rules. Black people, fat people, and queer people were having their photos removed while comparable posts from cis, straight, white people were not. 

    Keeping us safe from pornography?

    There is plenty wrong with online pornography today, just as there is plenty wrong with Hollywood movies, television series, advertising, and all kinds of media. 

    Expanding state powers, and equating pornography with violence, will put us in more danger. 

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Dr Rosa Vince

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • We need to stop young boy’s dangerous fascination with Andrew Tate. It’s already gone too far

    After waking up and hearing the news that Kyle Clifford had watched Andrew Tate videos before his sadistic rape and murder of Louise Hunt (his then-girlfriend) and the cold-blooded killing of her sister and mum, it got me thinking: surely now, people will stand up against the war of terror on women?

    Andrew Tate: a vilified misogynist

    Andrew Tate, who has been charged in Romania for rape and human trafficking as well as setting up organised crime groups to sexually exploit women, is a vilified misogynist. He makes hating women and girls his career, as he bombards men and young, vulnerable teenage boys with content that encourages them to treat women as subordinate and deserving of punishment and abuse if they don’t do as they are instructed by their ‘master’. 

    In several of his clips, he consistently discusses choking women, controlling them, and even threatening them with a machete:

    It’s bang out the machete, boom in her face and grip her by the neck. Shut up bitch.

    Self-styled hero to men and boys, Tate is instead the absolute embodiment of toxic masculinity. He and his views no longer hide in the shadows of the dark web, but in full view of the public as he perpetuates the very seams of social media, with his videos worryingly being viewed more than 11.6 billion times. 

    Yet little to nothing has been done by social media platforms to prevent Tate’s extremely harmful content from appearing on people’s timelines. It seems that there is no care or guardrails even remotely being put up to stop him from poisoning the minds of boys who are infected by the Tate misogyny parasite. 

    More and more, we see young teenage boys being pulled into the sphere of Tate and other dangerous far-right figures such as Tommy Robinson.

    Ensnaring young men and boys

    Many teachers across schools in England have also expressed their concerns. The growing influence of Andrew Tate is doing irreparable harm to the minds of boys who believe that women are beneath them and should be forced to simply stay in the house to cook and clean and obey their orders. 

    Enamoured by Tate’s lifestyle – the flash cars, the Lamborghinis, and the crypto – it is clear that Andrew Tate is essentially grooming young boys en masse to share his same deeply polluted and chauvinistic views, so they too might become minions of Tate

    But the reality of that is far from the truth.

    It will simply create people like Kyle Clifford, who was so incandescent with rage towards his girlfriend that he plotted the triple murder for months on end before he eventually carried out his savage and cold-blooded crime.   

    Before committing murder, he had begun to research and purchase weapons as well as watching porn online and misogynistic videos. 

    The prosecutor, Alison Morgan, argued that the kind of material and content that Clifford was searching was key in terms of how:

    he views women and why sexualised violence is an important part of the attack.

    During the trial, the prosecution was also told that Clifford did not like to be told “no” by women. Louise had raised concerns to close friends and loved ones about him being an aggressive person with a very nasty temper. 

    Enabling misogyny, rape, and murder

    Four British women who had sued Andrew Tate on Thursday for his harmful content, and published a statement through their lawyers, also reinforced the call for Tate to be removed from social media companies’ platforms, as the misogynist continues to “reap enormous profits from his hateful content”. 

    Whilst women are made to suffer, boys as young as 10 and 11 are being convinced to believe the rhetoric that “men are better than women”. There are even reports of young girls in the classroom who engage with Andrew Tate’s content being asked for sex by their schoolmates. 

    It is therefore clear that this ultra-macho world is more than just crypto, fitness, and getting other men on side. It also suggests that belittling women is fine and acceptable in a world where Tate and others like him are not held to account for their actions. 

    Similar to being groomed for a terrorist gang or organisation, teachers have also raised concerns that schools must get a grip on Tate’s catastrophic influence on teenage boys. They’ve said that the public and government needs to start a wider conversation about how to stop violence against women and girls and his impact and encouragement of this. 

    Police have raised fears and alarms too. They have in recent years and months come across cases where Andrew Tate has been at the front and centre of the radicalisation of young men, with recent statistics from the NPCC stating that from 2022-23, violence against women and girls accounted for “20% of all police recorded crime”.

    Andrew Tate: blood on his hands

    To make matters worse, just last week, Andrew Tate was welcomed to the US with open arms by president Donald Trump who evidently sees the influencer as a useful tool to reinforce his anti-DEI and anti-‘woke’ world view. 

    This is not at all surprising considering that Trump has been accused of raping several women in the US and made consistent comments that degrade women. For example, during his first election campaign he deemed it as acceptable to “grab em by the pussy” (meaning women). So, Trump clearly sees Tate as a man who is cut from the same twisted cloth.  

    Surely this is enough for social media companies to take back control to protect users from such harmful and repulsive content?

    We must do more to protect women and girls across the country who are at a high risk of experiencing abuse at the hands of men by removing Tate from social media platforms. 

    It is evident that by simply letting Andrew Tate continue to pollute the minds of men and boys across the world, we are not only going to see a rise in domestic abuse and violence, but the rapes and murders of young women and girls.  

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Megan Miley

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • United Nations observes International Women’s Day, warning of “mainstreaming of misogyny”; Trump holds White House summit on cryptocurrency he once said “seems like a scam” – March 7, 2025

    Comprehensive coverage of the day’s news with a focus on war and peace; social, environmental and economic justice.

    • United Nations observes International Women’s Day, celebrating advances but warning of push-back and “mainstreaming of misogyny”
    • Trump hosts White House summit on bitcoin, vows to make USA the “crypto capital of the world”
    • Trump says he’s “strongly considering” new sanctions on Russia, as massive drone strike hits Ukraine energy infrastructure
    • Measles outbreak in West Texas still growing, as CDC plans study of vaccine-autism link despite research showing no connection

    The post United Nations observes International Women’s Day, warning of “mainstreaming of misogyny”; Trump holds White House summit on cryptocurrency he once said “seems like a scam” – March 7, 2025 appeared first on KPFA.


    This content originally appeared on KPFA – The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays and was authored by KPFA.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Million Women Rise to march against male violence towards women and girls

    Million Women Rise are gearing up for their annual march on this Saturday 8th March. The group will be marching in central London on International Women’s Day – but this is a group with a key difference. On their website, they write:

    The march and other MWR activities are led and organised by Black women for ALL women. We recognise the interconnectedness of systems of oppression. We work together to create safe spaces, free from fascism, discrimination and hate.

    Feminist groups that advocate and organise against male violence can be dominated by cis, white, and middle class women. Million Women Rise make it clear that they’re working with an intersectional approach:

    When we demand  an end to men’s violence against us, this includes calling for the dismantling of all oppressive structures that promote and facilitate everything from misogynoir through to ableism.

    Million Women Rise: violence in statistics

    Million Women Rise explain that one in four women will experience domestic violence in their lifetime. However, amongst these vital statistics is another heartbreaking consideration:

    The statistics below only give the “official” picture in England and Wales. Many victims/survivors do not report their experiences to state agencies. This mean that the data does not show the true scale of violence.

    Many people are violently coerced into not reporting their experiences. Even then, a diversity of experiences of violence means women will have wide-ranging differences in the kind of help they need:

    Services such as specialist Black/Global majority women’s services, Rape Crisis Centres and Women’s Aid refuges are a lifeline for many victim/survivors. The numbers of women and children being supported in this way is not presented in the “official” data.

    Instead, Million Women Rise emphasise that they’re also marching for people who have no choice but to suffer silently:

    While their experiences are not part of the “numbers”, we hold their truths in our hearts.

    Intersectional concerns

    Disabled women are often a group that is lost in statistics. The Office on Women’s Health writes:

    Research suggests that women with disabilities are more likely to experience domestic violence, emotional abuse, and sexual assault than women without disabilities. Women with disabilities may also feel more isolated and feel they are unable to report the abuse, or they may be dependent on the abuser for their care. Like many women who are abused, women with disabilities are usually abused by someone they know, such as a partner or family member.

    Recent research from the World Health Organisation suggests that older women and disabled women are most at risk for sexualised violence.

    In order to understand, never mind address, the way that male violence against disabled people is deployed we need a much broader understanding of barriers to care. Disabled people are more likely to be poor – and intersections therein are common. Disability services often cater largely to white disabled people and disregard the specific needs of disabled people of colour.

    Whilst organisations that offer support to people who’ve suffered male violence are already underfunded, this is further compounded when it comes to organisations that cater to a more specific group. For example, disability services are also stretched when it comes to resources and underfunding. But, when a disabled person of colour experiencing sexualised violence needs support, they can’t separate out the parts of themselves that need support to the relevant source of help.

    Million Women Rise: come together

    Million Women Rise are demanding and taking space for all kinds of women. Black women, disabled women, trans women, Muslim women, are a part of this movement. There isn’t always a neat way to articulate all the different parts of someone’s identity that fundamentally change experiences of male violence. It should, in fact, be a given that somebody who is a trans disabled woman of colour is more likely to experience sexualised violence, and needs to have the support they require. That’s something which is the responsibility of institutions, organisations, and each of us.

    Catering just, or primarily, for cis, white, able-bodied, middle class people shuts out so many people. The more specific the care, organising, and advocacy we can put out into the world, the more all of us benefit.

    The march will set off from Duke Street on Saturday 8th March at 12pm, culminating in a rally at 3:00pm in Trafalgar Square – more information here. 

    Featured image supplied

    By Maryam Jameela

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • UK solicitor for Andrew Tate’s victims hits out at Keir Starmer amid Whitehouse visit

    Self-professed misogynists and alleged rapists and human traffickers Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan left Romania on a US-bound private jet, and are now in Florida. This was after officials lifted a travel ban which had been barring them from leaving the country amidst a slate of serious criminal charges.

    Notably, lobbying from the Trump administration looks to have played a role in Romania’s sudden relaxing of Tate’s travel restrictions.

    Now, the UK solicitor representing British women survivors of Tate’s alleged violent crimes, has lambasted prime minister Keir Starmer amidst his Whitehouse visit. In particular, he has called out the Labour Party government’s failure to act to prevent the two leaving for the US – when it knew “more than a week ago” it could happen.

    Andrew Tate: arch misogynist influencer and alleged rapist US-bound

    The dual US-UK citizens and self-styled sexist social media influencers are facing criminal charges in Romania for a series of serious and violent crimes. This includes allegations of human trafficking, rape, and money laundering. They also stand accused of forming a criminal gang to exploit women.

    Alongside these charges in Romania, the pair of arch chauvinists face further allegations in the UK. These are for similar reported sexual violence crimes – again including both rape, and human trafficking. In addition to this, Westminster Magistrates Court previously ruled that British police could seize nearly £2.7m from the Tate brothers in unpaid tax.

    Four survivors of sexual assault who have made allegations against Tate have spoken out on the news. As the BBC reported, the group issued a joint statement. In this, they expressed that they are in “disbelief and feel re-traumatised” by the turn of events. Moreover, they articulated their worry that Tate would:

    use it as an opportunity to harass further and intimidate witnesses and his accusers, and he will continue to spread his violent, misogynistic doctrine around the world.

    Romania’s law enforcement service DIICOT have not dropped the investigation. Moreover, purportedly, it will require the Tate brothers to return to Romania. Under Romania’s law of “judicial control”, reports suggest that the country could call the pair back to Romania by the end of March.

    However, the British women waiting for justice expressed their view that the move to lift the travel ban means that the Tate brothers will now evade justice. They stated that:

    It is clear that he will now not face criminal prosecution for his alleged crimes in Romania.

    Already, Romania appears to be lifting some of its legal action against the brothers. A representative of the Tate brothers has said that Romanian authorities have returned some of their seized assets. It includes five properties, and another which they partially own, six cars, company shares, and frozen bank accounts.

    The Trump admin’s influence over Andrew Tate travel ban

    As ardent Donald Trump supporters, since the president’s inauguration, the Whitehouse had been operating to intervene. Of course, Trump himself is a staunch and outspoken misogynist, convicted felon, and rapist. So it’s perhaps little wonder the president has been fighting in their corner since he entered the Oval Office.

    And notably, the Tate brothers have long had connections to the reprising president. As the Guardian’s Matt Shea reported recently:

    The alliance between the Trump administration and the Tate brothers has been in the making for a long time. Paul Ingrassia, one of the lawyers Andrew Tate hired to fight his human trafficking case, was recently sworn in as the White House liaison for the Department of Justice. According to him, the Tate brothers were “sacrificed on the altar of the Matrix under the banner of egregious crimes they never committed”.

    Andrew Tate has been friends since 2016 with Donald Trump Jr, who called Tate’s detention “absolute insanity”. Donald Trump himself also appeared on a stream with the Andrew Tate sycophant and collaborator Adin Ross in August 2024. Around the same time, JD Vance appeared on the pro-Tate podcast the Nelk Boys.

    Elon Musk responded to Tate’s plan to “run for prime minister of the UK” by saying “he’s not wrong” and JD Vance followed both Tate brothers on X in December.

    Now, the pairs sudden departure comes not little over a week after Trump’s envoy Richard Grenell raised it. He did so with Romania’s foreign minister Emil Hurezeanu at a security conference in Munich.

    Given the recent lobbying efforts of the Trump administration, UK solicitor Matthew Jury has called out the UK government for its failure to pre-empt this outcome.

    Starmer knew that the ‘serial rapist’ could soon slip out out of reach

    In an online statement on X, Jury wrote:

    The news that pressure by the Trump Administration has led to Andrew Tate, and his brother Tristan, being allowed to leave Romania by its authorities is equal parts disgusting and dismaying.

    There is clear evidence to support the allegations against Tate that he is one of the world’s worst human traffickers and serial rapists.

    That the US Government would choose to lobby for his release is absurd but sadly, given its actions over the past month, perhaps unsurprising.

    Any suggestion that the Tates will now face justice in Romania is fanciful.

    The UK authorities must take immediate steps to secure their extradition to the UK to face charges for the offences of human trafficking and rape they are alleged to have committed in this jurisdiction.

    Romania has embarrassed itself. The UK must not do the same.

    @10DowningStreet was aware this may happen more than a week ago. The fact that nothing seems to have been done to prevent it is concerning. One can only hope action will now be taken.

    Given that @Keir_Starmer is in the US today to meet with
    @realDonaldTrump perhaps his team may take the opportunity to raise this issue on behalf of the many British women who Tate is alleged to have raped and sexually assaulted who may now be denied justice.

    However, a Downing Street spokesperson has declined to comment on the news. Moreover, as the BBC detailed, he refused to confirm whether Starmer would raise it with Trump. The UK prime minister is currently visiting the Whitehouse. His office said only that since it was a “live case”, then:

    you wouldn’t expect us to comment on ongoing legal proceedings.

    And his spokesperson added that:

    This was a decision taken by the Romanian courts independently following due process and their investigation remains in place.

    But more widely, the prime minister has been clear that human trafficking should be viewed as a global security threat, similar to terrorism.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Hannah Sharland

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • MI5 protected neo-Nazi agent who attacked girlfriend – then tried to get the BBC to cover it up

    The BBC has reported that “MI5 lied to three courts while defending its handling of a misogynistic neo-Nazi state agent who attacked his girlfriend with a machete”. It’s also emerged that secret service bosses then tried to persuade the BBC not to run the story.

    Unfortunately, violence by state enforcers against women is nothing new – as Spycops survivors will attest to.

    MI5: the lowest of the low

    MI5 has apologised for its “serious error” in covering for agent ‘X’, who violently “terrorised his partner”. The latter’s lawyer, meanwhile, said:

    I think this raises real concerns about MI5’s transparency, about whether we can trust MI5’s evidence to courts.

    The BBC explained:

    Exposure of MI5’s false testimony will also damage its credibility in other court proceedings, where judges are obliged to give enormous weight and deference to the Security Service’s evidence.

    These often involve secret hearings which are closed even to those most affected

    The Security Service claims its “neither confirm nor deny” policy is to “keep agents safe”. But the BBC questions how “it may stand in the way of agents being held accountable when they abuse their positions or commit crimes”.

    Trying to silence the BBC – MI5-style

    Further to this, and as the Telegraph reported:

    The head of MI5 rang the BBC director-general in an effort to get a story about an abusive undercover agent pulled from publication, it has emerged.

    Sir Ken McCallum contacted Tim Davie directly…

    The BBC claims the director general of the Security Service tried to “cast doubt” on the truth of the allegations being made against the MI5 agent.

    The corporation refused to drop the story, and the Government then took it to court in order to prevent details of the case being made public.

    The Telegraph noted that “Suella Braverman, the attorney general at the time, sought an injunction preventing [the BBC] from airing the programme.

    The British state throws women under the bus to protect the rich and powerful

    Away from MI5, and the massive Spycops scandal revealed the extent of political policing in Britain, and there have been constant delays in the search for justice, making it “one of the longest public inquiries in UK history”.

    For decades, secretive police units used undercover officers to infiltrate activist organisations. As the Campaign Opposing Police Surveillance reported in 2023, police targeted “around 1,000 campaigning and left wing groups”, only three of which the Inquiry Chair found to have been “‘a legitimate target’ for undercover policing of any kind”. As Madoc Roberts, one of the film-makers behind the Spies Who Ruined Our Lives documentary, previously told the Canary:

    unless you joined all the dots together, you wouldn’t have known that this was political policing, until you discover that it’s 1,000 groups and that all the groups just happened to be left-wing…

    I think it is one of the biggest scandals that we’ve seen.

    In 2024, the Canary spoke to Jessica, who is involved in ongoing civil claims. She told us how an undercover officer groomed her when she was a vulnerable 19-year-old “for no reason”. And she slammed “the absolute pointlessness” of what police spies did. She insisted that:

    the institutional sexism along with the institutional racism and institutional corruption and institutional misogyny… play a massive part in everything that they did

    She added “the more we find out, the worse it looks”.

    You can see the trailer of vital documentary Spies Who Ruined Our Lives here.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Ed Sykes

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • £18m in compensation to rape survivors in ONE YEAR – yet charging rates still at 5%

    The Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA) has paid out more than £18m in compensation to survivors in the last year. Yet of the hundreds and thousands of rape and sexual offences reported to UK police forces in the last year, an average of 5% resulted in a charge, a new investigation has revealed. This is no improvement on previous figures. It comes as minister for safeguarding and…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Palestinians return home to Gaza ashes – if we want peace, face the truth

    COMMENTARY: By Saige England

    Celebration time. Some Palestinian prisoners have been released. A mother reunited with her daughter. A young mother reunited with her babies.

    Still in prison are people who never received a fair trial, people that independent inquirers say are wrongly imprisoned. Still in prison kids who cursed soldiers who walked into their villages wielding guns.

    Still imprisoned far too many Palestinians who threw stones against bullets. Still imprisoned thousands of Palestinian hostages.

    Many of us never knew how many hostages had been stolen, hauled into jails by Israel before 7 October 2023. We only heard the one-sided story of that day. The day when an offence force on a border was taken by surprise and when it panicked and blasted and bombed.

    When that army guarding the occupation did more to lose lives than save lives.

    Many never knew and perhaps never will know how many of the Palestinians who were kidnapped before and after that day had been beaten and tortured, including with the torture of rape.

    We do know many have been murdered. We do know that some released from prison died soon after. We do not know how many more Palestinians will be taken hostage and imprisoned behind the prison no reporter is allowed to photograph.

    Israelis boast over prison crime
    The only clue to what happens inside is that Israelis have boasted this crime on national television. The clue is that Israeli soldiers have been tried for raping their own colleagues.

    Make no mistake, this is a mean misogynist mercantile army. No sensible rational caring person would wish to serve in it.

    No mother on any side of this conflict should lose her child. No father should bury his daughter or son. No grandparent should grieve over the loss of a life that should outlive them.

    The crimes need to be exposed. All of them. Our media filters the truth. It does not provide a fair or full story. If you want that switch for pity’s sake go to Al Jazeera English.

    When Radio New Zealand reports that people who fled are returning to Gaza it should report the full truth and not redact any part of the statement.

    The Palestinian people were forced to flee their homes in Gaza. Those who were never responsible for any crime were bombed out of their homes, they fled as their families were murdered, burned to death, shot by snipers. They fled while soldiers mocked their dead children.

    They return home to ashes. If we want peace we must face the truths that create conflict. We are all connected in peace and war and peace.

    Peace is the strongest greeting. It sears the heart and soars the soul.

    It can only be achieved when we recognise and stop the anguish that causes oppression.

    Saige England is a freelance journalist and author living in the Aotearoa New Zealand city of Ōtautahi.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Mr. Lonely

    Some have suggested that young men are drawn to Andrew Tate because they suffer from a dearth of social contact. Yet men go to Tate not to alleviate loneliness but to intensify it.

    This post was originally published on Dissent Magazine.

  • Invasive lobular carcinoma: a silent killer the Labour government is failing to act upon

    Invasive lobular carcinoma (ILC) is the second most common type of breast cancer, representing up to 15% of all breast cancers cases, and is the sixth most prevalent cancer among women. This type of cancer may be hard to detect with a screening mammogram or ultrasound, as it spreads in straight lines rather than forming lumps. As a result, these tumours can grow significantly and be diagnosed at more advanced stages. Over the next 10 years, approximately 3.75 million people globally are expected to be diagnosed with ILCs.

    Currently, 22 individuals in the UK and 1,000 women worldwide are diagnosed with ILC each day. Unfortunately, specific treatments for ILC are yet to be created for this type of cancer.

    Lack of hope in diagnostics and bespoke treatments

    During the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic, Heather Cripps, a public servant at the Home Office, experienced severe back pain and was prescribed pain medication for what was initially believed to be a musculoskeletal issue. Unfortunately, her condition worsened rapidly, and she was eventually diagnosed with stage four ILC (the cancer had spread from its primary site). By the time of diagnosis, the cancer had already spread to her spine. Heather underwent chemotherapy for three years but tragically passed away on 30 August at the age of 48.

    At a parliament debate on ILC on 10 December 2024, Helen Hayes, Labour MP for Dulwich and West Norwood, said:

    We need to do better for women affected by lobular breast cancer, in memory of Heather and many more women like her who will not live to see their children grow up.

    Like Heather, many women are diagnosed with ILC too late and with poorer long-term outcomes. This is due to the difficulty of detecting these tumours through physical exams or standard imaging techniques such as mammograms and ultrasounds. ILC cells typically spread through breast tissue in a diffuse pattern, rather than forming a distinct lump.

    ILCs: no specific treatments

    Most ILCs are diagnosed at a more advanced stage with up to 30% of patients with early-stage primary ILC may experience metastasis to other organs, which can occur many years after the initial diagnosis.

    Currently, there are no specific treatments designed for ILC, which is known to have poorer long-term outcomes. The available therapies were not tailored made for the unique biology of this cancer type.  Moreover, although MRIs are widely recognised as significantly more effective than mammograms at detecting and monitoring ILC, they are not recommended for use under the NICE guidelines for detection or ongoing monitoring. 

    Women’s health in the UK has been neglected and underfunded. A report by the NHS Confederation highlights that prioritising women’s health could contribute £319 million in gross value added (GVA) to the UK economy.

    Research from Breast Cancer Now shows that breast cancer currently costs the UK economy £2.6 billion, a figure expected to increase to £3.6 billion by 2034.

    Lack of investment in research

    ILC remains poorly understood, as it is a type of cancer that has received limited research and funding. To provide accurate diagnostics and effective treatments for patients with ILC, further research and financial support are essential to fully uncover its basic biology.

    The Manchester Breast Centre has announced its plans to conduct research aimed at understanding the basic biology of ILC, which could lead to the development of targeted treatments. This research is expected to take around five years and require an investment of £20 million. The Centre is collaborating with the Lobular Moon Shot Project.

    The Lobular Moon Shot Project was founded in 2023 by Dr Susan Michaelis, a former Australian pilot, to address the urgent need for ILC research funding. This is a £20 million research project and a volunteer-driven initiative supported by an increasing number of women diagnosed with ILC and their families. 

    Generic government responses

    Dr Michaelis was first diagnosed with ILC in 2013 and later diagnosed with stage four metastatic lobular breast cancer in 2021. Her cancer has since spread to her neck, spine and pelvis area, head, eye area, and ribs. 

    In December 2023, Dr Michaelis, along with several MPs supporting her cause, met with former health secretary, Ms Victoria Atkins. Convinced of the need for action, Ms Atkins agreed to fund the Lobular Moon Shot Project and integrate it into England’s 2024 women’s health strategy, but a change of parliament has not yet seen this become a reality. Currently, the Lobular Moon Shot Project has the backing of over 200 MPs. 

    Several MPs have written to the government expressing their concerns, only to receive generic responses from civil servants stating that £29 million has been allocated to the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR). However, these responses fail to clarify that the funding is not specifically targeted at lobular breast cancer. Despite repeated efforts from MPs to reach out to the health secretary, Wes Streeting, regarding the project, they have yet to receive a reply.

    Health secretary Wes Streeting, and under-secretary at the department of health and social care, Baroness Merron, did not respond to a request for comment from the Canary.

    Silence from Labour

    Dr Michaelis commented:

    Each year, 11,500 people die from secondary (metastatic) breast cancer, yet none of the studies referenced by the government tackle the unique biological challenges of invasive lobular carcinoma. This area remains a scientific black hole, with crucial work still undone. That’s precisely why we are calling for dedicated funding.

    The 10 National Institute for Healthcare Research Network studies cited in the government’s letter to MPs are a smokescreen. A closer examination reveals that nine out of 10 of these studies do not appear to address lobular breast cancer. We need to focus on understanding the basic biology of the disease through a ‘Moon Shot’ approach, instead of attempting to repurpose drugs that were not designed for this disease. 

    Cancer Research UK has allocated no funding to ILC research, and Breast Cancer Now has dedicated less than 1% of their research budget funding. This means the government needs to step in and resolve this unmet clinical need. This would equate to under £240 per person in the UK who would be diagnosed with the disease over the next 10 years.

    The former health secretary, Victoria Atkins, had agreed to fund the project. Since the general election in 2024, 180,000 people globally have been diagnosed with ILC, and we are still waiting to hear from the new health secretary, Wes Streeting.

    ILCs: the silent killer

    Katie Swinburne, diagnosed with ILC at the age of 47, endured a double mastectomy, radiotherapy and chemotherapy and is now on a 10-year endocrine treatment therapy. Her experience was shared during the parliament debate on 10 December:

    It’s very hard to accept that none of my treatment is specific to lobular breast cancer and no one can tell me if it’s working or has been effective… I find myself living in fear of recurrence. I deserved to have an early diagnosis; I did not get this. I deserve a specific treatment; I do not have this. I have three young children; they deserve to have a mum. I deserve effective follow up; I do not get this. I need you to change this for me, my husband, my family, all the women with a lobular diagnosis and all the women who will be diagnosed in the future.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Monica Piccinini

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Finally, the justice system recognises that men crying ‘parental alienation’ at women are manipulating the system

    On Wednesday 11 December, the Family Justice Council has issued guidance to family court judges in cases where mothers report domestic violence and abusive fathers counter this with allegations of ‘parental alienation’ to force their children to see them. In short, it tells judges that parental alienation is junk science – and that accusation of it, by men against women, must be ignored.

    Parental alienation: yet more junk psychiatry

    Parental alienation is a pseudo-scientific theory. Women’s Aid noted:

    Over the last few years, the terms “parental alienation” and “alienating behaviour” have been used more and more – in the family courts, in children’s social work, on social media, and even in debates about the new domestic abuse bill.

    But why is “alienation” such a dangerous term when it comes to domestic abuse?

    While there are no robust empirical studies to back up the concept of “parental alienation”, and no reliable data on its prevalence,[i] there is, as Adrienne Barnett discusses in our Safe blog, a growing, and increasingly robust evidence base demonstrating the ways that allegations of alienation are used in the family courts to rebut, obscure and distract from allegations of domestic abuse.

    Put simply, when mothers raise concerns about whether contact between a perpetrator of domestic abuse and a child is safe, they are accused of attempting to “alienate” the child from the father. They are also accused of making false allegations of domestic or child abuse. Devastatingly, the results can be that children are forced into unsafe child contact with an abusive parent, or even removed from loving parents and placed with perpetrators of abuse.

    However, it now seems that the justice system has caught up with the fact that the notion of parental alienation is misogynistic junk science, promoted by men, for men.

    Finally listening to women

    The new Family Justice Council guidance states that there is no equivalence between domestic abuse and parental alienation. Domestic abuse is a criminal offence and both a parent/carer and a child may be a victim.

    It goes on to say:

    For the avoidance of doubt, the Family Justice Council recognises that “parental alienation syndrome” has no evidential basis and is considered a harmful pseudo-science. Concepts of ‘parental alienation syndrome’ and ‘parental alienation’ are increasingly exploited within family litigation.

    Campaigners including Support Not Separation say this is a long overdue victory for the movement of mothers who have fought for decades in family court to protect children from violent fathers, including convicted rapists and child abusers.

    They argue that this guidance must now be implemented, and say they will be monitoring the courts in our continued defence of children and mothers against violent men.

    Until now CAFCASS, social workers, and judges have insisted that children must be forced to have contact with their father and that their ‘reluctance, resistance or refusal’ should be dismissed as ‘parental alienation’.

    Mothers who know fathers to be abusive to their children, including sexually, have had to enforce such court orders or be punished by having the children taken from them and given to the abusive father. The lives of children and mothers have been put at risk and some have been murdered or committed suicide as a result.

    Parental alienation: consigned to the dustbin of junk psychiatry

    A year ago, Women Against Rape and the Support Not Separation Coalition (co-ordinated by Legal Action for Women) who work with hundreds of mothers trying to protect their children from violent men, gave evidence to the Family Justice Council’s consultation. Their recommendations included that there should be:

    An end to all reference of parental alienation or alienating behaviours [PA/AB] and ban so-called PA/AB “experts” regulated or not. We said that courts should value a child’s reasons for wanting no contact with fathers accused of violence and desist from forcing children into unwanted contact – that is child abuse.

    This guidance comes almost four years after the path-breaking Harm Report which recognised that the family courts are ‘sexist, racist and class biased’ – and ableist, too.

    The previous government and the family courts took no action to implement the findings of the Harm Report. Campaigners say the new guidance is a nail in the coffin of the ‘presumption of contact‘ promoted by the fathers’ lobby which denies domestic abuse and has embedded itself in CAFCASS and the family court.

    Support Not Separation said:

    We now need to know how many children, and women, have been harmed as a result of years of family court rulings backing men’s false claims of ‘parental alienation’. And how many are children of colour who suffered additional discrimination. And how many men, including policemen, have escaped prosecution for their violence by claiming ‘parental alienation’.

    We will begin then to understand how much damage has been done to children, families, especially single mother families, and communities by the enforcement of such sexist court orders.

    The medical profession – specifically psychiatry – and social services have long and torrid histories of misogyny, abuse, and gaslighting against women. The Family Justice Council’s guidance is the first step towards beginning to redress the balance away from men.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Fiji government accused over human rights violations, free speech curb

    By Apenisa Waqairadovu in Suva

    Fiji’s coalition government has come under scrutiny over allegations of human rights violations.

    Speaking at the commemoration of International Human Rights Day in Suva on Tuesday, the chair of the Coalition of NGOs, Shamima Ali, claimed that — like the previous FijiFirst administration — the coalition government has demonstrated a “lack of commitment to human rights”.

    Addressing more than 400 activists at the event, the Minister for Women, Children, and Social Protection Lynda Tabuya acknowledged the concerns raised by civil society organisations, assuring them that Sitiveni Rabuka’s government was committed to listening and addressing these issues.


    Ali criticises Fiji government over human rights         Video: FBC News

    The "Human rights for all" theme
    The “Human rights for all” theme at Fiji’s World Human Rights Day march in downtown Suva. Image: FBC News

    Shamima Ali claimed that freedom of expression was still being suppressed and the coalition had failed to address this.

    “We are also concerned that there continue to be government restrictions on freedom of expression and assembly through the arbitrary application of the Public Order Amendment Act, which should have been changed by now — two years into the new government that we all looked forward to,” she said.

    A "Girls wanna have fundamental human rights"
    A “Girls wanna have fundamental human rights” placard at the World Human Rights Day march in Suva. Image: FBC News

    Ali alleged that serious decisions in government were made unfairly, and women in leadership continued to be “undermined”.

    “Nepotism and cronyism remain rife with each successive government, with party supporters being given positions with no regard for merit, diversity, and representation,” she said.

    “Misogyny against certain women leaders is rampant, with wild sexism and online bullying.”

    An "Our rights, our future now" placard at Fiji's Human Rights Day rally.
    An “Our rights, our future now” placard at Fiji’s Human Rights Day rally. Image: FBC News

    Responding, Minister Tabuya acknowledged the concerns raised and called for dialogue to bring about the change needed.

    “I can sit here and be told everything that we are doing wrong in government,” Tabuya said.

    “I can take it, but I cannot assure that others in government will take it the same way as well. So I encourage you, with the kind of partnerships, to begin with dialogue and to build together because government cannot do it alone.”

    A "Stop fossil fuel production, consumption and distribution" placard at Fiji's World Human Rights Day march
    A “Stop fossil fuel production, consumption and distribution” placard at Fiji’s World Human Rights Day march . . . climate crisis is a major human rights issue in the Pacific. Image: FBC News

    The minister stressed that to address the many human rights violation concerns that had been raised, the government needed support from civil society organisations, traditional leaders, faith-based leaders, and a cross-sector approach to face these issues.

    Republished from FBC News with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • A severe ME/CFS patient in Pakistan is urgently fundraising for crucial surgery

    In Pakistan, severely chronically ill disability advocate and survivor of domestic violence Nevra Liz Ahmed urgently needs surgery for a debilitating health condition. This is because it’s worsening her severe myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME/CFS) by the day. Specifically, among a huge list of the devastating chronic illnesses Nevra lives with, she has undiagnosed probable endometriosis – which is causing her relentless and excruciating pain.

    Now, Nevra has a chance to get the first stage of surgery for this – and soon. Crucially, this could set her on the road to recovery for her endometriosis, and potentially even make it possible for her to travel abroad for further surgeries. However, there’s a significant catch. This is that the surgery, hospital stay, and cost of a medical advocate to be there with her will add up to around £10,000. So Nevra and her friends are appealing for financial support.

    There are multiple ways for people to pitch in – read on to find out how you can help.

    It’s vital Nevra gets this surgery, as the pain is becoming unbearable. And without it, her severe ME, and other debilitating conditions will only continue to get worse.

    Severe ME/CFS and endometriosis – a disastrous combination

    Nevra is a 29-year-old severe ME/CFS patient in Karachi, Pakistan. She is mostly bed-bound, non-verbal, and fully dependent on others for her care. The Canary previously wrote about Nevra’s complicated situation – which you can read about here.

    And right now, Nevra’s likely undiagnosed endometriosis is making her severe ME/CFS, as well as a multitude of other conditions, inordinately worse.

    Most significantly, the persistent pain has exarcerbated her post-exertional malaise (PEM). This is the hallmark feature of ME. It entails a a disproportionate worsening of other symptoms after even minimal physical, social, or mental activities. Nevra told the Canary that:

    I’m on pain meds every two hours and only getting one to four hours of sleep, as the pain meds wear off and I’m awoken by pelvic cramps, vaginal spasms, and vomiting.

    It’s why she has urgently sought out medical treatment for this from a hospital in Karachi.

    However, to get the treatment, she will have to fork out around £10,000. Notably, this is for the diagnostic laparoscopy, a hysteroscopy, as well as to cover the costs of her hospital stay. Nevra has been trying to get this since 2017, but has had to postpone. This has been due to lack of funds for it, as well as living in an unstable, and unsafe abusive environment. In fact, Nevra came close to getting the laparoscopy in March. However, she had to use her raised funds to escape domestic abuse, and the mold-infested household her family moved her into which was further harming her health.

    Surgeries could be a step in the right direction

    But she can’t wait any longer for these surgeries. Her health is rapidly deteriorating, and she’s now experiencing near constant agony she has described as “level nine pain”, alongside persistent bleeding outside her menstrual cycle.

    A doctor has provisionally agreed to carry out the laparoscopy this December, or  in January. However, if she’s unable to pay for it, they will drop Nevra as a patient altogether.

    The other problem is, as the Canary previously highlighted, it’s not possible for Nevra to get all the surgeries she needs in Pakistan. For instance, this includes a hysterectomy for her Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD). Therefore, to get these, she will have to travel abroad.

    As things stand now though, Nevra is too sick to make the journey. But, she hopes that the diagnostic laparoscopy could be the first step towards being well enough to do so.

    As well as this, in the event the surgeon identifies anything to be life-threatening, the doctor will have to act. Nevra also therefore feels the laparoscopy is crucial to rule out anything that’s putting her life at risk.

    How to help Nevra afford her surgery

    With the clock ticking on obtaining the necessary funds, Nevra needs people to step up if they can. Here are a number of ways people can help her to afford this vitally necessary diagnostic surgery:

    If financially in the position to do so, donate directly. The best way to do this is via PayPal to Nevra’s fundraising appeal. Nevra does also have an ongoing fundraiser, however the fundraising platform takes substantial chunks out of donations. For that reason, she’s asking that wherever people are comfortable, they send financial support to the above PayPal method instead. However, all support is welcome.

    For those that aren’t in a position to donate at such short notice, she’s also requesting interest-free loans. Since the surgery is imminent, she needs the finances upfront, and fast. So this is one way people can support her if they have the finances now to lend funds, but can’t commit to a donation. The basic principle would be to indicate how much, and how long the loan could be for, with agreed upon dates for Nevra to pay these back to people in full (without interest). If you can do this, please contact me at h.a.sharland@protonmail.com

    So far, multiple people have committed significant loans between £500 – £1,500 for Nevra’s surgery. She has agreed to pay these back at periods between one and three years, according to agreements with each person who has come forward.

    A few of Nevra’s international friends and advocates – who also live with ME/CFS – have created a winter holiday fundraising raffle, with handmade prizes. They’re aiming to raise at least £1,000, but the more the better. This is specifically for UK and EU-based entrants. However, all are welcome to donate and nominate a UK or EU-based friend to receive the prizes. Chronically ill and disabled creators have made these in solidarity with Nevra.

    Aside from these, Nevra also needs people to spread the word on this urgent fundraising request. Thanks to people’s generosity, she has already raised £5,700 in loans and donations. Nevra therefore needs to raise the remaining £4,300, so any help

    Unconscionable cost of care putting a price-tag on Nevra’s life

    Of course, severely chronically ill and disabled people shouldn’t have to fundraise for the vital medical treatment they need. However, the reality is, for many people living with severe ME, the medical support just isn’t there. Likewise, with endometriosis, healthcare systems across the world leave women fighting for treatment that should be a given.

    Nevra’s experience of trying to get the necessary medical care for severe ME/CFS and her endometriosis has been characteristic of the medical misogyny that still pervades diagnosis and treatment for both conditions.

    All the while, the debilitating pain and near constant bleeding for the last four months is putting her health at immense risk.

    However, treatment – at least for her endometriosis – is possible. The issue is that there’s a £10,000 financial barrier in the way of her accessing it. It’s abhorrent that the value of a young woman’s life comes down to the price-tag for this treatment. But this is where we’re at. So, mutual aid from allies could now make all the difference – please support Nevra if you can.

    Feature images supplied

    By Hannah Sharland

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Lee Anderson: ridiculous elected official or time-travelling WWI hero?

    Lee Anderson, Reform’s MP for Ashfield, made an absolute clown of himself in response to a young woman’s post about the struggles women face. Either he was trying to be funny, or, he was putting on a full display of his natural intelligence. Instead though, he became the butt of the joke:

    Lee Anderson: ‘where we’re going, we don’t need roads’

    Lee Anderson was born in 1967 – 51 years after the Battle of the Somme ended on 18 November 1916. Unless Lee is a time traveller, his attempt to use a terrible war to gain clout backfired. In reality, he has no idea what fighting in a war is like:

    However, his post on X once again left social media users fighting for their lives:

    The state of it

    Whilst social media came through with hilarious memes, the post highlights a far more serious issue. Yet again, Lee Anderson has shown his total disdain for women:

    Mr Anderson has a wife and two kids. Do you think he has ever listened to her?

    He also seems to be forgetting that whilst women weren’t allowed to fight in the war, they still had bombs dropped on them back at home – and nursed soldiers on the front line:

    Similarly, the man the people of Ashfield elected to be their MP has no idea of the realities facing men in 2024:

    Meanwhile, several women have suggested ‘Battle of the Somme’ could be the newest metaphor for periods:

    My personal suggestion? Lee Anderson vs a period pain simulator.

    Feature image via Mr A – screengrab

    By HG

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • There’s an epidemic of stalking and harassment – and it’s nearly all men

    31 UK police forces made 185,345 arrests on charges of stalking or harassment between April 2019 and March 2024, with arrests rising by 75% in that time, according to new data.

    This data, collected by criminal injury claim experts JF Law, has been revealed as the government unveiled plans to crack down on stalking.

    Stalking and harassment arrests surge

    Arrests for stalking or harassment, both of which are offences under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, have consistently risen until last year.

    31 UK forces, including 27 forces in England, three in Wales and Police Service Northern Ireland (PSNI), provided arrest data in line with JF Law’s request for information.

    Despite three police forces not providing data for the year, 27,255 arrests were recorded in 2019/20. This rose sharply to 34,207 the year after, before 36,422 cases were logged in 2021/22.

    There were 39,717 arrests in 2022/23, while in the most recently completed financial year, 2023/24, 47,744 arrests were made.

    The highest number of arrests came in West Yorkshire (23,696), followed by the West Midlands (13,635) and Sussex (12,534).

    PSNI recorded 7,992 cases, while Met Police – who only provided data for stalking codes and not general cases of harassment, as well as discounting any cases where the offender was not taken into custody – logged 6,163.

    21 forces provided re-offence statistics to note the number of people detained under suspicion of stalking or harassment more than once. While some of the figures came with caveats – for example, Hertfordshire Police only noted those who were arrested again in the same financial year – the force logged 33,041 re-arrests.

    Concerning data surrounding age

    30 forces also divided up the arrest figures by the offender’s age group. The data showed that a concerning 4,558 people arrested for stalking or harassment in the five-year period were under 18 years of age.

    Age groups were divided differently between regions, but the most common groups that had the highest number of arrests between them were 31-40 year-olds (most arrests in six regions), 31-35 year-olds (four regions) and 30-39 year-olds (three regions), with the most offenders overall generally falling in the 25-40 bracket.

    All age groups were represented in the data, with eight police forces confirming that at least one offender was upwards of 80 years old. Wiltshire Police marked down 22 of those arrested as being octogenarians, or even older.

    White Ribbon Day, an international campaign aimed at eliminating violence against women and girls, took place on 25 November this year. The theme of this year’s campaign was ‘It Starts With Men’. Across the 31 forces, out of the offences where the police identified the suspect’s gender, a shocking 88.94% were identified as male.

    In November, police forces published an ‘action plan’ to act on a super complaint about police handling of stalking reports, which was raised two years previously by the Suzy Lamplugh Trust. An independent investigation by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS), the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), and the College of Policing led to a series of recommendations for police forces.

    Will government plans on stalking go far enough?

    On 3 December, the Home Office announced plans to roll out anti-stalking measures including the ‘Right to Know’ statutory guidance which will allow police to release an offender’s identity “at the earliest opportunity.”

    The measures would also make Stalking Protection Orders (SPOs) more available, giving courts the ability to impose them directly when an offender is convicted.

    The announcement also included a Home Office vow to publish data on stalking offences. The data is not currently publicly available, while the Ministry of Justice did not respond to JF Law’s request to provide the latest data on SPOs.

    12 years on from the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 identifying stalking as an offence separate from harassment in law, there are still calls for further reform.

    Claire Waxman OBE, London’s Victims’ Commissioner, said in November:

    I have lost faith that these laws are fit for purpose. Police are struggling to distinguish between stalking and harassment, leading to potentially dangerous offenders to get off with lighter sentences or evade justice completely.

    12 years on, I am calling for the government to create a standalone stalking offence that provides a clear definition of stalking to simplify investigations and prosecutions and remove the onus on the victim to prove the impact of the behaviour and instead turn our focus on the stalkers and their behaviour.

    JF Law provides free, round-the-clock guidance for victims of violent crime who are considering seeking compensation for their injuries.

    Guidance and consultation from their team of advisors can be accessed via their website, www.jflaw.co.uk, or by calling 0151 375 9916.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Addressing gender bias: Why newsroom equality matters

    In this exclusive Q&A, BroadAgenda editor, Ginger Gorman, speaks with Andrea Carson, Professor of Political Communication at La Trobe University. She’s the lead researcher behind the 2024 Women for Media Report: ‘An Unfinished Story,’ the largest study to date on gender bias in Australian newsrooms. Using innovative machine-learning techniques, Carson and her team analysed over 200,000 articles to reveal critical insights into the underrepresentation and misrepresentation of women in both the creation and sourcing of news.”

    Your report emphasises the importance of supporting public interest journalism, particularly during tough economic times. What specific policy incentives do you believe governments should implement to help sustain gender-equitable workplaces in newsrooms?

    The federal government has policy programs to support public interest journalism in rural and regional Australia and these could also include incentives that promote gender equitable workplaces.

    The News Media Bargaining Code is also designed to support public interest journalism but at present Meta have withdrawn from participating in the Code, leaving a policy gap for government to address to ensure that Australian public interest journalism is adequately supported. If a replacement scheme is devised, it should also take into consideration policies that promote gender equality in news coverage.

    Andrea Carson, Professor of Political Communication, La Trobe University. Picture: Supplied

    Andrea Carson, Professor of Political Communication, La Trobe University says: “On a positive note, many newsroom leaders are now women.” Picture: Supplied

    Despite nearly equal numbers of male and female journalists, gender bias persists in coverage. What do you see as the most significant barriers that need to be addressed to achieve true gender parity in journalism?

    Unconscious (or even conscious) gender bias in news needs to be addressed. Editors need to consciously think about who gets assigned to what story and why. This extends to front page coverage and the authors who are commissioned to write opinion pieces. At present we see horizontal segregation of topics, or pink ghettos – as they were once called – meaning that men more commonly report on “hard news” and women on “soft news”.

    Politics is the hard news exception – with almost equal numbers of men and women journalists reporting in this domain now thanks to outlets like the Guardian that have really lifted the profile of women political reporters over time. Hard news stories include business and the economy, science, foreign affairs and sport. Soft news is health, arts, celebrity and gossip.

    Given that women predominantly cover “soft news,” what strategies can newsrooms employ to encourage female journalists to take on roles in reporting areas like sports and politics? 

    Teaching journalism at La Trobe shows me that there are many women who want to report on sport. I don’t think the problem is supply, but more newsroom demand. Editors need to ensure there are equal opportunities for men and women to report on different topics but also to ensure they have visibility on these topics – meaning that women have the same opportunity as men to report on big events in sport, politics and so forth and not just stories on the periphery that make it to a few paragraphs on the inside pages or few words in the broadcast bulletin.

    On a positive note, many newsroom leaders are now women. This may lead to a rethink of how we define news and broadening of the news agenda and its framing to topics that in the past have been ignored outside the health and well-being pages such as menopause and childcare.

    Men in the media remain the default quoted experts. Image: Women for Media Report

    Men in the media remain the default quoted experts. Image: Women for Media Report

    How can news organisations better ensure the representation of women from diverse backgrounds in both reporting and as expert sources, and why is this important for gender equity in journalism?

    Diversity in reporters and sources is a positive for journalism but also for democracy and for the media outlet’s economic survival. If we want news about our society to be accurate and holistic, we need to properly represent all groups in society.

    Newspapers have names such as The Mirror, because they were thought to mirror society. This is not the case if only a small section of society such as middle-class white men are over-represented.

    Moreover, women are turning off news and are among the largest news avoiders according to the annual Digital News Report. One reason for this is because they do not see stories of interest to them or that reflects their experiences. Given news outlets are losing audiences to other forms of storytelling such as TikTok and social media, it is in their economic interests to engage a wider audience that includes 50 per cent of the population: women.

    With the rise of online abuse targeting women journalists, what collaborative efforts do you recommend between media organisations and digital rights groups to establish and enforce effective digital safety standards? What can bystanders do?

    Media organisations need to work closely with authorities such as the E-Safety Commissioner to develop best practice guidelines. This might include mechanisms such as turning off comments on sensitive stories so that journalists, particularly women and minorities, do not bear the brunt of incivility and gender abuse in reaction to such stories.

    How do you think the current economic challenges facing media organisations affect gender representation in newsrooms, and what can be done to mitigate these impacts?

    Not directly. I think most newsrooms already have similar numbers of men and women, so new hires to even up numbers is less of a problem. The issue is enabling women and men journalists in those newsrooms equal opportunities to report on stories across the topic mix to end horizontal segregation.

    What practical steps should newsroom leaders take to create a culture of accountability around gender equity and support female journalists in high-visibility roles?

    The first step of accountability is measurement. Newsrooms can easily keep track of who dominates the front pages and opinion pages and the reasons for this. Regular reporting to the editorial floor will generate awareness of existing inequalities. Leaders can also encourage their journalists to rethink their dependencies on established sources that are easy to access but sometimes overpromoted.

    Instead, they could be encouraged to look for women experts on the topics that they are reporting on to ensure women are also heard in the media and not just the same (male) sources.

    There are lists to help with this such as the Women for Media database. Other resources are universities that have comprehensive lists of their experts and can supply names of women experts.

    Is there anything else you want to say? 

    Studying news is particularly difficult and expensive in the digital age in a fragmented media environment with predominantly proprietary data. Governments can play an important role in directing social media companies and newsrooms to share non-sensitive story data with researchers to ensure up-to-date research on these important topics and to measure improvements over time.

    • Please note: picture at top is a stock image 

    The post Addressing gender bias: Why newsroom equality matters appeared first on BroadAgenda.

    This post was originally published on BroadAgenda.

  • Addressing gender bias: Why newsroom equality matters

    In this exclusive Q&A, BroadAgenda editor, Ginger Gorman, speaks with Andrea Carson, Professor of Political Communication at La Trobe University. She’s the lead researcher behind the 2024 Women for Media Report: ‘An Unfinished Story,’ the largest study to date on gender bias in Australian newsrooms. Using innovative machine-learning techniques, Carson and her team analysed over 200,000 articles to reveal critical insights into the underrepresentation and misrepresentation of women in both the creation and sourcing of news.”

    Your report emphasises the importance of supporting public interest journalism, particularly during tough economic times. What specific policy incentives do you believe governments should implement to help sustain gender-equitable workplaces in newsrooms?

    The federal government has policy programs to support public interest journalism in rural and regional Australia and these could also include incentives that promote gender equitable workplaces.

    The News Media Bargaining Code is also designed to support public interest journalism but at present Meta have withdrawn from participating in the Code, leaving a policy gap for government to address to ensure that Australian public interest journalism is adequately supported. If a replacement scheme is devised, it should also take into consideration policies that promote gender equality in news coverage.

    Andrea Carson, Professor of Political Communication, La Trobe University. Picture: Supplied

    Andrea Carson, Professor of Political Communication, La Trobe University says: “On a positive note, many newsroom leaders are now women.” Picture: Supplied

    Despite nearly equal numbers of male and female journalists, gender bias persists in coverage. What do you see as the most significant barriers that need to be addressed to achieve true gender parity in journalism?

    Unconscious (or even conscious) gender bias in news needs to be addressed. Editors need to consciously think about who gets assigned to what story and why. This extends to front page coverage and the authors who are commissioned to write opinion pieces. At present we see horizontal segregation of topics, or pink ghettos – as they were once called – meaning that men more commonly report on “hard news” and women on “soft news”.

    Politics is the hard news exception – with almost equal numbers of men and women journalists reporting in this domain now thanks to outlets like the Guardian that have really lifted the profile of women political reporters over time. Hard news stories include business and the economy, science, foreign affairs and sport. Soft news is health, arts, celebrity and gossip.

    Given that women predominantly cover “soft news,” what strategies can newsrooms employ to encourage female journalists to take on roles in reporting areas like sports and politics? 

    Teaching journalism at La Trobe shows me that there are many women who want to report on sport. I don’t think the problem is supply, but more newsroom demand. Editors need to ensure there are equal opportunities for men and women to report on different topics but also to ensure they have visibility on these topics – meaning that women have the same opportunity as men to report on big events in sport, politics and so forth and not just stories on the periphery that make it to a few paragraphs on the inside pages or few words in the broadcast bulletin.

    On a positive note, many newsroom leaders are now women. This may lead to a rethink of how we define news and broadening of the news agenda and its framing to topics that in the past have been ignored outside the health and well-being pages such as menopause and childcare.

    Men in the media remain the default quoted experts. Image: Women for Media Report

    Men in the media remain the default quoted experts. Image: Women for Media Report

    How can news organisations better ensure the representation of women from diverse backgrounds in both reporting and as expert sources, and why is this important for gender equity in journalism?

    Diversity in reporters and sources is a positive for journalism but also for democracy and for the media outlet’s economic survival. If we want news about our society to be accurate and holistic, we need to properly represent all groups in society.

    Newspapers have names such as The Mirror, because they were thought to mirror society. This is not the case if only a small section of society such as middle-class white men are over-represented.

    Moreover, women are turning off news and are among the largest news avoiders according to the annual Digital News Report. One reason for this is because they do not see stories of interest to them or that reflects their experiences. Given news outlets are losing audiences to other forms of storytelling such as TikTok and social media, it is in their economic interests to engage a wider audience that includes 50 per cent of the population: women.

    With the rise of online abuse targeting women journalists, what collaborative efforts do you recommend between media organisations and digital rights groups to establish and enforce effective digital safety standards? What can bystanders do?

    Media organisations need to work closely with authorities such as the E-Safety Commissioner to develop best practice guidelines. This might include mechanisms such as turning off comments on sensitive stories so that journalists, particularly women and minorities, do not bear the brunt of incivility and gender abuse in reaction to such stories.

    How do you think the current economic challenges facing media organisations affect gender representation in newsrooms, and what can be done to mitigate these impacts?

    Not directly. I think most newsrooms already have similar numbers of men and women, so new hires to even up numbers is less of a problem. The issue is enabling women and men journalists in those newsrooms equal opportunities to report on stories across the topic mix to end horizontal segregation.

    What practical steps should newsroom leaders take to create a culture of accountability around gender equity and support female journalists in high-visibility roles?

    The first step of accountability is measurement. Newsrooms can easily keep track of who dominates the front pages and opinion pages and the reasons for this. Regular reporting to the editorial floor will generate awareness of existing inequalities. Leaders can also encourage their journalists to rethink their dependencies on established sources that are easy to access but sometimes overpromoted.

    Instead, they could be encouraged to look for women experts on the topics that they are reporting on to ensure women are also heard in the media and not just the same (male) sources.

    There are lists to help with this such as the Women for Media database. Other resources are universities that have comprehensive lists of their experts and can supply names of women experts.

    Is there anything else you want to say? 

    Studying news is particularly difficult and expensive in the digital age in a fragmented media environment with predominantly proprietary data. Governments can play an important role in directing social media companies and newsrooms to share non-sensitive story data with researchers to ensure up-to-date research on these important topics and to measure improvements over time.

    • Please note: picture at top is a stock image 

    The post Addressing gender bias: Why newsroom equality matters appeared first on BroadAgenda.

    This post was originally published on BroadAgenda.

  • The DWP has now stripped over 150,000 CHILDREN of benefits due to Universal Credit migration

    The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has now stripped more than 318,000 people of their benefits via the managed migration process. Alarmingly, the DWP is leaving disproportionately impacting women through its forced migration process to Universal Credit – as well as a huge number of households with children.

    Of course, the Canary’s Steve Topple first highlighted that this would likely be the case well over a year ago. Once again, the latest statistics have proven the Canary’s warnings were, unfortunately, correct.

    DWP Universal Credit: more mayhem with its so-called managed migration

    The DWP began rolling out managed migration in July 2019, as a pilot scheme. This is where the department forces people who have not yet moved to Universal Credit, either voluntarily or because of a change of circumstance, onto it. This is because the new benefit is replacing old ones like Tax Credits.

    Specifically, this forced migration involves the DWP issuing notices, with a three month deadline for claimants to make the move to Universal Credit. It officially began this process in July 2022. Since then, the department has progressively stripped claimants of their benefits.

    Previously, the Canary has calculated the staggering number of people the DWP had been denying benefits to through this.

    Most recently, in August, the Canary’s Steve Topple crunched the numbers running up to June 2024 and found that:

    • 1,140,810 people had been sent managed migration notices from July 2022 to June 2024.
    • 284,660 people had lost their benefits (24.9%).
    • 165,720 were women (58.2%).
    • 99% were Tax Credits claimants – and of those, 32% of the total number of Tax Credits claimants lost their benefits.

    And as he pointed out, this was roughly as he had projected a year prior, using statistics at that time.

    More than 318,000 people lose their benefits

    So now, the figures are once more following along these same lines. On 12 November, the DWP released its latest Universal Credit managed migration statistics. The data goes up to the end of September 2024. This showed that:

    • The DWP had sent a total of 1,369,367 individuals, or 943,343 households migration notices between June 2022 and September 2024.
    • 318,834 people had lost their benefits (29%)
    • 185,076 were women (58%)
    • 69% of these were Child Tax Credit or working Tax Credit claimants

    Obviously, the data shows that the forced move has disproportionately left women without benefits.

    On top of this, the data revealed that the DWP has stripped benefits from 151,927 households with children. In other words, it means at least 150k children have seen their parents lose their benefits in the process of the DWP’s mandatory migration.

    Before it even began its roll-out, the parliamentary Work and Pensions select committee (WPSC) warned the process could leave many claimants destitute.

    Get its own misogynistic house in order

    And notably, it also means that the DWP has denied benefits to more old-style claimants than it had estimated too. In November 2023, it calculated that it would leave 26% of Tax Credit claimant households, and 4% of households on other benefits, without social security.

    However, it has turned out to be much higher than this. It transpired that the DWP has now in fact stripped 30% of Tax Credit claimant households of their benefits.

    Meanwhile, it’s not possible to fully compare the DWP’s prediction for other legacy benefit types. The reason for this is that the department only provides the information on other old-style benefits also in combination with Tax Credits. This figure showed that the DWP has stopped benefits for 11,216 households – or 3.39%.

    Overall, the point is, the DWP has ignored all the warnings from the start. Now, the new Labour government has continued with the roll-out. This is despite repeated red flags at every new statistic release over the past year. Knowing that the process had already stripped more than 180,000 people of their benefits as it entered government, it could have paused this.

    Instead, it seems committed to ploughing ahead – and now, more than 300,000 people – mostly women, and many households with children, are losing out. So not only is it refusing to lift the two child limit on benefits, it’s actually continuing to strip women and households with children of their benefits altogether.

    It also comes after the government boasted about its Child Poverty Taskforce gearing up to tackle the causes of child poverty. Evidently though, the Labour-led DWP needs to get its own house in order first – because there’s clearly a systemic problem with the Universal Credit managed migration process, and the misogynistic DWP at large.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Hannah Sharland

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • US elections featuring ‘racism, sexism’ pose challenges for Global South

    COMMENTARY: By Patrick Gathara

    Anger and fear have greeted the return to power of former US strongman Donald Trump, a corrupt far-white extremist coup plotter who is also a convicted felon and rapist, following this week’s shock presidential election result.

    Ethnic tensions have been on the rise with members of the historically oppressed minority Black ethnic group reporting receiving threatening text messages, warning of a return to an era of enslavement.

    In a startling editorial, the tension-wracked country’s paper of record, The New York Times, declared that the country had made “a perilous choice” and that its fragile democracy was now on “a precarious course”.

    President-elect Trump’s victory marks the second time in eight years the extremist leader, who is awaiting sentencing after being convicted of using campaign funds to pay off a porn star he had cheated on his wife with, has defeated a female opponent from the ruling Democratic Party.

    Women continue to struggle to reach the highest office in the deeply conservative nation where their rights are increasingly under attack and child marriage is widespread.

    This has prompted traumatised supporters of Vice-President Kamala Harris, who had been handpicked to replace the unpopular, ageing incumbent, Joe Biden, to accuse American voters of racism to sexism.

    “It’s misogyny from Hispanic men, it’s misogyny from Black . . . who do not want a woman leading them,” insisted one TV anchor, adding that there “might be race issues with Hispanics that don’t want a Black woman as president of the United States.”

    Hateful tribal rhetoric
    The hateful tribal rhetoric has also included social media posts calling for any people of mixed race who failed to vote for Harris to be deported and for intensification of the genocide in Gaza due to Arab-American rejection of Harris over her support for the continued provision of weapons to the brutal apartheid state committing it.

    “Victory has many fathers but defeat is an orphan,” goes the saying popularised by former US President John F Kennedy, who was shot 61 years ago this month.

    The reluctance to attribute the loss to the grave and gratuitous missteps made by the Harris campaign has mystified America-watchers around the world.

    As an example, analysts point to her wholesale embrace of the Biden regime’s genocidal policy in the Middle East despite opinion polls showing that it was alienating voters.

    Harris and her supporters had tried to counter that by claiming that Trump would also be genocidal and that she would ameliorate the pain of bereaved families in the US by lowering the price of groceries.

    However, the election results showed that this was not a message voters appreciated. “Genocide is bad politics,” said one Arab-American activist.

    Worried over democracy
    As the scale of the extremists’ electoral win becomes increasingly clear, having taken control of not just the presidency but the upper house of Congress as well, many are worried about the prospects for democracy in the US which is still struggling to emerge from Trump’s first term.

    Despite conceding defeat, Harris has pledged to continue to “wage this fight” even as pro-democracy protests have broken out in several cities, raising fears of violence and political uncertainty in the gun-strewn country.

    This could imperil stability in North America and sub-Scandinavian Europe where a Caucasian Spring democratic revolution has failed to take hold, and a plethora of white-wing authoritarian populists have instead come to power across the region.

    However, there is a silver lining. The elections themselves were a massive improvement over the chaotic and shambolic, disputed November 2020 presidential polls which paved the way for a failed putsch two months later.

    This time, the voting was largely peaceful and there was relatively little delay in releasing results, a remarkable achievement for the numeracy-challenged nation where conspiracy theorists remain suspicious about the Islamic origins of mathematics, seeing it is as a ploy by the terror group “Al Jibra” to introduce Sharia Law to the US.

    In the coming months and years, there will be a need for the international community to stay engaged with the US and assist the country to try and undertake much-needed reforms to its electoral and governance systems, including changes to its constitution.

    During the campaigns, Harris loyalists warned that a win by Trump could lead to the complete gutting of its weak democratic systems, an outcome the world must work hard to avoid.

    However, figuring out how to support reform in the US and engage with a Trump regime while not being seen to legitimise the election of a man convicted of serious crimes, will be a tricky challenge for the globe’s mature Third-World democracies.

    Many may be forced to limit direct contact with him. “Choices have consequences,” as a US diplomat eloquently put it 11 years ago.

    Patrick Gathara is a Kenyan journalist, cartoonist, blogger and author. He is also senior editor for inclusive storytelling at The New Humanitarian. This article was first published by Al Jazeera and is republished under Creative Commons.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Will Abortion Rights Decide 2024 Election? Amy Littlefield on Trump’s Misogyny & 10 Ballot Measures


    This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Will Abortion Rights Decide 2024 Election? Amy Littlefield on Trump’s Misogyny & 10 Ballot Measures

    Seg1 abortion rights protesters littlefield split

    Kamala Harris is blasting Donald Trump for vowing to protect women whether they “like it or not” at the same time he is calling for Republican Liz Cheney to be shot in the face. We get response from The Nation's abortion access correspondent Amy Littlefield and talk about 10 states with abortion rights on the ballot, including Arizona, Nevada, Florida, South Dakota and Missouri. Trump's remarks are a “succinct and clear definition of patriarchy,” says Littlefield. She argues the 2024 election will be decided in large part by white women and whether they will vote for abortion rights. Trump is “laying out the bargain that white patriarchy has offered for white women in this country,” says Littlefield. “He is saying, 'White women, we will protect you from Brown and Black men.'”


    This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Harris Responds to Trump’s Pledge to Protect Women “Whether They Like It or Not”

    Former President Donald Trump is receiving widespread criticism for claiming, once again, that he wants to “protect women” during a campaign rally — this time adding that he would do so, if elected president, “whether the women like it or not.” Trump’s remarks, which were made at a rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin, on Wednesday, echo comments he made last month, when he expressed a desire to be…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Ratu Naiqama Lalabalavu elected as Fiji’s new president

    RNZ Pacific

    Ratu Naiqama Lalabalavu has been elected as the new president of Fiji, despite opposition from women’s rights groups.

    Ratu Naiqama was the current Speaker of Parliament and nominated by Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka.

    He was elected yesterday after getting 37 out of 55 votes.

    He is the high chief of the Cakaudrove confederacy, the same province as Rabuka.

    He contested the December 2022 election as a candidate for the People’s Alliance Party when he received 652 votes.

    The Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre coordinator Shamima Ali said Ratu Naiqama was “not fit” to be president.

    “Ratu Naiqama has shown time and time again that he is a misogynist who was once suspended from Parliament for two years for making extremely derogatory comments against the late Speaker of the House, Dr Jiko Luveni,” Ali said in a statement on Wednesday before the parliamentary vote.

    She also slammed Women’s Minister Lynda Tabuya for endorsing Ratu Naiqama for the president’s role, calling him a “male champion”.

    “We would like the Minister for Women, Children and Social Protection to explain instances — where and how — Ratu Naiqama has consistently worked as a male champion to break the cycle of patriarchy in the whole of Fiji,” Ali said.

    Earlier this month, Ratu Naiqama came under fire from human rights campaigners in the country for making, what they said, was “racially charged” and “evil” remarks.

    The Fiji Times reports the election of Tui Cakau, Ratu Naiqama Lalabalavu, as the country’s next president “followed a voting pattern that heralds a significant shift from the traditional positions taken by the Government and the Opposition”.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • A Question for Women

    Dr. Frances Conley, 83, died recently. She was a professor at Stanford and one of the country’s only female neurosurgeons in the 1990s. For decades she dealt with male colleagues fondling her, propositioning her, and calling her “hon,” among other demeaning behavior—even in the operating room. She felt it was the cost of success in a male-dominated field. But at age 50 she’d had enough of being told her opposing opinion was due to her PMS, and of never being taken seriously. She resigned from her position, and it made the news. Dr. Conley regretted not speaking out when she realized how many other women in the medical field were experiencing the same thing. So I ask you, women, why do we continue to allow misogyny in our society?

    Case in point: Of all the ludicrous political ads this season, there is one I cannot stop thinking about. It is a video of Bernie Moreno, running to be Ohio’s senator. He is addressing an audience with women. He says that reproductive rights shouldn’t be an issue for women over 50—that it’s a bit crazy. Mr. Moreno is a 57 year-old man—so why is it an issue to him? There is laughing in the background at how crazy older women are.

    He goes on to say that “you don’t get in pregnant in the checkout line at Krogers—you need to take personal responsibility.” I’d like to point out to Mr. Moreno that the only way a woman becomes pregnant is by a man. Yet, where are the laws requiring a man to take “personal responsibility” from the moment of conception? Where are the groups of women making laws for men and their rights?  Take the issue of reproductive rights out of this equation and think about how he disrespects women in his comments—how he, as a man, feels he can judge our feelings and decisions, and make it a joke.

    Why are women still voting for misogynists? The VP nominee, J.D. Vance, has made it clear that women are only worthwhile if they have children. He has suggested tracking women’s menstrual cycles and that women should stay in violent relationships for the sake of children—in short, women have no value other than to please men.

    The presidential nominee has called Kamala Harris retarded, even though she is far more qualified and experienced. He, of course, was elected after saying on tape that he could do anything he wanted to women because he was famous (and was found liable for sexual assault in a court of law). A elderly male senator recently said that hurricane survivors didn’t “give a function” about tampons, as if he’s an expert on women’s periods.

    To be clear, this is certainly not all men. It’s a loud minority though, and it seems that it is acceptable to our society. Sexual harassment was brought to light during the #MeToo movement—so why are these men in position to run our country? Moreover, why are women voting for them?

    When I was a young teen I developed large breasts. I did not want the type of attention it got me from boys and grown men. There were comments yelled as I walked home from school, and disgusting comments right to my face. Men unapologetically stared at my chest as if it was their right to do so. It deeply affected my self-esteem and body image for decades. I slouched and tried to cover myself when men were around. But men felt free to say whatever they wanted, letting me know that when they saw me all they really saw was my body. I did not have the self-assurance or temerity to fight back or express my discomfort. Like Dr. Conley, I thought that’s just the way it was then.

    What happens when a society demeans the value of women? Look at Afghanistan. In the 70s women were wearing miniskirts and enjoying personal freedoms—now they are covered head to toe in burqas, banned from education, and not even allowed to look at men. That’s what happens.

    Lilly Ledbetter just died, as well. She filed a suit against Goodyear after learning that she earned less than men doing the same job. The Supreme Court passed an act in her name in 2009—yes, only fifteen years ago. Until 1974 women could not have a credit card in their name without a husband signing off on it. Shall we go back to those good old days? In my mind, the constant disrespect from prominent men is heading in that direction.

    Women, consider the lives of your daughters and granddaughters. This election is not just about reproductive rights, it is about respect and value for all of the female citizens of this country. I plead with you—it is up to us to vote discrimination and sexism out of office for good.

    There are plenty of respectful men who could be leading this country, men who see women as equals and treat them as such. I know, I was raised by one, I am married to one, and I raised one myself

    The post A Question for Women first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • The Daily Mail just glorified Yung Filly amid rape and sexual violence charges

    Content warning: this article contains discussions around sexual violence, including rape, that some readers may find distressing

    A front page Daily Mail article about accused rapist Yung Filly completely glorified his achievements instead of focusing on his crimes of rape and sexual violence. 

    The headline, before clicking through to the main article, read: 

    Yung Filly’s rise from humble beginnings to social media stardom: How Colombian refugee went from living above chicken shop to rapper, and £1.5m YouTube icon

    The start of the article briefly mentions the police arresting him on charges of sexual assault and rape. However, it doesn’t detail the charges or any of the circumstances leading up to the arrest, until the end of the article. Instead, the Daily Mail journalist tells a rags to riches story, detailing his achievements.

    You would think he was being nominated for an award, not facing rape charges.

    What charges against Yung Filly?

    The charges Yung Filly – who’s full name is Andres Felipe Valencia Barrientos – is facing are seemingly the most important detail of the article. However, the Daily Mail article doesn’t mention them until the end.

    The charges include:

    • Four counts of sexual penetration without consent.
    • Three counts of assault.
    • Impeding a person’s normal breathing or circulation by applying pressure to their neck.

    Yet, despite these horrific charges the Daily Mail still chose to end the first paragraph with:

    might be one of the most successful people you’ve never heard of.

    Because who cares if they’re a rapist, as long as their successful?

    Along with mentioning his net worth and all of the hurdles he has supposedly overcome, the article goes on to include direct quotes from Barrientos, which he provided to Amazon Prime in 2020.

    This isn’t the first time

    We have seen the same thing in the Daily Mail’s reporting of Huw Edwards – now convicted pedophile. The Daily Mail covered the story and made a point of talking about his spacious new flat which is ‘boasting a large bay fronted living room with a fireplace’. They also chose to focus on how much money he would make from the sale of his family home.

    Similarly, the Daily Mail covered the rape accusations against Garth Brooks – an American country singer. The article centres his denial of the accusations and his side of the story. The headline reads: 

    Garth Brooks DENIES rape accusations after shock lawsuit by wife’s makeup artist.

    Why are rich, influential men like Yung Filly’s voices and success made the centre of these stories?

    A much bigger problem than just Yung Filly

    Time and time again we see accusations, or even charges of sexual violence against influential men – like those against Yung Filly. This is closely followed by the media glorifying their achievements. As if their huge list of accolades makes them less capable of violence. 

    In the wake of the Gisele Pelicot trial, it is more important than ever that the media hold rich or otherwise influential men responsible for their actions. The main assailant in that case is Dominique Pelicot, a retired estate agent and before this trial – a well respected member of the community. Now, 50 other men are also standing trial for rape. One article in Le Monde states:

    They are firefighters, journalists, students, truck drivers, prison guards, nurses, pensioners, municipal councillors, our friends, our lovers, our fathers, our brothers.

    Quotes like this pinpoint a much bigger problem. Many people in our society don’t believe that the men they know – and love – are capable of sexual violence. Unfortunately, when 51 men in a town of around 6000 people are on trial for rape at the same time, it shows you that the people you love may well be capable of these crimes.

    What about the victims?

    A common misconception is that rapists are strangers, or monsters hiding in alleyways. The reality is much more stark. Shockingly, in five out of six rape cases the perpetrator is someone the victim knows personally.

    On a similar note, people believe that celebrities and people they regularly see on their screens could not possibly commit sexual violence. Time and time again we have seen famous people accused, and then charged. Ultimately, these misconceptions lead to furthering victim-blaming narratives and victims being to afraid to come forward.

    Because why would you come forward when the likelihood is that the man who attacked you will get a front page story listing his achievements, like Yung Filly has?

    Research conducted in 2018 by Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, found that:

    We found that people used positive information about the perpetrator in evaluating an uncertain rape case.

    This understanding highlights the responsibility of rape case reporting, clearly indicating that offering additional, irrelevant, but positive information about the perpetrator can increase victim blaming and excusing the victim especially if the information meets people’s preexisting beliefs about rape.

    This is not only relevant for the evaluation of individual cases, but also because media reports of rape affect public opinion and the normative context in which all rape cases are evaluated.

    This goes to show the weight of responsibility on the media when it comes to reporting on sexual violence. In the UK five out of six rapes and other sexual offences go unreported. This is due to many reasons, one of which is extremely low prosecution rates. In the UK, only 1.3% of reported rapes result in a charge that same year.

    A systemic problem

    An estimated 798,000 women are raped or sexually assaulted every year in the UK – the equivalent to 1 in 30 women. In 98% of these crimes, the suspect is a male. 

    Imagine being a victim of any form of sexual or domestic violence. You open up the Daily Mail homepage and you see an influential man like Yung Filly, with his achievements glorified and very little written about his crimes.

    Every time one of these stories is published with so little respect for the victims, countless women will be re-traumatised, even without reading the whole story.

    What message is the Daily Mail sending to Yung Filly when they publish this story? That his achievements matter more than him raping someone? More importantly though, what message is the media sending to survivors when they publish any story that is similar to this one.

    Headlines that gloss over horrific crimes make it seem like the case of a few bad apples – rather than male violence being a systemic problem. Ultimately, the way the the Daily Mail’s rape-apologist headline emphasises the success of a man charged with sexual violence is problematic for survivors, as well as for criminal proceedings.

    Feature image via the Canary

    By HG

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Why women still lose out in the mental health system: the Canary speaks with professor Linda Gask

    For World Mental Health Day, Professor Linda Gask spoke to the Canary from her home in Orkney about her new book, Out of Her Mind: How we are failing women’s mental health and what must change.

    In this timely book she illustrates the desperate need for change in the treatment of women in the mental health system using her professional and personal experience. Women can’t all be out of their minds – as Out Of Her Mind shows.

    Gask is the author of two previous books, Finding True North and The Other Side of Silence and as a retired consultant psychiatrist has both used mental health services and worked in this field as a practising psychiatrist, academic, and author.

    She was recently featured in the moving BBC Scotland Disclosure documentary about suicide in women in their 40’s and 50’s.

    Linda Gask: why women are still losing out – despite advances

    Canary: Problems with mental health, in particular, suicide rates, has meant the spotlight has often been on men. Why have you focused on women?

    Linda Gask: A few years ago, I was asked to participate in a debate for Women’s Week in Manchester, to oppose the motion ‘Men are the losers now’. I understand why many people in our society might agree with that statement, indeed the suicide rate for men is three times that of women, but it started me thinking about all the many ways that women are still losing out in our society.

    How are women losing out?

    Women’s emotional pain is often downplayed and the illnesses they more commonly suffer from, such as eating disorders, get less investment in terms of treatment and research.

    Other pain is not taken seriously. When women self-harm because of their distress and despair they are told they are wasting the time of health services and when they suffer unexplained or persistent physical pain their suffering is again underestimated, and they are told it is ‘in their head’.

    Neither the real-life problems they face, nor the reality of the mental illnesses they may experience, are given due attention in terms of adequate care or research funding.

    Improvement is needed

    Canary: What can psychiatry and the mental health system do to improve care for women?

    Linda Gask: There are several things we need to do:

    • We need to look at services through a gendered lens. ‘Gender neutral care’ doesn’t take women’s needs into account – its largely about what suits men.
    • Psychiatry needs to consider how a focus only on diagnosis can mean that the woman herself becomes seen as the ‘problem’ rather than addressing too the social conditions women face in our society. Domestic and sexual violence, poverty, and emotional and sexual abuse are all more common for women and play a key part in how and why her problems developed and what needs to happen to improve her life.
    • We need much more education for psychiatrists on the impact of hormones on women’s mental health needs and care.
    • We must stop using the terms ‘Borderline Personality Disorder’ (BPD) and ‘Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder’ (EUPD). Not only do they cause further harm, but women are being misdiagnosed and their distress and despair written off as ‘attention seeking’. Many have experienced traumatic lives and others may be neurodivergent or have serious problems with their mood which are not being addressed.
    • There must be an expansion of therapy options for women. Six weeks of CBT is never going to help a woman who is depressed because of experiencing years of trauma.
    • We need more knowledge, training, and care for eating disorders. It’s a problem more women than men experience and gets less attention.
    • We must improve the state of in-patient care for women. Women facing the barriers outlined above, are regularly dying in our hospitals.

    Systemic disadvantage

    Canary: As you say in your second point, symptoms and a diagnosis (like BPD) can mask social hardships and trauma, making women feel they are the problem – that something is ‘wrong’ with them.

    Linda Gask: Women are disadvantaged in many ways in our society, which contributes to them suffering twice as many common mental health problems. For eating disorders this is three-times more than men. They are also more likely than men to self-harm, especially younger women.

    Women are subject to sexism and misogyny throughout their lives, with more exposure to childhood domestic and sexual violence and harassment. To survive women are more likely to be reliant on benefits, live in insecure housing, and be single parents, unpaid carers, and in low paid and precarious work.

    The greater the poverty, the more likely they will experience mental health problems and when other intersectional factors such as ethnic minority status, LGBTQ+, and disability are factored in, the level of disadvantage multiplies.

    Linda Gask: not out of her mind

    Canary: In the BBC Scotland Disclosures documentary, you discussed how women are often dismissed as being ‘hormonal’ but you’re saying they do play an important role, and as such, there needs to be much more education for psychiatrists.

    Linda Gask: Our moods are affected by our hormones, and for some of us times such as adolescence and the perimenopause can be very difficult. If a woman has a history of postnatal mental illness, she is more likely to have mental health problems in the perimenopause.

    Melanie Reid from the Times said Out of Her Mind was essential reading for mothers of daughters. That reminds us that young women might be having these problems in adolescence and on top could be exposed to unfettered social media. But few seem to be taking this seriously.

    Youngsters have so little escape from surveillance by critical peers on social media. They have poorer mental ill-health than they did a decade ago, particularly young women in their late teens. Meanwhile we have politicians and some psychologists playing down the seriousness of this problem and saying they need to toughen up.

    Women’s distress has never been taken seriously and this must change.

    Out of Her Mind: How we are failing women’s mental health and what must change by Professor Linda Gask is released on World Mental Health Day – 10 October – in the UK, US, and Canada. You can purchase it here.

    Featured image and additional images supplied

    By Ruth Hunt

    This post was originally published on Canary.