Category Archives: Women

‘I have moments of shame I can’t control’: the lives ruined by explicit ‘collector culture’

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The swapping, collating and posting of nude images of women without their consent is on the rise. But unlike revenge porn, it is not a crime. Now survivors are demanding a change in the law

Ruby will never forget the first time she clicked on the database AnonIB. It is a so-called “revenge porn” site and in January 2020, a friend had texted her for help. Ruby is a secondary school teacher, used to supporting teenagers, and her friend turned to her for advice when she discovered her images were on the site.

“She didn’t send the thread that she was on,” says Ruby, 29. “She was embarrassed, so she sent a general link to the site itself.” When Ruby opened it, “I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I couldn’t believe that such an infrastructure existed: something so well organised, so systematic, fed by the people who lived around us.”

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Italy: proposal for statue of first woman to get PhD sparks debate

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Statue of Elena Cornaro Piscopia could go up in square in Padua that contains 78 statues all dedicated to men

A proposal to insert a statue of the first woman in the world to earn a PhD among the 78 dedicated to notable male figures on a prominent square in northern Italy has stirred controversy.

Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia received her doctorate degree in philosophy from the University of Padua in 1678. But she was not included when Padua officials devised a project in the late 18th century to erect statues in Prato della Valle – the largest square in Italy – dedicated to illustrious historical figures who were either from the city or had links to it.

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New Year’s Day killings spark call for action to tackle violence against women in France

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Government accused of remaining ‘scandalously’ silent on grim start to the year for women and girls

Feminist campaigners in France are calling for tougher government action to combat violence against women and girls after three women were allegedly killed by their current or former partner on the first day of 2022.

The body of a 28-year-old military recruit who had been stabbed to death was found near Saumur in western France on Saturday. The local prosecutor, Alexandra Verron, said a 21-year-old man, also a soldier, had been arrested and investigators were looking into a possible femicide – the killing of a woman by her partner or ex-partner.

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How we met: ‘He had to marry me or I’d sue him!’

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Mary, 62, and Roy, 70, met in Michigan after she accidentally crashed her bike into his – and broke her jaw. They’re now married and live in St Louis

When Mary moved from Bedfordshire in the UK to Michigan in the US on a Fulbright scholarship in 1985, she wasn’t expecting to find love. Her mind was focused on the nutrition course she had enrolled on and her plans for a future career. In the spring of 1986, she was cycling home from a meeting with her tutor when she approached a fence covered in ivy. Roy, who had been pushing his bike, emerged from behind the fence before she had the chance to stop. “I hit his wheel and, because my hands were cold and I was wearing a backpack, I went sailing over the handlebars,” she remembers. “I landed on my chin and broke my jaw on the concrete.”

In typical British fashion, she told him she was “absolutely fine”, but Roy says it was clear she was badly hurt. “My apartment was pretty close by so I got my roommate to drive her to the university health centre,” he says. The next day, Mary had to have her jaw wired shut, meaning she couldn’t eat solid food for three months. “Roy came to my apartment with some juice to suck through a straw. He said that when my jaw was unwired he would make me dinner,” she recalls. Although it was an accident, Roy felt “terrible” about what happened. “I was really concerned about her,” he says.

Want to share your story? Tell us a little about yourself, your partner and how you got together by filling in the form here.

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House of healing: the Honduran sanctuary for female rights defenders

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In one of the world’s most dangerous regions for environmental and human rights activists, La Siguata offers a safe space for women suffering trauma as a result of their work

A milky-white and sky-blue stone hangs from a red string around Ethels Correa’s neck, and every so often she rubs it between her fingers.

“When I feel anger, I grab this stone and I begin to relax, because they taught me how to breathe, to relax the body and to relax the mind,” she says. “I carry it with me all the time.”

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Kirat Assi: ‘Bobby tried to destroy my hopes, my dreams, every part of my life’

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She had been ‘catfished’ for years, and now her hit podcast tells the story of tracing the scammer and her quest for justice

The voice of Kirat Assi, subject of the podcast Sweet Bobby, is so familiar I momentarily forget we had never spoken, let alone met. I am one of the million-plus listeners gripped by her story of being “catfished” – duped into a relationship by someone with a false identity.

Assi, who lives in London, fell victim to a complex fraud that lasted eight years and involved up to 60 characters who only existed in the scammer’s warped imagination. At the centre was Bobby, a handsome cardiologist with whom Assi formed a close friendship that turned into romance despite never meeting in real life. Bobby was a real person whose identity had been stolen by the scammer, eventually exposed as Assi’s cousin Simran Bhogal.

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Female conductor takes the helm in first for Italian opera

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Ukrainian Oksana Lyniv makes history with three-year posting at Bologna’s Teatro Comunale

A female conductor will take the helm at an Italian opera house for the first time in January.

The Ukrainian conductor Oksana Lyniv said she was surprised to learn she was making history after receiving the offer from the Teatro Comunale opera house in Bologna. The 43-year-old begins the three-year posting as musical director on 22 January.

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Spain’s public sector trailblazers seek to lead way on menstrual leave

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Handful of local administrations are among the first in west to offer arrangement to their employees

A handful of local administrations in Spain have become among the first in western Europe to offer menstrual leave to their employees, in an attempt to strike a better balance between workplace demands and period pains.

This year the Catalan city of Girona became the first in the country to consider flexible working arrangements for any employee experiencing discomfort due to periods. In June it announced a deal with its more than 1,300 municipal employees to allow women, trans men and non-binary individuals to take up to eight hours menstrual leave a month, with the caveat that any time used must be recovered within a span of three months.

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‘It was civil war’: photographing Mexico’s women’s rights protests

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Mahé Elipe captures the visceral anger as International Women’s Day protests turned into a violent clash with police

On 8 March 2021, women across the world took part in protests to mark International Women’s Day. In Mexico, there is an added poignancy to the annual event, as at least 10 women are murdered in the country each day; in 2021 the date was was marred by additional violence.

In the runup to the day fences were erected around the national palace in Mexico City’s main square, where thousands of women were due to gather.

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‘Families want a son at any cost’: the women forced to abort female foetuses in India

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Laali and Meenakshi’s unborn daughters are among the country’s 46 million ‘missing’ women and girls over the past 50 years

Laali was alone at home when she realised her legs were drenched in blood. The bleeding did not stop for eight hours. As she fell unconscious, the 25-year-old thought she would die alongside the foetus she was losing.

She had been three months pregnant when she was taken for prenatal sex determination. “When I learned it was a girl, I started feeling as though I was suffocating,” she says.

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Sarah Weddington, attorney who won Roe v Wade abortion case, dies aged 76

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Texan lawyer and Linda Coffee won landmark 1973 case, safeguarding right now under threat from US supreme court

Sarah Weddington, an attorney who argued and won the Roe v Wade supreme court case which established the right to abortion in the US, has died aged 76.

Susan Hays, a Democratic candidate for Texas agriculture commissioner, announced the news on Twitter on Sunday and the Dallas Morning News confirmed it.

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‘If I don’t end up in intensive care, it’s a bonus’: the beauty and pain of being the world’s best endurance swimmer

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From jellyfish in the Caribbean to hypothermia in the English Channel, swimming hasn’t been easy for Chloë McCardel – but can feel ‘so wild and free’

We’re not off to a good start. I’m fumbling with my cap, the rubber clinging to my head lopsidedly, my hair straggling out. I take it off to start again and the woman who has swum the fickle English Channel more times than any other human, the “Queen of the Channel”, instructs me in how to correctly apply a swimming cap.

Chloë McCardel and I are going for an ocean swim at Bondi. She dives into the foamy sea ahead of me – more slender mermaid than broad-shouldered Amazonian. Knee deep, I feel the current suck at my flesh. It’s not one of Bondi’s better days. Chest deep, I realise I’m being dragged out and my very amateur ocean-swimming abilities are no match for this surf. Panic rises. McCardel is an impatient white-cap in the distance. What was I thinking, suggesting a swim with superwoman?

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The best of the long read in 2021

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Our 20 favourite pieces of the year

After growing up in a Zimbabwe convulsed by the legacy of colonialism, when I got to Oxford I realised how many British people still failed to see how empire had shaped lives like mine – as well as their own

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My winter of love: Scrolling through sperm banks wasn’t sexy – but it was surprisingly intimate

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Donor profiles sparked long conversations about the values we wanted for our child. The guys who wanted to ‘spread their genes’? Definitely out

Surrounded by glittering Christmas lights, in between sips of red wine, my friend made me a very decent proposal. “My sperm,” he said. “You can have it if you like.” We’d been catching up over festive drinks and the topic of kids came up, as it does when you are in your 30s. My partner – now wife – and I had started thinking about having a family, I’d told my friend. We had two wombs and a bunch of eggs; we just needed to figure out the rest of the baby-making equation. So he offered to sort that bit out for us, no strings (or body appendages) attached.

My wife and I thought about that offer a lot over the next few months. No offence to heterosexuals (some of my best friends are straight), but I don’t envy you most of the time. However, I am jealous of the fertile straight couples who don’t have to do anything more complicated than jump into bed when they decide they want kids. Instead of getting undressed, my wife and I went online. We researched, researched, researched. Should we go for a known donor such as my friend? Or would it be better to go to a sperm bank?

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Calls for femicide to become separate crime in Greece mount as two more women killed

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‘It has to be recognised as a term and as a crime’, says government opposition, after unprecedented number of women murdered by partners

The Greek government has come under growing pressure to introduce femicide as an offence in the country’s penal code amid outrage over the growing and unprecedented number of women being brutally murdered by their partners.

Two women were murdered by their husbands within five days last week, bringing the death toll to 17 since January, according to state-run television. Both men allegedly told police that they had killed their wives out of fear that they would leave them.

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China mulls bolstering laws on women’s rights and sexual harassment

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Draft safeguards would mark major development in women’s rights as China faces calls for gender equality

China is considering strengthening its laws on women’s rights to provide more robust protection against gender-based discrimination and sexual harassment in the workplace.

The draft regulations come amid the rise of a nascent #MeToo movement in China, which activists say has been hampered by the country’s strict regime of censorship and oppression against all signs of dissent.

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bell hooks’ writing told Black women and girls to trust themselves | Deborah Douglas

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The feminist writer created a vocabulary that helped us to learn, grow, and forgive – and above all to understand

Having just the right words to explain what’s happening keeps you from feeling, well, crazy.

When the world learned of the passing of bell hooks, the renowned feminist, public intellectual, author, and professor on Wednesday, at her home in Berea, Kentucky, it was the value and accessibility of her words that resonated with Black women, whose understanding of themselves and their own work was transformed by hooks.

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‘If I’m not on social media, I’m dead’: Qatari feminist activist feared killed or detained

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Rights groups warn 23-year-old Noof al-Maadeed is at imminent risk, despite reassurances from Qatar authorities

Human rights groups are demanding Qatari authorities show proof of life for a feminist activist, amid growing fears that she has been killed or detained.

Noof al-Maadeed has been missing since mid-October after returning to Qatar from the UK. The young activist fled the Gulf kingdom two years ago, documenting her escape on social media, after alleged attempts on her life. She had recently returned to Qatar after being given reassurance by the authorities that she was safe.

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‘The Taliban say they’ll kill me if they find me’: a female reporter still on the run speaks out

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We return to the story of a journalist forced to flee as Afghanistan fell to the Taliban in August. Unable to return home without putting at risk everyone she loves and hounded by threatening calls, she remains in hiding in the country four months on

I am an Afghan female journalist and I have been on the run for more than four months. I have lived in numerous safe houses and the homes of people who’ve offered me refuge. I am constantly moving to avoid being caught, from province to province, city to city.

The Taliban insurgents have been threatening to kill me and my colleagues for two years, for our reports exposing their crimes in our province. But when they seized control of our provincial capital, they started to hunt for those who had spoken out against them. I decided to escape, for my own and my family’s safety.

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Naomie Harris says ‘huge star’ groped her during audition

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Bond actor recalls past #MeToo incident and contrasts lack of censure with ‘immediate’ removal on recent project

The Oscar-nominated actor Naomie Harris has said a #MeToo incident on one of her recent projects prompted the “immediate” removal of the perpetrator, as she recalled another occasion when she was groped by a “huge star” who faced no censure.

Harris, who played Moneypenny in the last three Bond films and was up for an Oscar for her role in Moonlight in 2017, declined to name either of the men allegedly responsible.

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