The UK government has just released its draft National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), which outlines an overhaul in its planning strategy. However, these proposals, which cover urban planning from transport to housing, entirely ignore Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) in its strategy.   This omission has come as a shock to MPs and those in urban planning who emphasise the intricate relationship between urban environments and misogyny-driven violence against women and

In recent months, the AI chatbot, Grok, has been increasingly used by users to generate sexualised images of women and children, which are then posted on the social media platform X. Grok, created by Elon Musk’s company xAI, was launched in 2023. It can generate text, images and videos and is integrated into X. The platform has previously faced criticism from rights groups, including Amnesty international, for exacerbating online hate, misinformation and misogyny. Recently, t

Emotional abuse is rarely obvious at first. It is often subtle, gradual, and disguised as concern, humour or ‘just the way relationships are’. In recent years, conversations around ‘red flags’ have become more visible across social media and popular culture. Clips from reality dating shows, viral TikToks and comment sections regularly debate whether certain behaviours are romantic or problematic. Yet despite this growing awareness, many harmful patterns in relationships conti

Katie Fox was fatally stabbed in the neck whilst waiting for her bus home from the centre of Birmingham, in what is the third stabbing in the area within a month. The 34-year-old was attacked at around 9pm on 7 th November as she waited along Smallbrook Queensway outside the Bullring shopping centre – a busy part of the city often crowded with commuters and people having Friday night drinks. Katie was rushed to the Queen Elizabeth hospital but she died three days later from

Last Friday saw hundreds of women gather in cities across South Africa, wearing black, to protest gender-based violence ahead of the G20 summit at the weekend. South Africa has seen a 33.8% increase in the number of women killed from gender-based violence since last year. On average, 15 lives are lost every day to femicide- five times the global femicide rate and the highest outside of a war zone. The NGO Women For Change, one of South Africa’s leading voices in the fight aga

A year after the harrowing Pélicot affair hit headlines and shocked the world, Gisèle Pélicot returned to court in Nimes, France. Accompanied by her youngest son, Florian, Gisèle chose to waive her right to anonymity for a second time in this four-day trial. One of the worst sex-offenders of our times, Dominique Pélicot was sentenced to 20 years in prison last year when police discovered footage, recorded over a 10-year period, showing him and dozens of other men raping his t

Stalking is never simply unwanted attention; it is often behaviour that goes unchallenged and consequently ruins lives.   When watching Zara McDermott’s BBC documentary To Catch a Stalker, I felt both enthralled and apprehensive. Within society we often see stalking broadcasted as something that occurs to celebrities or in extraordinary news stories. However, this documentary dismantles that notion. Instead, through the voices of ordinary women, we see how ex-partners, acquai

A new pilot launched in the West Midlands now   gives individuals that have been subjected to rape or ‘serious sexual abuse’ the right to request a second opinion from an alternative prosecutor. Previously, when the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) decided not to proceed with charges in a case, individuals had very little choice but to accept this decision. This outcome often occurred when the CPS concluded that the likelihood of winning the case is too slim. The six-month pil

In June 2025, the Government’s Department of Justice announced that the depiction of strangulation in pornography will be officially...

Almost three years ago, I wrote an article on the role that social media played in the defamation case Johnny Depp brought against his...

Sex, relationships, mental health & the patriarchy affects us all. So why don’t we talk about them properly? A bare-all, refreshingly...

Sir Gareth Southgate, the previous England men’s football team manager, delivered the annual Richard Dimbleby lecture last week. In this...

A reminder of our organisational stance on porn: We believe that porn can perpetuate, condone & profits from violence against women &...

The Gaming world continues to rise as a cultural phenomenon. Over 40 million people in the UK play video games, with over 53% of women...

It has recently come to light that several high-profile television presenters have been accused of inappropriate behaviour in the...

Writing a blog post directed at men poses a difficult task, especially since I am not one myself. As a woman sometimes engaging in...

The current landscape As Parliament returns after the summer recess and party conference season, we now await bills and laws to be...

Every year from September to December, the United Nations General Assembly meets at the UN headquarters in New York to discuss and decide...

CW: sexual violence   Just two weeks preceding Russia’s 2022 invasion, Vladimir Putin branded Ukraine ‘mine’. (1) He then suggested that...

CW: sexual violence   The horrific case of Dominique Pelicot sent shockwaves across France and the rest of the globe at the beginning of...