News

The formation of Pussy Riot in Moscow last September was not a culmination of long-harboured musical ambition, songcraft or that strange alchemy of notes, lyrics, personalities and desire that sometimes spawns a rock ‘n’ roll band; rather it was reactionary – a furious two-fingered salute to Vladimir Putin’s decision to return to the presidency, a [...]

Who would ever have thought it? Out and proud lesbian Ellen DeGeneres and Michelle Obama – who, despite her own achievements is still seen as the woman behind the president – have had a rather fetching press-up competition on national TV. With a little flirting, and slightly more competitiveness we hear Ellen asking Michelle how [...]

The Italian supreme court has caused outrage after ruling that those convicted of gang rape do not have to be sentenced to jail. Late on Thursday the court upheld a constitutional court decision to annul the jail sentence of two 19-year-old men found guilty of gang raping a 16-year-old near Rome. A lower court had [...]

Spain‘s opposition Socialist party may set the former defence minister Carme Chacón on the path to becoming the country’s first female prime minister at a nail-bitingly close contest for a new leader . Chacón is in a two-way contest with the former deputy prime minister Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba to take over a party in tatters [...]

So at last a key report into the undercover policing controversy was published this week. Dennis O’Connor, the head of the body inspecting the police, finally produced his delayed report yesterday after cancelling its publication at the last minute in the autumn. Here was our take on O’Connor’s report – we wrote that the clandestine [...]

David Cameron’s mini-reshuffle following the resignation of Chris Huhne as energy secretary represents a missed opportunity to improve the gender profile at cabinet level. Though the shakeup sees an additional woman entering the government in the shape of Jenny Willott as assistant government whip, the decision to promote Ed Davey to the vacancy left by [...]

A winner of Holland’s Next Top Model is suing her agency for refusing to give her the prize money she claims she is due because they say she is “too fat”. Ananda Marchildon said she only received €10,000 (£8,300) of the €75,000 contract she was promised after winning the competition in 2008, aged 21. She [...]

With Valentines Day being an opportunity to share your loving thoughts to your partner and friends, we thought it a great opportunity to share some of the wonderful gifts, places to go and offers out there in London at this time.  Not only is it a time to share with loved ones, it is also [...]

Take a look at the week that was the end of January and now into February.  Officially we are in 2012 now! No more Happy New Year greetings but a dawning of ‘I Love you’s’ coming our way as we hit the Valentines madness  soon.  Take 10 minutes out of your day to see what [...]

I was sitting on my friend Maggie’s couch last January, watching, slack-jawed, as the first order of business in the new Republican-controlled Congress was not to create jobs, restructure the tax code or reform a corrupt banking system that crippled our nation. No, the first order of business was trying to defund Planned Parenthood, an [...]

Have the Tories finally managed to identify what women want? Latest polling (pdf) has found that 43% of female voters say they will vote for the Conservatives at the next election, compared with the 37% who put their trust in Labour. Twice as many women than men have yet to make up their mind how [...]

Jean Dujardin in one of the controversial posters for Les Infidèles He’s the charming hearthrob in the award-winning silent film The Artist and tipped to be the first Frenchman to win a best actor Oscar this month. But Jean Dujardin is at the centre of a row over what are seen as sexist posters for [...]

The woman speaking admiringly of French quotas for women in the boardroom looks like Katie from the Apprentice – all insufferable smugness and weird back-combing – while her male boardroom colleagues perfectly undermine her, yet it’s hard not to smile at this Alex cartoon in the Telegraph. Once again, the cartoon character seems to perfectly [...]

There’s an old joke: four women are throwing dinner parties. The French woman presents her main course with a gusty: “Bon appétit.” The Italian woman invites her guests to tuck in with a buoyant: “Buon appetito.” The Spanish woman raises a glass and says: “Buen provecho.” And the British woman slips the dishes apologetically onto [...]

New forms of digital technology and social networking sites such as Facebook are increasingly putting people at risk of stalking, according to a report published on Wednesday. The study, from Women’s Aid and the Network for Surviving Stalking, warns that mobile phones, particularly smartphones, are increasingly being targeted. Spyware could be installed on the phone [...]

Three members of an Afghan family living in Canada have been sentenced to life in prison for the murders of three teenage sisters and the ex-wife of one of the defendants Link to this video On Sunday a Canadian court found three members of an Afghan family, the father, mother and son, guilty of killing [...]

Did it all start when Arlene Phillips was booted off Strictly, to be replaced by Alesha Dixon? Or when details emerged of Miriam O’Reilly’s treatment by Countryfile bosses? Or is it just regular viewing of programmes that purport to show a range of opinion, whether serious (Question Time) or supposedly humorous (Mock the Week), but [...]

I would like to write an ode to Uni Lad, which after a Twitter onslaught seems to have closed itself down. This was a website that made my life easier and more straightforward and I thank them for that. I thank you for your candour and your single-minded pursuit of a masculine stereotype that makes [...]

She’s working-class, unashamedly rightwing, famous for typo-strewn streams of consciousness on Twitter and, caricatured as a fishwife on the French version of Spitting Image, is one of the most parodied politicians in Paris. But Nadine Morano is Nicolas Sarkozy‘s top female “super-sniper”, regularly dispatched to the media frontline to issue outraged putdowns of the left. [...]

Victims of domestic violence at risk of further abuse are being advised to sleep in Occupy camps, in police stations and accident and emergency departments because of sweeping cuts across the sector, according to domestic violence charities. On an average day last year 230 women were turned away by Women’s Aid, around 9% of those [...]

Few people are as experienced at generating controversy as American essayist Caitlin Flanagan, who has previously incited female ire with her takes on everything from housewives (“Women have a deeply felt emotional connection to housekeeping”) and working mothers (“At a certain point a mother must choose between her work and her child”) to the flaws [...]

Alison Saunders is probably the UK’s most experienced criminal prosecutor. She has overseen the convictions of serial rapists and serial murderers – and, in one particularly horrendous case, a man who was both. Saunders says it “never ceases to amaze me what humans can do to each other, and how awful some humans can be”. [...]

What do Davos, the annual gathering of the world’s power elite, and Radio 4′s Today programme have in common? One is a security-slanketted talkfest in a remote mountain resort while the other contents itself with setting the domestic agenda in the UK. Both aim to gather leaders to talk and in both cases the number [...]

A few days ago a young domestic violence victim showed me a picture of the man who beat her. He is advertising on an online dating website where he is described as “family friendly” by an online psychological assessment tool. This was a chilling sight and highlighted the need to challenge the anonymity enjoyed by [...]

The demonisation of young women is contributing to the failure to secure more convictions of suspected rapists, one of the country’s leading prosecutors warns on Monday. Some victims are deterred from coming forward because they fear they will be vilified, says Alison Saunders, the head of the Crown Prosecution Service in London. In an interview [...]

When you look in the mirror, how good do you feel? Monday sees a Commons hearing that some will mock as a waste of time, but that millions of women, and many men, ought to applaud. It’s the all-party group on body confidence, and it will be interviewing witnesses from the media and advertising industries. [...]

Recently, I discovered my name on a blogger’s list of “100 interesting atheists in Britain – who aren’t old, white, privileged straight men”. Nice as this was, I’m a Christian, so I felt like a rabid carnivore finding herself on a list of vegetarians. It got me thinking. Why do people assume any woman who [...]

Illustration: David Foldvari I’m well aware that saying: “As we saw on Celebrity Big Brother the other night…” is about as likely to elicit a nod of recognition from this newspaper’s smarty-pants readers as opening with: “As I was saying to my mate the Lib Dem unicorn the other night.” None of us admits to [...]

As an icy wind blows in from the east, the grip of a good horror story is tightening its hold on many of Britain’s leading literary talents. Terrifying new novels from outspoken author Jeanette Winterson and from the acclaimed novelist and children’s writer Helen Dunmore are at the head of a blast of chilling fiction [...]

The author and psychotherapist Susie Orbach wrote recently that she thinks slimming clubs give women unrealistic expectations about weight loss. Speaking at a parliamentary inquiry on body image, Orbach said that slimming clubs lock women in “straitjackets for the rest of their lives”. This pronouncement is utterly wrong. I should know, because I was fat, [...]

Next week the Athena Film Festival will open at Barnard College in New York. The showcase, which commences on 9 February and is in its second year, is aimed at celebrating women film-makers and rewarding their art and successes. It will consist of screenings, awards and the usual parties, but with a feminist slant. Among [...]

Going up Pretty puddings Knickerbocker glories in the new Vuitton campaign, ice-cream cones in the Mulberry ads. Forget champagne, babies, lapdogs: dessert is the new It accessory Conversational prints Victoria Beckham’s cat-print dress hasn’t hit stores yet and already it has an army of high-street followers. Our favourite piece of the new-season fashion lexicon so far [...]

Don’t be misled by the gold sequins. This column is not about fashion. What happens, clothes-wise, from the collarbone up – the part of your outfit you can see in an old-fashioned passport-size photo – changes the tone of your look in a way that has nothing to do with seasonal trends. You don’t even [...]

Tyese’s message to women, on NecoleBitchie.com: ‘You’re going to “independent” your way to loneliness.’ Video: YouTube Twenty years ago, just after college, I attended a birthday party for a friend. In the kitchen, standing round the drinks, a handsome guy chatted me up: “So, do you have a boyfriend?” He asked. “No,” I replied. “Oh, [...]

If you attended the opening address by Angela Merkel or the private dinner in which Nobel laureate Leymah Gbowee held a group of financiers in thrall with her life story, you might think that fabulous, powerful women dominate Davos. But the fact is, Davos has a woman problem. The first day, which included honours for [...]

Just when you thought it was safe to go out, the right wing of the Conservative party have resurrected their fact-free campaign about abortion counselling. It is important to stress that there are already full guidelines on abortion counselling from the British Medical Association and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. The Royal College [...]

Labour MP Diane Abbott has walked out of an all-party group convened to discuss the rules on abortion counselling, claiming it is no more than a front to push forward a anti-abortion agenda without debate in parliament. Abbott says she joined the group in good faith to discuss the issue of the independence of those [...]

You could say Chuck Klosterman “mansplained” Tune-Yards on Wednesday, when he wrote in Grantland about her second album, Whokill, topping the Village Voice’s annual Pazz and Jop poll of pop writers. Mansplaining is the phenomenon of a man explaining a subject to a woman, despite her being the one with the relevant knowlege and experience. [...]

“Women taken seriously shock!” No, not a headline from this week, but a response to the four women who spoke at the Leveson inquiry about how the media portrays us. Anna van Heeswijk (from Object), Jacqui Hunt (Equality Now), Heather Harvey (the rape charity Eaves) and Marai Larasi (End Violence Against Women) made their case [...]

The broadcasting minister, Ed Vaizey, has undertaken to set up a meeting between Nadine Dorries and BBC director general Mark Thompson to discuss the under-representation of women at the corporation, both on and off air. Vaizey told the Oxford Media Convention on Wednesday that he was willing to broker a meeting between Dorries, the Conservative [...]

Culture minister Ed Vaizey has criticised the BBC for the lack of women on its flagship radio programme Today, backing the Guardian’s campaign to bring about change. In a House of Commons debate, he cited research carried out by the Guardian which showed that the number of women averaged just 17% of guests and reporters [...]

To register for this week’s World Economic Forum in Davos, delegates had to fill in a profile page that is preset with the silhouette of a shadowy man. A year after imposing a quota on the biggest companies to encourage more women to attend, the image still fits the gender profile of more than 80% [...]

The latest ICM poll is good news for the blues. David Cameron enjoys a five-point lead over Labour at a time when it should be miles ahead, opposing a coalition government that has to make drastic spending cuts and keep our heads above water as Europe threatens financial implosion. Faced with these conditions, Mr (red [...]

Lord Justice Leveson is charged with looking at the ethics, standards and practices of the British media. There has been much commentary on the vexed question of privacy versus freedom of the press. I gave evidence to the inquiry today arguing that if Leveson’s recommendations are truly to address ethics and standards in our press [...]

When Lord Justice Leveson launched his inquiry into the ethics of the press, he may not have expected to be confronted with an enlarged photograph of near-naked bottoms. Or to be presented with evidence deemed so explicit it was censored before being circulated to other witnesses. But on Tuesday a coalition of women’s groups argued [...]

Rick Santorum would encourage one of his daughters to see a pregnancy created through rape as “a gift of human life” and urge her to not consider an abortion, the socially ultra-conservative Republican presidential candidate has explained. In an interview with CNN’s Piers Morgan show, the former Pennsylvania senator was asked at length about his [...]

The Church of England’s House of Bishops – for which, read the archbishops of Canterbury and York – has explained how they hope to mollify the opponents of female clergy. The proposals are breathtaking. The archbishops envisage that the Church of England, once it has female bishops, will continue ordaining men who do not accept [...]

Over the weekend we reported that two undercover police officers had secretly fathered children with political activists they had been sent to spy on and later disappeared completely from the lives of their offspring. One of the officers was Bob Lambert who infiltrated animal rights and environmental campaigns in the 1980s, the other was not [...]

‘Can you touch-type?” It’s a simple question, but when I ask around, I am struck by how many women say they taught themselves in secret. Some former grammar-school girls over 35 have even told me that they were told not to learn at all – they were supposed to become executives with secretaries. The teaching [...]

The Women’s Budget Group (WBG), a thinktank of academic economists and other policy specialists that assesses the gender impact of government policy, has urged members of the House of Lords to support amendments being moved on Monday evening to prevent the government’s welfare reform bill having yet another unwelcome impact on women’s financial independence. Under [...]