The Guardian

Sainsbury’s, Barclays and University College London have all drawn on themes created by IWD site run by London business with no link to UN Nobody owns International Women’s Day , but if you asked the 193 countries, countless businesses and NGOs that mark it each year, they would probably agree it has been popularised, defined and formalised by the United Nations . The owner of the website “intern…

Across the world, incarcerated pregnant women are often held in deplorable conditions, leading some to miscarry or give birth alone inside a cell, say campaigners Read more in our Women in prison series Dina Hernández was 35 weeks pregnant when she was arrested near her home in San Salvador in March 2024. The 28-year-old human rights activist, who was with her five-year-old son, was accused of “ …

In the 50 years since equal rights for women were enshrined in UK law, the campaigners have been reduced to caricatures, or forgotten. But their struggle is worth remembering Celia Brayfield was at her desk in the Femail section of the Daily Mail’s Fleet Street office when an editor called her over. It was July and Wimbledon had started. “He said: ‘We want you to go down and get into the women’s …

Clothes can be tricky presents to pick, but follow my simple rules and you’ll have your shopping all wrapped up Once upon a time, Christmas shopping meant grabbing the newest album release or an old-favourite DVD box set, wrapping it in glitter paper, depositing it under the tree and putting your feet up with a highlighter pen to annotate the Radio Times. Now that music and film lives in the clou…

Each week for the rest of December we will publish some of our favourite audio long reads of 2025, in case you missed them, with an introduction from the editorial team to explain why we’ve chosen it. From July: the Victorians called it ‘pernicious vomiting of pregnancy’, but modern medicine has offered no end to the torture of hyperemesis gravidarum – until now By Abi Stephenson. Read by Nicolet…

A year-long investigation into the Free Birth Society reveals how mothers lost children after being radicalised by uplifting podcast tales of births without midwives or doctors. Lucy Hough talks to the investigative correspondent Lucy Osborne about her reporting – watch on YouTube Continue reading...

Women are trailblazing efforts in the UK and US to improve sustainability on film and TV sets, from donating catering and rehoming props to reducing emissions It’s two days before Thanksgiving and Hillary Cohen and Samantha Luu are trying to figure out how they’re going to cook 120 turkeys with limited oven space in their food warehouse in downtown LA. “We’re going to have to do a bit of spatchco…

Actor questions why male ‘method actors’ are held in such high regard, whereas female actors are just seen as ‘crazy’ Kristen Stewart has claimed that acting is “unmasculine” and “inherently submissive”, and that male actors developed “the method” to compensate. In an interview with the New York Times , Stewart was asked about Marlon Brando’s performance in the 1978 film Superman, and after sayin…

Statistical analysis will track how many babies and mothers suffer harm so problems can be addressed urgently A new warning system designed to stop babies and mothers suffering preventable deaths or injuries is being rolled out by NHS England. The first-of-its-kind safety system will constantly track how many babies and mothers die and are seriously harmed at every NHS maternity ward in England. …

The right has found a new pitch for young women: conservatives are better-looking Forget expensive moisturizers or designer clothes. Ladies, if you want a quick and easy glow-up, you may want to try Republicanism . This one weird trick of voting against your own reproductive rights will instantly make you 10 times hotter. Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Amid all the fairy lights and tinsel, an understated getup can look a bit curmudgeonly – you need to add some fashion sparkle Christmas has begun. Don’t come for me with your pedantry about partridges and pear trees. The lights are lit, the turkey sandwiches are in Pret: ’tis the season, already. For the next few weeks we will be in a bubble that has its own festive rules. This is an alternate un…

In her portraits from an overcrowded Venezuelan detention centre, Ana María Arévalo Gosen captures the frustration of women desperate for news from their lawyers and families This photograph was taken inside the Poli-Valencia detention centre, where I began to understand what imprisonment means for women in Venezuela. The room had once been an investigation office, converted into a cell after aut…

Incarceration should be a last resort, yet this broken and brutal system punishes marginalised women, most of whom are inside for non-violent crimes ‘When you imprison a woman, you imprison a family,” a young woman in Sierra Leone told me, cradling her small baby in a damp cell. My mind flashed back to being a teenager, hearing my mother sob after receiving a phone call to say that my father had …

The point is not to reiterate gender stereotypes, write Emily J Hogg, Dr Charlotte J Fabricius and Dr Ida Aaskov Dolmer, but to make visible the ways that contemporary capitalism exploits our ideas about gender As researchers working on the topic of feminised work, it is dismaying to see the anti-feminist definition of that term – advanced by conservative thinkers like Helen Andrews – gaining tra…

These fleeting human interactions are an antidote to loneliness in an increasingly online world On a work trip to Melbourne, I detoured into the city to get fitted for a bra. A friend had shared that it was an experience all women should have because, regardless of age and body type, a supportive bra is always worthwhile; as is the firm yet kind guidance of a professional fitter who has seen it a…