Opinion

"While it is saddening that their work is necessary, Women’s Street Watch has become a way for women to seize control against a tide of news that they often feel they are helplessly swimming against."

When I was asked to write this piece I initially refused. I refused because now, five years since my first Gender Identity Clinic (GIC)...

My main concern now is, if exams are going to be in-person, how are they going to support us? The faculty has promised that we will have adequate time and means of preparing for our finals that are now in a different format to the one we have prepared for entire two years we have spent at Oxford. Is this task going to fall on individual tutors at each college? If so, not only is this extra work for them, but students may receive different levels of support and exam practice depending on their college. 

Zara Arif explores whether Oxford students should continue to wear sub-fusc following a year of online exams.

The Oxford Word of the Year award, run by Oxford Languages, is intended to be a word that ‘reflects the ethos, mood, or preoccupations of that particular year and to have lasting potential as a word of cultural significance’. It is decided through various means, including individual social media suggestions, and high-tech software which scans millions of words from online publications over the past twelve months.

Rashford understands how tough life can be for people, while Boris seems to think it’s a bit like classical music -- he’s sure it’s all worthy of attention and so on, but just pretends to be interested in it so he doesn’t look bad in front of his dinner party guests.

Jo Cox’s murder in Leeds in June 2016 shocked the nation.  For the first time in since the 1990, when Ian Gow was killed by the IRA, a sitting British MP was brutally murdered for doing their job.  There were 26 years between those two tragic incidents, and now British politics is left facing a second deadly attack in five years.  But what steps can we possibly take to ensure that this violence ends?

Imagine working reduced hours over a four-day week and having a three day weekend, every week.   It seems like a radical idea, one that is...

My views here may be shaded by the fact that sailing events are generally mixed-gender, and women regularly out-compete men, especially at the university level. The SCEG suggests that trans women should be excluded from any sport they legally can be, by assuming that they hold some unfair physical advantage. The policy is overbroad and lacks nuance. The guidance does make one point I do agree with, that a "one-size-fits-all" approach is folly, and the only people that can really make this judgment are specific sporting bodies themselves. It would be a mistake, in my view, to rob trans women of the incredible adventure of competitive sport because of an assumption of advantage. Women's sports are not overrun with trans women; in fact, trans athletes are underrepresented in sport at all levels.

"The solution cannot be simply equality. It must be the dissolution of gender as we know it."

"Germans can expect that with Olaf Scholz ahead and a Green Party that despite its setbacks has never been so strong, they will have a government and a parliament that is more than ever preoccupied with climate change, and which will undoubtedly trigger important changes in German industry."

"Covid is ripping apart public confidence in institutions globally: at least in Canada, we tell ourselves, we still get to speak our conscience. But what if my conscience tells me that these institutions need to be rebuilt from the ground up?"

From Albert Einstein to Anthony Hopkins, autistic people have doubtless achieved many amazing things. But we should not oppose those who seek to eradicate or cure autism because of the successes of notable autistic individuals, but because autistic people are people too. Our lives are important and worthwhile no matter what we may or may not achieve. Support for autistic people should not be predicated on exceptionalism, but on humanity.

These realities are of course hidden by DSEI, who present a highly refined image of respectability – showing off and promoting their killing machines in pretty packages and their exhibitors clothed in Savile Row suits and loathsome smiles. This is taken to extremes in the form of the 2019 DSEI highlights video, which rolls slickly on like some sick, grotesque Hollywood movie or video game trailer, eroticising and glorifying the violent implements of war and torture, and entirely camouflaging their lethal reality.

The dire mismanagement of the crisis by populist-led governments has temporarily exposed the delusion of the populist promise, driving the people towards more conventional politics. However, populists in opposition are and can expect to continue seeing a surge of support, with the pandemic providing the ideal environment for them to exploit.

"If we conceive of the self as digitally contingent and cybernetically oriented, virtual hazards become existential ones."

The national team celebrated diversity, embraced difference, and spoke up for those facing oppression. But this fails to map onto society at large. They showed what Englishness and our idea of the nation could be, but not what it is. The ideal of England offered throughout this tournament was just that: an ideal, far removed from reality.

"What is certain is that, as we emerge into a changed world, with different perspectives, motives and desires, we must remember that lockdowns and pandemic restrictions have this other, less visible, less reported-on cost."

“The only solution to assuage the refugee crisis and bestow hope and justice to Syrians is a long-term political peace settlement in Syria, where people are once more able to regain the ability to live.”

"The dichotomy encapsulated by the situation in Qatar is embedded in football around the world: the flashy wealth and fame of football are built on abuse and suffering. Profit is increased at the cost of human lives." Ciara Garcha analyses football's issues with dirty money.