Wednesday 25th June 2025
Blog Page 179

OxWIB apologises for event “dictated” by external group

Cherwell News
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OxWIB apologises for event “dictated” by external group

The Oxford Women In Business society (OxWIB) has issued a statement after hosting a “Women in Media” event, which included an interview between The W magazine global editor-in-chief, Phadria Prendergast, and Pastor Tobi Adegboyega, known for his leadership of the SPAC Nation church.

OxWIB claims in a statement posted on Instagram that an “external group filmed and set up the event”. Cherwell understands this group was The W magazine. OxWIB added that they believe the purpose of this external group was to “platform their own media team and speaker” and that OxWIB “did not invite the final speaker [Pastor Tobi]” nor “know of his identity while he was speaking”. The W magazine denies wrongdoing, claiming that “[e]verything we did was approved by Oxford Women in Business”.

The event was presented by The W magazine and OxWIB to provide networking opportunities. Prendergast presided over panels alongside an OxWIB vice-president with participants from Forbes, Vogue Business, Chatham House and Essence. According to The W, “Ms. Prendergast is a revered journalist working with some of the world’s leading brands. The intention for this event was for Phadria to provide opportunities, which it did”. Prendergast has also previously led the Women of the City magazine, which has been accused of offering grants “that come with a catch”. 

OxWIB told Cherwell that they had been “under the impression [Prendergast] would be on the panel rather than the moderator”, but that “[f]ive minutes before the event, plans to change the format were dictated by [Prendergast], and she decided how the questions would be asked”. The W magazine refutes these claims, however, stating to Cherwell that “from the very beginning stages of organising the event alongside OxWIB”, it was always intended “that Ms Phadria Prendergast would co-host the panel, as it was a collaborative event”.

OxWIB argues that they had to accept the changed format because the event had already been delayed by the arrival of an “extensive media team”, brought in without OxWIB’s consent, and they did not want to delay the event further. However, The W claims that during a Zoom meeting two days earlier, they and OxWIB had “discussed and confirmed that we would be bringing our media team as we had speakers joining us online, as well as in person”. The W also added that “OxWIB was very happy [with the large media presence] as they didn’t have the media equipment to accommodate this style of event”.

As the event drew to a close, Prendergast announced a final panel consisting of a one-on-one interview between her and a special guest. She then invited Tobi Adegboyega on stage. 

Adegboyega, widely known as “Pastor Tobi”, founded Salvation Proclaimers Anointed Church or “SPAC Nation”. He has since faced allegations of misconduct following the government’s decision to shut down the church over allegations of fraud. He was also a key figure in the BBC Panorama special, “Conned by my Church”. 

Listed on the OxWIB programme only as “PT”, Adegboyega’s attendance of the event and unique one-on-one interview came as a surprise. During the interview, Adegboyega criticised the BBC’s coverage of the SPAC Nation church and rebutted allegations that had previously been made against him.

OxWIB told Cherwell that they “only realised Mr Adegboyeda would be speaking when he got up on stage”, as he “was not properly introduced at the event nor was his name on the itinerary”. They also claim he was not included on the finalised list of speakers approved by OxWIB. 

However, The W magazine argues that Adegboyega’s attendance had been discussed on the 3rd May Zoom meeting with OxWIB. At this time it was “confirm[ed] that he would be part of the programme”. According to The W, “OxWIB had only managed 15 registrations” by then, so it was agreed The W could “invite up to 20 external guests including the speakers”. The W told Cherwell that three of the speakers at the event “were not ‘pre-approved’ by OxWIB, however [OxWIB did] not seem to have any issues with their participation”.

OxWIB claims that “we believe we were deliberately misled into thinking that this would be an ordinary event, when in fact the intent behind it was to platform Mr. Adegboyega and provide further legitimacy for the W Magazine. We are appalled to have been used in such a way.”

The W magazine defends their choice of including Adegboyega in the Women in Media panel, arguing “Mr Adegboyega, a media matriarch[sic], was asked to be an addition to the panel because he is well versed and experienced in handling the media”. The W magazine touts the success of the event and this interview, claiming Adegboyega’s “story on the day inspired and caused not only for many of the students revered journalists who attended to approach him for further questions and photos [sic]”. 

After the interviews and panels concluded, guests stayed around to talk with the speakers “asking for advice and exchanging contact details”, according to The W magazine. Due to concerns about “the sharing of personal information” between attendees and representatives of The W during the subsequent networking event, OxWIB have spoken to the police for advice. They told Cherwell they are also in the process of reporting the incident to the Action Fraud Police and intend to approach Trading Standards.

The W magazine told Cherwell “[t]here was no guest list and on the day no one took note of attendees via OxWIB, therefore The W created a guest list on the day of every attendee on arrival whilst they received goody bags”.

OxWIB are advising anyone who attended the event to email [email protected], urging attendees “not to engage with anyone you gave contact information to at the event”.

OxWIB told Cherwell: “[W]e have a duty of care to our members to ensure that any personal information given out at the networking session does not put them at risk. We agree that we should be scrutinised for how this event was run and for the way we respond to it. But we also believe that media attention should be on the activities of The W magazine, Ms. Prendergast, and Mr. Adegboyega, which we entirely condemn as a society and would never have wished to promote.”

The W magazine maintains that they acted with OxWIB’s approval and that proof of this correspondence with OxWIB is to follow.

‘Women, Scorned’: Exploring Feminine Rage in Art

Kelsey Moriarty
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‘Women, Scorned’: Exploring Feminine Rage in Art


Feminine rage is all the rage. It’s everywhere. Following Anya Taylor-Joy’s declaration that she has ‘a thing for feminine rage’, there has been growing popular realisation that the expression of it is both beautiful and necessary. Its increasing visibility suggests that society is more receptive to the celebration of female anger. Throughout history, representations of feminine rage have tended to take a more passive route in its portrayal. Women are constantly expected to be so many conflicting things — innocent yet sexual, angry yet dignified. Feminine rage allows us to ask: what happens when women focus these two polarised states of feeling into one of pure, unbridled rage?

One of the earliest and most iconic artists to answer this question is Artemisia Gentileschi. It’s a continuing theme in her work, but Judith and Holofernes is indisputably the most famous. It depicts feminine rage in a way that was highly unusual for the time. Previous depictions of the murder of Holofernes presented Judith as oxymoronically sexual and innocent; Gentileschi was far more willing to explore the idea of Judith as the aggressor rather than a passive figure. Judith’s furrowed brow and tight grip banish notions of reluctance in the eyes of the viewer. The strong diagonal emphasis of the painting, as well as the use of light, pull the viewer’s eyes towards the figures of Judith and Holofernes’ neck. This works quite well — pushing women into the foreground with such intense focus really forces you to take in the brutality of the act. It’s perversely spectacular, and done so well that centuries later, you also feel Judith’ righteous rage. Her reconstitutive approach to a classical religious narrative, challenging contemporary reproductions, makes space for a visceral interpretation of feminine rage.

A different take on feminine rage is offered by Dante Gabriel Rossetti in the nineteenth century. His 1862 pen and wash drawing of his sister, famous poet Christina Rossetti, depicts feminine rage as normal and human. The drawing was created to alleviate and poke fun at her worries about reading reviews of her poetry collection. It depicts her in a state of delightfully destructive rage, breaking windows and toppling tables. Her impact on the scene is quite commendable, creating a strangely romantic notion of women as whirlwinds of anger. Christina is depicted in motion, clearly experiencing overwhelming feeling. The chaotic composition and hurried pen marks are indicative of immediate rage and destructive tendencies. Whilst this should create a sense of urgency, the viewer is met with comedic contrast — the scale of the drawing reminds you that this outburst is not as consuming as the central figure believes. To put yourself in Christina Rossetti’s shoes (although few would dare!) is to feel humoured and reassured looking at this drawing. Gabriel has alluded to the creation of this feeling with an inscription on the left reading ‘Miss Rossetti can point to work which could not easily be mended’, from a Times review of her work. Christina often poked fun at her temper, and this sketch by her brother echoes that and offers a portrayal of feminine rage as natural and human, even if unwarranted.

In search of an ostensibly more modern work, Piplotti Rist’s Ever is Over All (1997) is the natural answer. It combines the visceral nature of Gentileschi’s work with the human element of Rossetti’s — it is unsurprising it holds up so strongly. Through the compelling medium of the large-scale video installation, Rist’s work is made to have an immersive and engulfing feel. On one screen is a field of flowers. On the other, a young woman walks down the street in red heels and is quickly given over to violent impulses and begins smashing car windows whilst accompanied by serene music. Shot in a single take with a camera of rather questionable quality, it emphasises the spontaneity and suddenness with with rage can overcome us, as well as suggesting that rage within women is always close to the surface. The music in the background, combined with the blue tint of the video, has a hypnotic effect designed to portray feminine rage in a surreal and ever-present way. As we continue to navigate the complexities of gender and power today, Rist’s timeless approach is a good one. The constancy of feminine rage has been fascinating artists for centuries. In a world that seeks to suppress it, it is truly commendable that feminine rage continues to be such a powerful artistic force.

Why an AI pause would be detrimental to humanity

Alexander Elliott
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Why an AI pause would be detrimental to humanity

Imagine you had a pet parrot. One day, you heard it say “kill all humans”. Obviously, it doesn’t actually want to kill all humans; it can’t even understand what the phrase means. It’s just regurgitating what has been heard from elsewhere, perhaps from a TV programme in the background.

An AI saying it wants to “kill all humans” is the same thing, albeit on a grander scale. It takes what has been fed into it, identifies the patterns and words, and spits out what is asked of it by humans. I would posit that AI poses as much a threat to human life as a parrot (perhaps even less, given it doesn’t have a beak).

Nonetheless, countless reasons have been given for halting AI development, culminating in the recent petition to “pause” development for six months. Predictably, it views ever-evolving human ingenuity as a fundamentally bad thing. The irony of the petitioners saying AI “could represent a profound change in the history of life on Earth” on the internet (which, to my knowledge, is not a naturally occurring phenomenon) is not lost on me.

Yes, “profound change” to history included such tragedies as world wars, famines, diseases, and nuclear weapons. But it also included the internet, penicillin, vaccines, modern agricultural methods, and countless other excellent inventions. Why can’t AI join the gallery of human progress? The petition argues that we cannot “understand, predict, or reliably control” AI. Firstly, how is pausing AI development going to help with this? Typically, understanding something requires more testing, not less. Secondly, if we limited ourselves to what we could predict, humanity would have gone nowhere. Alexander Fleming could never have predicted that leaving a petri dish out would lead to penicillin. Orville and Wilbur Wright could not have predicted their invention would have led to cross-Atlantic flights. Should we have paused Jonas Salk’s research until we were sure that “[its] effects [would] be positive and [its] risks [would] be manageable”?

Moving on to the claim about jobs. I am always sceptical when technology is decried on the grounds of “taking away jobs”. Of course, I could pay hundreds of people to comb through encyclopaedias until I find what I’m looking for; or I could use Google. I could pay someone on the street to go down to Greenwich and adjust my clock based on theirs, or I could use a more accurate wristwatch. The economic process of creative destruction has made us richer and happier, and indeed helped the environment. I’m sure no one reading this article yearns for the days before the lightbulb when whaling for lamp oil was necessary. The question “Should we automate away all the jobs, including the fulfilling ones?” ignores the huge number of industries which have gone bust because better alternatives were found. I, for one, am glad that I don’t have to use horse riders to deliver mail to my parents, even if it did employ more people than the current postal system. Perhaps AI will cause a similar adjustment to employment; that’s no reason to pause development. Quite the opposite, actually – why should consumers be forced to pay for a more inefficient way of doing things? New industries can and do pop up when old ones fall; whalers were replaced by lightbulb manufacturers, horse riders by telegraph operators. Consider how fast industries related to computing have sprung up. Are we really to believe that no new jobs whatsoever will be created thanks to AI?

The petition also claims that AI will lead to “propaganda and untruth” flooding social media. Firstly, AI will only have as much power as we choose to give it. ChatGPT cannot access sites like Twitter and Facebook without its creators giving it access to a vast network of accounts. Therefore, the only threat of AI comes from nefarious actors willing to give their AI a platform on social media. This brings me to my second point, which is that any pause to AI will not be heeded by bad actors. States like North Korea and Russia, intent on spreading discord within enemy states, are not going to listen to any pause. As Margaret Thatcher pointed out with nuclear weapons, what has been invented cannot be disinvented (of course, with the caveat that an ideal world would not contain nuclear weapons, a claim which does not hold with AI). No matter what, now that AI has been invented, it is in the hands of those who wish to do harm with it. Rather than slow down, the only logical course of action is to speed up, using AI for such actions as detecting this nefarious content. A pause will not benefit anyone but bad actors in this regard. 

On a final note, Business Insider reported that Latitude, a much more basic AI model, pays $100,000 a month to run its servers. Given that the new Russian minimum wage is 19,242 roubles per month, Russia could afford to hire a troll farm of 423 people for the price of running an AI disinformation programme, not including development costs. 

Predictably, the petition decries the “out-of-control” race to develop new AI. This completely ignores how products that we use today were created. The mobile phone was famously a competition between two companies; the first call was made to inform competitors that they had lost the race. Smartphone builders did not collaborate with each other to create the first touchscreen phones. It is only through competition that products improve. It’s ironic that the signatories of the petition include Elon Musk, a man who owes his entire career to competition in a free market economy.

The Future of Life Institute is not improving the future of life with this petition; quite the opposite. It scaremongers about “losing control of civilisation”, as if anyone has seriously suggested giving AI the right to vote or run for office. Even if you still disagree that AI will be good for humanity, the fact is that the cat is out of the bag. No number of pauses, regulations, and bans will stop bad actors from using the technology. Unilaterally disarming ourselves is irrational. I don’t claim to know how AI will progress over the years any more than Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot could predict how cars would progress. Let’s allow it to develop to its potential, rather than shutting ourselves off from a better tomorrowrow.

Image Credit: David S. Soriano//CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Let down?

Kelsey Monteith
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Let down?

Apparently, as a finalist, I should expect to leave Oxford with either a Blue, a spouse, or a First, and yet I won’t even be leaving having experienced the full three years of my degree. I have Covid to thank for that. 

I came to Oxford with few expectations, not thinking that I would go to university at all, but there is something about coming back for the final term of my degree, and talking to second and first years about their radically different experiences, that makes me realise how different my time at Oxford has been.    

I’ll start at the beginning. Freshers week – a chance for people to socialise, meet new people, and have fun. But this is harder than it seems when the only way that you can talk to people is at a ‘speed dating’ event with masks, two-meter social distancing, and the voices of twenty other people drowning you out. Or when you’re sat outside in October separated into neat, socially distanced, household bubbles by colourful bunting. Instead of being able to make friends, lose them, and create my own social circle, I found myself assigned to a household bubble of four of my course mates. Throughout first year, attending societies, bars, and clubs was impossible, and even lunch breaks and shopping trips were complicated – a sharp contrast to the buzz of social activity on the streets of Oxford today. Now don’t get me wrong – I loved my flatmates, and I still do, but there were many times when I felt isolated and disconnected, and I often reflect on how different my university experience would have been if I was allowed to meet people outside of my subject and college. And although Covid may have been forgotten, or banished to the past, this social legacy has continued to haunt me. I not only felt the traditional imposter syndrome that so many of us at this university do, but a social imposter syndrome, where the Covid friendship groups formed in first year seemed impossible to break. 

My academic experience has also suffered. The intimate and personal teaching environment of Oxford is something that makes this university distinct, and yet there is something about watching pre-recorded lectures in your room, and not having an in-person tute until second year that really flattens these experiences. First and second years often take these personal academic interactions for granted, or even dread them, but Covid made me realise how hard it is to care about your degree when you can mute yourself, turn off your camera, or have ‘internet problems’ and go on your phone in tutorials. I was also denied the opportunity to engage with my lecturers and tutors, some of the most world-renowned experts in topics which interested me, and I  feel as though this led me to often resent, and not appreciate and love my course. 

Despite this, I’m going to end on a positive note. I may not have a Blue, or a spouse, and I’m doubtful about getting a First, and I may be slightly bitter about the fun, socially packed lives that I have watched first and second years live. But that doesn’t mean that I haven’t enjoyed my time here. I have made lifelong friends, joined a society, explored the city, and attended academic events. I believe that it is important not to dwell of what could have been, but to look back and appreciate the happy moments that have happened. It’s the small things that make your university experience what it is, and I wouldn’t give up those moments for the world.

Image Credit: Daniel Foster/ CC BY-NC 2.0 via Flickr

The annual token black Love Island contestant

Nyat Aron-Yohannes
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The annual token black Love Island contestant

Winter Love Island has come to a close, and as we draw near to the summer season of Love Island, many black viewers are filled with apprehension, waiting to see who will be the next token black woman on our screens. It’s fair to say that black female contestants have not had the best time on the dating show.

Year after year, the black woman faces an intolerable amount of rejection. Every season’s first episode starts with the contestants picking who they would like to couple up with based on appearance. Samira, the first black female contestant, was picked last. A year later, Yewande was also picked last, followed by Leanne. Then Kaz was picked last, and this year’s love island saw the same trend continue. When Tanya made her debut as the newest token black girl, only one male contestant stepped forward to couple up with her –Shaq, the only black male contestant. The others not stepping forward promoted a narrative that the show has been promoting for years; black women are not desirable, and if they are desired, it’s only by black men.

We watched Samira get rejected by every guy she was interested in for the first four weeks. Then, when she finally coupled up with Frankie, we thought she found her match. Later episodes revealed that he preferred her white castmate, Megan, more. Indiyah seemed like the first black woman not to struggle to couple up in the villa. There was Ikenna, Dami, Deji, and Samuel, but this just displays the other side of the conversation. If the black woman is wanted, it is only by black men. Not once did the likes of Jacques or Luka show interest in Indiyah, and let us not forget that Davide referred to her as a “downgrade”. These episodes of implicit and explicit discrimination mirror dating life for black women. A study conducted on dating preferences on the dating site ‘OKCupid’ found that black women and Asian men have the hardest time matching on dating apps.

It’s painful to watch, especially when there is half a decade’s worth of televised mistreatment towards people who look like you.

Diversity is different from inclusion. Diversity involves having people from various backgrounds, whilst inclusion ensures that everyone feels welcomed and valued no matter their differences. Love Island may have a diverse set of contestants, but they fail to ensure that all the contestants will be able to find actual suitors. This encapsulates the entire issue with tokenism. To put it simply, tokenism is when the conversation starts and ends with “we need more BLANK people here”. It is a step in the right direction to acknowledge that there is a diversity issue, but the conversation must be extended further. It is not enough to meet a quota; we need to discuss how to accommodate the entrance of people from different backgrounds.

Love Island is not the first to practice tokenism, with other institutions like our university being culprits of the same practice. Have you ever seen a university post where the ethnic minority takes centre stage? It can appear disingenuous. Ultimately, it causes adverse effects for the token individual, like the feeling of isolation and being forced to deal with immense pressure. As we are edging towards our 10th season of Love Island, I hope this time will be different. And to my black women, we love you.

Image Credit: Bermuda/ CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 Via Flickr

“Being delusional is the best form of therapy”: In conversation with Mia Khalifa

Deborah Ogunnoiki
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“Being delusional is the best form of therapy”: In conversation with Mia Khalifa
Mia Khalifa at the Oxford Union

At 17:35 on May 3rd, I received an email from the Oxford Union Press that in about 2 hours I would be interviewing Mia Khalifa before her speech at the Union that evening. I paused mid-essay, suddenly struck by the fact that I had no questions prepared and was about to meet one of the most infamous, and most stylish as we all saw at her speech, women in the world. As I scrambled for questions, I realised that the image of Mia, the questions that people may expect me to ask is related to a past that doesn’t really represent Mia for who she really is. Woman to woman, I wanted to know Mia Khalifa, whose real name is Sarah Joe, for who she is now, as a person, a human being, a woman, and a person of colour. 

Entering the room at 19:55 pm I greet Mia who is all smiles. She’s shorter than I thought she would be but much kinder. I tell her she looks amazing and she compliments my eyeshadow. While we bond over our love of Fenty I realise Mia truly is a girl’s girl. She’s the kind of girl that gets on better with other girls, a quality that I think is the greenest flag to spot in any girl. 

We finally manage to settle down and I ask her what it was like growing up as a Lebanese girl, and how that influenced or affected her relationship with feminism. She told me “It’s really difficult to grow up Catholic and Middle Eastern because I feel like there’s a lot of just inherent misogyny, inherent roles that get assigned to, like, daughters get treated so much differently than sons, which I feel like can be related to in so many other cultures, not just Lebanese culture. It’s very much that in the Middle East. The man is the provider. The woman is the supporter, that kind of mindset. So my outlook on feminism growing up was what I was taught around me, which is why I feel like I had so much internalised misogyny. It took me a while to grow out of that, but I don’t think it positively skewed my view on feminism.” We bond over our experiences as women of colour. “I’m Nigerian,” I tell her, and we agree on how our cultures influence our views on how we should act as women and how we are perceived.

But our cultures also look down heavily on sex work and the adult entertainment industry, despite the hypocrisy in that men still see us women as sexual objects. I ask Mia how she relates or reacts, given her experience in the industry, to the increasing number of women getting involved in sex work, whether stripping or OnlyFans, and citing feminism and empowerment as their reason for it. Her answer is firm, speaking from her own experience in the industry, she answers, “I do not think it’s an act of empowerment, I think it’s actually very dangerous to push that rhetoric. I think that it should never be a first option or something that’s packaged as empowering or freeing or anything like that. I think that’s very dangerous, and it’s borderline grooming. I think there are empowering ways to do it once you’re in if there are no other options for you, but I would never promote it as something simply empowering. Don’t do it if you’re looking to do something empowering.”

In November of Michaelmas Term 2022, the Union was visited by another personality who opened an OnlyFans account in 2021 just a few days after her 18th birthday, and allegedly earned over $1 million in revenue in the first six hours, and an alleged total of over $50 million. Facts like this put into perspective what Mia is saying in regard to grooming. In her talk in the Union, she elaborated on this, stating that the narrative that OnlyFans and being a sugar baby and other forms of sex work are being pushed to you young women as safe and easy ways to make money and express themselves, yet this is not the case. Mia maintained that it was “absolutely grooming”, and expressed a wish that young women would not turn to sex work unless they really had to for fear that that digital footprint would follow them for most of their lives. 

Speaking of a digital footprint, it was time to ask Mia about what she was most well-known for. In all honesty, I did not want to ask this question. Despite being curious myself, I knew too well what she had gone through at that time, and to ask her to relive that experience felt wrong. Yet, I ask, “You’ve been criticised by men for daring to have a sexuality and by women for supposedly misrepresenting them, for example, the hijab video. As a woman and as a person of colour as well, how do you react to the backlash from your history in the adult entertainment industry?”. Mia says “I don’t really get let it get to me too much. I know that I’m not the one who invented the fetishization of the hijab or of the Muslim culture or anything like that. In fact, it was straight white men who wrote the scene.” What Mia is referring to is Orientalism, a term established by 20th-century Palestinian philosopher Edward Said. The term criticises the West’s derisive depiction of The East. The over-sexualisation of Arab women found in movies, one of the most notable examples being Princess Jasmine from the Disney movie Aladdin, is a massive problem within the West. Men are obsessed with the idea of unveiling Muslim women, hence the market for it, not only in porn, but also in TV shows and movies which feature a female Muslim character removing her hijab for minute reasons, oftentimes irrelevant to the plotline. The over-sexualisation of Arab women doesn’t stop there, Native American, East Asian, Black, South Asian, Romani and Latin American women are all victims of the over-sexualisation of their bodies and their culture. It is unsurprising that these groups of minority ethnic women experience rape and sexual assault at significantly higher rates than white women, with the National Center on Violence Against Women in the Black Community stating that one in four Black girls will be sexually abused before the age of 18. The fetishization of ethnic minority women is commonplace, and a dangerous phenomenon that puts women in danger, but Mia says it is important to remember that these stereotypes were invented by “straight white men in suits”. It was these men who were the ones who pressured her into that hijab scene when she was 21, despite her protests that it was wrong, as she revealed in her Union speech.

Knowing this, it’s unsurprising that Mia veered away from the sports world. “I was heavily involved. I had a sports show a couple of years ago it was complex. And I was very heavily involved in the sports world up until about two years ago when I actively made a decision to kind of stop taking jobs that were centred around that, just because I feel like the fan base isn’t one that I wanted to cultivate. It was young men, and it wasn’t serving me. It’s just not a fan base I want. So I realised the more sports I’m involved with the more I’m going to be exposing myself to that demographic. So I made a conscious decision not to do it anymore. It was a very difficult decision, like very difficult.” 

So if she’s no longer doing sports commentary, what’s in store for Mia Khalifa? What does the future hold for the influencer and activist? According to Mia: “So much!” Her enthusiasm about her future is infectious as she tells me, “I’m launching a jewellery line. I’m doing a lot of things that I never dreamed I’d be doing, like speaking. Honestly. There’s a lot on the horizon that I’m very much looking forward to the end. It aligns with me and who I am. And I’m also happy with the audience that motivates.”

As Mia seeks to cultivate an audience of women who are inspired by her and move away from the young impressionable boys who seek her content for laughs, she re-establishes herself and takes back control of her name, her social media, and her actions. Though she jokes that “Being delusion is the best form of therapy” she advocates for going to therapy and mending your mental health, which is just as important as your physical health. 

Her talk at the Union resonated with many audience members, from women to fellow Middle Easterners, enjoying both Matthew’s questions and Mia’s answers. Consequently, we look forward to Mia’s future and all that she hopes to achieve as her talk at the Union signifies her first step to building a better audience.

Oxford’s Coronation connection

Rebecca Powell
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Oxford’s Coronation connection

Oxford University Press will be playing a role in the King’s Coronation today, having produced the Coronation Bible which will be used by King Charles III during the Coronation ceremony. Commissioned by the Archbishop of Canterbury, this Bible is to be used by the King at Westminster Abbey during the ceremony when the King will place his hand upon it while reciting the Coronation Oath.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby said: “On this momentous occasion, the Bible will be the first, and most important, gift offered to the King.” The tradition of using an Oxford Bible at the Coronation of British monarchs can be traced back to King George III in 1761 and Oxford University Press have been chosen to produce specific Coronation Bibles for British monarchs since Edward VII.

Three copies of this Coronation Bible have been produced. The Bible used during the service will be placed in the Lamberth Palace’s archive. The King will be gifted a personal copy while a further two will be placed in the archives of Westminster Abbey and Oxford University Press’ head office. 

The specific version that will be used by the King is hand-bound in leather and adorned in gold leaf. Additionally, Oxford University Press has also published an illustrated Coronation edition of the Authorised King James Bible. This edition includes a special commemorative gifting bookplate, colour images of Westminster Abbey, the Coronation Chair and King Charles and Queen Camilla as well as Biblical illustrations.  

Malala Yousafzai awarded honorary fellowship at Linacre College

Henna Moussavi
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Malala Yousafzai awarded honorary fellowship at Linacre College

Malala Yousafzai, Nobel Peace Prize winner and Oxford University alumnus, was recently awarded an honorary fellowship at Linacre College. 

This follows the advent of the Oxford Pakistan Programme (OPP) to which Yousafzai contributed. Linacre’s principal, Nick Leimu-Brown, has been supporting this programme since it began in 2020 and has continued to be involved. 

Linacre told Cherwell that the “strong relationship between Linacre College and the OPP was further strengthened by the awarding of an honorary fellowship to Malala”, recognising her consistent efforts in support of accessible education for women and those from less advantaged backgrounds. 

The Programme has successfully provided scholarships for 5 students of Pakistani origin at Oxford University, as well as 6 work placements at the World Bank office in Pakistan. According to the co-founder of the Programme, Dr Talha Jamal Pirzada (Linacre), “the OPP has become a beacon of hope for thousands of Pakistani students aspiring to pursue higher education at top institutions worldwide”.

“As we celebrate Malala’s extraordinary achievements, let us recognise the transformative power of education in shaping lives, communities, and nations,” he continued. Dr Pirzada made an emphasis on young girls and women working in STEM subjects in his vision of a “prosperous and equitable future for generations to come”.

Yousafzai’s father, Ziauddin Yousafzai, was also present at the ceremony. He stated that the opportunity will allow his daughter to “further expand her work and collaborate with others to find solutions to the challenges in access to education for girls”. Malala’s ethos was reasserted; she “aspires to transform the lives of students and serve as a beacon of hope for students in Pakistan.”

Ukraine’s population displacement mapped using social media

Toby Carmichael
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Ukraine’s population displacement mapped using social media

Oxford’s researchers have released a significant report tracking the complex internal displacement of Ukraine’s population.

Published in the Population and Development Review, the team from the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science estimated that 5.3 million people had been displaced between 25th February and 14th March 2022. The study has been credited alongside others for encouraging the United Nations to amend its initial figure of 1.6 million internally displaced people to 6.5 million by 16th March 2022.

Using a unique metric, researchers were able to incorporate UN data on border-crossings with their own data which tracked active Facebook usage by Ukrainians in the weeks following the Russian invasion. According to lead author Dr Douglas Leasure, these modern methods avoid the inefficiencies of traditional surveying techniques. He explains “by using social media and targeted advertising data, we were able to very quickly collect information on daily active users on Facebook in Ukraine provinces and break them down into five-year age groups and sex.”

Alongside estimates on the absolute number of persons displaced from their home province, the study was also able to map regional displacement, especially among women and children migrating westward. Professor Melinda Miles, Director of the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science and senior author of the report, remarked upon the metric’s humanitarian applications: “This metric is one of the only quantitative estimates of internal displacement in virtual real-time, which we are continuing to develop to help those in need during humanitarian crises.”

The researchers are hopeful that the report’s findings could be used to aid vulnerable people still within Ukraine. Prior to the publication of the study, data on displacement in Ukraine had mainly focused on those crossing borders into neighbouring countries.

However, Dr Leasure noted that he and his team had become aware of the need to shed more light on the thirty-eight million Ukrainians who remained in the country: “it became really clear to us that our daily population estimates could help the United Nations and others to assess humanitarian needs and develop a targeted response strategy.”

The Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science continues to strive to provide research in the hope of reaching those Ukrainian civilians who require aid the most. The full report can be found via the Centre’s website: https://www.demographicscience.ox.ac.uk/

“They used greasepaint on me as a foundation”: In conversation with British actress Llewella Gideon

Deborah Ogunnoiki
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“They used greasepaint on me as a foundation”: In conversation with British actress Llewella Gideon

Llewella Gideon is a British actress, comedian and writer best known for Absolutely Fabulous, a TV series from 1992 to 2012, and The Little Big Woman, a radio show from 2001 to 2003. She has made appearances in movies such as Paddington (2014) and Rye Lane (2023). 

Cherwell has obtained an interview with the British actress where she discusses her background as an actress and the changes she’s seen in the Black British media scene.

To begin with, Gideon takes us into what a typical day working as an actress looks like. She says “That would be a typical working day would depend on the production. And also whether it’s for television or theatre. If it’s for theatre, then it’s much easier because you’ll have rehearsals during the day, like ten to six, then you might have that six days a week. And then once the day is up and running, then you just go in half an hour before the play starts. So if the plays at seven o’clock, you’ll go in at sort of like half-past six, or 20 past six, and then you do the show, and you go home, so it’s much easier once the play is up and running. It’s just the rehearsal period…that can take a long, long time. But once the show’s up and running, it’s fine. And then if you have a matinee, then you’ll stay in the theatre all day. If your matinee’s at two o’clock we’ll be there from one o’clock right through to maybe 10 o’clock in the evening. If your production and your part in it, your day can start as early as six o’clock in the morning, or they might come and collect you at five o’clock, depending on where your location is, and you have to be on set for like eight o’clock. So those days are not so great because you have to get up like three o’clock in the morning or four o’clock. But it’s not too stressful, because you have a car, pick you up and take you there, but you’re barely awake. Though by the time you get into makeup at about six or seven o’clock, it’s all good. And you could work right through till, you know ten, eleven, twelve, at night, depending on what you’re shooting. So some days, it can be an incredibly long, long day and get very tired, but yeah, it’s all good.”

Despite the clearly hectic days the actress has, she tells me she still tries to make time for family, “I don’t really get much catch-up time until weekends, I tend to see if I’m doing if I’m filming, it is really hectic in terms of learning lines, going to bed, getting up to go on set, spending a whole day there. So I don’t tend to see family so much when I’m filming. So I really make an effort at the weekends definitely to see my mum and hang out with my sister. As we’re close in that regard. So but filming extras is just like being on the treadmill…But at weekends we tend to get everybody together and have Sunday dinner.”

With a hectic filming schedule like that Gideon is sure to have some projects she’s worked on that make it all worth it. According to Gideon, she has “quite a few” of her favourite projects as she jokes that she’s “been around for a while”. She tells me “I’m very proud of recently doing The Long Song by Andrea Levy at the Chichester theatre, very proud of playing Old July. And for film, I think would be ‘Small Axe’ by Steve McQueen. But it’s ever-changing, I’m doing more stuff and I’ve got more stuff coming up and might be really proud of but in terms of story and impact on the community, Small Axe and The Long Song, those were very powerful pieces I’m quite proud to have been involved in.” Many of us can relate to this sentiment. Wanting to do work that you feel makes a difference, or at the least, you can look back on and say that you’re proud to have done at least one thing impactful. I ask Gideon if this is a sentiment that she expresses in her work. She answers “Absolutely. I mean, there are not many jobs that I say I’ll just do it for the money. I always believe what Sidney Poitier used to say, that he does work that his grandchildren can watch for years to come. So I don’t want to do anything that I would be ashamed of years later…If I have grandchildren years later, so I try and do something that I actually believe in on some level, or that I feel is gonna get people thinking or is based in truth, whether or not I agree with that truth, but it is something that’s powerful because there is some truth in that story that will impact people.” She explains that “There’s always got to be some kind of connection unless they have specifically asked for me for a role. And then I look at the role and see if there’s something that I can do bring something to.”

Gideon has a son around the same age as me. I can’t imagine having a parent with the legacy of Gideon. A seasoned actress, whose been acting even when the media and film scene was not particularly kind to up-and-coming Black actors and actresses. She explains her legacy “But when I started…my first television job was at 21 and I’m 55 now, things were a lot different to what they are now, you know, racism, sexism, every -ism existed then, and was either unconscious bias, or just the way things were. So the landscape that I had to navigate at 21 in 1989, is so much different. And even in terms of makeup and what we wore…when I started, at the BBC, there wasn’t black makeup, that makeup wasn’t a thing. They had to literally go on courses, the makeup artists that worked on our show, to learn about makeup for black skin, and colours and shades that we could use. I remember one of my first acting jobs, they used grease paint on me as a foundation, and I remember a costume lady saying to me, ‘Oh no, you can’t wear black, black people don’t wear black’. They were always trying to put me in tiger stripes and leopard skin, which I hate. Up to now, if I ever see a costume designer come towards me with ‘Oh, we thought you might look good in this’ and it’s any sort of tiger print, or a leopard print shirt, I’m automatically like ‘No, I don’t. I just don’t’. And they’ll say, ‘Oh but it’s lovely and colourful’. And I’ll say, ‘No, not happening’. I’m not in the jungle. I may be black but not happening. So you know, we’ve had to change a lot of people’s attitudes to us as performers. And it’s so much better for young people today than it was then. And we didn’t have Facebook. And we didn’t have Instagram. So we didn’t have instant success. We had to earn it by how many people are watching us on television at that time. How much exposure you got through them advertised in that programme, etc. But usually, it was word of mouth. Because there were so few black people on the television if you did see one, you’d let everybody know ‘Oh, there’s this programme on and there’s black people in so you should watch it’. A completely different time. And we’ve come a long way since then.”

Though I’m not a seasoned actress, when I was about 12 I was in a Scouts and Guides gang show, a musical theatre production produced by the local Scouts and Girl Guiding groups. Rehearsals were about 4 months and I went every Sunday. I thought the people I was rehearsing with knew me well, at the very least, knew that I was Black. But when it got to the day of the performance, I was disheartened to discover not only had they not got makeup in my shade (like not even close), but they also hadn’t got the right shade of skin-coloured tights. I called my mum crying, and I never did the production again. It truly did alter my sense of self in the world of theatre, I didn’t think I would ever belong. Gideon confirms this “They do have an impact on you and on your psyche. So if you’re constantly in situations where you’re there to perform to your highest standard, and you believe that you’re equal, and people continually do these things, like not getting tights in the right shade, not putting your makeup on correctly, it can grind you down. You’re constantly, one, having to prove your creative talent. But you’re also trying to educate people who are used to doing things in a certain way. And sometimes there’s a bit of resistance to change, but I think we’re at a place where you have to be on top of your game. You know, people know how to like Black people. Now none of these excuses apply anymore. So to be on top of your game, you’ve got to be able to be inclusive in your work, in your makeup, in your costume design, in your hair design, in your lighting design, there’s no excuse not to allow us to shine as it were, literally and figuratively.”

The British media world is indeed changing, nowadays we have Black British actors and actresses like Daniel Kaluuya, John Boyega, Letitia Wright, and Damson Idris to name a few. The media world is starting to become more inclusive and our stories are being told on the big screen. Most notably Rye Lane (2023), which is dubbed the first Black British rom-com. Gideon is featured in the movie and she praises one of the two writers, Nathan Byron, “I’ve known Nathan very well for many, many, many years, ever since he started out in his writing career. He’s such a prolific writer, he’s such a fresh young voice. He talks about people of colour outside of those stereotypes that existed in the three-dimensional, which is so refreshing. So anytime he calls me to come and do a play I definitely do it because I believe in the stories that he’s telling. So I’ve known Nathan for a while. So when he asked if I would do a little part in Rye Lane, I knew it was going to be good. I knew it was going to have integrity. And I knew it was going to be telling a story from a voice that we haven’t heard before. And that was going to be funny because it’s incredibly funny. I had every faith in him so I had no hesitation. It was such a delight, the movie was such fun to make.

“It’s a movie that makes you come out of the cinema feeling good because it shows us, it shows people of colour, as real people who have aspirations, who have disappointments, who have quirkiness. And most of all, who have the same insecurities as anybody else and, who have love. And we don’t see enough Black love in the media or Black British love. It’s fun, it’s the rom-com as you’ve never seen it before. As a structure, it has everything that a rom-com is supposed to have. As a genre, it’s excellent, you can’t fault it, where people might be cynical because they’ve never seen Black people in a structured rom-com and it’s mainstream. But the difference is you’ve got young people in this structure. More importantly, as well, you’ve got young, dark skin in this structure. This is about two young people in love. And I hate to say that they just happened to be dark because it’s not a mistake. If you’re Black, we shouldn’t have to apologise ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I just happen to be Black.’ It’s three-dimensional characters. It’s us as we live, speak, and function within a particular community. This is one aspect of it of us. That’s why there are so many different voices in so many stories that are coming through and will come through from the voices of Black British people. And this is just one of them. So I love the movie. I absolutely love it.”

The actress has solidified herself in the Black British acting world. Her passion for her craft and her dedication to impactful projects shines through when she talks about her job as an actress. I can’t wait to see what else the actress has in store, and I wish her all the very best.

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