Saturday, April 26, 2025
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Beyond the White Male Pale: Why our conversations around Autism and disability need to be intersectional

Ciara Garcha
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Beyond the White Male Pale: Why our conversations around Autism and disability need to be intersectional

CW: Contains mentions of ableist, racist and sexist language as well as descriptions of eating disorders.  

April marks Autism ‘Awareness’ Month; an annual occasion that inspires mixed feelings in many autistic people. From wearing blue, to highlighting and platforming autistic celebrities, the month sees a variety of attempts to generate discussion and ‘recognition’ of autism as well as the more recent addition of efforts to celebrate the lives of autistic individuals. And yet, discourse around autism, and disability more generally, remains alarmingly one-dimensional. An intersectional and inclusive conversation is long overdue. 

Within mainstream media, autism has often been depicted as a white, cisgender male phenomenon: “a white person’s” condition. Rain Man, The Big Bang Theory and even autism-focused programmes like The A-Word or Atypical have centred on white male characters and their personal journeys with autism. The characters with Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are often portrayed as slightly quirky – usually in a cute or humorous way – and socially awkward to the point of humour and discomfort. Even discussions involving autistic individuals themselves do not tend to stray far away from the focus on white males and white people. Yet such narrowness of focus is fundamentally flawed and limiting. “The gendered and racialised nature of autism” desperately needs to be broken down.

Recent attempts have been made to highlight the prevalence of autism in those outside of the male autistic stereotype. Women with ASD often tend to be undiagnosed or diagnosed far later than men, with one girl being diagnosed to every four or five boys. Whilst many boys are diagnosed in childhood, perhaps after displaying behaviours such as avoiding eye contact or engaging in repetitive actions, autism is generally expressed differently in women, and it is not uncommon for a woman to reach far into adulthood before her autism may be recognised and appropriate support offered. Sometimes it can even take a woman reaching a crisis point before the symptoms of autism are recognised. Autistic women are, for example, more likely than their non-autistic counterparts to develop Anorexia Nervosa, a severe eating disorder associated with controlling and rule-driven behaviour that is also so common in those with autism. Often it is only through expressing other physical or psychological difficulties that a woman’s autism is noticed and a diagnosis obtained.

Race and ethnicity play a large part in an individual’s experience of autism, including the difficulty one may face in obtaining a diagnosis, and yet this remains shamefully overlooked and downplayed. The National Autistic Society notes that “there is a lack of research about the experience of (autistic) people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic” backgrounds, which has resulted in “autistic people in the BAME community” finding it even more difficult to get a diagnosis and the necessary support. A 2019 study of disparities in autism diagnoses of children linked belonging to a  “non-White race” to the likelihood of having a clinical diagnosis (and thus not receiving the appropriate support). Often, it seems, race and ethnicity are not even factored into research seeking to understand autism and the autistic experience. A 2016 study analysed 408 studies of autism and found that only 18% of them reported the race, ethnicity and nationality of the participants. Where it was reported, of the total of 2,500 participants, 63.5% of them were white. Conceptions of autism still often seem to be coupled with whiteness.

For many autistic women and autistic People of Colour, low diagnosis rates are sometimes attributed to a failure in recognising particular behaviours as symptoms of autism. Low diagnosis rates in women are partially attributed to the practice of ‘masking’, when a person hides their autism by performing actions and behaviours seen as acceptable (by neurotypical standards). Masking is not gender-specific behaviour, but women with autism are four times more likely to engage in ‘masking’ than their male counterparts. This may involve mimicking the behaviours and actions of others, in an attempt to cover up social communication difficulties and anxieties, or ensuring engagement in eye contact with others, even though this may be an uncomfortable practice for many autistic people. For many women these behaviours allow them and their autism to slip under the radar, gaining them acceptance within neurotypical society. Countless studies have highlighted the emotional and mental toll undiagnosed autism and years – even decades –  of masking can have on autistic women. One 2016 study noted that masking often leads to “increased stress responses, meltdown due to social overload, anxiety and depression and even a negative impact on the development of one’s identity”. Masking and hiding autism can have a detrimental impact on the health and wellbeing of women and yet, research has also suggested that “an individual’s ability to camouflage ASC (may) contribute to them achieving socially desirable outcomes”, making them feel more able to make friends, advance their social status and do better in job interviews when they mask their autistic behaviour.

Masking consequently means that autism in women and girls often appears very differently than in boys, as many more girls train themselves to suppress the behaviours that are most commonly associated with autism. The painfully awkward social interactions of The Big Bang Theory’s Sheldon Cooper or the emotional ignorance of Rain Man are often absent in the way that many autistic women present themselves. As such, symptoms of autism in women can be very different and even attributed to normal character traits, such as strict adherence to routine, being a ‘quiet person’, hyper-focused, or being emotionally reserved. Often these traits can be ignored or missed, further contributing to low diagnosis rates. The label ‘high functioning’ may also be given to autistic women, almost in recognition of the fact that they are so good at masking their autism and functioning effectively in an unforgiving neurotypical society.

Autistic People of Colour often face the challenge that their normal autistic behaviours are wildly misinterpreted. Writing in Spectrum News, author Catina Burkett, described how being a Black autistic woman has shaped her life. She discusses how “cultural stereotypes make it particularly dangerous to be autistic while Black”. For example her autism can lead to her being seen as an “angry Black woman” and “overly aggressive”, due to fairly normal autistic behaviour. The trope that autistic behaviour in People of Colour, particularly Black people, is aggressive and threatening can be clearly observed. Sia’s controversial new film Music has reignited discussions around the use of deadly restraints on autistic people, after a scene in the film depicted Music, the protagonist, being physically restrained on the floor by the bodyweight of her Caregiver. Such restraints are also frequently deployed by the police in an attempt to control autistic individuals. It is not hard to see how racial stereotypes can intersect with ‘threatening’ autistic behaviour, such as ‘meltdowns’ to create the impression that an individual is dangerous and needs urgently restraining.

Elijah McClain, a Black autistic 23-year-old, was killed in the US state of Colorado in 2019 when the police received a call claiming he had been acting ‘suspiciously’. Even after apologising, telling them “I’m sorry” and “I’m just different”, and begging them to “respect my boundaries”, they placed him in a restraint until he lost consciousness. When McClain regained consciousness and began to struggle, he was injected with what a review into his death has described as a “grossly inaccurate” dose of ketamine to sedate him. McClain was later declared dead, believed to have died from a combination of excessive force and the inaccurate dose of ketamine administered to him. McClain’s race – and the sheer, unrelenting racism of the police force – combined with the difference he tried to desperately explain, resulted in his tragic and brutal murder. The list of autistic People of Colour killed or mistreated by the police and authorities, due to a combination of blatant institutional racism and ignorance of autism, is vast. Any truthful conversation about autism must be nuanced and understand that autistic People of Colour face additional layers of struggle, living in fundamentally racist societies where their autistic behaviours are misunderstood and judged in conjunction with racist stereotypes, to devastating outcomes.

The National Autistic Society also describes how autistic people from ethnic minority communities have reported “facing judgment” and being “stigmatised” within their community on the basis of their autism. The Asian People’s Disability Alliance conducted an 18 month-long review between 2017 and 2018 into disability within the UK’s South Asian diaspora population, addressing the challenges facing individuals with disabilities within their communities. The participants reported high levels of stigma and stated that they had been “avoided, ignored or subject to negative comments…(and) negative attitudes”. The Report described how some participants “felt unwelcome in Asian places of worship”, no doubt partially derived from the notion that “people from some faiths believe disability was a punishment from God or a test to be endured”. It particularly noted the “stigma and taboos around mental illness” being “much worse than those around other disabilities” and though autism is not a mental illness, it appears to have been included in this category of discussion, as a condition around which the stigma was heightened. Much of this stigma seems to have been tied to notions of shame and honour; the study notes that autism was tied to “bringing shame on the family” and the idea of “poor parenting, particularly mothering”, specifically describing the experience of some Bangladeshi women with autistic children who face blame by their families, among others, for their child’s autistic behaviours. Autistic people and their families, from South Asian diaspora and minority ethnic backgrounds were less likely to access the necessary support for these reasons.

It would be wrong to think that autistic people of all backgrounds have not experienced shame tied to their autism and disability at one point or another. Yet, in cultures tied to values and ideas of shame and honour, as a number of South Asian cultures are, this experience may often be more acute and lasting. Studies into the experience of autistic individuals and their families in the US South Asian diaspora community similarly note the singularity of the South Asian experience due to “socio-cultural experiences…taboos…(and) superstitions”. This diversity of experience and diversity of challenges on the basis of race and ethnocultural background is still largely overlooked in white male-dominated societal understandings of autism. Autistic People of Colour continue to be talked over and even excluded from conversations about autism and disability altogether.

Shockingly, autism has been used to defend bigotry, extremism and violence, no doubt linked to the belief that autism is a singularly white experience. It was deemed relevant that the recently jailed PC Ben Hannam, imprisoned for his membership of the fascist group National Action, had autism, which experts claim meant he was attracted by the ideology’s association “with order and structure”. Not only is this deeply offensive to all autistic people – suggesting that their autism could allow them to be seduced by violence and fascism, so long as it’s orderly – it ignores the fact that a number of autistic people, particularly autistic People of Colour, are the targets of this far-right hatred. Writing in The Independent, Errol Kerr, the Chair of Autistic UK, explained that there was “real danger” in using “autism to explain away white male violence”, criticising the misuse of autism as a “get out of jail free card for cruelty and bigotry”. This no doubt partially stems from a significant failure to diversify narratives around autism and recognise and highlight the diversity of the autistic community.

Attempts to incorporate and centre the voices of autistic women in discussions have been highly rewarding, in raising awareness and validating the unique struggles faced by autistic women. Similarly, in recent years there has been a growing conversation about autism in people who identify outside of the male-female gender binary, generating increasing research about the experience of gender diverse autistic people. Such developments have been immeasurably valuable in helping to challenge the narrative that autism is a white middle-class male condition and have served to widen understandings of autism, to better accommodate and support those excluded by this archetype.

People outside of the male autistic stereotype experience autism and its challenges differently, and in amplifying a diversity of autistic voices, we must remember to consider race and ethnicity, as well as gender identity. Beyond that, we must examine how these different characteristics interact and intersect. Very little research has been done into how minority ethnic women, for example, experience both being outside of the male and the white autistic norm, or how cultural or religious values specific to a particular ethnic minority community or faith group further shape the experience of autistic people who do not identify as male. These are questions that are long overdue and urgently need to be asked if autism is ever to be considered through an intersectional lens.

It is not known the proportion of the UK’s diagnosed autistic population of 700,000 and the UK’s innumerable undiagnosed autistic population who identify as women and/or People of Colour. But we have a duty to represent those people and the diversity of challenges and experiences in our conversations about autism. Society’s treatment of Autism has been described as having a “white privilege problem” and this seems an apt way to describe it. However, to obtain a truthful and representative understanding of autism, it is incumbent upon us to look past autistic archetypes and to the true diversity of the autistic community.

Art by Rachel Jung

Second Hand Stories

Clementine Scott
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Second Hand Stories

To grow up in my corner of East London, neatly pinpointed between Spitalfields Market and Brick Lane, was to grow up around second hand fashion. Second hand retail in all its forms is as prevalent on Brick Lane and its surrounds as curry houses and beigel shops, and nearly as important to the area’s identity.

It is an unfortunate truth that some of Brick Lane’s recent characterisation as a thrifting haven has come at a cost to local communities, especially considering the advent of glossy chain boutiques like Joy and Rokit Vintage; however, there is also a more authentic market culture (which includes the market on Brick Lane itself as well as nearby Spitalfields and Columbia Road) that predates modern gentrification by centuries – indeed, on some occasions small second hand businesses have been victims rather than byproducts of gentrification, a phenomenon exemplified by the vintage stalls inside the Truman Brewery, which is currently under threat from corporate developers and supported by the #SaveBrickLane movement. While the chain boutiques seem appealing at a first glance, it is the markets and smaller shops where I always found the best bargains, and where my love for second hand was really born.

If Brick Lane was my introduction to second hand culture, then Dalston was one of the first ventures into the realm of the charity shop. Though charity shops are surprisingly sparse within walking distance of my home, just a short bus ride into Hackney proper is the extraordinary cluster of them nestled between trendy brunch spots and Turkish restaurants on Kingsland Road. To be honest, in my early teenage years of rebellion I gravitated away from charity shops towards the impressively palatial Dalston branch of the chain Beyond Retro, which is filled with mostly American imports of questionable quality, in opposition to my mother’s obsession with Dalston’s traditional charity shops; however, I did eventually grow out of this and start rifling through the racks in Oxfam, and especially in Traid, a newer kind of charity shop which reworks fashion waste into new items sold to benefit international development projects.

Though it was once greeted with strange looks, second hand culture has become more and more widespread, due to a three-pronged combination of East London’s advance onto the ‘trendy radar’, rising awareness of the impact of fast fashion, and the popularity of ‘retro’ trends (ranging from the flares beloved by every Depop baddie to the inexplicable Y2K revival). As someone who has bought nearly every important fashion item I’ve ever owned second hand, from prom dresses and Halloween costumes to swimwear and my go-to tutorial outfits, it’s my pleasure to reminisce about my favourite purchases over the years.

The weird and the wacky

Aside from its much-discussed ethical benefits, thrifting has always trumped high street fashion for me in part because of its randomness, and the unexpected fashion decisions to which this can lead. If I saw this tightly cropped shirt with its zany cowboy-themed print in an H&M, I’d probably dismiss it as a bizarre fad that would quickly age; however, when it sat unassumingly on a market table just off the main stretch of Columbia Road (better known for its historic flower market, this East End thoroughfare’s vintage fashion offering is underrated), I was intrigued by its whimsy and ability to catch the eye, as well as the introduction it provided to 80s American designer Betsey Johnson, whose designs are lovingly called ‘over the top’ and ‘embellished’ on her Wikipedia page. That shirt remains a go-to statement piece in my wardrobe.

This original purchase has inspired my present love of boldly patterned shirts, which I previously thought were the preserve of sleazy 1970s music execs. These shirts have ranged from the sublime (the mesmerising green-dappled-with-gold of my favourite tute blouse by Sigrid Olsen) to the…more questionable (the countryside-themed silk shirt complete with pheasants, horses and hounds, acquired at the buy-by-weight Kilo Store in Soho). This foray into a whole new style is a phenomenon that I think can only be realised in the hit-or-miss world of second hand fashion.

Designer bargains

There is a widespread association between thrifting and a less traditionally elegant aesthetic, and a perception that shopping ethically on a budget means compromising on style. However, you never quite know what you’re going to leave the charity shop or market with, and sometimes the thrifting gods can surprise you. One of my favourite second hand store anecdotes is the time I found my dream 1960s Yves Saint Laurent dress, with long sleeves, a high neck and a subtle slit down the torso, in St Vincent’s in Dalston, the unassuming cousin of the bigger Oxfam up the road – the punchline is that it was originally marked for £5, but was reduced to £3 by a clerk who clearly failed to realise that anything special was in front of him.

There are a number of strikingly affordable designer items I’ve acquired at markets and charity shops over the years ranging from the coral Calvin Klein shirt dress that signals the approach of summer every year, to the perfect green shade of my Alice & Olivia blouse that makes me feel like Blair Waldorf whenever I wear it with a plaid skirt. Such a great variety of eras, designers and aesthetics exists in the second hand market, that no one should worry about losing their personal style and elegance while shopping sustainably.

Thrifting goes abroad

I’ll always defend East London as the thrifting capital of the world, but I also admit that going to second hand shops is one of my favourite things to do abroad. What people in other countries donate to second hand shops can be a window into national preoccupations; in Antwerp, a deeply underrated fashion destination, I found not only this wonderful safari print skirt, but also a baffling array of boldly coloured cycling jerseys, a homage to a Belgian obsession. One of my most cherished souvenirs from Tokyo is my silk haori, a garment resembling a short kimono but worn as a jacket, which provided me with a slice of Japanese authenticity at a time when faux ‘kimono-inspired’ sleeves and prints were edging back into Western fashion.

Moreover, the things we buy abroad encapsulate the mood we were in on those trips, and this is especially true in second hand shops, given how esoteric the items on sale can be. My summer in New York just before university felt like a quasi-gap year for me, and I had a probably obnoxious obsession with finding freedom in an unfamiliar city after a bad breakup and the stress of A-levels.  The Housing Works, a venerable NYC chain of thrift shops founded amidst the AIDS crisis to support the non-profit of the same name, was a haunt of mine; no purchase signifies the carefree attitude I had back then quite like the turquoise platform wedges I bought at the Housing Works in Gramercy. The outrageous heel, impractical style and loud colour means there are few events or outfits compatible with these shoes, but that wasn’t the point. For me, those shoes represented the ability to be myself in a brand new place, to live out Sex and the City fantasies of going to fancy dinners alone in mismatched dress and heels combos, and to buy items that I enjoyed, without worrying about such constricting questions as “well, when would you wear it?”. There’s nowhere like a thrift shop for finding the items to capture such highly specific moments in time.

The perils of online thrifting

The elephant in the room here is that until last week, none of us had gone to a physical second hand shop in several months. The pandemic has ushered in the era of online second hand, and this has exacerbated nearly all of the industry’s pre-Covid ethical issues. The resale of cheap charity shop items for jumped-up prices, repurposing of rare plus-size items as ‘oversized’ for non-plus sized people, failure to alert the buyer of defects and necessary alterations – all these troubling tactics are far more prevalent online.

Thankfully, I’ve never fallen for any serious thrifting scam, but my experience shopping second hand online over lockdown has included its fair share of purchases which were suspiciously highly priced judging by their undeclared stains and moth holes; most amusing perhaps was a garden party dress on eBay whose pictures indicated it would be made from a standard polyester, when in reality its fabric could be most aptly described as resembling a wetsuit. Nevertheless, all these pitfalls serve to encourage vigilance in the online shopper and a willingness to ask the seller the hard questions – it all paid off when on Depop I found the corduroy trousers I’d been yearning for for several months. Sure, they were missing a button, but at least that was advertised in the description.

As non-essential retail opens up again, and more of us than ever have made the switch to buying all or most of our wardrobes second hand, the question remains as to where our thrifting journeys will take us next. In my case, I’d like to make sure I take advantage of all the second hand stores in Oxford before the end of my degree. I’ve never had much luck at the British Heart Foundation near Westgate, and my college is about as far from Cowley as you can get, but a short bike trip may be in order this term. After all, all my best thrifting purchases have been completely unexpected, so I can’t wait to find out what surprises the racks have to offer me next.

A League of their Own? Oxford Colleges and Cabinet Representation

Matthew Prudham
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A League of their Own? Oxford Colleges and Cabinet Representation

Using a most likely unfair and skewed points system, I have ranked every Oxford college based on how many Cabinet and Shadow Cabinet members it has had amongst its alumni since 2010. Three points are awarded for a Cabinet member, and one for a member of the opposing side. There’s no distinguishing between current and former members in my points total, as that would get complicated – however, where there is a clear favourite to current members, I have placed this college above their rivals on ‘cabinet-difference’. I know, it makes no sense whatsoever – this is what TT21 does to you.

It’s official, Balliol College has had the most alumni in cabinet and shadow cabinet positions since 2010. As well as being the alma mater of the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, his brother, Jo Johnson, as well as fellow ex-cabinet members Damian Green and Rory Stewart studied there. They are joined by former shadow cabinet members Yvette Cooper and Stephen Twigg.   

The Official Cabinet Officeholder League Table

Magdalen comfortably notched second place, though they currently have no alumni in government; it’s a far cry from when the likes of Jeremy Hunt, George Osborne, Chris Huhne and Dominic Grieve worked in the same cabinet during the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition. They have also had no alums as part of the shadow cabinet since the Conservatives became the majority party in the House of Commons in 2010.

Just edging it third are Jesus, another college wholly represented in the Cabinet; they don’t mess about in the lesser-scoring Shadow Cabinet, I tell you. Current alumnus Matt Hancock is busy as the current Health Secretary, whilst Theresa Villiers and Ed Davey have also chalked up appearances since 2010. Hot on their heels are Teddy Hall, who, despite having had more alumni in positions, must settle for fourth thanks to my made-up points system. The alma mater of two current shadow cabinet members: Labour Leader of the Opposition Sir Keir Starmer; and Shadow Home Secretary Nick Thomas Symonds. Sadly, though, this only gets them two points and having David Gauke and Mel Stride amongst their alumni who have served in Cabinet positions since 2010 only raises eight points.

LMH are the most who benefit from ‘cabinet-difference’, their two current alumni in government positions, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab and Michael Gove, who’s at his fifth cabinet role as the Chancellor for the Duchy of Lancaster, accumulating them six points. Indeed, LMH are the sole college that have more than one current Cabinet office holder – so it must be quite sore to finish fifth. Sorry? That’s still only six points. Clinging onto sixth with are Somerville; the only college to have alumni in both the Cabinet and its Opposition version, Dr Thérèse Coffey and Nia Griffith, Secretary for State for Work and Pensions and Shadow Welsh Secretary, respectively. But wait a minute, isn’t that four points? Don’t worry, I haven’t screwed up my system – taking them up to sixth are former shadow cabinet members Lucy Powell and current Somerville Principal Baroness Janet Royall (yes, I know she didn’t study at Oxford, but her position at Somerville is pretty much equivalent to being an alumnus, in my opinion).

Trinity are down in seventh, with the ever-ministerial Jacob Rees-Mogg a graduand from 1991 (and infamously given the title “Pushy Fresher” by Cherwell in 1988…), whilst they also count Damian Hinds amongst their former students; the fact that LMH have two to their one in the current Johnson cabinet, though, and Somerville have the dual-party duo of Coffey and Griffith, though, means that they must settle for seventh.

Completing our set of six-pointers are St. Hugh’s (Nicky Morgan and former Prime Minister Theresa May), Brasenose (Claire Perry and, of course, former Prime Minister David Cameron), and Christ Church (David Willets and George Young). I decided to grant Brasenose and Hugh’s joint-eighth and Christ Church tenth just because the latter didn’t have a former PM. Sorry, I don’t make the rules…wait, yes, I do!

Lincoln just miss out on the top ten,  despite the invaluable ‘cabinet-difference’ contribution of Chancellor Rishi Sunak combining with former shadow cabinet member Shabana Mahmood; trailing them with an equal four points are Univ; former MPs Phillip Hammond and Stewart Woods, the former acting as Chancellor under Theresa May and the latter serving as Shadow Minister without Portfolio, must settle for twelfth. Merton, heralding the last Oxonian member of the Cabinet, Liz Truss, just about nab thirteenth thanks to her invaluable contribution (without whom they would not be on the table at all!), whilst former Liberal Democrat MP Sir Danny Alexander nabs St. Anne’s fourteenth place, thanks to his stints as Scottish Secretary and Chief Secretary to the Treasury during the Coalition.

Cabinet difference means that Annalise Dodds, Rachel Reeves, and Ed Miliband all manage to get their respective colleges, Hilda’s, New, and Corpus Christi into a triple-joint fifteenth; Hilda’s has former Shadow Cabinet member Meg Hilier amongst their alumni, whilst New counts Willy Bach and Corpus David Miliband (who, yes, technically was part of a short-lived Shadow Cabinet under Harriet Harman in 2010 before the whole Miliband vs. Miliband fiasco) amongst their former students. Pembroke must settle for eighteenth, despite the best efforts of past Shadow Cabineteers Maria Eagle and Mary Creagh, thanks to a lack of current officeholders.

The best of the ‘one pointers’ in nineteenth are Hertford, thanks to the valiant Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury Rachel Reeves; left looking rather sorry at the bottom of the table are fourth joint-twentieth St John’s, Wadham, Mansfield and Keble, represented in the past in the Shadow Cabinet by Angela Eagle, Emma Reynolds, Chris Bryant and Ed Balls. At least it’s better than not being on this totally sham competition table at all, though (up your game, Worcester, Regent’s Park, Peter’s, etc.). 

Image credit: Howard Lake via Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0. 

Why the feminists in my college still call me a whore

Alice Kennedy
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Why the feminists in my college still call me a whore

CW: rape

Last month, as the United Kingdom reeled from the murder of Sarah Everard, we found ourselves realising once again what it means to be a woman in modern Britain. Although the viral hurt and frustration of that time was especially acute, feminism is certainly not new to social media. In Twitter threads and Tiktok trends, through the delightful orderliness of Instagram infographics, we are told which birth control to buy, taught what the Madonna/Whore complex is, and informed that “slut shaming is bullshit”. These posts become attached to our digital footprints like badges. That story, that share says: “These are my beliefs. I am a feminist”. This is a good thing, of course. Though Instagram activism definitely has its limits, promoting these messages and attempting to educate the masses can make real change. But such public pronouncements of our beliefs also reveal where we as individuals, and as groups, fall short. I’ve spent the last month thinking a lot about the inconsistency of progressive activism, especially within the feminist movement. Because every night I tap through brightly coloured feminism from the very same women who call me a whore.

“Whore” is the ultimate othering. It conjures images of a thing not quite human, all sex and desperation and cheap eyeliner and loose morals. The “whore” is not three dimensional, she does not have thoughts or feelings or hopes or dreams. She becomes a straw man of everything the patriarchy teaches us to hate and we pretend we don’t (but we really do). For progressive women, the making of a whore is a bonding ritual.

The world is constantly telling women to take up less space, make less noise, be more likeable. So when someone breaks that system, challenges societies rules, “sticks it to the man” – it’s inspiring and amazing but also so infuriating. I can’t count the number of times I’ve realised that my inexplicable dislike of a woman is really jealousy that she has the confidence to challenge the conventions that keep me trapped. We tell ourselves that we are doing the right thing – we are normal, good women, and she is a whore. Because the truth – that she intimidates us, that we are jealous of her freedom, that the patriarchy is so deeply ingrained in our thoughts and feelings that we just hate her and we can’t even explain why – that’s too dark to face.

Yet the bonding power of “whore” extends beyond women-only circles. It works equally well as a pathway to male respect. Many people now see it as unacceptable for a man to call a woman he doesn’t like a whore. However, if the label is given by a woman, it’s suddenly safe – he’s not just hurling insults, he isn’t being a jerk, she just really is a whore. A man will tell a woman about how horrible his ex is, how low cut her tops are, how she sleeps around. He won’t say whore – he can’t, not yet – he’ll simply say everything but. This is where the woman steps in. She can say whore, if she wants to. She’s a woman, it’s hers to use! She’ll preface it with “I’m a feminist but…” or “You know I don’t say this easily…”. Her gender and her feigned hesitancy lend validity to the label. The man is delighted – “whore” pleases his every buried misogynistic instinct. The woman, in turn, “others” herself from the harlot. She saves the rest of womankind from being tainted by the immorality of one. “Do not associate me with her. I am woman; she is whore”.

Viewing “whore” through the lens of bonding and “othering” makes it all the clearer why women who already “stand out” in some way are all the more susceptible to the label. In the bastion of upper middle-class British privilege that is Oxford, being North American was enough to place me in that category.  In the process of labelling me “whore” I was judged to be loud, rude, annoying, incapable of understanding the rules of British society. In my romantic interactions with the middle-class, home counties men that surrounded me, I was determined to be the villain. Overall, the judgement was that I would “just never really be one of them”. I was a prime candidate for the position of “whore”.

Of course, that the most “othering” thing about me is that I immigrated from an economically prosperous, English-speaking country, is an immense privilege. The true power of “othering” is felt by women of colour, disabled women, working class women, and other groups that face harsh and consistent discrimination. Here, sexism intersects with classism, racism, ableism, and so many other prejudices to stick ever-more blameless, powerful women with the label of “whore”. The word is a particularly sharp blade for striking those whom society already treats as outsiders.

You may think, in the grand scheme of things, calling a woman a whore isn’t that bad. If you say it in private, to just your close friends, you’re not hurting anyone. You may think that it’s generally bad to call women whores but in this specific case it’s okay, because “she genuinely is one”. But “whore” is not a word that stays shut behind closed doors. The more we say it the less human the woman whom it describes becomes.

Except she is a person. And words do have consequences. You may think she can’t hear you, but noise travels. It wasn’t until I had the label of “whore” thrust upon me that I realised its power. There’s only so long you can brush something off, get over it, keep your head held high through the whispers.

We need to do better. It’s time to find a new way to bond. I’m not saying that you have to say nice things about every woman. You’re allowed to dislike someone, allowed to complain about them to your friends. But whore is a low blow. It shames a woman for existing in her own skin. It labels her as not only undesirable but unlovable and toxic. It’s irrefutable and irredeemable because, in the end, it doesn’t actually depend on anything a woman does. You can be called a whore whether you’re a virgin or a lover of sex. And yet despite it being a completely made-up label, it has very real consequences. Being called a whore not only makes you uncomfortable in your own body, but it changes the way people see you, and puts you in real danger. You can be disrespected, objectified, because it’s assumed that’s how you want to be seen. You are not worthy of protection. You are dehumanised.

I wonder if the women posting consent infographics know that I never reported my rape because I was scared of what they would say about me?

We cannot be feminists and call each other whores. Every time that word leaves our mouths, we are propping up the patriarchy, the subjugation of women, and rape culture. I know because I am not an innocent in this. Because, to my great shame, “whore”, and its equivalents “slut” and “slag”, have left my mouth more times than I care to remember. But that stops now. I vow, from this moment forward, never to call a woman a whore again. I hope you do the same. We all deserve better.

Image link: <a href=”https://www.freepik.com/photos/woman”>Woman photo created by freepik – www.freepik.com</a>

Oxford students react to the European Super League

Cherwell Sport Contributors
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Oxford students react to the European Super League

News came out in the last two weeks that a ‘European Super League’ had been set up by a cartel of 12 “Founding Clubs”, of which England’s ‘Big Six’ were a part. The new competition format meant that the clubs taking part in The Super League would leave the UEFA Champions League and be exempt from relegation from the competition. The Founding Clubs would also receive a money package in excess of 3 billion euros by the investment bank J.P. Morgan for creating the competition. The owners of the football clubs who took this decision received widespread backlash from broadcasters, football pundits, Boris Johnson, Prince William and football fans across the world. As a result, England’s ‘Big Six’, of which 3 are owned by Americans — the Glazer family at Manchester United, FSG at Liverpool and KSE at Arsenal —decided to withdraw from the project, having already put their plans for ‘Project Big Picture’ to bed earlier in the year. Most of the 6 clubs have already expressed their regret for joining the competition, whereas J.P. Morgan have also released a statement saying they “misjudged how this deal would be viewed by the wider football community”. Barcelona, Juventus and Real Madrid are still members of the project. Florentino Perez, the current president of Real Madrid, has promised that the project is only on standby, and that it will eventually happen. Cherwell asked a number of students from Oxford University to offer their reactions to what the last two weeks have meant for football. 

Mauricio Alencar, Chelsea fan and Cherwell Sport Editor

I am a Chelsea fan, a member of the Chelsea Supporters Trust and a Chelsea Pitch Owner, and was a protestor at Stamford Bridge ahead of the home game against Brighton. Despite his mistakes, Abramovich has given us everything: multiple trophies, a fantastic women’s team, a world class academy (though not used enough), efforts to fight against antisemitism and other forms of discrimination which were rife within the Chelsea fanbase, and investment in grassroots football and in the community (like opening the Milennium hotel for NHS staff over the pandemic). However, those on our board have unforgivably let down their guard; the last 18 years have been put to waste. 

Over the course of Roman’s tenure, we’ve set a dangerous precedent where rich owners buy clubs, but then have the ability to leech on to other clubs, however small (Bury, Bolton, Wigan come to mind), and suck out the living soul from them. We can yapper around in the same spot and blame Sky, the creation of the Premier League in 1992, and other historic moments, like the introduction of the Bosman rule in 1995, for wobbling the financial or political structures in the game. Many of the off-field shifts in the game across the last 30 years are irreversible. The decisions the football community takes on from now must be for the fans and they must be just as irreversible as those of the last 30 years. Now As football-messiah Gary Neville, also part of the campaign group ‘Saving the Beautiful Game’, points out, we have to now team together to stop the revenue-driven businessmen from future coups regardless of what has happened. 

Everyone is on the same page now. Jeopardy, competitiveness and equal opportunity for all teams is what we care about as football fans- not endless, inevitable success. The football pyramid needs a desperate recalibration: put fans on the board, re-distribute income so that teams and communities of lower divisions get their fair share, stop with the Uefa coefficient nonsense, stop owners from reaping profits from winless teams. We’ve seen what fans can do. We’ve seen what power governance can have if it also puts its foot down on the pedal. Let’s all not take our foot off the accelerator now. The European Super League must be the trigger for all football fans to draw arms and take on the cowardly oligarchs. 

Luke Bennell, football fan

In 2020, the Court of Arbitration for Sport overturned a two-year ban imposed by UEFA on Manchester City competing in European competitions. City’s financial heft proved decisive, backed by the sovereign wealth of the UAE; UEFA simply couldn’t compete with the legal team the club could afford.

This helps us understand why the cabal of ultra-rich owners behind this coup thought they could get away with their proposed Super League, despite near-universal resistance. Several bodies, including the Premier League, UEFA, FIFA, and the British Government stated their opposition, and potential punishments included point deductions or expulsions for the clubs involved, and a ban on their players competing internationally.

However, it is one thing to propose punishments, but the ability to impose them is another issue. As James Montague – author of The Billionaires Club – stated recently on the Tifo podcast, the above-mentioned case highlighted that these institutions lack the power to enforce punishments. While one of these clubs has the financial backing of a sovereign state, others are owned by those used to getting what they want from conflicts with national governments.

Overall, this entire project comes down to hubris. The executives who planned this were convinced they would get their way yet again and that there was nobody capable of holding them accountable, least of all the fans, players and managers who were not consulted on the decision. They did not expect fans to support their proposals, and they did not care. They likely expected fans to simply fall in line eventually, out of a nihilistic resignation. This would explain the complete lack of an effective PR campaign.

However, fans did not role over and accept these changes as the inevitable. They voiced their opposition, both online and outside stadiums. Managers and players also began to express their disapproval, just one in a growing list of cases where players are increasingly willing to engage with political issue. In the face of this PR disaster the resolve of the clubs involved began to unravel and the plan itself collapsed.

There are significant positives to be taken from this episode. While the billionaires behind it might wield a disproportionate amount of power in our society, the protests have highlighted that direct action by the public can hold them accountable. There is also a possibility of further change now. the idea of a Super League has been used for thirty years as a bargaining chip by these clubs to extract further benefits from bodies like UEFA; their negotiating position has never been weaker. Fans have sought to maintain momentum and continue to put pressure on their absent owners, as was demonstrated by the protests by Arsenal fans outside the team’s stadium on Friday.

However, it should be noted that this is not over. Those who planned this might be wounded now, but they will be back again in their attempts to consolidate their sporting oligopoly. Only time will tell if they have learnt from their mistakes.

Ciara Garcha, Manchester United fan

Should we really have been surprised by the clearly elitist, greed-driven plans for the Super League, which flew in the face of the spirit of football? There seems to be a strong argument that the spirit of football has been under attack for a while. The ESL was merely the latest in a long line of attempts to commercialise and gentrify the game, dragging it even further away from its working-class community-based roots.

With million-pound contracts, sponsorship deals and broadcasting rights, football is no longer a working-class game. Though fans were victorious in defeating the ESL proposals, the English game has not belonged to the fans for some time. Unlike German football, where clubs are effectively under public ownership, English football is run on greed and capitalist principles – and has been for some time.

 Defeating the ESL was only the first step. Fans should continue to fight to get our game back and restore football to its roots.

Read Ciara’s full verdict on the ESL here.

Matthew Cogan, Derby County fan and Cherwell Deputy Sport Editor

The rollercoaster of the European Super League saga in the last week is a warning to all football fans. It is an incredibly worrying development in the long running saga of Europe’s largest clubs focussing only on themselves and their pockets. As a fan of Derby County, a team that relies on the money brought in by the Premier League, this is a proposal that worries me. It is a signal of intent that I believe could be the beginning of the end of football as we know it today. The sport is one that so many people across the world love, and the fans like me that do not support one if these ‘big’ teams are the ones that will be hit the hardest. So many clubs ranging from semi-professional right up to teams steeped in history such as my beloved Derby County, rely so heavily on the money that the Premier League brings in that such a proposal as the ESL, or anything similar, threatens the whole footballing society. Therefore, I am glad to see the huge response from the fans so that, for the time being at least, such plans have been shelved.

Caitlin Murray, Arsenal fan

I’m not shocked by Stan Kroenke’s behaviour. He eroded the clubs core values the day he made over fifty-five loyal Arsenal staff members redundant in the middle of a pandemic. All the while, simultaneously engaging in discussions about the development of a European Super League and the share of $3.5BN he would be pocketing. My pride in being an Arsenal supporter has now been replaced with embarrassment and disgust. Perhaps, as Arsenal fans, we must finally accept that ‘Victoria Concordia Crescit’ is no more than a trademark to the owners. I envisage the #KroenkeOut protests are just the beginning.

Millie Wood, Manchester United fan

Had those English clubs just accepted the expansion of the Champions League from 32 teams to 36, including two spots reserved for ‘historically significant’ teams which would have all but guaranteed them a permanent place in it, the backlash would’ve been minimal. But in seeking an even larger slice of the pie, the so-called ‘big six’ monumentally overplayed their hand.

There is a wider lesson in that than football. 

If we do not react to the little injustices, they quickly morph into larger ones. If fans had accepted the Super League, the next step would have been games abroad. In ten year’s time we would not have cringed at ‘Inter Miami vs Liverpool’ on the fixture list.

The fable of a frog boiling to death in water heated up slowly is often recounted. Then inevitably someone notes that in the famous experiment which gave rise to the tale, the frog was lobotomised before being put into the pot, because the frog with an intact brain jumped out.

I would not be surprised if in five years time, once the anger of today has been forgotten, the clubs try this again, rebranded and with rules toned down just enough to sneak their proposals through. Let us not be the lobotomised frog.

Image: Mauricio Alencar

Tsitsipas triumphs at the Monte-Carlo Masters

Ariana Rubio
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Tsitsipas triumphs at the Monte-Carlo Masters

World number five Stefanos Tsitsipas beat Andrey Rublev 6-3 6-3 to cinch his first Masters 1000 title at the 2021 Monte-Carlo Masters. Currently the youngest player ranking in the ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) top ten, Tsitsipas had previously defeated Karatsev, Garin, Fokina and Evans to advance to the final of the prestigious competition. 

This victory is all the more notable in the context of the global pandemic. As in the French and Australian Open, players were required to undergo extensive quarantine and testing regiments, and spectatorship, like so many things, was confined to a screen. The sight of empty stadiums no doubt affects the players, who draw energy and vitality from the cheers (or sometimes boos, if one thinks of the likes of the audacious Nick Kyrgios) of the audience. Despite this, the rising tennis star persevered to obtain perhaps his most impressive victory yet. 

This win follows a stream of successes for the young player. Tsitsipas also secured a win over Dominic Thiem at the 2019 ATP Finals, which made him the youngest winner of the tournament in eighteen years. Despite playing in a number of Grand Slam tournaments, including reaching the Australian Open semi-final twice (2019 and 2021) and the French Open semi-final once (2020), Tsitsipas has yet to win such a major tournament. After his string of recent successes, he no doubt has his eyes on this prize, and will likely compete in Wimbledon and the US Open later this year. 

Tsitstipas was born in 1998 in Athens to Greek and Russian parents, both of whom are familiar with the game. His mother, for example, was a world number one junior who represented the Soviet Union in the Fed/Billie Jean King Cup. Tsitsipas would later follow in her footsteps when he became a world number one junior himself. Both parents, who had met at a tennis tournament, had worked as tennis instructors. The family’s interest in sport is not confined to tennis, however: his grandfather on his mother’s side, Sergei Salnikov, won an Olympic gold medal while playing for the Soviet national football team. It should be noted, as Tsitsipas himself is always careful to do, that his mother’s twin sister, herself a professional tennis player, for financially supporting his junior career. With such a family background, it is no wonder that Tsitsipas grew into the player he is today. The star continues to train at the Tennis Club Glyfada where he had his first formal lessons at the age of six, and his father is his coach. Outside of tennis, his childhood hobbies included football and swimming, and he can speak English, Greek and Russian. Currently, he vlogs his sporting travels to his fans on Youtube, and is focused on promoting tennis in Greece, which is not among the most popular of sports. 

Tsitsipas’ junior career arguably peaked when he reached the quarter final of the junior Australian Open semi-finals in 2015, but his doubles win with Estonian player Kenneth Raisma at Wimbledon (the only event offered for juniors) was also a hefty achievement that laid the groundwork for his professional career. 

Looking beyond this, Tsitsipas narrowly missed out on victory when fellow rising upstart Alexander Zverev defeated him in the final of the Mexican Open in late March. Earlier this month, Hubert Hurkacz bested the Greek player in the quarter-final of the Miami Open earlier this month. Excitingly, Tsitsipas is currently competing in the Barcelona Open. He defeated Spanish player Munar on his home ground, Minaur, Auger Aliassime and Sinner to advance to the final of the prestigious event. Tsitsipas will face Rafael Nadal in the next few days. Nadal, the so-called ‘King of Clay’, is in formidable shape, having celebrated his 1,000th singles ATP Tour wins earlier this year. While the tennis mogul’s reputation, heightened by his incredible 20 Grand Slam singles titles, makes it tempting to dismiss Tsitsipas as an underdog, he is certainly in with a fighting chance. Indeed, Tsitsipas defeated Nadal in the quarterfinals of the 2021 Australian Open, despite the Spaniard’s early two set lead. Nadal was also defeated by Andrey Rublev at the Monte Carlo Masters, whom Tsitsipas later went on to defeat to secure victory at the championship. The world of tennis (albeit, again, from 

While clearly the underdog, the world of tennis (the 100,000 in-person spectators who usually attend the tournament are confined to television coverage) will watch with eager eyes. Evidenced by his performance thus far, Tsitsipas, along with Zverev and Cori Gauff,  is one of the most exciting new male players of the game, and fans await his future performances.

Image credit: Carine06 (CC BY-SA 2.0) via Wikimedia Commons 

Rethinking the Oscars

Aram Masharqa
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Rethinking the Oscars

With cinemas closed amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, it is no surprise that many typical filmgoers haven’t seen the nominated films this year. However, as Stephen King asked in 2020, “How many of the older, whiter contingent actually saw Harriet, about Harriet Tubman, or The Last Black Man in San Francisco? Just asking the question.” We have no guarantee the Academy voters watch every nominated film.

Previous Oscar winners have often been predictable. The IMDb keywords with the highest correlation with nominations are “family tragedy”, “whistleblower”, “Pulitzer Prize source”, “physical therapy”, “domestic servant”, and “Watergate”. Hence the array of nominations for The Post (2017), a film about investigative journalism, or Marriage Story (2019), evidently a ‘family tragedy’.

The films themselves certainly merit success, yet at the same time they are films that are perfect examples of ‘Oscar Bait’. Both films were released towards the end of the year (December 2017, November 2019); both had a limited theatrical release to begin with; both featured a star-studded cast. The only risk taken by nominating Marriage Story was that it was a Netflix Original, and even then, the family storyline clearly shows a cushioned risk at most.

Conversely, we find that films with the keywords ‘black independent film’ are amongst the least likely to be nominated (Slate, 2014). When the main characters are black in a nominated film, the plot usually involves slavery, or a fight for freedom/against white supremacists – see BlacKKKlansman (2018), or this year’s very own Judas and the Black Messiah (2021). When a ‘black independent film’ won Best Picture (Moonlight, 2016), there was media outcry about La La Land being snubbed. It’s clear that the films that receive nominations and awards are the ones that reinforce preconceived, structural ideas. If the Academy’s decisions challenge the status quo they are criticised. Although many supported their choice in 2016, we simply cannot ignore the volume of the voices against it.

Naturally, as in any area of culture, there is such a wealth of originality, talent, and creativity that it can be helpful to designate certain works as ‘exceptional’ or ‘outstanding’. If not to congratulate their merit, then to direct audiences to films they may have otherwise missed. Indeed, the Academy Awards themselves state their role: ‘we recognize and uphold excellence in the motion picture arts and sciences, inspire imagination, and connect the world through the medium of motion pictures’.

Whilst they do often recognise talent in the film industry, I can’t help but feel as though the only ‘imagination’ they inspire is the imaginative marketing choices producers make. Given Parasite (2019) was the first non-English language film to win best picture, can we really say the ceremony “connect[s] the world”?

The Oscars, especially in a year like this, can be useful. When we’re all stuck watching the same three sitcoms on Netflix, it can be helpful to have a list of films that are guaranteed to be well-made, gripping, and moving. Nevertheless, we must always remain critical. We must keep in mind that the Oscars are just another fallible source.

Image credit: PrayItNoPhotography via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

Stop worrying about antiheroines when the real evil is still at large

Eleanor Zhang
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Stop worrying about antiheroines when the real evil is still at large

CW: sexual violence, suicide

Mere months after the release of Promising Young Woman, the news of Sarah Everard’s murder emerged. In the following days, there was content in many young women’s social media feeds reminding them of things they’d known for a long time. That they’ve been thinking of every night’s walk home alone as a gamble. That they assume taking a cab home instead could mean abduction. That before taking the bus instead of cab, they ready themselves for drunk men’s slurred flirtations and stumbling grabs and that, once something untoward happens, they now also have to hesitate before calling the police, knowing a predator was once among the assumed rescuers. 

This newly emerged concern stemming from distrust of authority’s ability to enforce justice, makes the rise and fall of Emerald Fennell’s neon-clad avenger even more poignant. The story starts off with a typical college rape incident where Cassie’s best friend Nina, a promising medical student, was drunk and sexually assaulted by her male peers at a party. In the crime’s aftermath, Cassie witnesses Nina’s struggle with shame, trauma and humiliation, while their school and legal system fail to investigate and prosecute the perpetrators. This led to her friend’s suicide and the end of Cassie’s own academic pursuits, urging her instead into a routine of late-night performances in bars and clubs, where she’d bait men into initiating nonconsensual sex by pretending to be drunk, just to scare them by revealing her sobriety. It is important to note that Cassie doesn’t troll and kill for fun, but is forced to take justice into her own hands. 

If films like Promising are indeed “vicious daydreaming” and “fantasies” that “explore unpleasant sentiments and desires”, as accused by one comment piece on The Telegraph, how does one account for the eerie déjà vus? According to the numbers provided by Office for National Statistics, of victims who reported the perpetrator was a stranger, the majority (64%) reported that they themselves were under the influence of alcohol at the time of the assault, making what happens to Nina in the film a representative scenario. Even the police’s response of not prosecuting on the ground of lacking evidence is paralleled in the records: among the reported cases of sexual assault, only 39% percent of them saw the perpetrators arrested by police. In 19% of the cases, the police took no action. 

More unsettling is the realisation that the practice of initiating sex with drunk girls has been a long-standing trope in reality as well as on screen, deployed in many well-known comedy films as the ultimate solution for horny single men. 2007’s Superbad, for example, features three high-schoolers and their tenacity in finding enough booze to inebriate a crush. Although the film gives me the creeps whenever I think of it, one review by New York Times raves about “a tickly, funny tale of three teenage boys revved up by their surging, churning, flooding hormones”. These narratives in cinema about men preying on and hurting women are not only chronically tolerated but, like A Streetcar Named Desire and its domestic abuser, celebrated as cult classics. However, the moment a woman attempts violence towards men, voices start rattling on about the poisonous effects violent women on screen could have on future generations of girls. What girls need to see is not a perennially beaten woman, but a woman that finds a way to fight back when no one — not their husbands, nor society, nor law and order — can protect them. 

Antiheroines are not a new invention. In the 90s, Buffy opened a generation’s eyes to an abundance of combativeness condensed in a small physique, and Tarantino’s Bride in the early noughties that swung blade at her murderous ex-boss. On the pages there was Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber, a Bluebeard tale ending on a mother decapitating her daughter’s beastly husband, and Edmund Cooper’s Who Needs Men? featuring a determined Madam Exterminator that makes it her mission to annihilate the last of the surviving men hiding in Scotland. Yet even the characters that seem unconquerable in their own stories could easily fall victim to objectification and sexualisation by the male audience and readers, in a society where men would claim a penchant for “feisty women”, and readily pay for a dominatrix’s service. Hence the irony in one of the red flags for problematic men my female friends and I joke about, that one should never date the boy if he has a Kill Bill poster on his bedroom wall.

The rise of antiheroines stresses essentially the same thing every wave of feminist movement attempts to accentuate, that a woman’s refusal to be suppressed and abused by patriarchy is always less threatening, when what they’re rebelling against is still prevalent. Every time a Sarah Everard is murdered in our midst, it becomes evident again that, although our society is exposed to Fleabag’s sass and scenes of Killing Eve’s Villanelle stabbing away at her next assignment, it’s still far from granting every woman walking down a dark lane the same level of respect — let alone fear — those fictional she-warriors evoke. 

That is not to say that antiheroines should take a break from flourishing in the post-Me-Too culture. To quote Wonder Woman’s creator William Moulton Marston: “Not even girls want to be girls so long as our feminine archetype lacks force, strength, and power.” It’s important to introduce young women to the likes of Cassie, despite her not being real, as what happens on the training ground of cinema could channel encouragement just as palpably. I personally felt grateful for having known her, as I borrowed her move against scornful onlookers and stared back at my accosters one afternoon, and felt triumphant when they retreated their gaze. That same evening, Emerald Fennell won Best Original Screenplay at the Oscars. And for the first time in a long time, I felt proud and hopeful for being a woman.

Image credit: Sharon Mollerus via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0).

Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) – what’s all the hype?

Richard Li
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Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) – what’s all the hype?

NFTs are a blockchain based technology that have garnered a lot of hype and news coverage in recent months by technology enthusiasts and investors alike. The NBA is using them to sell highlight videos. Artists are using them to sell digital works. Musicians are using them to retain royalties. Twitter’s CEO is even using them to sell tweets.

But what actually is an NFT, and what does it do? NFT stands for non-fungible token, and is, in short, a unit of data stored on a blockchain that certifies a digital asset to be authentic or unique and thus not interchangeable. This is as opposed to a fungible token, such as US dollars or Bitcoin, where, for example, there is no way to distinguish one specific dollar from another in your bank account – they are all grouped together. Simply, a blockchain is a digital ledger that allows transfers of ownership to be recorded in a way that is irreversible, such as when you transfer money to someone else – most NFTs use the Ethereum blockchain. NFTs can be used to represent many different types of digital files, such as photos, audio, or even videos. However, access to a copy of the original file is not restricted to just the owner of the NFT – anyone can easily obtain a copy, as the NFT just provides proof of ownership.

This might sound very strange, but consider the following: the original copy of a famous artists’ work, such as Guernica by Picasso, is worth hundreds of millions of dollars. This is despite the fact that there are many extremely accurate replica paintings of it available for a few hundred dollars (a tiny fraction of the original price). Proponents of NFTs argue that this shows that the vast majority of the value of an original piece of art is derived from the artists’ so-called “signature” on the work, rather than the work itself. For example, recently Christie’s auction house sold its first piece of NFT-linked digital art, which was by the digital artist Beeple. It ended up commanding a staggering winning bid of $69 million! While this may sound ludicrous as you can download an exact copy of the image on your computer for free, NFT fans maintain this is no surprise.

A key advantage of NFTs is that its extremely easy for anyone to create one. All you have to do is create an account on an NFT marketplace website such as OpenSea or Rarible (which are kind of like eBays for NFTs), upload a picture or other digital item, and put it up for auction. An artist can even create storefronts and collections of their art on the website to mimic a traditional art gallery or museum. You can also choose whether to “mint” just a single unique piece, or multiple copies. Moreover, an artist can choose to set a commission for subsequent future sales. This means that if the original buyer resells the NFT to a second buyer, or the second to a third, the original artist still continues to be paid (for example, 10% of every sale price). This means if a piece of art significantly increases in value over coming years, the original artist will still be able to benefit from this.

All of this has predictably led to a gold-rush style frenzy in recent months. New wannabe artists are emerging and churning out new NFTs at record pace, and wealthy investors are snapping them up in the hopes they explode in value in the future. The overall NFT market tripled in 2020, reaching more than $250 million. Sceptics argue there is a massive crash imminent, as NFTs are still a very niche market and thus do not warrant the very lofty valuations some of them currently hold. Furthermore, NFT transactions have attracted increased environmental criticism. Like cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, the computation-heavy processes required to mine and run proof-of-work blockchains require massive amounts of energy that are contributing to global warming and pollution. It should be noted, however, that solutions such as switching to a proof-of-stake blockchain (e.g. Ethereum 2.0), which do not require these computational processes, are currently in the works and aim to solve many of these carbon emissions concerns. While we may not see NFTs in the National Art Gallery any time soon, they are an exciting innovation in the world of art and collectibles, and open up that world to all sorts of previously unexplored talent.

Image credit: Marco Verch via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

India: why are COVID cases rising?

Anthony Shorrocks
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India: why are COVID cases rising?

The COVID-19 pandemic is currently exploding in India at a horrifying rate. Records are being broken with each day that passes – over 300,000 cases have been officially reported every day for the past week, accompanying roughly 2500 deaths a day for a total of 210,000 deaths since the pandemic began in the country. 

Graph courtesy of Our World in Data.

However, shockingly, many public health experts suggest the actual number of cases and deaths could be as much as 4-5 times higher, putting deaths in the millions – evidence for this is the mismatch between the government reported deaths and the actual deaths registered at crematoria and burial grounds. 

But what caused this catastrophe? Despite India’s poor health infrastructure, low government assistance and high population in comparison with western counterparts such as the United States, it managed to successfully manage and flatten the first wave of coronavirus in 2020 in quite an admirable fashion while countries such as the United Kingdom were dealing with second and third waves.  

However, in 2021, India’s luck took a turn for the worse. The earlier victory in 2020, together with an element of strong Indian nationalism, led to a surge in false confidence that the country would be spared a second or third wave. Epidemiologists and other experts in the country suggested that herd immunity had already come into effect. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and others claimed victory against the virus and held huge election rallies where they did not wear masks. Perhaps the worst super-spreader event of all was the Kumbh Mela, where as many as 2.5 million Hindu pilgrims gathered at the Ganges River with little regard to social distancing – the virus was carried back to hometowns and villages by thousands of these returning pilgrims.

Importantly, vaccine hoarding from countries like the UK has also been significant. Recently, a Downing Street aide tested positive following travel to India, prompting alarmist headlines about new variants. More troublingly, he was allegedly told to get more Indian-manufactured doses of vaccines, at a time when the Indian government – for reasons now distressingly obvious – was seeking to hold back many of the doses it was previously exporting in their millions, many actually intended for developing countries. Last but not least, more virulent mutations of the virus emerged from countries such as the United Kingdom, as well as from within India itself.

The outbreak is showing no signs of stopping or slowing – in fact, it is accelerating. Hospitals across the country are being completely overwhelmed, and many are simply being left to die on the sidewalk as there aren’t nearly enough ICU beds, ventilators, and oxygen tanks to accommodate them. This has led to a black market emerging, where vendors are price gouging desperate relatives and friends of those dying from the virus for as much as 20 times the market value of items such as oxygen tanks and tablets. These kinds of prices represent the life savings of many Indians.   

A group of Oxbridge societies is fundraising in aid of the current situation in India. You can donate here.

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