Tuesday 9th September 2025
Blog Page 455

In Conversation with Kris Hallenga

Isabella Colletta
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In Conversation with Kris Hallenga

In 2019 Kris Hallenga posted a letter addressed to her past self on the CoppaFeel website, recognising a decade since she had been diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer. Reflecting on everything from successes to failures, she muses at one point “you’re going to like the idea of writing a book but probably never get on with it”. A year on and she is writing her book How to Glitter a Turd after successfully crowd funding for it. Based on her blog of the same name, the book follows Hallenga through her diagnosis and the process of learning to live with a life limiting disease whilst founding a charity. She recognises that her experience of breast cancer is “extraordinary” because “I’ve survived with this for such a long time, which is obviously rare so I really wanted for people to know that a story like this exists. So if someone is diagnosed they know that actually there is someone who survived it for a long time, and it gives people hope.” When I mention the uncertainty she expressed a year ago as to whether or not she would ever write a book she laughs: “Yeah, I shouldn’t doubt myself like that”.

It has now been eleven years since Hallenga was diagnosed with cancer, and since CoppaFeel was founded. “I had no knowledge of breast cancer and didn’t know I should be checking my boobs, so I didn’t”, she tells me. When she was 23 she found a lump in her breast, “I got it checked out and after 8 months of going back and forth to the GP it was diagnosed as stage 4 breast cancer.” The late diagnosis meant that the cancer had spread from her breast to her spine, and whilst it could be treated it couldn’t be cured. A couple of months later she decided to found CoppaFeel alongside her twin sister Maren, a decision borne in part out of “the frustration and the anger, the whole situation got me really baffled about why no one was telling young people to check their boobs”.

From its early beginnings, spreading breast cancer awareness amongst young people was the drive that pushed CoppaFeel forwards. “We wanted to start a conversation with young people about their boobs,” she says, “to normalise that subject of checking your boobs, touching your boobs.” One of their first steps, before even receiving their charity status, was to go around music festivals and initiate a conversation with young people about breast cancer. From this, the motivation to educate young people about the importance of checking themselves for symptoms grew, even though “we didn’t know how we were going to do that or what success looked like to us, but we had enough evidence from going to festivals and speaking to young people about their boobs that showed that there was a severe lack of knowledge and understanding.”

One of the charity’s big aims which continues today is “to stamp out late detection altogether”, Hallenga tells me, and she expresses the determined belief that “cancer doesn’t have to be diagnosed late”. I’m curious as to how she learned to define success during the early stages of the charity’s foundation, and particularly as it began to slowly grow in the public’s consciousness. For her, it was when the first person who informed them that their message had helped her to be diagnosed early which “became the indication that what we were doing was having some impact”. As individual stories began to flood in, “success suddenly became evidence, anecdotal evidence from these young people saying ‘I was diagnosed early because of you guys’.” 

Alongside talks at schools and universities, CoppaFeel have maintained their campaigning work at festivals, have hosted flash mobs and they’ve launched a number of successful social media campaigns with numerous companies. Throughout it all the charity has maintained a positive tone in their education, since “the truth of the matter is you’re talking about boobs and getting to know your boobs isn’t a scary conversation”, Hallenga suggests. “Cancer, the realities of cancer, are obviously. But people don’t even have to consider what life with cancer is like they just need to check their boobs.” 

The organisation’s work at festivals across the UK has been enormously popular, and they have launched their own event “Festifeel”, which Hallenga describes as her “baby”. The annual comedy and music gig takes place during October for Breast Cancer awareness month, yet planning for the event this year has been subject to deliberation amidst the pandemic. “The idea that it might not happen this year is really sad”, Hallenga tells me. The event has been part of CoppaFeel’s fundraising and awareness activities for years now, but “coronavirus has interrupted a lot of events and a lot of things, so Festifeel is perhaps a small fight in comparison to something.”

Avoiding the topic of coronavirus would be impossible, and charities are particularly struggling with the challenges the pandemic has created. However, CoppaFeel has continued to find new ways to spread awareness and continue key aspects of their work. “I think we are really lucky cause we are quite a digitally savvy organisation anyway” Hallenga acknowledges, “so it means that we can put a lot of our services online. So our boobettes who usually go out to do talks in schools or workplaces we’ve now set them up to do webinars online instead.” They even have a Boob Bot, a programme on facebook messenger which informs you on how to check your boobs and what to look for in real time. Whilst the organisation has adapted to the challenges posed by going entirely virtual “in terms of fundraising that’s a far bigger challenge. Because a lot of events have been cancelled and a lot of people are obviously thinking about money, so it’s a real challenge for all charities right now.”

Especially as a relatively small charity, the long term implications of the pandemic present a concern. But Hallenga has worked to create a strong voice for CoppaFeel since founding it, and in 2014 she was asked if her life and work could become the focus of a BBC documentary. Opening up about her experiences of living with stage 4 cancer whilst running a charity on camera presented its challenges. “At first it was quite hard to do”, she tells me, “I found the video diaries the worst, I just found them so awkward.” However the process of filming and building rapport with the crew allowed the film to become therapeutic, and speaking to a camera “sort of became really natural and I think that’s what has made the film so successful because it’s been very authentic, and very real and very raw.”

Hallenga has also spoken openly about breast cancer and the reality of living with the disease in various newspapers and magazines. But it was the Check ‘em Tuesday campaign she ran with CoppaFeel in The Sun in the form of a weekly column which truly propelled the charity into the national consciousness. This “was monumental” she says, because “it kind of got a health message into a paper every week for eight months”. The column focused on the charity’s breast cancer awareness message, but also allowed Hallenga to share her story of living with the difficulties of a life-limiting illness. She’s previously described how the column became a kind of therapy for her, because “it allowed me to express what it was like living with cancer, and that’s not something you tend to read about in newspapers. It was just a normal person with a very abnormal story, sharing what life was like.”

The campaign faced a level of criticism for its association with The Sun, but this was something they were prepared for, Hallenga tells me. She is still strong in her belief that voicing the message of the column was the most important thing: “we were quite firm on how we believed it was going to make a difference, given that 6 million people read the paper everyday.” As the column progressed, its impact began to parallel the early success of CoppaFeel, and people began to send in anecdotes and stories of how the campaign encouraged them to get symptoms checked. By the end of the eight month campaign, there had been a real movement in national awareness of breast cancer. “We saw such a huge shift in the checking behaviours of the people who read The Sun compared to other papers,” she comments, “and we can kind of go “do you know what, we can prove that this has made some change”. The eight month campaign not simply drove forward the charity’s central campaigning message, but also gave a rare opportunity for CoppaFeel to embed itself in the national consciousness; as Hallenga explains, “small charities don’t get opportunities like that very often.”

For a charity such as CoppaFeel, whose central intention is to spread a message of awareness, publicity such as this is important. National attention from the film “Kris: Dying to Live’ and the charity’s column with The Sun only propelled the organisation’s message further, and in July 2017 cancer awareness and education was put on the primary and secondary school syllabus. “I mean that was amazing,” Hallenga recalls, “the day we realised that getting something written up in the curriculum that was potentially going to really help people was incredible.” Achievements like this should be celebrated, but she is quick to remind that the work is never done. She moves onto new projects quickly, but she suggests that the celebration is important in maintaining the drive: “I guess in a way you’re more motivated to keep going and it keeps the momentum going, which is great.”

Given the current circumstances, judging what the future holds for CoppaFeel is challenging. Hallenga stepped down from the position of CEO of the charity in 2016, a move which she describes as “a dream come true”. Since founding it in 2009, she affirms that the charity has grown to a stage where it no longer requires her to lead it, and for her, the combined role of founder and CEO is not always a helpful position. “I just don’t think the founder should run charities forever, I think it can really hinder them”, she explains, “and I also wanted to be able to step away at my own choice, at my own decision and not as the result of a new cancer progression.” However, she still works closely with the charity and continues to work around breast cancer awareness and education. For Hallenga, it’s a message that continues to be incredibly vital, and continuing education confirms her optimism that in the future “I really believe that cancer will be looked at as this thing that happened, that doesn’t kill people anymore”.

The Sheldonian

Klara Zhao
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The Sheldonian

The concert hall was evidently constructed with the peculiar intention of casting an experience of multiple worlds within one polystratinous edifice. The best seat is right at the very top, on the level that affords but half a view of the entire orchestra down below (for the sight of the orchestra powering away at their metal and wooden contraptions was never the main attraction), and a more complete view of the concert hall itself. After having settled down, chosen the row that suits one’s comforts best, one must take the time to have a good glance around, carefully careless so as not to attract voyeuristic suspicions. The primary aim of your line of vision will be the sight of those sitting across from you: the pre-concert shuffling and steady formation of a relatively composed crowd, the constituents of which appear quite minuscule in the midst of the grand scene – like newly formed buds on the trees of early spring, or floral icing patterning on a wedding cake. Strange, what these voiceless humans become when sitting so high up. The ceiling is closer to us than the concert hall, and one’s head could almost touch, though not quite managing to do so, the artwork looking down on the curious audience. The requiem will be playing in the background, or the foreground, if it is for that which one came. But it is a sight indeed, simply to gaze at those across the hall – and it is passing from the distant world of the orchestra pit up one stratum, two strata, and as the gaze crosses the line dividing the top and middle floors, then one is suddenly transported. Flown off to another world, the idle eyes passing over the individual souls that speckle the semicircle around semi-views of a concert in formation. That is the beauty of the concert. Music threading its way in and out of the thoughts of a hundred vague spirits in the audience.

And in a moment, they all disperse into the night. A bumble of contented bees that move out together and then divide themselves into the starry skies.

Photo by DAVID ILIFF. License: CC BY-SA 3.0; image has been cropped

Unterwegs

Klara Zhao
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Unterwegs

Let us meet at the station, and see where we go –
To the park, to sit under the shade of the trees perhaps, under the parasols of conker leaves,
and watch the pigeons heave
every crumb, every speck of dust between their beaks…
And in those grey streets, we’ll see none of the beasts,
which have haunted all our lightest dreams –
The shadows that hung, that draped the scene
and left us in the dark for months, and lean
towards a future that we cannot see.
———
So let us meet at the station, then,
and what happens after we can decide again –
perhaps the cafés will have reopened,
perhaps the concert halls will have chosen
to host another show before we leave.
Perhaps, then, we shall sit together, drink together,
laugh together as in those early days.
———
But for all these hopeful fantasies,
we shall only see
the leaves of spring trees standing in our way,
as we laze in our chimeric daze,
and see, perhaps, that this will never be.
———
But let us meet, in any case,
at the station, and let us haste,
and see which one of us will win the race –
The race to build the dreams of man,
the long-lost fantasies that so often can
drive those wood doves to lands crafted by unknown hands
and paint the picture of a timeless past.
———
And by the time we’ve both stopped dreaming,
stopped painting and stopped hastening,
Then perhaps it will be next Spring,
and no more will we need to hide in the shadows of the station wing.
———
Six O’ clock, and the day goes by,
the weeks, the months, the years,
how they sigh!
Perhaps it is better to abandon the fears –
indeed, of losing oneself in such fantasies!

The Fashion of Villanelle

Nina Holguin
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The Fashion of Villanelle

Film and TV have a history of leaving their impressions on the fashion industry. From the tailoring of Mad Men to the 80s hit Dynasty, from the casual 90s style of Buffy the Vampire Slayer to the suave blazers of Miami Vice, popular TV shows have come into our homes for decades and fuelled our desires for a certain look, or to even imitate our favourite characters. A famous example was the so-called ‘Rachel’ haircut based on Rachel Green from Friends; huge swathes of young girls, women and celebrities copied the new trend, with varying success.

The new trend in town doesn’t come from a waitress-turned-businesswoman from New York, but a deadly European assassin. The response to Killing Eve’s Villanelle is a reminder of the huge impact of television on our visual culture. With the show now onto the third series, rankings of Villanelle’s outfits and ‘where to shop’ articles are among the top results for an internet search of her name. One blue dress by British designer Susie Cave- yes, the wife of musician and lover of all things dark Nick Cave- sold out soon after the episode was aired. Cave’s aptly named label, The Vampire’s Wife, is just one of the many (relatively) small British designers the assassin goes for. If Villanelle’s stylist picks one of your designs for the show, expect an increase in revenue.

You can’t discuss Villanelle’s fashion without mentioning that pink tulle dress. The dress, which featured in Molly Goddard’s 2017 spring collection, now has its own section on the Wikipedia page of the episode it stared in. Extremely feminine and girly, the flouncy tulle ruffles of the bright pink dress seem out of place in a scene in which Villanelle needs to prove she’s as unsentimental as ever. Natasha Bird of ELLE described it as “fashion’s big television moment of the year”; Grazia’s Katie Rosseinsky went further, declaring it “autumn’s best fashion moment”. At the Academy Awards the following year, the red carpet was filled with ostentatious ruffles, textures, and bubble-gum pink. From TV costume to celebrity high fashion, the dress traversed the line to fashion fame. And, as we learnt from The Devil wears Prada, high fashion without fail filters down to our local high streets.

Villanelle’s clothes are bold and rather feminine; for me, every outfit she wears has at least a hint of femininity, whether it be the colour, the fabric or the tailoring of the garments. Gone is the femme fatale spy-assassin we have been accustomed to seeing. Traditional spies like James Bond exude a very suave masculine style, Charlie’s Angels use sex appeal against their targets. Nowadays films and shows are grittier: with Jason Bourne and Charlize Theron’s Lorraine Broughton in Atomic Blonde, the personalities and the style gets gruffer, but Theron’s leather jacket still screams sex appeal. But a spy who can be girly? Loves vintage inspired fashion, designer labels, patterns and even frills? This is something new and rather interesting.

As a society, we have been conditioned to find femininity unthreatening. It started off as sane women don’t kill, and they didn’t classify seductresses as sane. This has changed, of course, but society still clings to this idea of femininity not being compatible with violence. It is easy to see that this has some serious implications, one being that female abusers are not taken seriously. It says something about the societal perception of femininity to have a bright pink tulle gown being worn by a prolific assassin. However, in particular, it quietly challenges the idea that white women and white femininity equal innate innocence. It is more than a trope, but a pervasive societal idea that directly hurts people, especially people of colour. Nobody would think that Villanelle, wearing her floral dress or her sixties inspired outfit, is capable of such violence. Because to our society white, un-sexualised femininity never equals violence.

If we look at the racks of clothes in high street fashion retailers, we can see a range of styles, from masculine to androgynous to feminine. However, particularly recently, we have seen the comeback of tulle, big sleeves, soft fabrics and pastels- i.e. classically feminine clothes. If we look back to the 80s, we all know of the huge trend of shoulder pads which swept through nations. With the economic boom and more women than ever entering the workplace, the 80s power jacket was designed to simulate the men’s work suit. The shoulder pads were there to widen women’s frames, making them seem more masculine, so they would seem more authoritative and men would take them seriously in the workplace. Is there a shift in fashion that is now embracing the feminine as serious clothing? A year after the black dresses of the #MeToo movement, are the pink bubble-gum dresses that dazzled the Academy Awards a statement like its predecessors? These are interesting questions to ask. I believe that people are, particularly now, dressing femininely and demanding the authority that femininity shouldn’t eliminate. We don’t need masculinity to be taken seriously. This is why the new style icon of an assassin, with people flooding to dress like her, to me makes sense on a deeper level than pretty clothes. She’s an example of being feminine and successful. So, we want to be like her: feminine, bold and powerful. We may turn into businesswomen and men, but our inspiration was the feminine assassin. We can be feminine and successful, feminine and authoritative and feminine and dangerous.

Affairs

Helena Aeberli
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Affairs
4th January, 2020
Mild winter.
                    In the tree by the window
                    blue tits chatter.
                    Bright buds of life
                    against bare brown bones.
Downstairs
               the radio hums warnings.
                            My mother cleans
                                         methodically
                                         obsessively
                                         the way I read poetry or watch
                             a blue tit build a not-yet nest
                             balanced black against the sky
                                                                          as newsprint on a paper              already out of date.
Wind catches the branches
             live wires
             shaking
                                            like landmines or arms holding someone they love.
                          Outside
                                      a stranger sweeps debris,
                                                    dead leaves crackle wildfires
                                      an airplane roars
                                      the sky gasps open.
                                                                             Still, the radio is talking.
                                                                   We are all watching,
                                                                            silent
                                                                            save the birds
                                                                            who sing.

Attribution: © Francis C. Franklin / CC-BY-SA-3.0; image has been cropped

Let’s not be complacent: sexual violence is everyone’s responsibility

Cherwell Life
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Let’s not be complacent: sexual violence is everyone’s responsibility

TW: discussion of sexual violence

There’s a moment in the first episode of the new Netflix documentary Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich where survivor Michelle Licata looked at the camera and made me cry.

The first of Epstein’s victims to be interviewed by Miami Police, she had been narrating the horrible abuse she had suffered in a detached and cool manner. “Before Epstein…” she says… and when she trails off the camera is focused so that the audience can see the exact moment that her face crumples, collapsing in on itself towards some memory of unshareable pain.

            “Before Epstein,” she continues hopelessly

                                                “I was …

                                                                        I was

                                                                                    something else.”

She covers her face.

I felt as if I was crumpling too. I had not faced experiences comparable to Licata and yet I felt I understood those moments; the out-of-control sobbing in a park, a Costa Coffee, a night club, in the months after what I referred to as ‘that weird night’. Above all, I understood that feeling of an irreversible changing point, an isolating nostalgia for a self to whom the encounter hadn’t happened. Looking at photos of myself smiling in the early evening of the night itself, I felt this strange disassociation. This body I had then didn’t belong to me anymore.

What do I remember? I was in a club in Oxford and I was very drunk. I remember saying no to going home with someone and then I remember being in a taxi, my head in the lap of a boy I didn’t know the name of. I don’t remember calling a friend from his room, crying (she told me about this later) but I do remember other details of what happened, that I don’t need to go into. I do remember standing at his door saying I wanted to leave. I remember him saying nothing, just pulling down my top and turning me back towards the stairs. I don’t remember how or why I let him. I’m still angry at myself for this.

I didn’t know enough to know why I felt so wrong, especially because we didn’t have penetrative sex. Ultimately, directly following and contradicting the trauma I was experiencing, was an inability to categorise it. As difficult as the hurt was, it was compounded by the lurking suspicion that it was self-inflicted. I kept asking in my head – did he know what was happening? Was he really a predator who had come out looking for someone like me, or was he just a nice guy who I blamed my drunken mistakes on, unable to accept responsibility? Did I lead him on, respond in ways I don’t remember?  I didn’t know how to process what had happened; unfairly I was angry at my friends who tried to talk to me about it, angrier still when they let it go. I’m angry now when we have conversations about sexual harassment as if it’s an abstract rather than my experience. I still can’t think about details without squeezing my eyes shut and touching my neck often conjures phantom fingers from someone else’s hands. It’s taken over a year to fully accept that what happened wasn’t right.

I’m sharing this story, not because it is original, but because it is so, so far from unusual. While the Thames Valley Police release city-wide statistics – 3% of reported crimes in Central Oxford the last year were sexual offences – there is a lack of transparency about university offences. The most recent statistics available for crime committed on university campus specifically are from 2016-17, due to a Freedom of Information request. Thames Valley Police told us that three counts of sexual assault had been reported on campus. If the stats weren’t so transparently, offensively misleading, this would be almost laughable. I have more friends who have experienced sexual violence than the report acknowledges for the whole university. As it is, the blank space in the stats shows the magnitude of people currently being failed in Oxford. There needs to be reform of the reporting and counselling system – student organisations like It Happens Here, are doing extraordinary work to push this through.

But outside this, there is much to be done on an individual level. Almost every girl, and a large number of boys, have a story where they or someone they know have been made to feel uncomfortable, ashamed, threatened or violated in a sexual environment. Not all of these experiences would fall under the legal classifications of sexual assault or rape. But why in this instance is the law used as a way to define our morality? At the end of the day, the selfish, scarring use and abuse of vulnerable individuals for sexual gratification should be understood to be wrong. It is as simple as the fact that it happens all the time and it shouldn’t.

Let’s not be complacent. Our society is one filled with the pervasive language of violence around sexual exploits. Many (especially men, it has to be said) take the acknowledgment of rape culture as an attack on themselves – “I would obviously never rape someone” is perhaps the most common thing overheard in relation to consent workshops. I have always rushed to reassure such people that this is not an attack on them. But maybe it should be. Earlier I mentioned that I struggled to understand whether the boy who took me home was a predator or a good guy. The truth is that someone can be a nice guy, a soup kitchen volunteer, a stranger or a trusted female friend, and still inflict violence on another person. If you are not actively opting out of rape culture, if you don’t seek explicit consent, if you are not pulling up your friends who are ‘bad drunks’, ‘preddy’, ‘sharks’ or ‘desperate’- you are facilitating an environment which allows sexual violence. At the same time, just the acknowledgement of these truths can do much to help recovery. The bravery of survivors from high-profile predators – Weinstein to Epstein – is so important; every person has a duty to step up to make an impact in our own communities as well.

If reading any of this sounds familiar to you, please know that you are deserving of support and that it is never too late to reach out. Find resources at https://www.oxfordsu.org/campaigns/ithappenshere/ or contact Oxford’s Sexual Harassment and Violence Support Centre for independent advice and support.

It Happens Here has recently released a magazine called ‘Letters to Survivors’ which I highly recommend to anyone.

The Long Shadow of Edward Colston

Theo Davies
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The Long Shadow of Edward Colston

TW: Racism

For those from outside of Bristol, the name ‘Edward Colston’ may have only recently become familiar; for those of us raised here, reverence of it has been encouraged from the get-go.

A telling example of this, in my own experience, is my primary school’s adoption of his name; unlike other schools in the area, many of which were founded through his ‘philanthropy’, this choice of name was a simple act of commemoration for a man granted a level of esteem by the city few can rival, barring, at most, Cabot and Brunel. Some students at my secondary school belonged to Colston House, and were thereby encouraged to wear and cheer his name; for those at schools ‘lucky’ enough to be founded at his benefaction, annual thanksgiving ceremonies took this anachronistic sycophancy one step further.

The continued use of the Colston name in schools, streets, and buildings belies the true influence he, and the slave trade, maintain in Bristol today. Colston belonged to the Society of Merchant Venturers, a guild of local businessmen who sought to use their financial means to gain political influence in the city. To this end, Colston gave away much of the money he had earned through the exploitation of Black slaves on the proviso that the recipient causes furthered his political and moral ideology[1]; a self-interested act, not one worthy of celebration regardless of the origins of his wealth.

That this side of the Colston story was never taught to us in school is no surprise, given the enduring power of the Merchant Venturers—they own large swathes of Bristol’s parkland, have permanent positions of power within schools and the University (originally founded by them), and hold a great deal of continued political influence. The now-infamous statue of Colston exemplifies this: recent attempts to alter the plaque on its base to recognise the role he played in the death and enslavement of hundreds of thousands, and the selectiveness of his philanthropy, were halted at their bidding. Until mere weeks ago, this centuries-old society had had no BAME members, and only a handful of years ago did they stop displaying a collection of Colston’s hair and nail clippings[2]. The beliefs of Edward Colston loom large over the Merchant Venturers, who in turn have much of the city in their grasp. To argue that the felling of the statue of Colston was reprehensible, or one that should have waited for some protracted legal process, is thus a failure in understanding regarding the extent of his institutionalisation in Bristol.

In recent days, I have been reflecting on the handling of my own education in this regard, given that my primary school was named for Colston, and my secondary school was founded on Merchant Venturers’ money. Indeed, had I attended the University, my entire education would have been spent in institutions committed, in some way, to the memory of Colston. Although we covered the transatlantic slave trade in history lessons, and race issues were discussed during Black History Month, both efforts were lacklustre; instead of being made to question the real legacy of the slave trade on the environment in which we were raised, or focusing on learning about slaves’ experiences for the sake of understanding, or on the impact of the city’s own civil rights movement, we were taught the best way to analyse slave narratives as sources for exams—and to remember the direction of each leg of the Atlantic triangle. It was treated as a distant notion, a set of historic facts, rather than a factor in our own upbringings. The schools were simply not ready for conversations about their own perpetuation of the Colston myth, or on many other aspects of the systemic racism prevalent in the society in which they exist.

While it is true that the more obvious remembrances of Colston are ever-so-slowly being removed (my primary school has changed name, as will the city’s main concert hall), these are insufficient to rectify the larger problem. Just as I am starting to come to terms with the role slavery has played in my life, the city must reflect on, and rectify, the continued influence of people and institutions built on the back of Black lives. We should not be appeased by symbolic nods to anti-racist movements; we should demand that the true leverage of racism be brought out of the shadows, and disempower those that refuse to change. Colston is far from sunk; Rhodes’ hold on Oxford is similarly far from fallen.

[1]Edward Colston and Bristol – Kenneth Morgan

[2] ‘Must Colston Fall?’ (The Spectator), ‘Bristol, the slave trade and a reckoning with the past’ (FT)

Give us back our bodies: COVID-19 and access to abortion services in Northern Ireland

Leah Mitchell
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Give us back our bodies: COVID-19 and access to abortion services in Northern Ireland

TW: Abortion, denial of reproductive rights

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, pregnant people in England, Wales, and Scotland are being permitted to self-manage abortions at home using approved abortion pills; an eminently sensible step to ensure their safety. Meanwhile, those in Northern Ireland are being denied equal right to the same basic healthcare provision. The regulations allowing abortions to be carried out by registered medical professionals in Northern Ireland were due to take effect on 31st March, but as of yet the promised abortion services are still to be introduced. At the same time, travel restrictions make the journey to England for an abortion, which so many people from the island of Ireland have been forced to make before, near impossible. Many pregnant people in Northern Ireland are therefore trapped in an appalling situation, their mental and physical health compromised not only by a terrifying pandemic but also by an unwanted pregnancy. There is a real danger that people in such desperate circumstances may attempt unregulated and unsafe abortions, putting themselves at great and needless risk.

The situation regarding abortion provision in Northern Ireland was grossly unfair long before COVID-19. At the end of 2015, the ban on abortion in Northern Ireland was found by the High Court in Belfast to be in breach of the European Convention of Human Rights. Despite abortion having been legalised in the rest of the UK through the 1967 Abortion Act, this huge step forwards in reproductive rights left behind Northern Ireland, where abortions remained illegal except where they were necessary for “preserving the life of the mother”, as stipulated in section 25 of the Criminal Justice Act (Northern Ireland) 1965. Abortion was finally decriminalised in Northern Ireland in October 2019 by repealing sections 58 and 59 and the Offences Against the Person Act 1861. Somewhat depressingly, this occurred not because of the devolved legislature of Northern Ireland deciding to take bodily autonomy seriously, but as a result of the UK government’s intervention into the suspension of the Northern Ireland Assembly after it collapsed in January 2017.

In April, after the government’s lockdown measures came into force, a Central Access Point was established by the charity Informing Choices NI to enable early medical abortion services in Northern Ireland. This allows those with pregnancies up to a gestation period of 9 weeks and 6 days to attend a local clinic to take the first abortion pill, and then take the second abortion pill at home. This is of course a welcome step; but it is not enough. Some people in vulnerable circumstances, whether that be because, for example, they have an autoimmune condition that means they cannot leave the house at all during the pandemic, or because they are trapped in a domestically abusive situation at home, may not be able to travel to a clinic to take the first pill.

Given that it is permitted for the second pill to be taken at home, the requirement to physically travel to a clinic to take the first pill under such difficult circumstances seems strange and unhelpful to say the least – especially when, as with many other medical services at the moment, discussion of the abortion procedure with a medical professional could be replaced with a phone consultation. Calls for the use of telemedicine have been rejected by the health minister for Northern Ireland, Robin Swann, and the Northern Ireland secretary, Brandon Lewis. These two men have, incredibly, insisted that travelling to England on an eight-hour journey by ferry for an abortion remains a viable option, despite the UK government’s very emphatic advice to stay at home.

Furthermore, the question remains: why is it being left to a charity to enable people in Northern Ireland to access services which constitute their basic reproductive rights? It is illustrative of a dereliction of duty by the authorities in Northern Ireland, which have been persistently reluctant to legalise abortion and introduce the necessary services. The pandemic, then, seems to make for a convenient loophole to allow further delay. How can Northern Irish politicians claim to be “pro-life” while putting people’s (of course, predominantly women’s) lives at risk, forcing them to travel during a pandemic or else carry an unwanted and in some cases medically dangerous pregnancy?

They do not value life, they value control. And it is far beyond time that women stopped being treated as political and ideological pawns. Give us back our bodies.

How to fix the Oxford Union – from an ex-insider

Ayman DSouza
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How to fix the Oxford Union – from an ex-insider

In Oxford, no two phrases seem more entangled than “scandal” and “the Oxford Union”. The controversies are seemingly endless. From the words and actions of individual Committee members, to the speakers, to electoral schemes and plots, a barrage of disgrace regularly features on student (and sometimes national) journalism. I was on the Union’s committee, something I’ve been embarrassed and ashamed of at times; but with a year of reflections (and recovery), it’s clear that being problematic doesn’t need to be endemic to the Oxford Union (just look at its Cambridge counterpart). 

Rather, problems exist because of 1) clear structural issues, 2) a lack of sustained willingness by enough people on the Union’s many Committees to make real change, and 3) limited but ever-present opposition from members AND paid adult members of staff, who fight efforts to instigate change through manipulations of the Society’s 259 page-long rules document. With the first-ever second-round election for President, this might be a real opportunity for long term differences to be made and for those with the power to make changes to sit up and listen.

It would be easy to rattle off endless criticisms; instead, I want to suggest actionable changes which upcoming Officers and Committee Members could make to begin scourging the Union of its deep-rooted toxicity. 

A note on how elections work: the most traditional path through the Union is Secretary’s Committee, to Standing Committee (TSC), to Officership (Librarian, Treasurer, Secretary), to Presidency. People tend to run on slates with the same people every term, with surprisingly little “swapping” of sides. Officers-elect (Lib-elect and Treas-elect) manage the slates of the candidates running for president the following term, to allow them to “inherit” candidates. This reinforces a two-camp system. Librarians and Treasurers often fall out immediately after election, unless one of them isn’t running. People occasionally switch from the “elected” side of committee “appointed” side (chosen by the President for jobs such as press, sponsorship etc) or vice versa, but that’s rare.

Secretary’s Committee – where it all starts 

When you run for the Union, a mindset of good and bad starts from the first day you are “coffee-d” to run for Secretary’s Committee. The role of this committee is essentially doing the unpleasant groundwork: during election, you are made to hack just about every person you know in Oxford (and any alumnae if you’re lucky), and during term-time you move chairs for events. Not only are “seccies” used as electoral cannon-fodder, they are often very uninformed of their slate’s plans and movements, and become quickly tarnished with the “dirty” image the Union often has. 

Having run for, been, and worked with seccies, I can promise this Committee is useless.  Replacing it with 11 extra “Logistics and Invitations” officers would allow those keen to get involved an election free view of the Union, and converting these to Appointed Positions (I’ll come on to how appointments should be made later) would massively curtail the reach of hacking. It would also mean those getting involved actually want to; they aren’t involved as a favour to a friend, or because they promised too early and now feel unable to back down. Further, those on committee can make friends without being split into a mindset of them vs us (formed by the slate you ran on) from day 1.

Elections – a self-perpetuating culture of toxicity, rooted in electoral structure

Elections also need extensive reformation. Officer and TSC elections need to be on different weeks, electoral alliances (slates) should be banned, and private “hack” messages should be banned. By holding elections for “lower” positions earlier, TSC candidates wouldn’t have to pledge themselves so blindly to Officers, and rather than elections being determined by who found the best candidates for their slate, or met the most people at Bridge and P&P, they would favour genuine suitability and experience. With manifestos more important than endless hacking, committee members would be encouraged to work harder and thus produce a more exciting termcard, with diversity of ideas, speakers, and events.

In general, elections being held slightly earlier in term would allow the new Committee to begin working on invites much earlier. It would also limit the number of “vac days” members have to do. These are a number of days you must work over the holidays. Rather than being performance-based, they are time-based, and it is very hard to achieve a “remote” vac day from home. They are awarded at the discretion of the President, though sometimes other Officers have input. They are inherently an access issue too; it is expensive to remain in Oxford beyond term time, and though some small subsidies exist, these are extremely limited. 

Elections were also held online for the first time this term, and this is clearly a better system. It doesn’t randomly advantage colleges near the Union, and members of far-flung Colleges or those who may have a contact heavy day can still have a say. This also was the first term without nomination fees; previously, a candidate on a full membership who had run for seccies, then TSC, then Officership, then President, would have paid £120 in nomination fees alone. 

By producing PDFs rather than glossy paper manifestos, a huge amount of money can be saved on everyone’s part (and the environment suffers less!). An online count also prevents the ridiculous night-long slog to count all the votes, which are easily prone to cheating via vote destruction.

Introspection – without stopping to think, how can you know what to change?

The Union never really stops to reflect on itself and how to improve. A marked effort beyond solving the problems of electioneering is also needed, which could involve exhibitions and events on the Union’s fraught history, or more engaging member consultations. Currently, the Presidency requires rustication to fulfill all the work needed; this is unfair and quite ridiculous, and a rethink by Officers past and present as to how this could be solved would be a major fix. Further, long-term strategy committees with guidance on making the Union actively anti-racist and anti-discrimination would be immensely positive

A complete rethink of the rules would also be apt: “discrimation” appears only four times, to mandate an event, and to be listed as unacceptable; but the mechanism for reporting or addressing this isn’t easy to find, if it is at at all present. In contrast, the word “election” appears 617 times.

Long-term goals – if you have no long term intention to be better, how can you improve?

The Union has a lack of long-term vision. If you aren’t at the top of the Committee, making changes is difficult as you lack both influence and the knowledge of how to introduce change. If you are at the top of the Committee and not running, you have one term left so cannot engage long-term plans; if you are running, you’re more concerned with meeting people to hack and planning elections than long-term vision. Simple steps like creating advisory panels of ex-TSC and Officers would allow improvement, with members sitting for a year or more. Of course this would need to be carefully designed to prevent electoral muddling; perhaps ineligibility to run for the year ahead would ensure this panel had no nefarious intentions. 

Whilst the above suggestions would certainly bring immensely positive change to the Union, they are neither exhaustive nor conclusive. Individual Committee members are often receptive to ideas, but the Union as a body is not. The Officers of the upcoming terms should not brush off these suggestions as futile; instead, they must listen, learn, and implement tangible changes. If they do, they will afford the Society they claim to care about so deeply to catch a new breath of life, free of the poisons of recent years.

Oriel College Governing Body supports Rhodes removal

Cherwell News
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Oriel College Governing Body supports Rhodes removal

The Governing Body of Oriel College will launch an Independent Commission of Inquiry into the statue of Cecil Rhodes placed above the gates of college. They state that they “wish to remove the statue of Cecil Rhodes and the King Edward Street Plaque”, and that this would be their recommendation to the Commission.

In addition to deciding on the statue’s fate, the Commission would “deal with the issue of the Rhodes legacy and how to improve access and attendance of BAME undergraduate, graduate students and faculty, together with a review of how the college’s 21st Century commitment to diversity can sit more easily with its past”. Carole Souter CBE, the Master of St Cross College, will chair the Commission.

This decision comes after the Rhodes Must Fall movement was reignited in light of Black Lives Matter and broader discussions about racism and colonialism. Over the past weeks, two protests have been held in front of Oriel college, drawing crowds of hundreds.

The Oriel JCR and MCR passed motions calling for the removal of the statue, and over 180,000 people have signed a petition on Change.org calling for the statue’s removal. The Oxford City Council also has condemned the statue.

Rhodes Must Fall responded to the statement, calling it a “potentially epoch-defining moment for our institution.” They thank “all of those who have, over the years, contributed to the development of this decolonial and democratic social movement.”

They state further, however, that “we have been down this route before, where Oriel College has committed to taking a certain action, but has not followed through: notably, in 2015, when the College committed to engaging in a six-month-long democratic listening exercise. Therefore, while we remain hopeful, our optimism is cautious. While the Governing Body of Oriel College have ‘expressed their wish’ to take down the statue, we continue to demand their commitment.

“Until such time as the Rhodes statue ceases to adorn the facade of Oriel College on Oxford’s High Street, we will continue to galvanise the goodwill and energy seen across the University, particularly among an astonishingly wide variety of academics.”

The Oriel JCR President told Cherwell: “I couldn’t be happier to see the Governing Body state publicly their wish to remove the Cecil Rhodes statue and open an enquiry. This result is testament to the years of hard work and time invested by the Rhodes Must Fall movement. I am incredibly proud that our students and graduates participated in this movement so wholeheartedly and that we were able to make our voices heard in this debate. This is only the beginning and I look forward to our continued engagement with this discourse and in this journey towards the removal of the statue.”

Susan Brown, the Leader of the Oxford City Council has also welcomed the news. Previously the City Council had reached out to Oriel, asking them to submit a planning application to take down the statue. Now, Brown states, “I welcome the news that Oriel College have come to the view that they would like the statue and plaque of Cecil Rhodes to be removed.” She also congratulated the Rhodes Must Fall campaign and the Black Lives Matter movement “who have reinvigorated this debate about our history and how it should be recognised”.

The Oxford University Chancellor Lord Patton had criticised the RMF movement. Oriel itself had previously issued a statement saying: “We will continue to examine our practices and strive to improve them to ensure that Oriel is open to students and staff of all backgrounds, and we are determined to build a more equal and inclusive community and society.”

The Universities Minister also stated earlier today that she rejected calls to remove the controversial statue, as it would be “short sighted” to try to “rewrite our history”.

The full statement from Oriel College reads: “The Governing Body of Oriel College has today (Wednesday 17th June) voted to launch an independent Commission of Inquiry into the key issues surrounding the Rhodes statue. 

“They also expressed their wish to remove the statue of Cecil Rhodes and the King Edward Street Plaque. This is what they intend to convey to the Independent Commission of Inquiry. 

“Both of these decisions were reached after a thoughtful period of debate and reflection and with the full awareness of the impact these decisions are likely to have in Britain and around the world. 

“The Commission will deal with the issue of the Rhodes legacy and how to improve access and attendance of BAME undergraduate, graduate students and faculty, together with a review of how the college’s 21st Century commitment to diversity can sit more easily with its past. 

“At today’s meeting, the Governing Body also approved the appointment of an independent Chair for the Commission of Inquiry, Carole Souter CBE, the current Master of St Cross College and former Chief Executive of the National Lottery Heritage Fund, who in turn will approach a number of individuals drawn from the worlds of academia, education policy, law, politics and journalism. The commission is intending to draw upon the greatest possible breadth and depth of experience, opinion and background. 

“The Inquiry will, in turn, invite submissions from a broad range of stakeholders from Oxford itself and the country as a whole; the students, representatives of Rhodes Must Fall and Oxford City council, as well as alumni of Oxford and Oriel and citizens of the city. Written and oral evidence will be requested. It is intended that some oral evidence sessions will be held in public, with similar rules of engagement to that of a parliamentary select committee. 

“By setting up this commission, Oriel governing body is demonstrating that it is willing to be guided by all its stakeholders. The Governing Body believes that this decision will allow a serious, appropriate and productive resolution of a complex series of issues. Ms Souter has insisted on a thorough process – but conducted at pace – and set to report to the Governing Body by the end of the year.”

Image credit to Wikimedia Commons.

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