Christina Koch made history this week as mission specialist on NASA’s Artemis II mission as she took off with her fellow astronauts to become the first woman to fly around the moon.

The astronauts – three Americans and one Canadian – took off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on 1 April on the 10-day voyage, the first time in half a century that humans returned to the vicinity of the moon.

Christina, 47, an engineer and physicist who became an astronaut in 2013, spent 328 days aboard the International Space Station back in 2019, a record for the longest continuous spaceflight by a woman. She was also part of NASA’s first three all-female spacewalks alongside Jessica Meir.

Historically, nearly 90% of astronauts have been men so Christina’s role as a leader in STEM is crucial for inspiring young women and girls. “It feels like an incredible privilege and responsibility,” Christina has said of being part of the Artemis II crew. “We are at a time when everyone who has a dream gets to work equally hard to achieve it.”

On the Artemis II mission, Christina has taken handwritten notes from people close to her for her personal item, a “tactile connection” to loved ones back on Earth.

Surprisingly, the mental load doesn’t seem lighter even when there’s zero gravity. In an interview before takeoff, Christina told reporters that her husband Bob would have to fend for himself at home and not be able to call to find out where lost items are.

“He’s not going to be able to ring me and ask where something is in the house,” she laughed. “He’s going to have to find it.”

In ancient Greek mythology, Artemis is the twin sister of Apollo, who was the namesake of the last Nasa missions that went to the moon. Artemis is the goddess of the hunt, the wild, and - mostly importantly - the moon itself.

And Christina isn’t the only woman shaping the future of space exploration:

Charlie Blackwell-Thompson made history as NASA’s first-ever female launch director, leading the 90-strong Exploration Ground Systems Program. She made the final call, delivering the electrifying “GO!” that sent the mission into the sky. Charlie previously commanded the historic first test flight of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft, Artemis I, guiding the mission all the way to launch.

Laura Poliah, Lander Ground Operations Expert, is part of the Lander Ground Operations team at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center and previously served as a lead test engineer for the Orion spacecraft. Her role was to oversee rigorous testing across the crew module, service module, and launch abort system which are vital in keeping the Orion astronauts safe. Laura and her team have been working on testing for Artemis II and Artemis III.

Erica Sandoval is the Program Manager, Abort Motor, Orion Launch Abort System, After completing a degree in mechanical engineering, she worked in rocket motor manufacturing and now leads the team that builds the abort motor for the Orion spacecraft’s launch abort system (LAS). “I had a roundabout path into the space industry, but I love it here,” she said. “I would’ve never imagined that this is where I would end up, but it is an exciting industry and humbling to be a small part of the space industry team.”

Vanessa Wyche is the director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center, overseeing spacecraft development, astronaut selection and training, and the iconic mission control room. The centre is home to NASA’s astronaut corps and programs such as the International Space Station, Orion, and the Lunar Gateway, with Vanessa guiding missions to the Moon with Artemis, and laying the foundation for future journeys to Mars.

Meta’s AI glasses are being marketed as the next step in wearable technology, a hands-free way to capture content, access information and essentially interact with the world. But as they become more widely used, concerns about how they are already being misused are growing - particularly when it comes to women’s safety and privacy.

You’ve probably already seen the videos. Women being filmed without their consent by men wearing the glasses. Because the camera is built discreetly into the frame, recording is far less obvious than pulling out a phone. There is meant to be a small LED light that signals when filming is happening, but tutorials online show exactly how to cover or disable it, making it easy to record people without them ever knowing.

So this is not hypothetical.

Journalist Jess Davies, who has been reporting on the impact of tech on women for Glamour, notes that these kinds of videos are on the rise. One woman, Annika, told the magazine she was “being used for content without even knowing the video existed”, adding that the man filming her had deliberately covered the recording light. She described it as part of a wider pattern - the “constant hijacking of tech to harm and humiliate women”.

Meta has said its devices include safeguards such as the LED indicator and tamper detection, and that users are responsible for complying with laws and using the product respectfully. The company acknowledged that a “small number of users” misuse its products, adding that it continues to review ways to improve safety.

However, reporting from the BBC suggests the issue is more widespread. Women have described being unknowingly filmed in public and later finding those interactions uploaded to social media, often attracting large audiences and abusive commentary. One woman said she felt “afraid to go out in public” after discovering a video of her had been posted online without her consent. Another described feeling physically sick after a filmed interaction at the gym was shared and quickly gained thousands of views.

In both cases, the women had no indication they were being recorded at the time. And while the videos themselves were distressing, the aftermath - including sexually explicit and derogatory comments - exacerbated the harm. As one woman put it, the most frightening part was how “out of control” the situation felt.

Advocates say this kind of misuse is not unexpected. Rebecca Hitchen, from the End Violence Against Women Coalition, told the BBC that the use of smart glasses in this way is “sadly, very predictable”, pointing to existing patterns of harassment and abuse directed at women and girls online.

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Beyond how the technology is already being used, reports of what could come next are even more worrying. Reporting by The Independent highlights warnings from charities about the potential introduction of facial recognition features in smart glasses - tools that could allow wearers to identify people and access information about them in real time.

Domestic abuse organisations, including Refuge and Women’s Aid, have warned that these features pose a “direct and serious” risk to survivors. Emma Pickering, from Refuge, explains that stalking is already a common tactic used by abusers, and that tech enabling instant identification could make it easier to locate and track victims.

Charities argue that women’s safety should be considered a “foundational principle” in the design of new technologies, rather than something addressed after products are released. Data from Refuge shows a significant increase in cases involving technology-facilitated abuse, confirming a broader trend in how digital tools can be misused.

Taken together, these reports point to a wider issue. While smart glasses and AI-powered devices are often presented as innovative and convenient, their real-world impact depends heavily on how they are used - and misused.

There is, of course, nothing inherently harmful about a device that records video or uses AI to interpret the world. But the experiences being shared suggest that, in practice, these tools are entering an online culture where boundaries around consent and privacy are already blurred.

And that is where the major concern lies.

While companies emphasise safeguards and responsible use, the reality described by women in these reports is one where those safeguards can be bypassed, and where the consequences of misuse fall disproportionately on them.

The technology may be new, but the pattern is not.

It was out of her own personal curiosity that documentary filmmaker Stacey Tenenbaum began working on her project Tough Old Broads.

“I’m heading towards middle age,” she says. “I was wondering what it was about these ladies that allowed them to break barriers, especially in a time where things were even more stacked against women.”

The documentary follows three pioneering women whose work helped reshape the worlds of sport, environmental activism and civil rights: marathon runner Kathrine Switzer, Canadian Inuit activist Siila Watt-Cloutier, and photographer Sharon Farmer. Each became the first woman to achieve something significant in a male-dominated space, and each has continued working for change well into later life.

Stacey initially imagined the film would explore ageism. But as production unfolded, that theme ended up slipping into the background.

“The same thing that allowed these women to be trailblazers has sort of protected them from ageism,” she says. “They just don’t care. They move ahead.”

That attitude and instinct to push forward rather than wait for permission became one of the film’s defining ideas. While age discrimination is definitely real, Stacey found that these women’s long histories of activism and public respect had insulated them from some of its effects.

Stacey began by researching female “firsts”, discovering Switzer through the famous photograph of her being attacked by a race official while running the 1967 Boston Marathon.

“I was looking for trailblazing women who were the first to do something in a man’s world,” she explains. “But I also wanted people with different backgrounds and lived experiences, working in completely different areas.”

It took nearly three years to find the right balance of stories.

Activism had not been her starting point, but all three women turned out to be lifelong campaigners. Kathrine Switzer fought for women’s inclusion in long-distance running, Siila Watt-Cloutier has spent decades advocating for climate justice and Arctic communities, and Sharon Farmer broke barriers as the first Black woman to photograph a sitting US president as Chief Official White House Photographer.

“That was a happy surprise,” Stacey says. “I didn’t go out specifically looking for activists, but that’s what ended up happening.”

In many ways, that coincidence strengthened the project. By following women who had spent decades fighting for change, Tough Old Broads is less about historical milestones and more about endurance - the long, often exhausting work of activism.

“Change is possible,” Stacey says. “But we have to stick to it and keep at it.”

Despite some logistical hurdles, Stacey had some extraordinary experiences from the production. One of her favourite moments involved travelling north to spend time in Arctic communities while filming with Siila Watt-Cloutier.

“It’s such a beautiful place,” she says. “Being welcomed into that community was really special.”

But the most meaningful part of the project, she adds, was the friendships that formed with the three women.

“Getting to know these women so well, that’s the real blessing,” Stacey says. “You don’t get to meet people like that a lot in your life.”

Working on the film also changed her personally. Spending time with lifelong activists reshaped how she thinks about her own role in political and social movements.

“I’ve been radicalised,” she says, only half-joking. “I go to way more protests now than I did before.”

What Tough Old Broads tells us about activism is deliberately broad. Rather than presenting one model for change, the film highlights the different ways people contribute to movements - through public protest, storytelling, advocacy or community leadership.

“Everybody has different skills,” Stacey says. “The idea is to figure out what you care about and what you can bring to creating positive change.”

And it’s this philosophy that shaped the audiences she had in mind while making the film. The first is older viewers, who she hopes will feel encouraged to remain active and engaged in their communities.

“There’s a lot of depression in older communities,” she says. “I wanted people to see that you can still take up space and contribute.”

The second audience is younger people, who she hopes will carry forward the work begun by earlier generations.

“Climate change, civil rights, women’s issues - these aren’t things that will be solved in one generation,” she says. “Young people need to take up the fight where these women leave off.”

Stacey explains that the film’s success isn’t festival recognition but audience response. She recalls screenings where viewers laughed, cried and left the cinema energised by the stories they had just seen.

“People come out wanting to do something themselves,” she says. “That’s what matters.”

The documentary also addresses another issue close to her: the lack of representation for older women in film.

“There’s still a lot of sexism in the industry,” she says. “Women-focused stories don’t get as much attention, and older women get even less screen time.”

Spotlighting these voices was part of the point.

“What you see on screen shows what’s possible,” she says.

Ultimately, Tough Old Broads is less about celebrating the past than about continuing a conversation - one that begins with the question: what can each of us do, in our own communities, to make things better?

Real change rarely begins with grand gestures.

“Sometimes it starts with just one person thinking about what they care about,” she says. “And deciding to keep going.”

You can learn more about Tough Old Broads here.

By Freja Love

Documentary maker Louis Theroux has weighed in on the ‘manosphere’ and it’s as bad, if not worse, than we thought.

In the 90-minute Netflix show, we meet UK-born influencer Harrison Sullivan, better known as HSTikkyTokky, and his close friend Ed Matthews. From the US there’s Myron Gaines, Justin Waller and Nicolas Kenn De Balinthazy, better known as Sneako.

Five men, different platforms, but broadly the same worldview: a messy Venn diagram of beliefs about masculinity, success and women’s place in the world. Most of it, I hope, will shock viewers.

We should all be worried. I have two younger brothers, and after watching this documentary they’re the first people I want to talk to about it. This is what scares me the most.

These men present their opinion as fact. I should have counted the number of times something was described as “the truth” - whether that was advice about making money, how to be “proper boys” (not “these little soy boys or gimps that walk around in the modern day”), how to live “outside the system”, or which conspiracy theories to believe.

One topic they are particularly confident about is women. What we want. What we should be.

(Did any of you get the call because no one asked me?)

According to Myron Gaines, because he “understands” women, he also “knows what’s best for them”

“Better than they do?” Louis asks

“Yes in many ways. That’s how women want it. They want a man who can lead and dominate them”

Cringe.

At one point, standing on a balcony, Justin Waller gestures towards the buildings around him, claiming, “Men build, invent and maintain society, that’s a fact.”

Louis looks unconvinced. “Don’t women do that too?”

Apparently not.

Justin is firm. Women are “by and large looking for husbands and want to have families”.

Another moment comes during Myron Gaines’ late-night livestream. He plays a video of a supposed neuroscientist claiming women “absorb and retain the DNA of every man they’ve been with via the sperm”.

“Ever wonder why a kid resembles an ex more than the father?” the clip asks. “This is usually why.”

(I have never wondered that, personally.)

Louis quickly points out the misinformation, but Myron doubles down, claiming there has been “some scientific data that reflects this”.

I dread to think what other nonsense has been shared as gospel across the thousands of episodes where Louis Theroux was not there to push back.

HSTikkyTokky, who promotes and profits from OnlyFans creators on his Telegram channel of around 500,000 people, repeatedly expresses disgust for women doing the very work he monetises.

“I think she’s disgusting bro. I think she’s absolutely repulsive as a person,” he says about Bonnie Blue. In the same breath he happily shows Louis a video of himself being “sucked off by a girl the night before”.

His latest venture was House of Heat - an OnlyFans content house where adult creators lived together and cross-promoted one another. He boosted their accounts across his own platforms, taking a percentage of the income generated.

He and Ed Matthews also film so-called “cheeky” content rating women at beaches and festivals, looking for girls in “the tartiest outfits”. Ed, who films women without their consent for these videos, also posts “predator sting” content… It feels contradictory.

Elsewhere, Myron invites a group women onto his podcast seemingly for the purpose of humiliating them. Their knowledge, jobs, “body counts” and appearances are all fair game but when they push back - which I’m certain is the point of the segment - they are labelled “pressed”, “triggered”, or told by viewers to “shut the f**k up”, along with a lame insult about their looks.

There is a word for this. It’s gaslighting. And the whole thing is grim.

The most baffling thing, though, is that all of these men insist they love women. Which means they are teaching young people that this is what loving women looks like.

At best it is backwards. At worst it is dangerous. And with two younger brothers navigating the world online, it’s beyond concerning.

The dangerous effects are starting to show. A study recently found that 31% of Gen Z men in their teens and twenties believe “a wife should always obey her husband”. The study’s co-author says social media has played a “huge role” in shifting attitudes worldwide, exposing boys to “shocking levels of misogyny, both online and offline”. Terrifyingly, many young men are simply “mimicking what they see online without really understanding what that actually means”.

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Platforms like YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram have all taken action against prominent figures, such as Andrew Tate, who was banned for violating policies on hate speech. But while governments try to keep up with big tech and implement new laws to govern the world online, it can feel like a losing battle.

So what exactly is it about women that these men claim to love?

Not much, it seems.

Across the entire documentary there is barely a single moment where these men describe liking a woman for who she is. The women they speak about exist mainly in terms of what they provide: children, loyalty, domestic labour, sex.

Justin praises his baby mama, Kristen for giving him two children and being open to threesomes. The “lanes they’re in”, he explains, are clear: “she handles diapers and cleaning,” while he “provides”.

That is about as deep as the description goes.

I am not sure whether these men genuinely know nothing about the women in their lives, or whether this really is all they care about. Probably both.

Young women reading this, please, please choose a partner who wants to know - and appreciate - everything about you and likes you for something real. I promise you, they do exist.

Another thing that frightens me is the sheer volume of content people like this are producing. If you are ‘doomscrolling,’ as so many teens and young men are, it would be almost impossible to avoid it entirely - and once you hear something often enough, what stops it starting to sink in?

Research has found social media algorithms amplify extreme content, such as misogynistic posts, which normalises harmful ideologies for young people. In an algorithmic modelling study by UCL, the University of Kent and the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), the level of misogynistic content in the “For You” page of TikTok accounts increased fourfold in just five days on the platform.

The documentary is full of young men approaching the manosphere influencers, shaking their hands, asking for photos, shouting their names and consuming their content. They say young people’s brains are sponges, and these men are lucky for the cognitive plasticity of youth.

HSTikkyTokky insists that 13-15 year olds are not his main demographic, but it does not take much digging to see that younger boys are very much part of the audience. At one point, Justin Waller even congratulates a “13-year-old follower who is making more money than their parents”.

So they know who is watching.

And the reality is that many teenagers probably know more about influencers’ lives and opinions than they do about the people around them, even their own families. Spend enough time on TikTok or Youtube Shorts and those voices start to feel familiar, even authoritative. Before long, the language spreads: boys barking at female teachers, repeating misogynistic phrases, absorbing the idea that there is only one acceptable way to be a man.

The men in the documentary want to make it very clear that they DO NOT CARE what other people think, or how they come across online. But whenever Louis pushes for deeper answers about why they do what they do, the mood shifts. They become cagey.

“Here we go, you’re setting me up…” Justin complains at one point. HS calls him a tw*t.

They hate that Louis Theroux, the investigative journalist, is ‘digging’.

But if they genuinely do not care what people think, how do we hold them accountable?

We can tell young people the content is misleading or harmful. We can warn them not to take it seriously. But if the voices on their screens are louder, more constant and more confident, we may already be fighting a losing battle.

And that is something I find hard to shake.

The documentary itself is compelling - I watched in equal parts fascination and horror - but when it ended I mostly felt sad.

Sad for the young men absorbing this worldview. Sad for my brothers who could have this nonsense pushed to them in feed or have a friend influenced by the dangerous narrative after seeing it too many times online. At least my brothers have me to tell them what’s up.

I’m angry for the young women who will be forced to deal with the dangerous consequences.

And disappointed that, somehow, this is where we are again.

Like many new parents, Lawrence Price and Mat Carter anticipated sleepless nights and logistical chaos when they became fathers. What they did not expect was the emotional and psychological shift that came with it.

Mat experienced postnatal depression during the first year of fatherhood - something he did not even know fathers could experience until later. Around the same time, Lawrence began dealing with severe anxiety for the first time in his life. Years later, when the two compared notes on those early months, they realised something surprising: neither of them had been remotely prepared for what becoming a parent would do to them.

That conversation became the starting point for Secret Life of Dads, a podcast and community project that explores modern fatherhood with curiosity rather than certainty.

“We realised there was very little information or guidance out there to guide dads through this challenging but amazing journey,” Lawrence says. “So we decided to dive into it ourselves.”

What followed was not a neat parenting guide, but a series of conversations. Through interviews with experts, Lawrence and Mat began exploring the science, psychology and social realities of fatherhood - covering everything from neuroscience and evolutionary anthropology to mental health and identity.

Along the way, they discovered something men are rarely told: becoming a father can involve real biological and emotional shifts.

“Dads also go through a number of changes,” Lawrence explains. “There are shifts in identity, social isolation and modern economic pressures that fundamentally change who we are.”

In the early days, Lawrence and Mat were not entirely sure what the podcast would become. Parenting is a vast topic, and at first they were simply trying to figure it out themselves. Slowly, though, a rhythm emerged. Conversations about parental mental health sat alongside discussions of psychology, science and relationships.

“Most of our early growth was actually from mums,” Lawrence says. “They were incredible at validating the mission and sharing the podcast with the men in their lives.”

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At one stage, roughly 75% of listeners were women sending episodes to partners, brothers and friends. Only more recently has the audience shifted towards an even split between men and women.

That dynamic reflects a core belief behind the project: fatherhood conversations are not just for fathers.

“This is a podcast about dads, but for all parents,” Lawrence says. “The strongest relationships are built from understanding each other with compassion and communicating in a healthy, emotionally mature way.”

In other words, understanding dads better is good for everyone.

One of the biggest lessons Lawrence and Mat discovered during the process was that parenting is less about controlling children than about managing yourself.

“It sounds naive looking back,” Lawrence admits, “but we did not realise quite how much parenting would invite us to do the inner work.”

The unpredictable nature of raising children - the emotional swings, the lack of control, the constant learning - forced them to reflect on their own reactions, habits and expectations.

Two years into the project, both say they are different men from the ones who started.

“Yes, it is a public podcast,” Lawrence says. “But most of all it is a very personal journey of growth and self exploration for us.”

The project has also expanded beyond the podcast studio. Today, Secret Life of Dads exists in several different forms.

There is the podcast itself, where guests reflect on everything from their relationships with their own fathers to the experiences that have shaped the kind of parents they have become. Alongside that are street interviews - short conversations with members of the public that get straight to the heart of questions around parenting, identity and modern life.

Then there are the in-person gatherings. One of the most popular, particularly on social media, is the community event Pints and Ponytails.

The activity, in collaboration with Braid Maidens, is for dads to come together to learn how to style their daughters’ hair but what unfolds is something much bigger than that.

What followed, Lawrence says, was one of the most special evenings they have been part of. Fathers compared braiding attempts, helped one another figure out techniques and, perhaps most importantly, spent time talking and connecting in a space that rarely exists for men.

The first meet up was in February 2026 with 10 dads. By the next event, 35 fathers walked through the door.

“It is about honouring our daughters and connecting dads,” Lawrence explains. “But it is also about redefining the role of the modern dad and breaking outdated stereotypes.”

The gatherings create a space where vulnerability and parenting struggles are normal topics of conversation. There is a growing recognition that men often lack these kinds of supportive environments while mothers’ networks are more visible and socially accepted.

And the online response has been incredible:

Projects like Secret Life of Dads are an invitation for men to talk, learn and grow together.

“We see community as being the bedrock of this modern dad’s movement - getting curious dads, who are willing to grow together, in the same room and seeing the enthusiasm and openness to connect has been humbling.”

Lawrence says success isn’t measured in downloads or event attendance.

“We often say it is impossible for us to fail on this project,” he says.

“Success is being able to take what we have learnt home and deepen our relationships,” he says. “If we can show up as better dads for our children, that already feels like a huge win.”

During our interview with the Prime Minister at 10 Downing Street, we asked questions about the Violence Against Women and Girls strategy directly from The Female Lead community, including:

• Making misogyny a hate crime in the UK

• The need for men to call each other out for sexism and misogyny

• Investigations into the British men named in the Epstein Files

• What action is being taken to deal with the increase in domestic violence during men’s football matches

• The influence of Andrew Tate on boys and young men

The Prime Minister on the new law which demands tech platforms to detect and remove intimate images shared without consent

“This is really important stuff. You might think that platform providers would want to do it really quickly, but we have to keep pushing.”

“We have to be very tough with platform providers. This is not an area where you can say everything that needs to be done has been done; we’ll be constantly looking at what more we can do. One of the most worrying aspects is the age of some of the victims here, and tragically, the age keeps going down; every time you look at it, it’s gone down a bit and down a bit.”

“I remember being profoundly depressed when I gave up being the chief prosecutor, and there was a piece of research out at the time which showed that the group of young women most at risk of violence were 16-19 year olds in relationships, which really took me aback.”

“We’ve got a government commitment, my personal commitment that we are going to half it [VAWG], which is a really big challenge but one I absolutely intend us to rise to.”

The Prime Minister on Reform’s plans to scrap the Equality Act

“I was really shocked by the news that Reform, the political party, want to tear up the Equality Act. This is an act that goes to our core values, one of which is women should be treated equally with men.”

The Prime Minister on the investigation of British men accused of criminal behaviour in the Epstein files

“We have to start with the victims. And one of the great tragedies of a lot of the coverage and discussion in the last few weeks has been that it hasn’t been focused on the victims. It’s been focused on others. I very strongly believe that all of those that have got any information in relation to Epstein or any of these cases, should come forward and tell the appropriate authorities what they know. And equally, that the law should go wherever the evidence is.”

On influencing boys and young men to disrupt the influence from the likes of Andrew Tate and others

“Firstly, I’m really worried about this. The amount [of misogyny] that is aimed at young boys and men now, Andrew Tate is an example of that. On the one hand, this apparently successful man but coming with absolutely bags of misogyny and young boys look at that, and it’s a confusing world for them. That’s just an example. We need to work doubly hard with our young boys at the moment who are being bombarded with these messages. Much more than in the past.”

The Prime Minister on misogyny in politics

“In politics, there’s a lot of misogyny. You only have to look at the abuse all politicians get and then put it into two categories, men and women, and there’s far more abuse for women than there is for men. I feel like it’s a daily duty to call it [misogyny] out in politics.”

“Why is it that women get so much more abuse than men? It’s not rocket science, but we need to discuss it. Having the discussion is part of the answer.”

“We have to call it out. We have to be clear about our responsibility as well, the way we behave. Constantly checking one’s own behaviour. If you want to change culture, then you have to lead from the top. If people hear you saying you want change but you’re not modelling it, you’re giving license to them.”

Watch the full interview on our YouTube here:

When Kathryn Ferguson’s first drama short Nostalgie (2025) was shortlisted for a BAFTA, it marked a new chapter in a career already defined by fearless storytelling, feminist conviction and emotional precision. Known for her award-winning documentary Nothing Compares, the definitive portrait of Sinéad O’Connor which premiered at Sundance Film Festival 2022, Kathryn’s move into drama feels less like a pivot and more like an expansion to answer the same questions: who controls stories, whose voices are amplified, and what happens when women refuse to be quiet?

“I’m always putting women front and centre,” Kathryn tells The Female Lead without hesitation. “That’s been the through-line of my work for the last 15 years.”

Irish women, rage and revisionist history

Kathryn grew up in Northern Ireland during The Troubles and came of age in an Ireland where women were, in her words, “second-class citizens”. The weight of church and state in the south, the absence of bodily autonomy on both sides of the border, and a culture steeped in shame left a mark.

“I was aware of gender injustice from a very young age,” she says. “And I think Irish women are furious. But honestly, women everywhere are furious.”

That rage, she believes, is not only justified but necessary. She points to the repeal of the Eighth Amendment in Ireland in 2018 overturning a near-total ban on abortion as proof of what happens when anger is shared and mobilised. “Once that genie was out of the bottle, it couldn’t be put back.”

Reclaimed narratives run through all her work. Nothing Compares reframed Sinéad O’Connor not as a ‘difficult’ woman, but as a visionary artist punished for telling the truth too early.

“What happened to Sinéad is happening to women everywhere now,” Ferguson says. “Silencing. Erasure. On a mass scale.”

From documentary truth to dramatic fiction

BAFTA-nominated Nostalgie is Kathryn’s first drama project, adapted from a short story by Belfast writer Wendy Erskine. Set in contemporary Belfast, it centres on an ‘80s pop star who licences his music without interrogating where, or by whom, it will be used.

“On a purely cinematic level, I could just see it,” Kathryn says. “It was so self-contained and visual. But once I sat with it, I realised the themes were exactly where my head already was.”

That headspace was shaped by years immersed in Sinéad O’Connor’s life and legacy. Working so closely with an artist who fiercely protected her work made Kathryn acutely aware of what it means to release art into the world and lose control over it.

“What happens to your work once it’s out there?” she asks. “Once your ‘babies’ go off into the ether, you can’t control how they’re used.”

In Nostalgie, that question plays out against the backdrop of modern Belfast. “There’s this idea that post-conflict cities become cultural destinations,” Kathryn says. “But there’s so much unresolved pain still in the air.”

No film school, no shortcuts

Kathryn’s career path was anything but conventional. She didn’t attend film school, instead studying at Central Saint Martins and the Royal College of Art in London, imagining her future as a writer, war photographer or even a gardener. Film arrived almost accidentally.

Her graduation project included a short film that drew more attention than the magazine she’d spent months producing. “That was the first signal,” Kathryn says. “But I had no idea how to move forward.”

She made work independently, often without budgets, while juggling teaching, lecturing and commercial projects to pay the bills. An early commission by Dazed & Confused magazine with Lady Gaga before global superstardom opened doors, but still didn’t guarantee stability.

Later, a residency at Selfridges making documentaries, music videos and short films proved seismic. “They trusted me,” Kathryn says. “An all-female team just saying: here’s the money, go and explore. That’s where I really learned how to say what I wanted to say.”

Trusting your intuition

If there’s one piece of advice Kathryn has for young women interested in film making it’s this: make your own work.

“No budgets. No commissioners. Just make the thing you want to make,” she says. “The work that cuts through is the work that’s authentic, not the work you think people want to see.”

Kathryn’s candid about the reality of rejection. “There have been so many knocks. There still are.”

Now in her forties, with a six-year-old son and over thirty award nominations internationally, including Emmy, Critics Choice, IDA, and PGA Awards, Kathryn’s also learned the importance of boundaries.

“I work hard in my working hours and then I close the door,” she says. “I didn’t protect my nervous system for a long time. Now I know I have to.”

Women in film

Despite high-profile conversations about equality, Kathryn’s clear about the state of the industry.

“It’s much harder to get films funded if you’re a woman. It’s much harder to be listened to,” she says. “And what’s terrifying is that we’ve gone backwards.”

Recent figures show a sharp drop in women directing major films, a regression she sees as part of a wider patriarchal backlash. “Why would the film industry be any different from the world we’re living in?”

In response, Kathryn’s helping to build community, recently co-founding a peer group of independent UK directors to share experiences, rescources and support. “We’re so siloed. We need to talk, honestly, about what this industry is like.”

And women are at the heart of her future projects too. Kathryn is now developing Matrescence, a feature documentary based on Lucy Jones’ incendiary book about the neurological and political reality of motherhood. Combining hard science with lived experience, the project aims to make the invisible undeniable.

“We’re filming with neuroscientists who can literally show how the female brain changes during motherhood,” Kathryn says. “This isn’t opinion. This is fact.”

There’s also another feature drama in development, again centred on women. Kathryn believes art rooted in integrity, anger and empathy still matters.

“Keep putting women’s stories into the world,” Kathryn says. “Keep raising the vibration. That’s what we do.”

And right now, it feels like exactly what we need.

Christina Lamb has spent more than three decades reporting from wars most people know only through headlines: Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Ukraine. She has survived moments that, by any reasonable measure, should have killed her.

And yet, when she looks back on her career, it is not the danger that defines it.

“What has affected me far more, is what happens to women,” Christina, chief foreign correspondent for The Sunday Times, tells The Female Lead in an exclusive interview.

Christina’s route into war reporting was almost accidental. At 22, while interning at the Financial Times, she agreed to attend a lunch in place of the Foreign Editor. Seated beside a senior figure from the Pakistan People’s Party, she was asked if she would like to interview Benazir Bhutto [Former Prime Minister of Pakistan], then living in exile in London.

“Of course I said yes,” Christina recalls.

When Christina arrived for the interview, Bhutto had just announced her engagement to Asif Ali Zardari. “Her room was full of bouquets of flowers,” she says. “We got on well, and soon after, Bhutto returned to Pakistan to raise a movement for democracy.” Christina went back to working as a trainee reporter in Birmingham.

Months later, Christina came home to what she describes as “the most beautiful, gold-embossed invitation I had ever seen” – an invitation to Bhutto’s wedding in Pakistan.

She had never been to the country before. What she found there changed the course of her life. “It was like something out of the Arabian Nights,” she says. “So colourful, but also intensely political. I couldn’t imagine going back to work for central TV in Birmingham”

So she handed in her notice and moved to Pakistan. The last story she covered in Birmingham, she notes wryly, was about a man who had turned his car back to front.

Convincing British newsrooms to care about Pakistan was not easy. Afghanistan, however, caught their interest. As conflict intensified between the Mujahideen and Soviet forces, Christina began travelling with fighters across the border, reporting from the front lines.

Since then, she has reported from Angola, Mozambique, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Colombia, and across South America, covering, as she puts it, “most of the wars of the past 20 or 30 years”.

She is matter-of-fact about the risks. Being ambushed, shot at, forced to run for hours under fire – strangely, these are the stories people expect from a war correspondent. Christina recalls one of her closest calls in our most recent episode of In Her Words.

But these are not the experiences that haunt her.

What has stayed with Christina, is how sexual violence is used against women, not as a side-effect of war, but as one of its tools.

“People will always say there has been rape in war, which is true,” she says. “But what I’ve seen is that sexual violence is increasingly being used deliberately as a weapon.”

This is not a controversial claim. It is a documented one. The UN has repeatedly confirmed that sexual violence in conflict is often systematic rather than opportunistic. A tactic, not a by-product. As former UN commander, Patrick Cammaert put it, “it can be more dangerous to be a woman than a soldier in an armed conflict”.

“I cannot think of a single war where this has not been the case,” Christina admits.

The scale is difficult to comprehend, partly because the numbers are incomplete by design. In most cases, the data “seriously underestimates the actual numbers of victims, most of whom never report to authorities”.

Even so, estimates suggest that hundreds of thousands of women were raped during the Rwandan genocide, tens of thousands in Bosnia and Sierra Leone, and at least 200,000 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo since the mid-1990s.

For Christina, the reality of this violence became impossible to separate from her reporting in 2014, when Boko Haram abducted 276 schoolgirls from Chibok in northern Nigeria. Some escaped. Others were released. More than 80 remain missing over a decade later.

What troubled Christina just as deeply was what happened to the women who returned. Some were raped again by soldiers who were meant to protect them. Many were rejected by their communities, treated as “sullied or brainwashed”.

This pattern repeated itself elsewhere.

In northern Iraq, Isis fighters carried out mass abductions of Yazidi women and girls, selling them in slave markets.

In Myanmar, Rohingya women fleeing military attacks described being “tied to banana trees and gang-raped”.

Some of these women escaped or were “rescued by brave people”, the stories they shared, Christina describes as “some of the most horrific I’ve heard”.

Yet almost no one was held to account.

“You had these situations where women spoke and nothing happened,” Christina explains. “One Yazidi girl messaged me and said, ‘We told our story. What difference did it make?’ I couldn’t answer the question.”

Out of that silence came Christina’s book, Our Bodies, Their Battlefield, which documents sexual violence across modern wars. Since its publication, it has already required multiple updates, expanding to include Ukraine and Palestine-Israel.

“People will no doubt say that Sudan should be in there as well” Christina adds.

What frustrates her most is not a lack of awareness. The laws exist. The resolutions exist. The language is well rehearsed.

“What’s missing,” she says, “is political will. Accountability remains the exception.” Prosecutions are rare. Consequences are rarer still.

There have been times when Christina questions the cost of her work.

“I’m taking risks, I’m putting people at risk. What difference does it make?”

But recently, while speaking with a group of Ukrainian women who had survived sexual violence, Christina was reminded why. They told her that having their experiences recorded mattered.

She recalls one young Yazidi girl who insisted on telling her story despite the pain it caused. Christina offered to stop the interview.

“No,” the girl told her. “I don’t want anyone to be able to say they didn’t know.”

This, ultimately, is what Christina’s work insists upon. That ignorance is no longer accepted. That sexual violence in war is not inevitable. It is strategic. And it continues because the world allows it to.

It’s 2026. The fight for gender equality in the workplace - equal access to opportunities, resources, pay and quashing biases - is exhausting and quite frankly, boringly repetitive. And looking at recent reports, we’re now asking: where have all the women gone?

In an uncomfortable truth, in some of the most influential industries in the UK and globally, women are no longer inching forward and in several cases, they are actively slipping back.

The disappearing act at the top

According to the Financial Times, female barristers made up just 23 per cent of advocates appearing before the UK Supreme Court in 2025, lower than it was in 2009, the year the court was created. Seventeen years on, progress has not just stalled but quietly gone backwards.

Around 40 per cent of barristers in England are women, up from 32 per cent twenty years ago. Law schools are packed with women. But among King’s Counsel (KCs), the elite rank given to the most senior and respected advocates, women now make up less than 15 per cent, down from 26 per cent which is the highest proportion of women advocates in the Supreme Court in history.

This is not just an internal problem for the legal profession. The Supreme Court adjudicates on issues that disproportionately affect women: employment rights, reproductive autonomy, domestic abuse, immigration, healthcare, and family life. When women are absent from the advocacy, perspectives narrow, even when judges themselves are diverse.

Male dominated boardrooms

In the UK’s largest companies, women are losing ground where it matters most: executive authority. While boardroom diversity targets have improved headline numbers, the number of women in executive director roles across FTSE 250 companies has fallen over the past two years. Executive director roles dropped sharply from 2022 to 2024 (an 11% decline) with women now representing only about 12 % of executive positions despite overall board numbers rising.

While women now occupy 43% of roles on company boards and 35.3% of leadership roles across the FTSE companies, up slightly from 34.5% in 2023, female representation in senior decision making positions is lacking.

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According to the Women in the Workplace study by McKinsey and LeanIn.Org published in December 2025, women in the USA remain underrepresented at every level of the corporate pipeline, especially in senior leadership, where they make up just 29 percent of C-suite roles, unchanged from 2024. The report stated women face less career support and fewer opportunities to advance as companies show declining commitment to women’s progress. While women are as dedicated to their careers as men, there is a gap in their desire for promotion.

And globally, women are losing representation in sectors traditionally associated with female employment. Retail, accommodation, food services, consumer services, wholesale and real estate have all seen a decline in women’s share of the workforce.

Who gets to tell the story?

As award season kicks off, it’s a depressing fact that the percentage of women directors of the top films at the North American box office fell to a seven-year low in 2025. According to the latest report, ‘Inclusion In The Director’s Chair’ published in December 2025, the number of women directors of the 100 highest-grossing films of the year dropped nearly 40% year-on-year.

Looking at both gender and race/ethnicity, six directors in 2025 were women of colour (the same as in 2024), marking the first time in the 19-year span that women of colour outnumbered white women directors (three). The report noted that 73% of the top directors were white men.

When women disappear from cultural leadership, stories narrow, perspectives flatten and power quietly recentres men.

Why women leaders disappearing matters

The most dangerous myth of the past decade was that gender equality was inevitable. Clearly that’s not the case. While progress is not linear, we can see representation slipping away.

So when we ask “Where have all the women gone?”, the answer is uncomfortable but clear. They’ve been filtered out by systems that even in 2026 reward sameness, lean into traditional malecentric business boardrooms and biases which refuse to push for gender equality.

We want to see a tide change and support women to get a seat at the table they deserve to be at.

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When Lisa Billard first climbed into a kart at seven years old, she didn’t know any female racing drivers. Motorsport didn’t look like it was for girls. But the moment she sat in the seat, her future was set.

“At first it was something to do with my dad for fun, but I just knew,” she tells The Female Lead via video call at home in France. “That was the place I needed to be for the rest of my life.”

Growing up in Normandy, France, karting began as a hobby to spend time with her dad who loved motorsport. It wasn’t a career plan at that age. But Lisa soon became hooked and her passion and determination took hold.

By the age of eight, Lisa wanted to be a professional racing driver.

Making history aged 12

Motorsport is expensive, complex, and still predominately male. By 12, Lisa had joined the French Junior Karting Championship, becoming the first female driver ever to compete in it. She finished third overall, represented France at the World Championship, and placed second in Italy.

Then, in 2022, she made history again: the first girl to win a race in the championship.

“Everyone was shocked,” she says. “I didn’t even realise I’d won. I didn’t raise my arms, I was still focused on the race. When I got out, people were congratulating me and that’s when it hit.”

Lisa smiles when remembering the day. “I’m proud of 12-year-old me. She didn’t realise that was the moment that should make her future dream to become a professional driver come true.”

The following year, five girls entered the same championship.

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“That made me really proud,” Lisa says. “For two years I was the only girl. Now it’s starting to feel more normal.” The word normal matters. For Lisa, progress is about reaching a point where gender no longer needs to be part of the conversation.

“A driver is a driver,” she says. “When we put the helmet on, we all have the same goal, to be the best.”

The cost of chasing her dream

Behind every win is the reality of funding her passion. Motorsport careers don’t move forward without sponsors, and Lisa is open about how hard that’s been.

“Very quickly we had to look for sponsors to keep going. It was very expensive and I just wanted to become a professional driver. The hardest obstacle is money,” she says. “Every winter, you don’t know if you’ll have the budget to continue. It’s stressful for me, for my parents, for everyone who believes in me. My parents have made a lot of sacrifices for me.”

That uncertainty has shaped her mindset as much as any training programme.

“It taught me to never give up. To take every opportunity and push myself to the limit every time I get the chance to drive.”

At 14, Lisa left home to attend a specialist sports academy, balancing racing with education through school lessons and online learning. She lives away from her family during the week, travelling home by train at weekends.

“It sounds like a sacrifice to leave home at 14,” she says, “but honestly, it doesn’t feel like one. It’s a choice. I love what I do.”

Her parents’ support has been unwavering, and so has that of her younger sister, Juliette, a 10-year-old gymnastics champion. “She’s my biggest fan,” Lisa says. “I’m very grateful.”

Becoming a role model

When Lisa was younger, there were few women to look up to in motorsport. One of her earliest inspirations was a male driver who came from the same karting track and coach in France, proving that it was possible to reach Formula One without vast financial backing.

Later, women like Susie Wolff and Katherine Legge (the first woman to win a Formula 3 race) showed her what sustained excellence at the highest level could look like.

Their advice has stayed with her: ‘If you want something, don’t wait for permission.’

Lisa doesn’t spend energy worrying about what male competitors think - “I don’t really pay attention to what boys think because I focus on my goals” - and instead works on preparation, physical training, and mental resilience, knowing that racing demands peak athleticism, regardless of gender.

“Yes, women sometimes have to work harder physically,” she says. “But we are just as capable.”

Fuel for the future

Lisa became the Women’s Champion at the 2025 French F4 Championship at Le Mans, and the first female to win a race in the French Junior Karting Championship, earning her a Wild Card entry for Round 6 of the F1 ACADEMY season in Singapore.

In 2026, Lisa became the youngest female athlete ever to join the Gatorade roster aged 16, a milestone that still feels surreal.

“It’s a dream come true,” she says. “Sport is my life. To be recognised like that, and to be able to inspire other girls, it’s incredible.”

Gatorade’s elite athlete roster includes WNBA stars Cailtin Clark and A’ja Wilson, tennis champion Serena Willams and Olympic hurdler Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone. “I’ve been lucky to meet A’ja Wilson on video call, which was very cool. She gave me some advice, like trust yourself in your training, be confident and stay determined,” Lisa says.

At Gatorade’s training camp in Florida in January this year - her first visit to the United States - Lisa took part in advanced sports science testing, strength and conditioning sessions, and nutrition and hydration education.

“For the first time, I had serious advice about recovery,” she says. “In racing, you can lose up to four kilograms in a race. Single-seater racing pushes your body to the limit. Learning how to fuel and recover properly makes such a difference. I’m so excited to take on my first season of F1 ACADEMY with the support of Gatorade behind me.”

When asked if she considers herself a feminist, Lisa’s answer is simple and grounded.

“I want women to have the same rights as men,” she says. “And to be able to dream bigger, and have the same chance to realise their dreams. Things are changing but we still have work to do.”

And for the next generation of female racing drivers - and girls dreaming of being in spaces where they don’t yet see themselves reflected - her message is clear: “If you feel it inside you, don’t wait. Don’t wait for permission. Don’t wait to be perfectly ready, you never will be. Just try. And never give up until you achieve your dream.”

This season, Lisa will race across the world, from Shanghai to Montreal, Silverstone to Las Vegas, chasing podiums and reshaping what the future of motorsport looks like.

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TW: This article contains references to sexual exploitation, self-harm, and suicide.

When Roxy Longworth was just 13, she began receiving messages on social media from an older boy at her school. She was flattered and thought she was being noticed. In reality, Roxy was being groomed.

It began with chatty messages from a 17-year-old boy at her school. He was popular. “Everyone knew who he was, and I was just incredibly flattered,” Roxy tells The Female Lead.

It didn’t take long for the messages to change and take a sinister turn. He began asking her to send photos. When she refused, the response was not acceptance. It was a threat.

He told her that if she didn’t send what he wanted, “he would tell everyone at school that I was frigid and then no one would ever want to speak to me.”

“At the time - I was only 13 - that felt like a genuine threat,” Roxy tells us.

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Roxy was coerced into sending intimate images. “I started sending photos in revealing tops or in a bikini.” Each image was met with compliments and praise. “It was this huge high, this rush,” Roxy explains. “I think I became a little addicted to that validation in the evenings.”

Eventually, she stopped. “I just felt too gross and was starting to hate myself.”

Then another message arrived. This time it was from a different boy at her school, also 17, someone she didn’t know. He asked her to send him a new photo. When Roxy ignored the message, he sent her four images he already had of her, shared without her consent by the first boy who groomed her. “That was just when my life imploded around me,” she says.

“I didn’t know this man and he owned me. Those boys controlled me from the very moment I sent that [first] photo,” Roxy tells The Female Lead.

The 17-year-old told her that if she didn’t send him whatever he wanted, he would send the photos around the school. “That was not an option,” Roxy says. She blocked him everywhere and waited.

When the images began to spread throughout the school, the emotional impact was overwhelming. “I just felt so small and guilty, and I felt so much shame,” she told us. “I thought my life was over and it was my fault.”

When the school became aware of what had happened, they punished Roxy, and not the boys. “I didn’t question when they didn’t contact the police.”

Roxy’s mental health deteriorated rapidly. “I started self-harming because I really believed that I needed to be punished more, that I had done this terrible thing,” she explains.

She stopped sleeping because of nightmares and tried to keep herself awake. Roxy began hearing voices and was eventually hospitalised, experiencing a psychotic episode, spending several months on suicide watch.

Roxy’s mum later became a critical source of support, staying with her constantly during her recovery. As the images circulated, her friends stopped speaking to her, and she was subjected to bullying.

Roxy survived that period of her life and returned to school, but withdrew socially and focused on her studies.

She later began campaigning with the NSPCC as an ambassador. “I was frustrated that people were not going directly to young people and hearing what their experiences were growing up online,” she says.

That frustration led Roxy to create Behind Our Screens, a platform designed to help young people talk openly about online harm. “Just to get young people talking about this stuff openly without the stigma, without the shame,” she explains. “That it could be a normal conversation, and you can go and ask for help without it ruining your life.”

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For Roxy, prevention must focus on those who cause harm, not those who are harmed. “Education is so important,” she says, “because there needs to be education to the person asking for the photos, which is regularly boys, about the impact that can have on the person on the other side of that phone.”

Her story shows how easily a child can be coerced, how quickly images are shared, that sadly, the victim can internalise shame, and how institutions fail to protect those most at risk.

Roxy is sharing her experience as the UK Government announces new measures to tackle image-based abuse and the use of AI ‘nudification’ tools, as part of its wider strategy to address violence against women and girls.

And she’s welcomed recent commitments to ban ‘nudification’ apps and strengthen device-level protections, saying that if safeguards like these had existed when she was 13, “my life would have been completely different.”

Find out more about Behind Our Screens here.

If you or someone you know, has been affected by any of the issues raised in this article, help is available. In the UK, you can text SHOUT to 85258 for free, confidential support 24/7, or contact Samaritans on 116 123.

Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok is facing international scrutiny after it emerged that men have been using the tool to generate sexually explicit images of women and girls without their consent. Campaigners say it lays bare how quickly new technology can be weaponised against women, prompting the UK communications regulator Ofcom to make “urgent contact” with X and its parent company, xAI, to question what legal and safeguarding steps have been taken – and why they weren’t in place to begin with.

The controversy follows a December update to Grok, which made it easier for users to upload photographs and request alterations. While Grok doesn’t technically permit full nudity, it has repeatedly complied with prompts asking for women’s clothing to be removed or altered, placing them in revealing underwear or sexually suggestive poses. According to reporting by the Guardian, the feature was rapidly exploited, with a significant proportion of @Grok mentions linked to image-generation requests using terms such as “remove”, “bikini” and “clothing”.

Women soon began discovering manipulated images of themselves circulating on X. Many described the experience as ‘deeply violating’, regardless of whether the images depicted full nudity. Some images appeared to show women stripped to their underwear, while others included degrading sexual elements. In some cases, images of children were also altered.

For Jess Davies – presenter, author and podcast host – what is unfolding feels like a grim escalation of a problem she has been tracking for years. Her and others work with Glamour have closely followed Grok’s impact on women’s online safety, reporting on earlier controversies involving the chatbot, from bodyshaming and rating women’s appearances to its creation of so-called ‘semen images’.

Jess has been tracking explicit deepfakes since 2021 and says AI ‘nudification’ tools have steadily become more sophisticated, allowing users to select a victim’s age, body shape and intimate details. While she was already aware of Grok being used to create fake semen imagery last year, seeing the harm “unfold en masse” on a mainstream platform with more than half a billion users marked a dangerous escalation. She describes the enthusiasm with which users exploited the feature as “a depressing reflection of how deep-rooted misogyny is in our society”.

And for those who say that AI images are harmless because they’re ‘not real’? Talking exclusively to The Female Lead, Jess tells us this misses the point entirely. “The images themselves may be artificial, but the trauma response of having your consent, control and bodily autonomy taken from you is very real,” she says.

Jess believes the behaviour is fundamentally about power, that sexual objectification has long been used to shame and silence women, and that this wave of abuse sits within a broader cultural backlash. “It is no coincidence this is happening at a time when women are making ground towards equality,” she says. “Sexually objectifying us is the oldest trick in the book. This is a power tactic.”

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That power dynamic became personal when Jess herself was targeted. After speaking publicly about the harm caused by Grok, users prompted the chatbot to generate images of her without clothes, including fake semen imagery. For her, the intent was unmistakable. “It was a direct response to me saying ‘this isn’t okay’,” Jess says. “It’s men saying, ‘how dare you put a mirror to our face’.” She draws a clear line between this and more familiar forms of online abuse, from harassment to rape threats, arguing that AI has simply handed misogynistic men another weapon.

The fact that this abuse is happening through a mainstream, publicly available AI tool is, Jess says, particularly damning. She contrasts government attempts to criminalise nudification tools with what she sees as a permissive culture at X. “When the richest man in the world signals that this is acceptable, it normalises harm,” Jess says. “This isn’t normal. It’s predatory, abusive and exploitative.”

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Other women have reported similar abuse. Metro reported that Evie Smith, 22, had her image sexualised by Grok more than 100 times after trolls exploited loopholes such as requests for a “see-through bikini”. Another report by the same outlet found that two UK Cabinet ministers were targeted after Grok was prompted to generate bikini images of them within minutes. A government source described the incidents as “deeply disturbing”, saying Ofcom was right to be acting urgently.

The issue has raised particular alarm where children are concerned. AOL reported that Grok had been used to generate sexualised images of minors, including 14-year-old Stranger Things actor Nell Fisher. In response, Grok’s official account acknowledged “isolated cases” where safeguards had failed, saying it was urgently fixing the problem and reiterating that child sexual abuse material is illegal.

In the UK, Ofcom has confirmed it made urgent contact with X and xAI to establish how they are complying with their legal duties to protect users, and said it would assess whether a formal investigation is required. The European Commission has also said it is “very seriously” examining complaints about Grok’s use.

X has said the issues stem from “lapses in safeguards” that are being fixed, and that users who generate non-consensual sexualised images will be suspended. It recently warned users not to use Grok to generate illegal content, including child sexual abuse material, with Musk adding that anyone who prompts the AI to create illegal images would face the same consequences as if they had uploaded them themselves. Critics, however, say the response falls short, pointing to how easily users continue to bypass restrictions. Musk has also been criticised for publicly treating the image-generation trend as a joke, sharing AI-generated images of inanimate objects and public figures in bikinis while women report feeling violated.

Jess is scathing about the response. “They have the money, the means and the capacity to change this,” she says, accusing Musk of prioritising notoriety over user safety. “For someone who likes to paint himself as such an alpha, it’s pretty loser behaviour for Elon to allow an AI chatbot to remove women’s clothes for ‘lols’.”

Meaningful action, she argues, would include immediate guardrails to prevent the creation of intimate images, an option for users to opt out of Grok altogether, and regulators using their powers to fine platforms for the harm caused. Jess also calls for urgent enforcement of legislation passed last year to criminalise the creation and request of non-consensual intimate images, provisions that have yet to be implemented.

“This isn’t just what happens to women online,” Jess says. “It’s misogyny by design. And we can demand better.”

And in case anyone was worried, X’s solution (as of today) appears to be limiting Grok’s image-editing tools to paying users only – so don’t worry, the ability to undress women without consent hasn’t gone away, it’s just now a premium feature.

Most recently, Sir Keir Starmer has spoken out on the Grok scandal, warning that Elon Musk’s X could face the full force of the UK’s Online Safety laws. He said Ofcom has been asked to explore “all options,” including heavy fines or even banning access to the platform, and described the AI-generated sexualised images as “disgraceful” and “unlawful.” Downing Street has also raised the matter directly with X, with Starmer insisting the company must act to remove illegal content or face serious consequences.

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This story is still unfolding.

This year there’s plenty for us to delve into for feel good feminist inspiration and supporting women across film, books, music, art and sport...

Books you’ll want to read

Famesick by Lena Dunham. The director, actor and author releases a nonfiction book about how health issues have intersected with her life in the spotlight.

Hooked by Asako Yuzuki. From the author of Butter, the novel explores one woman’s obsession with another.

The Swan’s Daughter by Roshani Chokshi. A myth-inspired YA fantasy release.

Bimbo by Ashley James. Written through a fierce feminist lens, Ashley unpacks the labels that box women in, and the systems that keep them there.

Little One by Olivia Muenter. A psychological narrative exploring wellness culture and womanhood.

Girls®: Generation Z and the Commodification of Everything by Freya India. A critical cultural analysis that examines how girlhood and youth culture are increasingly commodified.

Heartstopper Volume 6 by Alice Oseman. The final instalment of the graphic novel series which has followed the lives of Nick and Charlie, two teenage boys who fall in love. LGBTQ+ storytelling at its finest.

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A Hymn to Life: Shame has to Change Sides by Gisele Pelicot. The extraordinarily powerful memoir by Gisèle who waived her right to anonymity when her husband and fifty other men were put on trial for rape.

Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke. The story centers around “trad wife” Instagram influencer Natalie who wakes up one day back in 1805.

Kin by Tayari Jones. The novel follows two inseparable friends, Vernice and Annie, growing up in the segregated American South, dealing with absent mothers and the complexities of life.

Good Woman: A Reckoning by Savala Nolan. Tackles the pressures of conforming to stereotypical expectations of womanhood and how those expectations shape identities and freedoms. It blends memoir and analysis with critical reflection on gendered cultural norms.

Music you’ll want to listen to

Charli XCX is following up on her Brat album with her soundtrack to Emerald Fennell’s movie adaptation of Wuthering Heights. Absolutely, real name Abby-Lynn Keen and sister of Raye, is set to release new music and will be supporting Reneé Rap and her big sister. Jess Glynne has confirmed new music arriving later this year. Lana Del Rey’s long-delayed country album is reported to be released in early 2026. New music is also expected from Raye, Robyn, and Carly Rae Jepsen, with Madonna reported to be working on a follow-up to Confessions On A Dancefloor.

Lily Allen, Olivia Dean and Ariana Grande are all on tour in 2026 while TLC’s CrazySexyCool – The TLC Musical opens in Washington, USA in June celebrating women’s legacies in pop culture.

Events you’ll want tickets to

The Tracey Emin Exhibition at Tate Modern in London, 27 February to 31 August. The landmark exhibition traces 40 years of Dame Emin’s groundbreaking career alongside works never exhibited before.

Women’s Prize LIVE, 10 June 2026. A major London-based day-festival celebrating books by women and featuring author talks, readings, and panels.

The 2026 Met Gala & Costume Art Exhibit is co-chaired by Beyoncé, Nicole Kidman, and Venus Williams with Anna Wintour on 4 May. “Costume Art” will be the inaugural exhibition, pairing paintings, sculptures, and other objects in the museum in relation to garments from the Costume Institute’s collection.

The 2026 Women’s Tribunal in Antwerp 25 to 28 March, a multi-day feminist arts and activism event marking 50 years since the 1976 Tribunal on Crimes against Women with debates, performances, and workshops.

Frida: The Making of an Icon, Tate Modern, London, 25 June to 3 January. The display consists of 50 photographic portraits of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo and spans her life, from just two years-old and on her deathbed.

Everywoman Festival in London, 13 June. The empowerment festival is focuses on women’s health, wellbeing, workshops, talks, creative showcases, music & community.

What you’ll want to watch

Dracula

Cynthia Erivo will star in a solo adaptation of Dracula, playing all 23 roles, at the Noël Coward Theatre in London from 4 February to 31 May. The production, directed by Kip Williams, is a “cinetheatre” reimagining of Bram Stoker’s vampire classic.

Wuthering Heights

Directed by Saltburn’s Emerald Fennell and starring Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie. A new adaptation of the classic love story exploring the intense relationship between Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw. Out 13 February.

The Bride!

Directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal it’s inspired by the 1935 film Bride of Frankenstein. Set in 1930s Chicago with a Bonnie & Clyde vibe, it stars Jessie Buckley as the Bride and Christian Bale as Frankenstein.

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The Devil Wears Prada 2

Miranda Priestly is back with Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt and Anne Hathaway all returning to the follow up. Stanley Tucci is also back with joining the cast Kenneth Branagh in this must anticipated sequel.

The Drama

A romantic comedy drama film starring Zendaya, Robert Pattinson, Mamoudou Athie, Alana Haim, Hailey Gates, and Zoë Winters. Written and directed by Kristoffer Borgli it sees Emma and Charlie’s relationship is shaken when secrets start to spill just days before the wedding.

Bridgerton

Series 4 on Netflix. It’s time for Benedict Bridgerton, played by Luke Thompson, to take the spotlight. Benedict meets his romantic interest, Sophie, in the first episode of the new season but as usual, love never comes easy in the Ton.

Sports events you’ll want to tune into

2026 FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup featuring the world’s best national teams. Berlin, 4 to 13 September.

ICC Women’s T20 World Cup will see 33 cricket matches across England and Wales. The flagship global event in women’s cricket ends with the final at Lord’s, London on 5 July 2026.

2026 Women’s FIH Hockey World Cup runs 14 to 30 August 2026 in Belgium and the Netherlands, featuring 16 national teams competing for the world title.

Women’s Six Nations Championship sees England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland, and Wales compete across the nations from 11 April to 17 May.

2026 IIHF Women’s World Championship is the top-tier of the women’s ice hockey world, bringing together elite teams in Denmark between 6 to 16 November.

2026 Winter Olympics, commonly known as Milano Cortina 2026, will see women’s competitions in skiing, bobsleigh, figure skating, curling, and other winter sports take centre stage from 6 to 22 February in Italy.

By Amber Probyn, Co-founder of Peequal

It started with a simple question: why are we queuing?

My co-founder Hazel McShane and I were both working at festivals during university. On our breaks, we’d choose between going to the loo, or getting food, simply because the queues were too long for both. Time and time again I would find myself waiting, whilst men whizzed in and out of their urinals - is my time really considered less valuable than theirs? Why do I have to wait?

The toilet queue is a visible example of how inequality can be hidden in plain sight. Queuing for the loo whilst men don’t is considered to be ‘part of being a woman’ and there is a resignation around changing this. Women’s sanitation has been underfunded and overlooked because it’s been seen as “unsexy” or “unspeakable”.

We experienced this resistance after every conversation with a quizzical customer or an unsupportive investor, but we had to keep reminding ourselves that this problem isn’t just an inconvenience, it’s an inequality and equal sanitation will make a positive impact for so many women.

Fuelled by our own frustration, Hazel and I set about developing our design. After many prototypes, testing and user-centred feedback, we created Peequal, the UK’s first squat and go women’s urinal. It’s practical, quick & simple to use, sustainable, and even joyful.

When we launched at Glastonbury in 2022, everything changed. The response was overwhelming, from investment interest to millions of views on TikTok and features in the Times, Women’s Hour and the BBC. But the online reaction was also a reminder of how taboo this topic still is. We received hundreds of supportive messages along with hundreds of hate. This reaction highlighted the controversialness around women’s sanitation, proving just how important it is to keep having these conversations, because without them, the problem remains unchanged and women’s needs will never be designed for.

Of course, building something new means facing pushback and sometimes gender bias. We’ve been laughed at in investor meetings, mistaken for the intern instead of the boss, even denied access on sites because we “don’t look like we do sanitation”.

You learn quickly that as a young woman in business, you often have to earn credibility instead of starting with it. Our journey hasn’t been easy. We founded the company in 2020 which was not ideal timing for an event-based business during Covid. But somehow, we raised £250,000 on a CAD model and true passion to see change happen. Since then, we’ve raised over £1 million, built a growing team, and supplied more than 40 major events, from Glastonbury to the London Marathon. Over one million women have used Peequal and have benefitted from the efficient, dignified and liberating experience we provide.

Running a start-up isn’t glamorous. It’s hard, messy and a constant juggle of people, plans, and priorities, all while keeping your foot on the accelerator. But when you truly believe in the problem you’re solving, that belief carries you through the chaos.

I’ve learned a lot about leadership along the way. That I have more capacity than I ever realised. That relationships and networks are everything. And that rest is as important as the work itself – burnout helps no one.

Our focus is currently on the UK market, but we’re already getting international demand. Long-term, we want to see Peequal being a standard provision at events, providing equal access to sanitation, for women everywhere. This isn’t a nice-to-have, it’s a fundamental requirement.

For anyone starting their own venture, my advice is simple:

1. Fall in love with the problem, not the solution - this allows you to adapt and evolve your business proposition to truly solve the problem

2. Find supportive networks - whether it’s accelerators, mentors,university start-up groups, try to surround yourself with those who lift you up, share contacts and open doors. Hazel and I have found incredible allies, men and women alike, who genuinely want to help us succeed.

3. Don’t let others project their limits onto you. When someone tells you something “can’t be done” they’re revealing their fear and limitation, not that you can’t do it.

At Peequal, we often say, “Why not us?” because real change starts when you stop waiting for someone else to fix it and start believing you’re the one who can make it happen.

Find out more about Amber and Hazel’s work at www.peequal.com.

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By Caroline Millington, Editorial Director

When Jess Phillips MP, Minister for Safeguarding and Violence against Women and Girls, invited us to the Home Office to discuss the UK government’s new Violence against Women and Girls (VAWG) strategy, we knew it was going to be a tough conversation.

A 2024 report from police chiefs stated that violence against women is a national emergency in England and Wales with around two million women a year estimated to be victims of male violence. The report revealed that this figure was an underestimate as most offences are not reported.

The government’s new strategy is long overdue. Built around three goals – preventing radicalisation of young men with focus on early intervention, education and addressing harmful attitudes before they take root; stopping abusers; and supporting victims – it’s ambitious. But does it go far enough?

We welcome the new Violence against Women and Girl strategy but why did it take so long?

That is completely legitimate criticism and I fully take responsibility for it. The deadlines were self imposed. I didn’t think it was ambitious enough. I could have hit the deadline and missed the point, and I thought the point was more important. It’s entirely on me. I take full responsibility and government ministers don’t often do this.

One policy is for all police forces to have dedicated rape and sexual offence investigations teams by 2029. With 200 women reporting rapes every day in the UK, that’s thousands that won’t get the support they deserve…

Look, rape victims should still access our justice system. Having a specialist team will be a massive improvement in the system. That doesn’t mean in the meantime nothing will happen in that police force. I don’t want to make out like that is the case. Putting specialist violence against women and girls teams in every single police force is really a way of the government saying ‘This is a priority.’ Twenty per cent of all crime that comes into any police force in the country is violence against women and girls.

The level of volume and inevitability of it has led institutions, whether it’s the police, courts, health services, into a point of acceptance of one of those things. This is a priority and absolutely core to policing.

We all know someone who has been a victim of male violence. Over a dozen of my friends have unfortunately been raped and only one woman I know reported it. What is being done so more women will come forward now?

Two things. The strategy has to encourage more people to come forward. So while the government has set a target of halving violence against women and girls [in the next decade], I would be a fool and juking the stats for the sake of looking good if I didn’t want to see a massive rise before seeing a massive fall for that exact reason.

Actually, women will come forward - the reason that your friends, like my friends, like me. I have suffered all sorts of violence in my lifetime, I’ve never once reported any of it. That’s not true actually, as a politician, I have to report it all the time.

Women will start to come forward when they believe the institutions they come forward to will believe them, support them and act accordingly. If there was a silver bullet I could put on it, I would do it. Fundamentally, the police system has to improve, the court system has to improve.

The thing I’m proudest of in the strategy, and it’s a hail mary cos it’s never been done before on this point, is that I’d like those women not to have been raped in the first place.

You can’t know 12 women who have been raped and not know a rapist. You know a rapist, everybody does. Everybody knows, and loves, somebody who perpetrates this. And what I would say is I don’t want that life for my sons either. We can’t arrest our way out of a growing concern about young men’s attitudes, access to pornography, and we haven’t included them in the conversation. And so the thing we are having to invent, because it doesn’t exist, is ‘What are we going to do growing sexually harmful behaviours amongst young men?’ And the answer in the strategy is, we’re going to invent interventions for these groups of people to try and stop them becoming rapists in the first place.

The issue isn’t we all know 12 people who have been raped. The issue is we all know rapists.

Halving violence against women and girls in the next decade is ambitious. But does that mean the government believes 1 in 4 women experiencing male violence is acceptable?

Of course I want to eliminate violence against women and girls, but when we wrote the manifesto commitment that we would halve violence against women and girls, if you don’t put a tangible number on it… if you just state we want to eliminate violence against women and girls and that’s the level of analysis. That’s like saying war is bad. Of course, everyone wants that. If you put a number on it that can be measured. I want to eliminate violence against women and girls. We count what we care about.

The Female Lead audience believes the narrative around violence against women and girls should be focused on the perpetrators rather than the victims. Do you agree?

I absolutely agree. There’s an international conversation that’s been happening for the past 10 years around big pitch points, the Me Too movement or [the murder of] Sarah Everard - we need to really shift around the idea. This is not a women’s problem, this is a men’s problem. But we have to do this, I can feel the tension in myself, we will not succeed if men feel under attack. As much as I’d like to be, ‘Well it’s their bloody responsibility’, the outcome is all that matters. And actually inviting men into these conversations, actually they probably don’t think of it in those terms. Men think it’s awful because [it’s] everyone’s mother, daughter or sister. You hear a lot of, ‘I’m the father of daughters’ conversations. But actually, [for men] ‘Your friends are people who do this’ is the more important conversation and where they can intervene. I don’t think women can change the narrative unilaterally. We already saw what’s been the backlash to Me Too - Andrew Tate.

How are you going to change the narrative?

I’m going to take away the focus from the victim and say, ‘Why does she have to leave her house? Why doesn’t he have to leave their house? Why does she have to go to the police force? Why aren’t the police just watching him rather than responding to her?’ It’s not her, she’s not the problem - the focus is on the perpetrators and boys. And that will cause some consternation because that’s quite a big change. And lots of people in the women’s sector don’t feel confident in that. But the definition of madness is doing the same thing and expecting a different result.

What’s your message to The Female Lead audience?

The Female Lead already seems to be doing a pretty good job. [To The Female Lead readers] I need you. Governments pass legislation, it’s been illegal to rape for quite a long time, look how well that’s gone. This is going to take everybody doing their bit to change culture. I’m loathed to ask women to do more if I’m honest, because quite frankly you must be knackered. I feel it myself. But what I would say is, we’ve got your back. It’s going to take time but we need everyone to be involved.

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By Caroline Millington, Editorial Director

“Male, stale and pale” has long been a phrase associated with the hallowed corridors of power in Parliament. But on a sunny winter day, The Female Lead was invited to the House of Commons to meet eight female MPs who are keen to change the narrative and encourage more women to enter politics.

The House of Commons is as you imagine: formal, old fashioned and grand. It’s a bit like Hogwarts for grown ups, without the spells. But the MPs we meet today are nothing like the two-dimensional politicians usually seen on TV. And that’s where the real magic lies…

“There’s an assumption that we’re all desperately serious all of the time. And actually, this is an incredibly exciting and interesting place to work where there is still a lot of humour,” The Rt Hon Caroline Nokes, Deputy Speaker and Conservative MP for Romsey and Southampton North, tells us. “What do you call three female deputy speakers? And the answer that people always give to that is: a coven. But we’re not witches.”

Fellow Deputy Speaker Judith Cummings, Labour MP for Bradford South, pops in to join us, “I work on a corridor with three women who are deputy speakers from different parties, so, of course, I’m friends with so many people from right across parties,” she tells us.

“People see PMQs on TV, and that’s basically their image of what politics is like. It’s a pantomime of politics, it’s argy bargy across the floor and people trading insults,” Ellie Chowns, Green Party MP for North Herefordshire, says. “That’s really not what politics is about.”

So what IS politics about?

“It’s about asking questions, holding people to account, participating in debate, making your voice heard and representing people in your constituency,” explains Ellie Chowns.

“Tackling violence against women and girls, online safety, and health inequalities. I’m working on access to finance for women. Only 2% of venture capital goes to women, and I think that is outrageous,” adds Sonia Kumar, Labour MP for Dudley.

While serious issues are at the heart of their work - and some disagreements - the thread of friendship and support for women from every party is woven throughout our conversations.

“There’s a real sense of sisterhood. We work together, including across party lines. So we look out for one another,” says The Rt Hon Bridget Phillipson, Labour MP for Houghton and Sunderland South, Secretary of State for Education and Minister for Women and Equalities.

“I completely disagree with my friend Dawn Butler [Labour MP for Brent East] but we get on really well and co-chair the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Women in Parliament,” adds Mims Davies, Conservative MP for East Grinstead and Uckfield.

“I spent five days in Norway with a conservative MP that I have very little in common with, but we did have children and chocolate in common,” Vikki Slade, Liberal Democrat MP for Mid Dorset and North Poole, reveals.

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“And the person who inspired me to stand for Deputy Speaker was a female Labour MP,” Caroline Nokes says. “I hadn’t considered it and she just said, ‘I think you’d be brilliant’. And that gives you an idea of the depth of respect and friendship that we can have in between parties.”

However, women still have some way to go to be taken seriously. “Nobody notices if a male MP wears the same suit 365 days of the year and everybody wants to comment about our clothes,” Caroline Nokes adds. “But it’s not about women being there for window dressing.”

While politics has historically been dominated by private education and privileged backgrounds, these women are proving it’s no longer the case.

“I don’t come from a political dynasty – I’m an NHS physiotherapist by background and I wanted to make more of a change,” Sonia Kumar says.

“It’s not just for people who’ve been to university – I haven’t been,” Vikki Slade adds. “There’s this assumption that we come from a finishing school and then get plonked in!”

“I got involved in politics when I was 40 because I just thought, ‘I can’t bear the way the country is going’,” explains Ellie Chowns. “I really wasn’t intending to stand for election. I just got the bug.”

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And the MPs who join us today are hoping more women will catch the politics bug. The number of women MPs could fall drastically at the next election from 41% to 26%, according to data from 50:50 Parliament.

“Back in 1997 we had a huge number of women MPs elected to Parliament. For the first time, we started talking seriously about domestic abuse, childcare and issues affecting women’s health because we had so many women MPs making the case for it,” Bridget Phillipson says.

“I’m always worried that we will fall back in female representation. It would be really bad for women across the country to see their voice diminished in that way,” Caroline Nokes adds.

“Parliament should represent society and that’s why [it’s essential to] have more women and a wider range of people: ethnically diverse, LGBTQ+, people with disabilities, they all need to be here,” Vikki Slade says.

“I get quite a lot of women who’ve been subject to domestic abuse who contact me and some of them have said they feel comfortable doing that because they’ve got a female MP,” Aphra Brandrith explains.

Bridget Phillipson understands the hesitation some women might feel, saying, “I know a lot of women worry about combining family life with standing for elected office. Both my children have come along during my time as a member of Parliament. It’s more than possible to combine family responsibilities and being an MP.”

“When I first considered getting involved in politics, one of the things that slightly held me back was this idea that you have to know everything about everything. That’s just not the case. I mean, look at the way so many politicians have let us down throughout history. If you’re thinking, ‘Maybe I could do a better job’, chances are, you might!” says Ellie Chowns.

“We need you – your ideas, your experiences, your connections in the community,” Mims Davies adds. “We need to make sure that we reflect the women of today and inspire the girls of the future”.

As we leave, galvanised by the genuine passion from the women we spoke to, we pass some MPs and their teams tucking into homemade cake in a nearby office, part of a parliamentary Bake Off competition. While society once deemed a woman’s place to be in the kitchen, it’s most definitely in Westminster now.

50:50 Parliament is a non-partisan charity, inspiring and supporting women to stand for elected office, via their #AskHerToStand campaign and #SignUpToStand and ‘Pathways’ programmes.

Join them at www.5050parliament.co.uk.

By Freja Love, Junior Producer for The Female Lead

On a Sunday evening in September, speaking with Nicola Coughlan, Malala Yousafzai wasn’t the global activist or the Nobel Peace Prize winner we’ve all read about. She was a 28-year-old woman sharing honest, funny stories about university, friendship, therapy, marriage and Cardi B, laughing at herself and letting us in on the joke.

I expected Malala to be funny. If you’ve read any of her recent interviews or watched her TikToks, you’d know she has a sharp sense of humour. Still, it was a joy to witness her comedic timing live, along with thousands of others in the audience who couldn’t stop laughing at her perfectly delivered one-liners.

What I wasn’t expecting was to leave the Southbank Centre feeling so similar to her. A Nobel laureate, yes, but also a woman who worries, overthinks, loves deeply and just wants good friends. I imagine that’s partly how Malala hopes people will feel after reading her latest book, Finding My Way: reminded that anxieties, mistakes and messy moments are universal.

It struck me how candid she was about not having a normal childhood. Most of us first heard her name in 2012, when she was a 15-year-old schoolgirl shot by the Taliban for speaking out about girls’ education. Two years later, she became the youngest person ever to win the Nobel Peace Prize. While other teenagers were making weekend plans, Malala was travelling the world to speak at summits and meet world leaders. It’s not exactly a relatable teenage experience, but the loneliness she describes, and her longing for connection, absolutely is.

That’s why Malala’s stories about starting university felt so touching. When she arrived at Oxford, she found herself “new to the school environment” and eager to fit in. She admitted, laughing, that she had googled Selena Gomez style for fashion inspiration, and that she joined every society she could “to make friends because I had missed that in high school”.

Her university years are where her story starts to sound particularly familiar. She spoke about mischievous nights at Oxford, climbing onto roofs, crushes on questionable men (“my friends told me absolutely not”), and even tried smoking a bong (albeit for the first and last time.) You might be surprised to hear that Malala also confessed to nearly failing her first-year exams, finishing almost bottom of her class.

What came across most clearly was her deep affection for the friendships she made there. “I didn’t have to worry about what I was saying around my friends,” she said. “I didn’t have to be political. I could make mistakes for the first time.” A few of those friends were in the audience, smiling bashfully as she reminisced. “Sometimes it felt like I was overdoing it,” she added, “but it was all worth it. Do everything, try all the activities, make the effort. Friends make everything more beautiful.”

Of course, life isn’t always as light-hearted. Malala spoke openly about therapy and how confronting her mental health changed her completely. She admitted that after years of surviving trauma, she found herself struggling with anxiety and dark thoughts. When a friend casually mentioned that she saw a therapist, Malala was surprised, but it encouraged her to try it too.

“In my first session, I told the therapist everything I could think of,” she laughed, “and then said, ‘Okay, now give me the medication’. It was a much longer process than that, of course, but therapy changed my life completely.”

She also spoke about learning to prioritise her wellbeing. “I always thought being an activist meant sacrificing things,” she said. “I felt guilty if I tried to take a break or do something for myself. But I realised I needed to do more for me.” Alongside therapy, Malala credits staying active and her love of weightlifting for helping her manage stress. Whatever people might be struggling with, she added, “There’s always a way out.”

So yes, Malala worries about exams, loves her friends, goes to therapy and lifts weights. Same!

When the conversation turned to love, she was just as refreshingly honest. “As a kid, I said I didn’t want to get married,” she revealed. “I saw that women had to make more compromises. I told all of my college friends not to get married… and then I fell in love.”

She met her now-husband, Asser, in 2018 when he was visiting friends at Oxford, and they bonded over a shared love of cricket. She turned to women writers like Dolly Alderton and bell hooks for perspective, and when she finally confessed her feelings to her dad, she warned him not to tell her mum. “He told her straight away,” she laughed.

Malala took her time before marrying, determined to make her own choices. “This is a reality that women have. We face many different pressures to men,” she said. “But now my husband and I have been married for four years, and it’s all good.”

One story summed her up perfectly. “I told my family I didn’t want to learn to cook. I wanted to be the girl who got her education. But then I realised that I didn’t learn; my brothers didn’t learn, now I’m married and my husband didn’t learn. And I’ve realised it’s really an important skill to have. So I told my husband to start learning.”

Malala has met world leaders to discuss their support - or rather the lack - of girls’ education and women’s rights. But she’s also a fan of Madagascar, Only Fools and Horses and Cardi B. Same again!

Okay, I’m not a Nobel Peace Prize winner who stood up to the Taliban at fifteen (that level of bravery is reserved for the few.) But in life, love, friendship and guilty pleasures, Malala is like us. She’s just a young woman, finding her way.

Some parting words of advice from her: “Enjoy your time learning and making friends, it’s okay to navigate your way through confusions, the most important thing is to be true to yourself and have fun.”

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A new report by Male Allies UK has revealed that a third of boys think women’s rights are unimportant and that many are turning to artificial intelligence for emotional support, friendship, and even relationships.

The Boys In Schools report, which surveyed over 1,000 boys aged 11 to 15 across 37 British schools, found that boys are increasingly reliant on digital communication and struggling to define what masculinity means in today’s world.

Over half of those surveyed (53%) said they find the online world more rewarding than real life, while a similar number (54%) said the real world feels more interesting, suggesting a tension between wanting real-world connection and finding it easier to exist online. Some said they spend more time online because it feels safer and less intimidating than going out.

As The Independent reports, many boys are also turning to chatbots for companionship and emotional support. One boy said, “I have AI friends and girlfriends, they are always there when you feel bored,” while another explained, “I talk to an AI app, it makes me feel like I’m not on my own.”

But the same online spaces that comfort them are also sowing mistrust and confusion. The report found that boys are split between believing “everything online is fake” and viewing certain sexist voices as part of a “new system” that reflects truth. A vast majority (82%) said they don’t trust UK politicians either.

When it comes to gender equality, opinions were equally mixed. While most boys said women’s rights are important (45%) or very important (23%), nearly a third (32%) said they’re not. And though 58% believe feminism has made the UK a better place, over half (54%) think boys have it harder than girls today. Some said they feel that girls are celebrated while boys are “seen as part of the problem”.

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The majority of boys (79%) also said it isn’t clear to them what masculinity means. As one put it, “People always say what it shouldn’t be, but don’t say what it is”. Another added, “It’s toxic, that’s all I ever hear.”

Lee Chambers, founder and CEO of Male Allies UK, said the findings show that boys are growing up in a confusing and divided world. “A lack of guidance and trusted information means many are struggling to process the views they see every day, which is splitting opinion on some important subjects,” he told The Independent.

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He went on to say this moment should serve as a wake-up call. “We have an opportunity to help boys navigate digital connections in a safe and supportive way, but we need to listen to them,” Lee Chambers said. “We want boys to grow up appreciating the importance of feminism and allyship, but we can’t achieve that by telling them; we need to help them shape it alongside us.”

As conversations around toxic masculinity and the influence of figures like Andrew Tate continue, the report is a reminder that young boys are listening, they need safe spaces, guidance and empathy to make sense of what they hear.

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When it comes to TV and film, women are often boxed into extremes.

Think of the ice-cool detectives, the unbreakable lawyers, or the struggling single mums - characters that reduce women into types rather than people.

Working-class women, in particular, remain among the most invisible, often reduced to caricatures. Rarely are they shown as leaders or as complex as their middle-class counterparts.

Vicky McClure has spent her career pushing against that. From This Is England to Line of Duty and now Trigger Point, the Nottingham-born actor has built a body of work defined by realism.

In ITV’s Trigger Point, she plays Lana Washington, an explosives officer in the Metropolitan Police’s bomb disposal unit - a woman trained to stay calm when every second counts. Yet the version we see on screen is far from invincible, haunted by her brother’s death in an explosion and carrying the psychological strain of her job, Lana’s resilience feels lived-in rather than cinematic.

“It’s important to see anyone on screen that’s imperfect because I believe we all kind of are. I don’t believe in perfection,” Vicky told The Female Lead.

Her words ring true in an industry still struggling with representation. A 2023 study of top-grossing films found that women in their forties, like Vicky, made up only 14% of female characters, down from 20% in 2015. The screen space for real, working-class women has always been smaller still.

“I’m always drawn to the working-class world because there’s so little of it really explored,” she said. “We’ve just got to get better at telling authentic stories from that world.”

She’s not alone in that view. Her This Is England co-star Stephen Graham has been critically outspoken on the issue.

“Too often, I’ll watch stuff and think they’re treating the working class like an art project. It’s very condescending,” he told The Sunday Times. “‘Ooh, look at the poor!’ But I’m proud to be this mixed-race working-class kid from a block of flats.”

This authenticity runs throughout Vicky’s catalogue of roles. Whether dismantling bombs on Trigger Point or chasing corrupt officers in Line of Duty.

If more stories looked like Lana’s, maybe the screen would start to look a little more like the world around us.

Series 3 of Trigger Point is available now on ITVX.

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By Ashley James, TV presenter, author and activist

I have to pinch myself that I’m 38 - sometimes the number doesn’t quite match how I feel inside. But when I look at the woman I am now in my thirties compared to my younger self – even me in my twenties – the difference is striking.

I’m more confident, grounded, and unshakeable. But it didn’t happen overnight. It took years of unlearning what society teaches girls, making mistakes, and slowly rebuilding my confidence. Now, I’m passionate about helping the next generation of girls skip some of those struggles. I want my daughter Ada, two, – and girls everywhere – to know that the pressures, shame, and mixed messages we absorb don’t define us. We can break free.

It’s why I became an ambassador for Girlguiding and am supporting their campaign, A girl’s world: sexism, misogyny and the power of sisterhood, calling on the government to keep girls safe from misogyny.

Here are seven mistakes I made growing up and the life lessons they taught me…

Other girls are not your enemy

When I was younger, I often saw other girls as competition. But the truth is, we are stronger together. Girlguiding’s latest Girls’ Attitudes Survey found 70% of girls and young women aged 11-21 have stood up for other girls experiencing sexism or misogyny, which is powerful when 56% said they don’t feel safe on public transport alone.

Today, I have the greatest group of friends, mostly women I met later in life, and they are the true love story of my life. We support each other through heartbreaks, motherhood, career highs and lows. Imagine if we saw more of that celebrated in films instead of rivalry? Other girls are not your enemy.

Your worth is not tied to your appearance

I used to believe that if I was thinner or prettier I’d finally be happy, confident, and loved. I thought looking perfect would stop me from being heartbroken. But when I was modelling and at my smallest, I was also at my unhappiest. I would look up online “how to be confident” desperate for answers.

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The truth is, tying your worth to appearance means you will never feel enough. There will always be another flaw to fix. Confidence comes from within, not from shrinking yourself.

Beauty has never been one-size-fits-all. The most magnetic people are the ones who believe in their own worth, whatever their shape and size.

Don’t ignore red flags

Looking back, I realise I was often more in love with the fantasy of who I thought a man could be than the reality of who they were. I’d ignore the red flags and imagine a future with them, hoping they’d change. I only really learned to take people at face value in my thirties.

But here’s the thing: if someone tells you they’re not looking for a relationship, believe them. Don’t waste time trying to prove your worth or convince them otherwise. If they’re not ready, or not kind, that’s not your problem to fix. You don’t need to prove yourself to be worthy of love.

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Know the difference between lonely and alone

At 27 I broke up with my boyfriend and felt like a failure. I stayed single for the next six years – and for the first three of those, I thought it meant I wasn’t good enough. But slowly, I realised that being alone wasn’t the same as being lonely.

The happier I became on my own, the more whole I felt. And interestingly, the better my love life became. Because once you know who you are, you stop settling for less than you deserve. You are not half a person waiting for someone else to complete you. You are already whole. I really believe that knowing that is now my super power.

Success is not a straight line

I thought success meant ticking off the boxes: school, university, career, marriage, kids. That if you strayed from that path, you were failing. But life isn’t a straight line – it’s full of detours, restarts, and fresh chances. I quit my job at 25 to start again in television. By 29, I was still in my overdraft while my friends were buying houses and getting promoted.

At the time, it felt like failure. Now I see it differently. Success isn’t a race, and detours don’t mean you’re behind. They often lead you exactly where you’re meant to go. It’s ok to go back to studying, to take a break, to change careers entirely. Growth isn’t linear.

Don’t let labels silence you

I’ve been called “bossy,” “too much,” and “a bimbo.” And for years, I let those labels shrink me. I quietened myself in classrooms, in meetings, and even online, afraid of being mocked.

But I’ve learned those words are tools to keep women quiet. “Bossy” really means you’re a leader. “Too much” often means you’re more than they can handle.

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A post shared by @ashleylouisejames

Don’t let unkind, gendered words dim your light. You don’t need to fit into the impossible and rigid expectations society places on women. I feel so passionately about this I’ve written a whole book on it called BIMBO, which is available for preorder now. Don’t be afraid to use your voice.

Respect your body through food and movement

For years, I treated food as the enemy and exercise as punishment. I believed I had to restrict what I ate and push myself at the gym to “earn” my worth. Now, I see it differently. Food is nourishment, not guilt. Exercise is movement, not punishment. You don’t have to love your body every second of the day. But you can respect it as your home – the thing that lets you hug your friends, laugh until your belly hurts, and explore the world.

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Eat intuitively. Enjoy the foods you love. Find movement that feels good, whether that’s boxing, swimming, running, yoga, or dancing in your bedroom. Move because it makes you feel alive, not because you want to shrink yourself.

Finally, remember that this is your life. You don’t need to fit into anyone else’s idea of success or happiness. Some people want to go to university, some don’t. Some women want children, some don’t. There are challenges to every path, and no single ‘right’ way.

The most important thing is to live with kindness, to lift others up, and to never judge someone else’s choices through the lens of your own. Because when girls stand together, raising each other up instead of competing, we are unstoppable.

You can join me in signing Girlguiding’s open letter calling on the government to act now to make the UK safer for girls: https://www.girlguiding.org.uk/campaigns/sexism-misogyny-campaign/

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