The UK government has just released its draft National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), which outlines an overhaul in its planning strategy. However, these proposals, which cover urban planning from transport to housing, entirely ignore Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) in its strategy.   This omission has come as a shock to MPs and those in urban planning who emphasise the intricate relationship between urban environments and misogyny-driven violence against women and girls.  This...

In recent months, the AI chatbot, Grok, has been increasingly used by users to generate sexualised images of women and children, which are then posted on the social media platform X. Grok, created by Elon Musk’s company xAI, was launched in 2023. It can generate text, images and videos and is integrated into X. The platform has previously faced criticism from rights groups, including Amnesty international, for exacerbating online hate, misinformation and misogyny. Recently, the situation has...

Emotional abuse is rarely obvious at first. It is often subtle, gradual, and disguised as concern, humour or ‘just the way relationships are’. In recent years, conversations around ‘red flags’ have become more visible across social media and popular culture. Clips from reality dating shows, viral TikToks and comment sections regularly debate whether certain behaviours are romantic or problematic. Yet despite this growing awareness, many harmful patterns in relationships continue to be widely...