What is the 'online rape academy'?

In short: every woman's worst nightmare. Perhaps a nightmare you had not even thought of yet.

In 2024, Gisèle Pelicot become an icon of feminism when she waived her right to anonymity, and bravely allowed her rape trial to be public. She said she wanted everyone to see the crimes that were committed against her. What makes her trial all the more sickening is that millions of people already had. Her husband had been drugging her, raping her, and filming it over their 50 years of marriage. He had even invited over 80 men to join him (Le Monde, 2026).

Pelicot's case is horrifying, to say the least. It makes my blood run cold. But as a society, we would be naive to say that the signs were not there. The myth that rape is something that happens by a strange man in a dark alley is now dangerous to perpetuate, because it encourages women to avert their gaze from the much closer danger. 1 in 3 women worldwide are victims of intimate partner violence (IPV), meaning that their sexual assaulter was their romantic partner. This amounts to 840 million women worldwide (World Health Organisation, 2025). If the number of women who had experienced IPV across the globe gathered together and formed a country, it would be more populous than the USA or the whole of Europe (US Census Bureau, 2026; Worldometer, 2026).

In the UK, the most common perpetrator of a rape against a woman is an intimate partner (48%), and the most common perpetator of other sexual assaults is a known aquaintance (32%). In fact, after accounting for boyfriends, husbands, step-fathers, uncles, priests, teachers, family friends etc., only 9% of rapes are committed by a stranger (ONS, 2025).

In the 'Online Rape Academy', the portmanteau for a chat on an online pornography distributer called 'Motherless', more than 20,000 videos were uploaded of men drugging and raping their wives (CNN, 2026). The reason for the word 'academy', was after the testimony of French lawmaker Sandrine Josso, who was drugged by a former French senator. She called them "schools of violence", "where every subject is taught" (ibid.). Subjects like how many drugs to slip into your wife's drink, how to prove to your viewers that she is unconscious, or how to make revenue from your streams. All the examples below are real messages discovered by CNN.

The content is horrendous: men taking advice from strangers to drug and rape their wives, and the world being full of women who trust their husbands only to find themselves victims of rape and international humiliation.

But this is far from being the first time. Reddit hosted groups of up to 20,000 men selling nude or semi-dressed photographs of women along with their postcodes and contact details, with comments explicitly declaring "I want to rape this b****" (Plaha, 2022). They are blatantly self-aware. Telegram had groups of up to 200,000 men sharing deep fake pornographic images adapted from women's social media posts (Mackenzie and Choi, 2024). In fact, deep fake non-consensual pornography is so common that it represents 96% of all uses of deep fake technology, with videos amassing over 100 million views (Ajder et al., 2019). On all platforms, at all times, there are men performing these crimes and publicising them online, lauded by hundreds of thousands more.

Furthermore, streaming sex crimes do not just advertise the individual crime itself; it spawns new ones. It encourages men everywhere to commit sexual violence, and teaches them that this is acceptable, even mainstream behaviour. Elizabeth Marshall and Leigh Gilmore argue that visual media "does not merely document, it materialises" (Marshall & Gilmore, 2015). By streaming a sexual assault of a drugged wife, a woman who trusted and loved her abuser, it materialises the crime as an example to others. It tells men that not only are women objects to be treated as inanimate sex dolls, but that this is not just a hypothetical outlook; it teaches them to view the women close to them this way, and grooms them into violating their trust. In essence, it breeds a new generation of sex offenders, and will be visible in the IPV sex crime statistics of the years ahead.

The 'online rape academy' is a devastating indictment of modern society: one in which technology has expanded faster than legislation, and where men can learn how to be a sex offender as easily as learning how to hang a photo. However, it is too simple to suggest that this discovery is a unique moment of horror. These websites and chatrooms are all around us.

It is only in unlearning dangerous myths surrounding sexual assault that women can cease to be veiled from the truth, and finally shield themselves from the crime.

by Camille Saunders

Bibliography in chronological order

'Gisèle Pelicot publishes memoirs after mass rape trial', (2026), Le Monde with Agence France Press. https://www.lemonde.fr/en/global-issues/article/2026/02/11/gisele-pelicot-publishes-memoirs-after-mass-rape-trial_6750362_199.html

'Lifetime toll: 840 million women faced partner or sexual violence', (2025), World Health Organisation. https://www.who.int/news/item/19-11-2025-lifetime-toll--840-million-women-faced-partner-or-sexual-violence

'U.S. and World Population Clock', (2026), United States Census Bureau. https://www.census.gov/popclock/#:~:text=select date,Learn More | Download and Share

'Europe Population (Live)', (2026), Worldometer. https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/europe-population/

'Sexual offences victim characteristics, England and Wales: year ending March 2025', (2025), Office for National Statistics. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/articles/sexualoffencesvictimcharacteristicsenglandandwales/yearendingmarch2025#relationship-to-perpetrator

VANDOORNE, Saskya, FOX, Kara, KENNEDY, Niamh, STUBBS, Eleanor, CHACON, Marco, 'Exposing a global 'rape academy'', (2026), CNN. https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2026/03/world/expose-rape-assault-online-vis-intl/index.html

PLAHA, M., (2022), ‘Inside the secret world of trading nudes’, BBC, 22nd August.
Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-62564028

MACKENZIE, J., CHOI, L., (2024), ‘Inside the deepfake porn crisis engulfing Korean schools’, BBC, 3rd September.
Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpdlpj9zn9go

Mother’s Day has just passed on Sunday 15^th March, and while we are appreciating our mums and caregivers, it feels like a great opportunity to look at their rights: namely, maternity leave. In this article, I will explore why maternity leave is so crucial, what maternity leave means in different countries, the accessibility of paternity or parental leave, and the impact this has both on the health of the parents and child.

Maternity leave refers to the period of time a mother can recover from childbirth and supervise the survival of her newborn, without fearing unemployment. In the UK 45% of mothers give birth by C-section, a surgical procedure involving cutting open the lower abdomen, 44% by natural vaginal birth, involving high levels of pain and risks of tearing, and the remaining 11% needing intervention such as extraction by forceps, which can be both physically and emotionally traumatic (BBC, 2025). Therefore, letting the body rest postpartum is vital. In addition, 75% of all neonatal deaths worldwide occur within the first week of life, with the first month being the most vulnerable period for child survival (WHO, 2024). Therefore, new babies need constant attention and supervision for their own life expectancy. This tension between maternal and newborn health leads to exhaustion and overwhelm, and highlights some of the many reasons why women cannot be expected to return straight to work after delivery.

However, the length of that maternity leave varies hugely per country, and by company. In the UK, you can claim up to 52 weeks in total, but you must take 2 weeks at least (HM Government, 2026). Bulgaria offers the longest paid maternity leave with 58 weeks at 90% of normal pay, followed by Greece with 56 weeks at 60% pay, and the United Kingdom with 39 weeks at 29% pay. Most OECD counties offered much less time between 10 and 20 weeks, but at a higher rate of pay between 80 and 100% (OECD, 2025). In addition, some countries offer homecare leave, which varies by country, but refers to supplemental leave for a parent to remain with a child in the early months of their life, which is usually unpaid (OECD, 2025). Thus your rights as a mother can be vastly impacted by your country of residence and your employer.

In addition, offering paternity leave can encourage fathers to bond with their newborns, and to help mothers juggle postpartum recovery with new-parent responsibilities. In the UK, an employee can take up to 2 weeks, and as of April 2026, partners of mothers can also claim up to 52 weeks’ unpaid bereaved partner’s leave where needed (ACAS, 2026). Across the OECD, a maximum of 200 weeks may technically be allocated to the father: the following graph shows the combination of paternity leave and transferrable parental leave. In contrast, we can see that regarding ungendered parental leave, the vast majority of early parenting responsibilities are still undertaken by women (OECD, 2025).

Parental leave has considerable positive effects, both for the mother and the child. In research done across the USA, it was shown that access to maternity leave led to an increase in birth weight, a decrease in the likelihood of a premature birth, and a substantial decrease in the likelihood of infant mortality; the mortality risk was also heavily reduced by having a college-educated, married mother, as this was the demographic who was most likely to be economically able to take full advantage of their unpaid leave (Rossin, 2013). In a different study using global data, each additional month of paid maternity leave saw infant mortality reduce by 13% in low- and middle-income countries (Nandi et al., 2016). Furthermore, parental leave undertaken by both parents alleviates stress, including alleviating symptoms of postpartum mental health disorders (Heshmati et al., 2023). In Denmark, longer parental leave reduced the probability of a mother having a diagnosable psychiatric disorder in the child’s early years, with a particular improvement for lower-income and single women (Courtin et al., 2022). Therefore, the health benefits for both the mother and child are evident, highlighting its vital importance. It can also be inferred that without the maternity leave being paid, mothers must rely on their socio-economic background, exacerbating existing inequalities in their physical health, mental health and quality of life.

In conclusion, access to paid maternity leave is crucial for new parents and newborn babies, and should be treated as a fundamental right. Furthermore, sharing early parenting obligations with a partner has tangible health benefits both for the primary caregiver and the baby, and paid paternity leave should thus be expanded to be more accessible to all families, regardless of economic background. Finally, extending the length of paid parental leave can have direct benefits to all the family, and result in happier and healthier humans. Parental leave should thus be paid, accessible to both parents, and of a medically recommended length.

NB. This article uses heteronormative terms, but in no way seeks to undermine both the beauty and complexity of queer family structures.

by Camille Saunders

‘Maternity pay and leave’, 2025, HM Government, https://www.gov.uk/maternity-pay-leave/leave

CLEGG, R., ‘Caesarean sections overtake natural vaginal births for the first time’, 17^th Dec 2025, BBC https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5yqjezrnj4o

‘Newborn mortality’, 14^th Mar 2024, World Health Organisation, https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/newborn-mortality#:~:text=Most%20neonatal%20deaths%20(75%25),10%20%E2%80%93%20in%202000%20and%202022

‘Parental Leave Systems’, 2025, OECD, https://webfs.oecd.org/els-com/Family_Database/PF2_1_Parental_leave_systems.pdf

‘Paternity Leave Rights’, 2026, ACAS, https://www.acas.org.uk/paternity-rights-leave-and-pay

‘Paid leave for fathers: Recent OECD policy trends’, 2025, OECD, https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/publications/reports/2025/10/paid-leave-for-fathers_f7302e2e/07442bed-en.pdf

ROSSIN, M., ‘The Effects of Maternity Leave on Children's Birth and Infant Health Outcomes in the United States’, 2^nd Jul 2013, National Library of Medicine, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3698961/#:~:text=Using%20Vital%20Statistics%20data%20and,as%20across%20several%20different%20specifications

NANDI, A., HAJIZADEH, M., HARPER, S., KOSKI, A., STRUMPF, E. C., HEYMANN, J., ‘Increased Duration of Paid Maternity Leave Lowers Infant Mortality in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A Quasi-Experimental Study’, 29th Mar, 2016, PLOS Medicine, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1001985

HESHMATI, A., HONKANIEMI, H., JUÁREZ, S. P., ‘The effect of parental leave on parents’ mental health: a systematic review’, Jan 2023, The Lancet, Public Health, Vol 8:1, https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2667(22)00311-5/fulltext

COURTIN, E., RIECKMANN, A., BENGTSSON, J., NAFILYAN, V., MELCHIOR, M., BERKMAN, L., ROD, N. H., ‘The effect on women’s health of extending parental leave: a quasi-experimental registry-based cohort study’, Oct 2022, International Journal of Epidemiology, Vol 52:4, https://doi.org/10.1093/ije/dyac198

Please note: this episode is pending reapproval on Spotify

We’re so excited to be joined by Shiksha Teeluck for a thoughtful and energising conversation about Women in STEM. This week's episode is packed with practical insight and encouragement for anyone navigating STEM, whether you're just starting out, exploring your options, or already well established in the field.

In our discussion, Shiksha shares her perspective on topics including:

• Inspiring more young women to pursue STEM pathways
• Making STEM subjects more accessible
• Finding your place in academia, the workplace and male-dominated environments without shrinking yourself
• The value of outreach programmes in widening participation, particularly 'The Girls Into Physics Summer School'
• Self-empowerment, resilience and backing yourself in competitive spaces

by Charlie Summers

As a trans student, you can understand my hurt to learn via email that the college chose not to fly the trans flag this year. To find out through a notification on the Venn that enough students flicked through the Moodle page easily selecting the progress flag, the national flag of Wales and of Ireland, and the Tibetan prayer flag, and chose to skip over the trans flag was heartbreaking.

I understand as the new bulletin put it that "the transgender community is represented in the progress flag", but you can see how it felt that the student body was deliberately making the choice to exclude their trans peers.

Last term, I attended an event marking trans day of remembrance, in which we sat and listened to the names of every trans person who died that year be read out; the whole ceremony took well over twenty minutes. The powerpoint projected overhead which included photos and names of the dead and how it was that they died, took far longer. Unfortunately, there were members of our community who died that we did not have the names of, who died with names that were not their own. Among the causes of death were decapitation, stoning, stabbing, and lynching. I remember sitting in that hall and feeling a great fear and sorrow. I myself am grateful to have never experienced such brutality. Nevertheless, what I have experienced is a denial of care, bullying and harassment from peers as well as random men on the street, and the increased politicisation and rejection of my identity. It is for this reasons it hurt to find out the trans flag would not be flown, as I felt it was indicative of the move towards repression and intolerance that we are seeing globally in regard to trans people.

I have been a student of this college for four years, and I know its reputation. In my first year, I participated in a protest against the college’s refusal to represent its lgbt population. We each hanged pride flags from our window against college regulation, and ignored the administration’s calls to remove them. The ability to vote for student flag days was the college's compromise to this resistance, a largely unsatisfying one I have to admit.

Regardless I can tell how, after the students were allowed to finally have a say on what the college would represent, how I walked up senate’s passage swelling with pride at the sight of the trans flag flying high over the tower of Caius. It is amazing to see your community represented especially at such a difficult time politically, especially from a college with such a reputation; it is amazing to know the student body stands with you.

Now, to my point, I don't have the same personal connection as I'm sure many students do to their national flags. I stand with and did vote for the Welsh and Irish national flag, as well I appreciate and stand in solidarity with the Tibetan cause. I am glad that these students were able to see their concerns represented, and I think it is important that they are, even if it’s for something as simple as a pedestrian walking past, seeing the flag, and deciding to google it. As performative as it may be, I think flying a flag generates support and awareness that alongside activism goes a long way to helping a community. It is for this reason that I think the flag day voting should remain as it currently is.

I would love students to be given another opportunity to show their solidarity for their trans peers in future years. I would love to someone to have the same experience I did walking up senate's passage, and I would love the student body to speak up and memorialise those trans persons who have been murdered so brutally- something which, I'm afraid- the progress flag simply doesn’t do enough to commemorate.

As stated earlier, even having to have a vote on which of our communities are represented is already a compromise, I do not know why we would want to compromise any further. I understand that this proposal does allow for more flags to be voted on “should there be a growing interest” but believe that ladening this process with even more bureaucracy is unnecessarily restrictive and limiting. I think the proposal is indicative of the college wanting to restrict our ability to express ourselves; I have seen throughout my time here how they do their utmost to suppress student expression, and I truly don’t think it harms anyone by having a wide selection of choices for our flag days, besides offending the conservative sensibilities of senior administration.

by Charlie Summers

by Amber Gooding

TW: disturbing content, sexual abuse

“Pleas[e] help us. We are Korean students. No woman is safe in Korea.” [Modification by me. Find the original tweet on https://x.com/WomenLeisure/status/1828034029653840363] Late August 2024, this message was shared on Twitter by user @WomenLeisure. Like them, several accounts from South Korea have used the social media in order to alert the rest of the world to the dreadful issue that plagues their country: the New Nth Room scandal.

The scandal refers to a sprawling web of Telegram chat rooms, some with more than 200.000 members, dedicated to sharing AI generated pornographic images of unsuspecting women. The way the chat rooms work is quite simple and methodical: A person wishing to be added to a room first needs to send a certain number of pictures of a woman or girl they know. A quick scroll through her Instagram account usually gets them what they need. In addition to the pictures, they have to share her personal information, such as the school she goes to, her first and last name, her phone number… Finally, the group will use an artificial intelligence software to generate deepfake pornographic images with that woman’s face on it. The same process is repeated with as many women as they can think of. The targets are usually classmates, teachers or even family members.

The chat rooms were recently discovered by journalist Ms Ko. It appears they tend to be organised by school, ranging from middle schools to universities. More than 500 of them have been identified, although the actual number remains unknown. Even if a chat room is deleted, a new one will easily emerge.

This scandal has been titled the “New Nth Room” deepfake scandal in reference to the first Nth Room scandal. In 2019, Telegram's chat rooms blackmailing women into sharing sexually explicit pictures were discovered. The leader of the sex ring was sentenced to 42 years of jail time.

A deep sense of fear has overtaken the women of South Korea ever since the deepfake chat rooms were discovered. A lot of them have decided to erase all of their pictures from the internet, going as far as disabling all their social media accounts. Each of them is terrified of becoming a target for the men in their lives. They also lack faith in their government in its ability to protect them. Although current President Yoon Suk Yeol has pledged to “eradicate” the “digital sex crimes”, South Korean women doubt him for his anti-feminist positions and his disbelief in structural sexism.

Indeed, gender inequality is an acute issue in South Korea. In 2022, its gender pay gap was the worst one out of all the countries of the OECD. At the same time, anti-feminist ideology is gaining more and more importance, especially in online spaces where men decry feminism as a form of discrimination against them. The fact that most of the suspected perpetrators of the chat rooms are teenage boys further illustrate the severe lack of proper education for men when it comes to women’s rights.

In the meantime, South Korean women have taken to the street to protest against the country’s culture of misogyny and the sexual exploitation of women. On September 21st 2024, an estimated 6.000 women gathered at Hyehwa Station in Seoul to call for the punishment of the perpetrators and users of the deepfake chat rooms.

by Inès N'Cib

Bibliography

Art, P. C. &. (2024, August 30). South Korean women protest against New Nth Room deepfake scandal. The Express Tribune.

https://tribune.com.pk/story/2492316/south-korean-women-protest-against-new-nth-room-de epfake-scandal/

Barr, H. (2024, August 30). South Korea’s digital sex crime deepfake crisis. Human Rights Watch.

https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/08/29/south-koreas-digital-sex-crime-deepfake-crisis

Chae-woon, K. (2024, September, 23). ‘Punish those who make, sell and watch it’: Korean women rally against deepfake abuse. Hankyoreh. https://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/1159340.html

Delhaye, C. (2023, January 23). President Yoon Suk Yeol’s decision to abolish the Ministry of Gender Equality: a reflection of a South Korean society plagued by growing anti-feminism. Institut Du Genre En Géopolitique.

https://igg-geo.org/en/2023/01/23/president-yoon-suk-yeols-decision-to-abolish-the-ministryof-gender-equality-a-reflection-of-a-south-korean-society-plagued-by-growing-anti-feminism/

Jaeeun, L. (2024, May 23). S. Korea’s gender pay gap worst in OECD - The Korea Herald. The Korea Herald.

https://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20240523050548

Koreaboo. (2024, August 26). All we know about the “New Nth-Room” Telegram-Based sexual crimes taking South Korea by storm - Koreaboo.

https://www.koreaboo.com/news/new-nth-room-deepfake-telegram-crime-south-korea/

Mackenzie, J. (2024, August 28). South Korea faces deepfake porn “emergency.”

South Korea faces deepfake porn ‘emergency’

The president has addressed the growing epidemic after Telegram users were found exchanging doctored photos of underage girls.

BBC NewsJean MackenzieSeoul correspondentReporting fromSeoulNick MarshBBC News

Mackenzie, J. (2024, September 3). South Korea: The deepfake crisis engulfing hundreds of schools.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpdlpj9zn9go

McCurry, J. (2024, August 29). South Korea battles surge of deepfake pornography after thousands found to be spreading images. The Guardian.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/28/south-korea-deepfake-porn-law-crac kdown/

Rashid, R., & McCurry, J. (2024, September 13). From spy cams to deepfake porn: fury in South Korea as women targeted again. The Guardian.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/sep/13/from-spy-cams-to-deepfake-porn-fury-in-so uth-korea-as-women-targeted-again*/

Wonju, Y. (2024, August 26). Fear of deepfake porn chat rooms on Telegram targeting indiscriminate women grips nation. Yonhap News Agency.

https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20240826009600315/

Varuni Sinha's inspirational story of overcoming the seemingly impossible, both in administrative discrimination and mental health challenges, is doubtlessly a case that will stay with you forever. Unpicking the spousal visa laws in the USA until 2015 and its effect on South Asian women, Varuni talks of hope, renewal, and finding her purpose in life despite her struggle.

Voices and research: Camille Saunders, Harini Iyer and Varuni Sinha

Want to know how women, feminism and misogyny have been in the news this week but don't have time to add yet another news paper and feed to your routine? Look no further: in 15mns or less Camille and Harini break down some of the headlines in both the mainstream media and socials, both the bad news and the uplifting.

Some of the things we discuss today are:

• Blake Lively vs domestic violence in 'It Ends With Us' press tour
• Jermaine Jenas fired from the BBC for indecent unsolicited messages
• Andrew Tate's house raided again in new accusations including sex trafficking and sex with a minor/child rape
• Kellie Gerardi's family throws her a "space shower" to celebrate her going into space as a career milestone

Don’t forget to listen, subscribe and review, and be sure to share this podcast with others who would be interested!

If you have 15mns you can listen to all the lessons we've learnt from life so far as we turn 21 and try to navigate the beginnings of adulthood.

Some of the things we talk about include:

• body image
• making memories
• being self-sufficient
• knowing your values

Don’t forget to listen, subscribe and review, and be sure to share this podcast with others who would be interested!

Algerian boxer Imane Khelif recently made headlines after her match against the Italian Angela Carini during the Paris Olympics Games. After only 46 seconds of fighting, Carini forfeited, stating that the pain was too much for her.

Media outrage sparked not long after, with people claiming that the fight was unfair since Imane Khelif was not actually a woman. On August 1st a New York Post article decried a “Brutal, unfair Olympic beating tragic result of letting biological men compete in women’s sports.” That same day, the Daily Mail Online wrote on twitter “Female boxer QUITS Olympic bout against biologically male opponent and breaks down in floods of tears after brutal 46 seconds.”

In the span of a few hours, people started to frantically speculate. Is Imane Khelif really a woman? Should we allow her to participate in women’s events?

This is of course not an isolated occurrence. It’s easy to forget that the division of sport competitions between men and women implies the definition and control of the gender identity of the athletes.

Gender policing isn’t new. The fear of female athletes “faking” their gender has always been a major concern during international competitions. In the 1960s, standardised sex tests were introduced, where women had to show their genitals to doctors. In 1967, during the Pan-American Games in Winnipeg, this practice was dubbed the “naked parade.” That year, the American Maren Sidler failed her sex test because the doctor considered her breasts weren’t big enough. With time, the sex tests evolved and aimed at determining chromosomal makeup and hormone levels.

Today we might hear of expressions such as ‘transpanic’ or ‘tranvestigate’ which apply when people start speculating about another person’s birth gender. This often is the case when female athletes are considered too good at their sports (because of course, if a woman is good at something, it must mean that she’s a man). This happened to many amazing athletes such as Sha’carri Richardson, Simone Biles, Serena Williams, Caster Semenya… Entire news articles are dedicated to figuring out their “true” gender.

It is worth noting that none of the women mentioned are white. Indeed, it is more often than not Black women who are accused of being too manly. The generally accepted definition of what is feminine sets white women as the norm. Therefore, women who deviate from that definition aren’t seen as real women.

Misogyny, racism, colourism and transphobia come together to hurt all women, policing their bodies and taking away their agency. The singer Ciara was a victim of such gender guessing. Under the suspicion that she was born a man, people scrutinised everything she did. Her clothes were deemed too androgynous, her features too masculine, her dance moves too aggressive.

Even today, sports organisations struggle to divide athletes between the man or woman label. The International Olympic Committee and the International Association of Athletics Federations adopted a testosterone level criteria. It is considered that a woman with a higher testosterone level has an unfair advantage over her peers.

This means that cisgender women can be barred from participating in women’s events. In 2021, such a thing happened to Francine Niyonsaba. She was prohibited from participating in the 800 metres race unless she underwent a treatment to reduce her testosterone levels.

The situation is even more dire for transgender – especially transgender women– athletes. Their participation in sport events is subject to strict restrictions. In many sports, it is required that they transitioned before puberty and never underwent the biological changes caused by testosterone, which is impossible in a lot of cases. For example, in most EU member states, the minimum age for sex reassignment surgery is 18.

For now, hormonal levels have been selected as the norm for dividing athletes between men and women events. However, we have to wonder if this choice is really adequate when it seems to hurt so many women and encourage racism and transphobia.

by Inès N'cib

Bibliography

Access to sex reassignment surgery. (2022, 19 janvier). European Union Agency For Fundamental Rights. https://fra.europa.eu/en/publication/2017/mapping-minimum-age-requirements-concerning-ri ghts-child-eu/access-sex-reassignment-surgery

Allen, D. B. (2016). Hormonal Eligibility Criteria for ‘Includes Females’ Competition : A Practical but Problematic Solution. Hormone Research In Paediatrics, 85(4), 278‑282. https://doi.org/10.1159/000444054

Blake, A. (2022, 14 avril). The Masculinization of Black Women - Nubian Message. Nubian Message. https://www.thenubianmessage.com/2022/04/14/the-masculinization-of-black-women/

Heggie, V. (2010). Testing sex and gender in sports ; reinventing, reimagining and reconstructing histories. Endeavour, 34(4), 157‑163. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.endeavour.2010.09.005

Ingle, S. (2024, août 2). Angela Carini abandons Olympic fight after 46 seconds against Imane Khelif. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/sport/article/2024/aug/01/angela-carini-abandons-fight-after-46 -seconds-against-imane-khelif

Mackenzie, M. (2024, 31 juillet). Protecting women’s sports means protecting trans women athletes. ELLE. https://www.elle.com/culture/books/a44285654/protecting-trans-women-in-womens-sports/

Murray, D. (2024, août 1). Brutal, unfair Olympic beating tragic result of letting biological men compete in women’s sports. New York Post. https://nypost.com/2024/08/01/opinion/brutal-unfair-olympic-beating-tragic-result-of-letting-bi ological-men-compete-in-womens-sports/

Normal Testosterone and Estrogen Levels in Women. (2024, 23 juillet). WebMD. https://www.webmd.com/women/normal-testosterone-and-estrogen-levels-in-women

Olurinatti. (2024, 14 mars). How transphobia hurts Black women [Vidéo]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8MsJeThWmU

worldrugby.org (2021, 12 mai). Transgender Guidelines | World Rugby. https://www.world.rugby/the-game/player-welfare/guidelines/transgender/women

TW: ED

This week I'm so lucky to have one of my oldest friends Lira Prela sharing her experience with eatings disorders and the mental health system with eloquence and grace despite being such a complicated and difficult experience.

Don’t forget to download, listen, subscribe and review, and be sure to share this podcast with others who would be interested!

Give Anastasia's incredible original song a listen here:

I'm okay, I'm fine thank you
That's what I always say
Know that you're not listening
How are you
Like you give a damn

Feel your eyes judging me
I believed  that we were fine
Hear your lies passed down to me
Is that what you feel deep inside?
All this time how could I not know
All this time I was standing in the dark

Your lies covered by your laughter
This toxic relation killing my heart
Water seeping from my eyes
As I find out what you said
You take a knife and stab me in disguise

My words drowned by your ego
This toxic relation killing by heart
Silent not to jeopardize
So, I sigh and let it go
I don't know why I keep on trusting you

When I'm not part of you crew
You feel the need to trash talk me
Cover it up with a smile
So I won't see, the joker that you are
My words and thoughts you seal in a box
Trapped within like the black inside your heart

Was our friendship fake?
Every time that we hung out
Not easy to believe
That you don't care bout me

Was every moment fake
Every time that we went out
How will I move on
Knowing we were broken right from the start

Your lies covered by your laughter
This toxic relation killing my heart
Water seeping from my eyes
As I find out what you said
You take a knife and stab me in disguise

My words drowned by your ego
This toxic relation killing by heart
Silent not to jeopardize
So, I sigh and let it go
I don't know why I keep on trusting you

It's the easiest thing to do

by Anastasia Serrell-Watts

This essay was written as a response to an incident with my US history professor. I noticed his use of the word "n*gr*" in one of his articles to refer to Black people. I mentioned it to him during our following class but instead of the receptive ear I was hoping to find, I was confronted by both my professor and classmates cutting me off and making me feel like I was the crazy one. With this essay which I sent to my professor by email, I was hoping to make things right and defend my point of view without being worried about being interrupted.
- Inès N'cib

I wanted to follow up on my issue with you using the word “n*gr*” in your article, as I feel I wasn’t able to express myself well enough last we talked about it.

Before diving deeper into the origin of the word and its negative connotations, I wanted to show you the definition of the word “n*gr*” on Cambridge’s online dictionary:

“Negro

noun [ C ] offensive old-fashioned

UK  /ˈniː.ɡrəʊ/ US  /ˈniː.ɡroʊ/

plural Negroes

a word for a Black person, which was used frequently in the past and is now extremely offensive”

As I already said before, the word is generally considered not only as old-fashioned but also offensive in this day and age. As scholars, I think it is our duty to care about the words we use and to be careful when we choose them. We cannot pretend that Black people’s history of being demeaned and degraded doesn’t exist, thus we should strive not to add insult to injury with the terms we employ to refer to them. Saying “Black people” is not the same thing as saying “the Bl*cks” or the “N*gr*es”.

As a reminder, these are the instances in which you used the word that I deem inappropriate:

- page 15: “A Senate filibuster (an arcane procedure that allowed Senators to talk for as long as they liked, thereby avoiding a vote) overturned the bill and with that the extrajudicial killing of negroes continued unabated.”

- page 17: “In January 1933, a twenty year-old negro, Fell Jenkins, was beaten to death in Louisiana by three white farmers because he had allegedly trespassed on the property of one of them.”

- page 21: “Public opinion had also become more assertive on the racial question, largely because Americans were increasingly aware of the parallels between the treatment of Jews in Europe and that of negroes in America.”

As a way to dip our toes in the subject, I also wanted to share this excerpt from the US national archive:

“English speakers adopted Negro from Spanish and Portuguese (in which negro is the masculine word for the color black) in the mid-16th century. White people, especially enslavers and their supporters, used it to refer to Black people through the 19th century; the term was also used in now-debunked theories of race. During the early to mid-20th century, many Black Americans reclaimed the term as a preferred self-identifier, and many Black-led and Black-focused organizations incorporated it into their formal names. However, after the Black Power movement in the 1960s, the term fell out of favor and is now considered derogatory and offensive because of its associations with slavery, racism, and oppression against Black people.”

Then, with this email I’ll explain as clearly as I can why the word “n*gr*” is not an appropriate term to use.

Black people used it to refer to themselves

You have already told me that in the past, Black people used it to refer to themselves. And it is true, Martin Luther King did use it in his speeches, yet this doesn’t make it ok for us to use the word “n*gr*” nowadays. First of all because Black people choosing to reappropriate a word that has been used to demean them for centuries doesn’t mean it’s fine for non-Black people to casually say it. Secondly, because this excuse ignores how Black people’s attitude towards “n*gr*” changed over time. During the 1960s and the 1970s, Civil Rights activists started to express their desire to stop using the word “N*gr*” to refer to themselves (already, back in 1930, it was decided that “n*gr*” should always be used with a capital “N” to avoid disrespect). The Black Power movement, notably Stokely Carmichael in his speech at a rally in Mississippi in 1966 when he declared “What we got to start saying now is Black Power! We want Black Power,” marked a turning point in Black people’s attitude toward calling themselves “N*gr*es”. They recognised the racist devaluation and the degrading connotation of “n*gr*” and therefore decided it was time to stop using it. Thus began their fight to name themselves “without white people’s blessing” (Stockely Carmichael, cited in Bell, 2013). To them, renaming themselves was a way to affirm their freedom. As Richard B. Moore wrote, “when all is said and done, dogs and slaves are named by their masters; free men name themselves!” As “n*gr*” became the embodiment of the inequality and discrimination Black people faced on the daily and linked them to the idea of inferiority and prejudice, it was high time to stop using it.

You also mentioned Malcom X using the word “n*gr*”, but I am afraid Malcolm X didn’t have a good opinion on the term either. Here’s what he said in his speech in January 24, 1965:

“We’re not Negroes, and have never been, until we were brought here and made into that. We were scientifically produced by the white man. Whenever you see somebody who calls himself a Negro, he’s a product of Western civilization – not only Western civilization, but Western crime. The Negro, as he is called or calls himself in the West, is the best evidence that can be used against Western civilization today. One of the main reasons we are called Negro is so we won’t know who we really are. And when you call yourself that, you don’t know who you really are. You don’t know what you are, you don’t know where you came from, you don’t know what is yours. As long as you call yourself a Negro, nothing is yours. No languages – you can’t lay claim to any language, not even English; you mess it up. You can’t lay claim to any name, any type of name, that will identify you as something that you should be. You can’t lay claim to any culture as long as you use the word Negro to identify yourself. It attaches you to nothing. It doesn’t even identify your color.”

Researcher Zenobia Bell studied how even in the 1960s, when the word was still widely used, it did not have a positive definition. In “African-American Nomenclature: The Label Identity Shift from "Negro" to "Black" in the 1960s”, Bell highlights three main reasons why “n*gr*” was always negative :

- Its origin from slavery and its perpetuation of the slave-master relationship

- Its relation to negative stereotypes, such as savagery, oppression, laziness, idiocy…

- Its detachment to Black people’s ancestry and disconnection to any particular land (This same critic has been made about the label “Black.”)

Nowadays, the word is generally considered as being highly pejorative. According to the Jim Crow Museum, The Associate Press, the New York Times and the Supreme Court stopped using “n*gr*” in the 1970s. In 2013, the U.S Census Bureau stopped using it in its survey. Calvin D. Fogle, in a study of the social acceptability of “N*gg*”, “N*gg*r” and “N*gr*” (or what he calls the “N” terms), showed how there is a predominantly negative attitude towards those words. 71% of the people surveyed recognised the terms as “Negative words referring to African Americans.”

My own contempt for this word has two main reasons: its origins and how it has been used through the years. I shall elaborate more on both of those. I’ll be using mainly, but not solely, the book The name “Negro” its origin and evil use (1960) by the Black intellectual Richard B. Moore as a reference. I recommend you give it a look as well, it is quite a quick read and the eBook version only cost me 3€ on Amazon.

Origins of the word:

As mentioned above, the word “n*gr*” originates from Portuguese or Spanish, literally translating to “black”. Explorers started using it after 1441 when the Portuguese reached the Senegal River and saw Black people with darker skin than what they were used to and who were easier to conquer, making them easy targets for the slave trade. Before that, words such as “Moors or “Azenegues” were used to talk about Africans. Europeans referred to them as “Ethiopian” until they reached the area from which Portuguese took slaves. Therefore, “n*gr*”, since the very beginning, comprehended the meaning of “slave” and not just “black”.  In english, “n*gr*es” was exclusively used to refer to the slaves, and “blacks” was used in reference to the colour. The same applies for french. From then on, “n*gr*” was connected to the notion of inferiority, bestiality and such. Even in spanish the word gained such negative connotations that free Black men were called “moreno” and “n*gr*” was only used for enslaved people.

Linguist Keith Baird stated in 1967 that “linguistic scholarship is virtually unanimous in its findings that names and words determine, to a great extent, what we see and what we feel.” Indeed, the word “n*gr*” can never be dissociated from its evil origin, and after Black people’s struggle to make it disappear from our vocabulary back in the 1960s, I cannot think of one good reason to insist on using it.

“N*gr*” is not a neutral word

The word “n*gr*” stayed popular for centuries, but its meaning was far from kind. The narrative created was of the “n*gr*” as a savage creature who must serve his superiors, and the term associates Black people with oppression and exploitation. From the very beginning it strived to tie Black people to slavery and inferiority.

In the Universal illustrated European Encyclopedia of 1960 by Espasa Calpe “n*gr*” is defined as “vicious, or perverse, in speaking of the soul, of the heart and of the feelings.” To “work like a n*gr*” means to “work like a slave.” The Oxford English Dictionary (Vol.III, 1933) associates the word “n*gr*” to “n*gr*-whipping” the act of whipping slaves, “n*gr* dog” a dog that hunts runaway slaves, and “n*gr* lethargy” which is used when slaves don’t work hard enough. The 1899 edition of the Dictionnary of the Castillan Language by the Royal Spanish Academy defines “n*gr*” as “figuratively wretched, accursed, and calamitous.”

Those various examples show that the word “n*gr*” was never meant to be neutral. During the XIXth century intellectuals such as W.E.B DuBois used it in order to reclaim it and exchange its degrading meaning for something better. However we have already explained how things evolved during the 1960s and how the word was finally rejected.

Discussions

It is important to involve the people concerned in these kinds of discussions. Especially since when I first brought this up to the rest of the class James told me that it wasn’t an offensive word (and when I asked him why, he kindly replied “I just got home I can’t explain it to you”), I decided to ask some of my Black friends what their opinion was. I would have given up if they told me it was ok, but on the contrary they told me they were triggered by its use as it was very degrading, and they were shocked to see it in a recent academic text.

I don’t pretend my friends are experts on race or political correctness, nor do they need to be. A Black person telling us a word is not ok to use should be enough for us to take a step back and reconsider our way of saying things. (I also happen to have a friend from the United States whose input I thought would be useful in this context. She assured me no one would casually used the word “n*gr*” in the US nowadays, and that just seeing it made her uncomfortable).  

Conclusion

Thus I have explained how and why the word “n*gr*” is seen as offensive nowadays, which is why I disagree with its use. I hope you’ll read this email with the open-mindedness befitting a scholar. I myself have tried to be open by listening to what you had to say and researching more to verify my own claims.

However I would like to not spend anymore time discussing this matter. I feel I have done what I could and I’ll stand by what I have already said.

Bibliography

ABC News. (2013, February 25). U.S. Census Bureau drops “Negro” from surveys. ABC News.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/us-census-bureau-drops-negro-surveys/story?id=18591761

Bell, Z. (2013). African-American Nomenclature: The Label Identity Shift from “Negro” to “Black” in the 1960s. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1j12q56x

Black Person | National Archives. (n.d.). https://www.archives.gov/research/catalog/lcdrg/appendix/black-person

Fogle, C. D. (2013). The etymology, Evolution and social acceptability of “Nigger”, “Negro”, and “Nigga.” Social Science Research Network. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2326274

Malcolm X on Afro-American History (January 24, 1965). (n.d.). ICIT Digital Library. https://www.icit-digital.org/articles/malcolm-x-on-afro-american-history-january-24-1965

Moore, R. B. (1960). The name “Negro”: Its Origin and Evil Use. Black Classic Press.

Negro. (2024). In English Meaning - Cambridge Dictionary. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/negro

Palmer, B. (2010, January 11). How old was Harry Reid when the word Negro became taboo? Slate Magazine. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2010/01/how-old-was-harry-reid-when-the-word-negro-became-taboo.html

When did the word negro become socially unacceptable? - 2010 - Question of the Month - Jim Crow Museum. (n.d.). https://jimcrowmuseum.ferris.edu/question/2010/october.htm

by Inès N'cib