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Football’s Familiar Fear of the Frisson of Female Sexuality

Karen Dobres reflects on the modern echoes of the 1921 women’s football ban –
which the all-male FA council deemed necessary to ‘safeguard their wombs’

Captains Carmen Pomiès (Femina SC of Paris, France) and Florrie Redford (Dick, Kerr Ladies of Preston, England) greet each other before a women’s match in Herne Hill, 1925

A political trick of the right in the UK and the US is not open hostility towards women but concern for us.

Restrictions are not presented as a form of discipline or control but as protection. Limits are called ‘care’ and power reveals itself with an avuncular hug.

Across America, anti-abortion laws are being justified as safeguarding women from regret or harm, rather than as a mechanism for controlling reproductive autonomy. The revival of the ‘tradwife’ culture is marketed as a celebration of femininity, as though encouraging women back into economic dependence is an act of reverence rather than regression.

Russia Propagandist Welcomed, European Disinformation Experts Sanctioned

If there’s any question that the US is now more aligned with Russia than Europe, recent State Department decisions have removed all doubt.
Peter Jukes

‘Who’s There?’ We Don’t Need to Know if Hamnet Inspired ‘Hamlet’

Theatre director and Shakespeare author Stephen Unwin explores our abiding fascination with what the playwright’s life can tell us about the human experience depicted in his plays
Stephen Unwin