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How the Cost-of-Living Crisis is fuelling Economic Abuse
The Cost-of-Living Crisis currently ongoing in Great Britain is estimated to be affecting more than 46 million Brits according to the Office for National Statistics.1 But, as seen with other recent major national events such as the Covid-19 Pandemic, these issues have a cruel habit of impacting those already in the hardest societal positions the worst. The Cost-of-Living Crisis is no exception.
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The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) is a treaty signed by 47 states in the Council of Europe, designed to ensure the fair treatment of people across Europe; the signing states commit to protecting certain rights and abiding by certain behaviour.1 The ECHR also established the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). Signing states can be bought before the court by people who believe their convention rights have been infringed. These States also agree to be bound by decisions of the court and consider all decisions of the court. In the UK, the ECHR has been adopted into our law through the Human Rights Act 1998, which gives courts the power to enforce the rights in the Convention, interpret legislation to be in line with the ECHR and to declare Acts of Parliament as incompatible with the ECHR.2
Dina Asher-Smith, the fastest British woman on record recently called for more funding, to research how periods impact athletic performance. This occurred during the European Championship 2022 at Munich, after Asher-Smith pulled up experiencing cramps during the 100m race. She said that “more people need to research (periods) and talk about them”, particularly in the context of women’s sport from a scientific perspective. “It could do with more funding because if it was a men’s issue, we’d have a million different ways to combat things” she told BBC Sport.
This comes at a time when women in sport are increasingly discussing the impact of periods and other conditions like premenstrual syndrome. ‘Do you think it could be your period?’ ‘This is very normal for girls of your age.’ ‘Just take some paracetamol and those period pains should become more bearable.’
Unfortunately, these are the phrases too many women are met with when trying to voice genuine concerns regarding their health. In a study conducted by the Department of Health & Social Care, more than 4 in 5 women (84%) responded that there have been times when they were not listened to by healthcare professionals1. Participants also said they feel their suffering is particularly ignored when it comes to issues such as puberty, fertility, and menopause. The recent Commonwealth Games seemed to celebrate the importance of diversity within sport. However, the increasing emergence of elite trans women, such as cyclist Emily Bridges, and swimmer, Lia Thomas, has shown clear limitations to inclusivity. The inclusion of trans women within women’s sport has sparked great controversy, with many believing that inclusive comes at the expense of safety and fairness. And in the context of sport, which is already divided into male and female to maximise both fairness and safety, does inclusion guarantee these?
Tanzila Khan and the Impact of the Amal Clooney Women's Empowerment Award (with the Prince's Trust)2/20/2023 The youth charity founded by the then, Prince of Wales, Charles III, The Prince’s Trust International, launched the Amal Clooney Women’s Empowerment Award to honour the work of “young women who have succeeded against the odds to make a lasting difference in their communities.”
As the inaugural award was presented to Pakistani Tanzila Khan at The Prince’s Trust Awards 2022, Amal said, “It’s an honour to have been invited to present an award by Prince’s Trust International. And a particular pleasure to be able to champion young women making a difference in their communities. 1 in 4 adult women have been sexually assaulted or raped. https://rapecrisis.org.uk/get-informed/statistics-sexual-violence/ With the number only increasing, whose responsibility is it; women to protect themselves or perpetrators not to assault? Now the answer may not be as black and white as you think. Because whilst it is surely the responsibility of the perpetrator to stop committing assault, the issue is they do not stop. Therefore, women are left in a predicament; either restrict their behaviours and movements in a bid to keep safe, or live life in fear of being victim of assault. The gendered nature of sexual violence cannot be ignored as whilst men, of course, can suffer from sexual assault, statistics show that most victims of sexual violence are women, and most perpetrators are men.
Why is there so much pressure on women to have children? It seems that as soon as a woman hits adulthood, society becomes fixated on the timeline of when she will become a mother. And if a woman hits the age of 30 and does not have children, well everyone loses hope. For centuries, women have been warned about their ticking biological clock. Women’s bodies, and more specifically, their fertility, seem governed by time, and it is plaguing all aspects of their life, from their relationships to careers. However, up until now, men have been assumed to be safe from this biological ticking time bomb. Recent studies on the other hand show that the reality may be quite different.
Hit ITV reality TV show Love Island is no stranger to negative reviews, complaints, and online trolls, but the most recent series has sparked a whole new level of debate.
Some of the UK’s biggest domestic abuse charities have been forced to step in and take up conversation with ITV bosses following an onslaught of Ofcom complaints relating to instances of misogynistic and controlling behaviour exhibited on the show. This came after the charities found they were being tagged in such a large amount of social media posts form concerned viewers who felt that the charities needed to get involved.1 On January 21st 2017, civil rights activist Linda Sarsour led a Women’s March in Washington D.C.1 More than four million people attended, sing-posting it as one of the biggest single-day protests in US history.2 The march was organised as a response to Donald Trump’s presidential victory in November 2016.
Contrary to this success, soon after the event, various articles emerged, alleging that Sarsour was in fact antisemitic and was affiliated with ‘Hamas’, a Palestinian fundamentalist organisation that aims to impose their faith on all Americans.3 Resultingly, ‘Hamas’ has been labelled as a ‘terrorist organisation’ by many states. |
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