It's been a pretty shocking news week, hasn't it? One of those weeks where it feels like violence against women is everywhere you look, when the epidemic we've been hearing about is right in front of your eyes and you cannot look away.

Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei was doused in petrol and set on fire by a former boyfriend. An elderly French woman, Gisele Pelicot, was drugged by her husband for almost 10 years and raped by other men. In the UK, a woman is killed by a man every three days on average. Most of these stories we do not hear. They are simply too commonplace. And it is only getting worse - we are even discovering new and disturbing ways that men can abuse women, which we cover later on in this newsletter. As I continue to read these accounts in horror, I am amazed by 72-year-old Gisele Pelicot. She has waived her right to anonymity in the very public trial currently taking place - obviously a massive ordeal for herself and her children - but she is determined to 'shift the shame back onto the accused.'

- Cressida, Head of Content

QUICK FIRE NEWS 🧨

👰♀️ Should we ban fathers "giving away" the bride?

🕺 Strictly to ditch same-sex couples in "return to tradition"

✊ Jeremy Corbyn forms parliamentary alliance to fight austerity

🩺 Health checks rolled out in workplaces

💷 Universal credit not enough to cover essentials

LETS GET INTO IT 👇

Women in the North are being failed 📍

New research has found that women in the North of England...

🔴 live shorter lives

🔴 work more hours for less pay

🔴 and are more likely to live in poverty than women in other regions.

Cuts to welfare and public health funding have hit women in the North the hardest, exacerbating the inequality. We have the sixth largest economy in the world yet more than a third of all babies, children and young people in the north east of England are living in poverty.

Women in the North are also more affected by...

🔴 unpaid caring responsibilities

🔴 severe mental health conditions

🔴 domestic abuse

🔴 and alcoholism.

“From leaving school to the boardroom, at home and at work, women and girls across the North bear the brunt of failings in our economy, society and public services. The lack of equality and opportunity that remains ingrained in modern Britain is unacceptable."

- North East Mayor Kim McGuinness

Can you leave the office for a coffee? ☕️

A boss in Australia sparked debate this week by saying he doesn't want his staff leaving the building, even to grab a coffee.

Quite the opposite of working from home... Chris Ellison has built an office space for his employees that mimics the outside world, so there's no reason to leave...there's a restaurant, a gym, and even nine staff psychologists. They operate a strict no work from home policy.

Is this harmful? Some people will love these perks, they'll thrive on being in an office, around people every day. But for others, this simply isn't realistic: for instance, neurodivergent people who might struggle with an office environment, parents who want the flexibility to spend time with their kids, or even just those of us who like to balance our working lives around hobbies and side projects.

In London, Gen Z are leading the return to the office while older workers maintain a preference for working from home. However, this may not be an accurate representation of preference, given that younger people are more likely to live in shared housing, with less space for a home office. Plus, they might feel a greater need to prove themselves.

The terrifying growth in victims of digital sex crimes 📲📸💿

What's that? As access to AI image generation tools has grown, so too has the sophistication of such tools, leading to more sinister purposes. Deepfakes are AI-generated images or videos that seamlessly replace the face of one person with another, meaning that it can create false depictions of people. This has mostly been used on women, and mostly in sexually explicit scenarios.

This is a problem globally Journalist Ko Narin has been investigating the prevalence of deepfake porn rings in South Korea, and found dozens of group chats on the messaging app Telegram where users would post pictures of women they knew and use AI to manipulate them into pornographic content. The groups were dedicated to specific universities, high schools, and even middle schools. The sharing of deepfakes is illegal in the UK, but finding the perpetrators is difficult.

The Guardian recently investigated the AI company behind a lot of deepfake content - ClothOff. The company tagline is “undress anyone using AI." All you do is purchase the (relatively cheap) credits and upload your image. Despite sanctions, these operations are proliferating and pose a terrifying risk to any woman or girl that has publicly available images of themselves, but particularly those underage.

THIS WEEK WE'RE LOVING 🥰

💪 This swimsuit cover model is challenging female body stereotypes

🚗 New doc sees Will Ferrell road trip with his trans bestie

🏹 In awe at this Paralympic archer

😲 This Paralympian competed 7 months pregnant