women

  • Everyone’s Invited founder Soma Sara: ‘Porn has framed our lives and normalised sexual abuse’

    In that first hot summer of lockdown, while completing her final essay for her university degree, 21-year-old student Soma Sara decided to post online about something that deeply troubled her. Something that, as a North London teenager and boarding school pupil, she had found to be endemic in classrooms, playgrounds, at house parties – and online.

  • My wedding was the worst day of my life

    After one last kiss for the photographer, Laura* and her new husband Tom* waved goodbye to the assorted guests at their wedding reception. They were living in Hong Kong at the time, but had got married at a grand country house near her parents’ home in Hampshire. In the honeymoon suite upstairs, Tom helped Laura out of an ivory-silk dress that cost two months’ salary, made a joke about leaving the consummation of their marriage to the next morning, and fell asleep. As she lay next to her new hus

  • Joan Collins sparks debate after saying it's 'tremendously rude' to ask a woman her age

    It's 'tremendously rude' and you shouldn't discuss it all, says the star.

  • The Duchess of Kent: 'I'll listen to anything. I quite like rap... I’d give thrash metal a go’

    It was the simplest of gestures but when the Duchess of Kent put her arm around a tearful Jana Novotná at the Wimbledon Ladies’ singles final in 1993, royalty had rarely appeared more relatable. As the trophy was handed to two-time defending champion Steffi Graff, her Czech opponent was inconsolable. “I remember it very well indeed,” the Duchess smiles, recalling the scene on Centre Court, almost 30 years later.

  • 'No one noticed': The Duchess of Kent on her 13 years as an incognito teacher

    It was the simplest of gestures but when the Duchess of Kent put her arm around a tearful Jana Novotná at the Wimbledon Ladies’ singles final in 1993, royalty had rarely appeared more relatable. As the trophy was handed to two-time defending champion Steffi Graff, her Czech opponent was inconsolable. “I remember it very well indeed,” the Duchess smiles, recalling the scene on Centre Court, almost 30 years later.

  • The leading lady of Lord of the Rings' $1billion prequel: 'I'm going to be either famous or infamous'

    ‘Hello, I’m Morrrfyddth,’ says Morfydd Clark, having arrived with so little fanfare that it takes several long seconds to realise who she is. It is a hot day and we are at a studio in Peckham, where she will have her picture taken.

  • ‘We're over 50 and having the best sex of our lives’

    "We were sitting on a park bench and making out. I was in my 60s at the time. A young man of about 20 rode by on his bicycle and screamed ‘Gross!’”.

  • ‘My friend and I went after the same job – I lost out and now I'm miserable’

    My best friend and I met at work 20 years ago, so I suppose it was inevitable that sooner or later we’d go for the same role. Now, it’s finally happened: she got it and I didn’t. I can now hardly bear to see her because I feel so miserable about it. How do I come back from this?

  • 'Every time I close my eyes, he is with me': A former nurse on life after a manslaughter conviction

    Jack Adcock was a lively little six-year-old, who loved dancing and football, and should never have died.

  • How the Lionesses can change the lives of England’s daughters

    On Sunday night, when 24-year-old Chloe Kelly scored the winning goal for England against Germany at Wembley, crowds roared, hearts burst – and young girls all over the country realised that they too could play football. Not just for their village team, as increasing numbers of them are starting to do, but in front of sold-out stadiums.

  • How the Lionesses' Euro 2022 win could change women's football

    The Lionesses win could be the game-changing moment women’s football has been waiting for, but we must seize the momentum.

  • The five rules to follow to look good in your holiday snaps

    “The photographs are bad. You look insane in half of them. Please don’t look at them on your own.” It wasn’t the message I wanted to receive from my new husband when he opened the gallery the photographer sent of our recent wedding – but it’s the one I got earlier this summer.

  • I want to invite my ex-boyfriend to my wedding, but my fiancé said no. What should I do?

    I’m getting married in six months and I want to invite my ex-boyfriend, who is a family friend. We broke up long before I met my fiancé and I no longer have any romantic feelings towards him, but my husband-to-be has asked that he isn’t invited to the wedding.

  • Why Rishi Sunak’s ‘mansplaining’ can’t be helped

    I struggled to watch the first instalment of Our Next Prime Minister: The Build-Up on Monday night, on account of what critics have described as Rishi Sunak’s “mansplaining” to Liz Truss on the economy. It was hard, nay impossible, to stomach. Sunak is a geek and a scholar, yet he felt the need to respond to Truss with asinine stories from his childhood and patronising explanations of why he was right.

  • ‘Help! My colleague keeps borrowing money from me’

    My colleague keeps borrowing money from me – but never pays it back and it’s driving me mad. It’s the odd £10 here for lunch because ‘I’ve forgotten my wallet’ or ‘Can you put £5 in the leaving card for me, I’ll owe you?’ But she never does. She’s a nice person, but I’ve added it up and it’s now £100. I don’t want to appear tight, but how do I approach the subject of paying it back?

  • Sexual harassment on trains: Nearly 200 women share stories as part of new campaign

    Nearly 200 women have shared written reports of being groped, verbally harassed, upskirted and more in a new campaign to help improve safety on trains.

  • Meet Camilla’s new style weapon –the kitchen-table entrepreneur who never advertises

    Sophie Dundas was in bed at home, near Lewes in East Sussex, when news trickled through. A friend called to say she should have a look at Clarence House’s Instagram, the official account of the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall.

  • Nancy Dell’Olio: ‘Britain hasn’t seen the worst of Brexit yet’

    For a while in the early noughties, there were few women so associated with football in this country as Nancy Dell’Olio. She wasn’t a player, of course, rather what some came to call “the Godmother of the WAGs”, thanks to her long and storied relationship with the puzzlingly randy England manager Sven-Göran Eriksson.

  • The hidden meaning behind Harry and Meghan’s public display of affection

    For followers of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, seeing the pair hand in hand is nothing new. Since they were first pictured together back in 2016, Harry and Meghan have been glued together at the hand, arm, upper body, cheek and even foot, whenever they are out in public. Head to head, elbow to elbow, it seems there is not a body part that has remained uninhibitedly bumped.

  • Safe spaces for women and girls trialled in UK seaside town

    The new safe space initiative in Weymouth aims to protect women with help from local businesses.