Audrey Gillan Visitors to the 2011 Kapow! convention in London. Photograph: Gavin Rodgers/Rex Features It’s a world where guys have superpowers and the girls are very often disempowered. But now two Glasgow-based women are attempting to shake up the often misogynistic comic book environment with the UK’s biggest comic convention, Kapow!, in London this weekend....
Laura Barton Sales of hand sanitisers rose 71% in 24 weeks during the 2009 swine flu outbreak. Photograph: Sarah Lee for the Guardian Bakersfield, California, is a large city about 100 miles north of Los Angeles. Founded on recovered swampland by Colonel Thomas Baker, it is today famed for oil, gas and agriculture, as...
Peter Walker Mothers in Yama, Niger, crowd with their children to be admitted to the MSF screening field centre for malnourished children. Photograph: Dan Chung for the Guardian Niger is the worst country on earth in which to be a mother, according to a report by Save the Children. The charity’s annual Mothers’ Index...
Alexandra Topping Supporters of François Hollande celebrate his win in the French presidential election on 6 May. Photograph: Franck Fife/AFP/Getty Images Just a few weeks ago François Hollande – then still a candidate vying to become the president of France – wrote a letter to one of the country’s leading women’s organisations. “The struggle...
Is ‘the Clooney’ the most requested chin at plastic surgeons’ clinics? Photograph: Theo Kingma/Rex Features The American tradition of high school proms has its unique set of signifiers: a corsage, a questionable suit/gown, a limousine. In 2012, we can add “a new chin” to the shopping list for the big night. A report from...
Jennifer Killick Jennifer Killick … ‘My immune system is in tatters’. Photograph: Frank Baron for the Guardian As I crouch on the floor, doubled up in pain and clutching my stomach, the realisation that I am in the middle of a country park – far from civilisation and a toilet – hammers away in...
Sara Khan ‘It is heartening to see a proliferation in Muslim women’s networks and forums right across the UK.’ Photograph: Linda Nylind for the Guardian Anyone who has worked in British Muslim communities will tell you the very notion of women’s rights is still considered a taboo subject. Like many women who have spent...
Belinda Parmar More smartphones were bought by women than men in 2010. Photograph: Sarah Lee for the Guardian Why are technology products still thought of as “boys’ toys” and tech ads often prevalent during football tournaments? More smartphones were bought by women than men in 2010 and a study out today by YouGov and...
Press Association Waris Dirie, a model who campaigns against FGM, said: ‘If a white girl is abused, police break down the door. If a black girl is mutilated, no one takes care of her.’ Photograph: Joerg Carstensen/EPA As many as 100,000 women in Britain have undergone female genital mutilations (FGM) with medics in the...
Does job insecurity make you less likely to take sick leave? | Open thread
Open thread The number of days taken off sick by working adults in the UK has fallen to four and a half. Photograph: Lewis Whyld/PA Good news for UK employers: employees are calling in sick less often. The Office of National Statistics reports that the average worker now takes just 4.5 days because of...
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