Sydney Sweeney is under fire from female athletes, who accuse her of "sexualising women's sport". From his years of teaching at a girls' school, Guy de la Bédoyère thinks he knows why women really hate the busty actress.

The post What Women Really Hate About Sydney Sweeney appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

Nearly every displaced woman in Gaza surveyed in a new study screened positive for severe post-traumatic stress symptoms, a finding researchers describe as an unprecedented psychological toll linked directly to hunger, overcrowded displacement, and the collapse of everyday life under war.

The study, published in the International Journal for Equity in Health, assessed 503 displaced women in the Gaza Strip during the 2023–2025 war using a mixed-methods design that combined a structured quantitative survey with in-depth qualitative interviews. The average participant was 29.4 years old, with a standard deviation of 7.3 years, and the majority were married, unemployed, and living below the deep poverty line. Most had been displaced for nearly a year, and the overwhelming majority were sheltering in tents under conditions of severe overcrowding and acute food shortage.

When researchers measured post-traumatic stress symptoms using the Impact of Event Scale–Revised, a widely used screening instrument that evaluates intrusion, avoidance, and hyperarousal symptoms following traumatic exposure, they found that 98.2 percent of participants scored in the severe range. The mean IES-R score across the sample was 61.5, with a standard deviation of 9.5 — a figure far above the thresholds typically used to flag clinically significant trauma-related distress. The authors are careful to note that because symptoms were assessed with a screening tool rather than a formal diagnostic clinical interview, the results should be interpreted as reflecting an extremely high burden of trauma-related distress within the study sample rather than confirmed clinical diagnoses. Even with that caveat, the near-universality of severe scores stands out even against the backdrop of other conflict-affected populations, where severe symptom prevalence rarely approaches such levels.

Food emerged as one of the strongest statistical correlates of psychological suffering. Severe food insecurity, measured with the Food Insecurity Experience Scale developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization, affected approximately 71 percent of participants. Women experiencing severe food insecurity had significantly higher PTSD symptom severity scores, an association that held at a p-value below 0.001. The researchers also identified a cluster of socioeconomic and living-condition factors associated with worse outcomes: being divorced or widowed, living in an extended-family household, sheltering in a tent or collective shelter during displacement, and reporting that food was simply unavailable were all significantly linked to elevated symptom scores.

These quantitative patterns were given texture and depth by the qualitative arm of the study, in which trained researchers conducted semi-structured, face-to-face interviews in Arabic with 34 of the women. Analysis of the transcripts revealed five overarching themes: poverty and inequity; food as a luxury; wounds you cannot see; on the move, nowhere to belong; and small acts of resilience. Together, the themes trace an arc from material deprivation to psychological injury and, ultimately, to the fragile coping strategies women deployed to keep themselves and their families functioning.

The theme of food as a luxury captured how a basic biological need had been transformed into an object of obsession and grief. Women described rationing scraps, skipping meals so children could eat, and the humiliating experience of standing in lines for aid that never arrived. The researchers note that this chronic preoccupation with food security operated on two fronts — it was simultaneously a source of traumatic stress in its own right and an amplifier of existing war trauma, since hunger stripped away one of the last remaining domains in which mothers could still protect their children.

The “wounds you cannot see” theme speaks directly to the invisible nature of psychological injury in wartime. Women recounted nightmares, intrusive memories of bombings and the deaths of relatives, hypervigilance, emotional numbness, and an inability to feel safe even in moments of quiet. Several described the stigma of admitting psychological suffering, or the sense that mental distress was a luxury they could not afford to acknowledge while survival demanded constant action. The researchers interpret these accounts as illustrating how trauma in this context is not a discrete event but a continuous condition, woven into the fabric of daily life.

Displacement itself — the theme of being “on the move, nowhere to belong” — emerged as a distinct psychological stressor. Women described repeated forced evacuations, the loss of homes that anchored family identity and memory, and the corrosive instability of living in tents that leaked in rain, baked in heat, and offered no privacy for grieving or for motherhood. The loss of place, the authors suggest, compounds the loss of people, producing a grief that has nowhere to settle.

Yet the final theme, small acts of resilience, complicates a narrative of pure victimhood. Women described prayer, mutual aid among neighbors, storytelling with children, and small rituals of domesticity — making tea, arranging a tent, celebrating a birthday with almost nothing — as deliberate acts of psychological resistance. The researchers frame these behaviors as adaptive coping mechanisms that, while insufficient to protect against severe trauma symptoms, sustained a sense of agency and dignity under conditions designed to strip both away.

Methodologically, the study relied on a convenience sample recruited through structured surveys administered via Google Forms, a pragmatic choice given the destruction of infrastructure and the impossibility of random sampling in an active war zone. The authors acknowledge this limitation, along with the screening-based measurement of PTSD and the absence of consistent formal referral pathways for psychological care during data collection, which meant that women who became distressed during interviews could not always be directed to clinical services. Interviews followed strict ethical protocols approved by the Institutional Review Board at An-Najah National University, with verbal informed consent, anonymization, and trained interviewers instructed to pause or terminate any conversation that caused visible distress.

The demographic profile of the sample underscores the socioeconomic dimension of psychological vulnerability. That most participants were unemployed and living below the deep poverty line before and during the war reflects broader patterns in which economic deprivation and mental health outcomes are tightly intertwined in conflict settings. Divorced and widowed women — those without a partner’s social and economic support — fared significantly worse, as did women in extended-family households, possibly reflecting crowded conditions and multiplied caregiving burdens.

The study carries a sobering human footnote. The acknowledgments honor the memory of co-author Ayman S. Abutair, a clinical nutrition researcher at Al-Azhar University-Gaza, who lost his life during the war before the paper’s publication. His death stands as a stark reminder that the researchers documenting these invisible wounds were themselves living within the same catastrophe.

The authors argue that their findings demonstrate an urgent and unmet need for comprehensive humanitarian and psychosocial support tailored to displaced women — support that integrates mental health care with food assistance, shelter improvement, and protection for female-headed households. They emphasize that because caregiving responsibilities fall disproportionately on women during war and displacement, their psychological deterioration radiates outward to children and entire family systems, making women’s mental health a strategic priority for any humanitarian response rather than an afterthought.

What the study ultimately documents is the entanglement of hunger and trauma at a scale rarely captured in research. Where most studies of conflict-related PTSD examine populations after violence has subsided, this research measured psychological injury while bombs were still falling, while displacement was ongoing, and while food systems had collapsed. The result is a portrait of a population in which severe trauma symptoms are not an unfortunate consequence of war but, in effect, a near-universal condition — visible not in wounds, but in sleepless nights, interrupted meals, and the quiet endurance of half a million women carrying burdens that remain, for now, largely untreated.

People online are distressed at men butchering words such as ‘hyperbole’ and ‘hors d’oeuvres’ – highlighting a gender reversal in ‘intelligence gaps’

There are common non-negotiables we look for in a prospective partner. They should be kind, caring and thoughtful. Having a shared interest helps. So does remembering important dates and anniversaries. But how much does it matter if they know how to pronounce the word “gnocchi”?

Turns out that’s a potential dealbreaker, at least according to a (rather judgy) cohort on TikTok. See: the “Illiterate Boyfriend” trend, which is testing some couples on the app. Users have compiled a list of what are essentially SAT words for women to ask their male partners to read. Many of these men – this is an overwhelmingly heterosexual activity – fail to finish the list unscathed. They trip over entries such as “hyperbole”, “cynicism”, “diaphragmatic” and the oft-butchered French term, “hors d’oeuvres”.

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© Illustration: Rita Liu/The Guardian

© Illustration: Rita Liu/The Guardian

© Illustration: Rita Liu/The Guardian

In this Op-Ed piece, Samreen Makhfi, an Afghan woman currently living in Afghanistan, reflects on life in Afghanistan five years after the Taliban’s return to power, using the country’s Independence Day—August 19—as a contrast between its historical aspirations and present conditions. The Debrief’s Chrissy Newton contributed to this report.

Today is August 19, 2026. One hundred and seven years ago, on this day, King Amanullah Khan declared Afghanistan independent. Were Queen Soraya alive to witness this day, sorrow would overwhelm her. Perhaps sorrow would be too small a word.

She carried the torch of education for Afghan girls, believing that a nation could not walk forward while half of its people were kept behind. Now that torch seems to have been extinguished by decrees and prohibitions. Girls are shut out of secondary school and university. Women’s paths into professions that once promised them a future as teachers, doctors, engineers, and artists have narrowed or disappeared. They are granted only the bitter permission to survive, polishing men’s shoes until their hands harden, and begging in the streets until their voices become hoarse. 

My sister tells me she even misses the honking of the car that used to take us to school, that impatient horn we once felt irritated by. Back then, she complained about waking up too early and counted the days until holidays. Now she says, “I even miss the feeling of being sleepy, the heavy eyelids, the rush of morning air, the chatter of classmates as soon as we entered the gate.”

What once felt like a burden became a relic. I miss the little shop near our school. I remember the elderly uncle who seemed to know exactly how easily my sweet tooth could betray me. He would smile when he saw us and say, “I’ve brought a new flavor of cupcakes and chocolate.” It is strange how oppression can make you nostalgic for things you once considered ordinary.

Consequences of closing those classroom doors reach far beyond the girls sitting behind them. Afghan men want female doctors to treat their wives, mothers, and daughters. They want women to be cared for by women, especially in matters of health and childbirth. But how can tomorrow’s female doctors exist when today’s girls are prevented from becoming students? The ones who are denied education are the very girls who could have filled those roles. 

Decree No. 18, issued in May 2026, states that a girl’s silence after puberty can be interpreted as consent to marriage. Imagine being too young to understand what marriage means, yet old enough, according to the law, for your silence to be placed on a contract you never knew you were signing. And if that marriage becomes a place of violence rather than safety, escape is not equally available to her. Men retain unilateral divorce rights, while women face restrictive judicial avenues for separation. Even the language of the law can become another wall between a woman and the life she wants to reclaim.

However, the walls do not end at the home. The country’s beauty is fenced off, too; women are not allowed to visit many tourist sites, even with their families. Restrictions on women’s access to public spaces have made ordinary pleasures such as parks, public places, and travel another negotiation with authority. I think of Qargha. Its waters glitter beneath the sun, and the breeze carries the scent of pine. Somewhere in that landscape, a girl should be able to laugh beside the water and to dip their hands into its coolness. But even the beauty of the country can become gendered. The mountains remain visible. The lake remains blue. The wind still moves through the trees. Only the people allowed to enjoy them have changed.

At this point, men’s situation is no better than ours. University graduates joke bitterly, “We successfully completed the journey from ‘university students’ to ‘unemployed’.” The joke lands because everyone knows a degree has become a piece of paper. A profession has become a distant possibility. A young person looks toward adulthood and finds the road strangely empty. One of today’s high officials even declared that political loyalty can matter more than merit in terms of opportunities. 

Once, even our flawed elections gave us the illusion that our voices could tug, however weakly, on the direction and fate of the country. The ballot box was imperfect, but it gave people the sensation of having a hand on the wheel. Now even that thread has snapped. There is no ballot to mark, no campaign to argue over, no candidate to disappoint us after promising something better. Right now, citizens have no say in the politics of their country. In the media, the only journalists who can survive are those who avoid talking about everything that is going wrong. And underneath the politics is something much more immediate.

Bread

For many families, bread is scarce, and work is scarcer. Poverty does not always arrive dramatically. Sometimes it is an empty cupboard and fridge, a postponed purchase, or a child asking for something that a parent cannot afford. Sometimes it is watching one family struggle while another, somehow, continues to live comfortably, its pockets lined with opportunities that seem to belong to a different Afghanistan.

Leaving has become its own kind of privilege. A person can dream of another country and still find the border of that dream closed. Visas are denied or restricted, and the simple desire to travel somewhere else, to see another country, breathe different air, return home again, can become almost impossible. And yet, even in the face of closed borders, desperation has driven many Afghans to move anyway.

Many, overwhelmed by the hopelessness of life here, have even fled toward Iran while war was still raging there. They looked at a country caught in conflict and somehow decided that perhaps danger there was preferable to the life waiting for them here. There is something devastating about that calculation. When people begin comparing one war with another and asking which one might be easier to survive, you know home has stopped feeling like home.

Afghanistan remains

The mountains have not packed their bags. The morning sun still spills over Kabul. Children still laugh. Mothers still cook. Someone still opens a shop in the morning. Someone still remembers the taste of a particular chocolate. Somewhere, perhaps, a girl still keeps an old school notebook tucked inside a drawer, its pages filled with handwriting from a life that feels increasingly distant. And still, some study through second‑hand phones, and some work online.

Perhaps the world remembers us; perhaps it has turned away. But the true heroes are those who carry our story in their lungs, those who breathe it in, breathe it out, and refuse to let silence become the final language of Afghanistan.

Poem by Samreen Makhfi

It is the fifth year now and the walls 

are coming closer

inch by inch, stone by stone

I come to the tree

 

The same one that has stood through 

all our years, older than my father

older than his father, a witness planted 

deep in the bones of Kabul

 

It remembers the golden days

of Zahir Shah, and the ones that followed 

It saw the first Taliban rise

and watched them fall

 

It watched the Republic arrive with its 

promises, its flags, its endless foreign money 

pouring into the pockets of men who enjoyed 

themselves in air-conditioned rooms when civilians 

 

paid with their blood 

Then it saw them return. Again.The Taliban

I place both hands on the trunk

and shake it with everything I have

 

The bark scrapes my palms

The smell of sap rises into my throat

“Tell me,” I scream, “how can you still stand?”

“How, when you have seen everything?”

 

Great-grandfather cut your branches

for the bitter winters, and you grew them back.

Grandfather carved your strong wood

into a swing for his grandsons,

 

Father sat beneath your shadow

when the Kabul sun burned the streets white.

And you–you still stand.

I press my forehead against your skin.

 

You are warm. Steady. Alive.

I am here to borrow some of your strength.

I am tired of history repeating itself 

I am tired

I am tired

I am tired

Samreen Makhfi is the pen name of an Afghan woman currently living in Afghanistan. 

When we think about Roman society, the image that usually comes to mind is that of a world dominated by men: senators, magistrates, generals, and emperors. According to the traditional narrative, women occupied a secondary place, confined to the domestic sphere and excluded from public life. However, a recent study based on the analysis of […]

The Huashan rock paintings, declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2016, stretch over 260 kilometers along the Zuojiang River valley, in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region of southern China. More than 80 sites with human figures, animals, and bronze objects decorate cliffs that rise dozens of meters above the water. Created at least 2000 […]

Archaeologists have debated whether royal women ever used the weapons in their tombs. Their bones may have settled the argument.

In the pursuit of a society free from violence, the question of whether the elimination of violence against women is a realistic goal for the near future has become a pivotal topic within social science and policy circles. Research led by E. Gracia, recently published in Nature Communications, evaluates the multifaceted challenges and potential pathways for completely ridding societies of this pervasive issue. Despite historical setbacks and persistent prevalence, Gracia’s work proposes a cautiously optimistic framework to envision how strategic interventions, emerging technologies, and global cooperation might converge to bring about significant reductions, if not total eradication, of violence against women.

At the heart of Gracia’s analysis is a nuanced understanding that violence against women is deeply rooted in structural inequalities, cultural norms, and systemic power imbalances. These entrenched factors complicate attempts to eradicate such violence simply through legal reforms or isolated social programs. The research dissects the complexity behind the phenomenon, underlining the necessity for broad, cross-sectoral approaches that integrate education, legal systems, healthcare frameworks, economic empowerment, and cultural transformation on a global scale.

One of the critical barriers examined in the study is the persistent normalization and trivialization of violence against women in many societies. This normalization often manifests through social attitudes that minimize the severity of abuse or blame victims, thereby perpetuating cycles of silence and underreporting. Gracia’s research highlights how these deep-seated social perceptions form an invisible but potent barrier that law enforcement and public health strategies alone cannot dismantle without parallel efforts aimed at shifting collective consciousness.

The research further delves into the importance of multi-layered legal infrastructures that not only criminalize violence against women but also ensure accessibility, protection, and support for survivors. Gracia emphasizes that legislation must be matched with rigorous enforcement and judicial processes that uphold victims’ rights and foster trust in institutional mechanisms. Additionally, legal reforms should be adaptive to the evolving landscape of violence, including emerging forms such as digital abuse and cyber harassment, which have seen alarming rises in recent years.

Technology plays a dual role in the discussion. On one hand, it can be a vector for new forms of violence, as social media platforms and communication technologies sometimes facilitate harassment and abuse at scale. On the other hand, divergent technological advancements hold promise as tools for prevention, early intervention, and survivor support. Gracia’s research points to innovative uses of artificial intelligence and data analytics that could identify risk factors, predict potential violent episodes, and enable more targeted resource allocation in real time, potentially revolutionizing how societies manage and prevent violence against women.

Another dimension explored is the intersectionality of violence, acknowledging that women from marginalized communities, including racial minorities, immigrants, LGBTQ+ individuals, and those with disabilities, endure compounded vulnerabilities. The study rigorously argues that realistic eradication efforts must be inclusive, addressing the particular contexts and systemic discriminations these groups face, or risk perpetuating cycles of violence and exclusion.

Economic considerations also feature prominently in the study’s framework. Economic dependence is regularly cited as a critical factor that traps many women in abusive situations. Gracia suggests that sustainable economic empowerment, through access to education, fair employment, and social protection mechanisms, is indispensable to breaking these cycles. Such empowerment can provide survivors the independence necessary to leave abusive environments and face fewer barriers to full social participation.

Furthermore, the report evaluates the role of education as a foundational pillar in the fight against violence. Education campaigns targeting children, adolescents, and adults alike can reshape gender norms and teach consent, respect, and healthy relationship dynamics from an early age. According to Gracia, comprehensive and culturally sensitive educational programs could significantly alter long-term societal behaviors and attitudes, though their implementation requires political commitment and community engagement.

Global cooperation is presented as a sine qua non for meaningful progress. Violence against women is a universal issue transcending national boundaries, demanding coordinated international policies and shared best practices. Gracia’s study underlines that global frameworks and treaties must be strengthened and enforced, while simultaneously supporting local grassroots movements, which are often the most effective agents of change within their communities due to their cultural resonance and immediacy.

Despite these extensive strategic considerations, Gracia acknowledges the sobering reality that total elimination of violence against women is a colossal challenge laden with uncertainties. A realistic timeline must balance ambition with pragmatism, anticipating incremental progress rather than binary outcomes. The hope lies in convergence—multi-sectoral collaboration coupled with technological innovation and cultural shifts—creating an unstoppable momentum toward violence reduction.

In conclusion, the research presented by Gracia is both a call to action and a roadmap for the future. The elimination of violence against women may currently seem an almost utopian aspiration, yet it is rendered feasible through simultaneous advancements in law, technology, education, economic empowerment, and social mobilization. These domains, working in concert, have the potential to dismantle the foundations of gendered violence that are deeply embedded over centuries of systemic inequities.

This study encourages policymakers, practitioners, scholars, and society at large to rethink existing approaches and commit to sustained, evidence-based interventions. Achieving substantial progress requires embracing complexity and rejecting simplistic quick fixes, channeling resources into long-term transformative change rather than short-lived initiatives. The vision of a future where women can live free of violence is not merely an idealistic hope but an urgent imperative grounded in rigorous research and collective will.

As discussions around gender-based violence continue to unfold globally, Gracia’s work offers a crucial scientific framework that transcends rhetoric, providing actionable insights for moving the needle decisively. It inspires renewed optimism that with strategic alignment and innovation, violence against women can be substantially reduced, and eventually eliminated—a milestone that would signal a profound triumph for human rights and dignity worldwide.

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Subject of Research: Violence against women and its potential elimination in the near future.

Article Title: Is the elimination of violence against women a realistic goal for the near future?

Article References:
Gracia, E. Is the elimination of violence against women a realistic goal for the near future?. Nat Commun 17, 5313 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-74656-y

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-74656-y

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