Latest news with #HelenPidd
Elle
08-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Elle
This 'Horrifying' New Podcast Is Being Compared To 'The Handmaid's Tale', And It's A Must-Listen
The sixth — and final — season of The Handmaid's Tale might be over, but the show, which has become a cultural shorthand for conversations about reproductive rights, has sparked a string of dystopian pronatalist podcasts that nod to the themes of the hit Hulu series, the most recent of which is an episode of The Guardian's Today in Focus podcast. The episode, named Make America Pregnant Again, is presented by Helen Pidd with Moira Donegan, and it probes the question of why there is a growing contingency of pronatalists in America, and what exactly it means, questions that are eerily mirrored throughout the Hulu series in which women are stripped of their autonomy and reduced to their reproductive function. In The Handmaid's Tale, Handmaids are forced to bear children for elite families with no say in the process. Make America Pregnant Again touches on an annual pronatalist conference named NatalCon, the second outing of which took place in April in Austin, Texas. The gathering brought together the various groups who want there to be more babies in the US – and they were an unusual collective. Doneghan says: 'So you have folks who we might think of as sort of the traditional old-school pronatalists, right? Like traditionalist Catholics who are very invested in a cultural model in which marriage is the sole legitimate expression of sexuality and in which that sexuality is sort of unmediated by any use of birth control or non-reproductive practices.' The episode name checks the Hulu adaptation of Atwood's seminal 1985 novel, too. 'In the pronatalist movement, there are fewer women. There is a married couple named Malcolm and Simone Collins,' Doneghan notes. 'Simone has started wearing these bonnets that look kind of like what Elisabeth Moss wears in The Handmaid's Tale. She's doing that on purpose.' In fact, the warped interpretation of the Bible in The Handmaid's Tale — which Gilead uses to justify the Handmaids' roles of forced procreation — mirrors many of the most prominent pronatalist voices in America who are often driven by religious ideology. Make America Pregnant Again posits the idea that the pronatalist movement isn't just trying to encourage a higher birth rate to remedy the west's ageing population, but rather to condition the types of children that are born into the world — something that wouldn't feel out of place in Gilead. 'There's a lot of these techno-futurists, who are advancing the use of artificial reproductive technology, including things that are very frowned on by the Catholic church, such as IVF,' Doneghan explains. 'These are also people who tend to be very into gene editing. Something I think is really important to hammer down about the pro-natalist movement is that they're not just looking for more babies, they're looking for more of what they consider higher-quality babies … which is a judgment that they're making that might have, I think frequently does have, racial connotations.' In 2023, the total fertility rate in England and Wales was 1.44 children per woman, the lowest ever on record, which has resulted in an ageing population. It's a similar picture across the pond in America too, where the fertility rate has fallen to 1.6 births per woman, below the 2.1 needed to sustain the population. LISTEN TO 'MAKE AMERICA PREGNANT AGAIN' HERE ELLE Collective is a new community of fashion, beauty and culture lovers. For access to exclusive content, events, inspiring advice from our Editors and industry experts, as well the opportunity to meet designers, thought-leaders and stylists, become a member today HERE. Naomi May is a seasoned culture journalist and editor with over ten years' worth of experience in shaping stories and building digital communities. After graduating with a First Class Honours from City University's prestigious Journalism course, Naomi joined the Evening Standard, where she worked across both the newspaper and website. She is now the Digital Editor at ELLE Magazine and has written features for the likes of The Guardian, Vogue, Vice and Refinery29, among many others. Naomi is also the host of the ELLE Collective book club.
The Guardian
16-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Arise, Sir David Beckham
'England trail by two goals to one. Beckham could raise the roof here with a goal,' goes the commentary, as David Beckham lines up a free-kick against Greece, shortly before whipping it into the top corner. 'I don't believe it! David Beckham scores the goal to take England all the way to the World Cup finals! Give that man a knighthood!' The year was 2001, and the ultimate honour seemed close for England's biggest football player – and perhaps the most famous living Briton, full stop. Yet as the longtime Beckham watcher Zoe Williams describes, it has been a long wait. As she tells Helen Pidd, Beckham was a pioneer for many reasons in the 1990s and early 2000s: a gay icon in a masculine world; an openly loving dad; and, of course, an extremely successful athlete. But his career has been beset by scandal, too – from reports of affairs, and allegations over his tax arrangements, to disappointments over his association with Qatar. Still, on Friday it was finally announced that Beckham was to receive his knighthood – the fruits of a campaign for the honour that started more than a decade ago. So why now? And what does it say about the UK's honours system – and its class system – that it took so long?
The Guardian
28-05-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
On trial for having an abortion
In November 2020, in the middle of a national lockdown, Nicola Packer found out she was pregnant. It was a shock, she tells the Guardian's north of England correspondent, Hannah Al-Othman. Nicola hadn't really thought she was pregnant, didn't even believe she could conceive and had never wanted children anyway. After a call to the UK's largest abortion provider, she was sent pills to terminate her pregnancy. They believed, she was told, she was about six weeks pregnant. But when Nicola took the pills, she found out that her pregnancy was far more advanced than she could have imagined. Yet if that was traumatic, what was to come was even worse. As Helen Pidd hears, when Nicola went to the hospital for medical treatment afterwards, she was passed on to the police. Eventually, she was charged with carrying out an illegal abortion, and – in a case that has led to activists and MPs calling for a change in the law – came to stand trial in April this year.
The Guardian
09-05-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
The heroic Guardian reporter who documented the rise of the Nazis
Frederick Augustus Voigt was the Manchester Guardian's Berlin correspondent between 1920 and 1932. In this episode, two fellow former Berlin correspondents, Helen Pidd and Philip Oltermann, discuss Voigt's incredible reporting on the rise of Nazi Germany. 'I think he saw that it was important not to give the Nazis the 'both sides' treatment,' Philip says. 'And was really razor sharp when it came to focusing on the political violence that the Nazis were inflicting on political opponents or on Jewish citizens.' The pair discuss how Voigt became a target and moved to Paris in 1932, where he learned about a Gestapo plan to track him down and shoot him. 'He slept in this tiny apartment with several French secret service agents with machine guns sleeping on the floor to protect him,' Philip says. Philip and Helen also reflect on how the media covers the far-right AFD party in Germany today. Support the Guardian today:
The Guardian
29-04-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Labour v Reform UK: on the road in Runcorn
Runcorn, a town in Cheshire, has not been the most politically interesting place in recent memory. In fact Runcorn and Helsby has been a safe Labour seat for decades. Then the MP Mike Amesbury resigned after punching a constituent, triggering a byelection. Now Reform UK are nipping at Labour's heels in the battle for the ward. Helen Pidd has been out in the town to find out what voters think about the government and Nigel Farage. She spoke to voters who are angry at Reform's tactics of focusing on migration, but who also feel let down by Labour. She visits Labour's almost empty electoral nerve centre and notices the optimism in Reform's office. Even a passing Liberal candidate is struck by the efficiency of the Reform machine and the apparent enthusiasm for it. And she also heads to a hotel that has been housing asylum seekers to see how it has become a flashpoint in local politics. The Guardian's political correspondent, Kiran Stacey, tells Helen how the byelection may show how much of a risk Reform could be to Labour, and how the mayoral and local elections could play for the Conservatives, the Lib Dems and the Green party. What will they tell us about the state of politics in the UK today?
