Women's Views on News |
| Radcliffe to return to racing in 2013 Posted: 19 Dec 2012 05:40 AM PST
The news follows a difficult season for the 39 year-old, who underwent a serious foot operation and lost her lottery funding, leading to speculation that her elite career may have been at an end. Radcliffe has not raced a marathon since September 2011; she came third in Berlin. She was forced to pull out of the Olympic marathon in London due to severe pain during training. This was her third Olympic disappointment, following injury problems in both Athens and Beijing. Following an operation in August to try to repair the cartilage in her foot, she is rebuilding her fitness in preparation for the season ahead. Speaking to the BBC this week, she said, “I’m kind of at that crossroads coming off a big surgery and I desperately don’t want my career to be finished." She admitted that she will probably not be ready for the London marathon in April, but will aim to run a marathon in the autumn. She still holds the world record over the distance that she set in London in 2003. Radcliffe described 2012 as the hardest time in her career, saying that she watched the Olympic marathon "in a hotel room, crying". “Happening once in an Olympics is bad luck, happening twice, happening three times, broke my heart,” she said. The injury was not the only misfortune to befall Radcliffe this year; in October, UK Athletics (UKA) withdrew her lottery funding, as she was no longer seen as a "genuine medal contender" for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. However, the UKA's head coach, Peter Erikssen, has welcomed this week's announcement. "I know she had an operation on her foot and it will take some time for her to get back to running, but I see it as very positive if she is still hungry to perform," he told BBC Radio Five Live. "She is a very talented athlete and if she is hungry to race then I think that's great for us", he said.  |
| Posted: 19 Dec 2012 02:33 AM PST
Most of the tables in the latest census release for England and Wales are not broken down by gender, so we will have to wait to see what these figures really tell us about our changing roles, but there are a few clues already. But according to the census information released on 11 December, people living in England and Wales are rejecting traditional values like marriage and religion. The proportion of people with ‘no religious affiliation’ rose from 15 to 25 per cent. And the proportion of households containing a married couple or same sex civil partnership fell from 37 to 33 per cent. The percentage of households containing a cohabiting couple increased from 8 to 10 per cent. We also seem more prepared to live with people from different ethnic backgrounds. Twelve per cent of households now contain people with more than one ethnicity, up from 9 per cent in 2001. The proportion of those providing unpaid care to friends or relatives has remained the same as in 2001 at 10 per cent. This is welcome as the majority of unpaid carers are women. But despite some evidence of changing social attitudes, women continue to work fewer hours than men and are less likely to own their own businesses. A third of women work part-time, compared with 8 per cent of men, and only 9 per cent are self-employed, compared with a fifth of men. Women are more likely to be studying full time however; 5.7 per cent of women are students, compared with 4.3 per cent of men. There were also over a million more women than men registered for the census in the UK today; 28.5m women compared to 27.6m men. While the main explanation for this is that women live longer, Professor Jane Falkingham, director of the Centre for Population Change (CPC) said that fewer women chose to or have the opportunity to live and work abroad. But there may be a more administrative explanation: “Men are not good form-fillers,” she said.  |
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