Petra Boynton

a butterfly that is glowing in the dark with the word tumblr written below it Alt: A glowing white butterfly flaps gently against a dark blue background

March is Pregnancy After Loss Awareness Month.

A time to recognise specific challenges during subsequent pregnancies for those who've experienced #PregnancyLoss and #BabyLoss.

It's a less well known area of bereavement and trauma, where taboos remain and practitioners should be better informed.

Former surgeon general: The Senate must not approve someone who can't practice medicine as the nation’s top doctor “The surgeon general is not a wellness influencer,” writes former Surgeon General Jerome Adams of Casey Means.

"The surgeon general is not a wellness influencer": Former surgeon general Jerome Adams on why the Senate should not confirm surgeon general-nominee Casey Means, who is not a licensed physician. www.statnews.com/2026/02/27/c...

And these academic men responded to the most mild of criticisms or questions with howls of their being silenced, of professional jealousy, of threats to academic freedom. Perhaps we now see these excessive reactions as more sinister smokescreens for what else was going on. It's all revolting.

The model of collusion, excusing or ignoring abuse and denigration that academic friends of E*stein not only enjoyed while with him but when back in their institutions was further reinforced by said unis and wider followers, students, journalists and more. Everyone was at it, all down the chain.

There's the inner circle of awful scholars who courted E*stein, funded and fêted by him in return. These men generated mountains of pseudoscientific rubbish that their eager followers used to then target, harass, belittle, abuse and silence minorities in and outside academia.

The billionaires' eugenics project: how Epstein infiltrated Harvard, muzzled the humanities and preached master-race science Edge - Jeffrey Epstein's favourite intellectual salon - was sold to me as a gathering of the world's finest minds, writes Virginia Heffernan. The files reveal it was something far darker: a decades-lo...

"Without even opening a book, they could dismiss all of feminism, postcolonial theory and queer studies...devote their brains instead to the race science and rape apologetics that now pass for scholarship on edgelord podcasts".

Sharing again, as it's a vital read

www.thenerve.news/p/epstein-bi...

It's just lovely. I'll be passing it on. I wish I'd had it a few years ago.

If my children hadn't led the way I'd still be twirling around the place, falling over my feet, talking too much, especially to passing wildlife and wondering why neither myself or others could follow how I lead high level policy decisions and research but can't work out how to buy a train ticket.

As painful as this journey can be for parents and grandparents it really is a gift our children give us in both their diagnoses and also their abilities to understand themselves or the requirement on us to understand them better and respond in ways that probably would've made a difference to us too.

This is absolutely lovely and a great resource to pass on to a grandparent. I especially liked how there's a section supporting grandparents who, with the diagnosis of their grandchild, may now understand their own selves and lives completely differently ❤️

Unmasking Academe’s Gilded Boys’ Club The Epstein files reveal an elite, chummy, and venal scholarly network.

"Within a trove of millions of pages of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein, a notorious sex offender whose wealth and connections proved alluring to academics in search of money, women in higher ed are seeing evidence that supports a story they know all too well." www.chronicle.com/article/unma...

Just this week I was talking to someone whose friends are doing their PhDs in the same institution and decades on you'll never guess what's happening.......?

It was fine for myself and the only other minoritised colleague in the department to be taking on entire courses, huge amounts of marking, all the pastoral work, and complex project supervision. Until it came to formal recognition and pay. Then we disappeared into being 'assistants' again.

I'd say with 100% certainty all my students did far better with me than they'd have done with any of the Prominent, Lazy men in the department. Because it was mostly men. And I got offloaded all the pastoral care they couldn't be bothered with. 'You're so understanding!' 'It needs a woman to listen'

In a matter of a few years I'd actively supervised over 40 undergraduate dissertations, most to distinction. And yet when the departmental records were logged I disappeared. Professors Prominent all got the credit. It's why I'm so good at teaching research, but also such an extractive experience.

During my PhD a colleague and I were the people other PhD students informally turned to because their supervisors were largely absent. My own supervisor was the same. I learned loads from a bad situation. No recognition, huge overload. That's before all the undergrads staff actively offloaded on me.

I have a male friend who spent some time in Axel's lab. About the 3rd conversation he had with Axel, Axel broke the ice with "So, have you fucked [a female postdoc in the lab] yet?"

My friend was horrified...

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

Latest issue of F&P is all about feminist mentoring journals.sagepub.com/toc/FAP/curr...

The boys’ club: How Epstein’s influence shaped the exclusion of women in STEM In one email, an AI researcher suggested it’s “hard to be brilliant if you are worrying if you look fat or why another woman hates you.”

The boys’ club: How Epstein’s influence shaped the exclusion of women in STEM 19thnews.org/2026/02/epst...

Lawrence Summers Will Resign From Harvard After Epstein Revelations

I'm glad to see accountability for academia's bad apples. But I also hope that resignations like this one won't be the end of the story. Because we still need to reckon with how the structures and cultures in "elite" academia have created ripe conditions for rot. 1/🧵

www.nytimes.com/2026/02/25/u...

Having fun with the Allister Heath Headline Generator and also happy birthday @mhairim.bsky.social

stirring-fox-7e1fab.netlify.app

Budgets are moral documents and even the most apparently boring technical decision (what and how you count) defines which kind of knowledge gets rewarded and which kind gets forgotten.

Dear Mr Kirkdale bookshop keeper, It's me, the boy who asked to put the "One Piece" book on hold. How's your day been so far? Well for me, I'm getting thro teeth out at the dentist, not because their rotten but because I need to braces (I cind of scared). Due to the above, I will not be able to buy the book so please, please, please can you keep the book for one more day. From the boy, Jacob is my name. p.s. plase, please, please rec.

Imagine being like this. Maybe we actually were all once like this. Be more like this guy!

Toad and Frog chase after Toad's list, which is blowing away in the wind. From "A List" In *Frog and Toad Together*

“Help!” cried Toad. “My list is blowing away. What will I do without my list?”

The UK team of the NEW ABC project was recognised for their innovative ‘Young Translators Club’, developed by Sarah Crafter, Guida de Abreu and Nelli Stavropoulou.
These tools help schools support the social & emotional needs of young people who translate for family members and peers.
👇Link below

The real question for comp sci/tech education is why people who come out with comp sci/tech degrees are so morally and ethically vacuous and historically illiterate.

As far as I know, farm archives have never really been used to track queer histories before. Given they mostly record the financial ongoings on a given farm, you can understand why. However, my year of research at The MERL has proved their potential.

Find out more in this blog:

watching a rally lead by a 16 year old with san antonio students for peace and he opens with this line:

rise and shine—the revolution does not come overnight!

Being the Voice for all children: Why Early Years Educators Are Critical Safeguarding Advocates for Non-Mobile, Non-Verbal Children | Sacpa In early years, there is statutory guidance to set out the standards for care and education for all children and whilst safeguarding will have the same statutory expectations it should be seen, not as...

Being the Voice for all children: Why Early Years Educators Are Critical Safeguarding Advocates for Non-Mobile, Non-Verbal Children www.sacpa.org.uk/2026/02/16/b...

The right to reclaim lost bodies: recovering evidence, memory and land in law and literature This paper argues for the right to reclaim lost bodies, understood through three interrelated dimensions: recovering evidence of destroyed bodies, rediscovering memories of Indigenous peoples erase...

I have been writing a lecture on reclaiming bodies, and I coincidentally came across this article by Marcus De Matos, where he states, "reclaiming lost bodies is a form of justice rooted in hope, hospitality and memory."

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....