Women are facing a double whammy from generative AI. As the technology becomes more commonplace, women's jobs are more likely to be at risk, according to experts – and there could be further gender disparity as women are also less likely to use AI in their professional lives.

What is the AI gender gap?
Eight in ten women in the workforce are in "occupations highly exposed to generative AI automation", compared with six in ten men, a 2023 analysis by the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise suggests. The researchers concluded that "overall, 21% more women are exposed to AI automation than men even though men outnumber women in the workforce".

Women are also more reluctant to use generative AI in the workplace than men, according to a working paper by Harvard Business School. Failing to embrace AI could lead to female workers being perceived as less productive, putting their jobs at risk in a different way.

Why does the gap exist?
Female-dominated fields such as administrative and clerical work are particularly vulnerable to being disrupted by AI. And when it comes to uptake of AI, misogyny in the workplace likely plays a large role in the disparity.

Female employees "face greater penalties in being judged as not having expertise" and may fear that using ChatGPT would be seen as having "cheated", said Harvard Business School associate professor Rembrand Koning, a co-author of the working paper.

How are women responding to the rise of AI?
Within Stem fields, women are adapting rapidly. A survey of women in tech in the UK, US and India found that, between 2024 and 2025, the percentage of respondents who rated their generative AI skills as "advanced" or "expert" rose from 35% to 65%.

"Many women are taking active roles in training and mentoring their colleagues on the technology," said Meredith Graham, chief people officer at IT management company Ensono, which conducted the poll. 

More broadly, women remain "underrepresented" in the AI boom, said the World Economic Forum. But this comparatively early moment in the adoption of the technology "offers a rare opportunity to course-correct".

Campaigners fighting to prevent back-to-back festivals in a south London park are taking Lambeth Council to court. But as the Protect Brockwell Park group readies for a summer of protest, a wider debate is raging over the ethics and impact of private events in public spaces.

'Sacrosanct' spaces
For most people who live in British cities, the local park is their "only regular contact with the natural world", said Rebecca Tamás in The Guardian. But increasingly, these "once protected havens for humans and wildlife alike" are being cordoned off for weeks, with access sold by councils to promoters of music concerts and festivals. Defending urban green spaces is "crucial": "however cash-strapped" councils are, "these spaces should be sacrosanct".

It's not just the lack of access and disruption annoying locals but also the mark that these events leave – literally. In Glasgow, gig-goers at Bellahouston Park trampled hundreds of wildflowers and mangled footpaths. In Newcastle, event vehicles damaged stone pillars and large areas of grass during a festival in Leazes Park.

The increasing commercial use of parks "might be easier to swallow" if the profits were ploughed back into essential council services, said Matthew Garrahan in the Financial Times. But that's by no means the norm: takings from Lambeth's Brockwell Park events, for example, will instead go into "park maintenance (more of which will surely be needed in the aftermath)".

Bog off, locals!
Locals who argue that festivals are "too popular, too populous, too loud" and "too bloody messy" can "bog off", said Maddy Mussen in London's The Standard. Opposition to holding events in public spaces "makes me bristle". I'd say the "price of unfettered access to a gorgeous park" for 348 days a year is the 17 other days that "you surrender it to make 30,000 other people very happy".

Live music in Britain is "in a perilous position", with this steady decline "exacerbated horribly" by the pandemic, said Ben Lawrence in The Telegraph. The music sector contributed £6.1 billion to the economy last year, and "big tours" by the likes of Coldplay accounted for three-quarters of the total.

The up-and-coming acts who play in these events "may be the Coldplays of tomorrow" and with fewer live music venues than ever, their careers are "reliant" on park festivals.

Cruising down the mighty Mississippi River is a memorable experience, but you can also take a more land-centric approach by driving the Great River Road. Officially called the Great River Road National Scenic Byway, this series of state and local highways and roads follows the course of the Mississippi for 3,000 miles through 10 US states.

Driving the route in one go, from northern Minnesota to southern Louisiana, would take 36 hours. But you would "miss all its beauty", said Travel and Leisure. Instead, give yourself at least a week.

What to expect along the way
The route is clearly marked by white signs featuring a green pilot's wheel. When it's time to stretch your legs, pull over at one of the 100 or so interpretive centres that dot the Great River Road. These spots "provide historic, cultural and ecological knowledge of the river and the region", said the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Pull over for these riverside cities and towns
A Missouri city filled with "history, food and brews", St. Louis "shines in every season", said Lonely Planet. Forest Park, site of the 1904 World's Fair, remains a "cultural hub" with free museums including the grand St. Louis Art Museum.

In musical Memphis, Tennessee, you could come across "incredible talent that has yet to be discovered", said Southern Living. Take in a show on Beale Street, tour Graceland or visit one of the soul music museums.

Dubuque, Iowa, offers "ideal" views from Eagle Point Park, the Riverwalk and the Fenelon Place Elevator, said Travel and Leisure. Hikers should visit the Mines of Spain Recreation Area, with acres of wetland, forest and meadows to explore. 

Footballs over the fence don't need the long arm of the law
Sara Tor in The Times
Classifying footballs kicked over the fence as a "legal nuisance", as a High Court judge just has, sets a "dangerous precedent", writes Sara Tor. A garden kickabout is the "one thing" connecting today's "gently parented, babysat-by-iPads, overly anxious" kids to a "normal childhood", but now that could vanish "for fear of a legal barney" with neighbours. "In my day", neighbours "simply trundled over" for a "polite but firm word with my mum".

Keir Starmer was warned and now Nigel Farage is coming for everything
Mark Wallace in The i Paper 
"Nigel Farage is in the party-smashing business," writes Mark Wallace. "Having taken a wrecking ball to the Tories", the Reform UK leader is now "working to outflank" Labour "from the left" on the winter fuel allowance and two-child benefit cap. His target is a Labour base that's "relatively left-wing on economics" but right-wing on immigration and crime. Government is a "sluggish galleon" and Farage "excels at the role of the nippy privateer, outmanoeuvring his opponents with panache". 

Trump has finally realised that Putin thinks he's an idiot
Hamish de Bretton-Gordon in The Telegraph
"Finally", writes Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, Donald Trump seems to have concluded that Vladimir Putin "is taking him for a fool". With the Kremlin "openly goading him", the US president has "belatedly realised that the 'bad guys' are in Moscow", not Kyiv. Putin may come to regret neglecting "Trump's vanity". I hope the US president is "as mad as hell" and will punish Russia "where it hurts the most" – by pushing "the sanctions button".