I think it would be fair to doubt your point, could you share which earbuds you were using and how you were using them? I think the disagreement here will also stem from the fact that IEMs + playing music is pretty great “active noise cancellation” in itself.

When I listen to a podcast on my IEMs I hear quite a lot of the outside world, when I do the same with ANC headphones on I hear much less.

Somehow I did not even consider the fact they lobbied for the position to purposefully undermine women’s rights… just horrific.

This entire fiasco is completely confusing. As far as I understand there was pressure for the current chair to drop the position and hand it over to someone else, Bangladesh was expected to take over but Saudi Arabia lobbied for the chair (this is the part that confuses me, do they think holding the position will boost their public image?). Since there were no rival candidates, part of the lobbying, they were unanimously voted for because the UN cannot be bothered to actually give a damn about women’s rights and wanted the whole meeting to be over with*.

So now we’ll get another 2 years of minimal progress from the CSW, as has been the case in the past, and Saudi Arabia will be in a scrutinising light for the duration but not much will fundamentally change.

I hope I’m proven wrong!

• pessimistic? realistic?