Modern aligners aren’t the only treatment for crooked teeth; my fixed braces worked wonders in four months

SmileDirectClub, the “orthodontics disruptor” that popularised clear, affordable teeth aligners by mail order, went bust last autumn and I wondered whether the world was falling out of love with designer braces. My interest was more than professional: at the time, I was gearing up to get my own upper and lower braces fitted and, unlike every other adult I knew, I’d decided against invisible aligners in favour of the metal train tracks I’d scarcely seen since school.

I should say that I tried Invisalign many years ago and was an undeniably bad patient. Exasperated at the hokey-cokey of removing the aligners before every cuppa, I lasted only a month. I felt that the success of such an expensive treatment should ideally be in the hands of experts, not dependent on my own diligence and willpower. Whenever anyone I knew saw another three months added casually on to their treatment timeline, they were told (rightly, no doubt) that it was their own fault for not wearing the aligners for the requisite 22 hours a day. So when I visited Edward and Tanya at The ABC Smile in London, about making over my crooked, chipped and moving teeth, and they were adamant that (marginally cheaper) fixed braces with modern white ceramic blocks and bands would be a faster, better and more predictable first step than aligners, I felt oddly relieved.

Emboldened by the financial independence offered by self-help groups, women in rural Odisha are increasingly becoming a force politicians have to reckon with

Basanti Sabar, 30, is a third-time voter. But this time round, as the eastern Indian state of Odisha goes to the polls in simultaneous general and assembly elections, the former migrant worker will make a crucial shift in the way she votes.

In patriarchal rural India, who the family vote for is usually decided by the men. On 13 May, however, Sabar and other women in Padampur village will for the first time vote for a candidate of their choice – a shift that is influencing the way state and national politicians speak to women in their manifestos.

Bestselling author of Lace and Superwoman turned her attention to helping people overcome anxiety about maths

Shirley Conran, the author of Lace and Superwoman, has died aged 91, her son the designer Jasper Conran has announced.

The bestselling “ queen of the bonkbuster ” was also the founder of the Maths Anxiety Trust, a not-for-profit organisation that aims to help people who experience anxiety or fear when faced with maths problems. Last week Conran was awarded a damehood in her bed in Charing Cross hospital in London for her services to mathematics education.

Christopher Kirker tells members that normal waiting times will apply for most women as concerns raised about tokenism

The chair of the Garrick has told its members that the club may consider “allowing one or two exceptional … lady members” to join in the near future but that normal waiting times will apply for the majority of women.

A leaked email from Christopher Kirker to all members on Wednesday described Tuesday’s vote ending the London institution’s men-only rules as “momentous” and addressed questions about how quickly the club might move to admit women.

The rappers’ fiery diss-battle has raised allegations of domestic violence and sex abuse – but for the wrong reasons

Drake and Kendrick Lamar have been battling it out for days in a vicious diss-track feud, but what started out as a sparring of wits between two of the world’s biggest rappers has quickly devolved into an excruciating game of who can expose the most damning thing about the other.

On his songs Meet the Grahams and Not Like Us, Lamar addresses Drake’s well-documented history of disturbing and inappropriate alleged behavior with minors, while on Family Matters, Drake has revived years-old domestic violence accusations against Lamar. Both Drake and Lamar deny any wrongdoing.

Tayo Bero is a Guardian US columnist

All-male private members’ club in London has voted in favour of women joining after Guardian coverage

• Garrick votes to accept female members for first time

London’s Garrick Club has finally voted to allow women to become members, 193 years after it first opened its doors.

The vote was passed at the end of a private meeting during which several hundred members spent two hours debating whether to permit women to join. In the end, almost 60% backed the move.

Last night’s membership vote is a step in the right direction, but this remains a closed, elite institution

Britain’s “old boys’ club” suffered a blow last night . The Garrick Club – an exclusive gentlemen’s club in central London and relic of some 19th-century fantasy of male dominance – voted to allow women to become members for the first time in almost 200 years. About 60% of the votes were in favour.

In the 21st century, there is simply no legitimate justification for the exclusion of women. There actually never was. That the Garrick Club’s exclusionary policy has been so robustly defended in recent weeks speaks to a profound misogyny alive and well in Britain. What would including women do to the refined, rarefied air of the club? Contaminate it with our chit-chat? Our nagging? Would our feminine charms prove too much of a distraction?

The refrain of “nothing to see here” is all too familiar to so many women. It’s not a work meeting, it’s just a couple of holes at the golf course. It’s just blowing off steam. It’s just a couple of drinks with the guys. We didn’t think you would want to come. But it’s not plausible to say that work doesn’t happen in spaces like the Garrick, and that these aren’t places where, even loosely, critical decisions are made. Clubs like the Garrick are built for soft networking, the sidebar conversations where real power coalesces, uninterrupted by pesky women. A sense that you belong among its exclusive cohort is in and of itself a means of sustaining male power.

The proof is in the revelation of the names of about 60 of the Garrick’s most influential members . Senior civil servants, politicians, the head of MI6 (who subsequently resigned from the club ), even King Charles. These men quite literally reign over the most powerful institutions of our country, places where women are consistently underrepresented and underserved. Rhetorically, they are committed to driving equality. Some of them tweet on International Women’s Day. But these commitments ring very hollow when you realise that men in power choose to spend their spare time in a club that was founded in 1831, and has scarcely changed since.

We also have to consider what we lose when we keep women at the door. Do the 40% of Garrick members who voted against allowing women in believe that only men make worthy contributions to arts, politics, culture? These men would do well to consider what we miss out on when we fail to recognise women as equal contributors and thinkers, with the right and ability to converse, share ideas and shape culture. What might the world look like if women were treated as true equals in these conversations?

The question will be asked about women-only spaces. If men-only clubs must permit women, what of women’s clubs? But there is a key difference. Men gathering in influential places to the exclusion of women is profoundly status quo. They’ve been doing it for hundreds of years. When senior politicians and policymakers take lunch together at the Garrick, they are reinforcing power structures that have existed for centuries. There are plenty of women-only spaces that will continue to exclude men, but they do so to resist power, not to hoard it. (For the record, the Fawcett Society welcomes and encourages our male allies to join us).

Last night’s vote may be a step in the right direction, but of course there are still plenty of reasons for discomfort. The Garrick remains an elite club where only a chosen few are invited, and even fewer can afford membership. That’s a conversation that we must have. But it’s important that a majority of members have accepted that to continue to exclude women is harmful and self-defeating. Now the real work begins of actively including a diversity of women. And Garrick members, new and old, need to ask themselves what they are doing to share and distribute power fairly – not guard it among their own.

Jemima Olchawski is the chief executive of the Fawcett Society

Issue was not existence of men-only clubs but uniqueness of Garrick’s powerful membership list casting unflattering spotlight on British establishment

• Garrick Club votes to accept female members for first time

Who cares that an elite organisation full of mostly elderly white men has decided to allow women to join them in a small central London private members’ club?

Such was the reaction of many of the club’s members who had responded with extreme ill-temper to the Guardian’s recent decision to publish the names of about 60 of the Garrick Club’s most influential members . There has been an orgy of mansplaining in newspaper comment pieces. The Garrick’s rules prohibit networking or even working inside the building, these members say, so it would be very wrong-headed and silly to believe that anything of any consequence ever happens within the club’s four walls. The Garrick is merely a spot for friendly relaxation.

Meeting on Tuesday evening will debate the issue after new legal analysis of 193-year-old rulebook

The men-only Garrick Club will vote on Tuesday evening on whether female members should be allowed to join, after decades of controversy over the London club’s refusal to admit women.

Members will meet at a Covent Garden venue at 5pm to debate the issue. They will then vote on a resolution inviting them to confirm that a new legal analysis of the Garrick’s 193-year-old rulebook suggests there is actually nothing in it preventing women from joining already.