Category: activism
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Who are we and what are we doing?
***Long read*** Personally, I figured it out at FiLiA 2022, in discussion of all the terrible things happening across the globe, and in glorious celebration with women from 70 countries. If you haven’t named it yet, please see if you can find it in this article. We need to sort out some distinctions… Women are…
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“I never lose”
Words spoken by a woman who has become the figurehead, a queen, for one part of the women’s sex-based rights movement. It’s a dangerous statement, standing alone. It’s a fantasy, a fictional position. I found out recently that the full quote she lifted the phrase from is, “I never lose – I win, or I…
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What I will remember
Standing on the fourth floor balcony in St David’s Hall in Cardiff, my head spinning amid the three days, 100 speakers, 70 nationalities of FiLiA 2022, a moment to look out across the bewildering mass of Victorian stone and autumn treetops to the hills, and breathe fresh air. I look the other way and see…
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How many crises can you deal with at once?
You’re battling the cost of living crisis, you’re contributing to support efforts for refugees, for foodbanks, for local facilities under threat, you’re dashing off to support climate-crisis demos and stand on picket lines, and then someone in the family gets sick, and you try and get help… That happened to me this year, and suddenly,…
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It’s come around to toilets again, has it?
Like many campaigners, I got bored long ago with the media’s habit of limiting the sex self-ID debate to whether transwomen should use women’s toilets – thing is for the most part they always have so whatever you think of that, it’s not news. Here are a couple of points that are, or should be…
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First thoughts after FiLiA 2022
In the first half of my life, the prevailing opinion in the UK was that the authorities should not interfere in the mutilation of girls and young women because it would be disrespectful to their parents’ culture. In the second half of my life, the prevailing opinion in the UK was that the authorities should…
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Politically homeless?
Analogies are melodramatic. That’s what makes them powerful. Outside of poetic language, real people die of being really homeless. It’s a shame and a constant anxiety to all of us that we’ve allowed bad government to continue for so long that in some areas, the homeless are as numerous about the streets as rubbish sacks…
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A letter to a GP, two stories of bureaucratic nightmare, and a petition to come
Dear Doctor, Will you please stop sending me texts with links to take up appointments for random routine tests. Yes of course I’m *that* age, yes of course I worry that I might get this or that problem but a) I have told you I don’t have a Smartphone so can’t click your links and…
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Seeing red lines
My partner tells me men rarely talk frankly about their feelings because they know if a bunch of men get steamed up, someone will start throwing punches. My older sisters tell me that by contrast, women’s politics is uncensored, and therefore has always had bouts of passionate screaming. That makes sense to me but I…
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What are the limits of freedom of speech?
<divers alarums, noises off etc> The tricky bit is that if you are a socialist and/or a feminist, there are limits to freedom of speech but they aren’t limits on who can speak, or what they can say. It’s more complex than that. I think it’s like this: freedom of speech is first and foremost…
Kay Green 