Category: Politics
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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…
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Words are important (an impolite commentary)

The man formerly known as Prince Charles has just become our liege-lord, apparently. I resorted to my dictionary. “liege” describes the relationships between a “feudal superior” and a “vassal”. A “vassal” (that’s you) is a holder of land “on condition of homage or allegiance” or a “person in a subordinate position”. So, peasant – have…
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We girls were double-divided

There’s a puzzling range of controversies raging over ‘entertainment’ and ‘the arts’. Social justice warriors are busy finding items – books, films, statues, to condemn for racism, and whilst libraries obediently bury offending books, the women’s movement battles over misogynistic and mind-bending traditions such as nightclub drag queens crossing yet more boundaries to present as…
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Clever, awkward and what was it again…?

Five years ago, I wrote a blog post called If I’m so clever… I didn’t say exactly what it was about, but if you’re interested in the different ways people think and work, do please take a look. I think you’ll be able to work it out… ( So sorry we didn’t manage to win…
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Blown wide open

We should thank the Tories for filling the vacuum after Britannia’s attempt at democracy with an extended demonstration of just how dishonest and corrosive conservative politics really is. Here, James O’Brien amplifies an example from Liz Truss… … but the idea has been acted out time and time again. Hastings, do you remember our former…
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I’m on strike – Cormoran Strike

Lethal White by Robert Galbraith If anyone asks, I don’t like detective novels – same way I don’t like spy novels. For one thing they’re menz stories set in a menz world, however many dynamic women you put in them (yes, yes, I saw all the innovative series about females acting like the eternal private…
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Early morning picket line

Having a busy day on, I decided to visit today’s RMT picket in Hastings before I got started — of course, 7.30 in the morning isn’t particularly early to most of our key workers. On the way to the station, I noticed some newly decorated lamp posts… … don’t forget, the strikes and demos you…
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The Goldilocks Zone

This is a road-map of the “sex-based rights v gender-identity” conversation that’s raging out there… What? Oh – apparently, a lot of people haven’t really had that conversation yet, beyond a few comments on stories in the press. Okay sisters, we have a job to do… Otherwise known as the “Circumstellar Habitable Zone”, there is…
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To a good man

You know that cry, “It’s not all men”? Actually, it is all men. I know it, and I know you can’t entirely solve it – not alone, anyway, and men aren’t brought up to be good at thinking together. It would help if more men could get their heads round exactly what it is they…