Category: women
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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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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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It’s just not fair
To quote Mandy Clare, who will be joining me in a presentation about women and socialism at FiLiA, socialism is primarily about fairness. But even if you’re not a socialist, most people value fair play (see for example, Fair Play for Women ). Looking at Eddie Izzard, currently seeking to be Labour parliamentary candidate for…
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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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Half a Yellow Sun and the Whole of the Moon
Think of the starving children in Biafra. If you’re my age, you’ll remember being told that, probably over the pig-bins in the school dining room. Kids used to joke, asking if the school would send the contents of the pig-bins to Biafra. What did they know? My life changed a lot after my first visit…
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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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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…
Kay Green 