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Really useful feminism

Why we should all read Julie Bindel’s new book I’ve been wondering why feminism grabbed me so much the second time I looked, but not the first. I remember feminism going on around me when I was a teenager. I had a vague idea it involved a lot of arguments about whether you should shave…
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Anatomy of a witch hunt

A newly elected councillor (let us call her Councillor A) abstains in a council vote to make another councillor (let’s say Councillor B) Deputy Mayor. No news there, you would have thought. But when news gets out, the inevitable speculative social media posts appear, quickly escalating to accusing not just Councillor B but every councillor…
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Solidarity? It’s out here!

Being a socialist feminist in mainstream politics is a pain, it really is. If you intend to read this article, for your sanity, before you start could you remind yourself that outside of party politics, people have families, friends and colleagues with a range of opinions and ideas, and they mostly manage to get along,…
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Dwellers on the threshold

List A: Things you can do without being a member of a political party Set up and promote petitions Go on demos Organise demos Organise political education and film nights Write to your MP Get up delegations to go and visit MPs for discussions Write blogs, make videos and pod casts Join an affiliated union…
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On re-uniting the left

All white people are racist; all men are sexist, racism and sexism are systems that can exist and oppress without the presence of a single person with racist or sexist intentions; sex is not biological but exists on a spectrum; saying you are not racist, sexist or homophobic is proof that you are; language can…
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What I did on my holidays

There’s no such thing as a part-time activist when you have a predaTory government in power. We set out for one of the most beautiful and peaceful parts of the country we could think of for our holidays, and within ten minutes of our arrival, we were outside the Town Hall, helping to defend the…
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Everything is fine, nothing to see here!

“Do what you can” “Choose your battles” I have heard that too much lately, and usually as advice to women to leave certain contentious issues alone. It’s not working. What it’s doing (oooh call Prevent!) is pushing large numbers of women to the margins of culture and society. No, I am not exaggerating. Imagine…. Anorexia…
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Who or what is coming home?

If football ‘comes home’, I have a question or two. I think I have watched about two ‘proper’ football matches in my life. I really don’t do international level sport-as-a-spectator stuff. So I’m a bit worried about how you go about writing a blog about football. It’s like this – it’s clear ‘football’ has changed.…
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How to be patriotic

I spent this morning at work in my garden. A very, very British thing to do, weekend gardening. I spent this afternoon listening to Jeremy Corbyn and Richard Burgon talking about patriotism and national security. How quickly we forget what it was like when the good guys were getting to do all the big political…
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Telanon

You don’t just not need the mainstream media – you need to liberate yourself from it. I focus here on one newspaper and one TV channel because they tend to be the last ones people give up – the ‘best of a bad bunch’, as it were. Like many people (including you, probably, if you’re…