Tag: FiLiA
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Viva FiLiA!

It’s three weeks now since I got my hands on a copy of Rahila Gupta’s ‘British Feminism Through a FiLiA Lens.’ I’ve been reading furiously ever since, and have only just emerged. 384 closely printed pages about all that FiLiA has instigated, inspired or been a part of over the last ten years. To say…
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Rule One: Don’t give up

There’s lots to do, and plenty of people are in action, learning more every day about how it’s done. First, how it’s not done: I think most people have worked out that our party-political system is – if not broken, certainly captured, and not doing what it says on the tin. It’s taking us a…
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Prepare to support your trans comrades

(This is a re-edit of a post from 2022 ( original here ) republished with a few notes in brackets because — well, here we are again, Trump and all, and a heck of a lot of people have learned nothing.) No, I am not saying be ‘a trans ally’. That’s identity-politics nonsense, it’s being…
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Congratulations sisters!

[The header pic is a screenshot from a 2018 article in the National Scot, published during the #NoDebate years] This week, Woman’s Place UK closed up shop, and the women who founded it are now resting on their laurels amidst cheers and tears from women all over the country. Well if I know them, they’re…
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Choose your phobia and start shouting

I was working on a piece about feminism and Palestine when the story about women and the Olympics took over everyone’s passions. I did get one blog out about that… …when the race riots in the UK took over everyone’s passions. Oppression Olympics There is no question in my mind, from what I’ve seen, that…
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The little-known story of being an immigrant

There aren’t many issues you don’t need to cover at a women’s conference. Most people know that women make up over half the population of our world, but surprisingly few realize the significance of being a woman trying to get along in a world designed by and for men. Few people realize how sex impacts…
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On being disinformed

***Long read*** For most of the last decade, despite my determination to live effectively in the real world, I have been repeatedly drawn into apparently intractable battles of words. It’s not just me, either. I’ve lost count of the number of people who’ve told me they’ve given up on politics entirely because “it’s all so…
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Ha ha! Here’s proof the left are far-right!

If I was going to be really bitchy… well alright, I am going to be a bit wicked. Here’s why… Some years ago now, a group of trade unionist women got together to deal with the blatantly obvious clash between Stonewall’s advocacy of sex self-ID and women’s legal rights. (I think now everyone’s seen what’s…
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Real feminism

I wrote a piece recently in which I suggested we dump the phrase ‘gender critical’. Someone who read it messaged me and said “so what shall we call ourselves instead?” First, let’s look at the issue… What’s wrong with ‘gender critical’? I had been wondering, but others were ahead of me, pointing out that you…
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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…