Tag: FiLiA
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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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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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A memorable week in the end times
***long read for the weekend*** July 2022, UK, planet earth Many of us do not forget we are well past the time we could have dealt with the climate crisis without cataclysmic consequences. Many of us are grappling with the cost of living crisis (that is, our government’s complete failure to address the problem of…
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Left again…
The young Eleanor Marx persuaded her whole family to join her in attending the huge and enthusiastic demo in London in support of the Fenians. ‘Disobedience to tyrants is a duty to God’ said one of the placards. The Marx family sang the Marseillaise. They all ‘danced with joy’ when they heard of the election…
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A Woman’s Place is the Key
The life of woman does not coincide with that of man. Their lives do not intersect; in many cases do not even touch. Hence the life of the race is stunted. – Eleanor Marx and Edward Aveling in ‘The Woman Question’ 1886 In Bristol, on 3rd May, the organisation ‘A Woman’s Place UK’ held a…
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Prepare to support your trans comrades
***long read*** No, I am not saying be ‘a trans ally’. That’s identity-politics nonsense, it’s being partisan, it’s like joining a football supporters’ club – but the thing is, the wheels really have come off Stonewall’s #NoDebate train in their self-ID/queer theory/gender-ideology campaign, and it’s time to re-assess the situation. It’s a real shame it…
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Our society hates women
Yep, she was right, wasn’t she (you know the quote I’m thinking of). I know, I know, someone’s going to say ‘oh, society loves *this* woman, and *these* women…’ Yep. I thought that too, for most of my life. I knew loads of blokes who were decent to women, and loads of successful women, shining…
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What is a safe country?
Our politicians are talking about safe countries. They say refugees need to claim asylum in the “first safe country” they reach. In today’s news, we’re told that the UK and the Netherlands have agreed that refugees arriving here need to be “returned” to the “first safe country.” Sounds logical doesn’t it? But who decides what…
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To the person handing out leaflets outside FiLiA in Portsmouth
Was it the ‘good cop, bad cop’ approach? The kiddies filled the square with obscenities and threats while you did nice and polite leafletting by the conference entrance? Well, maybe you really did mean well and had no idea what they were doing so just in case that is so, here’s a polite reply to…
Kay Green 