Domestic violence: definitions and prevalence

Domestic violence (DV) is physical and sexual violence, psychological and emotional abuse, threats and intimidation, financial blackmail, harassment, isolation, also belittling and unreasonable criticism within an intimate or family relationship. It could be part of a pattern of coercive and controlling behaviour. It should include the abusive actions of extended family members including such things as forced marriage and “honour crimes”.

DV cuts: “taking women back to the 70s”?

Leanne Connor is a recent graduate of the University of Bristol who wrote a dissertation on “Domestic Violence: a socialist feminist perspective?

The impact of the coalition government’s spending plans on women’s domestic violence services”. In the course of the project she spoke to people working in domestic violence services. Below are some of her findings.

Misogyny and sexism online

Sexist and misogynistic “trolling”, particularly on social networking site Twitter, is in the news.

A few years ago, an internet “troll” was someone who wrote things online for no other reason than to annoy people or elicit a reaction. “Don’t feed the troll” was a common expression, meaning, “Don’t end up in arguments with people whose only aim is to piss you off”.

“Troll” has since come to mean something else — “someone who acts maliciously or nastily on the internet”.

Solidarity is not just for men!

The concept of solidarity in the labour movement is still too often seen as a male preserve. It reflects the view in wider society of political authority as commonly male, and the exercising of political power as a male activity. This prevailing view is the norm in the media, in education, in sport and in wider civil society.

Political sexism is backed up by, and from the same misogynist root as, heterosexism, from which also stem homophobia and transphobia.

The truth about violence against women

Trigger warning/content note: detailed discussion of rape and sexual violence.

What are we saying when we talk about “violence against women”? Well, one thing we’re not saying, because we’re not actually talking about it, is male violence against women.

The biblical story of Potiphar’s wife established the myth of the vengeance of “a woman scorned” and the damage she could do to a virtuous man in rigidly patriarchal culture. The spectre of false accusation was presented as being as bad, if not worse than, rape. That tradition continued into the middle ages and beyond.

How to fight sexism

Challenging sexism as part of the fight to end women’s oppression should be a central part of the left’s activity, in the labour movement and in society.

Unfortunately the problem of sexism is sometimes poorly understood and met with indifference or dismissal by labour movement activists and even socialists.

Egypt nears tipping point

Five weeks after the 3 July coup, Egypt looks near another tipping point.

On 3 July the army, following huge protests against Egypt’s Islamist president Mohammed Morsi, ousted the Islamist government and installed a new administration of its choice.

The Brotherhood has chosen not to steer towards civil war as Algeria’s Islamists did when that country’s army cancelled elections in 1992 to stop the Islamists winning. But it is keeping up mass street protests.

East Midlands Trains action has impact

From 20 July, on-train and platform staff working for East Midlands Trains. have refused to work rest days and overtime and are working to rule. This has caused numerous train delays and cancellations, particularly on Sunday 28 July.

The two to one result in the ballot for action short of strike is a welcome reversal of previous failures to respond to management attacks.

Johnson to force through fire cuts

London Mayor Boris Johnson has overruled the city’s Fire Authority to force through potentially devastating cuts to the capital’s fire service.

10 stations, 14 engines, and 552 jobs will go as part of a cuts plan aimed at saving nearly £30 million. Johnson is making the cuts unilaterally, despite the Authority having voted against them.

94% of respondents to the public consultation around the cuts opposed them, with hundreds attending local meetings and demonstrations. Around 1,000 firefighters and supporters marched on 18 July to demand the cuts plan be shelved.

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