Women's rights and Feminism
See also our pages on Marxism and women's liberation and our pamphlet Comrades and Sisters.
A living wage for cleaners!
Submitted on 26 June, 2009 - 18:45
On Wednesday 17 June, tube cleaners and supporters, including Feminist Fightback, Campaign Against Immigration Controls, and MPs John McDonnell and Jeremy Corbyn, demonstrated outside City Hall to demand that London Mayor Boris Johnson keep his promise of a living wage for all tube cleaners.
- Login or register to post comments
- Read more
- Printer-friendly version
What the Other Feminists Look Like...
Submitted on 2 June, 2009 - 10:49
Southwark Town Hall, Peckham Road, SE5
An evening of making trouble, sharing ideas and planning ways for women to fight back against the crisis, hosted by Feminist Fightback.
Paying a visit to Harriet Harman, Southwark Townhall (5pm), followed by film showing (6.30pm) and discussion at Studio 96, The Galleria, Pennack Road, SE16 6PW
More: http://www.feministfightback.org.uk
Sex workers stopped the traffic!
Submitted on 1 April, 2009 - 08:23
On Tuesday 31 April, sex workers and our allies held a successful speak-out at the Eros Fountain, Piccadilly Circus against criminalisation and for labour rights for everyone who works in the sex industry.
- Login or register to post comments
- Read more
- Printer-friendly version
Feminist Fightback diary
Submitted on 27 March, 2009 - 22:56
Speak out and stand up for sex worker rights
On Tuesday 31 March at 2pm at the Eros Fountain, Piccadilly Circus, workers in the sex industry and their allies are speaking out against the Policing and Crime Bill which will further criminalise sex workers.
- Login or register to post comments
- Read more
- Printer-friendly version
Gender, Race and Class — Conference Report
Submitted on 13 March, 2009 - 08:27
Around 300 people attended Gender, Race and Class, a feminist activist conference on Saturday 14 February. The conference was the product of months of planning, with the main initiators (Feminist Fightback) and the broader organising group contacting, discussing with and inviting different organisations and individuals who we thought would share political ideas in common: left, socialist, anarchist and anti-capitalist.
- Login or register to post comments
- Read more
- Printer-friendly version
London Feminist Fightback Meeting
Submitted on 6 March, 2009 - 14:41
Highbury Roundhouse Youth and Community Centre, 71 Ronalds Road, London N5
Gender, race and class
Submitted on 19 February, 2009 - 12:10
300 people attended Gender, Race and Class a feminist activist conference on Saturday 14 February.
- Login or register to post comments
- Read more
- Printer-friendly version
International Solidarity for Women's Liberation
Submitted on 9 February, 2009 - 18:27
Room 3A, University of London Union, Malet Street
A public meeting to celebrate International Women's Day
As women in countries including occupied Iraq and Afghanistan fight to defend the most basic human rights, women across the world are being hit by the economic crisis - through job losses, wage cuts, cuts in services, increased domestic violence and in many other ways. We, activists in the women's and workers' movements, are organising this meeting to celebrate International Women's Day in the way its founders meant it to be celebrated: by promoting the international struggle for women's liberation.
Speakers: Houzan Mahmoud (Organisation of Women's Freedom in Iraq); Maria Exall (Communication Workers' Union national executive); Feminist Fightback; Jean Lambert (Green MEP); Terri Jude (writer for the Independent); Chemilines striker (invited)
Others tbc
For more info email rebecca.galbraith@yahoo.co.uk or ring 07971 719 797
Teesside Solidarity Network: inaugural meeting. "Ecology, feminism, solidarity"
Submitted on 27 January, 2009 - 11:42
193-195 Linthorpe Road Middlesbrough TS1 4AG
With the recent war in Gaza, the economic crisis across the globe, and attacks on abortion rights, asylum seekers, and civil liberties many activists are looking for new ideas about how to confront injustice and oppression.
We are a group of activists inspired by workers and womens solidarity movements and are a from a variety of different traditions - what we are all concerned with is thinking about which way forward for the left and for working class and feminist politics.
This is the first of a new series of meetings where we can get together and talk openly and critically about politics with each other and revitalize the threads of radical history and politics that have been part of Teesside's hidden history.
Feminist Fightback London Meeting
Submitted on 18 January, 2009 - 14:29
The Angel, 73 City Road, London EC1Y 1BD
Discussions ongoing campaigns: tube cleaners' solidarity, reproductive freedoms, benefit rights....
Crisis: the impact on women. The pressures and the fightback
Submitted on 16 January, 2009 - 21:34
Beyond boob jobs — how might the credit crunch affect women? is a recent article on The F-word (a feminist blog) by Carolyn Roberts. The writer makes an observation that I found true when researching this topic — that there is pretty much nothing written on the potential impact of the crisis on women.
- Login or register to post comments
- Read more
- Printer-friendly version
Support Fata Lemes!
Submitted on 22 December, 2008 - 19:37
Last week (18 December) the press picked up on the industrial tribunal case of a woman who claims she was sacked for refusing to wear a revealing red cocktail dress in her job as a waitress at a posh London restaurant. The press interest was do with the fact that Fata Lemes is a Muslim (originally from Bosnia).
- Login or register to post comments
- Read more
- Printer-friendly version
Feminism and the Student Movement: dayschool in Manchester organised by Feminist Fightback and others
Submitted on 5 November, 2008 - 15:02
University of Manchester Students' Union (Oxford Road)
A dayschool for student feminist activists sponsored by Feminist Fightback, Education Not for Sale Women and the Riveters (Manchester University women's group)
A big part of the recent revival in feminist discussion and activity is based among students; and hundreds of student women have attended events like the Feminist Fightback conferences. In a period when most remaining women's officer positions are more and more precarious, when abortion rights are under attack and when the economic crisis is putting question of women's liberation into sharp relief with cuts in services, pay cuts in the public sector (where women are the majority of the workforce) and a resurgence of reactionary right-wing moralism, NUS Women's Campaign should be playing a leading role in the fight on these issues - but it is not.
We are organising this one day event to develop links between feminist activists in different universities and colleges; build stronger campaigns on issues from abortion rights to free education; debate the position of women in the economic crisis; and discuss how we can reclaim the NUS Women's Campaign from its current state of inactivity.
Discussion to include:
* How to build a political, campaigning women's group
* Defending Women's Officer positions, and winning new ones
* Abortion rights and reproductive freedoms
* Women and the fight for free education
* Feminism and LGBT liberation
* Women and the economic crisis
* The future of NUS Women's Campaign
For more information, or if you have suggestions for a session etc, contact Gemma Short, NUS Women's Committee, at gemstone_88@fastmail.fm
* Feminist Fightback is a socialist feminist campaigning group.
* ENS Women is the women's wing of Education Not for Sale, the anti-capitalist student network.
* The Riveters are Manchester University's women's group.
For the Facebook group for this event, see here.
Spiced-up vice
Submitted on 3 November, 2008 - 11:16
From the start this programme’s commentary promised “spiced up” footage and propaganda. And I was hoping to see a proper documentary. “We look at the dark and dangerous netherworld [of London’s sex industry]” the programme makers said. And, “We look at the work of the Clubs and Vice Squad... who have become a byword for integrity and honesty.”
- Login or register to post comments
- Read more
- Printer-friendly version
London Socialist Feminist Discussion Group: The life and politics of Sylvia Pankhurst
Submitted on 1 November, 2008 - 14:57
School of Oriental and African Studies, Thornhaugh Street, London, WC1
London Socialist Feminist Group: How will the financial crisis affect feminist struggle?
Submitted on 1 November, 2008 - 14:54
Room B104, Brunei Gallery, SOAS, Thornhaugh Street/Russell Square, London WC1.
The Cost of Domestic Violence
Submitted on 31 October, 2008 - 12:10
Click here for an interesting post by Cat Grant on Stroppyblog about the financial costs of domestic violen
- Login or register to post comments
- Read more
- Printer-friendly version
London Socialist Feminist Discussion Group: Feminism and Class Politics
Submitted on 28 October, 2008 - 19:01
At the School of Oriental and African Studies, Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1. Room G52.
The London Socialist Feminist Dicussion Group is open to women and men who are interested in discussing socialist and feminist ideas in an informal and welcoming forum. Our group meets monthly.
Our programme of meetings continues in November with: “Feminism and Class Politics”
The meeting will discuss issues such as: What do we mean by class?, What are the feminist critiques of class and what are the socialist responses? Why should feminists link up with class struggle campaigns? What is socialist feminism?
Download a leaflet here...
"Reclaim the Night" march
Submitted on 27 October, 2008 - 15:21
Assemble Whitehall Place, central London. The march is women-only.
March to start promptly at 6.30pm
Followed by rally with speakers and stalls, open to all women, children and men and fully accessible at: Friends Meeting House, Main Hall, Euston Road.
http://www.reclaimthenight.org/index.html
Feminist Fightback organising meeting
Submitted on 19 October, 2008 - 08:25
Sex work: Government clampdown will endanger women
Submitted on 17 October, 2008 - 13:19
Last month Jacqui Smith announced at the Labour Party Conference that from October the government will be taking steps to clamp down on the sex industry in the UK.
Constance Markievicz: a life
Submitted on 15 October, 2008 - 08:04
These are biographical notes on the 'Red Countess', Constance Markievicz, prepared for the London Socialist Feminist Discussion Group on 10 October.
- Login or register to post comments
- Read more
- Printer-friendly version
Anti-alcohol, or anti-women?
Submitted on 3 October, 2008 - 10:47
Binge drinking in the UK is out of control and apparently sexually promiscuous, un-lady-like young women are at fault. The rise of “ladette” culture is splashed across the papers and women’s magazines are full of images of celebrities ‘exposed’ as drunk with their underwear showing as they climb out of a limo. At the same time, ITV’s hit show Ladette to Lady “transforms some of Britain’s most extreme binge drinking, sexually shameless, anti-social rebels into respectable ladies”.
- Login or register to post comments
- Read more
- Printer-friendly version
End injustice against women workers!
Submitted on 3 October, 2008 - 10:40
By
A judgement in the Appeal Court this month upheld all the substantive elements of a case brought against the GMB union by a group of women workers in Middlesbrough. The GMB were found to have “indirectly discriminated” against these women in order to pursue a “Single Status Agreement” deal with the local council that focused on future pay and pay protection. The union ignored their right to significant amounts of back pay. The GMB now want to appeal to the House of Lords as they potentially face large financial penalties as the women’s lawyers pursue their case.
- Login or register to post comments
- Read more
- Printer-friendly version
Our movement needs democracy!
Submitted on 2 October, 2008 - 10:45
The FEM conferences (see www.femconferences.org.uk) have made a name of themselves as the feminist conferences to go to, particularly within the mainstream of feminism and with the media and public. Certainly they have the numbers, with the latest — FEM08 — pulling a crowd of about 400 people, in fact it was supposedly oversubscribed. However if you look at the way they are run and at the list of topics for any one of the conferences most women would be forced to say there is very little for them there.
The FEM conferences don’t hide the fact that their brand of feminism is firmly rooted in bourgeois ideals, with sessions such as “sexism and the city” concentrating the fight for liberation on achieving equal pay for high flying city workers — made worse by their patronising nod to the Justice for Cleaners campaign.
At FEM08 there was a prevailing feeling of meek contentedness — “we’re all very good feminists for coming to these events, lets all give ourselves a pat on the back”. Despite the many things to criticise about their approach to feminism (which would make a very long article) the main problem I wish to highlight about the FEM conferences was the absolutely stifling political atmosphere the event took place in; it was like a vacuum.
Not only was there no time for debate (being a one day conference, and running late, this I would slightly understand) it was positively discouraged. Sessions were conducted to the strict method of listen to a speaker, have other speakers comment, approximately two or three questions from the floor, a bit of a self congratulating summation and, well, that would be it. No debate, no discussion, no plans for action or link-ins to existing campaigns.
Several Workers’ Liberty women went as part of Education Not for Sale Women (as the conference is held at Sheffield University student union and is aimed predominantly at students and young “activists”). We had bulletins dealing with some specific issues, such as sex work, equal pay and political representation. We also devoted a section to the type of women’s movement we need, about open and democratic structures, an orientation to the labour movement and working women, and the importance of direct action.
Predictably they did not go down well with the organising group, who accused us of undermining the work the volunteers do for the FEM conferences and going deliberately to spread “anti-FEM08” literature. This highlights perfectly the way FEM08 deal with any view differing to theirs. Despite requests for a stall neither Feminist Fightback nor ENS Women were recognised nor allowed room at the event.
Although I can understand that FEM08 wished to accommodate many speakers and organisations, this does not excuse the lack of open debate. Apparently debate is not needed when you have such important speakers as Germaine Greer (who apparently made very transphobic comments... again) or Julie Bindle (who thinks prostitution will miraculously disappear overnight if we criminalise men for buying sex).
We have criticised the organisation and structure of the FEM conferences before, and I think if anything it has got worse. They are organised by a small set of people with a slightly larger section of volunteers. Appeals are put out on the FEMSOC website and within local Fawcett and FEMSOC groups for people to get involved and help. However at no point are other feminist groups approached, there are no open meetings.
Gender, Race, Class conference-organising meeting
Submitted on 28 September, 2008 - 21:02
Arbour Centre, 100 Shandy Street, Stepney Green
Meeting to plan an anti-capitalist feminist activist conference on 14 February 2009. Interested in getting involved? Come along and find out how!
Feminist Fightback organising meeting
Submitted on 28 September, 2008 - 20:57
Arbour Centre, 100 Shandy Street, Stepney Green
Meeting to discuss campaigns on reproductive rights, tubeworker solidarity and much more. Want to get involved? Come along!
Download a general leaflet about the Feminist Fightback campaign network here.
Gender, Race, Class conference-organising meeting
Submitted on 28 September, 2008 - 20:54
Arbour Centre, 100 Shandy Street, Stepney Green
Meeting to discuss an anti-capitalist feminist activist conference, to be held in London on 14 February 2009. Want to get involved? Come along.
London socialist-feminist discussion group: Who was Constance Markiewicz?
Submitted on 27 September, 2008 - 20:37
Lucas Arms, 245a Gray's Inn Road, London
Constance Gore-Booth was born into an Anglo-Irish landowning family in 1868. In her 20s in London she became comitted to votes for women.
Later, after marrying Count Casimir Markiewicz from Poland, and moving to Dublin she became involved in the Irish nationalist movement. In 1908 Constance joined Sinn Fein. But she was also becoming more interested in the struggles of Irish workers.
During the Dublin lock-out of 1913 she threw herself into solidarity work. She took part in the Easter Rising of April 1916, was arrested and charged with treason. Initially condemned to death, her sentence was was commuted to life imprisonment, then she was released in 1917.
Constance Markiewicz was the only woman who was successful in the 1918 General Election (as a Sinn Fein candidate) but did not attend the House of Commons in London. She opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty.
Come and hear about and discuss the fascinating political life of Constance Markiewicz.
Download leaflet here.
