Women's Fightback, Feminism

The sorry saga of Ched Evans, the Sheffield United player found guilty of rape, has revealed the alarming prevalence of what has become known as “rape culture” — the unquestioned acceptance of myths around sexual violence. Rape Crisis identifies these myths as including: that rape happens because women are outside alone at night; because women dress or behave “provocatively”; because women don’t say “no” clearly enough; because women were drunk; because women don’t fight back, scream or run away; because men cannot control themselves; because some men are psychopaths; because men who have no...

Hope Not Hate’s efforts to bring down fascist organisations in the UK are admirable. I’m sure Nick Lowles, the main force behind the campaign, was pleased with the wipe-out of local BNP council seats in the recent elections. For his efforts in these results, I commend him. However, my initial response to seeing his blog post on 30 March “Let’s stop the racist pornographer” was derision. Of course I agree that Steve Squire, owner of a sex shop and alleged seller of date rape drugs is not a suitable person to be in the London Assembly. But on reading other posts Lowles has placed on his blog, I...

In the study of arts-based subjects, the tendency might be to apply theories (“isms”) to pieces of art as a kind of critique, as a way of approaching a text, etc, from a certain perspective, in order to write a convincing essay. For example, I remember being asked to write an essay by choosing a play, and choosing two critical theories to critique it with. Although I think it is more insightful to approach a playtext with the broadness of a political or social context, trying to interpret anything I could find in Aphra Behn’s The Rover as “socialist feminist” is not very helpful. First, “isms”...

The Women’s Library, which has been housed by the London Metropolitan University for ten years, could be closed. The library holds the biggest collection of literature dedicated to the history of women and attracts around 30,000 visitors every year. In March London Metropolitan’s Board of Governors decided to find The Women’s Library a new home or sponsor, or to run it as a skeleton service from December, reducing opening hours to one day per week. Vice Chancellor Malcolm Gillies has said the university can no longer fund a service that is used by so many from outside the institution and that...

Recent research highlights how badly cuts are affecting women, particularly those with children or other caring responsibilities. * Rising unemployment and underemployment, increasing unaffordability of childcare, and benefit cuts on top of the rising cost of living add up to a very bleak picture for all working-class people. But the cuts will mean huge regression in female independence and equality. Female unemployment is at its highest for 25 years, is rising and is growing disproportionately faster than male unemployment. 1.12 million women are “available for work” but are jobless. The...

The Stop the Arrests Campaign , a coalition of sex worker rights activists and supporters, is calling for a moratorium on arrests, detention and deportation of sex workers in London with immediate effect until the end of the Olympic Games. Prior to the Olympics run up it was anti-trafficking laws and policies were resulting in brothel raids, closures and arbitrary arrests, detention and deportation of people working in the sex industry. For many sex workers these laws have dire consequences. Such policing creates a climate of fear among workers, leaving them less likely to report crimes...

On Saturday 21 April, Feminist Fightback and other pro-choice activists tried to prevent anti-abortion extremists from marching to a Marie Stopes clinic in Woodford, Essex. A group calling themselves the “Helpers of God's Precious Infants” attempted to stop women from attending their appointment at the clinic. They held up images of foetuses and blocked one side of the road, handing out flyers which claimed that abortion will “damage your maternal instinct and ... bonding process with any other children you have” and can lead to “alcohol, drug abuse and eating disorders.” When feminist...

Islamist parties have taken to the streets to oppose the ratification of a law which would penalise domestic violence in Pakistan. Women’s rights campaigners confronted the bigots outside parliament last week. The Islamists’ arguments against the legislation include: preventing domestic violence is “Western”; and that the Bill is a copy of Indian legislation. A spokesperson for Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Fazl said, “We will not let these senseless women, who depend on American dollars, to work against the Constitution and Islamic Shariah,” The anti-violence Bill, first introduced in 2009, advocates...

On 10 March 16-year-old Amina Filali killed herself by swallowing rat poison. Amina had been badly beaten during a forced marriage to Mustapha Kellak, a man who had raped her. Although there have been some limited legal improvement in the position of women in Morocco, the state still allows a rapist to marry an underage victim as a way of avoiding prosecution. The law — known as Article 475 — says a “kidnapper” of a minor can marry his victim so that dishonour is not brought on her family. Legislation designed to outlaw all forms of violence against women, planned since 2006, has yet to appear...

Kate Devine, Erasmus student at the University of Turin, looks into the recent resurgence of feminism in Italy, and asks what has brought tens of thousands into the streets. On 11 February 2011 hundreds of thousands of women piled into the streets of Italian cities and towns to shout “Se non ora, quando?” (“If not now, when?”). For decades Italy has lagged behind the rest of Europe and much of the wider world when it comes to gender equality. The media perpetuates a damaging stereotype of women as nothing more than window dressing; so much so, that even though 60% of Italian graduates are...