Archive for the 'Feminism' Category
The National Organization for Women has elected a 56-year-old Maryland woman as its next president in a close win over a rival who had been endorsed by the group’s current president.
NOW said Terry O’Neill, who is white, defeated Latifa Lyles, a 33-year-old African-American woman from Washington, D.C., during the organization’s three-day national conference in Indianapolis. [...]
After years on the defensive during the Bush administration, the National Organization for Women is elated to have a president sharing many of its goals. Yet NOW heads into its own leadership contest — a sharp contrast of age and race — mindful of the need to energize its ranks.
Kim Gandy, a savvy former prosecutor, [...]
Has the move toward online resources had an effect on source material for the study of black feminist theory? The last forty years have witnessed a critical mass of literary and theoretical writings on the black feminist movement. This article evaluates the coverage of writings by a select group of forty “second wave” (1963–75) and [...]
“They said I was a man hater, and I never defended myself against that, because I do believe that men are to blame for the condition of women”
The Marilyn French I knew Marilyn French was a fierce advocate for feminism. Her books encouraged a generation of women to take charge of their lives Marilyn [...]
Feminist Collective takes aim at male-centered politics
“We don’t like to admit it,” says my interlocutor, “but Lebanon is a deeply prejudiced society. It is racist, sexist and classist.” In response to the intolerant environment in which they found themselves, Nadine, an American University of Beirut graduate who is currently studying for a master’s in philosophy, [...]
The religious order banning women from dressing like tomboys was bad enough. But the fatwa by Malaysia’s leading clerics against yoga was the last straw.
“They have never even done yoga!” said Zainah Anwar, head of a Malaysian women’s rights group called Sisters in Islam.
Anwar argues that the edict, issued late last year by Malaysia’s National [...]
Putting lipstick on a feminist is not the same as a vision.
Feminist Utopias have become personal spaces – spaces for lipstick or not; high heels or not; glamour; children, and dreams small enough to be accomplished by shopping, exercising or getting the right man or the right sperm.
According to Ellie The Noughtie Girls Guide to [...]
Every day we read in the newspapers about new proposals hatched up by Sweden’s neo-liberal government. One day brings cut downs in social funds. Another day it is tax deductions for domestic services, making it cheaper for the well-off to employ a maid or a nanny (this is known as pigavdrag – “maid deductions”), or [...]
In the Soviet Union feminism was elevated to the status of official state policy and ultimately was destroyed as an ideology and a social movement. The dominant concept was one of a general, global equality; as a result, a separate movement for the rights of women simply could not exist. The feminist reference points of [...]
Last July, Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE) mandated that some candidate lists must be composed of half female and half male candidates in order to qualify for the November 23rd regional and local elections. What was the significance of this, and what was the role of gender and women’s issues in the elections? Venezuelanalysis.com spoke [...]
Participants at the International Congress on Islamic Feminism emphasized different obstacles to their work for women’s rights, including a rise in political Islam and fundamentalism, along with U.S. foreign policies.
At one point during the third gathering of the International Congress on Islamic Feminism, Arifa Mazhar grew tired of talking about religion.
“Instead of debating Islam, we [...]
Americans and northern Europeans visiting Italy often comment on the sheer quantity of exposed female flesh in advertising and on TV shows.
That exposure is inversely proportional to the presence of women in the labor force, in management and in politics.
Feminists place a lot of the blame for the commercial use of the female [...]
From the south of Auckland to the southern Highlands of PNG, women of the Pacific claimed a historic moment at the opening of the 11th AWID International Forum at the Cape Town International Convention Centre in South Africa last month.
It was the first time they have gathered in numbers at any global forum since [...]
Late last month, when a jurist representing Turkey’s highest court in a briefing to the Justice Ministry suggested reducing Turkey’s legal marriage age for women to 14 and reducing the penalties for sexual attackers who agree to marry the woman they rape, the backlash from women’s organizations and gender equality groups was enormous.
The suggestion [...]
President Daniel Ortega, Nicaragua’s macho and mustachioed Sandinista commandante of the 1970s and ’80s, may claim the mantle of revolutionary “new man,” but Latin America’s feminists insist Ortega is a dirty old man. Throughout the continent, Ortega is being hounded by feminist groups over his alleged sexual abuse of stepdaughter Zoilamerica Narvaez during the 1980s. [...]
At this year’s “May Day” March in Perth, ACTU President Sharon Burrows called for a publicly-funded paid maternity leave scheme, demanding that the Rudd Government demonstrate its support of women in paid employment and “working families”.
Despite the potency of this “call” Ms Burrow’s declaration received little attention from the May Day crowd. Still carrying banners [...]
While exploring Rwanda’s alternative experience of women’s emancipation, Grace Kwinjeh outlines the potential conflict between nationalism and social liberation within many post-colonial African nations. Though post-colonial nationalisms have often amounted to the reinforcing of patriarchal systems of governance and the subordination of women, in Rwanda, the author argues, women’s experience of political representation in a [...]
From the 10 to the 13th of October was held the first pan-Canadian young feminist gathering, called “Waves of Resistance”. It was more than 500 young women who invaded the classrooms of UQAM for those 3 days to reaffirm the pertinence of feminism and to act collectively about issues like feminization of poverty, hypersexualization and [...]
Radical Women’s “The Persistent Power of Socialist Feminism” conference will take place on October 3-6, 2008 at the Women’s Building. Featuring activists and scholars from Central America, Australia, China and the U.S., and panels and workshops on topics like multi-racial organizing in a society divided by racism, the dynamic leadership of youth and queers, a [...]
Recent postings- Murder of human rights activist Natalia Estemirova condemned
- Three publications from AWID’s Resisting and Challenging Religious Fundamentalisms
- Rabbanit? Rabbah? Maybe just plain Rabbi? What should be the title of an Orthodox woman who happens to also be a rabbi?
- Inquiry urged after Sudan women flogged for wearing trousers
- Accountability To Women Could Upset Business As Usual
- Fight Sexism to Help Young Mothers – South Africa
- Soldiers Who Rape, Commanders Who Condone: Sexual Violence and Military Reform in the Democratic Republic of Congo
- Worrying increase in gang rape say police in Angola
- Repatriation of Rwandan Women Refugees in Uganda could increase hardships
- HRW condemns Rwanda’s draft law on HIV tests and sterilisation
- Gender Wire
- Q&A: Defending Women's Rights Under New Land Policy
- RIGHTS-UGANDA : Women Press for Domestic Violence Bill
- AFRICA: Organic Farming Could be Answer to Food Insecurity
- EDUCATION: Mother Tongue Absent in Thousands of Classrooms
- Q&A: 'Farmers Can Gain From Crisis'
- DR-CONGO: Rape by Regular Army a Growing Problem, HRW Says
- PERU: Going to School Still a Feat for Rural Girls
- CUBA: What Schools Can and Cannot Do for Equality
- FILM: Graphically Condemning a "Barbaric and Horrific Punishment"
- ECONOMY: Accountability To Women Could Upset Business-As-Usual
- new on womensgrid
- Sense of Self – A weekly support group for women focusing on enhancing self-esteem and self-confidence! 20th July 2009
- Dogs Trust seeks dog foster carers to help women fleeing domestic violence
- Soroptimists give £500,000 and three houses to charity in Gravesend
- A report into the death of Baby P has revealed that only half of NHS staff have the required levels of training in child protection
- One in four in custody in Glasgow held for domestic abuse
- Royal Assent for Sexual Offences Bill Scotland
- Unionists and nationalists have joined forces to round on English politicians who called for abortion laws to be extended to Northern Ireland
- Human rights court will hear Irish abortion ban case
- Teenagers who are raped leave school at earlier age study in Ireland finds
- Two boys who raped a 14-year-old for insulting their gang leader’s partner have had their sentences upheld
- new on women in london
- 4 vacancies - Refuge - 28th July 2009
- Female Community Outreach Officer - Kiran - 14th August 2009
- Volunteer Co-ordinator - Jewish Women’s Aid - 10th August 2009
- 2 vacancies - Eaves - 17th and 22nd July 2009
- Public investment in childcare : who cares, who pays? - Daycare Trust - 17th November 2009
- Feminism in London - conference organised by London Feminist Network - 10th October 2009
- GLDVP Newsletter - July 2009
- GLDVP Stella Project advanced training for experienced workers - 6th August and 8th September 2009
- Being a mum has ‘devastating’ impact on earnings - new report - Fawcett
- The GLDVP response to: The Way Forward – A call for action to end violence against women
The Socialist Feminist Project
22 June 2009 in Feminism, North America, Opinion Comment, WLM / Feminist History
Some would say socialist feminism is an artifact of the 1970s. It flowered with the women’s liberation movement, as a theoretical response to what many in the movement saw as the inadequacies of Marxism, liberalism, and radical feminism, but since then it has been defunct, both theoretically and politically. I think this view is mistaken.
Socialist [...]