Women's Fightback, Feminism

The UK’s fertility regulator, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), has found that IVF outcomes have varied widely for Black, Asian and minority ethnic background patients compared to white patients. The report, issued December 2023, gives data up to 2021. The average IVF birth rate per embryo transferred has increased across all ethnic groups. However, Black and Asian patients aged 18-37 had lower birth rates at 23% and 24% respectively in 2020-1. White patients had 32%. Single Black and Asian patients are also accessing fertility treatment far later than their white...

The Guardian has reported that the UK branch of the US-based Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) has more than doubled its spending since 2020 and been appointed a stakeholder in a parliamentary group on religious freedoms, in a role that grants it direct access to MPs. Ahead of several amendments on abortion coming soon to the Criminal Justice Bill, several anti-abortion campaign groups have increased propaganda campaigns and coordinated mass letter-writing campaigns targeting MPs. The ADF is a major player on the US Christian right which drove the repeal of Roe v Wade and funds attacks on LGBT+...

The Local Government Service Group Executive of the public services union Unison has proposed to its conference (16-17 June) to highlight the cuts for funding domestic violence services as a part of a broader campaign for local government funding.

On 29 February staff employed by Glasgow East Women’s Aid (GEWA) were called into a meeting with members of the Board of Directors and informed that the organisation was closing down with immediate effect for reason of insolvency.

Young men are drifting to the right on many issues, while young women move left. At least, that is what recent studies suggest. Polling data reported in The Economist from 20 countries indicates that twenty years ago there was little difference between the share of men and women aged 18-29 who described themselves as liberal rather than conservative, but now the gap has grown to 25 percentage points. In the UK, King’s College London’s Policy Institute and Global Institute for Women’s Leadership in partnership with Ipsos UK have found the gender split in views is starkest among the young when...

We host monthly socialist feminist book clubs in London, Sheffield and on Zoom. Check back here for upcoming meetings, or sign up to our mailing lists and get details direct to your inbox. To join write to: womensfightback@workersliberty.org SOUTH LONDON May discussion TBC SHEFFIELD Monday 6 May, 5.30pm, Showroom Cafe. Me Too, Not You, by Alison Phipps. EVENTBRITE ONLINE Wednesday 17 April 7pm Never The Same Again: Women and Miners' Strike 1984-5, by Jean Stead EVENTBRITE ZOOM • For an electronic copy of these texts, please write to womensfightback@workersliberty.org.

Hundreds of students have joined protests against the establishment of a “pro-life” (anti-abortion-rights) society at Manchester University. The society was established in January, to “create a pro-life culture on campus, engage students on life issues and promote respect for the dignity of human life from conception.” A petition aimed at removing the society has over 18,000 signatures, with concerns raised about the original all-male committee making decisions regarding female bodies and medical rights. Students are right to protest anti-choice groups on campuses and student unions should do...

Dorothy Arzner is someone I had never heard of before, and maybe you haven’t either. Arzner was the only director of films in Hollywood under the studio system of the 1930s and 1940s and she made some pretty remarkable films in those years. Her work is currently being celebrated at the BFI in London and this week I got to see her last film, First comes courage . Here is how BFI described her: “Her films were multifaceted revisions of Hollywood norms, paying sharp attention to the intersection of women’s working and romantic lives. Her protagonists were snappy and headstrong, subverting...

Menopause at work hit the headlines on 22 February as the Equality and Human Rights Commission issued new guidance on the issue. However, the guidance only affirmed what the law has been for the last fourteen years, and the fact that news coverage trumpeted it as a breakthrough can only mean that employers have not been following the law. The key point in the EHRC’s guidance is that severe menopause symptoms may well be classed as a disability under the 2010 Equality Act. That is not news to trade unionists who have been representing women who meet the Act’s definition of “disability” as a...

On 7 February, the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) published the results of an independent inquiry which it commissioned into sexual harassment in the union, alongside an initial action plan signed off by the Executive Council. The headline finding is shocking: 30 per cent of FBU women members have experienced sexual harassment by fellow members in a union context. The inquiry surveyed all women and BME FBU members, as well as a random selection of white men. The work was supported by the FBU’s National Women’s Committee. The report was commissioned following a series of scandals in other unions. In...