By Amina Saddiq
AT 28, Malalai Joya is Afghanistan’s youngest member of parliament, one of only a handful of women MPs. And Joya is a consistent fighter for women and girls.
She has taught literacy classes and ran an orphanage and health clinic. She has spoken out against the continuing dominance of the warlords, religious fanatics and drug traffickers in Afghanistan’s stitched up and botched together post-Taliban parliament.
by Pat Yarker
BY Sofie Buckland
As the Organisation for Women's Freedom in Iraq campaigns against honour killings in Kurdistan (see www.workersliberty.org/node/8491), news of honour killings in Britain has been splashed across the press. Centring on the case of Banaz Mahmod, a young Kurdish women, whose uncle and father have just been convicted of her murder, British press coverage exposes the failure of police to take this kind of violence seriously.
As I write this we are awaiting the High Court judgement on the case that a 16 year old girl, Lydia Playfoot, has brought against her school for stopping her wearing a “purity ring”.
By Laura Schwartz
In 1868 Karl Marx wrote a letter to Kugelman announcing the election of Harriet Law to the General Council of the First International. The election of a woman to the otherwise all male International was, in 1868, certainly noteworthy.
In Britain and most of Europe women were still denied any form of parliamentary representation, including the vote, and were also excluded from or marginalized by many radical political movements. In theory, Marx recognised that the struggle for socialism would never succeed unless it included women.
Cath Fletcher's article in Women’s Fightback 2 "What's wrong with liking porn?" is the flip side of what Sofie Buckland described (Women’s Fightback no. 1) as campaigning against porn as a way of "expressing distaste". Whilst some anti porn campaigners base their viewpoint on their dislike of porn, Cath seems to be basing her arguments on women liking porn. Like or dislike is really not the point.
BY Maria Exall
London Pride, taking place over the weekend of 30 June-1 July, is an event which points towards liberation. The right to celebrate our sexuality in public is an important part of our freedom.
BY Janine Booth (Chair, RMT Women’s Advisory Committee - PC)
The Women and Work Commission was New Labour’s attempt to address the embarrassment and injustice of the enduring gender pay gap. But its report was woeful, in great part blaming women and girls for going into low-paid jobs and men and boys for renouncing those jobs for better-paid work.
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