Women's Fightback, Feminism

The persistent weight wage gap for women

There is a persistent wage penalty for working-age women living with obesity. The size or weight of women is one of many categories under which their bodies are subjected to relentless scrutiny. A major review carried out for the UK government by Carol Black in 2016 found that women living with obesity experience a 9 per cent wage penalty compared with working age women of “normal” weight — and that no such gap exists for men. This gap in earnings appears to be down to stigma and discrimination, with differences (though smaller) even when educational attainment, health inequalities and...

A book about contradictions

Imagine your loved one is facing public accusations of misconduct from an anonymous Twitter account. This is the scenario explored in Yomi Adegoke’s The List , where Ola, a feminist writer, discovers that her fiancé, Michael, has been put on a list by an anonymous Twitter account detailing abusers in the media industry. And it’s only weeks away from their wedding. Adegoke has risen to fame as a Black feminist journalist having previously co-authored Slay In Your Lane , a book and then podcast that interviewed successful Black British women and was envisioned as “ Lean In , but for Black women”...

Wave of protest after murder in Italy

On 11 November, 22-year-old biomedical engineering student Giulia Cecchetin disappeared after meeting her ex-boyfriend Filippo Turetta at the mall to buy her graduation outfit. CCTV footage revealed Turetta beating Giulia in the car park. On 18 November, Giulia was found brutally murdered, in the bottom of a ravine wrapped in black bags. The following day, after an international arrest warrant had been issued on suspicion of kidnap and murder, Turetta was arrested by German police officers after a passer-by had reported a car on the highway without its headlights on just outside Leipzig...

The “demographic crisis” and women’s rights in China

Moral panic and societal anxiety over “the demographic crisis” have become a consensus shared by more and more governmental officials and mainstream media of China in the past few years, accompanied by the burgeoning of the internet feminist movement and the deterioration of gender equality both at home and in work. The video showing a woman wearing a chain in a rural village in Fenxian, Jiangsu, in February 2022, who was then revealed to have been kidnapped and forced to bear eight children with a man called Zhiyong Dong, has aroused national rage and criticism against the local authorities...

Border regime empowers abusers

New data has exposed how police continue to report domestic abuse survivors and victims to immigration enforcement. The government’s independent Domestic Abuse Commissioner (DAC) obtained figures showing that, between April 2020 and March 2023, police reported 537 victims and survivors to the Home Office after they came forward for help. The DAC shared the story of L, who sought help from the Latin American Women’s Rights Service (LAWRS) after three years of abusive treatment in and after ending a relationship. Her ex-partner was sending threats and stalking her. A LAWRS caseworker helped L...

All the Rage success

More than a hundred people joined us for our socialist feminist day school All The Rage on 4 November. With talks on secularism, the revolution in Iran, resisting state violence, medical misogyny, sexism in the unions and building the workers’ movement, the “green wave” in Latin America, and more, the event was a great success. We will be writing up speeches and interviewing our guest speakers for the next edition of Women’s Fightback — among them: Elinor Cleghorn, author of Unwell Women; Rhianna Pratchett, video game and screenwriter; Diana Nammi, activist in the 1978-9 Iranian revolution and...

The Communist Women’s Movement – high point of first wave feminism

A century ago, an international communist women’s movement began to develop a perspective for women’s self-liberation that still resonates today. The record of those early struggles has been translated into English for the first time by Mike Taber and Daria Dyakonova, The Communist Women’s Movement, 1920-1922 (Brill 2023). The book provides a history of the greatest working class-based women’s movement to date, through the voices of the women involved and one that has great relevance for today’s socialist feminists. Communist Women’s Movement In 1917, the Russian working class took power led...

Iran: another woman killed by hijab police

On 1 October a 16 year-old school student, Armita Garavand, was attacked by officers from Iran’s notorious “morality police” as she entered a Tehran metro station with two friends. Armita was accused of not wearing the mandatory hijab. She was badly injured during the assault and has since died from her injuries. The Iranian state, recognising the similarity between this attack and the murder by the morality police, in September 2022, of Mahsa Jina Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian-Kurdish woman, has done everything possible to restrict access to information about the attack on Armita Garavand...

Why gender pay gaps survive

Tens of thousands of women and non-binary people in Iceland took part in the “kvennafrí”, a 24 hour women’s strike over the gender pay gap and gender-based violence on 24 October. The day was the first full-day women’s strike since 1975. Strike organiser called for protection for migrant workers. Around 22% of the female workforce is foreign-born, according to Statistics Iceland, and they work disproportionately more hours for lower pay Iceland has been ranked the best country in the world for gender equality by the World Economic Forum (WEF) for 14 years. Gender inequality still exists, with...

The history of gender variance

Workers’ Liberty strongly supports trans and gender diverse (TGD) people’s rights, while some on the left see TGD activism as threatening women’s “sex-based” rights. This is the first of a series of articles in which I will attempt to thread a path within this hostility about TGD politics; to look for ways that left-wing activists can work toward more agreement on how to fight for the rights of this oppressed minority. This article outlines the history and origins of gender variance. Future articles will examine political polarisation around TGD people; biological and social materiality, TGD...

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