Feminism and women’s rights

I began with the conviction, shared by most feminist thinkers, that patriarchy as a system is historical: it has a beginning in history. If that is so, it can be ended by historical process. Gerda Lerner, The Creation of Patriarchy   You can read this essay in Turkish here. This essay draws heavily on three

This piece starts with an explanatory note and story about the article to follow. The article itself – which is about gender authoritarianism – begins below the italics, if you prefer to skip. On November 30, I wrote this article at the suggestion of a well-known columnist, who passed it on to New Zealand Herald

To say the least, there are echoes of the Emperor’s new clothes in our annual Pride Parades. Since 2013, Auckland’s Pride board has received significant state and corporate support to run an annual festival famed for extravagance and exhibitionism in the heart of New Zealand’s biggest city. Meanwhile, the public is supposed to accept a

Last updated: 31.03.20 Previous: 29.03.20, 01.08.19, 26.01.19, 23.01.19, 22.01.19, 30.12.18, 28.12.18, 27.11.18, 15.11.18, 13.11.18, 3.11.18, 21.10.18, 17.10.18, 12.10.18, 10.10.18, 2.10.18, 29.09.18 Military spending According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, global military spending now exceeds 1.3 trillion dollars. Source: Aric McBay, “Civilization and other hazards”, in “Deep Green Resistance”. Murder and male violence A

In New Zealand, “restorative justice” (RJ) advocacy is currently in vogue. In August, the government held a $1.6 million Justice Summit with restorative justice high on the agenda. At the time, Victoria University was wrapping up a free online course catering to over 1,800 students called “Restorative Justice and Practice: Emergence of a Social Movement.”

“The justice system is the core of patriarchy,” Gudrun Jonsdottir told me. Jonsdottir has been part of the Icelandic women’s movement since the 1970s, a movement that initially drew attention to the prevalence of incest in Iceland – fathers raping daughters – before setting up refuge shelters. Through those shelters, women discovered the extent and

This report gathers findings from a range of sources, as well as including anecdotal material on unresearched aspects of women’s status in New Zealand, to paint an overall picture of the more urgent aspects of women’s status and encourage readers to make critical connections. Last update: 30.10.19 Previous: x.10.19, 26.07.19, 08.04.19, 21.11.18, 29.09.18, 27.09.18, 22.09.18,

My sister had to run away to the jungle. There are a lot of things we have experienced. Terror from the Indonesian government itself – killing people in a subtle way. They give injections to pregnant women – but it is not the right medicine… it kills the baby. Esther Tapnesa on living under the U.S.-backed

This is a collection of facts and statistics relating to gender identity, catered to a New Zealand audience.   Who identifies as transgender? Heterosexual adult males comprise the majority of adult-to-trans people (Sheila Jeffreys, Gender Hurts). Though transgenderism is often represented as indigenous, these men are mainly white. The overwhelming majority retain their male genitalia.