This year will mark 100 years since the suffragette Emily Wilding Davison was killed after running in front of the King’s horse at the Derby. A campaign has just been launched to institute a minute’s silence at the Derby in memory of her sacrifice for women’s rights and democracy. Continue reading “Emily Wilding Davison Memorial Campaign, Obama and Votes for Women”
Learned to Kill? Now Teach our Children: A Critique of Troops to Teachers
The UK government, following the lead of the US, is devising multiple ways to get more ex-members of the military into our schools – as teachers, mentors, classroom assistants and basic skills tutors. Continue reading “Learned to Kill? Now Teach our Children: A Critique of Troops to Teachers”
Launch of major new resource: Olive Schreiner Letters Online
Olive Schreiner (1855-1920) is one of the world’s great feminist writers and social theorists, with her novels including The Story of an African Farm and her political treatises including Woman and Labour among many other writings. She also wrote c4800+ exceptionally important letters between 1871 and 1920, a period of momentous changes in the world which her letters are concerned with, and which also brought changes regarding letter-writing and literary practices too. Schreiner’s letters – all of them, in full, detailed and easy to read transcriptions – are now available electronically world-wide. Continue reading “Launch of major new resource: Olive Schreiner Letters Online”
The Real Iron Ladies
At 12.30 pm on 6th January a banner was unfurled outside the Cineworld Cinema in Chesterfield. The banner read ‘The Real Iron Ladies’ Women’s Action Group Miners Strike 1984/85. This was in protest at the Hollywood re-writing of history in a film about Margaret Thatcher called ‘The Iron Lady’, starring Meryl Streep, which premiered in London in the first week in January. Continue reading “The Real Iron Ladies”
I feel bad for Sarah Palin
I feel bad for Sarah Palin. Whether she’s in New York sporting a Magen David necklace the size of a Mercedes hood ornament, rewriting Paul Revere’s ride or making yet another garbled, incoherent speech (described on Huffington Post as “like watching a drunk seal land a plane”) about the “blood libel” or our “North Korean allies” or other content that will be forever undecipherable, I’m trying really hard not to laugh at her. Continue reading “I feel bad for Sarah Palin”
‘Sylvia Pankhurst, Everything is Possible’: New Feature Length Documentary Released
A new feature length documentary chronicling Sylvia Pankhurst’s inspiring life as a suffragette and revolutionary has been released by the London based education charity WORLDwrite. Aspiring young filmmakers worked with industry professionals to research, film and produce this in depth epic which is packed with facts from primary sources, rare images from museums and archives, interviews with historians and a compelling testimony from Sylvia’s son Richard Pankhurst and his wife Rita. Continue reading “‘Sylvia Pankhurst, Everything is Possible’: New Feature Length Documentary Released”
Is feminism in the UK experiencing a double dip? Call for Action
‘Clinton is proving that feminist foreign policy is possible – and works’ so headlines an article in the Guardian in which Madeleine Bunting argues that Hilary Clinton is building her political foreign policy on a solid 1970s feminist mantra that ‘Transformation in the role of women is that last great impediment to universal progress.’ Clinton has proclaimed that ‘the rights of women and girls are now core to US foreign policy’ and Bunting draws attention to the 450 mentions of this ‘signature issue’ in the first five months of Clinton’s office. Clinton argues that ‘the empowerment, protect and protection of women and girls is vital to the long-term security of the US’. In a telling remark Bunting asks, imagine any politician saying something similar in the UK now. It is, indeed, unimaginable! Continue reading “Is feminism in the UK experiencing a double dip? Call for Action”
Browne Report + the White Paper = A Murky Outlook for Educational Equality
A report by GEA’s Policy Officer Miriam David, with Jessica Ringrose and Victoria Showunmi
October- December 2010
Continue reading “Browne Report + the White Paper = A Murky Outlook for Educational Equality”
Fawcett Society: Challeging the Cuts
In the UK, the Fawcett Society has been actively engaged in mounting a challenge to the Coalition government’s approach to tackling the deficit. A recent high court challenge to the emergency budget demanded that there is a judicial review of the gender impact. Continue reading “Fawcett Society: Challeging the Cuts”