“Grooming gangs” in England have lured thousands of girls into prostitution. Only a few abusers have been convicted. Studying successful tactics and groups created by survivors gives us confidence to replace exploitation with a compassionate society.
Adele reviews ‘The Cult of Trump,’ whose author explains how so many people could support Trump for President in spite of his criminal activity, bullying personality, and nonsensical campaign speeches.
Takes up: Students in Seoul protest plans by Dongduk Women’s University to become co-ed; London conference by the feminist organization Nordic Model Now!, debunking the sex industry; and a mass demonstration in Rome against violence against women.
The trial of Dominique Pelicot, who arranged for 82 men to rape his wife, Gisele Pelicot, over 200 times began in September. Gisele successfully fought for the judges to open the trial to the public, igniting a new wave of a women’s movement fighting mysogyny and sexual violence worldwide.
After Roe v Wade was overturned after nearly fifty years, what will it mean to be a woman in America and what kind of country is it becoming? This is what the book ‘The Fall of Roe: The Rise of a New America’ explores, reviewed by Adele.
Adele reviews ‘When Men Buy Sex: Who Really Pays?’ Canada’s most comprehensive book on the struggle to abolish prostitution.
Adele reviews a fascinating history of three interconnected projects of the radical feminist community in the Oakland, Calif., area over the past 40 years: an underground self-help abortion network, clinics run on feminist principles, and clinic defense organizations.
Adele reviews ‘Formidable: American Women and the Fight for Equality: 1920 to 2020’ by Elizabeth Griffith, a history of the U.S. feminist movement from the years leading up to the achievement of women’s right to vote to 2020.
Takes up: the Taiwanese TV drama that is inspiring a #MeToo movement; the struggle to get authorities in India to take seriously accusations of rape and harassment against the chief of the Wrestling Federation of India; the legislation passed by Maine to help survivors of prostitution rebuild their lives; and Canada’s failure to implement the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls after three years of federally ordered hearings and testimonies from survivors and victims’ families.
On March 4, over 2,000 women marched through London, organized by Million Women Rise (MWR). MWR is thousands strong and led by a collective of Black women in the UK. It is autonomous, run on donations with no corporate funding or ties to political parties.
On March 4, over 2,000 women marched through London, organized by Million Women Rise (MWR). This organization is led by a collective of Black women in the UK with regional subgroups. It is autonomous, run by volunteers on donations with no corporate funding or ties to political parties.
Worldwide domestic violence has intensified: The Strangulation Clinic was opened in Surrey, B.C. Canada, as this form of violence has increased since 2014; Iraqi women and allies demonstrated at the Supreme Judicial Council in Baghdad demanding a strict law to deal with increasing domestic violence and “honor killings”; and there has been an explosion of femicides in several countries, including Lebanon, Syria, Pakistan, and Sudan.
Takes up: Canadian Dawn Dumont Walker’s struggle to keep her son and escape her abusive ex-partner; the Spanish parliament passing legislation for paid leave for debilitating menstrual pain and decriminalizing abortion, including for minors; and the life-altering and horrendous suffering of women in Bangladesh due to climate chaos.
Adele reviews “Policing the Womb: Invisible Women and the Criminalization of Motherhood,” by Michele Goodwin, Goodwin describes the increasing wave of legislation regulating pregnancy and criminalizing miscarriages, stillbirths and supposed “endangerment” of the fetus.
The U.S. Youth Risk Behavior Survey of 17,000 high school students revealed “America’s teen girls are engulfed in a growing wave of sadness, violence, and trauma”; women and girls in Iran are revolting against the regime by uncovering their hair and throwing out hijab; and the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team and the Canadian Women’s National Soccer Team turned their match into a labor solidarity action.
Adele reviews the book “Radius: A Story of Feminist Revolution” by Yasmin El-Rifae, taking up Operation Anti-Sexual Harassment and Assault during the Arab Spring in Egypt.
Review of: ‘Unsilenced: Our Refusal to Let Torturer-Traffickers Win,’ whose authors worked out therapy for victims of what they called Non-State Torture (NST) which goes beyond abuse. Perpetrators of NST employ the same “classic” torture techniques, especially rape, used by state representatives—police, military, or prison guards.
The Women’s March and other groups held A Women’s Wave Day of Action on Oct. 8, 2022, demanding a nationwide right to abortion after the U.S. Supreme Court gutted that right. Women, youth, and allies are aware of the importance of reproductive justice to our lives and democracy and are motivated to organize and creatively fight back.
Review of “The Turnaway Study: Ten Years, a Thousand Women, and the Consequences of Having—or Being Denied—an Abortion.” The study was conducted before the overturn of Roe v. Wade, and Diana Greene Foster investigated the real experiences of women receiving abortions in the first and second trimester.
Takes up: in a groundbreaking ruling a Tokyo Court ordered Juntendo University to compensate women because they were rejected from medical school which had tampered with their exam scores and set stricter requirements for women; women in refugee camps in Somalia created their own credit lending system; Sandbach High School’s feminist club in Cheshire, UK, launched a petition calling for the government to ban sales of school uniforms in sex shops and their use in porn videos; and the girls’ track team at Albany High School in New York launched a petition to “Stop Gender Biased Dress Codes: Allow the Girls Track Team to Wear Sports Bras.”
Takes up: feminist-led protesters in London hurling 1,000 rape alarms at Charing Cross police station on the first anniversary of the Clapham Common vigil for Sarah Everard; the launch of Somalia’s first all-female media house, Bilan; a worldwide roundup of actions on International Women’s Day; and Women Take the Wheel, an all-woman volunteer service driving women fleeing Ukraine to homes or shelters in Poland.
Review of ‘Sexy but Psycho’: Taylor is trying to change how institutions and the public view the effects of trauma. Drawing upon years as a feminist therapist in rape crisis, domestic violence, and child trafficking centers, she describes staff’s success calming distressed clients and helping them live their lives after abuse.
Takes up: feminist-led protesters in London hurling 1,000 rape alarms at Charing Cross police station on the first anniversary of the Clapham Common vigil for Sarah Everard; the launch of Somalia’s first all-female media house, Bilan; a worldwide roundup of actions on International Women’s Day; and Women Take the Wheel, an all-woman volunteer service driving women fleeing Ukraine to homes or shelters in Poland.
Taylor is trying to change how institutions and the public view the effects of trauma. Drawing upon years as a feminist therapist in rape crisis, domestic violence, and child trafficking centers, she describes staff’s success calming distressed clients and helping them live their lives after abuse.
Review of ‘Spinning and Weaving: Radical Feminism for the 21st Century.’ Elizabeth Miller is the Contributing Editor and created a radical feminist anthology covering multiple topics to preserve the insightful new theory women (including international women) write daily online—from articles to social media comments.
Review of ‘Spinning and Weaving: Radical Feminism for the 21st Century.’ Elizabeth Miller is the Contributing Editor and created a radical feminist anthology covering multiple topics to preserve the insightful new theory women (including women international) write daily online—from articles to social media comments.
Women demonstrate at Boise State University against misogynist professor Scott Yenor; four male porn stars in France were charged with rape after 53 women performers complained; Sudanese women demonstrated in three cities against gang rapes by security forces; and in India, two men and a woman were arrested for creating a website pretending to “auction” over 100 Muslim women as slaves.
Women WorldWide takes up: Afghan women MPs set up an organization in exile to help other activist women escape; the thousands who marched in Istanbul, Turkey demanding action against widespread violence against women; women in Poland marching again against restrictions on abortion; and the 7,000 women who gathered in Madrid, Spain, protesting male violence against women.
In ‘Reproductive Rights as Human Rights: Women of Color and the Fight for Reproductive Justice,’ Zakiya Luna discusses how SisterSong, the reproductive justice organization, was based and operates on the concept of human rights.
Adele reviews the book “They Didn’t See Us Coming: The Hidden History of Feminism in the Nineties” by Lisa Levenstein.
Adele favorably reviews “Men Who Hate Women: From Incels to Pickup Artists: The Truth About Extreme Misogyny and How It Affects Us All by Laura Bates. The book exposes the extreme damage caused to society by online misogynist communities, or the “manosphere.”
Readers’ Views on: What Is Socialism?; What Is Marxist-Humanism?; Nuclear Socialism?; Nuclear Capitalism; Flat Earth Society; Indigenous Genocide; Indigenous Liberation; Racism Takes its Toll; Rape Culture; Coming Out in Sports; Colonialism and Liberation
Author Emily Joy Allison created the hashtag #ChurchToo to share her story of an adult youth group leader’s attempt to groom her into being raped when she was a teenager. By the next morning, thousands had used #ChurchToo to tell their stories of abuse within the Church.
Sisters in Hate: American Women on the Front Lines of White Nationalism, by Seyward Darby, is an important contribution towards comprehending why people join right-wing movements, and how to encourage them to leave while inoculating society against hateful and authoritarian thinking.
In her book, Ijeoma Oluo discusses the serious damage caused when we expect white men to have all the leadership roles in a society. The damage is not only to women and people of color whose voices are not heard, and to society, which loses their input, but to white men themselves.
A feminist review of a book by Jessica Taylor, ‘Women Are Blamed for Everything: Exploring the Victim Blaming of Women Subjected to Violence and Trauma’ that explores how and why each victim of abuse was always blamed in some way although it was never her fault, even internalizing self-blame.
Readers’ Views takes up: Black revolt and racism; dialectics of liberation; school battles; election victories; history and freedom; class struggles; and fighting the Right wing.
“The Power Worshippers” by Katherine Stewart explains the religious Right as a “Christian nationalist” movement. This is not a grassroots movement but one deliberately designed by ultra-rich businessmen and families to impose complete political, social, and economic control.
Adele’s critical review of the book “Full Surrogacy Now: Feminism Against Family” by Sophie Lewis as “a disappointing attempt to find a radical path to a just society of new human relationships by way of commercial surrogacy.”
Review of ‘Leftover Women: The Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China’ by Leta Hong Fincher, which debunks the Chinese government’s propaganda that the status of women has been soaring since the introduction of corporate capitalism.
Readers’ Views on Capitalism and climate; Mideast upheaval; Trump the Mullah?; war crime hero; Trump’s judges; detransition debate; and women’s liberation.
Review of ‘Without Apology: The Abortion Struggle Now’, on the history of the women’s liberation movement’s struggle for full reproductive justice.
A review of “Last Days at Hot Slit: The Radical Feminism of Andrea Dworkin,” edited by Johanna Fateman and Amy Scholder.
Adele reviews Caroline Criado Perez’s book, “Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men,” which explains how the notion that all of humanity can be represented as “man” or “mankind” has caused devastating, worldwide harm to all women and all of society.
Adele reviews “Birth Strike: The Hidden Fight Over Women’s Work,” by Jenny Brown.
Feminist Adele reviews Phyllis Chesler’s book “A Politically Incorrect Feminist: Creating a Movement with Bitches, Lunatics, Dykes, Prodigies, Warriors, and Wonder Women,” seeing in it an important first-person history that can help today’s movement.
Adele reviews “The Lesbian Revolution: Lesbian Feminism in the UK 1970–1990,” by Sheila Jeffreys, the first book documenting the history of British Lesbian feminism.
Readers’ Views takes up: attacks on immigrants; Syria and the Left’s failure; Democratic Party’s selling out women; Women’s Liberation; Serena Williams; ending money bail the right way; Trump-Kim “peace”; genocide and war heroes; and a discussion on sex crimes and their fallout.
Adele reviews “How All Politics Became Reproductive Politics: From Welfare Reform to Foreclosures to Trump,” by Laura Briggs, which discusses “reproductive labor,” “the work necessary to the reproduction of human life.”
Review of the book “Reproductive Justice: An Introduction” by Loretta Ross and Rickie Solinger.
