Remembering the life of Yanar Mohamed, murdered March 2 in Baghdad, Iraq. An uncompromising feminist voice, and founder of the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq she devoted her life to defending women and survivors of violence and trafficking.
Arab women
Women in Afghanistan stand defiant
October 19, 2025Four years after the Taliban took over Afghanistan women have been reduced to non-persons with no future possible under their fascist rule. But women continue to fight, declaring: “the fall of Afghanistan was not the fall of our will.”
Lead article: Women fighting fascist rulers–from Iran to the USA
March 27, 2025In many countries misogyny is state policy, be that in the U.S. where abortion bans are killing women or Iran where the new hijab law has draconian punishments. It’s doubtful if Trump et al comprehend the rage and power that opposes their deadly drive for power and riches.
Women WorldWide: January 2025
February 1, 2025Takes up: International Criminal Court prosecutors investigating the Taliban’s horrific laws oppressing women as war crimes; the formation of a “morality police” to enforce new restrictions on women in Libya; and “deepfake” porn targeting girls in Toronto, Canada.
Women World Wide: September 2024
September 6, 2024Takes up: the documentary ‘Old Lesbians’; the Taliban’s law granting authority to arrest anyone violating its 35 articles, which especially oppress women; 19 Afghan women arriving in Scotland to complete their medical degrees; and the National Assembly in The Gambia voting for female genital mutilation to remain illegal.
Women WorldWide: August 2023
August 9, 2023Takes on: Lebanese woman-led media platform “Khateera”; a fine in Chihuahua, Mexico, for singing lyrics in live performances that sexually objectify or promote violence towards women, and the deaths of Dr. Susan Love and Sinéad O’Connor.
Women protest in Israel
June 8, 2023More than 25,000 women dressed as handmaids formed human chains in 70 locations across Israel on International Women’s Day, protesting against proposed laws to turn Israel into a theocratic dictatorship.
The incomplete struggle for democracy in Israel
March 22, 2023More than 25,000 women in red cloaks and white bonnets formed human chains in 70 locations across Israel on March 8, combining commemorating International Women’s Day with protests in opposition to the proposed laws to turn Israel into a theocratic dictatorship. Yet Palestinian women’s voices were missing.
Readers’ Views: November-December 2021, Part One
November 19, 2021Readers’ Views on Draft for Marxist-Humanist Perspectives 2021-2022; Labor shortage?; Workers as reason; Support El Milagro workers!; Detroit women’s march; Chapelle’s sexism; Afghans dead and buried; Betrayal of Haitians; and Which side are you on?
Taliban reconquest shakes alliances, challenges Left
September 12, 2021The Taliban’s reconquest of Afghanistan has shaken world politics and challenged the Left to respond in a revolutionary way. In the absence of truly liberatory revolutionary movements, what looms to fill the vacuum is not only a reinvigoration of fundamentalist political and military movements but the reactionary maneuvering by Russia and China, refugee-scapegoating parties, and repression of social movements on the model of Syria’s Assad and Burma’s Tatmadaw—all of which have been flourishing under the U.S. permanent “war on terror.”
Woman as Reason: Afghan women pay price for U.S. hubris
August 31, 2021In Afghanistan the Taliban are murdering men who helped the U.S., UK, and other forces who fought them; and murdering and beating women and girls who have made even marginally independent lives for themselves. Yet, despite the terror, Afghans, especially women, continue to demonstrate against Taliban rule.
Afghanistan turmoil shakes world politics, challenges Left
August 21, 2021The Taliban’s reconquest of Afghanistan has shaken world politics and challenged the Left to respond in a revolutionary way. In the absence of truly liberatory revolutionary movements, what looms to fill the vacuum is not only a reinvigoration of fundamentalist political and military movements but the reactionary maneuvering by Russia and China, refugee-scapegoating parties, and repression of social movements on the model of Syria’s Assad and Burma’s Tatmadaw—all of which have been flourishing under the U.S. permanent “war on terror.”
Afghan women pay the price for U.S. hubris
In Afghanistan the Taliban are murdering men who helped the U.S., UK, and other forces who fought them; and murdering and beating women and girls who have made even marginally independent lives for themselves. Yet, despite the terror, Afghans, especially women, continue to demonstrate against Taliban rule.
World In View: Gaza March of Return challenges Israel
May 9, 2018The March of Return is a Palestinian national event—reaching toward a new politics that would transcend the failures both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority.
SlutWalk hijacked
August 31, 2017In-person report of the Aug. 13 SlutWalk in Chicago including how it was highjacked by A Wider Bridge and the Chicago Police.
Reader’s Views: March-April 2017, Part 1
March 16, 2017Readers’ Views on Trumpism and the many facets of resistance; Fear of immigrants; Specters of internment; War on Queers; Women Fight Back; Women´s Liberation Debates.
Review: Headscarves and Hymens
March 10, 2016A Review of “Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution” by Mona Eltahawy, reviewed by Adele an expert on the theocratic Right.
Women fight for freedom against growing retrogression
March 13, 2014While experiences in the squares of the Arab Spring, in Turkey’s Gezi Park, in the streets of Spain and Greece, and in the U.S. Occupy Movements have revealed moments of what new human relations between women and men could look like, those moments of hope and exhilaration have been followed by devastating reaction and retrogression.
Egypt: Dual fascisms test women
September 8, 2013For Egyptian women to experience freedom, the revolution has to continue, and for that to happen the revolutionaries have to oppose both Morsi and Sisi’s bloodthirsty military and fight for the vision of a new society that sustained them in Tahrir Square.
From India to Egypt to U.S., women fighting for freedom
March 17, 2013From the March-April 2013 issue of News & Letters
by Terry Moon
Two recent events have shown the deep and seemingly intractable worldwide oppression of women and, at the same time, revealed women’s militancy and determination to change their oppressive reality. First was the vicious gang rape and murder of Jyoti Singh Pandey at the end of [=>]
Yemen: famine, drones and freedom
November 30, 2012World in View
by Gerry Emmett
Demands for freedom and dignity drove the Arab Spring. In Tunisia, in Tahrir Square in Egypt, in Daraa, Syria, and elsewhere these weren’t abstract, but concrete efforts to create new human relations under conditions of dictatorship, capitalist crisis, endemic corruption, spiraling food prices and environmental degradation. While bourgeois commentators have rushed [=>]
Woman as Reason: Egypt, women and permanent revolution
July 18, 2012by Terry Moon
Mona Eltahawy, an American-Egyptian journalist, wrote an eloquent essay published in the May/June edition of Foreign Policy titled “Why Do They Hate Us? The real war on women is in the Middle East.” The myriad negative responses to it reveal serious examples of counter-revolution from within the revolution in the wake of Arab Spring.
ARAB [=>]
Palestinian solidarity
February 28, 2012In Chicago on Dec. 31, well over 100 demonstrators came to show solidarity with Palestinians by releasing 300 black balloons in downtown Grant Park—one balloon for each child killed during Israel’s 22-day assault on the Gaza Strip three years ago.
On the International Day of Solidarity with Palestinian people, Nov. 29, we reflected on [=>]
Women in Yemen show revolutionary way
May 11, 2011From the May-June 2011 issue of News & Letters:
Women in Yemen show revolutionary way
by Shatha Al-Harazi
Sana’a, Yemen–This is one of the most conservative countries when it comes to how women are viewed. But the current political climate has changed some of this.
Yemeni society has offered limited roles for women in politics. It never expected women to [=>]
Women World Wide, March-April 2011
March 30, 2011by Artemis
In Ivory Coast, troops loyal to Laurent Gbagbo gunned down eight women as they marched peacefully against his rule chanting, “We want peace!” He sent tanks against the women, who had held several all-women marches. As one woman said, “We’re marching because we’re tired. We can’t sleep. We are not able to eat. And [=>]