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.
feminism
‘Women Unsilenced’
November 12, 2022Review 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 hell of normalized domestic violence
July 20, 2022Catholicism, “traditional family life,” silencing of women, combine to make life a “living hell” for many and reveal how the normalizing of domestic violence wars against the Universal of Freedom.
The hell of normalized domestic violence
June 11, 2022Catholicism, “traditional family life,” silencing of women, combine to make life a “living hell” for many and reveal how the normalizing of domestic violence wars against the Universal of Freedom.
How women’s trauma is used against them
May 11, 2022Review 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.
Review: ‘Sexy but Psycho: How the Patriarchy Uses Women’s Trauma Against Them’
April 29, 2022Taylor 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.
World in View: Victory for #MeToo
March 15, 2022A new federal law renders binding arbitration clauses in contracts void in cases of sexual assault and harassment. Women’s rights activists and national organizations worked for five years to get legislation introduced to stop the practice. This year it passed by a wide margin in February, and took effect March 3.
Review-Essay: Adrienne Rich’s Expanding Solitudes
November 15, 2021Ed Pavlić’s ‘Outward: Adrienne Rich’s Expanding Solitudes’ is the first critical book to appear after Rich’s Collected Poems (2016) and thus the first covering all of Rich’s poetry. The book is especially welcome because Pavlić attends to the latter half of Rich’s career, and acknowledges her Marxism, largely unexplored territory even now.
Review of: ‘They didn’t See Us Coming: The Hidden History of Feminism in the Nineties’ by Lisa Levenstein
September 22, 2021Adele reviews the book “They Didn’t See Us Coming: The Hidden History of Feminism in the Nineties” by Lisa Levenstein.
Review: Outward: Adrienne Rich’s Expanding Solitudes
September 6, 2021Ed Pavlić’s ‘Outward: Adrienne Rich’s Expanding Solitudes’ is the first critical book to appear after Rich’s Collected Poems (2016) and thus the first covering all of Rich’s poetry. The book is especially welcome because Pavlić attends to the latter half of Rich’s career, and acknowledges her Marxism, largely unexplored territory even now.
A Review: ‘Men Who Hate Women…’
July 4, 2021Adele 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.”
Review: ‘Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America’
February 2, 2021In 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.
Woman as Reason: Sarah White (Sarah Hamer) 1958-2020
January 30, 2021The movement lost a powerful voice for workers’ liberty, self-development and freedom when Sarah White died of a heart attack on Oct. 5, 2020.
Argentina’s feminist revolution
January 10, 2021At four in the morning on Dec. 30, the Argentine Senate finally passed an abortion rights bill, making it legal to terminate a pregnancy in the first 14 weeks. The procedure will be free in government hospitals, crucially important for poor women.
Review of ‘Full Surrogacy Now’
April 30, 2020Adele’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.”
The Power of Women’s Liberation in Mexico
March 10, 2020Participant report of women’s strike in Mexico City, March 9, 2020.
Women Worldwide, January-February 2020
January 21, 2020International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women in France; ecofeminists in Uganda; and protests against the gang-rape of a 19-year-old British girl in Cyprus.
Review: ‘Without Apology’
Review of ‘Without Apology: The Abortion Struggle Now’, on the history of the women’s liberation movement’s struggle for full reproductive justice.
Woman as Reason: Anti-femicide goes global
Women are deepening a global movement to combat violence against us, from violent rapes to domestic battering to outright femicide. Demonstrations have spread across the globe.
Chicago meeting: WOMEN’S LIBERATION AS RESISTANCE AND AS REVOLUTIONARY FORCE AND REASON
December 4, 2019How can hearing the ideas of women’s liberation and the philosophy of human liberation enable the movement’s reorientation? How can the humanism that shone forth from the Women’s Marches help inspire the entire movement for liberation?
Letter from Mexico: Women fight violence
November 17, 2019Women who demonstrated against the escalating gender violence in Mexico City are aiming for a society where being a woman would no longer mean being an object.
Readers’ Views, September-October 2019, Part 2
September 1, 2019Readers’ Views on What is socialism?; Surviving the prison system; Women fight back; and Exploiting prisoners
Deborah Morris 1946-2019
August 31, 2019In memoriam to Deborah Morris, writer, activist and powerful thinker in the women’s liberation movement and in her participation with News and Letters Committees.
‘Last Days at Hot Slit’
A review of “Last Days at Hot Slit: The Radical Feminism of Andrea Dworkin,” edited by Johanna Fateman and Amy Scholder.
Women worldwide, September-October 2019
Feminists in Iran call on Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to resign; huge demonstrations against police rapes in Mexico; removal of the “Girl of Peace Statue” in Japan; and the trial of Canan Kaftancioğlu, the Istanbul chief of the secularist Republican People’s Party.
Essay: What is socialism? Socialism and Women’s Liberation
June 27, 2019In an era where women’s right to an abortion is endangered, feminist activist and writer Terry Moon delves into the question of what is socialism when it comes to women’s liberation, looking historically, politically, and philosophically.
Algerians in revolt
June 26, 2019The creative presence of women, youth, workers and national minorities in the Algerian freedom movement promises much for the future.
Review: ‘Politically Incorrect Feminist’
March 10, 2019Feminist 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.
Review: Feminist Awakening in China
December 14, 2018An account of #MeToo in China is documented in a new book by Leta Hong Fincher, “Betraying Big Brother: The Feminist Awakening in China.”
Women as Reason, November-December 2018: Solidarity with Trans
December 11, 2018The Trump administration’s latest outrage is its attempt to erase Transgender people. Its tactic this time is to declare that Trans people do not exist, subverting the spirit of Title IX, enacted in 1972.
Solidarity with Trans people under attack by Trumpism
October 28, 2018News and Letters Committees statement on Donald Trump’s latest attack on Trans people by trying to claim that the word “sex” in Title IX does not include them. Trump has chosen to dehumanize a group of people whose whole lives have often been fraught with brutal violence and discrimination, those who are Transgender.
Letter from Mexico: Zapatista and other women meet
May 2, 2018The First International Gathering of Politics, Art, Sport, and Culture for Women in Struggle, organized by the Zapatista Indigenous women, took place in Chiapas from March 8-10. More than 5,000 women from all over the world shared their thoughts on feminism, art and work.
World in View: Reaction rises in Brazil and Costa Rica
March 12, 2018Racist and homophobic politicians have moved from the fringes to contend for state power in Brazil. Fabricio Alvarado in Costa Rica and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil represent a further step down an anti-human path.
Readers’ Views, March-April 2018, Part 1
March 11, 2018Readers’ Views on Women’s Marches; Iran in Revolt; Around the Globe; Race and Freedom; Queer Oppression; Why Read N&L?
From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: Rosa Luxemburg as feminist
March 8, 2018In celebration of International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month, we present excerpts from Dunayevskaya’s “Luxemburg as Feminist; Break with Jogiches.”
Women’s Marches sweep the world
February 3, 2018Women’s Marches took place around the U.S. and the world in 2017 AND 2018, once again showing that the opposition to U.S. President Donald Trump is alive, thriving, militant and exuberant.
A review: Regretting Motherhood
February 2, 2018Adele’s review of Orna Donath’s book “Regretting Motherhood: A Study” takes up Donath’s study of 27 Israeli women who regretted becoming mothers; some who had never wanted children and others who had, only to find the reality was not what they expected.
Convention shows women persist
November 15, 2017Report on the Oct. 27, 2017, Women’s Convention in Detroit, Michigan, one of the followups to the Jan. 21 Women’s March on Washington, D.C. .
Readers’ Views: May-June 2017
May 1, 2017Reader’s Views on Women vs. Reaction; Women and Philosophy; Syria and Humanity; Support Trans Children!; Animals and Us; Repression vs. Justice; Why Read “N&L”; Voices from Behind the Bars
Women’s liberation, in fact and in philosophy
March 21, 2017Raya Dunayevskaya on the first and second women’s movements, the Black dimension, working women, and a total philosophy of liberation.
‘The Disappearing L’
March 17, 2017Adele’s review of Bonnie Morris’ “The Disappearing L,” which takes up why the Lesbian culture of the 1970s through the 1990s is disappearing and what was worthwhile in it.
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.
Florida students rally for immigrants
February 7, 2017Participant report of a 500-strong student rally at the University of South Florida in Tampa in support of immigrants and calling for divestment from companies whose products harm the environment or which produce weapons and supplies for the military.
Readers’ Views: January-February 2017, Part I
January 31, 2017Readers’ Views on: environmental and social crises; Martin Luther King Day; healthcare crisis, Donald Trump and the election; brutal “justice”; and who reads News & Letters.
Democracy in the streets votes Trump out!
January 23, 2017Reports from the huge Women’s March from participants in Chicago, Ill., Detroit, Mich., Oakland, Calif., Nashville, Tenn., Memphis, Tenn., Los Angeles, Calif., and New York City.
Review: We were feminists once
September 6, 2016Review by feminist Adele of Andi Zeisler’s book, We Were Feminists Once: from Riot Grrrl to Covergirl®, the Buying and Selling of a Political Movement, exploring how a once revolutionary feminism is being taken over by “marketplace feminism.”
In 1995 Andi Zeisler
Youth in Action: July-August 2016
July 9, 2016In West Auckland, New Zealand, Massey High School students and their parents petition for weather-appropriate summer uniforms; 82 Huntsville, Alabama, Grissom High School students defy the dress code for girls because the code endorses rape culture and violates Title IX rights; across the USA Muslim youth are harassed in a variety of ways making them feel unsafe, so much so that the majority of Muslim youth believe that reporting the harassment won’t make a difference.
Readers’ Views: July-August 2016, Part 1
July 7, 2016Readers’ Views on Hate: Orlando to Brexit; Black Lives Matter; Muhammad Ali and Dr. King; Duterte in the Philippines; News & Letters Readers Unite!; and Deadly Assault on Women From the U.S. to Israel.
Letter from Mexico: On ‘Life’ and feminism
May 18, 2016The late Revolutionary Olga Domanski is remembered for reminding us that Absolute Method is the only way for feminism, as part of a totally new society built on truly human foundations, to be completely realized.
Readers’ Views: March-April 2016, Part 2
March 30, 2016Readers’ Views on: The Movements from Practice and from Theory; Berta Caceres; Why Read N&L?; Women’s Liberation; Voices from behind the Bars.