December 5, 1999 — news from Miami: Elián González Brotóns, a young shipwreck survivor from Cuba, blew out the candles of his birthday cake. He had just turned six. With his mother, the “little Cuban refugee” had set out for the Land of the Free. She drowned. Elián was saved by the U.S. Coast Guard… Read more »
women & feminism
Mobilise Now Against Backward Laws: Equal Access to Reproductive Technology
The patriarchal nuclear family may have disappeared from most households, but it’s alive and kicking in Victoria’s fertility laws. In August last year, a lesbian police officer was charged with using an in vitro fertility (IVF) treatment. According to the Victorian Infertility Treatment Act (ITA), only married or heterosexual defacto couples can legally access IVF… Read more »
Welcome the New Century: Meet Revolutionary Women Leaders From Cuba!
Going to Cuba, as I did in 1997, is absolutely eye-opening. One day I was packaging bread for Buttercup; the next, I was landing at Havana’s international airport where murals said: “We believe in the Revolution. We believe in Socialism.” Stepping from Howard’s Australia into a workers’ state is a breathtaking experience. I was among… Read more »
Sexism and Racism — Linked by a Common Source
For Radical Women, art is as political as life. It can be a tool for change, as powerful as our struggles for a better world. Karen Brodine, acclaimed socialist feminist poet and Radical Women leader who died in 1987 from breast cancer, once said this about women artists she looked to for strength and insight:… Read more »
The Whole Woman: Germaine Greer Demolishes “Post Feminism”
A friend of mine has a clever T-shirt which reads “I’ll be a post-feminist in post-patriarchy.” Germaine Greer’s new book, The Whole Woman, is a book version of the T-shirt. Greer wrote the book she said she’d never write. The Whole Woman is a sequel to The Female Eunuch, one of several books which inspired… Read more »
Defend Indigenous Sovereignty without conditions! Global sisters debate Makah whale hunt
One morning in early June, as I was checking email messages, I found several postings on an international feminist list with the subject title, “Radical Women and Freedom Socialist Party support Makah Tribe whaling!!” The exclamation marks alerted me to the possibility of controversy. The first whale hunt in 70 years by the Makah of… Read more »
Privatisation hits home – Women bear the burden of under-funded services
“Community care.” It has such a nice ring to it: society’s thrown-away people being brought back into community life, no longer shut away in large, impersonal and uncaring institutions. But do we believe for one minute that the State has emptied its publicly-funded institutions because it cares? Of course not!
Meg says “Back to the kitchen” – fast food, feminism and the Goods and Services Tax
Australian Democrats leader Meg Lees clearly hasn’t a clue about the day-to-day pressures juggled by working women. The Democrats’ Goods and Services Tax deal ignores the fact that women are still responsible for the overwhelming majority of domestic work.
Alert! Anti-woman zealots in action: National pro-choice movement needed now!
Around the world, the Church, the State, religious zealots and the bosses are lining up against women. They want to rein us in, particularly to get control of our bodies.
Spirited Memorial Celebrates the Life of Clara Fraser – Irrepressible Radical Innovator
On Sunday May 24, people from wide-ranging political backgrounds joined in the Melbourne celebration of the extraordinary life of Marxist feminist trailblazer, Clara Fraser, who died of emphysema on February 24 at the age of 74.
