Radical Women

Real Rape Law Campaign Gathers Momentum

September - December 1990

Rape is a largely unreported crime. And, given the myriad obstacles which a rape victim must endure, it is hardly surprising that many women decide not to notify the police. As a starting point, the law needs to be changed to mitigate the rape victim’s trauma from simply reporting the crime.

Defending Reproductive Freedom: An International Struggle for Women’s Rights

Summer/Autumn 1990

Abortion is about the right of women to biological and sexual self determination. It is about our right to be economically independent. Because abortion is such a fundamental issue it is one of the first targets picked out by the right wing for their agenda to shore up the institution of the nuclear family through compulsory pregnancy for able-bodied white women but forced celibacy or sterilisation or DepoProvera for Aboriginal women, disabled women and women in institutions.

International Women’s Day: Ghetto Festival or Front Line of the Struggle for Women’s Liberation?

Summer 1988/1989

One is that we are all lesbians or a least celibate women who prefer to socialise mainly with other women. This has become a stumbling block to the movement. Instead of clear political demands about fighting the oppression of lesbians that we expect all who support women’s liberation to take up and fight for, we’ve got a bizarre combination of lesbian political invisibility but an underlying assumption that in our lifestyles we are all dykes. We’ve got to make IWD political; we have to address the issues of the day — those that people who aren’t at IWD are concerned about or fighting around.