Fighting to Choose: the Abortion Rights Struggle in New Zealand
[Alison McCulloch is a freelance journalist and abortion rights activist based in Tauranga. Her history of the abortion rights struggle in New Zealand, Fighting to Choose, will be published by Victoria University Press next month. We spoke to Alison about her book and the campaign.] Alison, you’re an active member of ALRANZ, the pro-choice organisation. […]
Why women need abortion rights: the socialist case
Shomi Yoon gave this talk to the Wellington branch of the International Socialist Organisation in March. “Not the Church, not the state, women must decide their fate”: this was the fighting slogan of the abortion rights campaign of the 1970s. Women’s liberation was a movement that swept across the world, growing out of and alongside […]
Celebrating the struggle against sexism
This talk was given to the Dunedin branch of the International Socialists by Miranda B to mark International Women’s Day 2013. The first International Women’s Day (IWD) celebration was held over 100 years ago in 1911. In the last few years it has been taken over by mainstream or bureaucratic bodies, in particular the United […]
The making of the Mystique
FIFTY YEARS after its publication, The Feminine Mystique has been credited with everything from single-handedly sparking the women’s movement to perpetuating an outdated and long-gone stereotype of the American family. Neither is true, but many of the issues that Betty Friedan’s book raised–such as the role of women and the nuclear family–make The Feminine Mystique […]
Nothing natural about sexism
Marx’s collaborator Engels wrote that “…the first class antagonism which appears in history coincides with the development of the antagonism between man and woman in monogamous marriage, and the first class oppression with that of the female sex by the male.” So women’s oppression existed before the rise of capitalism, but has not always existed. […]
Marxism, feminism and women’s liberation
Sharon Smith, author of the soon-to-be-republished Women and Socialism: Essays on Women’s Liberation, examines how the Marxist tradition has approached the struggle to end women’s oppression, including its attitude toward other theories, in this article based on a talk given at the Socialism 2012 conference in Chicago. INESSA ARMAND, the first leader of the women’s department of […]
The Paris Commune of 1871: Women and Revolution
By Rowan McArthur “The experience of all liberation movements has shown that the success of a revolution depends on how much the women take part in it.” – This is a quote from the Russian revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin. Its truth has been proven time and again, with women being at the forefront of resistance […]
Low paid women in revolt: Nationalise Oceania!
Low paid aged care workers at Oceania homes have been driven to revolt. Members of the Service and Food Workers Union Nga Ringa Tota and nurses in the NZNO first struck on 1st March, and again on 7th. Stopwork meetings took place on 14th March and strikes on the 19th and again on 5th April. […]
Abortion: A Woman’s Right to Choose
Women have been terminating pregnancies for as long as they have been getting pregnant. There are records of abortion in all societies we have knowledge about, and abortions occur regardless of whether they are legal and safe or not. So this debate is not really so much about whether you are ‘pro’ or ‘anti’ abortion […]
