Civil partnerships and reproductive rights in Eastern Europe: an interview with Laima Vaige
rs21’s Leslie Cunningham interviews Dr. Laima Vaige, a feminist and LGBTQ activist from Lithuania, on same-sex partnerships in Lithuania, abortion rights in Poland, and LGBTQ people’s experiences across Europe during the Covid crisis.
Review | Sylvia Pankhurst: Natural Born Rebel
Sylvia Pankhurst’s life was full of tireless activism in the cause of women’s rights, anti-imperialism and the emancipation of the working class
What happened at Clapham Common
An eyewitness account of a powerful event marred by shocking and gratuitous acts of violence by the Metropolitan Police.
We can’t rely on the police to protect women
In the aftermath of Sarah Everard’s murder, politicians immediately called for heavier policing. But more police will not end violence against women.
IWD 2021: Five feminist fights for the year ahead
Reproductive justice, sexual violence and harassment, justice at work: on International Women’s Day, we look at key feminist fights for the year to come.
Review | Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again
Kate Bradley reviews a highly readable intervention into recent debates amongst feminists
Review | It’s a sin
It’s a Sin is a compelling account of the human suffering of the AIDS epidemic and homophobia in the 80s, but the show sometimes seems to be dodging the big political questions.
Poland’s feminist uprising
Women in Poland are making their own cause for hope by taking the streets. rs21 spoke with several feminist activists in Polish union Inicjatywa Pracownicza about the recent wave of feminist strikes and protests.
Autonomous space in Berlin: Liebig34, eviction, and gentrification
The violent police eviction of Berlin’s iconic Liebig34 space is the latest event in a never-ending battle between the city’s radical-left counterculture, and the forces of state-aided gentrification.
What a way to make a living – A former mental health care worker
A former care worker details her experiences in residential mental healthcare.
Review: Radical Happiness
Lynne Segal’s most recent work, Radical Happiness, addresses the relationship between political action and personal fulfilment.
No Recourse to Public Funds: the threat to migrant women and children
Covid-19 has exposed the cruelty of the No Recourse to Public Funds (NPRF) rule. It should be scrapped immediately.
Review | Fortunes of Feminism
Leslie Cunningham reviews Fortunes of Feminism by Nancy Fraser, a critical account of changes in feminist thought in the era of neo-liberalism.
From Stonewall to Black Lives Matter
Thinking about rebellion: Keegan O’Brien reflects on the threads that connect the Stonewall Riots to the contemporary Black Lives Matter movement.
‘I was born a baby not a boy’: sex, gender and trans liberation
Shanice McBean argues for a Marxism with trans liberation at its heart through a materialist analysis of gender and sex.
Solidarity on the streets of London and Manchester
People protested to stand against the Tories’ attacks on trans rights and to demand justice for Shukri Abdi. The two causes found each other on the streets.
Review: Epstein: Filthy rich
Kate Bradley reviews a documentary series focusing on giving a voice to the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein.
Fighting back better: abolitionist trans struggle and the GRA
To defeat transphobia, we must build radical anti-racist solidarity against state violence
50 years after the Equal Pay Act
Money can’t buy you love – but it does pay the bills. Fifty years after the Equal Pay Act, women are still fighting for equal pay. What lessons we can now learn from the Covid-19 pandemic?
Trans rights and ‘gender ideology’ in Hungary
The Hungarian parliament has passed new legislation that will eradicate any recognition of transgender people. Hanna Gál situates the new developments in the context of the far-right ruling parties’ hostility to ‘gender ideology’ and argues for a trans-inclusive feminist fightback.
What a way to make a living | A personal assistant in social care
Hanna Gál interviews Meriam Mabrouk on working as a personal assistant in social care.
Covid capitalism
In this essay originally published in Spectre Journal, Tithi Bhattacharya and Gareth Dale explore state responses to coronavirus to mitigate the crisis of capital.
revolutionary reflections | Marxism and childhood
Estelle Cooch traces the contradictory history of childhood under capitalism. How do we defend childhood and fight for a world where play and creativity are not limited to children?
Women, Work and ‘Directly Confronting Capitalist Power’
Sue Ferguson discusses socialist-feminism, capitalist childhoods and social struggles today. While conducted weeks previously, this interview goes online amidst a pandemic, exposing and aggravating a crisis of social reproduction.
Social reproduction in crisis
The coronavirus crisis brings into sharp light capital’s reliance on social reproductive labour, Kate Bradley argues.
Safer sex – lessons from the AIDS crisis
Colin Wilson remembers the community responses to the AIDS crisis in the 1980s.
Report from the #FeministPickets
Last week we republished the call from Women’s Strike Assembly for feminists to link up with the current higher education strikes. rs21 members report from the #FeministPickets
Feminists to the pickets!
The Women’s Strike Assembly are calling for feminists to link up with the current higher education strikes and organise feminist pickets on Monday 9 March 2020.
Launch statement: Cambridge Feminist Anti-Fascists
Cambridge Feminist Anti-Fascists is a new group intending to organise against the far right and the broader social issues that fuel it.
Trans Day of Remembrance 2019
20 November is Trans Day of Remembrance. Patricia Lockhart, an activist with Sisters Uncut, reports on developments in Scotland and argues that socialists need to stand against transphobia now more than ever.