Women’s rights in the US are at a critical juncture. A leaked draft Supreme Court judgement indicates that five conservative judges support overturning the 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision that established a woman’s right to abortion as a constitutional right.
Coercive control is not restricted to the “personal” sphere in capitalist society. It is a dynamic that underpins many relationships and interactions, and in most cases is not seen as a problem.
If more evidence was needed of the continued pervasiveness of sexism in Australian society, the response to Brittany Higgins’ allegation that she had been raped in Parliament House by a fellow Liberal Party staffer in 2021, and the outcry about Grace Tame’s refusal to smile at Prime Minister Scott Morrison at an Australian of the Year get-together earlier this year, provide it.
Bigotry had a setback on 11 February with the indefinite shelving of the Religious Discrimination Bill. This is to be celebrated.
In the early hours of Thursday morning, following the shameful passage of the Religious Discrimination Bill through the lower house with ALP support, Labor leader Anthony Albanese tweeted the “breaking” news that Labor had “been successful in protecting LGBTQI school children from discrimination”.
I’m a socialist gay activist, so I’m used to being attacked for my politics. You learn to take it in your stride. But one of the most dumbfounding denunciations I ever received was issued by a few other apparently progressive queer activists, who slammed me in May 2017 for the heinous crime of speaking at a protest against the Liberal Party.