There’s a storm brewing
What the local elections foretell I am one of the large majority who did not vote in the recent mayoral and local elections in New Zealand – not because I […]
Category Archives: women’s equality
Grace Millane, consent, and Fifty Shades of Grey: what the trial tells us about the social, sexual and legal status of women today
Sometimes a criminal trial throws light on a deeper social or political problem; the trial of the murderer of Grace Millane is one of those times. For the benefit of […]
Defend the right of women to meet and organise politically!
Massey University capitulates to the self-appointed censors – and another democratic institution slides towards the abyss In an extraordinary display of political cowardice, Massey University in Wellington, New Zealand, has […]
If this is how you propose to defend free speech, then freedom of speech is in grave danger
An open letter to Jan Thomas, Vice-chancellor of Massey University. Massey University in Wellington is the venue for an event on 13 November called Feminism 2020, organised by Speak Up […]
Child welfare in the age of capitalist decay – a glimpse of New Zealand’s stolen generation
[Note: this post was updated on 24 June with comments on the obfuscatory character of the term ‘domestic violence,’ and on the source of Oranga Tamariki’s tendency to act on […]
Facing the misogynist character of the Christchurch terror attack
What is the connection between the shocking terrorist crime committed in Christchurch a week ago by an individual sociopathic thug, and the social psychosis of contemporary capitalist society? Since the thug was clearly acting in accord with his […]
“Trotsky” : the pornographication of history
In one of the opening scenes of Trotsky, the 2017 television mini-series produced by Russian state television and directed by Alexander Kott and Konstantin Statsky,1 Trotsky is travelling on his […]
Do women exist? – the science of sex, the politics of gender, and the materialist and dialectical thinking needed to distinguish the two
With law changes pending in the UK, New Zealand and other places that will make it simpler for people to change the sex marker on their birth certificates (and moves […]
The Kavanaugh appointment – the crisis of bourgeois rule in the United States spreads to engulf another institution
Two years ago, Donald Trump won the Republican nomination, and then the Presidency of the United States, against all expectations. It was an unmistakable sign of the crisis gripping the […]
The liberal censors extend their reach
The self-appointed liberal censors have struck again in New Zealand. Emboldened by their success in no-platforming the visiting Canadian rightists Stefan Molyneux and Lauren Southern, and then disrupting a campus […]
A worker at large 