NICK TROY lauds the young staff at a hotel chain and cinema giant who are ready to take on the bosses for their rights
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Flour bombs and rotten vegetables: 50 years on and women’s struggles are being hidden from history again
2 years after the explosive arrival of the women’s liberation movement in 1968, it confronted the twisted 'Miss World' event in London head on. Now a major Hollywood movie is retelling that story — leaving out the socialist and working-class elements
Miss World is the oldest 'beauty pageant.' November 1970 it was disrupted by women's liberation protesters (pictured) who stormed the event armed with flour missiles, water pistols filled with ink, rotten fruit and stink bombs. The event however, still takes place today.
DYLAN MURPHY reports that far from helping people back into work, the sanctions regime is inflicting unnecessary trauma on working-class families
As Saudi Arabia is hailed abroad for its ‘reforms,’ the reality for women inside the kingdom grows ever more repressive. On the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, MARYAM ALDOSSARI argues it is time to stop applauding the illusion – and start listening to the women the state works hardest to silence
With Petro, Colombia has been making huge strides towards peace — but is all that at risk with the elections next year? MARK ROWE reports back after joining a delegation to the Latin American country
With violence against women and girls reaching unprecedented levels – particularly in the north of England – Unison North West is driving a union-wide push for education, prevention and trauma-informed support, writes JOANNE MOORCROFT
Amid national economic decay and with a lack of coherent left-wing responses, far-right narratives on women’s safety and immigration have taken root in former Labour heartlands. The WOMEN’S LIBERATION ALLIANCE warns that only a renewed politics rooted in an understanding of class, race and sex can stem the rise of authoritarianism
THE film Misbehaviour is currently on general release. It is about the protest at the 1970 Miss World beauty contest, compered by reactionary “comic” Bob Hope, where feminists disrupted proceedings at the Albert Hall by throwing flour bombs and rotten vegetables.
In the film Keira Knightley plays one of the protesters, Sally Alexander. The film also features a scene, manufactured for dramatic effect, with her then partner Gareth Stedman Jones.
Both are socialist historians and founding editors of the History Workshop Journal, which continues to be published to this day, styled as a journal of socialist and feminist historians.
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