Witnessing a war of words at a meeting on tackling militarism at The World Transformed, BEN COWLES spoke to a union rep who is organising against war from inside the arms industry itself, to hear about worker-led solutions to ending weapons production

YOU won’t have missed the fact that this year is the centenary of some women winning the vote. While it’s marvellous to see women’s history on the agenda, it’s disappointing, too, that it is still not fully integrated into the main historical canon rather than celebrated as a novelty on anniversaries.
Despite the intensity of the current focus on suffrage, we still tend to be fed a rather Pankhurst-centric version of events, so wedded do we remain to the great (and white, and usually middle or upper-class) individuals historical narrative.
Yet years before the formation of the Pankhursts’ Women's Social and Political Union, working-class women — Lancashire mill workers, in particular — were demanding the vote and were prominent in the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies.

BEN CHACKO reports on the struggles against sexism, racism and the brutish British state that featured at Matchwomen’s Festival this year

The Morning Star invites readers to join Jeremy Corbyn and others to celebrate a working-class female victory that echoes through the ages
