JOHN REES looks at why the June 20 international anti-war conference is such a vital initiative
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.
JOHN REES replies to Claudia Webbe
Professor MARY DAVIS argues that feminism has been hollowed out by liberal co-option – and only a revival of socialist, class-based politics can restore International Working Women’s Day’s original, radical purpose
The legacy of socialist feminists such as Alexandra Kollontai challenges us today to confront an uncomfortable truth: framing prostitution as empowerment lets the abusers of the Epstein class off the hook, warns HELEN O’CONNOR
Who you ask and how you ask matter, as does why you are asking — the history of opinion polls shows they are as much about creating opinions as they are about recording them, writes socialist historian KEITH FLETT


