American radical feminist Shulamith Firestone was a leading theorist of 70s feminism who died a lonely death last summer. Responding to Susan Faludi’s psychological profile of Firestone in The New Yorker last month, Kathleen B. Jones examines Firestone’s contribution to women’s liberation

The treatment of politicians Laura Boldrini and Cecile Kyenge highlights the persistent problem of the abuse of women in Italy's public sphere. This cannot be dismissed as just a debate about censorship. Italy’s gender question is a wound left unhealed. 

Doctrines, deployments, and the political value attached to "nuclear deterrence" are being challenged at the NPT conference.  As 78 nations co-sponsor a growing "humanitarian initiative", the five NPT nuclear-armed states and some of their "nuclear umbrella" allies like Japan, Australia and Germany are in denial. Rebecca Johnson reports

Despite women's progress, the norms that dictate that people should act along gender lines are stronger than ever. The rules of gender come first, humanity second. Genderqueers are transforming gender and challenging the constricting gender roles that limit everybody’s lives.

The displays of masculine assertiveness by the football ultras in Egypt and their strongly gendered form of youth activism points to the need to look beyond clichés about unspecified notions of revolutionary youth. Initially opposed to state authorities, are the ultras refashioning themselves as new political players?

A dangerous process is taking place in the UN system that threatens the universality of human rights by seeking to make them contingent on subjective ‘traditional values’ such as ‘responsible behaviour’.

As the two cities of Cairo and Port Said remain engulfed in the worst violence seen since the Revolution, the entwining in Egypt of ‘football and the game of politics’ could hardly be more complete. And the game, it would appear, has not even reached half-time, says Leila Zaki Chakravarti.