About Rahila Gupta

Rahila Gupta is a freelance journalist and writer. Her work has appeared in The Guardian and New Humanist among other papers and magazines. Her books include, From Homebreakers to Jailbreakers: Southall Black Sisters ed. (Zed Press, 2003), Provoked (Harper Collins, India, 2007) and Enslaved: The New British Slavery (Portobello Books, 2007).

Articles by Rahila Gupta

Transgender: the challenge to feminist politics

There are so many battles yet to be won by feminists that we must not be distracted by internal schisms. If we can identify a shared political goal with trans women, says Rahila Gupta, we should be able to end this polarisation.

Women and LGBT rights: the Achilles’ heel of Christian knights

The narrative of splits in Protestantism which is based on convenient binaries, with African and Asian churches emerging as the conservatives, and the US and Europe as the liberals, fails to capture the complexity of what is going on at ground level, says Rahila Gupta

Away from prison: the distance travelled

The British government's new policy of cutting re-offending rates by introducing a crude payment-by-results won't work. There should be many markers of success. Rahila Gupta watched Jen Joseph and Carrie Rock performing in Phyllida Lloyd's production of Julius Caesar

The value of a woman's life

We need to make sure that we do not take the blame for the violence that is visited upon us. We need to develop a sense of self that cannot be eroded, a sense of self that is rounded and whole. It is what saves a woman in the final analysis.

Sexual violence in Indian cities

A Gallup poll finding that women in Rwanda and Bangladesh felt safer on the streets than women in the UK and Sweden needs to be treated with great caution. There is no correlation between 'feeling safe' and the objective reality of whether women are actually safe or not, says Rahila Gupta.

Can a story save a life? Women and the Arab uprisings

As Tahrir Square fills up again and the Arab uprisings continue, the power of words and the battle over who owns them is captured by six middle eastern playwrights whose work Arab Nights is being performed in London

Taking a flawed stand against orientalism

In a response to openDemocracy's 'Citizenship after Orientalism' series, Rahila Gupta says there's no need to ditch values such as secularism and modernity - just point out that they’re not associated wholly with the West. This, she argues, would be the appropriate response to orientalism

No exceptions: one law for all

Should we be worried that a parallel legal system is creeping into existence in the UK when one law for all should be the defining principle of a liberal democracy? asks Rahila Gupta

The issues that divide: building a diverse feminist movement

Recognition that identity politics had immobilised and fragmented the women's movement has driven the search for diversity among young feminists. Rahila Gupta asks: Who can, should and does the women’s movement speak for?

The great unmentionable in disability politics

"I felt there was no space for me to express grief at my son's disability". The grief of those who care for people with a disability is betrayal of the Cause. Rahila Gupta asks: how do you value disability at the same time as mourn the loss of ability?

The hijab or the bikini: the shaping of young girls’ sexuality

Where the line will be drawn between childrens' rights and parents’ rights will always be heavily contested. Issues from the veiling of young girls to the manufacture of padded bras for seven year olds, may best be dealt with by upholding the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child

UK migration: a hierarchy of injustices

The social cohesion and inclusion debate does not even begin to touch the lives of those invisible migrants who toil all hours of the day working out ways of pleasing their employers / traffickers / husbands. It is the existence of this population, more than any other, which exposes the myth of democratic universalism

Faith: know thy place

The feminist critique of religion should not appease the strident voices which label secularism as fundamentalist or militant by promoting a secularism that has had its teeth drawn. Feminists must continue to argue for a robust secularism and the right to stand against religion, argues Rahila Gupta

Has neoliberalism knocked feminism sideways?

Feminism needs to recapture the state from the neoliberal project to which it is in hock in order to make it deliver for women. It must guard against atomisation and recover its transformative aspirations to shape the new social order that is hovering on the horizon, says Rahila Gupta

Lush – cosmetic or real?

The EU is on the point of turning its back on the Schengen agreement. Welcome to the World Passport: 'this document confirms that its bearer is a human being, and not an alien'. Rahila Gupta reports on the campaign for open borders

This week's editor

Heather McRobie


Niki Seth-Smith is a freelance journalist and co-editor of OurKingdom.

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