Cass Balchin was a founding sister of openDemocracy 50.50 and a leading contributor to our dialogue on Gender Politics and Religion which explores the impact of the global resurgence of religion in public life on women's human rights, and examines the possibilities for gender equality and pluralis
New policies brought in to address violence against women in the UK are being implemented by large generic institutions at the expense of smaller specialist preventative and support organisations. For black and ethnic minority women, paternalistic 'management' appears to be inseparable from disemp
Americans have grown more supportive of same-sex marriages, gun control, immigration reform and even taxes on the wealthiest individuals. Why, then, have the cultural and political wars over abortion accelerated?
Selective reporting by the western media, and expert opinion predicting Egypt's future based on the familiar pattern of drawing blueprints that are disconnected from the pulse on the street, are producing strong anti-western sentiment, says Mariz Tadros.
Anger amongst the Spanish electorate is rising fast amidst the dramatic events in a long-running corruption case implicating the Spanish Government. Liz Cooper says that above all the Spanish want stability, but where stability lies is now uncertain...
For all its problems, Algeria never became an Islamic state. Like Algerian progressives in the 1990s, Egyptian progressives now have to carve out the space to construct a credible alternative under the shield of the new transitional process, and simultaneously challenge the military’s human rights
Women in Iraq bear the brunt of increasing levels of gender-based violence, inadequate infrastructure and poverty. Yet women activists recognize that their struggle for equality and social justice as women cannot be separated from the wider struggle against authoritarianism and sectarianism
Racist and patriarchal ideas underpin the new ‘family planning’ initiatives promoted by DfID, USAID and the Gates Foundation which deny women in the global South real control over their bodies. The appropriation of the notion of ‘women’s right to choose’ for neoliberal population control must be c
Alice Welbourn and Louise Binder consider whether the new World Health Organisation treatment guidelines for women and children living with HIV may result in more abuse and harm
With the publication of the updated Beyond the Fragments, Hilary Wainwright spoke to Rahila Gupta about the politics of knowledge and using her experience of the women’s movement to address the question of how to realise the capacities of each for the benefit of all as the basis for alternative, h
The only way to safeguard against the emergence of another dictatorship in Egypt is a political settlement that is premised on an inclusive rather than majoritarian political order
Women can only hope for a better future if the next generation of Afghans is taught to unlearn religious, cultural, and gender prejudices that are instrumental in their oppression. Education is pivotal to this vision, and it is the single attainable factor that keeps the hope of our women alive
