Women's Views on News |
| Posted: 06 Jul 2016 03:06 PM PDT
After years and years of struggle against racial hostility to new migrant communities, we are back there again – albeit post Brexit, which, seemingly, has taken the shame out of racism. And now, just like in the 1970s, communities up and down the country are experiencing an upsurge in racist and fascist violence. The Institute of Race Relations (IRR) wants to help organisations at the grassroots by building up a national picture. Can you help, by sending regular updates about what is happening in your community? Even before the contest was started, it was clear that the EU referendum would embolden racists and encourage violence against migrants and BAME communities. Immigration was always going to take centre-stage, given the way that the anti-immigration, anti-multiculturalism and anti-EU slant of the tabloid press had been feeding Nigel Farage's UKIP for at least a decade. Nor could anyone be surprised that politicians (with a few honourable exceptions), whether Leavers or Remainers, were prepared to swim in the same tide. The rest is well known. Ever since the referendum result was announced on 24 June, acts of hostility and violence have taken place in every part of the country. Police data suggests that there was an immediate 57 per cent increase in reported incidents in the four days after the referendum. But the IRR's first review of the national picture suggests that police figures are a substantial under-estimate. On social media people are describing incidents of hostility and racial abuse across the country where perpetrators taunt passers-by on buses, on the streets, in workplaces, or from the safety of their vehicles, with comments like 'get packing', 'white power', 'time for you to leave' or 'get out, we voted Leave'. These incidents are most probably not reported and most certainly not prosecuted. History teaches us that if such open hostility goes unchecked, it can quickly morph into something much worse. And there have also been numerous reports of physical assaults and attacks on BAME-run businesses and cultural centres. The IRR's first week of national monitoring suggests that those behind this outpouring of vile abuse are overwhelmingly white men; their victims are firstly migrants from eastern Europe, followed by those from BAME communities. The IRR will also note the number of incidents reported to have taken place in schools, where children have been taunted and ridiculed by their classmates – and has already written to the National Union of Teachers (NUT) to discuss what can be done about this. But in order to do this most effectively, your input is needed. Send the IRR links to stories in local media, or, simply, write to them, telling them about incidents that you have witnessed. The Post Ref Racism’s facebook page and #PostRefRacism is also collating incidents. And the Guardian recently released a short video outlining what you can do if you encounter racial violence. Despite the shocking tales, there are others: all around the country, ordinary people are doing their best to make migrant communities and others under threat feel supported. We can build on that.  |
| Matchwomen’s strike remembered Posted: 06 Jul 2016 02:27 PM PDT
In the summer of 1888, 1400 women walked out on strike over management bullying and appalling, hazardous working conditions. The strike was caused by the poor working conditions in a match factory, conditions including fourteen-hour work days, poor pay, excessive fines and the severe health complications of working with white phosphorus, such as phossy jaw, but it was sparked by the dismissal of one of the workers. The women and girls were workers at Bryant & May's match factory in London's East End and they shocked the world, and ultimately changed it. Working-class women at this time were supposed to be seen and not heard, especially if, like many matchwomen, they were of Irish heritage. Instead, the matchwomen paraded in the streets of the East End, singing songs and telling the truth about their starvation wages and mistreatment by the firm. Then they marched to Parliament. Their strength and solidarity won them better pay, safer conditions, and the right to form the largest union of women and girls in Britain. They were an inspiration to other groups of workers up and down the country. The modern movement for workers' rights had begun, and the matchwomen were at the forefront of it. The first Matchwomen’s Festival was held to mark the 125th anniversary of the Matchwomen’s Strike. It was a brilliant day, with around 700 visitors including the late Bob Crow, and was one of Tony Benn’s last public engagements. This year’s festival was dedicated to the memory of Jo Cox MP, and donations made to the White Ribbon Alliance, a charity for which she served as a director, which campaigns for safe births for women and babies worldwide. The speakers at the 2016 Festival were Shami Chakrabarti talking about life after Liberty; bestselling authors Rachel Holmes (‘Eleanor Marx’) and Sunny Singh (‘Hotel Arcadia’); author Sarah Jackson co-author of East London Suffragettes on ‘Suffragettes – not just posh white women!’; Nikki Dancey on the science of sexism: the experiments that prove it’s not ‘all in our minds’; Esther Parry on maternal feminism and building a network of mum activists; GMB organiser Nadine Houghton, on organising women; Class War’s Lisa Mckenzie on fighting back – and getting nicked for it (!); Terry McCarthy on the betrayal of women war workers; Nesta Holden asked Who made your shoes? and looked at home work and what it means for women; and Freedom Programme ‘graduate’ Nina, spoke about her own experiences, and the way domestic abuse affects Asian women. Louise Raw, founder of the Matchwomen's Festival, also spoke about the book she wrote about the matchwomen. In her book, 'Striking A Light', she revealed the incredible true story of the matchwomen and the summer of 1888 for the first time. She provided unequivocal evidence to show that the matchwomen greatly influenced the Dock Strike of 1889, which until now was thought to be the key event of new unionism, and repositions them as the mothers of the modern labour movement. She looked at the stories of the women themselves and interviewed members of their families, and the result has been heralded as an important new angle to the strike's history which challenged existing accounts of the strike itself and radically altered the accepted history of the labour movement in Britain.  |
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