Karen Fredericks

Seminar on feminist struggle in northern Syria

"Northern Syria’s Feminist Revolution" is the title of a one-day seminar to be held at Victoria University on November 4.

It is being jointly organised by the Kurdish Democratic Community Centre of Victoria, the Kurdish Women’s League of Victoria and the Australians for Kurdistan solidarity group. It is also sponsored by Victoria University’s Community, Identity and Displacement Research Network.

Green Left Radio urges support for 3CR Radiothon

Melbourne is known for good coffee, horrible weather, Australian Rules football and militant unions. Since 1974, community radio station 3CR has been a supporting beam in the city’s radical infrastructure.

Green Left Radio, like all 120 programs on the station’s schedule, are calling on listeners and supporters to donate to the annual 3CR Radiothon and keep the signal strong on their June 16 show.

Misogyny and power: On sexual predators and other pillars of society

“Don’t go around acting holier-than-thou about this like you’ve never heard anyone say anything like that before,” said Tomi Lahren, 24-year-old Trump-supporting commentator for right-wing US media network The Blaze, over Donald Trump’s leaked comments boasting about sexual assault. “Give me a break.”

Policing the Olympic sex divide

South African runner Caster Semenya won the women's 800m at the Rio Olympics in the fifth fastest time in Olympic history. Her win, and the petulant responses from the runners she beat, has drawn renewed attention to the problems facing international sports bodies as they struggle to maintain strict segregation by biological sex.

'A special place in Hell' — faux feminists shill for Hillary

Back in February, former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright told a rally in the lead up to the first Democratic Party presidential primary in New Hampshire, there is a “special place in hell” for women who don't support Hillary Clinton. That same weekend, US feminist icon Gloria Steinem told a talk show that young women supporting presidential nominee Bernie Sanders over Clinton were chasing boys.

Ghostbusters vs the ghosts in our machines

Ghostbusters Written by Kate Dippold & Paul Feig Directed by Paul Feig Staring Melissa McCarthy; Kristen Wiig; Kate McKinnon; and Leslie Jones In cinemas now Internet troll Zane Alchin will be sentenced in Sydney next week after pleading guilty to “using a carriage service to menace, harass or offend”, to wit 55 vile comments on a Facebook post.

Invading the field

Twenty-five per cent of Australian Rules football players are now women and girls, a figure that has doubled in the past five years. From February next year, eight new women's teams will compete in a national, six-round, AFL competition. Announcing the women's league last month, AFL chairman Mike Fitzpatrick said it would “change the game forever, [… uneasy pause …] for the good”.

One Nation is not just racist

Pauline Hanson is back in the Senate after 18 years, riding the wave of anti-Muslim hatred spawned by various confected Wars on Terror™. But liberal commentators are warning we should take her more seriously this time. She and her 10% are “not just racists” they say. And they're right. Since the election, Hanson has made it clear that she has two major priorities this time around: protecting Christian fish'n'chips from Middle Eastern halal fast food, and tender-hearted men from the feminist Family Court.

Community opposes far-right World Congress of Families

Victoria police are vetting registrants and scouting venues to try to provide security for the besieged World Congress of Families in Melbourne on August 30. The final venue for the event remains unclear as they try to avoid clashes with widespread community opposition. Activists are already causing chaos for conference organisers Babette Francis of the Endeavour Forum (formerly Women Who Want to be Women) and John Brennan of the conservative Catholic men’s group Knights of the Southern Cross.

‘Cuts hitting hard’: single mums speak out

An anonymous post to the Facebook group “Parenting Payments for Parents — not Newstart” (PPPNN) on February 26 read: “It’s been a very long, long, tiring road with no help from police regarding the violence ... I am now settled in a new private rental of $355 a week but I just can’t get back on track … I can’t put food on the table or nappies on my children’s bottoms this week.

The school that teaches rebellion

The first School of Rebellion, held in association with Marxism 2013 over the Easter weekend in Melbourne, drew about 30 kids for a weekend of thinking, talking, making noise, art, music, poetry, mess and friends. It was declared “awesome” by a random sample of kids, teachers and parents and the program will definitely be back, bigger and better, for Marxism 2014.

John Pilger calls for 'silent majority' to speak out

Seven-hundred people crammed into the Melbourne City Conference Centre on February 8 to hear radical journalist and film-maker John Pilger’s call for mass action against the invasion of Iraq — “the paramount war crime against humanity from which all other war crimes follow”.