Fownhope’s Heart of Oak Society traces its roots to the age of friendly societies, when communities provided their own safety net. Its anniversary celebrations reveal a tradition still very much alive, says MARK SEDDON
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‘Women remain the exploited, oppressed as workers and oppressed as women’
50 years ago SHEILA ROWBOTHAM wrote a landmark article about the real problems women had in society and in socialist parties. Bernadette Hyland talks to her about the continuing struggle for working-class women’s liberation
Sheila Rowbotham, pictured in 1969
ANGUS REID explains the significance of Cuba’s egalitarian in letter and spirit Family Code and the pertinent lessons it holds for democracies anywhere in the world
Special report by PEOPLE’S WORLD
NICK WRIGHT considers how the isolation of Israel and a new film on the controversial Italian communist leader are creating new reference points for Italy’s left
CARLOS MARTINEZ says Cuba’s achievements in the face of a criminal blockade are startling, but the island’s future if the United States succeeds in crushing it looks bleak
AMNON BROWNFIELD STEIN reports that far-right MPs who mobbed the event organised by Hadash may have helped raise awareness of the brutality of the Israeli right
ON January 10 1969 in an article called “Women: The struggle for freedom,” published in the Marxist magazine Black Dwarf, socialist feminist Sheila Rowbotham poured out her anger and resentment about the inequality and injustice of women’s lives: “A much less tangible something — a smouldering, bewildered consciousness with no shape — a muttered dissatisfaction — which suddenly shoots to the surface and EXPLODES.”
Rowbotham lived in a communal house in London, worked part-time teaching at a local FE college, and was involved with socialist politics.
But she saw her male comrades as part of the problem.
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