On Saturday 21 October, the Feminist Fightback conference at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London attracted over 230 people. On Tuesday 31 October, activists involved with Fightback will be protesting outside the Conservatives' "Shoes, shopping and politics" event to make clear that rich women discussing shoes and how to become Tory MPs is not our idea of women's liberation!
Come and join us!
Come and join us!
Meet 5.45pm at Covent Garden Tube station. We will be protesting outside the LK Bennett store where the event takes place: 43 King Street, Covent Garden, WC2E 8JY from 6.30pm. See below for the statement we will be distributing.
For more information email us or ring 07815 490 837...
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More Tory MPs is not women's liberation!
L K Bennett, the high fashion shoe shop where this event is being held, made £7m profit in 2004. It'd take an woman working 40 hours a week on the minimum wage (which the Tories opposed when it was initially proposed at a paltry £3.60 an hour) nearly 700 years to earn this much money. Even better paid women workers will never be as comfortably off as many of the leading lights of the Tory women's "campaign" for more female MPs, such as Theresa May (a former banking industry consultant) and Lady Fiona Hodgson (who runs her own interior design company). May has also signed the recent Early Day Motion on abortion sponsored by the anti-choice lobby, just another sign of Conservative contempt for women's rights.
The title "Shoes, shopping and politics" is a patronising fake girly appeal to women based on the idea we're airheads incapable of understanding real politics, and more interested in consumer choices than political programmes. They might as well have called it "Girls' Night Out!" – it'd be funny if it wasn't disguising the fact the Tories have a hideous track record of attacks on working-class people,
from undermining the welfare state and crippling comprehensive education, to shackling trade unions with repressive laws and stigmatising single mothers.
The kind of feminism which calls for more women Tory MPs cannot deliver women's liberation. This is the party which has recently been paying lip service to equal rights in a cynical attempt to win votes, but has long stood for the oppression of women, LGBT people and alternative sexualities under the guise of so-called "family values". Just witness the Ten Minute Rule Bill tabled by Tory Nadine Dorries, calling for both a reduction in the time limit for abortion and the
introduction of a mandatory delay in service provision, due to be discussed in Parliament today. A stronger right-wing in government is bad for the majority of women, whatever its percentage of female MPs.
We need equality, we need more women representatives, but we don't need Parliament filled with rich Tory business women demanding an equal right to exploit their "sisters".
For more information email us or ring 07815 490 837...
--
More Tory MPs is not women's liberation!
L K Bennett, the high fashion shoe shop where this event is being held, made £7m profit in 2004. It'd take an woman working 40 hours a week on the minimum wage (which the Tories opposed when it was initially proposed at a paltry £3.60 an hour) nearly 700 years to earn this much money. Even better paid women workers will never be as comfortably off as many of the leading lights of the Tory women's "campaign" for more female MPs, such as Theresa May (a former banking industry consultant) and Lady Fiona Hodgson (who runs her own interior design company). May has also signed the recent Early Day Motion on abortion sponsored by the anti-choice lobby, just another sign of Conservative contempt for women's rights.
The title "Shoes, shopping and politics" is a patronising fake girly appeal to women based on the idea we're airheads incapable of understanding real politics, and more interested in consumer choices than political programmes. They might as well have called it "Girls' Night Out!" – it'd be funny if it wasn't disguising the fact the Tories have a hideous track record of attacks on working-class people,
from undermining the welfare state and crippling comprehensive education, to shackling trade unions with repressive laws and stigmatising single mothers.
The kind of feminism which calls for more women Tory MPs cannot deliver women's liberation. This is the party which has recently been paying lip service to equal rights in a cynical attempt to win votes, but has long stood for the oppression of women, LGBT people and alternative sexualities under the guise of so-called "family values". Just witness the Ten Minute Rule Bill tabled by Tory Nadine Dorries, calling for both a reduction in the time limit for abortion and the
introduction of a mandatory delay in service provision, due to be discussed in Parliament today. A stronger right-wing in government is bad for the majority of women, whatever its percentage of female MPs.
We need equality, we need more women representatives, but we don't need Parliament filled with rich Tory business women demanding an equal right to exploit their "sisters".
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