Harry's Place

Soldiers, not surprisingly given the nature of their job, are the focus of many traumatic news stories.  Sometimes they are perpetrators – as with Abu Ghraib. or this horrific attack on civilians in Afghanistan. Often of course they and their families are victims.
In the context of these life-and-death concerns, it seems a bit incongruous that injured [...]

Steve Hedley’s antics have been brought to the attention of Harry’s Place readers in the past.  So warped are Hedley’s views that he appears to think the Jews sans Frontieres website is ‘Zionist’. Back in 2011 he clashed with Richard Millett at a SOAS BDS event. Following a tirade against Israel, Richard asked Hedley if he ‘felt better’. He [...]

This year the UN’s theme for International Women’s Day is: ‘A promise is a promise: Time for action to end violence against women.’  Here are some examples of women (and men) who are taking action or speaking out against violence against women.  Lebanese women are going on hunger strike to protest delays in the introduction [...]

I’ve noticed many interesting posts and stories this week which tap into debates around the relationship between feminism and freedom.  
If you haven’t already done so, do read Unrepentant Jacobin’s eloquent argument for banning full face coverings – I still don’t agree with his perspective, but it certainly reminded me why it’s an issue which [...]

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta will announce Thursday that the US military is lifting its ban on women in direct combat.
In fact the line between combat and non-combat roles for female soldiers has been blurred for some time, as more than a hundred have been killed in action in Iraq and Afghanistan, and hundreds more wounded. [...]

Andy Newman’s recent post at Socialist Unity, taking the Socialist Workers Party to task for its “culture of sexism,” would be more credible and cogent had not Newman and his fellow SU blogger John Wight gone out of their way to defend the indefensible when it came to George Galloway’s bizarre claim that non-consensual sex [...]

Recently PETA was in the news following a German court’s decision to uphold a ban on advertisements, used as part of a 2003 campaign, in which suffering animals were compared to Holocaust victims.  This grotesque campaign was described as “the most disgusting abuse of the memory of the Holocaust in recent years.” by the late [...]

First there was Todd “legitimate rape” Aiken in Missouri. Now it’s Richard Mourdock, running for US Senate from Indiana.

I believe life begins at conception. The only exception I have for to have an abortion is in the case of the life of the mother. I struggled with myself for a long time but I came [...]

This is a cross-post from Airforce Amazons
The story so far:
Following a tweet where he described issues of abortion and antisemitism as ‘distractions’ in the context of Venezuela’s recent election, Jonathan Glennie has been getting some criticism on a number of blogs, including Bob’s place where I was amongst the commenters. The tweet was in response to Carl Packman, author of this [...]

If ever anyone was deserving of a drone strike, it is the bastards who did this:
Gunmen have wounded a 14-year-old rights activist who has campaigned for girls’ education in the Swat Valley in north-west Pakistan.
Malala Yousafzai was attacked on her way home from school in Mingora, the region’s main town.
She came to public attention in [...]