You can support the campaign in a number of ways and sign up to receive the weekly campaign bulletin with updates, events and weekly actions you can take. The activist pack tells you how you can organise What About Women? hustings in your local area.

Sheffield Fems are hosting a hustings next Tuesday, 23 March, at the Quaker Meeting House, 7.15pm - 10pm, with Labour, Conservative, Lib Dem and Green candidates. Let us know if you're hosting one and we'll add it to our events page.

At the publishers' request, the male translator (H.M. Parshley) removed over 10% of the original content. Extensive description of women's history and references to historical female figures are omitted, along with qualitative evidence of women's oppression in marriage and within the home, while illustration of men's dominance and superior social status is retained. These omissions have in some cases served to fuel accusations that Beauvoir privileged men over women.

Key philosophical terms, drawn from Beauvoir and her partner Jean-Paul Sartre's existentialist theory, were translated inconsistently and, in many cases, wholly inaccurately, to often disastrous effect. The first academic to analyse Parshley's translation, Margaret A. Simons, points out that the existentialist term for human consciousness , être-pour-soi (implying a potential for free choice), was not translated by the standard English equivalent 'being-for-itself' but with various versions of 'in accordance with one's true nature'. This wholly distorts both Beauvoir's feminism and its philosophical basis. According to Beauvoir, there is no human nature: femininity has been constructed and positioned as natural in order to oppress women and keep them in a state of inauthenticity (existence that is not freely chosen or determined).

Beauvoir asked Margaret Simons to publish a new translation of the work, and feminist scholars have approached the publishers with requests for a new translation, but to no avail - until 2005. The resulting new translation was published in November last year, although I hadn't heard about it until a few weeks ago, when a friend forwarded me this review by feminist academic Toril Moi.

And oh how my translator's brain and my feminist heart hurt when I read quite how royally Beauvoir has been let down - again.

For a start, the translators are neither philosophy nor feminism specialists; they're English teachers who write textbooks and cookery books. They're barely even professional translators, having only minimal French-English translation experience. Quite why the publishers thought they were suitable, particularly given the obvious importance of the task in the face of such cutting criticism of the original translation, is anyone's guess, but Moi's review is damning.

She argues that the new translation has three 'fundamental and pervasive problems: a mishandling of key terms for gender and sexuality, an inconsistent use of tenses, and the mangling of syntax, sentence structure and punctuation'. The basic translation errors are bad enough; check out this beauty:

In the chapter on ‘The Married Woman’, Beauvoir quotes the famous line from Balzac’s Physiologie du mariage: ‘Ne commencez jamais le mariage par un viol’ (‘Never begin marriage by a rape’). Borde and Malovany-Chevallier write: ‘Do not begin marriage by a violation of law.’

If you're interested in translation, I suggest you read the full review: there's plenty more where that came from. I'll stick to highlighting the distortion of Beauvoir's feminism, which unfortunately appears to occur along the same lines as the distortions in the original translation.

The translators render the French féminin/e (of or pertaining to women) as 'feminine' (essentially female), meaning Beauvoir's work now 'teems with references to the "feminine world", "feminine literature", "feminine reality", "feminine individualism", "feminine magic", "feminine destiny" and so on'. Littérature féminine is simply literature written by women. Given that Beauvoir rejected the notion of a female essence or nature (in contrast with other francophone feminists such as Luce Irigaray) and that her entire work aims to expose femininity as a social construct, this is a massive error.

This error is compound by the interchangeable translation of la femme as 'women' 'woman' and 'a woman'. Moi explains:

Parshley translated ‘On ne naît pas femme: on le devient’ as ‘One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.’ Borde and Malovany-Chevallier write: ‘One is not born, but rather becomes, woman.’ [...] This error makes Beauvoir sound as if she were committed to a theory of women’s difference. But Beauvoir’s point isn’t that a baby girl grows up to become woman; she becomes a woman, one among many, and in no way the incarnation of Woman, a concept Beauvoir discards as a patriarchal ‘myth’ in the first part of her book.

While the new translation deals more appropriately with Beauvoir's existentialist vocabulary, Moi suggests the translators get too caught up in philosophical language, often replacing ordinary words with philosophical terms:

Borde and Malovany-Chevallier doggedly translate ‘alienate’ and ‘alienation’ every time the word turns up, regardless of what it means. The result is that they translate ‘aliéner les biens immeubles’ (‘dispose of landed property’) as ‘alienate real estate’.

To top all this off, the translators' insistence on trying to reproduce French linguistic style in the English - a basic translation error, and one of the reasons why translation is much trickier than many non-linguists assume - apparently makes the reader's job far more difficult than it should be; Moi says: 'I feel as if I were reading underwater'.

I haven't read the translation myself, but I trust Moi's judgement, and I'm hugely disappointed. At least I can add 'write a decent translation of The Second Sex' to my list of things to do before I die.

Photo by cdrummbks , shared under a Creative Commons License.

Please also encourage your MP to sign the Early Day Motion in support of the strikers.

Read more on the strike and conditions in Yarl's Wood here.

Via Feminist Fightback.

The Observer profiles four women who gave birth in prison, one of whom was shackled while pregnant and during hospital treatments.

Human Rights Watch are calling for the release of a Saudi Arabian woman who was sentenced to 300 lashes and one and a half years' imprisonment for filing a complaint of harassment against a government official and appearing in court without a male guardian. The country agreed to abolish the male guardianship system in 2009 following pressure from the UN, but have so far failed to make any progress.

A soldier who refused to fight in Afghanistan was sentenced to nine months in prison on Friday. His wife said that he went AWOL because he believes he has "a legal and moral obligation as a soldier and a human being is to protect the international community" and that this was not compatible with the "terrible crimes" committed against the people of Afghanistan.

ActionAid have identified a rise in rape and sexual attacks against women in Haiti since the earthquake (video).

Zoe Margolis, author of Girl With A One Track Mind, was labelled a 'hooker' in the headline to a piece she wrote in the Independent on Saturday. Being labelled a sex worker should not be read as an insult, but it's pretty revealing that the headline writers assumed that a woman who writes about sex and makes no apologies for her sexual appetite must be a 'hooker'. Update: Margolis will be pursuing legal action against the paper.

Kate Evans on why the Equality Bill won't protect breastfeeding mothers: it only bans discrimination against a breastfeeding woman if the baby is under six months old:

Picture this: an altercation arises between a charity shop manager and a mother. The police are called. "Ah," the mother is told, "your baby is over the legal limit for breastfeeding in public." This may not be the way this bill was designed, but it's how it's going to be interpreted.

Cath Elliott and IUSW member Thierry Schaffauser argue that soliciting must be decriminalised in order to help protect sex workers and prostituted women from violence. Nice to see activists from both sides of the prostitution debate coming to a positive agreement. Paying for sex from a person who has been exploited will be illegal from April 1st, under Clause 14 of the Policing and Crime Act.

A new YouGov survey shows that more than 60% of the Irish public would support a change in the country's laws to allow abortion in cases of rape, incest, fatal fetal abnormalities, or danger to the pregnant woman’s life or health. Current Irish law permits abortion only when a woman’s life is threatened by her pregnancy, and in practice women cannot get abortions in Ireland even under those circumstances.

With that in mind, I'd like to tell you about one of the wonderful women in my life: my sister, Louise (on the left).

I used to think it was hard being Louise's sister. As an angsty, awkward, Gothy teen, I was jealous of her popularity, her beauty and her ability to stand up for herself and her right to be happy and independent. She always knew what was best for her, and she made sure she got it. I think a lot of women could do with a dose of Louise's self belief; I certainly needed it.

When I left home, our relationship changed. We no longer took each other for granted. We became friends, and my teenage jealousy turned to admiration and respect. Louise's energy, exuberance and ability to put a smile on the face of every person in the room is a delight to behold. Her steadfast refusal to let fear of what other people think affect her behaviour or life choices, combined with a genuine desire to spread happiness and positivity, has been a real inspiration. It's helped me get over my teenage insecurities and become the person I am today.

Whether it's in the work she does on a daily basis, as a home help and child carer for two women with chronic illnesses, chatting away at a family gathering, taking stunning photos of the Sussex countryside, wowing the dance floor with mind-bogglingly bizarre moves, whipping up a veggie storm in the kitchen, or trouncing me at Monopoly (yeah right!), Louise injects everything with passion and verve. Her relationship with her boyfriend, Paulie, is a model of respect, love, friendship and fun that can only grow richer as the years go by, and I know they will make damn fine parents when the time comes.

It's a real privilege to be her sister and to know she's only a phone call away whenever I want to talk or need someone to sing an obscure 80s children's song to. Love ya sisbean!

I'd love to hear about the wonderful women in your life; please share in comments!

It turns out that Women Against Rape have been supporting Mrs Sherwood for the last 18 months. They have full details of the investigation and court case. These reveal a catalogue of failings on the part of the police and lead me to conclude that Mrs Sherwood did not lie about the rapes and has been the further victim of a horrifying miscarriage of justice. I urge you to read the full reports yourself, but some of the key points include:

Trigger warning for description of rape scene, physical examination and extreme victim blaming.

Police saw the aftermath of one of the rapes themselves: Two male police officers testified about the first alleged rape on 27 April 2008. They found Mrs Sherwood half naked in a remote field near Haresfield, her hands tied to a fence above her head. Both said that she was visibly suffering from shock, and that they took off their coats and tried to keep her talking so she would not lose consciousness. They had been very concerned about her.

Injuries consistent with rape: A doctor (forensic medical examiner) testified to having found a large number of injuries. She recorded that the injuries were consistent with rape but could also have been self-inflicted - a standard statement such doctors make.

Victim treated poorly during physical examination: One of the examinations was particularly brutal and the doctor spoke to her like a naughty child. She had been too embarrassed to say that after she was raped she had wet herself. And too terrified to report that the attacker had poured some liquid over her and wiped her down with cloths, making her terrified that he was going to set fire to her.

Police fail to understand rape victim's reactions: Two women police officers reported to their seniors during the physical examination that they had concerns about Mrs Sherwood’s truthfulness, noting that she did not make eye contact and kept her head down. The doctor denied that having a male detective present might have caused distress and embarrassment.

Victim not believed because she did not fit the stereotypical rape victim profile: A female police officer who Mrs Sherwood claims to have overheard saying she was 'a sad, lonely 50-year old who couldn’t get a man and had made it all up' was spoken to by senior officers and forbidden from speaking to Mrs Sherwood but remained on the investigation team.

Key evidence ignored, lost or misinterpreted: The police failed to retrieve a stick that Mrs Sherwood claimed to have used to hit her assailant or test it for evidence, despite the stick being present in police photographs. A knife that she used to defend herself in the second rape was found and photographed but later lost. The CCTV footage cited as proof of Mrs Sherwood's guilt in the BBC article did not clearly show that it was her leaving the house when she claimed to have been abducted.

Victim given inadequate legal representation when arrested: Mrs Sherwood said her legal representative had never shown her the 14-page document from the police, listing all their suspicions in the case, nor the CCTV evidence the police claimed was conclusive proof of her lying. She had signed a confession (to making a false allegation) under his threat that she was going to prison and her kids would be taken away. (This was later retracted.)

Victim ridiculed, called a liar and had character called into question by the prosecutor throughout the court case. He also tried to blame Mrs Sherwood for not doing enough to protect her family from the stalker, claimed she had caused the injuries herself and tied herself up.

Despite all this being highlighted by Mrs Sherwood's defence, the jury found her guilty of perverting the course of justice by a majority of ten to one. The judge needed a unanimous verdict, which was agreed on two days later.

I'm sure I don't need to describe to any of you quite how angry and sickened this case makes me. It highlights exactly why we need to keep fighting against the victim blaming and misogyny which infests the police, legal system and the general public that make up our juries. It also leads me to conclude that there is absolutely no way in hell I would ever report a rape to the police.

I have contacted Women Against Rape to ask if there's anything we can do to support Mrs Sherwood and I will report back when I hear from them.

In the past, I - like many others - would have seen this as a positive step. It just seemed fair that people should be able to get help ending their lives if they were experiencing severe suffering and that suffering was not going to be alleviated any other way. Why should the person who helped them carry out their wish face punishment?

However, reading blogs by disability rights activists who are opposed to assisted suicide laws has made me see that it's not that simple. Campaigners such as Clair Lewis argue that disabled people need assistance to live, not to die, and that the guidelines bring us a step closer to the latter:

Despite the slow march towards equal rights for disabled people and those with long-term illnesses, the Government would prefer to ration healthcare, and social services are underfunded to the point that they now refuse support to anyone not in serious crisis. Meanwhile, the media is misleading the public that disabled people's lives are terrible. They rarely consider the reasons, other than our impairments, why we might be having such a bad time. Social isolation, abuse, lack of equipment, being dumped in institutions, lack of opportunity, poor healthcare, insufficient support and inaccessible housing contribute to making people feel their lives are not worth living.

I believe the root of public opinion is fear of suffering, and I agree that nobody wants to suffer. So why are we not looking for solutions that do not involve people having to die? The concept of liberating people from suffering by offering them fatal medication is more like an idea for a horror movie than a social policy.

During my internship for disabled children's charity Newlife, I was appalled to discover just how much suffering is caused by statutory services' failure to provide disabled people and their carers with the equipment and support that could drastically improve their independence and quality of life. Children are unable to attend doctors' appointments, go to school and get involved in leisure activities because the NHS refuses to provide the specialised car seats many of them need to travel safely. Others have suffered injury and seen their conditions worsen to the point of needing surgery because social services and NHS trusts spend so long arguing over who should fund specialised beds needed to enable children to sleep securely. Parents have actually been forced to consider putting their children into care homes because statutory services will not give them the equipment they need to care for them at home. Every time, it comes down to lack of funding.

When this miserable culture of neglect is combined with widespread societal ableism, is it any wonder that a disabled person might feel suicidal, or that they are too much of a burden on their families? Is it any wonder that recently disabled people might feel so afraid of what the future holds that they would choose death rather than life? Any step towards legalising assisted suicide as things currently stand now seems to me more like a deadly concession to this culture of ableism and neglect than a sensible act of compassion, an admission that the government and society as a whole would rather let disabled people die than tackle ableism and stump up the cash to enable them to live with dignity.

As Clair argues, when healthy people are suicidal, "the usual response is to try to help them live better lives, not provide a solution which encourages them to die". Why should disabled people be treated differently? Should they not be allowed the chance to change their minds, a chance often given to non-disabled people who are supported out of suicide? The Independent reports that:

In one [recent] case a permanently disabled woman pleaded for help to end her life before a change in her circumstances - the development of a new friendship - altered her view and convinced her of the value of remaining alive.

With a state-sanctioned assisted suicide law in place, she may not have survived, particularly given the widespread attitude that disabled people's lives are worth less - and therefore less worth fighting for - than those of non-disabled people.

There may be cases where individuals would want to die regardless of the quality of care and support they received, and I think the right to die when one has, say, only a few weeks to live is perhaps a different issue . But can we really fight for the freedom of a few to commit suicide if it leaves thousands of others at the mercy of a culture that prioritises assistance to die over assistance to live?

On the sexually explicit lyrics of female rappers in the US:

"Over here, if you came out with that talk, you'd just get people going, 'Oh, that girl's a slag, man!' All the guys would switch on you, you'd get no respect." (Stush)

On being a mother in the music industry:

"I reckon I did the second album half-­heartedly. I might have been in the studio feeling like I was focused, but my head was actually thinking: I wonder how my son is? So I decided I wasn't ready to come back to music. [...] My record ­company were pretty supportive. I think some of them were genuine, they had kids of their own and they understood. Others were just like, well, we're not going to get ­anything out of her in this state ­anyway, it'd be a waste of money." (Dynamite)

On racism and body image:

"I've had makeup artists try to make my eyes smaller and lighten my skin. There was a time when I was meant to be in a magazine spread and they said, 'You're too dark for the page - we can't put the right font on you'. That's the reality, you know? But I want to change all that. Black girls don't really have many positive role models out there - if we wear our hair natural, we're told it's 'nappy', our lips are big - girls are made to hate themselves." (Stush)

On male artists' use of white dancers in their videos:

"It's a question of representation - I'm not saying that your leading lady in a video has to be the same race as you. I'm not going to say who this artist is, but if you've done four or five videos, all love songs, and all your leading ladies are white - what ­message are you sending to your black fans? That your own race isn't good enough to be seen on the TV with you?" (Chann)

Jay star Nine's feminist blog and fanzine B*I*T*C*H*£*S showcases women in hop hop culture, including rappers, all female crews, DJs, MCs and graffiti artists. The zine's title stands for 'Bold Individuals That Challenges Hiphop'crisy En Style':

I choose to use that word for the exact reason, constantly used by some male rappers to put women down, so I thought fuck it, I’m going to make it mean something, hence the break down. Also tend to find when a woman is described as a 'bitch' it’s because she doing her own thing and not boasting some man's ego... (From Can we ever reclaim the word bitch.)

Check it out.

You can get involved with the collective through their website: www.feministchildrearing.blogpost.com.

Read more on feminism and motherhood at Fertile Feminism and Mothers for Women's Lib.

"I train my staff to understand the psychological effects of rape," Bates said. "[Victims] might not come forward right away. They have flashbacks. Their first version of events may change. Sometimes they are embarrassed. They have to tell their most intimate details to strangers."

She said the nature of the crime made some victims reluctant to admit certain details straight away. "You can get disclosures later, for instance they may say 'I had a bit to drink' or 'I had sex with my partner earlier in the day.' Our job is to search for the truth."

Bates described as "outrageous" the mindset of officers who believed the word of John Worboys, the black-cab driver and serial sex attacker, above numerous victims who reported his attacks. She said a victim-centred approach should encourage more women to come forward and get more cases to court.

"Our officers will believe the victims, however unbelievable their story may be. Their job is to keep an open mind and not to make judgements. Unfortunately that was not done in the Worboys case."

This is good news, and should surely be practised by all police forces, but I'm a bit perturbed by her comments about disclosures involving drinking and prior sexual activity. Without any further context it's hard to tell what she's getting at, but it does smack of classic victim-blaming.

...information presented in the course of providing PSHE should be accurate and balanced.

...PSHE should be taught in a way that is appropriate to the ages of the pupils concerned and to their religious and cultural backgrounds, and also reflects a reasonable range of religious, cultural and other perspectives.

...PSHE should be taught in a way that endeavours to promote equality, encourages acceptance of diversity, and emphasises the importance of both rights and responsibilities.

In other words, the school's religious convictions - which could include viewing homosexuality, sex before marriage and contraception use as sins - would be allowed to override the need to provide accurate, fair and inclusive sex education.

This is appalling (and how sad is it that the Catholic campaigners feel threatened by 'accurate and balanced information' and 'equality and diversity'?). The state school system should exist to provide all children with a comprehensive education that values and respects their rights and identities and those of others and encourages free thought; it should not be making concessions to religious leaders who have their own - potentially harmful - agenda. Personally, I think religious faith should have no place in the running of state schools, but given that things are unlikely to change any time soon, the Education Secretary should at least be ensuring that children who do attend these schools do not miss out on essential parts of their education and are not fed faith-based lies about such important issues as contraception and sexual relationships.

The British Humanist Association have more information and details of how you can ask your MP to vote against the amendment, which is due to be debated in Parliament this coming Tuesday 23 February.

Ewan 'it's none of my business' McGregor

Johnny 'he's an old married father so he can't possibly be a threat' Depp

Shame on both of you.

[The new licensing system] will allow local councils to listen to the views of local people and give far greater control over the number and location of venues. Most importantly, it will allow local councils to improve conditions within clubs through specific measures such as imposing 'no touching rules' or scrapping private booths.

The licensing system is voluntary, meaning local authorities can choose whether venues will have to apply for a sexual entertainment license or a standard license. However, Object believe that uptake will be widespread, given the strength of feeling exhibited by local authorities and local people in the consultations leading up to this announcement. Local councils will be required to consult with local people if the new licensing regime is not used.

The Times features an interview with a former lap dancer who wants to challenge the stereotype that working in a strip club means easy money for little more than taking off your clothes:

Like most, I went into it thinking I’d get good money, quickly. Wrong. I was in debt to the club before starting my first shift. My own clothes were deemed unsuitable so I had to ‘borrow’ a dress at £70, and shoes at £60. Some evenings, once I’d paid for a taxi home, I’d actually lost money. If I made £60, I’d done all right.

“On only two occasions did I ever make more than £100 a night. Although I never slept with anyone, I regularly went beyond limits I’d set myself.”

She does not recall any of the girls being coerced into the job. Cocaine, occasionally crack, was prevalent throughout the shifts. The competition between the girls made her feel like a failure.

“Of course you have to smile, pretend you’re enjoying it. That’s the act you have to put on. The impact of that is a gradual erosion of yourself.

“The worst thing was what I learned about men: that the way to make money from them is to be submissive and pretend to be stupid. What these men wanted was to exert power in a way they felt they could not in normal situations."

Meanwhile, the ever-delightful Peter Stringfellow plans to use human rights law to challenge the new licensing arrangements, should he be forced to close any of his clubs. Because clearly his right to his 'possessions' (that's apparently what his lawyer will be basing any case on) is more important than trying to regulate an industry in which women have to put up with crap working conditions and can be easily exploited and abused and which reinforces harmful, sexist attitudes towards women and female sexuality. Pass the sick bucket.

Home Secretary Alan Johnson said it was essential to change attitudes in order to stop abuse against females.

He said: "We want to see young people in safe and happy relationships and this means tackling attitudes towards abuse at an early age, before patterns of violence can occur.

"We hope this campaign will help teenagers to recognise the signs of abuse and equip them with the knowledge and confidence to seek help, as well as understanding the consequences of being abusive or controlling in a relationship."

One of the key campaign videos (see here) is directed by This Is England director Shane Meadows, who wanted to 'highlight the problem of emotional violence, including verbal insults and controlling behaviour such as monitoring text messages'. I like that it shows the normalcy of domestic violence, particularly in that it portrays the boy as a lad who is capable of reconsidering his actions and changing his ways, not as the stereotypical violent thug. Thoughts?

Video transcript.

- Well why would I want to do it with you now? Look at you, you're pathetic.

No doubt some people do take the piss when it comes to benefits - so making life harder for genuine claimants - but given that the system is absurdly complicated, stuffed with unfair rules and does not give adequate provision to many people, 'cheating' may amount to nothing more 'immoral' than doing what you can to get the money you would be entitled to in a fairer society. I can't condemn that. My only personal experience of benefits is with Job Seekers' Allowance, and given my frustration at not being able to claim it because I live with my boyfriend, I can fully empathise with those who 'cheat' by hiding their cohabitation status. Surely the solution is to overhaul the benefits system, not to create a network of community snitches.

How can we trust the figures on the numbers of benefit 'cheats' when some people with disabilites and debilitating illnesses are being unreasonably and unfairly deemed capable of working and ineligible for certain benefits and extra support finding employment due to the introduction of an overly stringent Work Capability Test administered by a private company and designed to save the government money? No doubt the Daily Mail will be proclaiming all these people 'cheats', yet they are the ones who have really been cheated.

Corporations continue to fleece us out of billions of pounds through elaborate tax evasion schemes, yet the government spends its time thinking up cunning ways to stamp down on the most underprivileged members of our society. Thanks, New Labour.

It's this kind of thing that fills me with despair at the thought of the coming elections. Lose/lose even harder, anyone?

The plan is to impede work on the UK’s planned new warhead for the Trident nuclear missile system by closing down all seven gates of the Atomic Weapons Establishment Aldermaston simultaneously. As women, our plan is to close, for as long as we can, one of the gates of AWE. Known as the ‘Home Office Gate’, it is one of two entrances used by 50% of Aldermaston’s workers. Other gates will be blockaded by groups of men and women from Scotland, Wales, England and other countries; by students, cyclists and ‘faith’ groups.

[...]

We decided that Women’s Gate messages will express our feminist critique of nuclear weapons and the militaries that deploy them, of the UK government’s irrational notion of ‘security’, and of NATO with its ever-growing, nuclear-tipped ambitions. We want to contrast this with the lack of government support for women suffering violence - whether it’s cuts in funding for rape crisis centres, or the lack of funds for women’s refuges, or the ever declining conviction rate for rape. We want to let the government know what we mean by security. As women we’ll refuse violence in every aspect of our lives, from home to street, from nation to the international arena. Let’s say no to violence - whether from fists, boots and knives, or from guns and fighter jets - and a resounding NO to nuclear weapons.

All the details are available on the Facebook page (you don't need a Facebook account to view it).

We sometimes lose contact with children back home. Or we hear of them suffering without our protection --- living on the streets after caring relatives have died; taken by the military; or even turning to pick-pocketing and prostitution to survive and feed the younger ones.

We have hardly enough to feed ourselves but we do all we can to send money home for them. And if we don’t know where they are, we raise money to search for them. We do low-paid, illegal work or even sleep with men for money for them.

Currently, there is no guarantee that children left behind in their home countries will be granted asylum in the UK should their mothers win the right to stay here, and children who turn 18 while their parents' claim is being processed (often a matter of years) have no right to family reunion in the UK.

The mothers have put together a list of demands:

· To be recognised as mothers, with dependent children

· That when the government grants amnesty to families with children here - their right to stay without having to establish a fear of persecution - that we, together with our children back home, must also have a right to family amnesty. Though we are divided, we are a family.

· Unconditional right to family reunion to everyone who wins the right to stay in the UK (whether under the refugee convention, humanitarian protection, human rights act, legacy process or other grounds).

· The right of children to join their mother even if they turned 18 before her asylum claim was settled.

You can show your support for these demands by signing the campaign petition. I'll keep you updated with ways we can support the mothers, but in the meantime please contact the All African Women's Group if you'd like to get involved:

Crossroads Women's Centre
230a Kentish Town Road
London NW5 2AB

Tel: 020 7482 2496
E-mail: aawg02[at]googlemail[dot]com

Really? Because here was me thinking this policy was just a way to discriminate against a whole bunch of people who don't live their lives and loves in a certain way. Needless to say, I think Cameron's plans to bolster marriage are bullshit. It's 2010, do we really want to go back to the good ol' days when couples stayed together through thick and thin, boredom and unhappiness, violence and abuse, because there was so much social stigma attached to divorce? And the 'tax breaks for married couples save the kids' argument is a complete misnomer: Cameron et al never once stop to consider that - just maybe - kids might be better off with separate parents than unhappily married ones. They're just freaked out by all us socially liberal weirdos who refuse to force ourselves into the oppressive, heterosexist enforced nuclear family box. We might spill out and threaten the cushy little privileged world they've built for themselves on the back of women's domestic slavery. Quick, give'em a tax break, that'll rein them in! I think not, Mr Cameron.

Oh, and the debate panel is made up entirely of men. I rest my case.

An undercover investigator from a pro-choice organisation approached one of these agencies, telling them she was five weeks pregnant (at which point the embryo would be the size of a grain of rice):

...the first thing they did was to ask what I would do, and I said that I’d probably terminate.... So she pulled out this sheet that was ostensibly a consent form from Australia. It said that I understand that I most certainly will need a hysterectomy ... that I might end up with the need for a colostomy bag.... That I won’t hold the doctor liable for the infection that I’d certainly get.... Next thing was a list of side-effects.... Breast cancer, cervical cancer ... [it said] most women end up with infections, infertile.

She said ... that I’d become promiscuous, or frigid, one of the two [after an abortion].... That most relationships break up.... That is it likely to cause congenital depression, that is not only would I get depressed, but also my family.... That I would be at increased risk of abusing any other children I might have or get.... That it caused tearfulness and sighing.... Then she showed me a video of ultrasounds, and of a doctor explaining what I now know is a very late term abortion procedure ... she showed me the instruments. Then she showed me a plastic fetus the size of a pen ... and told me that’s what my baby looked like ... the plastic fetus was sucking its thumb and had eyelashes

Needless to say, this is all bullshit. Other women reported being harassed by agency workers, receiving repeated phone calls asking them when they were going to "kill their baby". It's worth pointing out that anti-choice organisations in the UK also promote their "services" as impartial. These include Crisis and Care Confidential.

The authors of the report couldn't find a single example of a legal abortion being performed in Ireland, despite the fact that it should be legal in cases where the woman's life is at risk. Both women accessing abortion and service providers risk life imprisonment and this, combined with the lack of clarity surrounding the law, means no one is prepared to risk testing out the exception for life-threatening pregnancies. Instead, women are forced to access illegal abortions or travel abroad. Human Rights Watch believe that the Irish government use the proximity of countries such as the UK where abortion is legal to abdicate its responsibility to protect women's human rights.

Meanwhile, the decision on women A, B and C's challenge to Irish abortion law in the EU Court of Human Rights will be announced in the autumn.

Four Sheffield women travelled down to London last week to receive official thanks from Prime Minister Gordon Brown on behalf of the hundreds of South Yorkshire women who worked in the region's steel factories during World War Two. Their train was renamed the Women of Steel Express in their honour.

Ruby Gascoigne, 87, Dorothy Slingsby and Kathleen Roberts, both 88, and Kit Sollitt, 90, all worked traditional male roles for half the men's pay packet during the war, only to be sacked with a few hours' notice when the men returned. They had received no official recognition for their work until now.

Local newspaper The Star took up the women's case, inspired by a fantastic project to collect the oral histories of South Yorkshire women working in industry over the past 100 years.

I'm so pleased for them!

‘Hi, I’m Richard Caborn, I’m the Member of Parliament for Sheffield Central and I’m here with four very nice ladies who during the war years were conscripted to work in the steel works. They were doing the munitions, making the planes and parts for ships, and they never got recognised. So sixty years on they’re now being recognised by the Ministry of Defence and very generously also by our Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and they’re absolutely delighted.’

‘I’m Ruby Gascoigne, I’m 87 year old, sorry to say, and we’ve come here because we’ve been recommended for the work we did during the war, in the steel works. Because we weren’t thanked at the time, you know, we just went and did it - not always for good pay. And of course when the war was over we were sent packing -‘Get out, we don’t need you any more! - and that was it. You just carried on with your life. Then this comes along, somebody suggesting it’s time they honoured the women from the war work. It’s marvellous, and my family’s thrilled to bits for me. I’ve got four boys and they think it’s absolutely wonderful that this has happened to their mum.’