28 February 2018
IWD: A woman is not a “person” within the meaning of the Solicitors Act 1843. A review of Bebb v The Law Society [1914] 1 Ch. 286
What is the basis for a legal ruling that a woman is not a person for the purposes of a statute? The starting point is a 14th century law textbook which states that women cannot be lawyers. Then, a 16th century scholar, Edward Coke, quotes that textbook approvingly but without any other authority.
27 February 2018
IWD: No More Tampon Tax. Period
Following on from Rebecca Ryan’s IWD Blog regarding Period Poverty last week, highlighting the need for social change in terms of the taboo around discussing women’s periods, it is also important to draw attention to another long overdue change in relation to periods and sanitary products; the way in which they are taxed.
27 February 2018
IWD: ‘Male feminists’ – controversial, contradictory or comrades in the fight for gender equality?
When Piers Morgan recently asked the President of the United States whether he was a feminist, his admission that he was not a devout supporter of the women’s movement somehow made headlines around the world. When the same question was posed to Jacob Rees-Mogg he branded the very idea of a man being a feminist as ‘ridiculous’ and Nigel Farage admitted he did not even know what ‘feminism’ means.
26 February 2018
IWD: Safeguarding Sex Workers – Protecting the Vulnerable
Sex work. Prostitution. We all have an idea of what these terms mean. For some women (95% of sex workers are said to be women) entering sex work is a choice, a consensual transaction. Some enter for financial gain. Others are more vulnerable, exploited in their circumstances by virtue of drug addiction, homelessness or groomed by pimps. Whatever the reason for entering into sex work, workers are much more likely to be criminalised for their behaviour than sex buyers.
26 February 2018
IWD: Women without property
When I interned at a charity campaigning to end violence against women over ten years ago the statistics were that one in four women experiences domestic abuse during her lifetime and two women every week are killed by their current partner or ex-partner in England and Wales. Sadly those statistics remain the same today.
