Month: November 2018

(Conversation) – Today, what can be defined as racism and what cannot has become a matter for debate. Every racist caught in the act, whether it be wrongly accusing a black child of sexual assault or running over and killing a mosque-goer, claims not to be racist. Eric Kaufmann, a prominent professor at a London university, has claimed that “racial self-interest is not racism”. He is joined by others who see talking about race as “unhelpful”, be that from a left-wing perspective that privileges class, or from a conservative one…

(FemAct) – I’m feeling the surface tension between truths. Yesterday, I picked my children up from school and bought them hot chocolate mix from United Dairy Farmers on the way home. We got the last box of plain hot chocolate, and there were no marshmallows to buy. I asked the cashier if she had any marshmallows in the ice cream bar that she could put in a cup and sell to us. She ended up giving us an entire container of marshmallows from the coffee bar for free. Women and children…

(Conversation) –  The #metoo movement has brought the widespread sexual harassment experienced by women in the workplace to the fore. Women in traditionally male jobs and workplaces are even more likely to experience gender discrimination and sexual harassment. This has been described as “the ‘manly’ jobs problem.” A recent study I worked on with my colleague Wen Fan from Boston College looks closely at this question of how gender equality is unfolding in the labour force. Most adults spend almost half their waking hours at work, so it is a hugely…

(Conversation) – In the long-running sci-fi serial Star Trek, the mission of the crew of the starship USS Enterprise is to “boldly go where no one has gone before”. This was most often apparent in the crew’s discovery of new worlds and new beings in the course of the drama. But the series pushed another new boundary 50 years ago when, having been subjected to “sadistic” mind control by aliens, Captain James Kirk (played by William Shatner) and Lieutenant Nyota Uhura (played by Nichelle Nichols) were compelled to passionately kiss…

United States (Conversation) – Fascist politics is once again on the rise in the United States, Europe and Latin America. As an echo from the past, its principles and attitudes are re-emerging in a populist rhetoric that embraces extreme forms of nationalism, the cult of the leader, systemic racism, a culture of fear, a hatred of dissent and an utter disdain for the truth. Driven by a hatred of “the other” and infused with narratives of decline and victimization, fascist politics trade in an incendiary rhetoric of fear, demonization and…

South Africa (Conversation) – Nearly half of women across South Africa are subjected to violence by an intimate partner. This in turn negatively affects about one in four children. A child who is exposed to violence in the home also risks being abused and will, quite reasonably, fear for their own safety. The country’s government and civil society recently responded to the scourge of violence against women by hosting a summit to galvanise political support and develop solutions to end this sort of violence. Also recently, the #TotalShutDown movement embarked…