Let’s get something clear right away — same-sex marriage has not been and will not be the kind of issue that could destroy Tony Abbott’s prime ministership. Electorally, despite overwhelming popular support for equal marriage rights, it has consistently been a lower-order issue in terms of votes. And within the party room Abbott is on the […]
13 Aug
Comments Off on Sexy Capitalism
Sexual and gender oppression is inherently connected to capitalist society, and Left Flank regular Simon Copland has just started crowdfunding his book project on this topic. You can hear Simon discuss his book and make a donation to his campaign, on his page with ByLine. About his book Sexy Capitalism documents the role that capitalism has on sexual and […]
15 Jul
Comments Off on Sex and society (6): Liberation or Equality?
Welcome to the sixth and final blog in the Sex and Society series. Over the past five blogs we’ve looked at the growth of the nuclear family, its connection to class society, and how the oppression of women and queers manifest today. Last time we looked at love and marriage — how our modern manifestations […]
04 Jul
A selection of KEVIN OVENDEN’s live posts from the massive No protest in Athens, 3 July 2015 Rally for the No side this evening — various different forces calling it — in Syntagma Square, central Athens. The rally will be big and militant. But please do not over-read the size of it and so on. […]
02 Jul
SPECIAL DISPATCH FROM ATHENS BY KEVIN OVENDEN Kevin is the author of a forthcoming Pluto Press book on Greece and Syriza, Escaping the Labyrinth The streets of Athens are calm tonight. The political atmosphere, intense. I joined a patient queue in the Galatsi area to withdraw a few euros from the ATM. We smiled and […]
29 Jun
Comments Off on Sex and society (5): Love & marriage
Welcome to blog five in my sex and society series. Today we will ask the question, what’s love got to do with it? Over the past four posts I’ve spoken extensively about the connection between the nuclear family (whether gay, lesbian, straight or other) and our class and capitalist society. But, how does that connect […]
19 Jun
Comments Off on Sex and society (4): Capitalism & gay oppression
I don’t support gay marriage despite being a Conservative. I support gay marriage because I’m a Conservative. This statement by British Prime Minister David Cameron was heralded by many as a major win for gay and lesbian people. Lesbian and gay rights had now, it seemed, moved away from being a narrow concern of […]
11 Jun
Comments Off on Australia’s racial state, Indigenous Recognition & the Left
This article was first published at New Matilda. For those who think that Indigenous rights issues generally split people along Left/Right political lines, the stoush within the conservative camp between influential Herald-Sun columnist and blogger Andrew Bolt and The Australian over “Recognition” must be confusing. Yet for months now Bolt and the Murdoch-owned broadsheet have […]
01 Jun
How are capitalism and women’s oppression connected? In my last blog post we discussed the rise of the nuclear family and the connection between the class system and the shift in roles between men and women. This week we’re going to explore how modern capitalism has perpetuated the oppression of women. *** Let’s start a […]
15 May
Comments Off on Sex and society (2): The rise of the nuclear family
Simon Copland is a freelance writer specialising in sex, culture and the environment. This is the second post in a six-part series examining the history of sex and the family. The first post can be found here. These posts and other work from Simon are available on his blog: http://simoncopland.com/blog. How did nuclear families become the […]
17 Aug
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