Socialist Party women's meeting

Sarah Wrack

On 5-6 January 40 people attended a Socialist Party national women's meeting in London. Every region was represented.

The meeting opened with a report from a recent meeting of the International Executive Committee of the CWI by Hannah Sell, Socialist Party deputy general secretary. Hannah reported on developments including in the Middle East, US and South Africa and the important role the CWI is playing in each.

The meeting then divided into two commissions - 'abortion' and 'women and the cuts'. The commissions discussed the details of the situation facing women at the moment and the risk of further attacks.

On Sunday the meeting discussed Rape Is No Joke, the Socialist Students campaign against misogyny in comedy. The discussion agreed that the campaign is a good addition to other work that areas are involved in. Several people reported very successful meetings and events of the campaign. The idea was raised of a week of action leading up to International Women's Day in March.

The final session discussed building the Socialist Party amongst women. We discussed the need to focus on campaigning and responding to events. We heard reports of how areas have organised in the last year, including two recent regional women's meetings. Women in each region then got together to make plans, including to increase sales of the Socialist Party's pamphlet Women: Fighting Austerity, Fighting for Equality and to report back to all branches from this very successful meeting.

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