The Transgendering of Children: Gender Eugenics

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This article argues that the emerging practice of transgendering children should be seen as a form of gender eugenics which has similarities with the practice of sexual surgeries carried out as a result of eugenics ideas in the early twentieth century. In the earlier period those suffering severe poverty, homosexuals, criminals, people with mental health […]


Desecularisation and Sexual Equality

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There has been a rise in the political power of organised religions in both western countries and the non-west in the last two decades. There has been desecularisation of the public sphere in countries such as the UK and Australia which takes the form of deliberate government policy both to consult with ‘faith communities’ and […]


Kate Millett’s ‘Sexual Politics’: 40 years on

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Kate Millett’s book Sexual Politics was pivotal for the developing second wave feminist movement. It was regarded as very important both by feminists at the time and by the media. Time magazine labelled Millett as the Mao Tse-Tung of women’s liberation, but the book is not as well known today as might be expected for […]


Comment on harmful practices: the transgendering of children as a harmful emerging practice in Australia –

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Comment by Sheila Jeffreys addressed to Chairperson of CEDAW and Chairperson of the Committee on the Rights of the Child, May 2011. “The practice of transgendering children is on the rise in Australia and internationally and should be understood as an “emerging” harmful cultural practice. In this practice children are diagnosed by psychiatrists as suffering […]


The McCarthyism of Transgender and the Sterilization of Transgender Children – April 2011

A brief excerpt from Sheila Jeffreys addressing the McCarthyism of Transgender and the Sterilization of Transgender Children is transcribed below. Podcast available here.    “Radical feminist theory was and is particularly revolutionary because it means a total transformation of male domination. So it means the removal of it at its most basic level. It means […]


The Sex Industry and Business Practice: An obstacle to women’s equality.

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This article looks at the increasing links between the sex industry and business in the form of executives and companies using strip clubs and brothels to network and broker deals, using prostituted women as bribes, or offering visits to brothels as Christmas bonuses. This problem is only just beginning to be recognized by feminist researchers […]


“Brothels Without Walls”: the escort sector as a problem for the legalisation of prostitution

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This article examines a developing trend in the prostitution industry in the western world, the boom in escort prostitution. Escort prostitution, operating through mobile phones and the Internet, is supplanting the brothel as the major form in which prostituted women are delivered to male buyers. Policy-makers who promote the legalization of the prostitution industry have […]


Prostitution, trafficking and feminism: An update on the debate

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Within the academy the ‘sex work’ position, i.e. that prostitution should be understood as legitimate work, and an expression of women’s choice and agency, has become the dominant perspective. Most feminist scholars now take this point of view or show sympathy towards it. The critical approach to prostitution that was almost universal amongst feminists from […]


Keeping Women Down and Out: The strip club boom and the reinforcement of male dominance.

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This article looks at the increasing links between the sex industry and business in the form of executives and companies using strip clubs and brothels to network and broker deals, using prostituted women as bribes, or offering visits to brothels as Christmas bonuses. This problem is only just beginning to be recognized by feminist researchers […]


Disability and the Male Sex Right

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Access to prostituted women is increasingly justified by disability charities and services on the grounds of the sexual rights of the disabled. In Australia, for example, disabled men form a niche market for the legalised prostitution industry. Male sexuality is constructed out of male dominance and is likely to manifest the eroticisation of hierarchy and […]