Posts by Cath Elliott

“I asked God: she’s pro choice”

Cath Elliott

Posted on April 1st, 2012

That was my favourite placard slogan from Friday evening’s protest in Bedford Square against the bigots and harassers of 40 Days for Life.

Here are some pictures I took to mark the occasion. See if you can spot the glaring difference between them and us.

Praying at the shrine of the box of plastic foetuses

Categories: a bit of politics, abortion, angry? what me?, campaigning, feminism, misogyny, photography, Pro-life nutjobs, religion, sexism, the stupid it burns

Charitable event: “A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant and A Prayer”

Unfortunately I can’t go to this, but it looks great, and now the organisers are offering a really good deal for readers of this blog: “On Monday 26th of March 2012 for one night only, a performance of “A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant and A Prayer” (based on the book of the same title) will be staged at The Lyric Theater in London. The performance is produced exclusively to raise money for charity, where 100% of the proceeds will go to organisations helping to aid women and girls affected by violence. Tony award winning playwright Eve Ensler (author of “The Vagina Monologues”) edited and authored this powerful collection of writings. She along with talented performers and artists are donating their time and talents to this…

Categories: campaigning, feminism, violence against women

#webelieveyou #ididnotreport

Cath Elliott

Posted on March 13th, 2012

As you’re no doubt aware, Mumsnet launched their rape awareness campaign yesterday – We Believe You I’ll be blogging more on the campaign later, but I just wanted to highlight one of the Twitter hashtags that has already come out as a result of the Mumsnet launch -#ididnotreport. This hashtag came about because so many of those who responded to the Mumsnet survey on rape and sexual assault revealed that they did not report the crimes perpetrated against them. In fact I think the percentage of those who didn’t report pretty much tallies with what we already know about the reporting of rape and sexual violence – something like 40% of adult women who are raped never tell anyone about it, and 31% of…

Categories: blogging, campaigning, crime, fear, rape, stuff everyone should read, the Internet, violence against women

Strauss-Kahn’s presence at Cambridge Uni is an insult

Cath Elliott

Posted on March 9th, 2012

Here’s my speech from Cambridge uni this afternoon. I was invited to speak along with Douglas Wigdor, Nafissatou Diallo’s attorney, following the Cambridge Union’s decision to invite Dominique Strauss-Kahn to speak this evening. Good afternoon, and can I just start by saying thank you to the organisers for inviting me to speak this afternoon (and also a huge thank you to Douglas for coming all this way to contribute to today’s event). I’ll just give you a very brief background on myself, on who I am and why I’m here. My name’s Cath Elliott, and as Ruth said in her introduction, I’m a freelance writer and blogger and a trade union activist. I’m a UNISON activist, and I’m chair of UNISON’s Regional Women’s Committee.…

Categories: angry? what me?, campaigning, crime, cynical? what me?, feminism, FFS!, misogyny, rape, sexism, violence against women, you really couldn't make this shit up

The glass ceiling: fact or fiction?

Cath Elliott

Posted on March 5th, 2012

This is the text of a speech I delivered today as part of Warwick University’s International Women’s Week. The event was also live blogged on the Student Journals site – here. Hello, and many thanks to the organisers for inviting me to speak at this event. I hope you have a really successful International Women’s Week. Okay, let’s have a look at some statistics. I’ll start with Westminster. According to the most recent figures from Fawcett, men now outnumber women 4 to 1 in Westminster. In fact only 22% of MPs are women, 22% of peers are women, and 17% (20 out of 119) of government ministers are women. In local politics, while 31% of elected councillors are women, only 13% of local authority…

Categories: campaigning, feminism, gender, sexism, the big P, the boy's club, the cuts, the meeja, trade unions