GlobalComment | where the world thinks out loud

Why do some feminist spaces tolerate male abusers?

By Feature Writer Grace
This article was authored by a GlobalComment Feature Writer. To contribute an article, please see the guidelines here.

What role, if any, should men with a history of abuse of women have in feminism? This question is at the heart of ongoing debates in the feminist blogosphere over Hugo Schwyzer, a professor of gender studies and male feminist personality. A close examination of Schwyzer’s record calls into serious question both his narrative of personal transformation and his current credibility as a feminist leader. This raises the question of why Schwyzer was allowed access to feminist leadership roles at all, much less for so long, but also points to broader, entrenched issues around male allies, racism and white privilege, and safe spaces for abuse survivors in the feminist movement.

Review: Kill List

By Mark Farnsworth
Senior film writer Mark Farnsworth teaches cinema in East London. He is one half of the prog-house group Zaitsev and is still mourning "The Sopranos."

Something dark, unseen and unspeakable is slithering in suburbia in the new British horror film Kill List (dir: Ben Wheatley). Invisible tentacles constrict a family home, throttling the life from a marriage, twisting a father’s relationship with his son. Hidden mouths half-formed and demented feed upon material wealth sucking money dry until only the vacant husk of a man remains to gaze into the abyss of his empty Jacuzzi.

The Best Movies of 2011

By Mark Farnsworth

10. Rise of The Planet of The Apes (Rupert Wyatt) Rise of The Planet of The Apes is like a cocky young University student: brash, intelligent but not as clever as it thinks it is. Still Wyatt’s movie is superior blockbuster entertainment updating the staple sci-fi themes of animal experimentation, slavery and well-meaning scientists losing [...]

Occupy Nigeria: The Beginning of A Sub Saharan Awakening

By Feature Writer
Anna Lekas Miller

One protestor carried a sign saying, “One day, all Nigerians will have to eat is the rich.”

Midseason Horror: A Turn Towards Collectivity on TV?

By s.e. smith

There is something deliciously, appealingly democratic about people working together for survival. Watching that, we have to imagine ourselves doing something, taking action, being the movement instead of waiting to be moved.

Reading race out of context: “Reverse racism” and the Diane Abbott Twitter controversy

By Feature Writer
Joe Macaré

When you put the concept of “reverse racism” in context, it is revealed as entirely morally, intellectually and politically fallacious. Much like “political correctness gone mad,” it is less a phenomenon that actually exists than a right-wing dog-whistle.

Islamophobia in China: Violence Breaks Out in Xinjiang

By Feature Writer
Chally Kacelnik

China gets to justify prejudice against Muslim minorities not only on the terms of its own racial hierarchy, and not just to a Han majority, but to the world on Western ones.