Posted inEqualityGender violenceGeneralHealthLifestyleMedia

Sense8 – The full spectrum of life and love

Although I have done work on the astonishing Netflix television series, Sense8 (a play on ‘sensate’) before, it was restricted to the first season. Since then, I have viewed the Christmas Special, the second season, as well as the two-and-a-half hour conclusion-substitute for a third season (which was ‘inexplicably’ cancelled by Netflix), Love Conquers All, […]

Posted inEqualityGeneralNews/Politics

Marx at 200: As relevant as ever

Today (5 May 2018) is the 200th anniversary of Karl Marx’s birth in the German city of Trier, and all over the world people are celebrating his contribution to our self-understanding through the political, economic and social theories he (sometimes with his friend and colleague, Friedrich Engels) penned during his lifetime. The anniversary celebrations are […]

Posted inEqualityGender violence

Male feminist tears

Jay Naidoo’s recent article ‘I thought I was a feminist – until I heard their stories’ requires a response. Whilst Naidoo’s article starts out with considered space being given to the stories of the women who shared accounts of their abuse, and is positive in its reflections on what men can do to support women, […]

Posted inEqualityGeneral

The power of dissent

At certain times in history, sometimes protracted events have occurred that demonstrated the power of dissent – that (as far as we know) uniquely human capacity to express strong disagreement with some or other aspect of the political, social or cultural status quo, whether this is done peacefully or, in some cases, violently, in a […]

Posted inEqualityGeneralHealth

Blood Brothers and socio-economic inequality

At the dramatic culmination of Willy Russell’s gripping musical, Blood Brothers (1983), one of the twins who were parted soon after birth, Mickey, expresses his resentment at his mother, Mrs Johnstone, for not having been the one (Eddie) who was given away to a rich, childless woman, exclaiming something like: “I could have been him!” […]

Posted inBusinessEqualityGeneralNews/Politics

Where is the wealth Malema wants to redistribute?

In a conversation about South Africa’s socio-economic malaise with a thoughtful sociologist from abroad, he asked the burning question that is shaping South African politics: “where is the wealth?” We talk often in South Africa about wealth redistribution, black economic empowerment and socio-economic rights. Our constitution at the outset sketches a socially just society as […]