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Syndicalism, anarcho-syndicalism and education: The application of unionisation to education

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With four hours a week of lectures on a drastically reduced timetable (thus making my undergraduate course seem more like a postgraduate course, limited communication and shortened office hours for lectures, spending cut on resources, 60% of cleaning staff fired, and disability support for students being painfully low at the University of Portsmouth, we realise cuts quickly arriving and controlling every aspect of our educational lives, something which even the university's clever marketing strategies and attempts to obscure systemic corruption for fear of their reputation (about which they could do with learning a thing or two from Joan Jett) fail to obscure. As such, student action and active on campus mobilisation is paramount. It is in this post that I will observe the sheer breadth of unionisation its many forms, its evolution, and how this can effectively be linked back to our ever expanding revolutionary movements on campus, becoming increasingly important in this current ec...
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"Girl boss feminism": What it is and why it is problematic

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A conservatively coloured two piece tailored suit of knee-length pencil skirt and fitted blazer, leather loafers or heels, briefcase, all paired carefully with perfectly cut and styled hair subtle but effective makeup, and above all, a straight posture and orderly evenly paced gait when walking to signify coolness and confidence at the same time as power, authority and gravitas. This is the appearance and presence adopted by many women in positions of power, be that through being CEOs of companies, business owners, political leaders, members of royal families, or anything else in between. This is the basis that "girl boss feminism" is built upon. While some see this as empowering towards women and a display of transcendence of gender roles, I see it as alienating, exploitative, and a sure fire means of effectively preserving the patriarchal norms of which our current hierarchical capitalist society is ruled by. These characteristics continue to be present within so much media...
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A post-Marxist understanding of the European agricultural economy

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In a society led by rising affluence and disparity between the wealthy and the poor, consumption had sky rocketed, and methods of industrial and agricultural production advanced and adjusted to this change through heavy mechanisation and using more efficient and less labour intensive means of production, tenant farming and individual small scale agriculture has become comparatively rare. It is because of this that one can question whether peasant labourers on land as considered as the proletariat by Marx and Engels prior to and during the Industrial Revolution can be seen to likely be dying out and making way for other occupations forming the livelihoods of this class. This, along with growing consumption of more internationally produced and exported foods featuring within the typical diet of the UK's population, has led to individual farm labourers beginning to struggle more, thus most often featuring the country's farmers becoming easier to divide into two extremes: either we...
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Sex, capitalism and commodity fetishism: The tragic cases of on-campus sexual abuse

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Radical feminism is not feminism. This is a statement I stand by and will continue to stand by as a young AFAB gender non-conforming individual who advocates for a redefinition and diversification of feminist theory, yet also frequently feels somewhat excluded and alienated from such discussions on the matter.  This can be largely attributed to the constant sense that misandry is being used by many women to give off a false sense of empowerment and seemingly strength in fighting misogyny, as opposed to what it is in actual fact: a more socially accepted form of sexism which is seen by women to make their preconceived fears and prejudices justified, and that preserves and acts mutually exclusively to misogyny other forms of sexism, while also appearing to belittle the non-gendered struggles many face with regard to their sexual vulnerability, and also have very clearly transphobic undertones. All of these only serve to further alienate and isolate people within their struggle, thus ...
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From Portsmouth to Paris: The rising austerity in education

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As I watch my years spent studying at university gradually eat away at my income like a Pac Man navigating its way through the maze of a costly student life in Portsmouth (each dot in the maze being a fraction of my tuition fees, a fine for an overdue library book, a replacement of a missing student ID, or a repair to a maintenance issue in my student accommodation, haunted by the ever present ghosts of failing economic prospects yet to come), I question the fairness of this system. I wonder if a system free of class and where income doesn't control every aspect of our lives can ever be possible. Since Tony Blair's proposal for tuition fees, this level of socioeconomic disparity with regard to education has become yet more apparent especially throughout a period of constant fluctuation and mass stagnation of economic growth during continued recovery from financial crises, especially given the many unnecessary cuts to welfare and education spending, two things that are paramount...
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The 90th Anniversary of Cable Street: The best strategies for fighting fascism within our community

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It is on this day 90 years ago that the British Union of Fascists, an extreme right fascist group led by Oswald Mosley (and reminiscent of Daniel Thomas' far right rioters) were chased off the streets by a strong working class opposition taking to the streets of East London, eventually successfully causing the police to stop the fascists marching any further, to show that racial hate and discrimination were not welcome in society, for London and beyond, and ultimately for 1936 and for the future. We are still a long way off from reaching the shift to a truly tolerant society, with Jews still no longer accepted for their culture and religious beliefs after being targeted in the horrific Golders Green attacks in May, and Muslims continue to face widespread Islamophobia such as with the unjustifiably brutal and violent treatment by the police received by a Muslim individual present there, and with both Muslims and pro-Palestine Jews being unfairly labelled as terrorists, along with bl...
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A literary reflection on the Hegelian perspective on women and oppression

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Sylvia Plath When reflecting on Sylvia Plath's experiences of repression, exploitation and hyper-sexualisation in the capitalist and financially orientated metropolis of 1960s New York, redefined and reshaped by race, riots and mass unrest and opposition during the era of the civil rights movement, through the eyes of Esther Greenwood's character in her 1963 work, the Bell Jar, one can clearly notice the alienation and isolation of working women from society, and the profound impact this has on them physically and mentally in many ways. While somewhat appearing to be a fictional work and created with poetic licence to represent an individual perspective, as opposed to acting as a record and factual representation of the US healthcare system of the 1960s, and the support provided for women suffering from mental health issues during this period, referring to works such as the Bell Jar can prove to be important in humanising and relating back to the issues posed by a perpetually f...
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