Beatrix Campbell

In 1995, the UN vowed to advance 'equality, development and peace for all women, everywhere.' Instead, in the Beijing Declaration's thirtieth anniversary year, the world is lurching dangerously away from such democratic and progressive ideals--reinventing nationalist identities based on toxic-masculine values, and embracing economic policies against women's interests. This reality exists in every type of country. Why does oppression, rather than feminism, still dominate our world? This book reveals patriarchy's many faces in the age of globalisation, exploring the political systems and cultures of eight very different societies. It takes readers from the extraordinary anti-capitalist women's revolution in Kurdistan to the theocracies of Islamic State and Saudi Arabia; from China's one-party state to Iceland's democracy; and to South Africa, Russia and El Salvador--all radically changed since the fall of apartheid, communism and military dictatorship respectively. Despite patriarchy's remarkable shapeshifting powers to undermine feminist solidarity, Planet Patriarchy is equally a story of sisterhood and resistance, interviewing defenders of women's rights about their cause and their country. Gender inequality endures, everywhere--but so does feminism. Campbell and Gupta's fascinating discoveries show us how this timeless showdown is taking shape in, and being shaped by, the systems we live under today.

The child sexual abuse scandal in the English county of Cleveland in the 1980s was a defining moment but not the scandal we were led to believe it was. Acclaimed journalist Beatrix Campbell has uncovered government documents that show how medical evidence of childhood rape identified by pioneering paediatricians was deemed credible but ‘dangerous’ – it was more important to save money than save children. This book reveals how this secret has framed policy making and public opinion and the consequences it has had for children, professionals, justice and the state. The deaths of ‘national treasures’ Sir Jimmy Savile and Sir Cyril Smith led to a torrent of evidence of childhood suffering, the discovery of widespread sexual exploitation and institutional abuse across the world – all in plain sight. The Cleveland children have remained in the shadows. Now, for the first time, a Cleveland child delves into her records and shares her story.

Fifty years after the Moors Murders and 15 years since Myra Hindley died in prison, after one of the longest sentences served by a woman, The Monstering of Myra Hindley raises some delicate and searching questions. They include: "Why was Hindley treated differently?", "Why do we need to create demons?" and "What impact does this have on our whole notion of crime, punishment and justice?" Set against the political backlash of one of the most noto-rious cases in English criminal history, this is a perceptive, first-hand portrayal of the most talked-about and maligned of women. The Monstering of Myra Hindley is written by one of the closest people to her, Nina Wilde. Wilde not only sets the record straight on certain matters, she also provides new insights about one of the most infamous women in Britain. It contains until now private information, 'home-truths' and describes a journey charting a special relationship. Everyone, the author included, recognises the plight of the victims but this should not be allowed to mask other wrongs that, with hindsight, become increasingly apparent in Hindley's case.

Among liberal thinkers, there is an optimistic belief that men and women are on a cultural journey toward equality - in the workplace, on the street, and in the home. But observation and evidence both tell us that in many ways this progress has stopped - and in some cases even reversed. In "The End of Equality", renowned feminist Beatrix Campbell argues that even as the patriarchy has lost some of its legitimacy, new inequalities are emerging in our culture. We are living, Campbell writes, in an era of neopatriarchy in which violence has proliferated; body anxiety and self-hatred have flourished; rape is committed with impunity; sex trafficking thrives; and the struggle for equal pay is at an end. After four decades observing society, Campbell still speaks of the long-sought goal of gender equality. But now she calls for a new revolution.

Published ten years after the Good Friday Agreement, this book is about the people, ideas and movements that created it. But it is also about its limits; how the Agreement's promise was frequently betrayed by an establishment that found it difficult to give up its dominance. Campbell documents the forces strongly resisting change, including those inside the police, military and secret services whose refusal to repudiate their long history of collusion prevented them from contributing to peace-making. Gender is woven into the texture of this story - from the men who sought to dominate the streets to the women who fought for the equality agenda. The book has an inspired sense of people making their own history, and is full of their stories. These are people whose contribution was from the grassroots - loyalist ex-combatant Gusty Spence, the PPU's Dawn Purvis, Unison's Inez McCormack, Thomas Donahue of the AFL-CIO, Father Aidan Troy of Holy Cross School, to name only a few. It is on the efforts of people such as these that the success of the new state will continue to depend.