Stop the sexism!
Socialist Organiser1983 1983-10-06Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 5 →
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THE REASON why I addressed the conference this 'morning ¡Tuesday, was the unacceptable behaviour of some male delegates who were sitting behind us.
Throughout yesterday's de. bate they subjected us to the. most foul sexist rubbish whenever Fe Tied to speak or were called The goin: I wanted to make #25 that somen are here on the same basis as men. despite the disenfranchisemen: of many additional women delegates.
I am. in fact, the additional women's delegate from Hackney North CLP. I'm one of a very rare breed at this conference - there are even fewer women delegates here than last year. LESLEY COURCOUF, women's delegate from Hackney North, explains why she spoke out on sexism at the conference Basically, we should not have to listen to men shouting "darling', and 'dear' at ûs and asking for our phone numbers while we are listening to the debate. I wanted to demand that they stopped.
I wanted Sam McCluskie [in the chair| to agree to take alternate male and female speakers from the floor. In fact, there have been more women speakers today, I think, so I think I've made a slight impact.
The reaction when I spoke was quite good, I thought. I started off by saying, 'Comrade Chairboy and boys', and that got a lot of applause.
But someone else told me that some male delegates, were just poo-pooing it and laughing.
It appears that the Sun are using this story to witch-hunt Arthur Scargill and the NUM. We totally reject that, and dissociate ourselves from it. We have no evidence whatsoever that it was the NUM responsible for the harassment, and we are assured that it was not.
We welcome very much the support that the NUM are going to give to the women's composite resolution.
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no.149