Annie Ross

In early November, a Twitter hashtag called #mencallmethings was set up, under which women bloggers can post the sexist, misogynistic and often threatening comments they receive. Tigerbeatdown.com’s Sady Doyle started the tag after becoming angry and disillusioned with the huge amount of sexist hate mail she and other female bloggers had received. Doyle saw the need to publicly challenge this culture of silencing women bloggers.

In the US earlier this year, there were 351 anti-abortion bills making their way through state legislative bodies. In 2010, 174 anti-abortion bills were filed in state legislatures.

Ten countries and nine jurisdictions in the world have recognised marriage equality since 2001. Many other parts of the world recognise civil unions, registration schemes or same-sex marriages performed outside of the respective country. Australians are ready to follow suit. Seventy-five percent of Australians expect same-sex marriage to be legalised, said a 2011 Galaxy Poll.

Over the July 9-10 weekend, the New South Wales Labor conference failed to produce a motion in support of equal marriage rights. The conference instead voted to send the decision to the ALP national conference that is to be held in December. This motion passed despite the fact that all other ALP state conferences have passed motions in support of reforming the law to grant equal marriage rights. It also came two weeks after New York legalised same-sex marriage on June 24.

Al Jazeera journalist Dorothy Parvaz, who had been missing for nineteen days was released by the Iranian government on May 18. Parvaz left Doha on April 29 to cover the escalating anti-government protests in Syria. Upon arrival in Damascus, she was immediately detained by an unidentified security service. Until May 4, the Syrian government did not acknowledge that she was in their custody. But on May 10, it released a statement stating that it had deported Parvaz to the Iranian consule in Tehran.

Blue King Brown are a Melbourne-based roots band whose second album, Worldwize Part 1-North & South, was released last August. An Australia-wide tour to promote the album began in Canberra on May 12 and ends with a show in Sydney at The Metro on June 4. Green Left Weekly's Annie Ross spoke to lead singer and guitarist Natalie Pa'apa'a.

Resistance supports the fight for equal marriage rights for Lesbian, Gay Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex and Queer (LGBTIQ) people. Resistance believes that the capitalist system has a vested interest in preventing people from uniting, and in continuing to repress queers. This oppression takes many forms, and includes laws that discriminate against LGBTIQ people. It is incredible that queer people in Australia still do not have the right to get married. This injustice has broad consequences for the whole LGBTIQ community.

One hundred people rallied in Wollongong on March 5 in solidarity with the peoples’ uprising against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. The rally heard from Libyan students who spoke of the brutality of Gaddafi's regime and the need for democracy. They urged the Australian government to pressure Gaddafi to step down.

Resistance and Socialist Alliance members in Newcastle, New South Wales, have initiated a poll on the social networking website Facebook to decide the best 100 songs by women musicians of all time. The poll is timed to coincide with International Women's Day (IWD) on March 8. In 2009, Australian radio station Triple J ran a poll to find the "Hottest 100" songs of all time. Only two of the songs in the final list were sung by female vocalists, and only three bands had women in them.