The Morning Star publishes the speech by writer and editor JULIA BARD of the Jewish Socialists’ Group given at the paper’s annual conference at the weekend
THIRTY-NINE years ago, when the Jewish Chronicle was still recognisable as a newspaper, my partner and I sent a notice to the Social and Personal column announcing the birth of our twin sons.
The JC was happy to include our announcement, they said, but would need to edit our names, changing Julia Bard and David Rosenberg to David and Julia Bard-Rosenberg. We protested. They insisted. It was “policy.”
Couples with children, it seemed, had to have the same surname in case their readers suspected, God forbid, that they weren’t married. We were, as it happens (which is another story), and I kept my name.
Half a century after transformative laws reshaped Britain, women’s rights are again contested. This International Women’s Day is a call to remember how change was won, and to organise to defend it, says KATE RAMSDEN
The legacy of socialist feminists such as Alexandra Kollontai challenges us today to confront an uncomfortable truth: framing prostitution as empowerment lets the abusers of the Epstein class off the hook, warns HELEN O’CONNOR
As Ash Regan’s Unbuyable Bill sparks debate in Scotland, the real issue remains unaddressed: a digitalised sex industry and a neoliberal economy that repackages exploitation as empowerment while leaving women’s material conditions unchanged, argues LAUREN HARPER
LYNNE WALSH reports from the Women’s Declaration International conference on feminist struggles from Britain to the Far East



