Freedomtodiscuss

Why I have beef with Fifty Shades of Grey

Natalie Gyte — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 11:36:32 +0000

I have beef with Fifty Shades of Grey. There, I said it. I haven’t even read this diatribe of poor writing, and I have no intention to, so feel free to correct me where I’m off base. From what I know, Fifty Shades of Grey is a feminist nightmare…nay, a women’s nightmare. Forget that, it [...]

Art or pure perversity?

Natalie Gyte — Fri, 18 May 2012 10:33:28 +0000

“Art should provoke, disturb, arouse our emotions, expand our sympathies in directions we may not anticipate and may not even wish.” – Joyce Carol Oates. Generally, I would agree with Joyce Carol Oates but recently I found myself arguing against artistic freedom. The discussion was provoked by two German Art students from the Berlin University [...]

Reflections on the Scope of impact of our Compliance Training midway through the project

Natalie Gyte — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 15:45:09 +0000

Whoah, the past 7 months of coordinating this social compliance evaluation project with our research team I have gained an infinite amount of lifetime lessons. Time has flown by, and this is the first time in months that I’ve found the time to sit down and reflect on what’s happened. We have now gone through [...]

Republican ‘Small Government’

Natalie Gyte — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 18:35:03 +0000

Republicans have always been proponents of ‘Small Government.’ Even way back in the 1960′s when the party was more focused on economics and taxation. They saw small government as allowing for state and local rights. Today, the Far Right in America has pushed the party to a new breaking point, a ‘War on Women.’ In [...]

Hebron: A British volunteer shares her experience of visiting the city of Hebron in the West Bank

Natalie Gyte — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 15:24:52 +0000

In a region with no shortage of tensions, the city of Hebron exceeds anywhere else in the intensity of its conflicts. It is the site of the most ideologically extremist Israeli settlers, dubbed the ‘ultra-Zionists.’ They believe that Biblical Israel in its entirety – including the West Bank and Gaza Strip – have been promised [...]

Qalandia: The thoughts of a British volunteer in the West Bank

Natalie Gyte — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 00:09:18 +0000

Ramallah is about 9 miles north of Jerusalem. The journey to the holy city should be a short one. In the last few years, the construction of the Israeli Separation Wall has meant that the opposite is true. Jerusalem has been physically cut off from Ramallah, and most Palestinians cannot reach their holy city unless [...]

Campaign: Bought, Sold, and Delivered

Natalie Gyte — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 20:03:38 +0000

Last month marked the two-year anniversary of Citizens United–a landmark in our campaign finance reform that has allowed for substantial financial support by corporations via Super PAC’s. This case faced a backlash from many who can’t afford to give massive ‘contributions’ to lawmakers. The two-year mark of this was celebrated by Rep Keith Ellison’s proposed amendment, ‘Get [...]

Race relations in the UK not getting any easier

Natalie Gyte — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 17:01:08 +0000

Race issues have reared their head in the UK over the past few weeks. Not that these issues aren’t a constant, but it takes a particularly ugly incident to make mainstream commentators sit up and take notice; even the shooting of Mark Duggan may have been swept under the rug, had not London’s youth gone [...]

Every single step forward, in reality means a thousand steps back, in trying to implement change in the garment industry

Natalie Gyte — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 09:11:15 +0000

After endless meetings with factory owners, directors and managers of all kinds – everything from spiritual preachers making broad statements that “Happiness, and power is worthless if not shared, this is why I always tell my workers that in the end I am their slave, we are interdependent so need to feel each other and show [...]

Trying to get my head around the jungle and theatre of contradictions that is the garment industry in Bangladesh

Natalie Gyte — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 17:11:48 +0000

After my first three weeks as a project manager with the goal of improving the social labour conditions for female line-operators in the garment industry in Bangladesh by providing them with free training and skills-upgrading to become supervisors and move up the hierarchical gendered ladder of highly exploitative factory work, I have been faced with [...]