Hilary Bain, South Golden Beach
I would like to congratulate both Mandy Nolan and her son Charlie Burton for sharing his magnificent speech that he gave on International Women’s Day. As he pointed out so eloquently, feminism is not an exclusive club. It is both humane and inclusive, men belong to it as equals of women. The patriarchy in place today in most of the world is an exclusive club.
The separatism he mentions that’s fostered by various groups, is the first one, followed by race, religion, sexuality, age, etc, designed to keep us all squabbling amongst each other instead of uniting to fight the powers that are, (mostly old, super wealthy white men), that are plundering the planet at lightning speed.
Both men and women need to wake up to how we’re all being manipulated and controlled, to be separated from each other, and with militarism on the rise; along with violent video games and pornography, no wonder women are being used as punch bags. Seventy per cent of households around the world are experiencing domestic violence! Talk about terrorism! It’s a way to keep the current patriarchal, war-mad system in place.
So Charlie, you keep being who you are, and spread the word. And girls, start choosing boys and men that espouse feminist values, and the world will change.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
