Julie Webster

Jan Nielsen’s article (“How austerity hurts women”, February SR) very usefully showed the disproportionate impact of government cuts on the lives of women. There is also an ideological element to this.

The ruling class, via the media, government, education system, and so on, perpetuates the idea that women are naturally suited to certain roles. Those at the top of society need women to be defined by the services that they provide, and the products they consume.

Among all the coverage of this summer’s Olympic Games in Rio, perhaps the biggest media furore was around the athlete Caster Semenya.

Caster Semenya is a South African runner who won the women’s 800 metres. The mainstream media is divided. Many reports have speculated on whether she is “really a woman” or questioned whether it is “fair” for her to compete alongside other women.

This exhibition of work by artists in former Yugoslavia has been curated by Lina Džuverović.

It brings together over 30 leading artists and groups from the “golden years” of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia — the period between the early 1960s and the mid-1980s.

There is a striking collage by Avgust Černigoj from 1972 of anti Vietnam War protesters and a cartoonish, ghoulish face wearing a Stars and Stripes bandana with the name “Nixon”.