It’s International Women’s Day tomorrow and Tower Hamlets Respect is having a meeting to mark it. This is good. Even better is that it’s happening in the community centre on my estate. The theme of the meeting is “women’s equality under Islam” If this carries on we’ll be having Catholic priests talking about how organisations of celibate men are really good at looking after children and the Grand Metropolitan of the Russian Orthodox Church addressing meetings on why patriarchy is good for the ladies.

There is a discussion to be had among Muslims about how valid different interpretations are of religious beliefs and texts. But the one thing that all religions have in common is that a bunch of elderly men make up the rules and these rules put restrictions on believers’ sexuality, personal choices and actions.

I’ve got a horrible feeling that I’ll be swimming against the current arguing tomorrow evening that all religions oppress women and that Respect should not even be entertaining the notion that they do anything else. Here’s hoping that a couple of feminists turn up to back me.

Come back tomorrow night or Thursday to find out how it went.