Lest we forget

It's hard to believe that it's been twenty years since the Cartwright Report was released. But I think it is even harder to believe that for almost 20 years a Doctor was able to conduct an experiment which denied life-saving treatment for cervical cancer to the women who entrusted him with their lives. New Zealand being the place it is, 'Ruth,' whose story lead to the Cartwright inquiry was the Deputy Principal at my High School.

I think we sometimes forget how profound this event was in New Zealand medicine. Fortunately the Herald featured has an interesting overview of the changes on Saturday so I will leave you with an anecdote of my own. When I was at university I did an assignment on this shameful chapter of New Zealand history. The Canadian lecturer who marked the paper pulled me aside one day saying she had never understood why the University of Auckland's requirements for gaining Human Subject Ethics approval for research were so stringent until she read the essay. Perhaps some would say all this paperwork was 'PC gone mad!!!' if they didn't know the history behind it.

A Woman's Place: The Labour Party List

Labour's list came out publicly today, and you can view it on Scoop with Labour's media release, or in pdf form at The Standard.

Historical representation of women:
As for National, Wikipedia does not have a full list of Labour MPs. And, as for National, I can work out reasonably easily that they have had 44 female MPs in their history to date, based on counting from this list and adding Louisa Wall (who has entered Parliament since the last General Election as a result of retirements) .

According to the Elections website their first female MP (and NZ's first female MP full stop) was Elizabeth McCombs, who was elected in 1933. Labour's, and New Zealand's, first woman in Cabinet was Mabel Howard, who was first elected to the House in 1943 and served as a Minister in the late 1940s and again in the late 1950s. Labour was also the first major political party in NZ to have a female leader; Helen Clark, who ascended to the leadership in 1993, and has to date been the longest serving leader of the party.

Other notable female MPs from Labour have included NZ's first Maori women MP, Iriaka Ratana (Western Maori, 1949-1969) legendary feminist and unionist Sonja Davies and the world's first transexual MP, Georgina Beyer.

Current representation of women:
Labour currently have 18 female MPs in their caucus of 49*, making 37%. They have 7 women in their Cabinet of 20 (35%)**, including of course a female leader (and thus Prime Minister) in Clark, and amongst Ministers outside of cabinet 2 out of 8*** (25%) are women.

2008 Labour Party List:
Women represented across the whole list: 32 out of 77 (42%)

Top 5 - Two (Helen Clark at 1, Annette King at 4) 2/5 = 40%
Top 10 - Four (plus Nanaia Mahuta at 9, Maryan Street at 10) 4/10 = 40%
Top 20 - Eight (plus Winnie Laban at 11, Ruth Dyson at 13, Lianne Dalziel at 15, Jacinda Ardern at 20) 8/20 = 40%
Top 30 - Twelve (plus Sue Moroney at 22, Moana Mackey at 25, Carol Beaumont at 28, Steve Chadwick at 30) 12/30 = 40%
Top 40 - Sixteen (plus Lynne Pillay at 32, Darien Fenton at 33, Carmel Sepuloni at 35, Judith Tizard at 38) 16/40 = 40%
Top 50 - 19 (plus Louisa Wall at 43, Lesley Soper at 44, Clare Curran at 45) 19/50 = 38%
Top 60 - 23 (plus Erin Ebborn-Gillespie at 51, Josephine Bartley at 54, Farida Sultana at 57, Denise McKensie at 58) 23/60 = 38%

Our own Anjum is ranked at 61 (yay Anjum!).**** I'll add in links to profiles of the above soon (MP profile links added 8th Sept), and also to other analysis of the list as other bloggers start to cover it. Update: Idiot/Savant's analysis is here and concludes that the Labour list "looks like New Zealand." The Standard's thread on the matter can be found here. Homepaddock adds her thoughts too.[update ends]

When I looked at the National party list I stated "that while National has tried hard to look less like a bunch of older, white men in suits, there is actually a dirth of diversity on their list." The National list has 18 women on it, with the lowest ranked at 71. Labour's 18th woman is ranked at 44 (Lesley Soper, who would be on the cusp of getting in imho), and after her there are another fourteen women (albeit on a slightly longer list than National's). While Labour's falls short of the gender-balance heights the Greens have achieved, it is still a significant effort.

I imagine that a picture of all these candidates together in a crowd, put alongside one of National, would show a more diverse picture - a wider range of ages and ethnicities, as well as more women. There is some distance still to go, and I'd hope that the Labour list in 2011 was even more reflective of our society.

Likely future representation of women:
Labour currently has 49 MPs, and it seems unlikely they'll have this many come the end of November this year. So taking a wild stab at a result, say they get 45 MPs in total, and win a number of electorates for those ranked below the safe level on the list (eg Judith Tizard in Auckland Central and Clare Curran in Dunedin South), Labour would have 16 women in a caucus of 45 (38%), which is a slight percentage increase from their current level of 37%.

However two women who have been MPs in the current Parliament would be out; Lesley Soper (who was also ranked too lowly to return after the last election, and if she comes in during the term due to retirements will have suffered that fate three times), and Louisa Wall (who again might come in with retirements). As Soper is known to be pro-life I suspect there won't be many feminists here weeping into their coffees about that, particularly as this Parliament may see some legislative reform in this area and every vote will count.

Jacinda Ardern must be the stand-out new female candidate for Labour; with a ranking of 20 she is clearly seen as a possibility for Cabinet in the short-term. And Judith Tizard's extreme demotion, to a point where she has to retain Auckland Central to be returned, is quite the slap in the face. It will be interesting to see how many retirements occur this term, although of course if Tizard were to go she'd trigger a by-election in the seat.


Other posts in this series to date:
- Act's Party List
- Green's Party List
- National's Party List
- The Maori Party's candidates (list and electorate)

* Wikipedia says they have 50 MPs, but I think this may be a miscount as a result of a certain Taito Philip Field, as the Labour website clearly shows 49 MPs.
** This 20 includes one non-Labour MP, Jim Anderton of the Progressives.
*** This 8 includes two non-Labour MPs, Winston "currently on gardening leave" Peters and Peter Dunne.
**** I should also state, in the interests of disclosure, that I have a number of friends on the Labour list, including my partner, although I hope that that hasn't coloured my analysis.

The Curious Case of Mr Trotter and the Straw Feminist

Well Chris Trotter is certainly determined to make a splash in the little muddy pool that is the NZ political blogosphere. He's been kicking around in the shallow end for less than a fortnight, and he's already attacked Frogblog for the Greens decision to consult their membership before they decided which way to vote on the ETS, suggested Idiot/Savant is mentally ill for daring to disagree with some of his posts, and now willfully misrepresented the views of the bloggers here at The Hand Mirror because the ex-expat called him on his bizarre use of the term "the political equivalent of gang-rape" to describe what's happening to Winston Peters.

A cynical person might think this was a strategy to get his new blog noticed, and guarantee it some Kiwiblog-driven traffic, as we all know David Farrar will pretty much always cover any perceived disagreement in the red corner. I look forward to Mr Trotter turning his searching torchlight on the bloggers of the right, rather than just irritatingly shining it in the eyes of those who might be his allies in an environment dominated by his enemies.

And when it comes to The Hand Mirror Trotter's flashlight seems to be on the blink. He's created a really quite remarkable Straw Feminist which he then criticises soundly. And I'd probably agree with a lot of his criticisms too, if they applied to any feminist blog that existed outside of his imagination.

Let's take them in turn:

1. That we are third-wave feminists who "take for granted the achievements of the women and men who came before them (somehow assuming that these were won without the expenditure of huge amounts of emotional and material resources) and then skip merrily forward..."
I'm not sure all of the bloggers here would identify as third-wave, but that's up to individuals to nay say or otherwise. For myself I'm don't know enough about the intricacies of third-wave versus second-wave to know for sure where I fit, but I feel like I fall between the two. Second and a half perhaps?

As for taking the hard work of our foremothers and -fathers for granted, perhaps Trotter is not familiar with the Friday Feminist series that Deborah produces, which often highlights the thoughts of feminists who came before, or maybe he missed Maia's post about how we got the abortion law we have now,* or my witterings about the role my father played in making me the feminist I am today. Maybe we could write more about how we got to here and now, maybe we will in the future, but it's a pretty long bow to draw to claim that we take the advances that have already been made for granted and that we all ignore the sacrifices and struggle that have got women this far. Yes there are women out there who do, but I haven't seen any of them around here.

2. That we "have contributed next to nothing to the cause"
Really? Well given that most of our writers used pseudonyms (or don't reveal their full names) I guess Trotter must have an amazing ability to see through those and know with a high level of precision the activist history, or lack thereof, of each one of us.

Amongst our number are women who have stood for Parliament for centre-left parties, who have occupied a radio station to oppose a sexist advertising campaign, who work with other lefites to build links amongst the left through events like Drinking Liberally, who have organised Reclaim the Night marches, who speak up when confronted with the everyday denigration of women (and support men who do so too), who have defended women's institutions such as Women's Rights Officers and women's networks within political parties, who have raised our children to ignore stereotypes based on gender, who have campaigned in support of Louise Nicholas, who have voiced their opposition to advertising which perpetuates rape myths, who work actively within the union movement to improve the lot of women workers, and who have seen the sexist attitudes within the NZ political blogosphere and decided to start an explicitly feminist team blog to start to change that. All that and occasionally one of us manages to be coffee-spitting-all-over-the-computer-screen funny too.

Probably a drop in the bucket in terms of the generations and generations of those who have fought and struggled for the rights of women, but that's what a movement is about - the efforts of many many individuals, over time, working for a common cause, and slowly wearing down the bedrock of sexism in our society. I feel pretty secure that the women blogging at The Hand Mirror are taking their turns with the pick-axes on a regular basis, in a variety of ways of their choosing.

3. That we pronounce "upon the actions of women and men who still have the courage to put themsleves [sic] out there in the political battlefield."
So are we not on that battlefield too? Typing should not be mistaken for activism, if that is what Trotter is getting at here, but given that his main contribution to the cause of the Left is to produce columns and comment on television and radio, perhaps he should look in the mirror (boom boom) before casting around too much with that one. And re-read my second point above.

4. That we claim gang-rape doesn't happen, and/or that it doesn't happen to men.
Where did that one come from? We've written rather a lot about rape here, and I'm yet to see one of our writers express the view that it only happens to XXers, or that it's always a one-on-one occurence.

5. That we reckon it's inappropriate to refer to rape or ever use it as a metaphor, and that any man who uses it thus is doing so in a jovial manner.
The ex-expat wrote recently about why Trotter's use was inappropriate, and I understand she intends to revisit that in the near future. So I'm going to tap this one in her direction, seeing as how she's doing such a good job already. And lazily link, again, to our category about rape. If we didn't think it should be talked about why would we have a whole category about it (37 posts and counting)?

6. Something about being so bereft of compassion and understanding that we couldn't recognise anyone other than a woman as being the victim of attack. (I think that's what Trotter was trying to say, it didn't quite make sense.)
Yes that's right, the ol' Straw Feminist argument that because we write primarily about the difficulties women face we don't give a fig for men (or in this case Winston Peters). Because to write about one thing is to indicate that you don't care at all about anything else but that one thing. I'm sure someone who has studied logic can tell me the flash latin name for that kind of ridiculous argument.

I'll just note for Mr Trotter, who does admit he is rather new to blogging (as indicated by his initial failure to link to the blog post here that he was criticising, and his outing of jafapete), that bloggers will write about what they will write about. Certainly all of us here do our blogging in our spare time, and receive not a cent for it. So if we don't write about something it doesn't mean we don't care, it usually means we didn't have time. Oh and lookie here and here, where Anjum and Anna McM engage in a meaningful blog-discussion about bullying which isn't just about women at all. Or over here where I lamented the absence of fathers from Craig Foss' sexist comments about child-rearing. I'm sure I could dredge up more examples, perhaps my co-bloggers might like to chime in with such? If they choose to prioritise that over other things that are infinitely more important of course.

--

Trotter labels us "faux feminists" so I'd like to ask him: what do you think a feminist looks like?

If we are not fitting your stereotype of feminism then perhaps you need to re-think your ideas, because The Hand Mirror is mostly definitely what a feminist blogs like. Feminism is a broad church, especially these days, and as Deborah has pointed out to Trotter in his comments, we don't all agree on everything here. What brings us together is a belief that women should be able to make their own decisions, and that we still don't have a society that allows that as often as we would like.

As mentioned above, the Ex-Expat is going to (further) address whether "the political equivalent of gang-rape" is the best or indeed the only way to describe the current swirl of political and media attention around Peters, so I'll leave that to her capable fingers to tip tap type some time soon. Update: I see that she has now written an excellent comment at Trotter's own blog to that effect.

In closing I'd note that although Trotter was provided with links (by moi, here) to the discussion at Public Address about the inappropriateness of his gang-rape analogy**, which was initiated by Russell Brown's criticism of the metaphor, he chose to ignore the men who have expressed concern with his choice of language and reserve his boot for us. Given that Trotter is well known on the Left for being highly critical of identity politics, and the rise of networks for women, Maori, and other marginalised groups within left political organisations, I suppose I shouldn't have been all that surprised.



* Hmmm, maybe he did see it, given that Maia criticises him (and The Standard) for using the abortion debate to try to portray National as evil and Labour as good, when it's much more nuanced than that.
** And especial big-ups to Craig, and also PaulL, for taking on Mr Trotter where he lives, as well as at PA System, and to muerk for voicing her concerns also.

Why thank you!

The ineffable Blue Milk has given us a meme-ish sort of award. It's for being a blog she likes.

Blue Milk, we love you too.

And now, we get to pass the award on to some other people we like. Here are the rules:

1. Put the logo on your blog.
2. Add a link to the person who awarded it to you.
3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs.
4. Add links to these blogs on your blog.
5. Leave a message for your nominee on their blog.

Okay then... here we go. Before you ask, I did consult my blogging sisters about these.

What we said, where the sayers don't have a high posting frequency, but "when they do I find their posts leave little fingerprints in my synapses, as I think about them for a long while afterwards."

Radical Cross Stitch by Kakariki - fiercely feminist, left wing and pretty.

2 B Sophora - a dairy farming feminist. What's not to like about this.

Fly my Pretty Same sex feminist mum, with infant twins.

Ideologically Impure - inspired feminist ranting by the Queen of Thorns. Also, QoT has a great blog header.

Elsewoman, written by unrepentant second-wave feminist Anne Else.

And to finish of, one of us, whose blog I love, and yes, she had no hand in this - I've done this entirely on my own recognizance.

Kiwi Stargazer, by Anjum Rahman, a Kiwi woman, born in India, a Muslim, a mother, an accountant, a political activist, a feminist, a woman of integrity, and all-round wonderfulness.

We can nominate more than seven, so THM bloggers, feel free to click that edit icon and add some more.

Friday Feminist - Sylvia Soderlind

Cross posted

Because of this.

The metaphor of rape seems peculiarly attractive to male post-colonial writers. What happens, one may ask, when the literally colonized woman tries to speak, if her place has been usurped by the cross-dressing colonized (and that only metaphorically) writer who has invaded and appropriated the margin by relegating woman to a metaphoric status (not a new phenomenon, to be sure, but more disturbing, I would argue, when it results in depriving her of a reality specific to her lived experience).

Sylvia Soderlind, "Margins and Metaphors: the Politics of Post-***", in Theo D'Haen and Hans Bertens (eds.), Liminal Postmodernisms, 1994

Was that really necessary?

Fuck.

Less than a day after bitching about the anti-PC brigade being lazy bullshit artists I am going to have revert to being a stereotypical feminazi and ask was it really necessary for Chris Trotter to describe the current Winston Peters drama as a the political equivalent of a gang-rape?

Leaving aside Trotter's actual argument, I have to ask why did he feel the need to use that metaphor? Did he not stop to think that a lot of women feel uncomfortable about rape jokes and using rape in a flippant manner because rape is an ever-present background threat to daily life for many of us? Did he not consider that his flippant use of the term might be a triggers for those who have been raped? If he didn't, then he clearly thinks no women bother to read his blog because they aren't interested in the manly business of politics. Or perhaps he had stopped to think, hey that term 'rape' provokes really strong reactions in people so I'll make it even worse by multiplying that horrific by using 'gang rape' for added dramatic effect. This attitude is perhaps worse than thinking that no women read his blog at all, as it appears he is deliberately using the term in order to boost traffic to his new blog.

Charming.

One the reasons rape isn't taken seriously in this country and consequently under reported, under prosecuted and under convicted is because it is often spoken about in public in a flippant manner. Rape can be the punchline of Mark Ellis' joke or used to dramatic effect in political blog. One of the ways we can stop trivializing rape is acknowledging that rape is a big deal and the very least we can do for those who have suffered its excruciating indignity is talk about it with the honesty and gravity it deserves. So I ask why couldn't he find another term?

As final thought I notice that DPF is clearly not amused by Trotter's use of term but I'm a bit disappointed that he explicitly left it up to the feminist blogs to explain why. One of the reasons the complaints of women are so easily dismissed on topics like this is because we’re for the most part the only ones who complain. I am sure there a hell of a lot of men who don't like it when other guys use rape analogies or jokes but they don't complain in remotely proportionate numbers to the women do.

Update: Carol points out in the comments Russell Brown wasn't amused by Trotters use of language either.

Dr Strangebirth – How I Learnt To Stop Worrying and Love the Caesarean

The second part of a trilogy of posts about Wriggly's arrival. The first part can be found back here.

Public holidays are wonderful things, especially around the year’s end. They give us time and excuse to catch up with friends and family, and even when it rains it’s really rather nice to know that you’re often being paid to eat trifle and try to find batteries for new toys.

Unless of course you are heavily pregnant, the fetus is lying all funny, and your midwife won’t really talk to you about it other than to stoke your simmering fear. Then the public holidays that dot the end of December and beginning of January seem to be specifically sent to torment you, by making sure that hospitals are running on a skeleton staffing rota and thus no one is available to talk to anyone not actually in labour.

Into the dark cavern I was inhabiting stepped Jenny, an ex-midwife from my partner’s church. She furnished him with a number of leaflets, produced by National Women’s, which clearly explained the process of undergoing a C section. They were a much needed antidote for the almost anti-medical attitude of my own midwifery clinic.

Once we actually got into the hospital system it was a revelation. The day after Boxing Day we headed to Waitakere for an attempt at ECV, with the aim of putting the fetus in the right position for a natural birth. In the car boot was a bag packed in case the attempt at rotation instead prodded the baby into coming early. I was nervous.

Luckily the midwives and obstetrician were not. Tom and his team were relaxed, friendly, informative, and I felt like there was nothing we couldn’t achieve together. Of course I was wrong – despite three attempts at moving the fetus around, it wouldn’t flip. The ECV process was like a very very firm massage of my distended abdomen, much more violent than I had expected. It was mostly uncomfortable rather than painful, but the care of the hospital staff, and the presence of my partner, enabled me to relax and even laugh. Tom was obviously gutted that he hadn’t succeeded with the turning, and booked me in for an “elective” caesarean a week before the due date.

“Elective” is a word that seems to have a bizarre meaning in our health system. It indicates that the patient has had some choice in the matter. Yes, I had to actively decide to have a caesarean, and the midwife did seem surprisingly eager to give natural birth a go despite the intractable breech position. My worst case scenario, my Plan Z if you will, had long been hours of painful pushing followed by an emergency caesarean under general anaesthetic. I knew that I would not cope well in that situation, would not be in a position to make good decisions, and that I would be terrified of not coming out of the anaesthetic. I also knew, from past experience, that I get very ill after a general, and I could not imagine that would be a good start to breastfeeding or motherhood, staggering about the place and unable to keep food down.

So my election of a caesarean was one of many of those decisions women seem to have – no choice at all really. We tried everything to turn him before C Day, including a stupid diet based on principles of categorizing food into yin and yang and eliminating one of these entirely (I forget which was which, but meat was good and sugar was bad). You try eating nothing with any form of sweetener, including fruit, for a week after Xmas and at the business end of pregnancy.

As it turned out, while the surgeon was twisting Wriggly out of my body she commented that there was no way he was coming out naturally and I would have ended up on the operating table regardless. By going the elective route I’d effectively put myself in the best position to be undergoing an operation – well-rested, well-fed, well-supported, and in a good mental state – that was in fact necessary. A hundred years ago I guess that there’s a possibility that we both could have died.

It annoys me that many people portray those who give birth by caesarean as “too posh to push.” Around a third of NZ’s babies are delivered through the sunroof these days, and by talking up the evils of the surgical option in ante-natal classes many facilitators are effectively adding to the guilt and self-doubt of one in three of the mothers in their classes.

Very very few women would choose a caesarean if they knew they could have an uncomplicated and safe natural birth. The recovery time from a caesarean is enough to put you off – it’ll still be another six months or so before I am fully restored. Having your life suddenly and severely curtailed by the arrival of your firstborn is shock enough without also dealing with the aftermath of an operation that is the equivalent of a serious car accident. And speaking of cars, not being able to drive for six weeks afterwards does rather tend to exacerbate the loss of independence.

If a woman knows all this and still chooses a caesarean when natural childbirth is a viable option for her then I think we should respect her choice. It’s her body, her birth process, and frankly what she says go. Tales of doctors who want to remove women from any decision-making about the end of their pregnancy infuriate me no end. The focus should be on helping the mother to deliver her baby with the least difficulty, in a manner that pleases her as much as possible and keeps both her and child safe.

Part Three sometime soonish.

foreskin's lament?

just a really quick post. it seems to be a day for old fullas to be absolute morons. this from bob jones is bordering on the bizarre:

"It's typical of the Government where they have gone berserk with this sort of stuff." "It's not a feminist takeover, it's a lesbian takeover in Wellington," Mr Jones said.
"There's hardly a Government head that's not a lesbian ... so many lesbians are in top jobs and they don't want to acknowledge any sex.
It's a neutralisation of sex instead of saying foreman or forewoman."

this little rant happened because someone has decided to use the word "foreperson", to ensure gender neutral language. now i'm not particularly fussed by the use of the word "foreman", but i am fussed by this response by mr jones. how is he any authority on the subject, and why would his opinion matter at all? could it be that because mr jones is now a columnist for fairfax, this is just some free promotion by the paper? no matter the reason behind this little article, it's crap.

Feminist Event: Jan Jordan, author of "Serial Survivors", in Auckland on Friday

Auckland Sexual Abuse HELP is pleased to present;

Jan Jordan, author of Serial Survivors

speaking on the themes and learnings from her book which draws on interviews with survivors of serial rapist, Malcolm Rewa.

Please join us for an evening of guest speakers, drinks and nibbles and an opportunity to hear from others in the sector on the progress being made toward better services and systems for survivors of rape.

Friday 29 August from 5.30pm at St Columba Centre, Vermont St, Ponsonby. Nibbles and drinks provided.

Tickets $20 from the Women's Bookshop, Ponsonby Rd, and Auckland Sexual Abuse HELP ph: 623-1700 or asah@sexualabusehelp.org.nz

---

Thanks to Leonie at ASAH for emailing me with this info. If you have a event that may be of interest to feminists please feel free to get in touch so we can put it up.

What the fuck does 'Political Correctness' actually mean?

A few years ago, I was out on the turps with a group of expats when one of the Kiwi guys launched into a tirade bemoaning how Politically Correct New Zealand has become. The rant went on and on until one of the Americans in the group slammed down his beer and stated that New Zealanders' obsessive anger over political correctness was actually far more obnoxious and annoying than political correctness itself could possibly be.

And the American was right. 'Political Correctness' is nothing more than a safe term to justify any bigotry, sexism, or in fact any aspect of society that the speaker doesn't like but isn't intelligent enough to come up with a reason. Usually these idiots spend there time agreeing with each other on talkback or the blogsphere but occasionally they get front page billing if they happen to be a former All Black captain and coach.

Because reading through Brian Lahore's comments that political correctness is apparently the force that destroyed the golden age when men where 'men,' women were in the kitchen, and any child who stepped out of line could be hit by any of your mates (and yes hitting and smack are one and the same Brian) if they weren't happy to spend their nights sleeping in a car while you got pissed at the rugby club ticks all the boxes of lazy intellectualism that usually doesn't merit much coverage. But I forgot. This great man coached the All Blacks 20 Years ago and captained them 40 years ago so of course he's the ideal person to give expert opinion about the challenges of modern fatherhood on the frontpage of our largest daily.

And boy does he seem to have some opinions. Apparently our society is being destroyed because we don't respect each other. But Brian you seem to have trouble with what respect actually is and more importantly how to get it. Because unlike the old days, respect isn't something that is immediately bestowed on you because you happen to be male, old, a father, a teacher. Using violence and intimidation isn't a way to gain respect either, it is a way to elicit fear from victims which I suppose for the people who talk about 'PC madness' is one and the same thing. But for some people real respect is something that is earned through excelling in your role whether that be as a parent, teacher, coach, older sister and also treating others well.

But of course the article that talks about initiatives to help men become better fathers is relegated to page 3 because those hard manly men wouldn't want to 'risk' being mistaken as 'male mothers.'

Makeover for Dora

If you've had any contact with the under-five demographic, particularly girls, you'll be well familiar with Dora the Explorer. For those not in the know, Dora is the title character of animated TV show aimed at the pre-schooler demographic. Dora spends most of her time exploring (duh!) and helping people while also teaching Spanish to the kids (As an aside in some countries English is the language of instruction for Dora. Though it would be cool if we could get a Te Reo version here).

Like all good Kid's TV shows, there's plenty of merchandising that spins off from the programme. There is Dora clothing, lunchboxes, cups, books, dinner plates and there was a live show version that came through town a few months ago. The show does exceedingly well in its demographic, but apparently the powers-that-be want to extend Dora's marketing reach into tween demographic where the infamous bratz dolls and the pink lip-glossed Hannah Montana dominate.

And how do the producers plan to do that? By giving the title character a makeover to make her more feminine and sexy.

What a shame.

Trawling through the kiddie section for a present for my four-year old cousin a few weeks ago, I was staggered by how the general theme seemed to be pink princesses for girls and then the 'boys aisle.' The Dora line seemed to stand alone amongst toys marketed to girls that didn't perpetuate traditional gender roles (Don't even get me started on why advertisements like this are never marketed at boys).

I'm not saying that pink frilly princess stuff is bad and that we should ban all of it from our girls' toy boxes immediately. My point is that there isn't actually that much choice outside of the 'pink princess' and 'sex kitten' in the girls' toy aisle and I'm not sure that we need yet another product reinforcing the idea that dressing in pink dresses and around waiting for a handsome prince is a core part of a young girl's identity.

It hasn't always been this way.

I remember having some pink stuff as a kid as well as a Barbie (which I promptly pulled off its head and cut off all the hair). But back then Barbie dolls seemed to have real jobs rather than being a Princess (Kate take note) and characters like Rainbow Brite went off and defeated evil rather than just looking pretty and 'feminine' in pink (actually IIRC there was not only did the title character wear a 'boyish' blue dress none of the colours of the supporting cast were pink either). Then there was Star Wars, Fraggle Rock and E.T which appealed to both girls and boys with not a shade of pink in sight. And even though Leia may have been a Princess, she managed to lead a rebellion against the Empire without the need to don a pink frilly frock.

*sigh*

Looks like I'll be spending my present money in the far more interesting 'boys aisle' in the future. Actually come to think of it, I always thought boys toys were better than the stuff for girls' back when I was kid. What a pity things have gotten far worse since my childhood.

BTW you can contact Viacom, the company that owns Dora here to voice your opinion.

DUFC - Posts wanted

The fabulous Blue Milk is hosting the next Down Under Feminists Carnival, and she's looking for posts. So look through your posts, and submit them here. If you are a New Zealand or an Australian blogger (interpreted largely), and you have posted something feminist (also interpreted largely, because feminism is a broad church) in the last month, then send it in. Or if you have seen something on someone else's blog that you think is fantastic (and it's down under feminism), and you think it deserves a wider audience, then pay them a compliment and submit it on their behalf. This is a good chance especially for less-read blogs, or blogs that post about many things including feminism, to get a bit of airtime.

Closing date for submissions is 31 August (that's this Friday).

Democracy disappoints

Our Christian friends have done it: their pro-smacking petition now has the required 285,000 signatures to prompt a citizens' initiated referendum, to be held by post at heaven knows what cost to the taxpayer. It's not the fact that this referendum will be non-binding that bothers me - it's the fact that it is going ahead at all.

Democracy is rule by the majority, but the majority isn't always right. Some ideas are dumb no matter how many people support them. Example: when the Homosexual Law Reform Bill was being debated, Keith Hay and others organised a petition of many thousand signatures in an attempt to prevent the legalisation of consensual sex between adult men. According to opponents of homosexuality, all sorts of social evils were about to ensue. (The petition was judged to be dodgy and was discredited. Mickey Mouse was found to have signed four times, for example - dishonest sod that he is.) NZ had a moral crisis, but the sun rose the day after the bill passed into law, life went on, and - with the exception of the likes of Family First - society realised that gays aren't that bad. Similarly, you don't find many people out there who are proud they supported the Springbok tour. Ideas change and society moves on. It was, of course, the democratic right of Hay and his cronies to launch their petition, but their public persecution of gay and lesbian people did very little to enhance democracy, tolerance, or any of those fine liberal values that our society is supposed to cherish.

I'm not advocating the stifling of democratic debate, but in the case of the smacking issue, the arguments in favour have been uniformly dumb. Let's run through them.

1) Smacking works.
2) The state can't tell us what to do in our homes.
3) God says it's OK.

It seems to me that if you can discipline kids without violence - and it's manifestly clear that you can - then you should, whether smacking works or not. The state can and does tell us what to do in our homes, and most people would agree that banning wife-beating, for example, is a quite legitimate thing for the state to do. Finally, church and state are separate and have been for some time. Get over it. It was important to discuss these issues publicly in the interests of social progress. And we did. At length.

But when the debate is done and dusted, if there's still no good reason whatsoever to support smacking - and I truly haven't heard a single one - then why spend millions of dollars rehashing the issue via a referendum? In my admittedly half-arsed reading of the Citizens Initiated Referenda Act 1993, I could find no power of the Clerk of the House of Representatives to reject a frivolous petition question. If there is no such power (and one of you smart readers might know of it), I'd like to see one.

Citizens' initiated referenda have the potential to be stupid, wasteful or even harmful. Imagine, for example, a petition banning people from Muslim countries from emigrating to New Zealand in the name of quelling terrorism. Such a petition would be obviously offensive and would make Muslim kiwis feel unsafe and threatened. Yet it's not impossible that such a petition would succeed in meeting the threshold to trigger a referendum, or would do social damage even if it didn't get the required signatures. I don't feel particularly comfortable with public discussion of smacking kids: I find it difficult to explain to my children why some people think I should hit them. And then there's the monetary cost of referenda. It seems a bit ironic that NZ is about to spend up big on a ballot about hitting kids when, as a result of the 'It's not OK' campaign against family violence, under-funded community anti-violence programmes are being flooded with more clients than their meager resources can deal with.

Of course, there are a lot of practical problems with what I'm arguing here. Who gets to decide when a petition calling for a referendum is frivolous or damaging? And how do you set a 'stupidity' threshold for vetting petition questions? As usual, I don't have all the answers ... just a sneaking suspicion that democracy isn't always democratic.

A Woman's Place: The Maori Party's Candidates

As the youngest party currently in our Parliament, the Maori Party is easiest to work out the figures for, because I can actually remember all their MPs, ever, as opposed to having to crib from Wikipedia. As they have done all their selections, and as I have time right now to look at them, this post will examine their electorate choices as well as their party list.

Historical representation of women:
The Maori Party has had four MPs so far in its history, and one of them (co-leader Tariana Turia) has been a woman, making 25% representation for women. The historic events that surrounded Turia's resignation as a Labour MP, the by-election which re-elected her to the House, and the two hikoi rejecting the Foreshore and Seabed legislation gave the Maori Party it's start, and all this has interwoven Turia's political existence with that of her party. There is no denying that she remains a pivotal figure within both the Maori Party and broader Maori politics.

Current representation of women:
As above really, due to the youth of the party. It's worth noting that other co-leader Pita Sharples seems to take on more of the media role with Pakeha media, but I think that's more due to his portrayal as more acceptable to the "mainstream" than Turia, rather than a gender thing. (Although just why he is more acceptable could be open to significant gender analysis imho).

2008 Maori Party List:
Women represented across the whole list: 11 out of 19 (55%)

Top 5 - Two (Turia at 1, Angeline Greensill at 5) 2/5 = 40%
Top 10 - Five (As for Top 5 plus at Rahui Reid Katene at 7, Naida Glavish at 8, Iritana Tawhiwhirangi at 9) 5\10 = 50%
Top 19 - Eleven (As for Top 5 plus Te Orohi Paul at 11, Amokura Panoho at 12, Bronwyn Yates at 14, Josie Peita at 15, Mereana Pitman at 17, Georgina Haremate-Crawford at 19) 11/20 = 55%

It would be interesting to know if the Maori Party and the Greens have a similar, deliberate, approach to gender balance, as the figures are so close to a 50:50 balance. Idiot/Savant's analysis of the movements on the Maori Party list can be found here.

Sorry for the lack of links. I find the Maori Party website quite frustrating and there just don't seem to be any candidate profiles up or easy to find. If anyone can point me to them I'll add the links in.

Likely future representation of women:
It's probably more salient to look at the party's selection of women candidates in the Maori seats, as the Maori Party are unlikely to receive any list seats. They are already creating an overhang at the moment, having won 4 Maori seats and less than 4 seats-worth on the list in 2005. So other than the four Maori MPs they already have, have they selected any women in the three seats that Labour still holds?

Yes indeed they have; two out of the three in fact. Katene and Greensill join Derek Fox (Ikaroa-Rawhiti candidate) as follows:

• Angeline Greensill for Hauraki-Waikato - held by Minister of Maori Affairs Parekura Horomia for Labour. My impression is that Horomia is generally considered impossible to defeat, so Greensill's only chance would seem to be for the Maori Party to lift its percentage of the party vote about around 5% to give her a shot at making it in on the list. This presently seems highly unlikely.
• Rahui Reid Katene for Te Tai Tonga - held by Mahara Okeroa for Labour, several Marae Digipoll's show Katene is preferred. However Marae polls are often based on small samples and as such are not considered particularly reliable.

Turia will be returned, and probably the other three Maori Party MPs will win again, maintaining their current proportion of 25% women. Whether they can pick up any of the other Maori seats this election remains to be seen. It seems to be their only chance of increasing their representation of women.


Other posts in this series to date:
- Act's Party List
- Greens' Party List
- National's Party List

Abortion - Rights of Provider Refusal?

There's been a lot gnashing of teeth on US Feminist blogs about a regulation proposed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that gives legal protection to doctors and health care providers who refuse to participate in abortions or refer women to others that might. Further confounding matters is that the regulations on what constitutes an abortion have been left vague enough that providers can opt out of offering the abortion pill RU-486 and emergency contraception.

This change, which has gotten Pro-Choice activists in the States so angry because of its attack on women's right to choose, has actually been on the statute books here in New Zealand for quite some time. Yep you read correctly. In New Zealand your doctor has a legally enshrined right not only refuse to not perform an abortion (which is a moot point as you have to find two 'certifying consultants' to ok the procedure in the first place) but also has the right to deny access and information to contraception if they object to doing so on grounds of conscience.

The law is very much a reflection of the era in which it was drafted, Doctors (who were almost exclusively male) were held in relatively high esteem and sex outside the confines of marriage were strongly frowned upon. However society has moved on, defacto relationships are commonplace and patients have had formal rights for well over 10 years. Why should we not have those same rights also extend to abortion and more importantly contraception in order to prevent unplanned pregnancies not mention STDs from happening in the first place?

Given that medicine in this country is largely funded by the taxpayer, we do need to start asking difficult questions about whether providers' views abortion and contraception should determine a patient has access to care. I think it is a question that we also need to start asking would-be doctors. If a prospective medical student finds that they are uncomfortable about discussing contraception, gay sexual health or performing medical procedures like abortion, then I believe that they need to find a different career. We expect our biology teachers to discuss evolution as part of the school curriculum even if they believe in Intelligent Design and we expect our Police Officers to enforce our laws even if they don't agree with all of them. It is about time that doctors no longer have the 'right' to put our sexual health in the 'too hard' basket because it makes them uncomfortable.

Breaking News: Starbuck at no. 5 on Act list!

Everytime I consider who might be no. 5 on Act's list (will it be Jim Hopkins? He seems to think not) my mind wanders back to the last episode of season 3 of Battlestar Galactica...

Feel free to indulge in mindless, or indeed mindful, conversation about the wondrousness of BSG, however those who have not yet ventured into the delightful realm of the torrents (or do not possess friends who have visited China) may wish to avert their eyes lest they ruin their Wednesday nights.

Just when you thought capitalism might not be so bad...

In the weekend, I had an unpleasant experience with a real estate agent, and I just have to get it off my chest. Prepare for a rant.

My partner and I made a successful offer on a house on Saturday, and assuming tomorrow's building inspection goes OK, we'll have a new home in a few weeks. Nice for us, but perhaps not so nice for the elderly lady selling the house. The real estate agent who was supposed to be working for her sold her down the river at almost every opportunity.

First of all, as we were drafting our offer, the agent said 'I'm going to be a bit naughty'. She wrote an earlier, lower figure we'd mentioned on the offer form, crossed it out, then wrote our revised offer beside it. 'I know what old people are like', she said, and explained that the vendor would only be encouraged to ask for more money if we didn't do this. I sat uncomfortably silent - something I now feel a bit crappy about.

The rental home my family and I are living in has been sold, and we've got four weeks to get out. Because of this, I asked the agent to see if she could negotiate with the vendor to have the date of settlement brought forward. Off went the agent to talk to the vendor.

When the agent reappeared on our doorstep later that afternoon she said immediately, 'Before you look at this, I'll let you know that the vendor will accept your original offer'. At the prompting of her adult son, the vendor had made a counter offer, trying to push us up by five grand. The agent undercut this immediately, deciding that her own haste to finish work for the day was more important than the price her elderly client got for what is probably her only major asset.

At this stage, I was very uncomfortable. I asked the agent, 'What about the settlement date?'. The agent told us that the vendor had agreed to bring it forward to the date we'd proposed. I expressed my concern that the agent had pushed her into this. The agent said, 'Don't worry - I'll bundle her into my car first thing Monday and we'll drive around until I sell her a new house'. She added, 'And if she has to rent for a bit, that's OK'.

OK with whom? We're talking here about an elderly woman who had just had a surgery, and is leaving her home of more than three decades, in which she raised her family, because of health problems. I asked the agent twice more for an assurance that she wasn't pestering the vendor, and said that if someone had to rent or go homeless for a week, it should be us - not a frail elderly person. I got the response, 'You just get your building inspection sorted so we can finalise this and the vendor knows how much she's got to spend'. In short, the agent was about as interested in my concerns as she was in her client's welfare.

The problem with the real estate industry (or one of them, at least) is that agents seem to have no duty of fidelity to the people who engage their services. This agent cared only about the sale, and was happy to compromise her client's interests over and again to speed up the process. The agent was inducing the vendor to rush - making it likely that she'd buy a new house in a panic, also to the benefit of the agent.

I would guess that elderly women are particularly vulnerable to unethical real estate agents. Because women on average live longer than men, there are lots of elderly widows out there in sole possession of properties. As the phenomenon of elder abuse receives increased attention, it's becoming clearer that old people's children will also sometimes take advantage of them financially, pushing them into decisions about selling their homes.

The whole thing has left me with a bad taste. I feel like a bit of a loser for letting an aggressive real estate agent run over the top of me. When we conclude the deal, I'm going to stick a letter in the vendor's letterbox, assuring her that she doesn't need to leave her home urgently, and that we can be flexible about this. I may even write the real estate agency a letter telling them they suck. I've met some really nice real estate agents, but on the whole, the industry is so brutally competitive that it brings out the worst in people and rewards the unethical. Regulate the bejesus out it, I say.

Monday Funday - With American electoral references

It looks like it'll be two men (one black, one white) versus two men (both white), unless McCain picks Rice, but I heard she isn't interested? Don't really blame her.

From someecards.

A Woman's Place: National Party List

Anjum has already done a great job looking at the role of women in the National party's list for the 2008 election, which has also attracted some interesting comments.

Historical representation of women:
Annoyingly Wikipedia does not have the helpful list of National MPs that it did for Act and the Greens. I'm not sure I have the patience to count all the National MPs that have ever been. But I can work out reasonably easily that they have had 31 female MPs in their history to date, based on counting from this list and adding Katrina Shanks.

According to the Elections website their first female MP was Mary Polson who won a by-election in 1942 and stood down at the next election. According to National's history page, their first female MP, Hilda Ross, was elected in 1945 and held ministerial office from 1949 to 1957. After that National did not have another woman in Cabinet until Ruth Richardson et al in 1990.

Other notable female MPs from National have included renowned feminist Marilyn Waring and NZ's first female Prime Minister Jenny Shipley, who held the big swivelly chair from her successful coup for the party leadership in 1997 until National's defeat in the 1999 general election. She was overthrown by Bill English as leader of National in 2001.

Current representation of women:
National currently have 13 female MPs in their caucus of 48, making 27%. Anjum has done an excellent analysis of the gender breakdown of their portfolio allocations. While the highest ranked woman in their caucus is at no 7 (Judith Collins), it is worth noting they do have a female party president (Judy Kirk).

2008 National Party List:
Women represented across the whole list: 18 out of 73 (25%)

Top 5 - None (yes that's right, none) 0/5 = 0%
Top 10 - Two (Collins at 7, Anne Tolley at 10) 2/10 = 20%
Top 20 - Four (plus Georgina Te Heu Heu at 17, Pansy Wong at 20) 4/20 = 20%
Top 30 - Six (plus Sandra Goudie at 27, Kate Wilkinson at 30) 6/30 = 20%
Top 40 - Ten (plus Hekia Parata at 36, Melissa Lee at 37, Jo Goodhew at 39, Jacqui Dean at 40) 10/40 = 25%
Top 50 - 14 (plus at Paula Bennett at 41, Nicky Wagner at 43, Dr Jackie Blue at 45, Katrina Shanks at 46) 14/50 = 28%
Top 60 - 17 (plus Amy Adams at 52, Louise Upston at 53, Nikki Kaye at 57) 17/60 = 28%

Note Parata and Lee, both candidates who diverge from the norm not only by lacking Y chromosomes, but also due to their ethnicity, are the only women to be "parachuted" (i.e. ranked ahead of sitting MPs).

Idiot/Savant's thorough list analysis for National can be found here. Green MP Metiria Turei has also commented on Frogblog about the place of Maori on the list and The Standard has had a crack at the shallow veneer of diversity. Anjum has further comment on her own blog about the lack of renewal, while Jafapete isn't fooled about the diversity claims either. Feel free to add links to your posts that cover this stuff too.

My general view is that while National has tried hard to look less like a bunch of older, white men in suits, there is actually a dirth of diversity on their list. In the light of the actual figures, the National media statement about the list reminded me of the point Anna McM made in comments about the Microsoft business conference pic; "it looks like the women have been foregrounded to make it seem like there are more than the small number actually there..." It's the same with those who are candidates of colour. This could be a real point of contrast with Labour; I guess we'll know at the end of the month!

Likely future representation of women:
It's pretty hard to extrapolate much at this point, because I think I can say that most people concede that National's poll ratings are likely to drop in the coming months. Whether they drop a little or a lot will have a big impact on the number of women they bring into Parliament, as they most of their women are lower down the list.

There's a pro-National breakdown (of those Nats think are likely to get in) which is floating around the ether, assuming 57 MPs total and a number of electorates changing from Labour to National. On those results the demographics of those elected look like this:

• 17 female MPs (30%)
• 11 MPs under 40 (19%)
• 6 Maori MPs (11%)
• 1 Pacific MP (2%)
  
• 3 Asian MPs (5%)
  

In general I think that analysis is a bit over optimistic about both the final list vote on election day and which electorates National will win from Labour. But I suppose it is as good a starting point as any at the moment. Flipping it around, as Frogblog did a little bit, we find:

• 40 male MPs (70%)
• 46 MPs 40 and over (81%)
• 47 MPs of European descent/Pakeha (82%)

Out of 57, I remind you. Not looking quite so diverse now is it?


Other posts in this series to date:
- Act's Party List
- Green's Party List

Reminder: Drinking Liberally in Auckland this week!

WHAT: Drinking Liberally Auckland City
WHO: You and any of your left-leaning companeros

WHEN: 7.30pm, Wednesday 27th August
WHERE: London Bar, cnr Wellesley & Queen Sts (opposite Civic). The entrance to the bar is around on Wellesley St, you need to go up the stairs and we will probably be congregating at the far end by the stage, fiddling with the sounds.

WITH: Laila Harre - prominent union leader, well-known leftie and feminist, bane of Matthew Hooton's Mondays, and former Cabinet Minister in the early days of the current Labour-led government.

COST: Free, just need to keep yourself fed and watered.

CONTACT: drinkingliberallyauckland@gmail.com or you could join the Facebook group to keep in touch.

My favourite ever Olympic story

This iconic photo shows the medal ceremony following the men's 200 metres at the 1968 Mexico City Olympic Games. The first and third place getters, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, stand heads bowed and giving a Black Power salute. They wore no shoes to represent black poverty. Carlos had his top unzipped to express solidarity with America's blue collar workers, and wore beads to remember 'those individuals that were lynched, or killed that no-one said a prayer for, that were hung and tarred. It was for those thrown off the side of the boats in the middle passage'. Their protest against racism saw Smith and Carlos expelled from the Games.

The athlete who stands in second place on the podium is an Australian guy called Peter Norman. As the three place getters prepared for the medals ceremony, Smith and Carlos discussed their planned protest. Norman asked how he could support them. Smith and Carlos asked Norman to wear the same badge as themselves, and he duly did: it read 'Olympic Project for Human Rights'. Carlos had left his black gloves at the Olympic village. It was Norman who suggested they share Smith's gloves: this is why Smith salutes with his right hand, and Carlos with his left.

Norman was reprimanded by the Australian Olympic authorities. When questioned by the world's media, he reiterated his support for Smith and Carlos, and declared that he was opposed to the White Australia policy of his own country. When he went home, his countrymen and women were less than admiring of Norman's stance on racial equality. He was widely ostracised by the Australian media, and passed over for selection for the 1972 games.

Although his sporting career was at an end, Norman continued to work for social justice, playing a committed role in the Australian union movement for twenty years. He suffered from a series of health problems, including depression and alcoholism. In 2006, he died of a heart attack at the age of 64. He still holds the Australian men's record for the 200 metres. (Despite this accomplishment, John Howard was criticised for showing noticably less interest in marking Norman's passing than he did Steve Irwin's.)

Tommie Smith and John Carlos attended Peter Norman's funeral. Both gave eulogies and were pallbearers. Carlos said of him, "... Peter never flinched. He never turned his eye or turned his head. He never turned to walk away from that day".

Take that, those who say that sport and politics don't mix!

the asian radio show

just a quick note to promote a new radio show on radio live, which sapna samant has been involved with:

Starting on 23 August on Radio Live at 7.30 pm, THE ASIAN RADIO SHOW brings a different perspective to ‘being Asian’ in New Zealand. Funded by New Zealand On Air, this show aims to inform, entertain and engage audiences about life in Aotearoa New Zealand through Asian eyes. And sometimes about Asian lives through non-Asian eyes.

Being Asian in New Zealand is complex and The Asian Radio Show acknowledges that complexity through storytelling, reports, interviews and panel discussions with just a touch of irreverence.

Fronted by stand-up comedian and actor Tarun Mohanbhai and co-produced by thedownlowconcept and Holy Cow Media, The Asian Radio Show covers the spectrum from the frivolous to the important. From fashion to sexuality, health, politics, Asian posterchildren and even cosmetic dentistry in Cambodia. Issues that matter to all New Zealanders and are of relevance to those of Asian origin.

Mitch Harris of Radio Live says the show is another way of including New Zealanders from all backgrounds and experiences. “The Asian Radio Show isn’t just a show for people from Asia, or of Asian descent, it focuses on stories of interest for everyone but works to highlight issues often overlooked by mainstream media. I’m really looking forward to getting those stories out there.”

let me sheepishly admit that this is a little bit of self-promotion, in that i'll be on the first show along with pansy wong, discussing politics. i haven't heard the final cut of the show, so am hoping it comes out ok! nonetheless i think this is a great development - a decent asian show on a commercial station, at a decent time. yay!!

and while i'm at it, i'll also be on radio nz's "the panel" on monday. wish me luck!

A Woman's Place: Green Party List

The Greens are the kind of party you'd expect to have a lot of female candidates, as an open sign of their commitment to diversity. Perhaps the most obvious indicator of this is their dual leadership; the position must be shared by two co-leaders, one of each gender. Since the Greens first ran as an independent party in 1999 the female co-leader has been Jeanette Fitzsimmons.

Historical representation of women:
According to Wikipedia the Green Party officially started with that name in 1990, and they had three MPs elected as part of the Alliance in the 1996 election (Fitzsimmons, Rod Donald, and Phillida Bunkle). Since standing in their own right, beginning in 1999, the Greens have had 10 MPs (not counting Bunkle who stayed with the Alliance) of whom 4 have been female, i.e. 40%.

Current representation of women:
The Greens currently have six MPs in total and four are women (Fitzsimmons, Sue Bradford, Sue Kedgeley and Metiria Turei), making 67%. As noted, Fitzsimmons is also co-leader, and has historically often represented the party in televised debates where only one leader was allowed to participate. It will be interesting to see if Fitzsimmons continues this public role in future or whether new co-leader Russel Norman is featured more often. Any Green members who might like to share their insights on how the tasks are divvied up?

2008 Green Party List:
Women represented across the whole list: 20 out of 48 (42%)

Top 5 - Four (Fitzimmons at 1, Bradford at 3, Turei at 4, Kedgeley at 5) 4/5 = 80%
Top 10 - Five (As for Top 5 plus Catherine Delahunty at 8) 5/10 = 50%
Top 20 - Nine (As for Top 10 plus Mojo Mathers at 13, Jeanette Elley at 18, Virginia Horrocks at 19, Donna Wynd at 20) 9/20 = 45%
Top 30 - Fifteen (As for Top 20 plus Diana Mellor at 22, Lisa Er at 24, Jan McLauchlan at 25, Lizzie Gillett at 26, Claire Beakley at 27, Rayna Fahey at 28) 15/30 = 50%

After 30 all Green candidates are ranked at 31 and listed alphabetically.* There are five women in this part of the list, out of 18, making 28% of this tail end of the list female. I also note that a significant proportion of the candidates are list only (including Jeanette Fitzimmons), and there may be more electorate candidates to come.

Likely future representation of women:
Currently it looks as if the Greens will return around 7 MPs, which would mean four women MPs (those already in Parliament) and three men (Russel Norman, Keith Locke and new face Kevin Hague), i.e. 57% female. It will be worth revisiting these figures closer to election time of course, due to the volatility of polling for the smaller parties. The Greens are not seriously contesting any electorate seats, and in fact Fitzsimmons is not even standing for the seat of Coromandel which she has won in the past, so their return to Parliament is dependent solely on breaking the 5% threshold. One of the two co-leader spots will continue to be filled by a woman for the forseeable future.

Readers who are interested in this type of stuff should definitely go have a look at Idiot/Savant's analysis of the impact MMP has had on the diversity of our Parliament. It has pretty graphs and everything.

Other posts in this series to date:
- Act's Party List


* Personally I think this is a brilliant idea and I tried to convince the Alliance to copy it in 2002. It avoids unnecessarily pissing activists off, because really when you are ina minor party it doesn't actually matter whether you are 12 or 32 and can only serve to aggrieve people as they get annoyed at someone they think is a slack arse being ranked further up than they are.

When a mummy and a daddy love each other very much

Thanks to Dancer at The Standard for highlighting the ridiculous denigration of early childhood teachers by National MP Craig Foss. Both Dancer and Kristi Lampitt in the Hawkes Bay Today article do a good job of pointing out the error of Foss's ways, so I wanted to pick up on something else Mr Foss said in this regrettable little episode where yet another National MP seems to have been "quoted out of context":

Mr Foss told the women that in the child's first two years it was important to have a mother, or grandmother, involved.

Maybe Mr Foss could acknowledge that men have a role in parenting? How about he consider using terms like "parent" or "grandparent," or phrases like "mother and father"? It's not as if we don't have the language. And it's not as if only women are parents.

Grrrrrr.

Partner rape

An Australian organisation, Women's Health Goulbourn North East, has just released a report on partner rape, available at http://www.whealth.com.au/pdf/raped_by_a_partner.pdf .

It's described as follows:

Women who are raped or who suffer domestic violence are somehow thought of in the popular imagination as a stereotype. According to this, the women are asking for it, dressed inappropriately, provoking it – responsible for it. While this is clearly uninformed, our sample provides yet more evidence that any woman is vulnerable to rape. We do not need to be a certain 'type' of woman, or to behave in particular ways, or to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Partner rape is prevalent in our society. This research is based on over 70 interviews with women, police and health professionals and has implications for health professionals, GPs, ministers, community members and anyone who works with them.

The research report was written by Debra Parkinson. The literature review was written by Sue Cowan. Interviews were conducted (in pairs) by Debra Parkinson, Kerry Burns, Claire Zara, Sandy King and Julie Tyler.

Internet Safety - Let's scare some sense into the sluts.

For the Blame the Victim Files.

A police officer in the States played the 'shame the potential victim' by displaying female high school students' MySpace profiles to their school assembly and then analyzing them as being "slutty."

But wait it gets worse.

The officer then told the 1,000 teens amassed at the school assembly that he passed on the student's pictures to a sexual predator who would masturbate to her picture.

Apparently this display was provoked by the story of a teenage girl who was tracked through her MySpace account and was then raped and shot. In the world according to the officer, the girl students' page is inviting people to do the exact same things to her.

WTF?

Yes teaching about internet safety is important for teens especially as many of their parents are likely to be clueless about the technology. But the only lesson that the female students of this assembly received was to not trust the police to keep them safe. And the boys also learned an important lesson. Through his tirade the officer legitimized the most common excuse for rape that rape apologists and rapists use, the victim was asking for it.

We're teaching our children well.

Via Feministing

Friday Feminist - Andrea Dworkin

Cross posted

I'm going to ask you to remember the prostituted, the homeless, the battered, the raped, the tortured, the murdered, the raped-then-murdered, the murdered-then-raped; and I am going to ask you to remember the photographed, the ones that any or all of the above happened to and it was photographed and now the photographs are for sale in our free countries. I want you to think about those who have been hurt for the fun, the entertainment, the so-called speech of others; those who have been hurt for profit, for the financial benefit of pimps and entrepreneurs. I want you to remember the perpetrator and I am going to ask you to remember the victims: not just tonight but tomorrow and the next day. I want you to find a way to include them -- the perpetrators and the victims -- in what you do, how you think, how you act, what you care about, what your life means to you.

Andrea Dworkin, Remember, resist, do not comply, 1995

Revisited by the rabidly right?

The following email has been circulating. If you've seen it already, I apologise. No one should be exposed to this sort of shite twice. If you haven't, I don't suggest you read the whole thing. A few paragraphs will give you the gist.
*There is an 'Old Version' and a 'Modern Version' .... Two
Different Versions! ** **Two Different Morals!


OLD VERSION:

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long,
building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances
and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed.

The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

MORAL OF THE STORY:

*Be responsible for yourself! *

-------------------------------------------


MODERN VERSION:


The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building
his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances
and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference
and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and
well fed while others are cold and starving.

TV1, TV3 and Maori TV show up to provide pictures of the shivering
grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with
a table filled with food. New Zealand is stunned by the sharp contrast.

How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor
grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Kermit the Frog appears on Good Morning with the grasshopper, and
everybody cries when they sing, 'It's Not Easy Being Green.'
Sue Bradford stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house
where the news stations film the group singing, 'We shall overcome.'
Gordon Copeland then has the group kneel down to pray to God for
the grasshopper's sake.

Michael Cullen exclaims in an interview with John Campbell that
the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both
call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair
share as the ant is too much of a "Rich Prick."

Finally, the Labour Party drafts the Economic Equity
& Anti-Grasshopper Act retroactive to the beginning of the summer.

The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green
bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his
home is confiscated by the government.
Winston gets his old law firm to represent the grasshopper in a
defamation suit against the ant, and the case is tried before a
panel of judges that Helen appointed from a list of single-parent
welfare recipients.

The ant loses the case.

The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits
of the ant's food while the government house he is in, which
just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around him because
he doesn't maintain it.

The ant has disappeared in the snow.

The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident and
the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders
who terrorize the once peaceful neighbourhood.
MORAL OF THE STORY:


*Be VERY careful how you vote in 2008!! *

This tale took me right back to my student politics days in the 1990s. It even made me a bit nostalgic. The right wingers were nuttier then, and I kind of miss that. I'm thinking particularly of the young men of ACT (and they were exclusively male) - those young freedom fighters who held the answers to all society's problems, although their mums still made their beds for them.

These days, the popularity of Third Way politics has made the right a bit more savvy. Beneficiary bashing is conducted under the guise of restoring the dignity of the poor. Whatever. I liked it when the righties just said what they thought: that the rest of us are depraved, drug-taking layabouts. At least we knew where we stood.

And I missed the tone of righteous self-pity that the nutty right were able to invoke. I like the way they imagined themselves as victims: the only ones capable of a hard day's work, the only ones with any personal integrity, put upon by lazy sods who would rather leach off them than get a job. Beseiged by women/Maori/insert minority here who wanted privileges at their expense. Poor sausages.

I wonder what became of those rabid right wing folk of the nineties, now that their rhetoric is less fashionable. Like me, they may now be combining children with paid work, and perhaps relying on taxpayer-funded support to make ends meet.

As a recipient of Working for Families, I suppose I'm one of those dreadful degenerates that so concern the nutty right. Perhaps at morning tea time, I'll excuse myself from my public servant's desk and go and shoot up class A in the toilets. Look out for me on Campbell Live tonight. Perhaps you'll see some footage of me overdosing with a poignant voice over from Sue Bradford, railing about the system. Whatever.

The Inaugural Suffrage Eve Debate

With the Graceful Assistance of the Auckland University Students' Association,

The Hand Mirror presents

The Inaugural Suffrage Eve Debate

Thursday 18th September, 7.30pm
Lecture Theatre ENG3402, School of Engineering, 20 Symonds St, University of Auckland

Arguing for the Proposition "That Eve Should Vote Centre-Right":

• Nikki Kaye, National candidate for Auckland Central
• Lyn Murphy, Act list candidate (no. 14)
• and a third speaker yet to be confirmed

Counter-arguing for the Proposition "That Eve Should Vote Centre-Left":

• Sue Bradford, Green MP
• Anjum Rahman, Labour party activist and blogger
• and a third speaker yet to be confirmed

All welcome, entry by gold coin donation. Feel free to add your attendance intention on the Facebook event page.

---

We've been beavering away on this for a little while now and I admit to being quite excited about it. While The Hand Mirror's writers are feminist and left-of-centre in make-up, we are firmly dedicated to promoting women's voices regardless of their political ideology. We see this debate as a practical way to give Auckland women a chance to hear different views on which political approaches could serve them best, particularly in light of the upcoming general election.

Please save the date and consider bringing some friends along, and if it goes well we hope this may be the first of many successful Hand Mirror events.

Update: Due to some logistical issues we have changed the format of this event a bit, and I hope to be able to clarify more specifically tomorrow (Monday 1st Sept). It will still be going ahead at the same time and place, with most of the same speakers, but we are making it more of a discussion than a hard-core debate. More news soon I hope!