Thursday 11 March 2010

A call to share our herstory

Today I was alerted to a moving and provocative piece from Alicia Simoni, a community manager and staff writer attending the current hearings of the UN Committee on the Status of Women, and the associated programme of events.

(This is the forum where Pansy Wong tried to pull the wool over the Committee's eyes by claiming that (a) it was the Nats who introduced 14 weeks' paid parental leave and (b) the Pay and Employment Equity Unit was shut down because its work was done.)

Simoni writes:

"Everything I’ve done — personally, professionally, politically, and everything in between — in the decade since graduating from college has been informed by the feminist values I first learned as a university student. And yet suddenly I feel as though I don’t know enough about where I – we – stand as women in society."

3 comments:

Deborah said...

That's a fantastic piece, Anne. I've started to think that we need some of our NZ herstory on line, so that women in Aotearoa NZ can find out where we have come from, and maybe think about what we need to keep on working on. I'm prompted in this thought by the comments on the post I put up at my place a few days back, about The New Zealand Working Women's Charter, and the most recent Friday Feminist post I put up, linking to Dale Williams' article about working in an advertising agency in 1960s NZ. I'm not thinking of anything formal, perhaps just a blog site where women could share some stories and anecdotes. Does anyone know if something like this is already in existence for NZ herstory?

alicia said...

Thanks so much for reading and linking to the piece that I wrote Anne.
I am part of a online community of women (the Peace X Peace Community) - it is a place for women from all around the world to connect, post their stories, and engage in discussions. I would love for you, Deborah, and others from NZ to join!

The link is:
peacexpeacecommunity.ning.com

Miss K said...

What's Herstory?