Unnecessary

Hugly sceptical of the Three Strikes Legislation as I am, Bomber Bradbury's post over at Tumeke has me perplexed.

He's arguing that sexual assault should not have been included in the list of the "worst of the worst" crimes which count as strikes under the new law, or perhaps he's saying that the sexual assault in the first case to result in a Strike wasn't bad enough to count for one. Have a read and tell me which you think.

Often Bomber and I are on similar pages politically, or if not we're at least in the same chapter. We have gone in different directions politically since we were part of a cabal of lefties at uni together, not in terms of left or right but in relation to the issues we care most about and how we pursue those. It feels kind of odd to be reading something Bomber's written and feeling... well, icky.

Bomber too is opposed to the Three Strikes Law, and he outlines well just why that is. And see for me that would have been enough. I don't know that there's any need to go on and then develop a case that sexual assault (or this particular sexual assault) is not a serious enough crime to count as a strike. But that's precisely where Bomber goes, including:

Now this sexual assault was pretty awful for the woman involved (it is her home, she should never have to feel fear in her own space) [see those last four words should not be there at all, for a start - J] and Dwyane Christopher Mercer obviously let himself down horribly as an individual with his drunken pursuit of someone who clearly wanted nothing more than to sleep.

As awful as that situation was though, how on earth could his groping of a woman through their clothes EVER be considered 'the worst of the worst'? In the pantheon of awful acts human beings can commit on one another, this act deeply underwhelms.

Then in the comments he writes:

...The sexual assault was awful and of course should be punished, but was this offending the worst of the worst? No, it clearly isn't the worst of the worst.

...The offending in this case IS NOT the worst of the worst, that doesn't mean he shouldn't be punished, it means the defence that this law wouldn't net prisoners on the low end of offending isn't true and we will get an explosion in the prison population which will please the private prison industry and set us on the future of worse offending committed by more and more damaged human beings ejected from an underfunded, overcrowded, corrupt State prison system...

And later:

...Within the sexual assault band, is his offending the worst of the worst? It clearly is not, now that is not to insinuate that his offense wasn't serious to the woman assaulted, of course it was, but within that band of offending, what he did was low...

Thank goodness for A Nonny Moose who has waded in over on Tumeke with a helpful comment including:

I'm with Anonymous. I may have some issues with the 3 Strikes law, but to posit it's first use on a "lowly" sexual assault is to negate the seriousness of sexual assault.

...You start out by implying empathy for the victim, but because the offending doesn't directly affect you, then hey, it's not so bad. You just completely negated the seriousness it has for the victim.

Sexual assault does not have some sliding scale of heinousness. To imply that unless it was full penis-in-vagina rape, other types of sexual assault just aren't "serious enough to be taken seriously"...

My concern with Bradbury's post is that while I don't think he intends to minimise sexual assault he actually does.

I don't think Mercer should be getting a Strike for this. I don't think anyone should be getting any Strikes for anything. The whole concept of ranking crimes on a "worst of the worst" scale (does that make stuff that's not least worst "best"?) is ridiculous anyway, and far too subjective to be useful. And I don't have to denigrate and dismiss the crime of sexual assault, or this particular instance of it, in order to say any of that.

Spotted on Waiheke

Saw this poster up in the women's toilet at a bar/restaurant recently.



You probably can't read it all that well, sorry about that. The point is that it's a tool to help women identify when they are the subject of abusive behaviour, and where to get help locally.

What a brilliant idea. Kudos to the Waiheke branch of Living Without Violence for the initiative, and Vino Vino in Oneroa for hosting it.

Has anyone spotted anything similar elsewhere?

More on choice and feminism

Have a look at today's long post on Werewolf by Melody Thomas on Sarah Palin's claim to be a feminist.


[Trigger warning: there are a couple of anti-choice / "pro-life" people commenting in the thread. One has been asked to exit the thread. Deborah (with apologies to AnneE for editing her post)]

Women are really neat people: Maia's Handmirror Reflections

Here's another repost of something I wrote a few years back. Julie's post made me think about it.

******

The head-line comes from Carol Hanisch's brilliant article 'The Personal is Political'. If you haven't it read it yet I recommend that you do that now, because I'm going to be talking about it. One of the themes for the latest feminist carnival at Bitch|Lab (which this post is probably too late for) is Carol Hanisch's article:

Given what Carol Hanisch originally meant by the phrase, “the personal is political,” how do you see your work as a continuation of what Hanisch and some of our early second wave foremothers envisioned?

There has been a bit of a bit of a debate among feminists blog-writers, about blow-jobs. I don't want to write about that, but I do want to write about the way in which feminist analysis looks at women's lives, both individually and collectively, and what relationship that has to the sort of action we take.

The first thing I want to say, the first thing I always want to say. Is that 'the personal is political' doesn't mean what so many people seem to think it means. In fact, that wasn't exactly what Carol Hanisch was saying. What she was saying was:

One of the first things we discover in these groups is that personal problems are political problems. There are no personal solutions at this time. There is only collective action for a collective solution.

If I start posting that every-day and twice on Sundays it's only because I agree with every word. So now I've got my regular rant about collective action (or actually got Carol Hanisch to do it for me), I want to talk about some of the other things Carol Hanisch had to say. The pro-woman line

This is part of one of the most important theories we are beginning to articulate. We call it “the prowoman line.” What it says basically is that women are really neat people. The bad things that are said
about us as women are either myths (women are stupid), tactics women use to struggle individually (women are bitches), or are actually things that we want to carry into the new society and want men to share too (women are sensitive, emotional). Women
as oppressed people act out of necessity (act dumb in the presence of men), not out of choice. Women have developed great shuffling techniques for their own survival (look pretty and giggle to get or keep a job or man) which should be used when necessary until such time as the power of unity can take its place.

To me there are two really important points here the first is the usefulness of looking at many of the things women do in our society as survivial strategies, and the other is the futility of giving up those survival strategies without having something to replace them with.*

I think it's probably easiest to explain what I think Carol Hanisch means if I talk specifics - so I'm going to look at women's relationship with food and their bodies, and how that is, so often, a survival strategy.

Sometime in the late 1990s a Wellington feminist group organised an eat-in picnic in the waiting room of a local Jenny Craig on international no-diet day. I didn't know about it, so I didn't go, but I'm really glad that I didn't. I think it crosses the line between blaming structures and blaming people. I'm not prepared to participate feminist action that implies that feminists are different and better from most poor deluded women.

In Travelling Mercies Anne Lamott talks about being bullimic. She was very hostile when she first started talking about this with her therapist, and her therapist told her - "I'm not going to take your bulimia away from you." Eating disorders, eating disordered behaviour, and the many different meanings we give to food are all survival strategies.** Sometimes these strategies are really simple. If you're an actress in a TV series and you want to get a film role the more weight you drop the more likely you are to get the role. Most of them are a lot more complicated - this post is already to long for me to go into a detailed analysis of food and having or losing control, but for most women I know it's about far more than just the fact that we live in a culture has a problem with us taking up space(and quite frankly that's hard enough to deal with).

Anyway my point is that blaming individual women for the role they play in conforming to and maintaining all this is next to useless. It's no good trying to take people's eating disordered behaviour away from them, unless we have something better to offer.

I don't want to pretend that it's easy. The way most women talk about food upsets and depresses me. I've seen the domino effect of serious eating disordered behaviour first hand. I'm pretty sure that discussions with other women about food that assign it moralistic qualities play an important role in maintaining eating disorder behaviours among groups of women. I hate it when I see it happening around me - and it does every day. I make snippy comments, I make direct comments, I roll my eyes, I silently fume - I do completely unhelpful things in many different situations. I don't mean to blame women, and intellectually I know not to, but sometimes I get overwhelmed with the awfulness of the role women play in upholding this system.

But I've had discussions that I think are useful. I've had discussions with other women that make us feel that we were building something that might offer an alternative. Not now, obviously, now it's just a handful of women, but we're trying to take these conversations wide, we're trying to write about what we're saying. I don't see this as action in the form of protest - but I do see it as the beginning of organising. If we're going to organise, we need to be able to make ourselves strong.

I don't think building our strength is enough, but it's a necessary precondition for making any sort of change. There are many, many institutions that uphold , and we can attack them and we should attack them (Dove beauty products - you're first up against the wall). But if what we do has any meaning, we have to be strong enough that we offer another survival strategy to women.

That's the role that I see Carol Hanisch's ideas play in the work that I do. That my starting point is not blame women, but trying to build alternatives, and acknowledge that we can only struggle meaninfully once we have built strength. Whenever I think of any of the issues that seem most problematic within feminism, this approach makes things easier.

I think there is some danger that this sort of analysis leads to the sort of paralysis that comes when feminists talk as if 'choice' was the most important thing for women. I used the word 'actions' rather than 'choices' in this post, and I've did that deliberately. To me the point of feminism isn't to give women choices, but to make sure that we don't have to make them. We don't have to be virgins or whores, or career women or housewives. We have to make shitty choices every single day - for me the point of feminism isn't to celebrate shitty choices, but make sure we don't have to choose.

But I don't think it has to - I think we can see actions women take as survival strategies - as long as we acknowledge that our eventual goal is to be organised enough to challenge these things that women need to survive from.

My point in making this discussion isn't to say I think I have all the answers - I don't. But if I'm going to talk about feminist analyses of our lives with other women I need to know that we're starting at the same place. I need to know that they believe that women are neat people.

It's fine that other feminists disagree with me, it's fine that other feminists think that some women are dupes of the patriarchy - but if I'm going to have conversations with people that think like that I need to talk directly about our different attitudes the meaning of indivdiual women's actions in our society - not about blow-jobs.

* In this discussion I'm talking entirely about situations where women don't have power. In a situation where women have power, over other women or over men, I think we need a totally different sort of analysis. I used to wear a t-shirt saying "Jenny Shipley is not my sister" back when Jenny Shipley was prime minister - and if only I had one I'd wear a similar t-shirt now. But that's a discussion for a different post.

** I've written before about why I find the idea of privilege problematic when talking about thin women - for most women I've known - of any size - food and their bodies, and the relationship between the two hasn't got much to do with power or privilege.

Pay Equity Coaltion helps Minister Wong to leave no stone unturned

The Pay Equity Challenge Coalition invites supporters to join them on Wednesday 30 June at Parliament grounds for their “No Stone Unturned!” action to mark the anniversary of the closing of the Pay and Employment Equity Unit.

Hard-working rock lifters will leave no stone unturned to try and close the gender pay gap. Hard hats, high-vis vests and work boots are the order of the day when there are gender pay gap problems to overcome.
To help, be at Parliament Grounds, Molesworth St, Wellington at 1.00pm on Wednesday 30 June (rain or shine).

Last year Minister of Women’s Affairs Pansy Wong promised to “leave no stone unturned in trying to close the pay gap.”  “We’re going to place five large stones on Parliament grounds and underneath will be five solutions to the gender pay gap" said Pay Equity Challenge Coalition spokesperson Angela McLeod. "We expect Pansy Wong will be thrilled that we have done the work for her and we look forward to our solutions being actioned.”

“It’s been a year since the Government closed the Pay and Employment Equity Unit but the Pay Equity Challenge Coalition has a long memory. We won’t let the Government forget their promise to try and close the gender pay gap."

Is Marian Keyes pro-choice?

I finished the latest Marian Keyes book over the weekend. I quite enjoy her plots and her characters, and I like the way she writes about hidden parts of women's lives like domestic abuse, alcoholism, sex, and mental health. For those not familiar with Keyes, she is often classed as "chick lit", dismissively, which I tend to think is a bit unfair, and she's probably the most successful modern Irish author writing today.

Keyes has also been upfront about her own difficulties with depression and addiction, plus actively identifies as a feminist, campaigning with organisations like the Irish equivalent of Women's Refuge to list but one example. Her characters are often strong and independent, both women and men, and the manner in which she deals with issues like sex without love or marriage resonates with my own ideas of a feminist approach to life.

But her latest book has left me with one big niggle; is Marian Keyes pro-choice or not?

(Don't click through unless you want to read several huge spoilers)

HERE BE SPOILERS

Basically my problem is this. The mysterious narrator(s) of The Brightest Star in the Sky are supposed to be souls choosing who their parents will be. Which, if it were true, would rather give the anti-abortionists some pretty Big Material on which to base their restrictive approach to reproductive rights.

Of course the concept itself fails mightily. Why would no soul have chosen Fionn's foster parents, while choosing Katie's awful progenitors? Nevermind outside of the frame of the story, where children are born to abusive parents who have already beaten or even killed earlier children. Why would a supposedly highly intelligent and powerful soul make that choice? It seems to me a ludicrous idea full stop.

But to get back to Marian. The thing is that Keyes is supposedly publicly pro-choice. If you click on this link and scroll right down to the bottom you'll see this quote:

...Marian Keyes is an Irish (and somewhat of a) chick lit author who doesn't write strictly about reproductive rights issues, but she certainly addresses them. In her book Angels, the main character has an abortion, in which she discusses what it meant to have an abortion in a nation where the procedure was illegal. She is also publicly pro-choice and serves as a role model for other Irish women.

Many thanks to a good friend for finding this for me.

If you've read TBSitS I'd appreciate your thoughts - did you find this plot device niggled too? Does it undermine Keye's past commitment to a woman's right to choose?

Interesting cinema in the NZ International Film Festival

Or the Fillum Festival as Kim Hill would say.

Docos on women's issues:

• Love, Lust and Lies
• Salam Rugby
• His and Hers

Movies on women's stuff:

• Scheherazade, Tell Me a Story (I really want to see this!)
• Women Without Men

And heaps of other films made by women film-makers, including these ones made by/about New Zealanders:

• After the Waterfall
• Asylum Pieces
• From Poverty Bay to Broadway
• Gordon Crook
• The Free China Junk
• The Rainbow Warriors of Waiheke Island
• There Once Was An Island: Te Henua e Noho (produced by a friend of mine, I really want to see this too)

The NZFFl starts in Auckland on July 8th, and then travels around the country until late November. You can find out more at their website.

Choices

You may have noticed the latest thread about abortion to explode into discussion about a woman’s right to choose whether or not to continue a pregnancy. Everyone who blogs here is pro-choice, although precisely how we choose to define that might differ from person to person. What I’m going to write about in this post is my personal view. Other bloggers may agree with it, I don’t know, and they may well indicate by comments their agreement, disagreement or otherwise. We shall see!

I want to write a bit more broadly about choice and bodies, in the context of women and obviously with reference to abortion as that is the major area of societal discussion about women’s power over their own bodies.

I stated my view of a woman’s right to choose in respect of abortion in a comment on the aforementioned thread, and I’ll quote it again here:

The bottom line for me is that we need to respect the right and power of women to control their own bodies. This extends to unequivocally and without restriction giving individual women the right to choose whether or not to terminate a pregnancy. They are the people best placed to make the best decision about whether or not to have a child; they know all their own circumstances, which you can never fully know from outside. And sometimes individual women will make choices about their bodies, about their fertility, about their reproductive plans, that others disagree with or wouldn't make in the same circumstances. That's ok; if we just respect that the woman concerned is the person best placed to make a decision that affects her first and foremost then that helps us get by without angst and public judgeyness.

I’ve come to this view of choice through thinking about abortion, and probably the biggest influence on my thinking in this area has been reading and hearing Maia’s thoughts on the matter over the last five years or so. I think this idea about choice extrapolates to other issues in regard to women’s bodies.

This is why I will never support making it illegal for pregnant women to drink alcohol. We should definitely have significant public education campaigns about the dangers and effects of consuming alcoholic beverages during gestation. We should be aiming for a society where everyone has a level of education, and sufficient access to this kind of information, that they can make informed choices for themselves. If a woman still chooses to drink during pregnancy, knowing all that, then we should respect that choice. Just like we shouldn’t restrict access to caesarean sections, or plastic surgery. These are decisions a woman is making about her own body and her own health.

Respecting doesn’t mean agreeing – it means respecting that they have the right to make that choice, for themselves. You don’t have to agree to everything other people do. If that was the case, and everyone had to agree with me, then we would not have a Prime Minister who is prepared to trade basic democratic rights for two pandas.

How does this view influence my behaviour? I’m not perfect and I can be judgey too. What I try my very best to do is to not be judgey to someone’s face. I might have a quiet rant to my partner about an unwise choice I think a friend is making, but I acknowledge that I don’t know everything that they have considered in making that choice, I can’t possibly know because I am Not Them. I might make a different choice if I were in the exact same situation, but I am still Not Them. Sometimes I’ll write something here (often weeks or months later) about the broad pressures around that choice, the things that bug me about it from a wider context, but I try really hard not to write in a way that criticizes individual women* for making that choice. Empathy, that thing Paul Henry lacks, is what I'm striving for, although sometimes I fail.

I have to say that taking this approach is a lot less stressful than wanting to Fix everything for everyone all the time. This is my general approach to feminism too, and why I get a bit annoyed at claims that Feminism HQ somehow doesn't respect women's agency. There is no Feminism HQ, and anyone who claims to be from there should have their credentials checked for signs of being written on Psychic Paper. But that's a whole other ranty post right there.

Getting back to the point, we all make choices everyday. Some good, some bad, some so heavily restricted by circumstances as to not really be true choices at all. I hope that one day we can live in a society where the abortion rate is lower than it is now, but only because that will show that contraception is more available and effective than it is now and that people have more reproductive rights.






* I’m sure someone will come up with some examples of posts I’ve written where I have criticized individual women, particularly women who have made negative statements about other women or about feminism or feminists. What I’m talking about in this post is specifically about choices that women make for how they run their own lives, and even more tightly mostly about their own bodies. I think it’s healthy to critique each other in the public statements that we make about life in general (which is one of the reasons I tend to be quite liberal about comments here). But we head into tricky territory when we judge harshly the choices individuals make about their own lives (see entire rest of post above).

Something to read, and something to watch

Maori TV is devoting two evenings of prime time to talking about child abuse, starting on Sunday 27 June, and continuing on Monday 28 June.

There's an article about the project in the Herald: A catalyst for social change. Some snippets:

Hirschfeld presents and hosts panel discussions which are interspersed with a series of mini-documentaries, most of them well under 10 minutes but which show viewers the lives of those stuck in abusive lifestyles, those who have rescued them and those who have changed their lives and are now changing the lives of others, be they strangers or their own whanau.

The second night specifically targets Maori and why they are where they are today.

Dame Anne Salmond, a professor of anthropology, talks through the major changes which have affected Maori over the years, from how in pre-European times children were never hit and on through the years of disease, war and the big flow to the cities to find work, and the statistics we have now.

This is followed by a piece on a book called The Spirit Level, where one of the authors, Richard Wilkinson, explains how income gaps are linked with violence and prison populations and how the problems of Maori and other indigenous cultures the world over are a response to low social status.

There is no point being scornful of such conclusions, says Hirschfeld. This is a reality which we need to confront and keep confronting.

Friday Feminist - Christine de Pizan

Cross posted

After hearing these things, I replied to the lady who spoke infallibly: "My lady, truly has God revealed great wonders in the strength of these women whom you describe. But please enlighten me again, whether it has ever pleased this God, who has bestowed so many favours in women to honour the feminine sex with the privilege of the virtue of high understanding and great learning, and whether women ever have a clever enough mind for this. I wish very much to know this because men maintain that the mind of women can learn only a little."

She answered, "My daughter, since I told you before, you know quite well that the opposite of their opinion is true, and to show you this even more clearly, I will give you proof through examples. I tell you again - and don't fear a contradiction - it it were customary to send daughters to school like sons, and if they were then taught the natural sciences, they would learn as thoroughly and understand the subtleties of all the arts and sciences as well as sons.

Christine de Pizan, The Book of the City of Ladies, 1405

Australia's first female Prime Minister

Open thread for discussion, basically.

On the one hand it's good to see Australia make this break-through - I always forget that they are quite a long way behind us on the sexism issue. And it's good that they are able to have a non-Tory first female PM, unlike NZ (Shipley) and Britain (Thatcher).

On the other hand Gillard's politics are, from what little I understand of the Labor Party over there, on the Right side of her caucus, and she's done stood for some pretty regressive things.

On the gripping hand, to borrow from Deborah, it will be interesting to see how the media and the public in Australia treat this development. I heard a description of her on the radio yesterday as "childless and unmarried" - this from a news source, not an opinion piece. I couldn't have told you if any previous Australian PM had children, although I can remember knowing a few of them were married because I have mental pictures of them on podiums with their wives. Can a woman leader win at the ballot box in modern Australia or are they just not ready to elect a sheila yet?

Anyway, I'm pretty uninformed about this issue, so fill me in in comments please!

follow up

following up on this post i did last week about police advice to south asians to avoid having flags outside their homes etc, my local ethnic liaison officer has continued to be in contact with me. he has provided me with the press release which i've copied in full below. make of it what you will. i'm not sure if i'll follow up any further with this - feeling a little low on energy just now.

Counties-Manukau District Police: South-East Asian Advisory Board

Media Release: Positive advice misinterpreted

A discussion took place in the South East Asian Advisory Board meeting on disproportionate number of South Asian/Indian houses being burgled.

Amongst the causes identified as contributing to this spate of burglaries was the common perception that South Asians/Indians keep cash and jewelry at home; that South Asians/Indians are lax in securing their homes against burglary, hence easy prey.

During the discussion on what steps need to be taken to discourage targeting South Asian/Indian homes it was suggested that the religio-cultural flags that a section of Indo-Fijians flies in their lawns, may be announcing to the burglars that this house has money and jewelry, and the community may be asked to look at the option of not flying these flags so that the burglars do not have an easy identification of potential targets.

The statement around Indian festivals also sought to make the point that during celebrations, burglars may target Indian homes under the impression that people will be at advertised celebrations.

It was never the intention of the advisory issued by South East Asian Liaison Officer, Gurpreet Arora, to tell people what they can and cannot do. Intention was simply to identify some steps that people and communities can take to make their homes less vulnerable to burglaries.
It, of course, follows that if the South Asians/Indians start moving their cash and jewelry to bank vaults or in safes at home or put security alarms at home, burglars will gradually move away from these easy targets.

South East Asian Advisory Board feels that the language used in the advisory may have contributed to mis-interpretation of the suggestions, but the intention behind the advisory must be lauded by all as it only seeks to insulate South Asian/Indian communities against burglars.

The Board also believes that even though much of the discussion is negatively tinged, the advisory has been able to make people look at this issue and seek solutions to mitigate this problem, as putting an end to all burglaries may never be possible.

The Board hopes that the public discussion will now move to discussing concrete steps that people can take to make their homes less vulnerable to burglaries.

On behalf of Counties-Manukau District Police's South-East Asian Advisory Board

Board members: Verpal Singh, Ranjna Patel, Liaqat Waraich, Shabbir Wasiuallah, Venkat Raman, Manjula Walgampola and Moses Singh.

Of Chinese Big Wig visits and pesky Green MPs

So it seems John Key did apologise to the Chinese delegation for the awful inconvenience of having to sic their security guards on to one of our MPs, who was so rude and thoughtless as to hold up a Tibetan flag on the grounds of our own Parliament, where the right to protest has been upheld by our own courts, just in case the Chinese Vice President might happen to see it. Perhaps we could reimburse them for the cost of the shoe leather they spent on stomping on Russel Norman's hand, or any wear and tear on the umbrella someone tried to cover his head with? Anyone got a ministerial credit card handy?

I find this whole thing unbelievable. Shorter Key (and McCully): I don't agree with what you have to say, and I won't defend your right to say it either, not even a teensy bit you Green hippie dipstick (with apologies to Voltaire).

Oh and let's not forget that John Key said whilst in Opposition that he would have met with the Dalai Lama if he was PM, when the Big DL visited in 2007, but then in 2009 when he was here, and Key was PM, he decided agin. Thanks to David Slack for pointing this one out.

I'm not a Russel Norman fan.* I think the way he responded at the time of the attack by the Chinese security guards didn't reflect all that well on him, or the reasons he was there. But then he probably wasn't expecting to be treated the way he was, emulating Rod Donald's similar protest in 2005. At that time the Chinese delegation chose to go in another way to avoid Mr Donald's flag-waving, although apparently a Chinese security person did try to move Donald on.

Surely, even if you don't agree with Norman and you don't hold a candle for him politically, you wouldn't be so spineless, so craven, so soft as Leader of Your Nation that you would actually contact the people who had broken our rules, at our parliament, against one of our MPs, to apologise to them?

And why has the Speaker of the House, one Lockwood Smith, been completely silent on a breach on his ground?

What worries me almost as much as apologies and silence from our National leadership is the single thought: What Would Winston Do?

I haven't seen anything yet along the lines of blaming the Chinese, (as in Chinese people) particularly those who live in New Zealand. But I'm not really very hooked into Talk Back Land, where racism can run away into all sorts of wacky places. And to date the few right wing blogs I look at have focused on calling Norman stupid things like "lame", and defending Key and McCully (or indeed ignoring the issue entirely as if it were of no political moment whatsoever). Not to mention those who are saying it's inappropriate for MPs to protest. Really? You mean like this or this or this or this? I guess we can safely assume then that there won't be any ACT MPs at this on Wednesday then too.**

So maybe my fears of Nightmare on Molesworth St XIII: Winston's Baaaaaack are all going to amount to little more than a heap of momos. Fingers crossed for that.

And fingers crossed that the focus groups tell John Key he made the wrong decision regarding Norman. Maybe then he'll do the Right Thing, even if it isn't for the right reason.



* Maia wrote this post on why she wouldn't vote for Russel Norman in the Mt Albert by-election, if she could, and I agree with her sentiments.
** Which I guess would show that by "Rise Up Against the ETS" Act really mean, please come to our public meetings.

More views on Shane Jones and porn and all that

Further to Deborah's fantastic post on Shane Jones watching porn which I highly recommend you read if you haven't already, here are a couple of other opposing views which you may be interested in.

Anita at Kiwipolitico states that she doesn't care about Jones' porn watching habit because it isn't the only thing produced in an exploitative manner that we consume and that the taboo around discussing sex is more harmful to women. While the post itself is short, the comment thread is a very interesting discussion of the porn industry.

And in a somewhat different take on the matter, Bob McCoskrie of Family First argues that pornography is not a private issue in the Otago Daily Times, including this:

The indignation being shown towards Mr Jones needs to be redirected towards the increased availability and exposure of pornography not just in hotel rooms but on free-to-air television, radio, billboards, in print, and when and where children can be exposed to it.

It's everywhere, and that must change. And the media should show the same level of indignation towards their promotion of the pornography industry as they have towards Mr Jones.

Although this is my favourite bit of what Bob has to say:

It's time that we acknowledged the harm that pornography does to families, men and marriages.

Good to know the laydeez aren't at risk then. /sarcasm

2009's Aotearoa NZ abortion stats out

And you can see them here.

Here's the summary Statistics NZ:

The number of abortions performed in New Zealand decreased in the year ended December 2009, Statistics New Zealand said today. A total of 17,550 induced abortions were performed in New Zealand in the December 2009 year, 390 (2 percent) less than in 2008 (17,940).

The general abortion rate (abortions per 1,000 women aged 15–44 years) decreased from 19.7 per 1,000 in 2008 to 19.2 in 2009. In 1999, the general abortion rate was 18.0 per 1,000.

Women aged 20–24 years had more abortions than any other age group. Their abortion rate was 36 abortions per 1,000 women aged 20–24 years in 2009.

The median age of women having an abortion was 24 years in 2009.

ALRANZ reckons this highlights, again, the need for increasing access to abortion at the earliest possible stages, as half of all abortions in 2009 were performed during or after the 10th week of gestation. This in turn supports Family Planning's bid to be able to provide early medical abortion via the pill previously known as RU486.

It makes sense to me to have a nationwide organisation with expertise in sexual and reproductive health offering the abortion pill as widely as possible. The earlier a termination is performed the better for the woman involved and the easier for the health system to manage. We have huge holes currently, massive parts of our country where abortions are not available (see Maia's depressing map in this post), and allowing Family Planning to offer the abortion pill would help greatly. If FPA offer access to early medical abortion at all their clinics then that will mean 5 new places in the South Island alone that will have some form of access, in particular on the West Coast. The impact this will make for women's choices around whether or not to continue a pregnancy should not be underestimated.

A key part of being pro-choice is not just acknowledging a woman's right to make the choice, for herself, but also supporting access to abortion in a safe and timely manner. The choice should not be limited by an inability to get a termination.



Hat tip to ALRANZ's email newsletter for the info and the inspiration to blog about it.

survivors of sexual abuse summit

i've had a pretty gruelling day today. i went up to auckland for the survivors of sexual abuse summit. i was expecting it to be difficult, and yet felt i had to be there. i got there late, at 10am, just when morning tea had started. by 10.15 i had already shed a few tears while talking to one of the women at the auckland sexual abuse help stand, which made me wonder how i was going to manage the rest of the day. but though i was on the verge of tears much of the day, and maybe shed just a couple listening to the stories, it wasn't quite so bad.

what a great range of speakers! starting off with louise nicholas, and this was the first time i'd heard her speak. and some wonderful maori women sharing their experiences as well. in the afternoon, there was aron gilmore of dancing with the stars fame, talking in some detail about his experience of abuse. he was an excellent speaker, and brought a lot of humour (some quite black) to the topic.

i asked him how he went about telling his parents about the abuse (some years after it had stopped and after he had started counselling), and how they reacted. to me, this is one of the most difficult aspects of dealing with sexual abuse, especially if the abuser is a close family member. if the abuser is still alive and still in the position to abuse, then perhaps the decision to tell is more clear cut, in terms of looking after the safety of others.

but if the abuser is no longer alive, then there are no justice issues. and telling is a traumatic experience, mostly because the teller knows that what they are telling is going to cause grief and distress to the people listening. it's hard enough dealing with the effects of the abuse, and usually hard enough to tell a counsellor or someone outside of the situation. but telling your own parents or your own children, well that is really a scary prospect, depending on the relationship the abuser might have had with you.

telling close family members doesn't always lead to support or healing. some of the stories i heard today included enstrangement and anger from family members directed at the person who was abused. which tends to keep victims silent, and keep the issue more hidden than it should be.

so i honour the women and men who stepped up to tell their stories. who suffered abuse, survived, and are now out in the community helping others. what precious work you do, and what wonderful inspiration you are.

only one negative: other than the maori women, i was the only ethnic minority woman present, that i could see. there didn't appear to be any pasifika, asian or african women present. i know that the publicity wasn't lacking, as the information went out via the aotearoa ethnic network, which is how i heard about it, and probably through other networks as well. but women from these communities didn't turn up, and i think that needs to be explored further. because they do need to be brought into the conversation, but i'm not sure how exactly. given how difficult a day it was for me, i can hardly recommend it to others who aren't ready or able to sit through that kind of thing.

Revamp coming sometime soon

Those of you who have Blogger sites of your own will be aware that they've updated their layout tools, including new templates and lots more customisation. At some point in the next little while I'm going to have a fiddle and revamp the appearance of The Hand Mirror a bit, so it would be nice to have some layout-related suggestions before hand - not just improvements you'd like to see, but also what are the appearance bits you'd like us to keep.

Speak up or we won't know!

Thanks
Julie

teen zines

found via feministing, this excellent blog called the seventeen magazine project, in which a young woman decides to follow all the tips in a teen magazine for a month. from the feministing piece:

The Seventeen Magazine Project is a part of the new generation of self-experiment blogs, post Julie-Julia era, only this time around the issues are closer to home. Body image, beauty, and teenage culture are only a few of the subject matters addressed through Jamie's research. It almost seems impossible to think that Jamie followed all diet and exercise suggestions, utilize all beauty tips, and consume all media recommended by Seventeen Magazine, but she did. Her reflections will aid those women of her generation and hopefully inspire audiences of older women's mags to see the craziness that is "women's publishing."

The blog is a space for Jaime to share all of her daily recordings and analyses and is proving to raise many important questions regarding young women in the media: What are acceptable body image messages? Which beauty tips are necessary at all? What kind of substantial content can replace the already existing articles and messages in forums like Seventeen? Who's responsible for answering these questions--the editors, writers, or readers?

i haven't read through too many of the posts, due to lack of time, but i really liked this one, especially the graphs!

Friday Feminist - Charlotte Bunch

Cross posted

The full implications of feminism will evolve over time, as we organize, experiment, think, analyze, and revise our ideas and strategies in light of our experiences. No theory emerges in full detail overnight; the dominant theories of our day have expanded and changed over many decades. That it will take time should not discourage us. That we might fail to pursue our ideas - given the enormous need for them in society today - is unconscionable.

Charlotte Bunch, "Not by Degrees: Feminist Theory and Education" in Charlotte Bunch and Sandra Pollack (eds.), Learning our Way: Essays in Feminist Education, The Crossing Press, 1983.

Of chaos and change

I've been working up this theory recently, and I'd like to run it past y'all. It's about what happens sometimes in an organisation going through change, and what happens to some of the people responding to that change.

"Change Agent" is a term many people are familiar with these days. It's often used in a positive context to indicate someone who enters an organisation with a clear agenda to change it, mould it into a new shape, and probably doesn't stick around too long after setting up a clear successor who can support that change. Of course to those who don't think change is necessary Change Agents are harbingers of bad times and pointless reinventions of wheels that weren't falling off in the first place.

I'm wondering about the anti-Change Agent, the "Chaos Agent" if you will. I've seen these people pop up when resistance to change is the minority or perhaps the moment to resist has passed, and all that's left is to hold out and try to frustrate change as much as possible, by fucking shit up as much as possible.

The stupid thing about the Chaos Agent though is that while they resist they are not going to turn the change back. And they are simultaneously denying themselves, and possibly others, the chance to seek out opportunities that arise from change (and there usually are some). They become so entangled in creating chaos whenever they can that they frustrate and turn away others who might well have resisted change with them, but instead are alienated because the Chaos Agent often doesn't seem to care whose work they mess with, as long as it makes things harder than they needed to be. There seems to be this idea that if they make stuff difficult enough the leadership will give up on change, which I suppose sometimes they do, but more often the Chaos Agent just makes themselves irrelevant to new structures and in fact draws attention to their inadequacies because sooner or later people start complaining about their behaviour. Change Agents surely sniff out Chaos Agents with ease and then dispose of them right when they've made themselves so unpopular their passing is hardly mourned at all.

One of the contexts I've seen Chaos Agents working in is opposing improvements in women's representation within an organisation. Anything that makes a woman react emotionally, even if she is being entirely rational while she's emotional, gets 10 points. Actual tears get 50. The point is to oppose change in a petty, underhand way. And it can work in the early stages of change too, especially when that change is being driven from below rather than above. Demoralise and drive off Change Agents from the grassroots and success is guaranteed. A new CEO whose been put in as a Change Agent is less likely to go however, seeing as how driving change is why they were appointed in the first place.

So what do you think? Have you seen Chaos Agents at work?

FGC at Cornell University

Cross posted

Careful - this may be TRIGGERING, and the links may be TRIGGERING.

Dr Dix P. Poppas of Cornell University Medical School has been performing genital surgery on little girls, and then doing follow-up work testing how much sensation the girls have (left). Here is the abstract for the article in which he reported the research: Journal of Urology: Nerve Sparing Ventral Clitoroplasty: Analysis of Clitoral Sensitivity and Viability: Volume 178, Issue 4, Supplement, Pages 1598-1601 (October 2007).

Here is the article on Bioethics Forum which reveals the story.

Bioethics Forum: Bad Vibrations

The Hastings Center, which hosts the Bioethics Forum, is well known for its work in bioethics. I've been reading Hastings Center reports for years, in connection with my work. It is a reliable source. The authors of the post are Alice Dreger and Ellen K Feder. Dreger has been criticised by intersex people, but that particular line of criticism does not seem to have a bearing on this issue.

Alice Dreger has a follow-up post at her Psychology Today blog: Can you hear us now?.

I'm appalled. How could this still be happening, in the 21st century? Dreger and Feder compare the doctor's actions to the Tuskegee syphilis experiment, because he conducted his research in plain view, but I think there are closer parallels with Herbert Green and his non-treatment of some women at National Women's Hospital. In both cases, I see a doctor determined to prove that he is right, and to hell with the consequences for the people he is supposed to be trying to help.

The obvious question is how on earth did Dr Pappas get his work approved by Cornell's Ethics Committee? The answer is that he didn't.

How come the article says Poppas had IRB (ethics oversight) approval and we suggest he probably didn't? Because what he has approval for is retrospective chart review, a harmless little look back at what he recorded in the charts as having happened to his patients. What he didn't do was to get approval in advance for the "clitoral sensory testing" that he was writing down in the chart and then used to produce the systematic and generalized conclusions about his technique. This may sound like a technicality. It isn't. If he had sought IRB approval for the "sensory testing," the ethics staff might have sat up and asked him what the heck he thought he was doing to these girls, and they would have tried to make sure the parents were informed about the unknowns and risks, and the girls could have refused to participate.

Source: Alice Dreger's blog post.

This doctor has been using "medical vibratory devices" on little girls and calling it research.

I feel ill.

Melissa has opened a discussion about it: Discussion Thread: Cornell University and FGC, and Melhoukia has been writing about it: This makes me sick: There are not enough content warnings in the world for what you are about to read. I first heard about the article through Feminist Philosophers: FGM at Cornell.

You can contact the Dean of the Cornell Medical School here: dean@med.cornell.edu

bloody sunday

in commemoration of those who died or were injured, and in recognition of an apology long overdue.

of course there was a large element of political theatrics involved in the apology. especially for mr cameron, who no doubt wanted his kevin-rudd-type moment. but i don't care what his motivations, i'm just glad this happened. and hoping for a very long period of peace and prosperity for ireland.

20/20 story on domestic violence tonight

Tonight (Thursday) at 9.30pm on TV2 (straight after Go Girls) 20/20's feature story is about domestic violence, here's the blurb:

Close to home
They're so common that sometimes they don't even hit the headlines, but why is murdering a loved one simply seen as a fact of life in New Zealand? It sounds incredible that in this country, you're actually safer on the street than you are in your own home. But last year 41 New Zealanders were killed by a member of their own family - and for every Kiwi who dies hundreds more are physically, sexually and emotionally abused.

In an extraordinary first 20/20's Sonya Wilson went out on patrol with the cops trying to keep the peace in our homes - and brings you the incredible stories of the ordinary horror going on in your street every night. And the family of a woman killed by her former partner in an attack a judge labelled one of this country's worst homicides speak out with a story they say that we all need to hear.

Thanks to Leonie at the Auckland Women's Centre for the tip off.

World Cup - it's not just the ball that gets kicked

(Cross-posted)

When the telly is showing All White Winston Reid's last-minute goal against Slovakia for the 326th time, even though it didn't even win the match for NZ, it would be a good idea to have a look at this post about the marked increase in domestic violence during the World Cup. Here's part of it:
"England's Home Office has warned that during the 2006 World Cup, domestic violence increased by 25% on game days and 30% when England was eliminated from the competition. The problem is troubling enough that the Association of Chief Police Officers, with the hopes of discouraging incidents, has created a video showing a drunk man hitting his wife after England has presumably lost a game. The ACPO has also been using a blood-stained soccer jersey labeled "Strikeher" to encourage women to report attacks.

Meanwhile, a professor at the University of Royal Holloway London is urging women to have a plan in place in case their partner becomes violent during the World Cup. She tells women to let their children sleep somewhere else, to know where their car keys are, to have the cell phone ready to call police."

This is probably not a news item coming soon to a screen near you. But the organisers of the Rugby World Cup should take note and work out how they plan to "discourage incidents" here too. I suppose it would be seen as outrageous to urge that a portion of all ticket sales be given to Women's Refuge.

travesty

so here's an on-going travesty of justice. you may recall the union carbide disaster in bhopal, india as the worst industrial disasters to ever hit that country. thousands dead at the time, and on-going health issues that have led to the death of thousands more. there was compensation of $470 million paid to the indian government, but it has been a struggle to get that money to the people who deserve it.

and now, 25 long years since the disaster, seven indian employees of union carbide have received a two-year jail sentence. now i'm generally not one to be calling for long prison sentences, in that they don't achieve too much for the persons convicted. and i'm also not into revenge-type sentencing. but this whole thing just doesn't seem right. there are some serious occupational safety and health issues here, and a whole culture that needs changing.

seriously though, when i hear people in this country criticise OSH regulations, and complain about the related costs, it makes me pretty sick. it's not as if we have some kind of wonderful record when it comes to keeping workers safe, with an estimated 700 to 1,000 workers dying every year from work-related diseases. if your business can't cover the cost of keeping workers safe, then it simply shouldn't exist.

as for the people of bhopal, i don't think they will ever achieve anything close to justice. one could hope that there have been lessons learned, and that working conditions have improved across the country. but i don't really think that has happened either. there's no happy ending here.

Auckland fundraiser for Auckland Sexual Abuse Help

The Opposite Sex – Wednesday 23 June, 7.30pm, Dolphin Theatre, Onehunga

Reminiscing about the past isn’t always a good idea. When two couples get together for a friendly dinner at home, they realise that their darkest secrets will emerge. “The Opposite Sex” is a non-stop riot of laughter about changing relationships, souring friendships and sexual peccadilloes that may change their lives forever. (Some language may offend)

Written by David Tristram, Directed by Cynthia Cahill

Tickets $25 from Elspeth, phone 638 9982

What's wrong with watching porn?

NB: This post is my own view, not a Hand Mirror view.

Cross posted

Now that the Labour party caucus has castigated the people concerned, and some MPs have been sin-binned, and it might be possible to be heard above the rapidly subsiding roar, I'm going to add my tuppence worth.

For people reading in Australia and further afield, New Zealand has been having its very own little ministerial and MPs expenses scandal. But being New Zealand, it's all very small beer. No moat cleaning or duck houses or pricey toasters as there were in the UK. In NZ, it's been a matter of ministers having a few drinks on the taxpayers' tab, or getting a massage, or putting some purchases on the Crown plastic instead of a personal one (notably some golf clubs and a bike). Even then, the money was refunded almost before the bill came due, but the minister in question nevertheless thought that the taxpayer was a jolly good source of short term credit.

The biggest offence seems to have been one minister who spent his lonely nights in hotels watching pay-per-view porn, and putting it on the Crown tab. Again, it was all repaid, well before the minister left office, and several years before the press got wind of it. He tried in the first instance to pretend that he was just a movie buff, but when a little bit of press digging revealed that his movies cost $19.95 each (the standard price for porn) and regular movies cost $14.95 each, he had to change his tune. To his credit, when his cover was blown he fronted the press, admitted his misdeeds, made his apologies, and asked for forgiveness.

The issue in the NZ press and the NZ blogosphere has been whether or not it is appropriate to put private expenditure on taxpayer funded credit cards, even if the private expenditure is subsequently repaid. The answer is no. I agree with that answer.

Everyone has very very carefully said that watching porn is not an issue. Oh no, what a person does in the privacy of their own room is their business and its private and there's no public interest in poking our noses in there and people's sexuality is their own affair.

Hmmm....


In general, New Zealanders aren't really concerned with what consenting adults do. Some politicians have been pilloried for hypocrisy - for example, Don Brash, who allowed himself to be portrayed as supporting traditional family values, but had an affair on the side - but usually, the New Zealand press gallery don't report on pollies' private affairs, unless they begin to think that those private affairs are having a public effect. Even then, they err on the side of caution. New Zealanders have happily elected gay and lesbian and transgender MPs. Sex and sexuality is very much regarded as a politician's own business, thank the FSM.

However, I think that watching porn could be an issue.

I see two potential problems with porn. The first is to do with the extent to which it involves consenting adults, and the second is to do with the narrative about women that it may contain. Because porn may not involve consenting adults, and because porn may portray demeaning ideas about women, it is ethically risky. Not necessarily ethically wrong, but ethically risky.

Please be very clear about the distinctions I'm making here. I am not saying that porn infringes against morality. If morality consists in precepts about who is permitted to have sex, and in what position, and with whom, then I'm just not interested. Take your tired shibboleths, do what you will with them, in the privacy of your own bedroom, and stay away from mine. And anyone else's. Really, just f*ck off.

I'm also not saying that watching porn is necessarily wrong. Rather, I'm saying that it is risky. It may be that the porn that you are watching does not involve consenting adults. And that's a problem.

Remember that the gold standard in sexual activity is consenting adults. It's not just the gold standard - it's the minimum standard. If the porn you are watching is not made by consenting adults, then you are watching rape. You may not be getting your rocks off by watching rape, that is, by participating vicariously in scenes depicting rape, but your jollies come at the expense of the actors in the scene. Because that's what they are. Actors. Those big smiles, the sounds and words of consent and delight: they're an act. Just because the actors look like they want to be doing what they're doing, doesn't mean that their consent is real.

Equally, it doesn't mean that the actors haven't consented either. Just as plenty of sex workers say that they enjoy sex work, and it's something they freely choose to do (see for example, this great post from Hexy: Accessories, Australian sex workers, and Sheila Jeffreys and Claire Finch's story in The Guardian: I ran a brothel in a country village), plenty of actors in porn are happy to do the work. But just as plenty of sex workers are cruelly exploited, trapped into sex slavery, plenty of performers in porn movies are forced into it. And if you think Linda Lovelace was the only person ever forced into performing in porn, then I've got a very nice bridge that crosses Sydney Harbour that I'd like to sell to you. As a viewer, you just don't know whether the actors you are watching have consented, and are continuing to consent, to perform in the movie, or whether they never consented, or consented initially, and then withdrew their consent. If they have not consented, if they have withdrawn their consent, then what you are watching is rape. That's why porn is ethically risky.

Even if all the actors participating in the movie consented, and you're sure about that, then there's still the problem with the narratives contained in porn. Porn contains narratives that suggest that underage girls want sex ("barely legal" movies, using actors of legal age, but made up and dressed to look adolescent), that women like being raped, that the only way sex should end is with a money shot all over a woman's face. They are narratives of aggression and derision towards woman. Domestic and Laboratory Goddess Dr Isis has a great post about the aggression towards women in porn, complete with edited photos. Go take look, unless you're my mum or Ms Eleven, in which case do yourself a favour, and don't look. Those narratives disturb me. Sure, it's only fantasy, but they are fantasies which involve the degradation of human beings.* That makes them, to my mind, ethically risky.

There is at least some porn that is made ethically. Fair trade porn, if you will. No, I'm not going to include links to it in this blog, but if you google say, "feminist porn", and do a little research and exercise a little judgement, you should be able to come up with some porn that doesn't involve exploitation of women, and doesn't contain nasty narratives about women. In other words, take some responsibility for what you're viewing. Mutatis mutandis, for gay or lesbian or bi or trans or wev, really.

I suppose that given that the minister in question purchased his movies through a hotel, they probably weren't too extreme. Perhaps that might give us some reassurance, because the business retailing the porn might have taken some care about what it was offering to its customers. However, given what Motella (who'd have thought you could write a blog about motels?) tells us:

Most major hotels seem to offer adult pay movies. Why do they do this? Simply, because their guests demand it AND it generates huge profits! It has been reported that up to 50% of the hotel guests purchase the material and it is estimated that between 70 -80% of the hotel's in-room profit come from adult movie viewing.

...I wouldn't be counting on that.**

I think we ought to be worried about pollies purchasing porn on the Crown tab. The reason that we ought to be worried is not because porn is necessarily immoral - it isn't. If it passes that gold standard consenting adults criterion, then it's probably okay. Maybe not great, given the concerns about nasty narratives, but almost certainly there are worse transgressions. But it's ethically risky.

We make ethically risky purchases all the time. I eat chocolate, drink coffee, wear clothes, use a computer and a mobile phone and watch TV. All of these products may be made with child or sweated labour, and I haven't made the effort to find out. Where I do find out about ethically dubious practices, I sometimes stop buying the product, but even then, it's not necessarily the best thing to do: "fair trade" is rife with anomalies.

More than that, who manages to live an ethically perfect life all the time? I don't, even though I do try to get it right. But I am no moral saint. Nor do I expect ministers and other parliamentarians to be moral saints. However, I do expect them to demonstrate a reasonable degree of judgement. They are, after all, in the business of making judgements about how to run the country.

I suppose that I think that porn is more likely to come closer to the point of being ethically wrong, because people may have been harmed in the making of it, because the making of it may be a crime, because it may contain narratives that demean people (I really do recommend reading Dr Isis' post in respect of this last point). We need to be cautious about porn, to consume it, if that's your thing, with care and with discretion. And that's why it may be reasonable to be rather more concerned about ministers who consume porn than we are about ministers who simply consume.

* And those fantasies are pretty minor. I came across some sites while I was researching this post that made me feel nauseously ill. I don't even want to begin to describe them.
** I've not linked directly to the post where Motella makes this claim, but you can go find it for yourself if you like. It's just not something that I really want to link to from this blog.

Save the Suffrage Memorial Petition online

The National Council of Women campaign to retain the Suffrage Memorial at its original site in Auckland is gaining pace, and you can help out by:

1. Going to the Suffrage Memorial campaign web page
2. Clicking to download their petition to the appropriate committee of the Auckland City Council (petition form, and coversheet with info, in the box on the right of the campaign page)
3. Gathering signatures on your petition pages
4. Sending it back to NCW by the 17th August deadline (details on the bottom of the petition form)

I'm going to print some out for work today and see what I can do to help.

There have also been some great letters to the editor in support of the Suffrage Memorial recently, and any Facebookers wanting to express their solidarity could join the Friends of the Auckland Suffrage Memorial group.

Probably the only post I'll write about the World Cup (Soccer edition)

Let's face it, all this obsession with vuvuzelas, it's cos the name sounds a bit like lady bits, right?

alarm bells

please read this - all of it. it's sue bradford on the work of the new welfare working group. here's a brief excerpt:

The provision of welfare is not a business, any more than running the country is not simply a business. On the other hand, the provision of insurance is a business, and the fact that we have businesspeople without a background in social policy, much less experience of living on a benefit, running this working group, makes me fairly apprehensive about the outcome of the current process.

I’ve also seen comment around the theme that ‘Government alone cannot replace the social support that close knit villages once provided.’ This sounds major alarm bells for me. There are many dangers in the concept of going back to the village, including the excuse it provides for the withdrawal of state support, and the propagation of the myth that somehow there was a golden age when people automatically cared for the sole mother and her children, for the sick, the injured, the impaired and the aged.

In fact village and traditional society often meant –and still do mean in many parts of the world – ignorance, contempt for those who are different, ostracism and the simple abandonment of those who don’t have the means to support themselves to a life of poverty, illhealth and an early death. When you hear about the glories of the village and how a return to localism will solve our social ills in relation to the welfare debate, I’d advise extreme caution.

my admiration for this woman continues to grow.

The holes in our lives

On Thursday we said our final goodbyes to an amazing woman. As someone who's too lazy to be an atheist, I was initially wary about the vicars at my partner's church, but Jenny won me over the first time they had us over for dinner - telling me about her experiences nursing in some of the poorest parts of urban South Africa, finishing up with "and that's when I became a socialist." I was so embarassed to have someone who has done so much for so many people, not least in the local community of St Peters, tell me that my day job was really important. Amazing doesn't even begin to cover it, really.

So we have another hole in our life. It's not just the people we lose, as adults, it's also the people who have been so important to Wriggly, who have loved him so much, and who he'll not remember when he's grown. To lose them from our lives, from his life, to be left with only some photos and some stories we can tell him, seems so cruel.

And again I'm left raging against cancer, that hateful disease. Deaths leave grief, and while the edges of the holes grow less ragged with time, they never heal up entirely. I didn't really understand that until my father died; that sense of waking up every morning and having that moment of hope before you remember. At least my son is spared that for now.

The Only Abortion Storyline Ever Needed

Shortland Street has gone the same way as Go Girls, with an abortion storyline that's potentially All About Teh Menz.

A few weeks ago we had Shore Boy Kevin trying to find a way to force a woman he'd had an affair with to have his baby, and now it's Shortie's turn, with Lauren wanting to terminate a pregnancy at 8 weeks and her boyfriend, Daniel, wanting to stop her.

I'm hoping, really hoping, that NZ's favourite only soap avoids the Go Girl's plot line hole (mercifully cut short, even if by the nastiest character on the show) of forgetting that actually Teh Menz can't be the pregnant one, aren't the ones giving over their bodies, or going through labour/major surgery and so it's still the woman's choice, just as it's her body.

Another new laydee

Another new NZ blogger: Pickled Think. Pickled Think has been up and running since March, and she has some fantastic posts about writing, and gender, and movies, and names, and...

I particularly commend to your attention: Gender and Pseudonyms: What I've Chosen To Do, and Tim Burton's Alice is a feminist heroine, and a beauty from Friday, So, just how IS a woman supposed to write?.

change at the ministry of women's affairs

i'd just like to do a short post acknowledging the work of shenagh glassner, the retiring chief executive of the ministry of women's affairs. i've come across ms glassner many times over the years, and have heard speak a number of times. she has been a great advocate for women, and i'm sorry that she will no longer be with the ministry.

this is her farewell message:

I am writing to you with just a week to go before my term as Chief Executive finally finishes. I shall be leaving for a big family gathering in Europe the evening of my last day, Friday 18 June.

It is my great pleasure to tell you, if you have not already heard, that Rowena Phair will be the new Chief Executive of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs. She will be starting on Tuesday 13 July. Rowena was instrumental in building up the policy team in the Ministry in 2004. It is most reassuring that it is she who will be back to lead the Ministry as its Chief Executive.

It is a real pleasure to be handing over a Ministry in such a positive and strong state, a stable and committed staff, focused work programme and an energetic Minister. This is a time of significant change all over the world, economically, technologically, socially and politically. I hope the Ministry will continue to be at the forefront of the innovative response, taking opportunities from these changes.

You will know that I have greatly enjoyed my time at the Ministry – the daily challenge of discovering ways for this small agency to have a big influence has been a joy to me. I look back at some significant achievements over the last six years; but I also very much regret that progress for women is so patchy, slow moving and fragile.

So everything that you have done, and will do in the future, is vital. It is impossible for the Ministry to be effective without the leadership, support, ideas and actions of all of you. Ministries, or governments, have never been able to bring about significant change alone – that is why all the big and little things that you do, matter such a lot.

My main purpose in writing is to say thank you for the many enjoyable conversations I have had with you and inspiration I have received from you – no wonder I have enjoyed this six years so much, having had the good fortune to meet and work with so many of you.

I hope our paths will cross in the future, whatever that may be.

try not to look asian

how's this for victim blaming:

Auckland police are warning Asian families to keep a low profile to avoid becoming the target of burglaries.

Southeast Asian liaison officer Constable Gurpreet Arora said Asian families should take down national flags from their homes and keep religious festivals low-key.

The advice was mainly for Auckland families, based on his experience, but could be extended to all Asian families in New Zealand, he said.

"Burglars are very well aware of the fact that South Asian communities tend to keep considerable amounts of cash and jewellery at home."

when i first read this, i have to say it made me really angry. that the police response to reducing crime would be telling ethnic minorities to hide their identities is indeed a new low. that the statement is made by a south asian member of the force shows that this approach to crime-busting is more about police culture than about inter-cultural awareness.

i can appreciate that police are looking at ways to keep people safe. but that surely shouldn't involve asking people to hide their identities? ugh. i'm glad i'm not the only one who sees it this way. not sure that this link will work for most of you, but here are excerpts from an article on the stuff website:

New Zealand Indian Central Association president Prithipal Singh said the advice was well meaning but unfair.

‘‘I think we are already keeping a low profile. It’s unfair to ask us to do any more,’’ he said.

New Zealand Chinese Association national president Steven Young said the police request was ‘‘a passive response’’ to crime.

‘‘It’s like they are hoping for us to keep a low profile, so that we’ll be less trouble for them.’’
Cultures should not be asked to become ‘‘invisible’’, Mr Young said.

‘‘You need to acknowledge your cultural awareness; if you don’t you lose your status, your awareness, you become more marginalised.’’

Chinese academic Dr Hongzhi Gao said ... rather than being told to ‘‘tone things down’’ by police, Asians should be given advice about how to seek legal help in New Zealand...

needless to say, i've raised this issue with our local police ethnic liaison officer who was really supportive and agreed that the comments were inappropriate. let's hope he and others in the police force will be able to push for a change from within.

a woman leading friday prayer

and following on from deborah's last post, i just found this in my inbox:

A Canadian author will become the first Muslim-born woman to lead a mixed-gender British congregation through Friday prayers tomorrow in a highly controversial move that will attempt to spark a debate about the role of female leadership within Islam.

Raheel Raza, a rights activist and Toronto-based author, has been asked to lead prayers and deliver the khutbah [sermon] at a small prayer session in Oxford. [...]

Raza, 60, is part of a small but growing group of Muslim feminists who have tried to challenge the mindset that has traditionally excluded women from leadership roles within the mosque. They argue that nowhere in the Koran are female imams expressly forbidden. Instead scholars rely on the hadiths (the words and sayings of the Prophet Mohamed) to exclude women – although Muslim feminists and some progressive scholars argue that even these are not clear enough to say with confidence that women are altogether banned. [...]

Ms Raza's appearance in Oxford is a repeat of a similar prayer session in 2008 which was led by Amina Wadud, an American-born convert and Muslim feminist. But this is the first time a Muslim-born woman will lead a mixed prayer service in Britain.

what i find interesting about these events is not just the women that put themselves forward to lead prayer (quite a courageous act in itself), but the number of men who are prepared to stand behind & follow them. because without the latter, the former wouldn't exist.

Friday Feminist - Mohja Kahf (3)

Cross posted

These real problems [of sexism among Muslims] include, for example, the poverty of economic and health resources for many third world Muslim women, the sex trade against women in southeast Asia and elsewhere, the double burden of brutal foreign occupation and homegrown patriarchy for Palestinian women, marital laws in the Gulf states that are biased against women marrying foreign nationals causing a high rate of older single women who want an honorable alternative to their single state, obscenely perverted rape laws in Pakistan, and the "glass dome" and misogynistic attitudes keeping women from leadership positions in American Muslim mosques and organizations.

These problems are not inherently more unyielding than problems related to sexism in any other group of people. Our own American misogyny (date rape, weak laws against domestic violence, glass ceilings, 79 cents for every man's dollar) just look more familiar to us, less harsh somehow, more workable. We think we can fix our own sexism with homegrown ingenuity, but we often assume that Muslim women's problems must be solved for them from abroad, all their veils replaced with blue jeans for them to be truly liberated, all different marriage practices brought into conformity with our own. Muslim women and men have a wealth of their own cultural resources to use in the struggle for women's human rights. Feminism is alive and well among Muslims and has been for some time, even when U.S. foreign policy interests don't bring a spotlight on it. It is the continued struggle of Muslim feminists (both men and women), aided by friends of any background who are willing to educate themselves beyond stereotypes, which will liberate them. Not the condescending attitude that they must be "rescued" from their heritage by cheerfully ignorant proponents of American cultural imperialism or militaristic U.S. policymakers sprouting overnight feminist principles.

Mohja Kahf, "Muslim Women Rule and Other Little-Known Facts" in Fawzia Afzal-Khan (ed), Shattering the Stereotypes: Muslim Women Speak Out, Moreton-in-Marsh: Arris Books, 2005

New laydeez in blogland

Well... new to our blogroll:

Pip's Squeaks - a runner, cyclist and triathelete who lives in Wellington. Pip has been blogging since 2006. I'm sorry that we haven't found you and gotten you onto our roll before now, Pip.

The Little House by the Sea - crafty goodness from a Londoner who moved to NZ with her partner, and now lives in a little house by the sea.

We try to keep a blog roll of NZ women blogging. Any sort of blogging - craft, sport, political, parenting, school, cooking, gardening, home decorating, studying, conservation, feminist, conservative, green, libertarian, whatever. Leave a note in comments if you would like us to add your blog to the list.

Update: From comments, Cesca's blogs:
On the garden wall, subtitled, "Confessions of a bad housewife"
Lush gardening

And another writer I found through the usual circuitous links and comments on other people's blogs:
Sum in horto, who has an exceedingly delicious post on tiramisu on her front page at present.

Down Under Feminists Carnival

The June Down Under Feminists Carnival is up on Rachel Hills' blog, Musings of an Inappropriate Woman. Rachel writes a regular "best of the rest of the internet" post, and this week, she has devoted it to the carnival.

The best of the rest of the internet: Down Under Feminists Carnival edition

There's masses of good reading, as usual, which should last you for the whole long weekend. Head on over there and take a look.

For more about the Down Under Feminists Carnival, check the carnival homepage.

Friday Feminist - Mohja Kahf (2)

Cross posted

Pseudo-Feminists Abroad

I love it when people who are not feminists and who do not remotely support women's rights in our own country, where we don't even have an ERA, suddenly turn into the loudest women's rights advocates when the look with smug superiority at the Muslim world. Hello, the U.S, supported the Taliban coming into power; only a few alert people worried back then about allying with a regime that was bad for women. I guess women's rights turn into human rights concerns only when it's convenient for generating wartime public opinion.

Mohja Kahf, "Muslim Women Rule and Other Little-Known Facts" in Fawzia Afzal-Khan (ed), Shattering the Stereotypes: Muslim Women Speak Out, Moreton-in-Marsh: Arris Books, 2005

Merata Mita, wahine toa - haere, haere, haere

Film-maker and dedicated supporter of Maori telling their own stories on film, Merata Mita (Ngāti Pikiao, Ngāi Te Rangi), CNZM, died suddenly this week. She was the first New Zealand woman to direct a feature-length documentary - the intense and moving "Patu!", recording clashes between protestors and police during the 1981 Springbok tour. Her 1988 feature film drama "Mauri" was, says New Zealand on Air, "only the second feature film drama to have a Māori woman director (1972's "To Love a Māori" was co-directed by Ramai Hayward and husband Rudall)." Her new documentary, "Saving Grace", screens on Māori Television in late June 2010, "as part of a Matariki special aimed at finding solutions to the issue of child abuse".  This biography of Merata Mita underlines what a dedicated, distinguished woman she was, and what a great loss her untimely death is to Maori and New Zealand film.   

why a man is not a financial plan

from monday's waikato times, this interview with the author of "why a man is not a financial plan", joan baker:

For those women banking on a marriage to see them through, financial adviser Joan Baker, author of Why a man is not a financial plan, and Smart Women delivers her killer question.

"Whatever your age or stage you should ask yourself: what would be mine or what would be my circumstance if he died, or left or whatever?"

However unsettling, she says, this mental exercise is critically important. The calculations, stripped of alimony fantasies and factoring in pay expectations and childcare costs, if relevant, can be revealing. By some estimates, a woman's standard of living drops an average of 73 per cent in the first year after divorce. The future doesn't get any brighter.

Of the elderly living in poverty, three out of four are said to be women and 80 per cent of them were not poor when they were partnered. Overall, nearly seven out of 10 women are projected to live in poverty some time in their lives.

Given the depressingly high divorce rate that forecasts a 50 per cent chance of marital success, there is reason to worry and even better reason to plan.

all of this basically ties into the point i was making in my last paragraph here. it's all very well to raise the issue, but the more important question is how to make that money and keep yourself financially secure. ms baker deals with unequal pay and discrimination in the workplace, issues which we have dealt with at length here. she also talks about self-employment and the difficulties with that. i also thought this bit was interesting:

"Obviously it isn't universally true but the bias is in that direction," says Baker. Those who would argue otherwise just need to look at the spending differences between men and women, she argues. "If you look generally at how women spend their wages or salary, a huge amount of that money goes into presenting well and looking good, whereas men's money will generally speaking be more likely go into what turns out to be good assets as opposed to handbags and shoes."

well yes, a little bit of a generalisation there, but the underlying point that women are under a lot of pressure to spend their money on their appearance is a valid one. it's a pressure that's constant and pretty hard to resist.

the piece (and possibly the book?) is aimed at professional women. but there are so many who are dealing with poverty and struggling at day-to-day living. they are just as much in need of financial planning and societal solutions around better pay and conditions. a pity that this wasn't covered as well.

Sculptor Louise Bourgeois dies at 98

"An artist can show things that other people are terrified of expressing." Louise Bourgeois

Iconic artist and sculptor Louise Bourgeois died in Manhattan, New York, on Monday 31 May. Her obituary in the New York Times says that "Fragility and fierceness were...the twin poles of Ms. Bourgeois’s art."

It also points out that 1966 marked both a significant shift in her career, "when she was included in an exhibition at the Fischbach Gallery in New York, 'Eccentric Abstraction', organized by the critic Lucy Lippard", and the start of her "long involvement in the nascent feminist movement, about which she had passionate but ambivalent feelings."

Her 1982 retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art was the Museum's first retrospective of any woman artist's work. It "brought Ms. Bourgeois, in her early 70s, the critical and popular acclaim that had long eluded her."
 
"In an art world where women had been treated as second-class citizens and were discouraged from dealing with overtly sexual subject matter, she quickly assumed an emblematic presence. Her work was read by many as an assertive feminist statement, her career as an example of perseverance in the face of neglect."