That is just how I look after I've been in the garden. Really.
Thursday, 29 September 2011
Take Back The Night - Akl, tonight
 | ||
| Take Back The Night poster, featuring a lovely feminist fist symbol. |
When: Tonight, Thurs 29th Sept, 6pm
Where: Starting at Clubspace, followed by a march through Albert Park and a speak out. (Note: change of venue from Cap & Gown on the picture)
Message from the organisers, Campus Feminist Collective:
Take Back The Night is an anti-rape rally that has been held throughout the world for over 30 years.
Take Back The Night is a way to demand an end to sexual violence, and to demand the right to walk through our streets safely at night, without fear of violence.
Join us as we march through Albert Park, demanding our voices be heard.
We will have a few speakers (along with drinks and nibbles), and will talk about the recent safety audit that was done by the National Women's Rights Officer to see how Auckland Uni stacks up. Then we will make the march through Albert Park.
After this, people are invited to share in a speak out, but are welcome to leave at any time.
Facebook event page with links to helpful info like maps.
Tuesday, 27 September 2011
An Open Letter About Omar Hamed
Omar Hamed is an organiser for Unite! Union, a member of Socialist Aotearoa, and until recently was a defendant in Operation 8. The following letter was written in March by several Wellington activists and sent to a number of individuals and activist groups in Auckland and around New Zealand. Omar Hamed played a prominent role in yesterday's occupation at the UoA. Tove has written about feminist attempts to respond to him in Auckland. The letter is reproduced here to support those who are fighting for a left that takes sexual violence seriously.
In the last year [2010], Omar Hamed has been living in Wellington. While here he has consistently behaved towards women in a misogynistic, disrespectful and sexually predatory way. Comrades from across the left have brought up problems with his behaviour and he has consistently failed to understand the importance of meaningful consent in sexual relationships.
A group of us concerned about Omar’s behaviour have come together to draft this document outlining what has happened while he has been in Wellington and what efforts we, and others, have made to challenge his behaviour. We have sent this e-mail to groups, and bcc'd it to individuals. We hope it will be useful for those who work with him when he returns to Auckland.
This statement is not confidential. We encourage people to forward this e-mail to anyone who has or will come into contact with Omar, or who is interested in this issue.
Omar’s pattern of behaviour
We don’t want to identify the women affected, so we haven’t gone into detail. It’s also important to understand that this is a pattern of behaviour on Omar’s behalf, and not isolated one-off incidents.
He does not take sexual consent seriously when his sexual partners are drunk. He has repeatedly ignored drunk women when they told him they were not interested in his sexual advances. He has repeatedly encouraged women who have rejected him to get drunker and then attempted to make a move on them when they were more incapacitated. Some women have had to physically fight him off. He has demonstrated that he is willing to have sex with someone who is too drunk to give meaningful consent.
We have focused on his most grotesque behaviour, but he has consistently talked to and about women in ways that make it clear that he does not respect them as comrades and human beings, but instead sees them as objects.
He went to a party at the flat of a person with whom he previously had a sexual relationship, even though she repeatedly told him not to come. He refused to leave when she asked. He tried to punch and threatened to kill a male she was talking to. This behaviour is typical of men trying to maintain power and control over their lovers and ex lovers.
Omar clearly has a problem with alcohol, and has used this to excuse his behaviour. But this problem with alcohol is not causing his misogynist and disrespectful behaviour, and neither abstaining, nor reducing his drinking will solve it. While sober he has defended his drunken behaviour. He has made it clear to those he was talking to that he either does not understand, or does not care about, meaningful consent.
Responses to Omar from Wellington
It’s important that people from other parts of the country understand that Omar has been challenged by groups and individuals from across the left. Basic ideas such as ‘meaningful consent’ and the impact that sexist behaviour has on women have been explained to him repeatedly. He is not operating out of ignorance.
He has responded to challenges from individuals in a variety of ways depending on who was doing the challenging:
Wellington groups have also challenged his behaviour. AWSM banned him from their political events and outlined their problems with the way he was treating women. He has also been banned from the 128 social centre. Workers Party members collectively brought up these issues as did members of his own party.
What is to be done?
We understand that people will have different ideas about how to deal with Omar’s behaviour. Groups and individuals have to draw their own boundaries about when he’s welcome.
If Omar is willing to change the way he relates to women, then assisting him to do that is important political work. However, he has given no indications so far that he is willing to change, and if he does not recognise what he is doing is wrong then his comrades cannot make him change his behaviour.
The most important political action that people can take about Omar’s behaviour is to speak about it openly. Openness about the fact that he ignores people’s boundaries and does not take sexual consent seriously is the best protection we can offer women within activist communities. This can be really hard to do, because there are many different instincts that train people to be silent at times like these.
Here are some suggestions of what could be done to make environments and groups that Omar is welcome in safer spaces:
Fighting sexism, misogyny, and sexual abuse of any kind must be part of our revolutionary organising now. Omar’s behaviour is an issue that affects individuals, groups, communities, and the left as a whole. It hurts the people he assaults, their support network, organisations he’s in, and the revolutionary movement. To allow his behaviour to continue is to create a left which is actively hostile to women. A left which is actively hostile to women cannot bring about meaningful change.
[Note from Maia: I will be moderating this post very carefully, and will delete any comments which minimise sexual violence, attack survivors, or suggest that there is a way that people who have been sexually assaulted should or do behave. Obviously there is more to say, and I may write a post of my own about this soon.]
In the last year [2010], Omar Hamed has been living in Wellington. While here he has consistently behaved towards women in a misogynistic, disrespectful and sexually predatory way. Comrades from across the left have brought up problems with his behaviour and he has consistently failed to understand the importance of meaningful consent in sexual relationships.
A group of us concerned about Omar’s behaviour have come together to draft this document outlining what has happened while he has been in Wellington and what efforts we, and others, have made to challenge his behaviour. We have sent this e-mail to groups, and bcc'd it to individuals. We hope it will be useful for those who work with him when he returns to Auckland.
This statement is not confidential. We encourage people to forward this e-mail to anyone who has or will come into contact with Omar, or who is interested in this issue.
Omar’s pattern of behaviour
We don’t want to identify the women affected, so we haven’t gone into detail. It’s also important to understand that this is a pattern of behaviour on Omar’s behalf, and not isolated one-off incidents.
He does not take sexual consent seriously when his sexual partners are drunk. He has repeatedly ignored drunk women when they told him they were not interested in his sexual advances. He has repeatedly encouraged women who have rejected him to get drunker and then attempted to make a move on them when they were more incapacitated. Some women have had to physically fight him off. He has demonstrated that he is willing to have sex with someone who is too drunk to give meaningful consent.
We have focused on his most grotesque behaviour, but he has consistently talked to and about women in ways that make it clear that he does not respect them as comrades and human beings, but instead sees them as objects.
He went to a party at the flat of a person with whom he previously had a sexual relationship, even though she repeatedly told him not to come. He refused to leave when she asked. He tried to punch and threatened to kill a male she was talking to. This behaviour is typical of men trying to maintain power and control over their lovers and ex lovers.
Omar clearly has a problem with alcohol, and has used this to excuse his behaviour. But this problem with alcohol is not causing his misogynist and disrespectful behaviour, and neither abstaining, nor reducing his drinking will solve it. While sober he has defended his drunken behaviour. He has made it clear to those he was talking to that he either does not understand, or does not care about, meaningful consent.
Responses to Omar from Wellington
It’s important that people from other parts of the country understand that Omar has been challenged by groups and individuals from across the left. Basic ideas such as ‘meaningful consent’ and the impact that sexist behaviour has on women have been explained to him repeatedly. He is not operating out of ignorance.
He has responded to challenges from individuals in a variety of ways depending on who was doing the challenging:
- When he has thought he was among friends he has minimised the behaviour, often in a sexist way. He responded to a lesbian’s comrade’s criticism of his sexist behaviour: “why? are you worried I might steal your girlfriend”. When two men were criticising his behaviour and one left the room he said to the other: “But four women in two weeks that’s pretty good eh?”
- When these tactics haven’t worked he has got very upset, begged for forgiveness and promised that he would behave differently in the future. Despite his promises he has repeated his behaviour.
- When he has been challenged by those who he did not consider friends he has tried to silence and discredit them.
Wellington groups have also challenged his behaviour. AWSM banned him from their political events and outlined their problems with the way he was treating women. He has also been banned from the 128 social centre. Workers Party members collectively brought up these issues as did members of his own party.
What is to be done?
We understand that people will have different ideas about how to deal with Omar’s behaviour. Groups and individuals have to draw their own boundaries about when he’s welcome.
If Omar is willing to change the way he relates to women, then assisting him to do that is important political work. However, he has given no indications so far that he is willing to change, and if he does not recognise what he is doing is wrong then his comrades cannot make him change his behaviour.
The most important political action that people can take about Omar’s behaviour is to speak about it openly. Openness about the fact that he ignores people’s boundaries and does not take sexual consent seriously is the best protection we can offer women within activist communities. This can be really hard to do, because there are many different instincts that train people to be silent at times like these.
Here are some suggestions of what could be done to make environments and groups that Omar is welcome in safer spaces:
- Not allow him to take up positions of power.
- If people are organising events where there is alcohol, then a responsible person should keep an eye on him throughout the event.
- Consider that if Omar is welcome at an event, then some women who know of, or have experienced, his past behaviour may not feel safe attending.
- Undertake political education work around sex and consent more broadly, this could include distributing material or running workshops.
Fighting sexism, misogyny, and sexual abuse of any kind must be part of our revolutionary organising now. Omar’s behaviour is an issue that affects individuals, groups, communities, and the left as a whole. It hurts the people he assaults, their support network, organisations he’s in, and the revolutionary movement. To allow his behaviour to continue is to create a left which is actively hostile to women. A left which is actively hostile to women cannot bring about meaningful change.
[Note from Maia: I will be moderating this post very carefully, and will delete any comments which minimise sexual violence, attack survivors, or suggest that there is a way that people who have been sexually assaulted should or do behave. Obviously there is more to say, and I may write a post of my own about this soon.]
First world problems.
Cross posted from my usual spot.
This may seem to be a similar quality of issue as this is titled but I have a bit of a rant.
The number of people who work well within the sphere of leftwing, humanist, caring, respectful groups blogging and tweeting who continue to choose to use the phrase " white whines" astounds me.
Can they not see how shite it is to be continuing the trope that only white people are that shallow. Or that only white people have that level of privilege, or that only white people will read their twitter and appreciate that they appreciate their privilege and therefore it doesn't count.
I've made a couple of comments on twitter in the hope it would stop. (not that I have any sphere of influence but sometimes these things are picked up on.) But it hasn't.
It's really pissing me off.
Here are some alternatives to 'white whine'
"1st world problems"
"important to me"
"small yet annoying"
"bee in my bonnet"
"yuppy angst"
"Acknowledging my privilege" (yes it may sound pompous but let's be honest about what we are doing here.)
So there ya go.
Short but sweet.
I've left you with a solution, not just the problem.
Off ya go.
X
S.N
This may seem to be a similar quality of issue as this is titled but I have a bit of a rant.
The number of people who work well within the sphere of leftwing, humanist, caring, respectful groups blogging and tweeting who continue to choose to use the phrase " white whines" astounds me.
Can they not see how shite it is to be continuing the trope that only white people are that shallow. Or that only white people have that level of privilege, or that only white people will read their twitter and appreciate that they appreciate their privilege and therefore it doesn't count.
I've made a couple of comments on twitter in the hope it would stop. (not that I have any sphere of influence but sometimes these things are picked up on.) But it hasn't.
It's really pissing me off.
Here are some alternatives to 'white whine'
"1st world problems"
"important to me"
"small yet annoying"
"bee in my bonnet"
"yuppy angst"
"Acknowledging my privilege" (yes it may sound pompous but let's be honest about what we are doing here.)
So there ya go.
Short but sweet.
I've left you with a solution, not just the problem.
Off ya go.
X
S.N
Monday, 26 September 2011
Who needs the toilet training?
Hopes were high when Aotearoa New Zealand became the first nation to hold an inquiry into discrimination experienced by trans people in 2006. 200 people rocked up to talk to the Human Rights Commission. The subsequent report found 80% had experienced discrimination, from avoidance and insults to violent physical and sexual assaults. Difficulties accessing affordable healthcare including around gender reassignment services were widespread – but so were problems with finding somewhere to live, work and play – the kinds of things that we should all be able to take for granted.
According to questions in parliament a couple of months ago, progress on the report’s recommendations has been slow and patchy. The decision not to explicitly include gender identity within the Human Rights Act because this government feels it’s covered already by “sex” – without going to select committee – may need to be tested by an individual trans person, according to Rainbow Wellington.
I’m interested particularly in how the government answered questions about whether they had implemented a human rights education programme to improve understandings about human rights and discrimination issues for trans people. They said:
The Human Rights Commission has worked to improve the public’s understanding, and that of the transgender community, of gender identity issues by: running workshops in five cities alongside the Assume Nothing exhibition (from April 2008 – February 2010); hosting two national human rights training hui for trans people including opportunities for them to meet with government officials; collating FAQs, resource lists links and workshop notes from that human rights education work which should soon be on the HRC’s website; and created on line FAQs and resources, some specifically targeted to enable schools to support trans students. The HRC has also: included a chapter on the rights of sexual and gender minorities in Human Rights in New Zealand 2010; supported the Outgames Human Rights Conference and the pre-conference regional hui for trans and intersex people.
These are good things, but not exactly wide-reaching in terms of numbers. And I’m not sure that to reduce discrimination we need to be working with trans people – unless the aim is increased reporting – seems like it’s cis types who probably need the learning. So here’s something kinda cool (with some potentially triggering scenes, so please be careful) from trans activists in the USA, focusing on access to public toilets:
It might seem like a small thing. But getting beaten up for using a toilet other people don’t want you using, or developing health problems because you can’t go when you want to, not small things.
So bring on the toilet training. Because as Helen Keller said, the highest result of education is tolerance.
Saturday, 24 September 2011
Women's Choice 2011 - Suffrage eve debate follow up.
cross posted from my place.
On Thursday the 22nd of September the Women's Choice 2011 Suffrage Eve Debate took place in an Auckland university lecture theatre with a wonderful mix of over 100 attendees. A speech was given by Dr Judy McGregor, the EEO Commissioner, who did a wonderful job of chairing the evening.
The party reps were:
National - Dr Jackie Blue MP
Labour - Carol Beaumont MP
Greens - Catherine Delahunty MP
ACT - Kath McCabe
Mana - Sue Bradford
Three minute stump speeches from each party, were given followed by written questions from a variety of women's organisations, as follows.
Q From the Campus Feminist Collective
What are the parties doing to empower people who are struggling financially, such as single parents on the DPB, to attain qualifications that will allow them to support themselves and their families? An example of such a a measure would be the discontinued training incentive allowance.
Labour - Carol Beaumont MP
Support for life- long learning.
Does not agree with cuts to education for those over a certain age.
The access for older people in training needs to be reviewed.
Restore funding for the training incentive allowance.
Greens - Catherine Delahunty MP
This is an attack on beneficiaries, stop this.
Being a sole parent is doing a job twice and people should have enough money to live on and get training.
Raise the status and value of the parent and sole parent.
Mana - Sue Bradford
Mana is respectful of training.
Reinstate the training incentive allowance.
Lower tertiary fees
Lower student loans
Total overhaul of the benefits system is needed
Universal tax credits.
ACT - Kath McCabe
Why has the quality of education gone down? (Audience member called out “It hasn’t!”)
Funding is going to the wrong end: funding is being spent on student loans not the education providers.
Need to review student allowances
Close to the maori party on some points here.
National - Dr Jackie Blue MP
Values education as a liberator
Early childcare available for those who need to get back to school/ work. Especially in areas where attendance is low
Training incentive allowance Level Four National Qualifications Framework courses or above no longer applies.
Focusing on basic numeracy and literacy as a focus.
Student support as a priority.
Q From the Working women’s resource center.
What will your party do to improve the working situation of women who are forced into casual and/or contract work rather than proper employment and who don’t get sick pay, holiday pay, parental leave, professional development or job security.
Mana - Sue Bradford
Collective bargaining is essential.
Unions have been undermined by national.
Committed to do everything they can.
The right to strike returned to workers.
Labour - Carol Beaumont MP
This type of work is becoming prominent, and this is deliberate.
We need to increase rights to strengthen collective bargaining.
The reason women are concentrated in a precarious environment is because they have to seek flexibility to care for families.
Flexible working arrangements to help families would go a long way.
Greens - Catherine Delahunty MP
The root of the issues is contracts. They are very bad for women.
Monitoring of women’s work situations is needed.
Collective bargaining should be improved
Equal pay
Not being allowed to discuss contracts means that inequalities continue without question.
Used the example of warner brothers.
ACT - Kath McCabe
Not sure that people are *forced* into casual and contract work.
People choose their work places and plenty of people don’t get sick or holiday pay – they are self-employed.
Used the building industry, and low work levels for said builders as an example of the above.
National - Dr Jackie Blue MP
The 90 day trial is helping with this. Migrants and youth and parents are positively affected.
Most people who get jobs retain them, it is working well.
It gives women a chance
Q From the Women’s health action trust.
The government currently has an amending bill in the house which aims to relax the provisions of the 2008 employment relations (breaks, infant feeding, and other matters) amendment act which required employers to provide breaks and facilities (where reasonable and practicable) to support women to breast feed while employed.
What is your party’s position on this?
ACT - Kath McCabe
The key here is “where reasonable and practicable”. Few women are making the hard vocational choices.
Her company has just hired large numbers of international engineers because "New Zealanders won’t take the hard jobs".
Dirty, filthy industrial sites are not appropriate for breast feeding, and women wouldn’t want to feed there.
National - Dr Jackie Blue MP
Under current law, mothers have the right to ask, and the employer must respond in a timely fashion.
If not, action can be taken.
Mana - Sue Bradford
The mana party would not support any weakening of the current laws.
Greens - Catherine Delahunty MP
"If we are going to discuss dirty high paid jobs, what about parliament?"
One woman breast fed there.
When we talk about support and what is reasonable and practicable, it needs to be what is reasonable and practicable for the BABY not others.
The problem is workplace leaders who don’t have tits and want to make a profit.
Labour - Carol Beaumont MP
Thought amendment being referred to is about workers breaks, rather than specifically breast feeding breaks, but unsure.
Women have kids, and would like to breast feed. We need to support this.
Clean up the workplace and make it safe, for EVERYONE, including breastfeeding mothers.
Q From the YWCA
How will you recognise and address disadvantages faced by our Māori communities’ especially young Māori women?
Labour - Carol Beaumont MP
Recognises gender and ethnic issues.
Policies need to recognise different needs.
When you break down the wage gap beyond simply gender, into ethnicity the disparity for Maori and Pacific island women becomes even more graphic
Greens - Catherine Delahunty MP
“Honour the treaty, don’t call me sweety”
Women are discriminated against in the system.
Address the issues and listen to tangatawhenua to ask what THEY want rather than having policy makers who are removed from the issues telling them what to do.
Go to the Hapu and Iwi to consult.
Mana - Sue Bradford
This is a huge problem and the whole of Mana’s policies are focused in these areas.
Respect and self determination
Education gives women a place in the world.
People need wages to live on and should not be separated from their home communities because the system said they cannot return.
Empowerment is key.
National - Dr Jackie Blue MP
Referenced the whanau ora policy.
Additional money is needed for additional providers.
Money has been reprioritised for sexual health, teen pregnancy etc.
On the recent media interest in Sex ed, having viewed providers, they were professional and innovative, with accurate info.
ACT - Kath McCabe
"Jackie covered most of it."
Upset by the way young Māori women are characterised by this question.
I know highly regarded women from the Māori community, (gave examples of many high powered roles)
Successful Māori are not celebrated.
Q From ALRANZ
Our 36 year old abortion laws are medically outdated, what action would you like to take to reform the law?
ACT - Kath McCabe
Personally supports decriminalisation.
It will be a conscience vote, and my choice is that it should remain a personal choice.
National - Dr Jackie Blue MP
As a former GP she helped many women decide what to do, no one does it lightly, it is a difficult decision.
Supports it being in the health act
Abortion is the choice of a woman and her health provider.
Greens - Catherine Delahunty MP
There should be a review, there is currently no Green party consensus.
Personally believes it is a health issue, not a criminal one.
Working on a Green party agreement.
Labour - Carol Beaumont MP
Supports the women’s right to choose.
Safe abortions are currently available but she strongly supports change to the current law which only provides safe abortions to those who are having to work with an unwealdy system, having to lie about their mental health.
Community clamour is needed for this to be reviewed.
Keep pushing for change.
Mana - Sue Bradford
There is no party agreement but she is personally pro-choice.
There is more support needed for pre and post counselling as there is not enough support for women who make that choice and have to go through such a hard time.
Q From the National council of women’s Auckland branch
What is your party’s strategy to reduce increasing poverty in NZ and to close the ever widening gap between rich and poor?
Greens - Catherine Delahunty MP
Not with tax cuts for the top 13% or financial bail outs for Canterbury finance that is for sure.
Commitment is needed
Work on the welfare system
Increase minimum wage
Job creation and quality education
Labour - Carol Beaumont MP
This is of vital importance for a fairer society
The gap is growing, there are kids in poverty.
Need to lift minimum wage
Take GST off fruit and vegetables.
1st $5 earned should be tax free
More collective bargaining
Putting funds into research and development and increasing jobs.
Mana - Sue Bradford
Economic justice to lift the income of those at the bottom.
Tax free income threshold for those below the minimum wage
One off hardship benefit by Christmas, which Kevin Rudd did in Australia
Trust routs need to be tackled – the rich are hiding income.
National - Dr Jackie Blue MP
Getting those back to work who can work.
Off benefits and back to work
Lift wages and increase economy
Want to keep entrepreneurs and companies here in NZ – supporting businesses.
ACT - Kath McCabe
Recognise that welfare is not for the upper and middle class.
Gave an anecdote of a wealthy family receiving money from “working for families”
Target welfare to those who need it.
GSC2 conditions with trading partners which means difficulty exporting and employing
State is poor at picking winners
Incentivise and assist.
Q From Auckland women’s center.
Given that MMP has drastically improved women’s political representation in parliament, why doesn’t the national party support MMP?
National - Dr Jackie Blue MP
That is incorrect. National believes that the choice of voting systems is up to the voters and has chosen to leave the choice to them, without comment.
Q From the Auckland coalition for the safety of women and children.
Many of the changes and cuts that national have made in the last three years have impacted negatively on women and also made it more difficult for them to be safe from abuse.
What will your party do to improve women’s lives and provide more safety for women?
Q From the Women’s network of NZEI Te Riu Roa
What policies will your party have to help maintain quality public education?
Labour - Carol Beaumont MP
A strong commitment to public education, the first four years of a child’s life are very important.
Critical of cuts to ECE
No one would tolerate high schools where 30% of staff are unqualified, why tolerate it in ECE?
Pro training incentive allowance.
Scrap national standards, replace with REAL standards.
ACT - Kath McCabe
Support the institutions not students for funding.
Sweden has an process initiated by the political left where funding was given to parents, not to the students; and funds were wasted less.
Improved quality of education and empowerment of parents.
Mana - Sue Bradford
All levels of the system need support
John Minto heavily involved in writing their work with this.
Abolish national standards.
Reject public/private partnerships in education.
Recognise Maori/ pacific island special needs. These are currently under recognised.
Update Te reo Maori
National - Dr Jackie Blue MP
National values education as a liberator.
1.4 billion is coming to ECE
They are targeting communities with low participation.
1/5 of youth are leaving school without basic education – this is not good enough.
Student loans should remain interest free, but there should be criteria.
Greens - Catherine Delahunty MP
Student loans system is flawed.
National standards are not needed.
When they went direct to the users (10-17 year olds) they didn’t want national standards, or particular types of education. They wanted quality relationships with their teachers.
Education needs to be relevant.
Racism should be addressed in schools
Centres are closing due to funding changes, so how can national claim no funding cuts?
Q From Feminist action.
Our justice system results in an abysmal conviction rate for sexual assault. How would your party address this problem?
Mana - Sue Bradford
A special taskforce for sexual assault was discussed for a long time. If Mana was part of the next government they would pick up on those recommendations and get New Zealand out of the dark ages.
National - Dr Jackie Blue MP
The victim levy has been a success with $50 paid by perpetrators of crimes going towards services for victims.
The minister of women’s affair’s interventions have informed policy development
ACC is providing 16 counselling sessions to those affected by assault.
Labour - Carol Beaumont MP
The taskforce needs to be fully picked up and acted on.
Improve court processes
The current government haven’t done much.
ACC has been a traumatising experience for those who had to fight for their right to support.
Long term comprehensive approach is needed.
A commission should be made up from the special taskforce for sexual assault and the task force for family violence.
ACT - Kath McCabe
One problem is the police themselves.
After the unfortunate actions of the past, a commission of enquiry has gone some way towards dealing with the issue, but people don’t want to go to the police for help when they have their own issues.
A female minister of police is a good step.
When the accused can cross examine the victim, the system is appalling.
Greens - Catherine Delahunty MP
Special victims task force good hearing from minister, but not on the ground level.
After the recent incident with a comedian there is no faith in the system and people are having to think seriously about whether they want to put themselves or their children through this horrific system.
Simon Power has other ideas
Need a cross party consensus.
Q From the Tertiary Education Union’s women’s sector
The literature is clear that high quality early childhood education has significant beneficial benefits for those children and society as a whole. The funding for ECE however has been savages under National/ACT.
Will your party increase funding in this area, particularly in low socioeconomic areas where the impact of provision of high quality ECE would make the most impact?
National - Dr Jackie Blue MP
It wasn’t savaged.
This funding is the most the ECE has ever had.
Focus has been largely on areas with lower participation.
3500 new ECE places.
Mana - Sue Bradford
Mana has strong policy in this area and is passionate about increased funding for ECE and education led groups.
No public funding for profit led early childhood education.
Increase the provision of support for struggling areas.
Have ECE promote the link with schools in the same area.
Review and refocus on te reo Maori.
An annual audit on Te reo Maori providers is needed to keep a level of quality.
ACT - Kath McCabe
Don’t impose the governments will on the decision of parents to choose education providers
Struggling family’s need support and second income, and ECE supports both parents working.
Labour - Carol Beaumont MP
There is a big announcement coming, and so cannot speak too much on this.
20 hours free.
It is not true that there haven’t been cuts
Facilities with 100% qualified staff are being penalised under current funding.
Ensure that all children have the best possible start.
Greens - Catherine Delahunty MP
There is a profit industry of baby barns.
Mothers are being forced back out to work, and this is not a victory for feminism.
80% of Maori and Pacific Island are just applying to the nearest provider rather than choosing. The market is deciding, rather than it being parent driven.
Not good enough.
Q From the Service and Food workers union. Nga ringa tota women’s sector.
Pay equity is not about individual women negotiating a better deal for themselves but about whole groups of workers who are paid less simply because most of those doing their work are women. It’s about valuing the work women often do, like caring for our most vulnerable citizens.
What specific actions would your party put in place, should you be in government and in a position to implement these, to lift the wages of caregivers and other mainly women workers like cleaners?
ACT - Kath McCabe“I am going to rephrase the question.”
Met a Russian surgeon who said that in Russia the majority of surgeons are female, and truck drivers are male. Surgeons ended up lower paid than truck drivers because women’s work is not valued, no matter what it is.
This is a perception problem.
Adult rate for youth means less jobs for youth.
The issue is 2/3 the recession.
Labour - Carol Beaumont MP
Increase minimum wage.
Narrow the gap.
Promote equality in the workplace.
We need roles traditionally seen as women’s work valued. If women take “men’s” jobs to try to increase income, who will be the caregivers?
National - Dr Jackie Blue MP
Lift all wages.
Hard times, national policy is needed to strengthen national industry.
Boost the economy, support businesses and increase education and skills training.
Pay gender gap is because women are in low paid roles
The Gender pay gap is at 10.6% which is the lowest it has ever been.
Greens - Catherine Delahunty MP
The statistics mentioned by Jackie can be read in so many different ways.
Structural help is needed. Bring back recommendations and actually implement them.
Test wages.
A structural commitment should be given.
Pansy Wong says women need to talk about rugby and be a plumber, but women and their work should be valued in their own right.
Mana - Sue Bradford
The incident with Alasdair Thompson exposed how employers think.
We need to lift wages now!
Workers in sectors that are undervalued need support, they are “invisibilised”.
A review of the questions and answers.
On Thursday the 22nd of September the Women's Choice 2011 Suffrage Eve Debate took place in an Auckland university lecture theatre with a wonderful mix of over 100 attendees. A speech was given by Dr Judy McGregor, the EEO Commissioner, who did a wonderful job of chairing the evening.
The party reps were:
National - Dr Jackie Blue MP
Labour - Carol Beaumont MP
Greens - Catherine Delahunty MP
ACT - Kath McCabe
Mana - Sue Bradford
Three minute stump speeches from each party, were given followed by written questions from a variety of women's organisations, as follows.
NB: I was trying to scribe this with no skills in shorthand, and didn’t do the greatest job. (partly because some pages were smudged with tears of laughter from a very entertaining evening!)
My apologies for any mistakes. The below is paraphrasing of key points as I could catch them, and sometimes it was a bit of a challenge!! If I have missed something or made mistakes, please feel free to email me with changes and I will update this ASAP
I hope you enjoy this review.
Scuba Nurse.
Q From the Campus Feminist Collective
What are the parties doing to empower people who are struggling financially, such as single parents on the DPB, to attain qualifications that will allow them to support themselves and their families? An example of such a a measure would be the discontinued training incentive allowance.
Labour - Carol Beaumont MP
Support for life- long learning.
Does not agree with cuts to education for those over a certain age.
The access for older people in training needs to be reviewed.
Restore funding for the training incentive allowance.
Greens - Catherine Delahunty MP
This is an attack on beneficiaries, stop this.
Being a sole parent is doing a job twice and people should have enough money to live on and get training.
Raise the status and value of the parent and sole parent.
Mana - Sue Bradford
Mana is respectful of training.
Reinstate the training incentive allowance.
Lower tertiary fees
Lower student loans
Total overhaul of the benefits system is needed
Universal tax credits.
ACT - Kath McCabe
Why has the quality of education gone down? (Audience member called out “It hasn’t!”)
Funding is going to the wrong end: funding is being spent on student loans not the education providers.
Need to review student allowances
Close to the maori party on some points here.
National - Dr Jackie Blue MP
Values education as a liberator
Early childcare available for those who need to get back to school/ work. Especially in areas where attendance is low
Training incentive allowance Level Four National Qualifications Framework courses or above no longer applies.
Focusing on basic numeracy and literacy as a focus.
Student support as a priority.
Q From the Working women’s resource center.
What will your party do to improve the working situation of women who are forced into casual and/or contract work rather than proper employment and who don’t get sick pay, holiday pay, parental leave, professional development or job security.
Mana - Sue Bradford
Collective bargaining is essential.
Unions have been undermined by national.
Committed to do everything they can.
The right to strike returned to workers.
Labour - Carol Beaumont MP
This type of work is becoming prominent, and this is deliberate.
We need to increase rights to strengthen collective bargaining.
The reason women are concentrated in a precarious environment is because they have to seek flexibility to care for families.
Flexible working arrangements to help families would go a long way.
Greens - Catherine Delahunty MP
The root of the issues is contracts. They are very bad for women.
Monitoring of women’s work situations is needed.
Collective bargaining should be improved
Equal pay
Not being allowed to discuss contracts means that inequalities continue without question.
Used the example of warner brothers.
ACT - Kath McCabe
Not sure that people are *forced* into casual and contract work.
People choose their work places and plenty of people don’t get sick or holiday pay – they are self-employed.
Used the building industry, and low work levels for said builders as an example of the above.
National - Dr Jackie Blue MP
The 90 day trial is helping with this. Migrants and youth and parents are positively affected.
Most people who get jobs retain them, it is working well.
It gives women a chance
Q From the Women’s health action trust.
The government currently has an amending bill in the house which aims to relax the provisions of the 2008 employment relations (breaks, infant feeding, and other matters) amendment act which required employers to provide breaks and facilities (where reasonable and practicable) to support women to breast feed while employed.
What is your party’s position on this?
ACT - Kath McCabe
The key here is “where reasonable and practicable”. Few women are making the hard vocational choices.
Her company has just hired large numbers of international engineers because "New Zealanders won’t take the hard jobs".
Dirty, filthy industrial sites are not appropriate for breast feeding, and women wouldn’t want to feed there.
National - Dr Jackie Blue MP
Under current law, mothers have the right to ask, and the employer must respond in a timely fashion.
If not, action can be taken.
Mana - Sue Bradford
The mana party would not support any weakening of the current laws.
Greens - Catherine Delahunty MP
"If we are going to discuss dirty high paid jobs, what about parliament?"
One woman breast fed there.
When we talk about support and what is reasonable and practicable, it needs to be what is reasonable and practicable for the BABY not others.
The problem is workplace leaders who don’t have tits and want to make a profit.
Labour - Carol Beaumont MP
Thought amendment being referred to is about workers breaks, rather than specifically breast feeding breaks, but unsure.
Women have kids, and would like to breast feed. We need to support this.
Clean up the workplace and make it safe, for EVERYONE, including breastfeeding mothers.
Q From the YWCA
How will you recognise and address disadvantages faced by our Māori communities’ especially young Māori women?
Labour - Carol Beaumont MP
Recognises gender and ethnic issues.
Policies need to recognise different needs.
When you break down the wage gap beyond simply gender, into ethnicity the disparity for Maori and Pacific island women becomes even more graphic
Greens - Catherine Delahunty MP
“Honour the treaty, don’t call me sweety”
Women are discriminated against in the system.
Address the issues and listen to tangatawhenua to ask what THEY want rather than having policy makers who are removed from the issues telling them what to do.
Go to the Hapu and Iwi to consult.
Mana - Sue Bradford
This is a huge problem and the whole of Mana’s policies are focused in these areas.
Respect and self determination
Education gives women a place in the world.
People need wages to live on and should not be separated from their home communities because the system said they cannot return.
Empowerment is key.
National - Dr Jackie Blue MP
Referenced the whanau ora policy.
Additional money is needed for additional providers.
Money has been reprioritised for sexual health, teen pregnancy etc.
On the recent media interest in Sex ed, having viewed providers, they were professional and innovative, with accurate info.
ACT - Kath McCabe
"Jackie covered most of it."
Upset by the way young Māori women are characterised by this question.
I know highly regarded women from the Māori community, (gave examples of many high powered roles)
Successful Māori are not celebrated.
Q From ALRANZ
Our 36 year old abortion laws are medically outdated, what action would you like to take to reform the law?
ACT - Kath McCabe
Personally supports decriminalisation.
It will be a conscience vote, and my choice is that it should remain a personal choice.
National - Dr Jackie Blue MP
As a former GP she helped many women decide what to do, no one does it lightly, it is a difficult decision.
Supports it being in the health act
Abortion is the choice of a woman and her health provider.
Greens - Catherine Delahunty MP
There should be a review, there is currently no Green party consensus.
Personally believes it is a health issue, not a criminal one.
Working on a Green party agreement.
Labour - Carol Beaumont MP
Supports the women’s right to choose.
Safe abortions are currently available but she strongly supports change to the current law which only provides safe abortions to those who are having to work with an unwealdy system, having to lie about their mental health.
Community clamour is needed for this to be reviewed.
Keep pushing for change.
Mana - Sue Bradford
There is no party agreement but she is personally pro-choice.
There is more support needed for pre and post counselling as there is not enough support for women who make that choice and have to go through such a hard time.
Q From the National council of women’s Auckland branch
What is your party’s strategy to reduce increasing poverty in NZ and to close the ever widening gap between rich and poor?
Greens - Catherine Delahunty MP
Not with tax cuts for the top 13% or financial bail outs for Canterbury finance that is for sure.
Commitment is needed
Work on the welfare system
Increase minimum wage
Job creation and quality education
Labour - Carol Beaumont MP
This is of vital importance for a fairer society
The gap is growing, there are kids in poverty.
Need to lift minimum wage
Take GST off fruit and vegetables.
1st $5 earned should be tax free
More collective bargaining
Putting funds into research and development and increasing jobs.
Mana - Sue Bradford
Economic justice to lift the income of those at the bottom.
Tax free income threshold for those below the minimum wage
One off hardship benefit by Christmas, which Kevin Rudd did in Australia
Trust routs need to be tackled – the rich are hiding income.
National - Dr Jackie Blue MP
Getting those back to work who can work.
Off benefits and back to work
Lift wages and increase economy
Want to keep entrepreneurs and companies here in NZ – supporting businesses.
ACT - Kath McCabe
Recognise that welfare is not for the upper and middle class.
Gave an anecdote of a wealthy family receiving money from “working for families”
Target welfare to those who need it.
GSC2 conditions with trading partners which means difficulty exporting and employing
State is poor at picking winners
Incentivise and assist.
Q From Auckland women’s center.
Given that MMP has drastically improved women’s political representation in parliament, why doesn’t the national party support MMP?
National - Dr Jackie Blue MP
That is incorrect. National believes that the choice of voting systems is up to the voters and has chosen to leave the choice to them, without comment.
Q From the Auckland coalition for the safety of women and children.
Many of the changes and cuts that national have made in the last three years have impacted negatively on women and also made it more difficult for them to be safe from abuse.
What will your party do to improve women’s lives and provide more safety for women?
Scuba Nurse: Massive apologies, but my phone ran out of battery and lost this page of notes when it closed unexpectedly..
Does anyone have this?
Q From the Women’s network of NZEI Te Riu Roa
What policies will your party have to help maintain quality public education?
Labour - Carol Beaumont MP
A strong commitment to public education, the first four years of a child’s life are very important.
Critical of cuts to ECE
No one would tolerate high schools where 30% of staff are unqualified, why tolerate it in ECE?
Pro training incentive allowance.
Scrap national standards, replace with REAL standards.
ACT - Kath McCabe
Support the institutions not students for funding.
Sweden has an process initiated by the political left where funding was given to parents, not to the students; and funds were wasted less.
Improved quality of education and empowerment of parents.
Mana - Sue Bradford
All levels of the system need support
John Minto heavily involved in writing their work with this.
Abolish national standards.
Reject public/private partnerships in education.
Recognise Maori/ pacific island special needs. These are currently under recognised.
Update Te reo Maori
National - Dr Jackie Blue MP
National values education as a liberator.
1.4 billion is coming to ECE
They are targeting communities with low participation.
1/5 of youth are leaving school without basic education – this is not good enough.
Student loans should remain interest free, but there should be criteria.
Greens - Catherine Delahunty MP
Student loans system is flawed.
National standards are not needed.
When they went direct to the users (10-17 year olds) they didn’t want national standards, or particular types of education. They wanted quality relationships with their teachers.
Education needs to be relevant.
Racism should be addressed in schools
Centres are closing due to funding changes, so how can national claim no funding cuts?
Q From Feminist action.
Our justice system results in an abysmal conviction rate for sexual assault. How would your party address this problem?
Mana - Sue Bradford
A special taskforce for sexual assault was discussed for a long time. If Mana was part of the next government they would pick up on those recommendations and get New Zealand out of the dark ages.
National - Dr Jackie Blue MP
The victim levy has been a success with $50 paid by perpetrators of crimes going towards services for victims.
The minister of women’s affair’s interventions have informed policy development
ACC is providing 16 counselling sessions to those affected by assault.
Labour - Carol Beaumont MP
The taskforce needs to be fully picked up and acted on.
Improve court processes
The current government haven’t done much.
ACC has been a traumatising experience for those who had to fight for their right to support.
Long term comprehensive approach is needed.
A commission should be made up from the special taskforce for sexual assault and the task force for family violence.
ACT - Kath McCabe
One problem is the police themselves.
After the unfortunate actions of the past, a commission of enquiry has gone some way towards dealing with the issue, but people don’t want to go to the police for help when they have their own issues.
A female minister of police is a good step.
When the accused can cross examine the victim, the system is appalling.
Greens - Catherine Delahunty MP
Special victims task force good hearing from minister, but not on the ground level.
After the recent incident with a comedian there is no faith in the system and people are having to think seriously about whether they want to put themselves or their children through this horrific system.
Simon Power has other ideas
Need a cross party consensus.
Q From the Tertiary Education Union’s women’s sector
The literature is clear that high quality early childhood education has significant beneficial benefits for those children and society as a whole. The funding for ECE however has been savages under National/ACT.
Will your party increase funding in this area, particularly in low socioeconomic areas where the impact of provision of high quality ECE would make the most impact?
National - Dr Jackie Blue MP
It wasn’t savaged.
This funding is the most the ECE has ever had.
Focus has been largely on areas with lower participation.
3500 new ECE places.
Mana - Sue Bradford
Mana has strong policy in this area and is passionate about increased funding for ECE and education led groups.
No public funding for profit led early childhood education.
Increase the provision of support for struggling areas.
Have ECE promote the link with schools in the same area.
Review and refocus on te reo Maori.
An annual audit on Te reo Maori providers is needed to keep a level of quality.
ACT - Kath McCabe
Don’t impose the governments will on the decision of parents to choose education providers
Struggling family’s need support and second income, and ECE supports both parents working.
Labour - Carol Beaumont MP
There is a big announcement coming, and so cannot speak too much on this.
20 hours free.
It is not true that there haven’t been cuts
Facilities with 100% qualified staff are being penalised under current funding.
Ensure that all children have the best possible start.
Greens - Catherine Delahunty MP
There is a profit industry of baby barns.
Mothers are being forced back out to work, and this is not a victory for feminism.
80% of Maori and Pacific Island are just applying to the nearest provider rather than choosing. The market is deciding, rather than it being parent driven.
Not good enough.
Q From the Service and Food workers union. Nga ringa tota women’s sector.
Pay equity is not about individual women negotiating a better deal for themselves but about whole groups of workers who are paid less simply because most of those doing their work are women. It’s about valuing the work women often do, like caring for our most vulnerable citizens.
What specific actions would your party put in place, should you be in government and in a position to implement these, to lift the wages of caregivers and other mainly women workers like cleaners?
ACT - Kath McCabe“I am going to rephrase the question.”
Met a Russian surgeon who said that in Russia the majority of surgeons are female, and truck drivers are male. Surgeons ended up lower paid than truck drivers because women’s work is not valued, no matter what it is.
This is a perception problem.
Adult rate for youth means less jobs for youth.
The issue is 2/3 the recession.
Labour - Carol Beaumont MP
Increase minimum wage.
Narrow the gap.
Promote equality in the workplace.
We need roles traditionally seen as women’s work valued. If women take “men’s” jobs to try to increase income, who will be the caregivers?
National - Dr Jackie Blue MP
Lift all wages.
Hard times, national policy is needed to strengthen national industry.
Boost the economy, support businesses and increase education and skills training.
Pay gender gap is because women are in low paid roles
The Gender pay gap is at 10.6% which is the lowest it has ever been.
Greens - Catherine Delahunty MP
The statistics mentioned by Jackie can be read in so many different ways.
Structural help is needed. Bring back recommendations and actually implement them.
Test wages.
A structural commitment should be given.
Pansy Wong says women need to talk about rugby and be a plumber, but women and their work should be valued in their own right.
Mana - Sue Bradford
The incident with Alasdair Thompson exposed how employers think.
We need to lift wages now!
Workers in sectors that are undervalued need support, they are “invisibilised”.
Thursday, 22 September 2011
quick hit: on women's participation
a couple of links on women's participation in politics and business. first this call for more women to have strong political roles:
More than 20 of the world’s most powerful women called for more political participation for women as a crucial step for democracy, peace and sustainable economic and social development at an event during the 66th session of the United Nations General Assembly today.
[...]
“We are in an age of participation and every political party should make room for women to play a greater role,” Hilary Clinton said. “When we liberate women we boost economies; human rights cannot be stopped.”
on the latter point, there has been some research from the university of waikato, proving yet again what we already know: that companies with women on their boards of directors are more profitable than those that don't:
Dr Stuart Locke, director of the university’s Institute for Business Research, said research showed women directors are good for business.
The institute analysed 10 years of data from New Zealand Stock Exchange companies and found that increasing the number of women on boards increased financial performance.
The institute’s study looked at performance measured by rate of return on assets for companies in New Zealand. It looked at a number of variables relating to corporate governance including the size of boards, the number of women and other measures.
"We found that the number of women on the boards was positively correlated to performance. Those companies that had higher performance – not just greater profit but greater profit on the assets they owned – had more women on the board. That was a statistically significant result," Locke said. The study did not explain how women boosted financial performance, as it was purely a financial study.
of course i'm one of those who thinks we should have diversity because it's the right thing to do, not solely because it has financial or economic benefits. but it's nice to know the latter is true as well.
More than 20 of the world’s most powerful women called for more political participation for women as a crucial step for democracy, peace and sustainable economic and social development at an event during the 66th session of the United Nations General Assembly today.
[...]
“We are in an age of participation and every political party should make room for women to play a greater role,” Hilary Clinton said. “When we liberate women we boost economies; human rights cannot be stopped.”
on the latter point, there has been some research from the university of waikato, proving yet again what we already know: that companies with women on their boards of directors are more profitable than those that don't:
Dr Stuart Locke, director of the university’s Institute for Business Research, said research showed women directors are good for business.
The institute analysed 10 years of data from New Zealand Stock Exchange companies and found that increasing the number of women on boards increased financial performance.
The institute’s study looked at performance measured by rate of return on assets for companies in New Zealand. It looked at a number of variables relating to corporate governance including the size of boards, the number of women and other measures.
"We found that the number of women on the boards was positively correlated to performance. Those companies that had higher performance – not just greater profit but greater profit on the assets they owned – had more women on the board. That was a statistically significant result," Locke said. The study did not explain how women boosted financial performance, as it was purely a financial study.
of course i'm one of those who thinks we should have diversity because it's the right thing to do, not solely because it has financial or economic benefits. but it's nice to know the latter is true as well.
Women's Choice 2011 - Auckland, 7pm, tonight!
WHO: Speakers from Labour, the Greens, ACT, Mana and National are confirmed - all Parliamentary parties have been invited. Dr Judy McGregor, the EEO Commissioner, will chair.
The party reps are:
National - Dr Jackie Blue MP
Labour - Carol Beaumont MP
Greens - Catherine Delahunty MP
ACT - Kath McCabe
Mana - Sue Bradford
VENUE: In LibB10, which is directly underneath the UOA General Library, on Alfred St in the heart of campus. (Link to map below)
FORMAT: Three minute stump speeches from each party, followed by written questions from a variety of women's organisations. At last count we have at least 10 of these, which is a great response. After that there will be written questions from the floor, as time allows.
FB event page
A preview of the event in The Aucklander today.
A map of the University including accessible parking spots.
Flaunting at the Rugby World Cup
Aotearoa New Zealand might be a better place to grow up queer than any of the 72 countries where same-sex love will get you chucked into prison, but it’s still harder than growing up opposite-sex attracted. Same and both-sex attracted young people are more likely to be bullied, use alcohol and drugs, self-harm, feel depressed and try to commit suicide.
So the report released by Green MP Kevin Hague this week is timely. Author Murray Riches interviewed a bunch of people who work with queer youth to come up with some recommendations for making queer life easier – and he also highlights that we may not even know how hard it is for trans young people.
Riches says the problem is heteronormativity and it’s converse, the idea that queer people “flaunt” our sexuality whenever we talk about not being straight, or not having a gender identity which matches our biology, or the gender people assign to us.
How does this work say, in the biggest cultural event going on in Aotearoa right now?
Well, there’s been precisely one out gay male international rugby player, Welsh player Gareth Thomas. It seems statistically unlikely that Gareth’s the only rugby-playing boy who likes kissing boys, so that suggests to me it’s not too easy to “flaunt” being queer if you’re a male rugby player.
What about the messages we get watching the games? There’s plenty of opportunities for enjoying the male body – if you’re female.
Messages about queer desire here, despite how incredibly easy it would have been to include, because really, you’re telling me you couldn’t find any men who like the look of Sonny Bill? Zilch.
More broadly, rugby and Air NZ have made sure we know those All Blacks don’t like queer boys by having Richard Kahui make himself available for random kisses from women, but firmly unavailable for random kisses by men.
Yep, the Rugby World Cup is a pretty good example of what’s wrong with the world if you’re a young queer person. And that’s not even going into the fact we seem to find it impossible to remember we have an international rugby team that wins world cups and which plenty of queer women might enjoy watching.
As well as supporting Kevin Hague with this report, if you’re interested in supporting young queer people check out the Queer Avengers in Wellington on 6th October. They are asking the Ministry of Education to ensure school is a safe place for queer students. It’s hard to argue with that.
Tuesday, 20 September 2011
Help yourself
I went to see “The Help” tonight, after reluctantly reading the Kathryn Stockett’s book a couple of months ago. I just wasn’t sure I wanted to read central Black characters as imagined by a white woman. The ambitious, sprawling exploration of racism in the American South in the 1960s, told from the point of view of Black women working as domestic maids and a white woman struggling with her own complicity with racism, changed my mind. Signposted with reference to the murder of civil rights activist Medgar Evers, Jim Crow segregation laws are described, and the employment conditions of Black domestic workers exposed.
What works in the book is the interweaving of institutional oppression – laws, segregation, the state ignoring the murder of Evers – with families, and in particular, women, surviving. The extraordinary irony of white children being brought up and loved by Black women they are taught over time to treat as second-class citizens, in order to fully enjoy white privilege. Black women scarcely seeing their own children, or having to send them out early to paid work while they look after white children.
I can well believe the loyalties in these situations would have been fractured and complex. I can imagine loving a child I was looking after – because children are often very easy to love – at the same time as hating the racism and class privilege keeping me poor and unsafe. And I can imagine being a child who was loved by someone I was eventually taught to see as less than me, and struggling to imagine how to do that differently when everyone around me was stepping into the white privilege line.
Turns out though, “The Help” may have been written by a white woman stealing from a Black woman she knew. And astonishingly, the movie misses out on the subtlety and richness of the book by simplifying the storyline, picking only pretty people to appear, writing out some narratives completely and glossing over aspects of the 1960s social structures.
So both the movie and the book are controversial, which as ever with issues to do with power, is not necessarily a bad thing. I agree with African American media activist Jamia Wilson when she takes comfort in “The Help” promoting talk about race:
The Help comes at a time when white people are increasingly paranoid about “reverse racism.” From the classroom to the Supreme Court, more and more white people feel targeted by discrimination. Meanwhile, resentment of President Obama has manifested itself in bigotry toomanytimes. Racially motivated violence still happens in Jackson, Mississippi—automobile worker James C. Anderson was murdered in a hate crime just a couple of weeks ago.
But can we see this as a learning moment if what we’re learning is historically inaccurate? The Association of Black Women Historians have come out guns blazing:
Despite efforts to market the book and the film as a progressive story of triumph over racial injustice, The Help distorts, ignores, and trivializes the experiences of black domestic workers.
One of the problems here is that revisioning history always gives “victims” of history subjectivity – we are encouraged to examine choices that are made, agency that is exerted – even, to paraphrase Marx, when it’s not in the circumstances of our choosing. That’s real life – no matter how oppressed we are, we make choices – which is abundantly clear in “The Help”. The central Black characters choose to tell their stories, they choose to wrestle with faith in a time period characterised by brutality, they choose to stay with or leave violent men, they choose to take revenge on bullying employers or buckle down because they need the money. This is what I like about the book, that we see how oppression is unknitted by how we live, even as we also see how it is knitted. I don’t agree the racism of that time is trivialised by the book, feel more ambivalent about the movie, and positively love that it is Black women in the foreground.
Another issue for the Association of Black Women Historians is the portrayal of Black men:
The black family, in particular provided support and the validation of personhood necessary to stand against adversity. We do not recognize the black community described in The Help where most of the black male characters are depicted as drunkards, abusive, or absent. Such distorted images are misleading and do not represent the historical realities of black masculinity and manhood.
Yet civil rights activist and Black feminist philosopher Audre Lorde wrote in 1980:
Because of the continuous battle against racial erasure that Black women and Black men share, some Black women still refuse to recognise that we are also oppressed as women, and that sexual hostility against Black women is practiced not only by the white racist society, but implemented within our Black communities as well. Exacerbated by racism and the pressures of powerlessness, violence against Black women and children often becomes a standard within our communities, one by which manliness can be measured.
I guess revisionism happens in all kinds of directions.
Monday, 19 September 2011
NZ Speculative Fiction Blogging Week: Women in Power
I'm super happy to be able to kill two birds with one stone and write a post that serves as not only a suffrage day post but also part of NZ Speculative Fiction Blogging Week. It's a snapshot of an honours research essay in progress and all my half formed ideas about the texts, so my apologies for this being so 'bitty' and the lack of conclusions - I'm not even going to make an attempt to have the paragraphs naturally flow into each other.
The topic is looking at two novels written the late nineteenth century which portray a future New Zealand in which women hold political office. I'm looking at how far these matched and related to the reality and the conceptions of gender they explore.
The two main texts (their titles link to free ebooks via the NZETC):
Julius Vogel's ‘Anno Domini 2000: Woman’s Destiny’ imagines the world in the year 2000, in which women, by common though not universal assent, are the primary holders of political office simply because they are believed to be better suited to the task. It primarily follows both the political career and romantic exploits of 23 year old Under Secretary for Home Affairs (later Imperial Prime Minister) Hilda Fitzherbert, but large sections of the novel are devoted to explorations of both political systems and technological developments. Vogel was a prime minister of New Zealand, responsible for introducing an earlier (unsuccessful) suffrage bill, and 'Anno Domini' is widely - though inaccurately - considered to the the first NZ science fiction novel (though it was certainly one of the earliest). It received a lot of attention in the year 2000 for the accuracy of its prediction, not just in terms of women's place in society - in his introduction to the rereleased version Roger Robinson lists some of these (I would dispute some of his points, but they are still significant).
Less well known, and considerably more bizarre, is Edward Tregear's 'Hedged with Divinities' which follows the journey of a male protagonist who wakes us from a trance to find that all men (globally) have died of a plague which remains unexplained. In their absence, and in the face of the incompetence and shock of the remaining women – the socio-political institutions and the infrastructure of the country have collapsed, and Jack (the protagonist) sets about restoring the country to a functioning society. However the question of repopulation remains, and he reluctantly agrees to a mass marriage, despite his only interest being in his lover, Nelly, and at the end of the novel, as babies (both male and female) are born to his wives, he sets sail for a remote pacific island with her.
Things I am writing about, or that I've noticed, include:
The topic is looking at two novels written the late nineteenth century which portray a future New Zealand in which women hold political office. I'm looking at how far these matched and related to the reality and the conceptions of gender they explore.
The two main texts (their titles link to free ebooks via the NZETC):
Julius Vogel's ‘Anno Domini 2000: Woman’s Destiny’ imagines the world in the year 2000, in which women, by common though not universal assent, are the primary holders of political office simply because they are believed to be better suited to the task. It primarily follows both the political career and romantic exploits of 23 year old Under Secretary for Home Affairs (later Imperial Prime Minister) Hilda Fitzherbert, but large sections of the novel are devoted to explorations of both political systems and technological developments. Vogel was a prime minister of New Zealand, responsible for introducing an earlier (unsuccessful) suffrage bill, and 'Anno Domini' is widely - though inaccurately - considered to the the first NZ science fiction novel (though it was certainly one of the earliest). It received a lot of attention in the year 2000 for the accuracy of its prediction, not just in terms of women's place in society - in his introduction to the rereleased version Roger Robinson lists some of these (I would dispute some of his points, but they are still significant).
Less well known, and considerably more bizarre, is Edward Tregear's 'Hedged with Divinities' which follows the journey of a male protagonist who wakes us from a trance to find that all men (globally) have died of a plague which remains unexplained. In their absence, and in the face of the incompetence and shock of the remaining women – the socio-political institutions and the infrastructure of the country have collapsed, and Jack (the protagonist) sets about restoring the country to a functioning society. However the question of repopulation remains, and he reluctantly agrees to a mass marriage, despite his only interest being in his lover, Nelly, and at the end of the novel, as babies (both male and female) are born to his wives, he sets sail for a remote pacific island with her.
Things I am writing about, or that I've noticed, include:
Happy Suffrage Day!
Although as AnneE points out some people seem to have neglected to remember what today means, I've been heartened by the tweets and Facebook status updates expressing Happy Suffrage Day sentiments. Not just from women either. Take this example from Idiot/Savant marking the day, and also how far we still have to go to achieve fair political representation for women, even here in Aotearoa New Zealand where women have had the vote for 118 years now.
It's also a timely point to thank our readers, and the blogging team, for the community that we all contribute to here. There have been some tough times since last Suffrage Day, and The Hand Mirroristas still have some work to do on issues identified by readers, so we thank you for your goodwill and feministy comradeness as we work through those behind the scenes.
And if you're in Auckland on Thursday night we would love love love to see you at this year's Suffrage Eve debate - Women's Choice 2011 - 7pm in LibB10, in the basement of the University of Auckland's main library, on Alfred St in the city. If you do the Facebook thing you can find lots of info here, and if not then there are links to helpful stuff like maps here. Oh, and since I wrote that last post we now have a fifth candidate confirmed - Sue Bradford speaking for Mana. Hope to see you there.
Don't mention the day
Yesterday's Sunday Star-Times had a great article by Anthony Hubbard, "The blokes are back in charge", pointing out that women still don't have anything like equal representation in political power and have in fact lost ground. But strangely he didn't once mention that today marks the 118th aniversary of New Zealand women winning the vote.
Not that I expected any of the national media to notice this. Even Kathryn Ryan this morning seems to be ignoring it completely. With no apparent sense of irony, she's hosting a discussion by "two elder statesmen of NZ politics", Michael Cullen and Jim Bolger, on "how MMP really works and its future in New Zealand". No doubt they were going to talk approvingly at some point about how it has increased the number of women MPs. (For a neat video showing its impact, go here.)
Ridiculous dream of the month: a new national holiday marking Suffrage Day, with events all over the country celebrating how much progress NZ has made each year in terms of gender equality and looking at how we can do better still. Nothing like the WC, of course, and no government funding. We know our place.
Hubbard did point out that the WC is the ultimate blokefest. I'd missed the astonishing incident where the Prime Minister of Australia was ordered off the leaders' bus and told to travel on the spouses' bus, but it did seem to sum up very neatly where we've got to: now and then a woman gets to be leader, but she's never allowed to forget that she's out of place, and it will be a very long time before another one is able to make it that far.
Not that I expected any of the national media to notice this. Even Kathryn Ryan this morning seems to be ignoring it completely. With no apparent sense of irony, she's hosting a discussion by "two elder statesmen of NZ politics", Michael Cullen and Jim Bolger, on "how MMP really works and its future in New Zealand". No doubt they were going to talk approvingly at some point about how it has increased the number of women MPs. (For a neat video showing its impact, go here.)
Ridiculous dream of the month: a new national holiday marking Suffrage Day, with events all over the country celebrating how much progress NZ has made each year in terms of gender equality and looking at how we can do better still. Nothing like the WC, of course, and no government funding. We know our place.
Hubbard did point out that the WC is the ultimate blokefest. I'd missed the astonishing incident where the Prime Minister of Australia was ordered off the leaders' bus and told to travel on the spouses' bus, but it did seem to sum up very neatly where we've got to: now and then a woman gets to be leader, but she's never allowed to forget that she's out of place, and it will be a very long time before another one is able to make it that far.
Sunday, 18 September 2011
How to lose your own political identity in one easy step
When I was 16 I worked in a take-away store that sold fried chicken,
and on Saturdays things were invariably slow and quiet during the day.
The manager would usually get stuff done in the office, while the main
cook and the cashier (me) would mainly do prep for the evening shift
when things were busier.* For a while the main cook was a guy called
Peter and we used to have quite interesting discussions about politics.
I remember the specifics of none of what we talked about, except for
the time when Peter told me I should be a Cabinet Minister's wife
someday. I asked why I couldn't be a Cabinet Minister myself.That discussion, nearly two decades ago, has come back to me in the last few days. On Thursday I rang back a journalist at the Herald on Sunday who had left a message saying he wanted to discuss my take on the marginal seats. To put this in context, I generally do a couple of media interviews a month since I was elected to the Puketapapa Local Board, mostly about local issues, but sometimes about feministy political things as a result of work on this very blog you're reading. I've been asked to be on TV panels for political shows (invitations I haven't been able to take up) to add a feminist perspective. All of these media contacts, and ones I've experienced in the past for other hats I've worn, have been to me, as a person in my own right, a politician or a blogger or a spokesperson on an issue.
Back to my conversation with the HoS journo. To start with I thought we were just talking about my take on the marginals. I thought this was a bit strange, as I don't profess to have any particular expertise on the marginals, and had only made some loose predictions a couple of weeks back to aid my calculations for the projected Labour and National caucuses (and the gender analysis of the parties I've been doing for two elections now). Indeed I declined to comment on the Hamilton seats at all because I just don't know enough about them. I would have done the same for most of the other seats on my marginal list, but he really only asked me about Auckland Central and Maungakiekie, which I do know a little about. I said I thought the door-knocking Nikki Kaye had done for six months before election day in 2008 had been key for her victory and that I had heard Jacinda Ardern's team had been canvassing there for ages already, making it difficult to predict. I talked at length about what a good job Carol Beaumont was doing as a local MP in Maungakiekie, and how impressed I had been when we worked on the Pah Rd Warehouse issue together.
Then the penny dropped, when I was asked if I thought it would be demoralising to Labour to have the wife of a candidate saying they would lose some marginals.
Was it naive to think that a reporter might actually want to talk to me about some political analysis I'd written?
Friday, 16 September 2011
The Fear of Fear
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| Photo of train tracks with a several switches or points. This may be a metaphorical representation of the complexity of the psychological journey we must make, or it may just be a random pic I found on Google image search. |
And then, around the time we moved into our current house, a woman reported being sexually assaulted in the (much shorter and lighter) subway to the platform of Closest Train Station (CTS). Around a week later she retracted her complaint. I remember thinking that I would feel so much safer if I could just believe she was a lying slut that made it all up for attention, when in fact all kinds of possibilities kept racing through my mind. Maybe the police treated her like crap. Maybe she was threatened. Maybe her family felt it reflected badly on them and put pressure on her to keep it quiet. Maybe she made up an assault by a stranger to cover up and assault by someone known to her. Maybe she just wanted to stop talking about it.
Fast forward a few months, and we're living about 25 minutes walk from CTS. The bus is much closer and it works well for commuting, but during summer I often prefer the train; the walk is pretty, a train pass is cheaper and when the train works it's a lot quicker. But I have a choice of a train or a bus pass (there's no suitable combined option) and the single bus fare home is expensive (and this sometimes applies year round anyway as trains sometimes run later than the buses). Walking home from the station is no problem if I go straight home from work, but I often don't. Later in the evening I have a couple of options:
The first is to take the train to CTS and then switch to a bus which takes me almost to my house. It costs a little extra but not too much. In theory the bus connects with the train. To be fair, in practice it usually does, but if it doesn't there's the risk that I'll have to (a) wait an hour (that's assuming it's not the last bus, which it often is) (b) walk - and it's really pushing the boundaries of what I can walk whilst carrying a bag or (c) call a taxi, which aside from the expense, can often take a while to arrive. Meanwhile, there's a large open space where the bus stop is which I've already experienced verbal sexual harassment just walking across - waiting there for any period of time does not sound like an enjoyable experience.
The second is to get off the train at SCTS and walk home. Most of the walk is along a reasonably busy road with lots of open space. It's not a problem. But for the first section I have two options. The first - and slightly shorter - one is through a semi industrial area. At night it tends to be most abandoned with the odd passing car. There are effectively no houses. The other is through a largely residential area, where you can usually expect a few people to be wandering around. It's an area of mostly state housing and has a strong reputation for being a neighbourhood with significant gang connections. It's the latter that I feel safer in; I always feel safer when there are people around. But I walk through the deserted semi industrial area, the one that makes my heart race and I'm clutching my hands against my bag strap as I keep thinking I see people jump out of shadows. It's an utterly horrible experience, even though it only lasts five minutes.
And I've only just realised why I make that choice. It's because, if I were attacked (and I don't think that's particularly likely) I believe I would get far more criticism for taking the long way round through a gang neighbourhood at night.
The point of this post is not my public transport woes (though a rant post complete with phone camera photos of Annoying Loud Music Playing Woman is certainly tempting). This is just a subsection of equivalent stories I could tell - I haven't gone into details of how creepy my workplace feels at night, the spate of (attempted) assaults in my city or that a bunch of schoolkids at the bus stop last night seriously beat up another - I only saw the end of it, as someone intervened, but an acquaintance who'd witnessed it was pale and literally shaking.
It's that most of my fears are not of assault. They're fears of the fear of assault, of how unpleasant being scared is, and they're fears of what would happen to me if I were to be assaulted. It's that knowing - through feminist reading or bitter experience - that the streets at dark are not the dangerous place, is not enough for women to be able to fucking get home from the train station at 10pm without it being a fear inducing drama. And that's not just because - even if its incidence is disproportionately cited - stranger rape does happen. It's because we do face street harassment all the fucking time. It's because we've been trained to be afraid - and most worryingly we've been trained to be afraid of people from particular racial and socioeconomic groups. And it's that - if anything does happen - we know we're going to be faced with shit and have every decision we made scrutinised.
I wish being able to relate my actual fears to real possibilities, and know why my fears are problematic, was enough. It's not.
Tuesday, 13 September 2011
Report on NCW's Akl politicians' evening
This politicians' evening featured representatives from the four major parties, plus Mana, who had been sent in advance four questions determined by the branch at a previous meeting, on specific topics which may or may not become apparent as this post progresses. There were no questions from the floor. I'm going to aim to keep this report pretty neutral, so there shouldn't be any unexpected sarcasm.
The politicians attending were:
- National - Claudette Hauiti - candidate for Mangere, 62 on National's list
- Labour - Carol Beaumont - candidate for Maungakiekie, current List MP, 22 on Labour's list
- Greens - Sue Kedgley - current List MP, retiring this year
- ACT - Kath McCabe - candidate for Maungakiekie, no. 9 on ACT's list
- Mana - Sue Bradford - likely to be a candidate, I think, no list announced yet
Monday, 12 September 2011
after the world cup
a quick link to an excellent piece by marama davidson on what happens for maori after the rugby world cup. below is an excerpt, but i really recommend clicking through and reading the whole piece:
I come from a long line of avid rugby supporters. My father, brother and sister have all played to respectable levels and my three and five year old sons play every Saturday morning. A love for theatre and performance also courses through my veins thanks to being born into ‘the industry’ and lastly I claim lineage to the longest line of Ngāpuhi/Te Rarawa and Ngāti Porou upstarts. On Friday night I watched gloriously as my rugby fanatic, drama loving, tāngata whenua staked backgrounds all melded effortlessly. Let me be clear – I was a proud Kiwi that night.
I come from a long line of avid rugby supporters. My father, brother and sister have all played to respectable levels and my three and five year old sons play every Saturday morning. A love for theatre and performance also courses through my veins thanks to being born into ‘the industry’ and lastly I claim lineage to the longest line of Ngāpuhi/Te Rarawa and Ngāti Porou upstarts. On Friday night I watched gloriously as my rugby fanatic, drama loving, tāngata whenua staked backgrounds all melded effortlessly. Let me be clear – I was a proud Kiwi that night.
But what happens when the world is no longer watching?
We will still be left questioning the partnership and sovereignty guaranteed under the Treaty of Waitangi and further advocated for in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Where is that sovereignty given the loud and clear opposition from members of Te Whānau-a-Apanui, Ngāti Porou, Taranaki and Taitokerau Iwi to fracking, mining and deep sea oil drilling? I am not proud of my country for this.
That same partnership can be called into question around the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Act 2011. There is not much to be proud of either in the final Act that was passed or in the race relations damage that fell out of the discourse around the Bill before it was passed.
We will still be left with the questions around justice and a damaged Crown/Tuhoe relationship thanks to the Urewera raids of 2007. I am not proud of our country for that.
Prisms distorting real journalism – Nicky Hager vs the DomPo
Extraordinarily pious DomPo editiorial today, about the “prism” through which Nicky Hager presents his research.
Now some of us find the idea that what we write is influenced by what we believe, think and know really quite ordinary. Not the DomPo:
But the flaw in Hager’s modus operandi is that he amasses what he has learned and then presents it to the public through the prism that best suits his world view, without allowing for the possibility that there might be a plausible explanation for what he has “uncovered”.
The case he builds is thus rarely troubled by opposing opinions and inconvenient facts, realities that journalists in the mainstream media are morally obliged to take into account, and present.
This could be just one of those dry “objectivity is possible” type disagreements, were it not for my own experience as an intern at the DomPo a couple of years back. I shared then my email to the news editor at the time:
Hi Haydon,
Jim Tucker just passed me your email – just wanting to check in re: my internship with the Dominion Post starting on 12th January.
What time would you like us to arrive on the Monday? Anything we need to know about coming in?
I’ve been having a think about story ideas, and will get back to you about this closer to the time, but one I wanted to run past you now at Jim’s suggestion is the Parihaka Peace Festival. It’s on 9, 10, 11 Jan – and full of story opportunities – could do a colour piece, piece about the event’s growing popularity, piece about the history - anything you think might be of interest?
Looking forward to starting.
Thanks,
Sandra Dickson
Whitireia Journalism School
The reply from the DomPo, world-view and prism shining:
Hi Sandra,
9am on Monday is fine. Just report to reception downstairs and someone will come and grab you.
Keep thinking about news story ideas and issues-based stories that you can work up.
I’m not terribly interested in the Parihaka festival – unless there is a hard news angle from it i.e. riot/police raids etc.
Regards,Haydon
I think the world-view on offer here is truly offensive, as I’ve already said. The fact that writing that blog resulted in the DomPo throwing a tantrum and refusing to take any more interns from Whitireia Journalism School looks like the world-view and prism at the DomPo doesn’t brook any challenging.
Which is perhaps why Nicky Hager – just a researcher, not an objective journo, didn’t you know – so gets under the DomPo’s skin.
I haven’t read Nicky’s book, but I’ll take his research over the Dom-Po’s version of journalism any day.
Sunday, 11 September 2011
commemoration
it's september the 11th again, and ten years on from the attack on the various targets in the unites states. every year we have the reminders of this anniversary, the coverage across the media, the images played again on our screen.
the annual reminders around this disaster keep the tragedy fresh in our memories and remind us of those who suffered, the pain and the grief that is obviously still a major factor in the lives of the people most directly affected by it.
yet there is no doubt that this annual commemoration is a political event, it has political and social implications. simply because no other international tragedy has a similar commemoration or media focus. perhaps the bombing of hiroshima and nagasaki comes close - there tends to be a newsclip about commemorations in japan, but this is rarely the first or second item in the news report, nor does it get a full half hour's attention on, say, campbell live.
the anniversary of the massacre at sribrenica does also tend to get some coverage. but not so much the boxing tsunami that took so many lives, nor other massacres of the second world war. subsequent wars barely get a mention, and there isn't a commemoration day where we actually consider those who suffered and listen to their first hand accounts.
don't get me wrong - i'm not saying that we shouldn't remember what happened in america on 11 sept 2001. i'm saying we should also remember those other events, and hear from those others who have suffered and are continuing to suffer. because if we don't, then we treat one set of victims as more important than another, more worthy of our attention than others. and we then feel less inclinded to do something to alleviate their suffering or to even identify with it.
and when we remember 11 september 2001, we should also remember those who have suffered and continue to suffer because of wars that resulted from it. let's hear not just from those in new york but also from those in washington DC, the relatives of those who died in that other plane that went down, and the people of afghanistan and iraq. let's learn what it's like to have bombs and terrorist attacks every other day, because these people too are a casualty of the bombing in america. let's hear about their heroism and courage in the face of horror and tragedy on a massive scale, their sacrifices and humanity.
of course there are plenty of other people who are much better than saying what i want to say. so here are a few links: first from an american, steve almond, on "the decade of magical thinking":
Nobody stood up – in Congress, in the bright studios of our corporate media, in city hall – to make the obvious point that millions of people in other parts of the world live in a state of perpetual danger. And that the events of 9/11 might therefore require of us a greater empathy for those suffering elsewhere, might even nudge us toward a more serious consideration of our own imperial luxuries and abuses, and how these might relate to the deprivations suffered in less fortunate precincts.
That’s not what we talked about. No, we talked about our feelings. Americans were bloated with empathy in the weeks after 9/11. But something fatal was happening: as a nation, we were consenting to pursue vengeance over mercy.
please do go and read the whole piece. here's another by cas mudde on the security implications:
Every event has winners and losers and 9/11 is no exception. More broadly, the larger intelligence-security complex has been the major winner. Throughout the world budgets for intelligence agencies and related security firms (often private) have skyrocketed. In Australia the increase since 2001 has been almost tenfold! At the same time, the influence of these organisations has grown exponentially, as a consequence of the securitisation of politics and the hasty introduction of new and often vague and thus far-reaching laws....
The report emphasises that many non- and semi-democracies have also used post-9/11 anti-terrorism legislation to stifle democratic and non-violent internal opposition, though it fails to report that there are many examples of similar arrests and harassments in established democracies (such as the scandal involving the wiretapping of US peace activists).
there's this piece by glenn greenwald at salon:
This is why there is nothing more dangerous -- nothing -- than allowing this type of power to be exercised without accountability: no oversight, no transparency, no consequences for serious wrongdoing: exactly the state of affairs that prevails in the United States. It's also why there are few things more deeply irresponsible, vapid and destructive than demanding that citizens, activists, and journalists retreat into Permanent Election Mode: transform themselves into partisan cheerleaders who refrain from aggressively criticizing the party that is slightly less awful out of fear that the other party might win an election 14 months away, even when their own party is the one in power. Renouncing the duty of holding accountable political leaders who exercise vast power makes one directly responsible for the abuses they commit.
here's an account by chilean mario nain on the effects of 11 september 1973, or this piece from the guardian on the same topic:
The coup was supported by the US government of Richard Nixon. But after 1977, the Carter administration distanced itself from Pinochet because of his repeated violation of human rights. The regime remained in power for 16 years, becoming one of the longest lasting military dictatorships in Latin America, and it almost certainly introduced more changes than in any other country. Economic policy took a radical neoliberal turn under the influence of Milton Friedman. Allende's nationalisations were reversed and a programme of privatisations was introduced, together with the elimination of tariff barriers; this, alongside the banning of trade unions, produced a dramatic fall in real wages and an equally dramatic increase in business profits.
a commemoration of 11 september gives us the opportunity to contemplate many things. let's hope that we do take the time to widen our internal gaze and think about all those affected in a myriad of ways as a result of events on this particular day.
the annual reminders around this disaster keep the tragedy fresh in our memories and remind us of those who suffered, the pain and the grief that is obviously still a major factor in the lives of the people most directly affected by it.
yet there is no doubt that this annual commemoration is a political event, it has political and social implications. simply because no other international tragedy has a similar commemoration or media focus. perhaps the bombing of hiroshima and nagasaki comes close - there tends to be a newsclip about commemorations in japan, but this is rarely the first or second item in the news report, nor does it get a full half hour's attention on, say, campbell live.
the anniversary of the massacre at sribrenica does also tend to get some coverage. but not so much the boxing tsunami that took so many lives, nor other massacres of the second world war. subsequent wars barely get a mention, and there isn't a commemoration day where we actually consider those who suffered and listen to their first hand accounts.
don't get me wrong - i'm not saying that we shouldn't remember what happened in america on 11 sept 2001. i'm saying we should also remember those other events, and hear from those others who have suffered and are continuing to suffer. because if we don't, then we treat one set of victims as more important than another, more worthy of our attention than others. and we then feel less inclinded to do something to alleviate their suffering or to even identify with it.
and when we remember 11 september 2001, we should also remember those who have suffered and continue to suffer because of wars that resulted from it. let's hear not just from those in new york but also from those in washington DC, the relatives of those who died in that other plane that went down, and the people of afghanistan and iraq. let's learn what it's like to have bombs and terrorist attacks every other day, because these people too are a casualty of the bombing in america. let's hear about their heroism and courage in the face of horror and tragedy on a massive scale, their sacrifices and humanity.
of course there are plenty of other people who are much better than saying what i want to say. so here are a few links: first from an american, steve almond, on "the decade of magical thinking":
Nobody stood up – in Congress, in the bright studios of our corporate media, in city hall – to make the obvious point that millions of people in other parts of the world live in a state of perpetual danger. And that the events of 9/11 might therefore require of us a greater empathy for those suffering elsewhere, might even nudge us toward a more serious consideration of our own imperial luxuries and abuses, and how these might relate to the deprivations suffered in less fortunate precincts.
That’s not what we talked about. No, we talked about our feelings. Americans were bloated with empathy in the weeks after 9/11. But something fatal was happening: as a nation, we were consenting to pursue vengeance over mercy.
please do go and read the whole piece. here's another by cas mudde on the security implications:
Every event has winners and losers and 9/11 is no exception. More broadly, the larger intelligence-security complex has been the major winner. Throughout the world budgets for intelligence agencies and related security firms (often private) have skyrocketed. In Australia the increase since 2001 has been almost tenfold! At the same time, the influence of these organisations has grown exponentially, as a consequence of the securitisation of politics and the hasty introduction of new and often vague and thus far-reaching laws....
The report emphasises that many non- and semi-democracies have also used post-9/11 anti-terrorism legislation to stifle democratic and non-violent internal opposition, though it fails to report that there are many examples of similar arrests and harassments in established democracies (such as the scandal involving the wiretapping of US peace activists).
there's this piece by glenn greenwald at salon:
This is why there is nothing more dangerous -- nothing -- than allowing this type of power to be exercised without accountability: no oversight, no transparency, no consequences for serious wrongdoing: exactly the state of affairs that prevails in the United States. It's also why there are few things more deeply irresponsible, vapid and destructive than demanding that citizens, activists, and journalists retreat into Permanent Election Mode: transform themselves into partisan cheerleaders who refrain from aggressively criticizing the party that is slightly less awful out of fear that the other party might win an election 14 months away, even when their own party is the one in power. Renouncing the duty of holding accountable political leaders who exercise vast power makes one directly responsible for the abuses they commit.
here's an account by chilean mario nain on the effects of 11 september 1973, or this piece from the guardian on the same topic:
The coup was supported by the US government of Richard Nixon. But after 1977, the Carter administration distanced itself from Pinochet because of his repeated violation of human rights. The regime remained in power for 16 years, becoming one of the longest lasting military dictatorships in Latin America, and it almost certainly introduced more changes than in any other country. Economic policy took a radical neoliberal turn under the influence of Milton Friedman. Allende's nationalisations were reversed and a programme of privatisations was introduced, together with the elimination of tariff barriers; this, alongside the banning of trade unions, produced a dramatic fall in real wages and an equally dramatic increase in business profits.
a commemoration of 11 september gives us the opportunity to contemplate many things. let's hope that we do take the time to widen our internal gaze and think about all those affected in a myriad of ways as a result of events on this particular day.
Picket at District Court. Auckland. Monday
WHAT: A picket in response to the acquittal of a sexual offender WHEN: 12.30pm - 1.30pm, Monday 12th September
WHERE: Outside Auckland District Court, 69 Albert St, CBD, Auckland
WHO: Anyone angry about the outcome in this case (TRIGGER WARNINGS for link), who wants to get across the vital message that sexual abuse is not acceptable. (Clarification: this is not about the name suppression aspect of the case, so the focus will not be on that issue)
Facebook event page here
Media relase from the organisers, the Coalition for the Safety of Women and Children:
Comedian remains a threat to children: picket organised for Auckland District Court on Monday
“The comedian who admitted sexually abusing his daughter and received no conviction and no treatment remains a threat to children” says Leonie Morris, spokesperson for the Coalition for the Safety of Women and Children.
Judge Cunningham should have convicted the comedian and directed him to attend sexual offender treatment. Treatment through providers such as SAFE dramatically reduces the likelihood of reoffending.
To protest the decision, the Coalition is holding a picket outside the Auckland District Court at lunchtime on Monday from 12.30 to 1.30. Its purpose is to remind the judges and the public that sexual assault is unacceptable. Everyone who commits a sexual offence must be held accountable.
It is outrageous that the man’s profession as a comedian and his ability to 'make people laugh' contributed to Judge Cunningham’s decision.
The fact that he has got off scot-free with no legal consequences trivialises the important issue of child sexual abuse.
An Auckland study of child sexual abuse has found that
• 23.5% of Auckland women reported a history of child sexual abuse.
• The median age of victims at the time of the first sexual abuse was 9 years.
• In 50% of cases abuse occurred on multiple occasions.
• In the majority of cases perpetrators were male family members.
• Victims of child sexual abuse are twice as likely as non-victims to experience later intimate partner violence.
• The cost of child sexual abuse in New Zealand was estimated to be $2.6 billion per year.
• 91% of child sexual offences are not reported to the Police.
The outcome of this case sends the message that offenders can escape from the consequences of committing illegal and deplorable acts of sexual violence. It also demonstrates that the protection of our children is secondary to the continuation of an offender’s career.
This court decision undermines the work of the Government and the agencies who highlight that violence against girls and women is not okay and that alcohol is never an excuse for criminal behaviour.
More info about the Coalition:
The Auckland Coalition for the Safety of Women and Children was developed in 2006 to strategise and work toward achieving the ultimate goal of safety for women and children in Auckland.We have undertaken a number of innovative activities including a competition for young people to make a video for you-tube on violence against young women and a community development programme involving small businesses making a commitment to speaking out against domestic violence.
Members:
Auckland Sexual Abuse HELP, Auckland Women’s Centre, Blow the Whistle on Violence, Homeworks Trust, Inner City Women’s Group, Mental Health Foundation, Mt Albert Psychological Services Ltd, Rape Prevention Education – Whakatu Mauri, SHINE Safer Homes in NZ Everyday, Supportline Women’s Refuge, Women’s Health Action Trust
Many thanks to Leonie for sending this through.
Saturday, 10 September 2011
Friday, 9 September 2011
Embracing rugby the game, rejecting Rugby the culture
In 1987 I was in Standard 4 at Glenfield Primary School, on Auckland's North Shore. I was obsessed with rugby.Most kids at my school were - girls and boys alike. We had our own mini World Cup at school, with a mixture of kids on each team in terms of age, size, ability and gender. It was a very similar game to what later became popular as touch rugby. I was captain of the Irish team and the hooker, because no one else wanted to do that and it seems the good leader thing to take what people seemed to view as the crappest position. Everyone wanted to wear number 9, and be the next David Kirk. The hero worship of Kirk only increased after that plucky try in the final, and the immortal picture of him with the hallowed* Webb Ellis Cup and his black eye and everything. Such a shame, although utterly unsurprising, that he turned out to be a Tory.
My parents were at that game, against France at Eden Park, and I was pretty peeved, for a very long time, that they had not spent the $50 to get me a ticket on the Terraces too. Ireland was knocked out early on too, so we never played more than one match in the school tournament.
In my early teens I covered a wall of my bedroom with rugby pictures and paraphenalia. There were tickets from games, mostly at Onewa, pictures of players I thought were particularly talented (Frank Bunce, Walter Little, a young Andrew Mehrtens, Eric Rush, Terry Wright), and even a tea towel with all the rugby jerseys of the different provinces on it. My dad and I used to go to games together, usually Bledisloe or Ranfurly Shield matches, and I often went to Harbour games with a friend's dad. The aim of my young life was to see North Harbour win the NPC at Onewa (whilst preferably retaining the Log of Wood). My heart was broken at that awful final in 1994, Harbour losing all discipline, the crowd drunk and violent, and Auckland's captain, Zinzan Brooke, far from gracious in victory.
That was the beginning of the end of my love affair with rugby. In the mud at Onewa, knowing how hard I had worked to get a ticket, and noticing how most of the people there were just getting boozed and not even watching the match, disillusionment started to seep in around the edges. I think that was probably the first time I really noticed the culture around rugby and consciously made the connection with the game itself.
I was at a co-ed school then, in seventh form, and had had some trouble from a couple of first XV players the previous year, but it appeared that they were untouchable because of their rugby-related status. I was outraged in 1993 when the First XV boys were given time off school to see the Lions tour; where was the opportunity for rugby-mad girls to go? And when was the top netball team supported to see the Silver Ferns play?
All of this stuff was coming together in my mind, and by the time I was in second year at university, 1996, my interest was waning. When Super Rugby came on the scene around that time and my Harbour players ended up in the Waikato Chiefs even my staunch parochial connection with my team began to dissolve. My Harbour scarf, cherished and worn constantly through the season, went missing a year or so later, stolen by a student politics adversary I have long suspected. Its loss was grieved at the time, but it was a symbol of the beginning of the end of the end of the love affair that was Rugby & Me.
Now I can no longer entirely divorce my rugby-watching from many of the problematic aspects of rugby culture. Coley has written a powerful post about one aspect of that, the violence against women that, for her, is part of it all. And while I think it is possible to still enjoy the sport of something that has so much macho bullshit attached to it, all of this has hampered my ability to really follow the game. I probably couldn't name five All Blacks now, a far cry from the days when I would write out whole NPC teams from memory when I was bored in Biology.
I'll watch the opening ceremony tonight, for the history of the moment and the pageantry of the spectacle, and I'll watch some of the games too. I'm not really picking a team to support. I have too much cynicism about how the players are pumped up into modern gods to feel comfortable cheering for anyone. Maybe there will be a brave, largely amateur side from a country without our rugby culture that appeals?
I don't judge anyone a Bad Feminist for watching, for enjoying, for feeling differently about this from me. I respect that you may embrace the Rugby World Cup and festoon your car with flags. I admit to feeling the sense of excitement as I move around Auckland, and I do rather like it. Let's just accept that many things are fraught for feminists because we live in a patriarchal society, and you can cheer on the All Blacks, and I will sing along to wife-beater John Denver's songs, and that's all ok, as long as we don't embrace the problematic bits too.
I hope that Rugby the culture isn't the winner on any day throughout this tournament, or beyond.
* But then actually brand new to rugby.
** Seriously lousy - they mostly played other school's second XVs and didn't win much.
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