Saturday 26 May 2012

some good news

i had to share this because it's awesome:






Vodafone Warriors chairman Bill Wavish has today welcomed the appointment of Rotorua academic and community leader Donna Mariana Grant as the first woman on the club’s board.

i congratulate her on her achievement.  although it could be said that recognising her continues to give prominence to men's sport over women's, something that is already a huge problem in our society, it's still a breaking of a major barrier & i'm sure she'll have a lot to contribute.  i wonder if we'll ever see a woman on the baord of the NZRU?


in other happy news, the press council has ruled against paul holmes' racist waitangi day rant:

14. When the statements are considered in context, a reasonable reader would assume they are referring to Maori as a race rather than to just the protestors at Waitangi. While there may be truth in the “hopeless failure” of some Maori to educate their children and stop bashing their babies, it is inaccurate to make the allegation against Maori as a race.
15. The inaccuracies upon which some of the opinions are based also make the opinions so extreme that in the Council’s view they go beyond what is acceptable and become a gratuitous offence to Maori as a race.
16. It is because the allegations against Maori as a race are inaccurate, and the opinions are extreme to the extent of being a gratuitous offence to Maori, that the complaints are upheld.


while i'd like to have seen them make the point that some non-maori are equally "hopeless failures", it's still great to have the ruling out.  i'm not sure that this means anything in terms of penalties for mr holmes or for the paper.  it would be nice if there was some.  regardless, there is still the moral victory of knowing that there are at least some standards to which the press are being held, and that mr holmes' nastiness clearly breached them.

5 comments:

Brett Dale said...

Well done to The Warriors, a true community team and they give so much back.

There are other sporting bodies that have woman in high places on their board's, Basketball for example.

Woman's sport gets treated badly here, always has done, from Erin Baker in the 80's to our female footballers.

For myself one of the big issues is what female sports our media decides to show, and it 's my opinion that Netball is the worst thing to happen to female sport in our history.

It walks all over anything else, and are other female sports people who are playing global sports, dont get a look in.

Take a look at the biggest sporting story of the week, the lift in Netball, if you showed this to New Zealand's female basketballers and volleyballers playing in comps, overseas, they would crack up laughing.

You see we have female sportspeople with a vertical leap, who dont need to be lifted to jump to block a shot.

But will our media ever give coverage to the great, Angela Marino (one of our great sportspeople here) of course not.

Has anyone hear heard of her?

Will the likes of Micaela Cocks,Monique Williams,Katie Bowen become households names?

Of course not, because our media has an invest in promoting womans sports as "Netball" a sport for girls.

As soon as our sporting media grows up, then woman's sports will be taken seriously, at the moment it's not.

Acid Queen said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
stargazer said...

AQ, you know very well i've asked you not to comment on my posts. i'd ask you to please respect that.

Moz said...

Stargazer, I think it's better to have a woman on the board than not. I mean, the boards of women's sports and teams often have men on them (and sometimes also women :( ). So good on her and them.

Re PH, now all we need is a press council with some teeth rather than the wet bus ticket they have now.

Brett, Neroli Fairhall remains my favourite. Anyone in a wheelchair who makes it to the Olympics is astonishing. Also Kathy Lynch.

Anonymous said...

Men's sports are more popular than women's sports with most people (including most women) who watch sport - that's just a fact of life.

But so what? I don't understand your statement that the prominence of men's sports over women's sports is a huge problem for our society.

To change this you'd have to change men's and women's physiology; you'd have to somehow change peoples natural desire to watch men's sports over women's sports, i.e., you'd have to change reality. Stuart L