Stick and stones may break my bones, but verbal banter haunts me

It's fair to say Andy Haden and I have different views on the world, sharing only an enjoyment of the athletic.  But when he described high levels of fear of homophobia from lesbian, gay and bisexual sportspeople in New Zealand as a problem that "doesn't really exist" because it's just about "verbal banter" I found myself unable to respond until now.

Out in the Fields talked to 9,500 sportspeople in New Zealand, the UK, Ireland, Canada and Australia.  The headline results - that queer people play sport, but find it unwelcoming - is not major news.  The fact that 78% of New Zealand athletes had witnessed or experienced homophobia in sport is also unsurprising.  More gay men in New Zealand (not sure about bisexual men) don't play sports because of early negative experiences than queer men in other places.  And while our homophobic assaults of queer athletes are lower than other places, one in six gay men (again, bi men have disappeared) have been physically assaulted here.

It's taken me a while to write about this, because it's my story too.  Women's sport is easily the site of the most queer-hating set of experiences I've had, and perversely, at times the most queer affirming.

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When I was 16, I made the Wellington Women's Under 20 Cricket Team.  I chased the ball hard and I was thrilled to make the team since I wasn't very good.  When I came back with my new Wellington jumper on, I was full of pride.

"Did she try and touch you?"  my teammates asked.  I didn't know what they meant.  Gradually it dawned on me, after other questions, that the woman doling out the jumpers was in a relationship with a woman, and the other girls in my team thought she might be trying to grope us.  It didn't make much sense to me; I was tiny, very pre-pubescent, and far more interested in playing the perfect cover drive than being sexual with anyone.  The key protagonists in this questioning have all been in relationships with women as adults.
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When I was 17, I made my first full Wellington team and went away to tournament.  Our coach held a competition every night - we had to vote on the ugliest player in the other team.  He also warned us, repeatedly, about the lezzies who might try and "turn us".  The two things became combined, and most of the team participated.  No one in our team was out, though several players later had relationships with women.  I didn't take part, but nor did I challenge it.
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When I was 18, I came out as bisexual, everywhere.  I'd also by this time, grown a bit, gone through puberty, and was quite a lot better at cricket.  I was in the New Zealand Under 20 team and captained the Wellington Under 20 team to our second year as national champs.

Then I was dropped as captain.  The woman replacing me led us to placing eighth of eight teams.  The gossip on the field was my shaved head was the problem, and not the image Wellington wanted. 
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Aged 19, I'm asked to coach the Wellington Secondary Schoolgirls team.  They play wonderful cricket, beating every team they play.  Their team is full of homophobic abuse, and before the first game I ask the whole team if they want to play for New Zealand.  They all do.  I tell them that if that's the case, they need to change the way they talk about lesbians and bisexual women, since they will have queer teammates and captains.  The (straight) captain and (straight) vice captain take this on, stop the homophobic bullying, and three of the team come out.  One goes on to set up the first queer support group in a secondary school, and many play top representative cricket - including two for New Zealand - for years.
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On tour with the New Zealand Under 23 team.  Our coach is a woman in a relationship with another woman, so there is no homophobic bullying, but I am the only out woman in the team.  In one game, a group of queer fans cheer us on enthusiastically, and when we walk off the field one runs up and kisses me and says "thank you."  Everyone, including our coach, pretends it hasn't happened.  Years later, another four women in that team have come out.
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I'm away with my first-class team, and I'm sharing a room with another player I know is the captain's partner, despite the fact they are not out.  The first night she tells me she might hang out in the captain's room for a bit.  I tell her I don't mind if she wants to stay there, and that I won't tell anyone.  She spends the tournament with her partner at night.  A year later, they tell me they have hidden their relationship for 15 years because they believed it would stop them playing international cricket.  They come out to everyone else in the team that year.
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I'm bowling, in the nets.  The coach of the Wellington team tells me as I run in: "the problem with women's cricket is, too many hairy-legged dykes play it."

I say, "actually, I wish there were more hairy-legged queer women playing."  I bowl another off-spinner. This is the same man, in his late twenties, that I carry a very drunk schoolgirl away from a year later, after he's pulled her into his bedroom at a party.  His teammate who helps agrees with me that we've stopped a rape.
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My first-class team is batting, and we're talking about a high-profile television announcer who has just come out as bisexual.  "She looks bisexual," says our coach.  "What does looking bisexual mean?" I scoff at him.  "Do I look bisexual?"  I'm still shaving my head.

"Yes", he says aggressively.  "Do I look bisexual?" says another teammate, a Māori woman with long hair, who's been bringing her girlfriend to every game.

"Yes", he says, a bit more quietly.  "Do I look bisexual?" says another teammate (the Secondary Schools vice-captain from incident above).  She's blonde, petite, very conventionally femininely attractive.

"No", he says, horrified.  "Are you......?"  She refuses to answer.  He puts away his homophobia and biphobia.  It's after this incident that the couple above come out to the whole team.
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These are some of the highlights, off the top of my head.  The coaches I'm mentioning are different men.  I love sport, and I played serious representative cricket for more than 15 years, both here and in England.  The teams that were safe from homophobia and biphobia were only that way when women in positions of power made them so, by coming out, and by challenging homophobic and biphobic bullying and abuse.  It's not linear progress either - in my last season of senior cricket in Wellington, not that long ago, homophobic abuse from men in the club was ever-present.  At the prizegiving that year, a drunk player grabbed his bits and told many of my teammates they just needed a good fuck.  They were intimidated enough to leave the public event.

So, dear Andy, you can dismiss homophobia and biphobia stopping queer athletes playing sport, or making us feel scared when we do as "verbal banter" if you like.  But you're wrong.  Sport is almost like the final frontier - it's ok to be racist, sexist and homophobic there in ways that are legally challengeable if they happen in other places.  It's about time New Zealand sports codes made it clear how much they care about their queer athletes.  We deserve to feel safe while we play.

Guestie: Another Fine Myth

Big thanks to Deb for sending this in - very topical! 

It had all the ingredients of a classic myth.

The young, astonishingly beautiful blonde hero pitted against the Forces of Evil: AKA King Larry the Ruthless and his henchmen Ozzie the Spit and Cunning Ainslie. The little New Zealand battlers versus Wealthy America. And we all loved it. Against all odds it seemed that our young hero would win. But of course, as the saying goes; old age and treachery will overcome youth and skill – and so it unfolded true to form.

The reality is we’ve been sold another male myth with the Americas Cup. Both teams are middle class white men. Both support crews are comprised mainly of NZers and both boats were built by NZers in Aotearoa New Zealand. And our dashing young hero is in fact a very rich man, who will continue to get richer no matter if he wins or loses, playing with other rich white men’s boats.

While our nation has been feasting on this bloke-fest, a true group of little battlers have succeeded against all odds on the world stage. A women’s team, The Football Ferns, claimed a memorable 1-0 victory over Brazil in the Valais Cup at Chatel-St-Denis a few days ago; making history as the first NZ team to beat world champions Brazil ever. That’s EVER. It hardly made the news.

So whilst New Zealand prepares the mourning rituals for the guys, let us not forget that we are a nation of strong women. WE win. We win every time a woman succeeds. Go you good woman thing! We rock.

Event: Sevens Safer Space

Need a space to chill out during the Sevens weekend in Central Wellington? Having problems with noise, drama or harassment? Want a friendly, safer space to hang during your night out on the town?

Come along to Glover Park (on Ghuznee and Garret St), where we will be holding a chill out zone for those seeking some peace and quiet during the busiest weekend in Wellington. There will be music, games, refreshments, zine-making and all around good times!

Please note: This is designed to be a queer/trans*/women/child friendly, accessible space. Racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and other forms of oppression will not be tolerated. We ask that all those using the zone respect the guidelines, and make it welcoming for those in need. 

Today (Saturday) 15:00 until 22:00, Glover Park, Wellington. The space will be in a wheelchair accessible section of the park.

Imagining a world without sexual violence

Cycling and camping alone, I am confronted regularly with our gendered world.  Not just because people are surprised, or impressed, when they see me struggling up a hill or mountain on my laden bike.  Not just because people often seem uncomfortable with the fact that, after cycling for six hours, I don't care in the slightest if I'm dirty or unkempt - I just want to make piles of food to fill my belly.  Not just because those piles of food will sometimes provoke incredulous questions: "You're eating all of that?  By yourself?"  Not even just because sometimes men older than I am (though this happens less often these days) tell me "I'd never let a daughter of mine do that....."

True stories.

In all of these cycling experiences, my gender is, I believe, relevant.  But it's not the constant, the only question I've been asked in every country I've cycle-toured, by all genders, all ages, and many races.

"But do you feel safe, travelling alone? Aren't you scared, of, you know, being alone?"

My take on these queries is not that they are wondering if my precarious sanity will survive so much meditative time, because when I reply time alone in beautiful parts of the world is what I crave, the question becomes more specific.

What is really being asked here - and often becomes explicit - is "aren't you worried you'll be raped?"

I don't answer this with telling one kind of truth - sexual violence statistics - that of course I'm more likely to be raped by a man I know.  That I'm more likely to be raped in my home or his, than in my tent in a national park by a lake somewhere.

I tell another kind of truth.

Yes, on a handful of occasions in twenty years of solo cycling trips I've felt scared, really scared.  Sometimes I've been alone and literally no one knew where I was and I allowed the fear many (maybe most) women live with around sexual violence to flourish.  Once, camping alone by a river in England, that was because two men were outside my tent discussing coming in.  I pretended I was with someone:  "David, David, wake up, there's someone outside the tent!"

They ran away.

But even if I have been scared those handful of times - and I'm not diminishing those fears, they were real and debilitating - I don't want to stop doing something I love so much.  I don't want to constrain my life, to make it smaller, because of sexual violence or the fear of sexual violence.

So I keep cycling, alone and in beautiful places.  Every cycling trip I make, I come home refreshed and rejuvenated, my world a little larger.  When I meet other women cyclists, we talk about hills and campsites, the sea and our bikes.  We don't talk about mistressing our fears.

When I talk to other women, many, too many to count, tell me they are going to travel alone one day.  Fathers tell me they want their daughters to be able to see the world solo.  We are talking about imagining a world without sexual violence - it's far from all we need, but it's part of the picture.

Saying no to the All Blacks

Another rugby tour, another allegation of sexual assault by a rugby player, this time Junior All Black Nathan Harris, accused of raping a woman in a South African hotel after losing a big rugby match.

It's worth paying attention to how this case is reported - whatever the outcome - because it's instructive of how "mainstream" New Zealand deals with sexual violence.

Firstly, there was point blank denial:

The New Zealand Rugby Union has spoken with 3 News and completely denies their players were involved. 

The same day, the story changed somewhat, with NZ Rugby Union general manager acknowledging that there had been some kind of discussion with Police before the Baby All Blacks left South Africa and that the NZRU will co-operate fully:

“Neither team management, nor NZRU have been contacted by the local authorities since then or advised of any further issues or inquiries. If we are contacted we will cooperate and help in any way we can.  The team has just returned from South Africa, and we will discuss the matter further with team management in due course.   Our understanding of the matter is that the allegation is focused on one player.” 

It's at this point we also find out that the woman concerned had come to the hotel to meet player/s, and that she may have been drunk.  Neither of these things mean, of course, that she could not be raped - because rape is simply about non-consensual intercourse - but nonetheless, we know these things now.

The next day, we hear more from the NZRU.  It turns out one of their players was actually asked for a DNA sample before leaving South Africa.  We also find out the woman concerned cannot remember what happened, and cannot identify the alleged rapist.  If this is true of course, it makes any sexual contact at all illegal.  In South Africa, as in New Zealand, it is not possible to give consent if you are so drunk or incapacitated by drugs that your judgment is negatively impacted.  This is tricky in court - how drunk is too drunk? But if someone says what happened to them wasn't what they wanted, and they are so drunk they cannot remember, consent is definitely compromised.

At this point, we also find out that the NZRU see this allegation as "as serious as it gets" with Chief Executive Steve Tew discussing his concerns about Junior All Blacks:

They get an awful lot of advice, and the dangers of being in a foreign country where you put yourself at risk if you make poor decisions and obviously this young man has made a poor decision and he's now dealing with it.

So the "dangers of being in a foreign country" include making "poor decisions" which you have to deal with afterwards.  Too true.  I'm just not sure I've heard forcing someone else to do sexual things they don't want to do described in this way before.

It's clear at this point who we should have sympathy with - and in fact the player concerned is described as "very upset", what with all the danger in the foreign country I guess.

A couple of days later, the player concerned tells the world who he is, and that he's innocent, but that he shouldn't have let the woman alleging rape into his room.  This is interesting, because now we no longer have a sexual assault case hinging on identification.  Perhaps he knew his DNA test was going to positively confirm sexual contact.  Now, this case is all about consent.

The Baby All Black is innocent, he tells us, and he's sorry he invited the woman back to his room, sorry he let down his team-mates, and sorry his family are having a hard time.  He is hoping for a "good outcome" so he can "get on with his life." 

Another article the same day talks about the "pressure cooker" situation players selected to play rugby for New Zealand face, and notes that some players "transgress".  We also start to get character references from neighbours about what a nice bloke the alleged rapist is.

Can you be a "nice bloke" and rape someone?  Of course you can - otherwise we would have far fewer rapes in New Zealand.  They are not all carried out by scary dudes with "Rapist" tatooed on their forehead.  They are mostly carried out by men who do not recognise, or decide not to recognise, when positive consent has NOT been given.  Alcohol is a factor the majority of the time - it makes it harder to resist, makes it easier to overcome internal barriers around over-riding someone else's wishes, and it makes it more likely afterwards that alleging rape will be difficult, precisely because recall will be diminished and people will consider the victim's drinking makes them partially culpable.

I have some prevention tips for the All Blacks, and they are not about danger in foreign countries.  It's time we started preparing our sportsmen to think about their responsibilities as role models for masculinity.  It's time we started openly talking about consent - what it looks like, how you negotiate it - and insisting it is part of every sexual encounter.  And it's time we demand that the All Blacks, our prime brand, representing all of us in Aotearoa New Zealand, understand consent and respectful relating so well that we never hear another rape or domestic violence allegation made against any of them, ever again.

Other countries do it.  The US and Canada provide sexual violence prevention training for male athletes.  So does rugby league in Australia.  It's not good enough for the NZRU to lie, then claim to take seriously, then excuse allegations of sexual violence.  It's not Andy Haden's world anymore.

Rugby World Cup grieving

So you know when you're in the place you go to have your hair cut, and two of the women who work there (both recent migrants to Aotearoa from parts of the world which do not play rugby) spend the time they are washing your hair talking about disappointing French back-play?

Or you get a status update (yes, I do check occasionally, my poor neglected Facebook friends) from the stroppiest of your sports-hating feminist mates about how much they are looking forward to the final?

I'm not going to bore those who hate rugby with why I love sport. I'm certainly never going to excuse the cultural supports to violence which rugby provides.

But I think this tournament has allowed many people living here to enjoy identifying with all the rugby-playing countries they are affiliated to through whakapapa. My Newtown street is covered in Manu Samoa and Tongan flags, I have friends with Irish and Welsh flags flying proudly, and of course the Silver Fern is everywhere. Given how full of hate flag waving can be, our ability, as a country, to hold these complex belongings is something to be deeply proud of. I remember living in Lewisham, London, during one football Euro Champs, Turkey beating England, and the Turkish laundromat around the corner being trashed beyond repair because clearly being both Turkish and English was impossible.

This tournament, on a very personal level, has also allowed me to grieve for my sports-mad mother, who died in July, in beautiful ways. My first sports memory, aged seven, is my Mum jumping on top of our sofa, screaming "Batty, Batty" at the top of her voice while rhythmically clapping her hand to her thigh, during a famous All Blacks victory over the British Lions at Athletic Park. Mum lived without full motor control of her left hand side, in constant pain - watching her move atypically like that started my love affair with sport.

Every game I've watched this Rugby World Cup, I've thought of Mum. Missed her explaining the history of every anthem before the game, because nationhood fascinated her. Missed her excitement at wonderful play, and her teasing my father about his one-eyed Cantabrian pride. She would have loved all the upsets - Tonga beating France, Ireland beating Australia, and perhaps most of all, Canada, her country of birth, beating Tonga.

This Rugby World Cup has been a route in to grieving with my father. He is bereft, in so much agony I just want to hold him until it's gone. He is living on automatic pilot, as best he can, while he tries to imagine and live life without the person he loved for more than 43 years. The best times Dad and I have had over the last couple of months have been watching rugby games "Mum would have loved that." The space of the games has allowed my emotionally reserved father to talk about the gap where Mum used to be without being more open than he can manage.

I'm sure it's not what the International Rugby Board had in mind, but it's made this RWC poignant and special for me.

If it wasn't for those pesky women leaders we would have won the World Cup

Circulating on Twitter last night was a spectacularly absurd conclusion of a highly erroneous nature;  namely that no country with a female leader has ever won the Rugby World Cup.

The All Black's lost in 1999, 2003 and 2007 because we had Jenny Shipley and then Helen Clark as Prime Minister.  Nevermind that we also lost in 1991 and 1995 under male leadership.  The Wallabies lost last night because Julia Gillard is their current PM.  Ireland lost in 1987 because Mary Robinson was their President.  England lost in 1987 because Thatcher was in power.  There are no other stats to examine because of the 12 teams that have made the quarter finals or above in the entire history of the RWC, these are the only female leaders of these countries, since 1987.  So the vast vast majority of rugby teams who have failed to win the Rugby World Cup have done so under male political leadership.

Correlation is not causation.  And actually it's not good enough to play anti-feminist bingo and say you are joking when what you are doing is perpetuating misogyny.

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.

Sportswomen, what sportswomen?

Tomorrow there's a thrilling final of a Trans-Tasman sporting competition happening. Two teams, stacked with internationals from Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica and Samoa, will be battling out a fixture which pits the Australian (unbeaten all season) side against the New Zealand (first time in the finals in four years) side.

The best player in the league is playing for the Aussie team, lining up against a 19 year old kiwi who has impressed beyond all expectations this year. The best player in the Commonwealth Games final, whose last play won New Zealand a gold medal, will be lining up for the kiwi team, alongside the Samoan shooter with the best conversion rate (93%) in the league.

And this is what the sports page on Stuff looks like today:

Marina Erakovic and the New Zealand women's football team on up there. Yay.

But where's the bloody netball, Stuff? Go the Mystics.....

violence is not an adequate response

surely i'm not the only one who had never heard of benji marshall until his appearing in the news for allegedly [just for you, graeme] assaulting someone outside a macdonalds in sydney. normally, this is not the kind of thing i'm remotely interested in, but mr marshall is claiming that he was provoked through the use of racial slurs being hurled at him.

while mr marshall is being defended by some, while others think he needs to develop a better response to such a situation, one of the worst pieces i've read would have to be this one by steve deane:

That Kiwis captain Benji Marshall would put himself in a position to end up in a punch-up at McDonald's at 3am a week before the NRL season begins is a major surprise.

seriously? "put himself in a position"?? mr marshall isn't actually the victim here, although he is allegedly the victim of verbal abuse. he should not put in himself in a position to be abused? presumably this means he should not go out anywhere where he might come across a racist. i wonder how one could be sure of finding such a place. mr deane no doubt means that he just shouldn't go out. he certainly shouldn't go out onto a field of play, because from what i've heard, there's a lot of racist sledging that happens in sports matches, and he wouldn't want to put himself in a position to end up in a punch-up, right?

surely the proposition that anyone should be able to go anywhere at any time without being subjected to racial harassment is not a difficult or unreasonable one. it can't be so difficult to understand that mr marshall didn't put himself in any kind of position. it was the people who allegedly abused him who are fully responsible for their actions and who should be held responsible for them.

having said that, i don't actually have any time for mr marshall's response, being to allegedly punch someone in the face. i don't accept mr devlin's views (linked to above) that:

In the world where us boys live, Benji Marshall "being baited by a group of up to 10 people (allegedly) calling him a black cee and telling him to eff off back to NZ" would appear to have simply introduced some drunk thug to an age-old masculine concept called "got what you deserved".

If you'd prefer an attitude a little less caveman, then BM was acting in self-defence, protecting himself (and probably his friends) from a bunch of bullying cowards in circumstances that could've so easily spiralled into something way more serious.

this kind attitude really worries me. we already see a relatively large amount of (off-field) violence from male sportspeople. often this violence is targetted against women, and often we see the victim being blamed for provoking the violence against her. i totally agreed with the move in nz to remove provocation as a defence for violence, and i don't believe it's any kind of excuse here.

it could be said that the violent culture around support, and especially around various codes of rugby, provoked the racial outburst. plenty has been written about the need to have a strong, aggressive attitude in top-level competitive sport. image is crucial and the image cultivated by many in these sports is a tough and confrontational one.

i totally understand the dynamics of racism and bigotry. i know how it can wear a person down, when they have to suffer countless small incidents. i appreciate that tolerance levels can be stretched, and at some point a person will snap. there is a power structure around mr marshall which makes it almost impossible for him to deal effectively with racism within his sports code, on the field and in the locker room. trying to expose that culture and hold racists to account comes with significant consequences and could lead to him having to leave the sport if he persisited. i understand the feelings of powerlessness which would lead to him having a violent response in a particular situation where he did actually have some power to respond.

but the fact is that violence from our top-level athletes is too often excused, and not dealt with seriously. to excuse it in this case makes it so much easier to excuse it in others. to say that violence in this case is ok is to undermine other non-violent responses. it also encourages violence as a reasonable response to verbal abuse, which can only lead to an escalation in violence over the longer term.

mr marshall should not have to suffer racial abuse. the answer to that lies outside of his hands. until the leadership in his sports code takes a much stronger stance, until society and societal structures take a much stronger stance, it is very difficult for mr marshall to change the environment in which he lives as an individual. but it does need to be changed, both for the racism and the violence.

to deal with the latter, it is right that mr marshall be charged and if found guilty, face the consequences of his action. the question then remains: how to effectively deal with racial abuse and hold those who dish it out accountable for their actions? it needs to happen at all levels, within the sport and outside of it.

pay them for their work

i hear there's going to be this rugby world cup thing next year. well actually i've heard about as much about it as i want to, and there's quite a while to go yet. yes, i'm one of those who's just not into rugby, so not enthused about the mayhem and madness that will take over the country for some weeks next year.

i understand this event is supposed bring $2.1 billion worth of economic benefit to the country, although there seem to be conflicting opinions on that. the benefits seem to be mostly indirect, in terms publicity & promotion of nz as a tourist destination.

what ever way you look at it, this is a commercial venture. it's certainly not a charitable one, and someone, somewhere will be making a heap of money from this. i suspect that "someone" will be the IRB, if other international events are anything to go by. and the tv networks. and the construction sector & hospitality people. if there wasn't money to be made, the thing wouldn't be happening every four years, after all.

so i really don't understand, in amongst all the hundreds of millions moving from here to there, why this event needs free labour from 5,000 volunteers. no other commercial venture would get away with labour without wages on this scale. i certainly don't think it can be justified if there are profits anywhere, made by anyone, that could be rightfully applied to the work done by these volunteers.

these projected benefits shouldn't just go into the hands of business. they should be shared by all those who put their time towards making the event a success. i hate the way volunteering for the world cup is being presented as some kind of charitable cause. i want to know exactly who is getting the benefit of such charity - i think everyone deserves to know that. because if people have time and energy to put towards a cause, i can think of many much better causes than this one.

How many times do we have to say it? NO ONE ASKS FOR RAPE

Garth George does it again. (Warning, possible triggering around rape and sexual assault in his column)

His key points appear to be:

• Andy Haden should not have been a Rugby World Cup Ambassador in the first place because he is a straight-talker rather than "trained in the art of dissimulation and practised at long-winded circumlocution by which they spend hours saying nothing at all."
• Haden shouldn't have made the racist statement he did earlier in the year because it was "patently wrong" and, as a good Kiwi Bloke (TM), he should have used a local racial slur rather than the imported "darkies".
• Haden's comments about women asking for rape were "fair enough", but shouldn't have been said publicly.
• Robin Brooke's alleged behaviour was bad "since at the time he was newly married."

Then there are these really really awful statements from George, which I'm putting after the fold because they may be triggering for some:

"Surely it is perfectly logical to acknowledge that if female groupies attach themselves to sportsmen, drink with them and take them home, chances are they'll end up screwed.

...The perennial publicity given to the off-field behaviour of testosterone-fuelled rugby - and particularly Australian rugby league - players in recent years should surely have warned any sports-loving young woman to stay well away unless she is prepared to go all the way.

And, once again, one has to wonder why it has taken well over a decade for this complaint to be made and why the media should make such a meal of it.

One has to wonder, too, at the naivete of rape victim advocate Louise Nicholas who said that rugby players needed to be prepared for groupies and walk away from situations that could go awry.

Surely, in this day and age of prolific casual sex, she has to be joking. Don't women have as much, if not more, responsibility for keeping themselves away from unwelcome male attention?

So when it comes to rape the onus is actually on women to avoid it. And to encourage men to think about their own behaviour is "naive." Robin Brooke's main sin, from what's been alleged to date, is cheating on his new wife.

You won't be surprised to discover that George has managed to get through this whole column without using the word rape, except when using it to describe Louise Nicholas' role for Rape Prevention Education.

I shake my head in disbelief.

If it's not politic for Andy Haden to say these things in public, as George himself seems to be agreeing with, why is it ok for Garth to put them in his Herald column, indeed expand on them and imho state them in an even worse manner?

Where do you start with someone who is so hard-wired to blame women for rape?

Handy Andy he ain't

Beware, this post contains sarcasm.

We've been a little busy here, arguing about abortion - too busy to turn our attention to the incredibly misogynist comments of erstwhile Rugby World Cup Ambassador Andy Haden. I can't speak for the others on this, but I tend to operate on a One Sexist Arse A Day Limit. Andy has had to wait his turn. He'll no doubt be relieved to hear that today is his day.

Having previously shown he's just a teeny bit racist, Haden came out earlier this week as a sexist too. Hopefully he'll be happy with the double and not come back later for a trifecta attempt with something hideously homophobic. Somehow I am not feeling very reassured about that.

So what did he say that was so so awful (possible triggering ahead around rape):

From the Herald:

He was talking about historic sex allegations against former All Black Robin Brooke made by two unnamed women.

"There's a bloke called Hugh Grant - he got into a bit of trouble like this and I think if the cheque bounces sometimes, they only realise that they've been raped, you know, sometimes," he said.

"These things have got two sides to them and I think you can get on the front foot.

"It's an equal society now, some of these girls are targeting rugby players and targeting sportsmen and they do so at their peril today, I think."

Charming. Rape is fair turn-about for women who want spend time with sportsmen. And of course it's only rape if a woman doesn't get what she wanted. Is he actually meaning to imply that rugby players aren't very good at sex?

Haden is of course entitled to be a sexist arse. He can hold these views and I can't stop him. Even though he is very very wrong. What he can't do is spout this kind of crap when he's in a public role, representing us as an ambassador (even if it is about the Rugby World Cup).

Who's in charge of these RWC Ambassadors? That would be RWC Minister Murray McCully. He didn't have a chance to discuss "this matter" with Mr Haden before he resigned. I can understand that, after all, Haden made the comments on Deaker on Sport on Wednesday and it's a long time between then and Saturday. Maybe the Minister, or Mr Haden, are reliant on Telecom XT?

Even being charitable about the time aspect, McCully didn't have to go and accept the resignation "with sadness". Unless that sadness was based on being saddened that there are still people who think that women ask for rape in this country.

Maybe McCully was teary-eyed at the thought that Haden's resignation didn't contain an apology, but instead reads so*:

Dear Murray, I wish to advise that I have decided to resign my role as an honorary Ambassador of the Government's 2011 Rugby World Cup programme. I do so to ensure that neither your leveraging initiatives or the game of Rugby that I love are compromised by the current media backlash to the comments I have made on television recently. I feel that to stay in the role, given the current media beat-up, would mean having to remove myself from making public comments on the game or related issues. I have always believed in saying what I think and I will always be true to myself in that regard and it's a sad day for society when people such as I are unable to express what we believe without a media beat-up from those with sectional interests.

I used to love rugby too (although possibly not enough to give it a capital R in the middle of a sentence). I grew up with pictures of rugby players on my walls, not to ogle them or secretly kiss them before bedtime, but because I was truly into the game itself. I didn't want to marry a rugby player, or indeed ever meet one, I just wanted to watch them play because I caught a love of the game from my father.

It was idiots like Haden that turned me off rugby. All the trappings that accompanied the first XV at my school (who weren't actually very good, they weren't even in the first grade of the local high schools' competition); the special treatment they received, how they got off when they did something wrong, and how quickly they bought into this mentality of God-like status once they made the team. I knew as a teen that it was wrong, but I didn't realise how ingrained it was in our country until I got older and started to see it writ large in the ABs and the rugby culture that surrounds them even after they can no longer pass the ball without creaking.

Haden is part of that culture, part of perpetuating it, and as an Elder Statesman of the game when he mutters about "darkies" and women asking for rape his words are heard widely and with authority. The fact that he can't see that, the fact that he can't even see his own privilege in having public platforms to make his pratfalls from, certainly makes me sad, even if it doesn't particularly grieve McCully.

I think Haden, and McCully, can consider this episode something of a diplomacy FAIL.


* The only place I could find such a full account of the resignation email was this really truly awful media release from SOLO (Lindsay Perigo) entitled Andy Haden - On Of The Few Honest And Courageous Men In NZ Public Life. I don't recommend making with the clicky, but wanted to be fair about acknowledging where I got it from.

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

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

Yet more Not News

Last night TV3's attempt at a news bulletin was shameful. I could not believe the prominence given to a story that is so totally Not News that bloggers in Australia have already been tearing apart the irrelevancies, and the underlying misogyny, for most of the week.

It is Not News to cover the breakup of a celebrity couple. It is Not News even if one of them travels from our country to a neighbouring country to deal with it, in the midst of a sporting tour he is part of. It is Not News because actually their relationship is a) no one else's business and b) in no way whatsoever part of the broad range of things that it could be considered in the public interest to report on.

But we've had reporters and cameras camped outside someone's apartment, long range lenses scrutinising whether there is a certain ring on a certain finger, a live cross for absolutely no good reason on TV3 for several senseless minutes. How about we put some of those almighty media resources into some analysis of the significant cuts announced for the Ministry of Education yesterday, or what the SAS are still doing in Afghanistan, or John Key's (now no longer) secret plan to stop illegal whaling by legally allowing whaling?

One News may well have been just as bad. I was so annoyed at TV3 that I changed channels to the competition briefly, and I don't recall seeing anything about Lara Bingle and Michael Clarke, but then it was One News so I wasn't really paying attention. I roll my eyes at them all really - I'm sure if One News wasn't as invasive and irrelevant as TV3 on this story they'll have had a hard core debrief today about how they can do better (by which I mean worse) next time.

Oh, and Mr Emmerson, you generally irritate me beyond words, but this absolutely disgusting effort that never should have made it to print, is a new low, even for you.

Quickie: Another rugby player using his fists off the field

Yet another sportsman in a domestic violence incident, seeking a discharge without conviction on the grounds that the penalty would outweigh the crime:

In a video interview played to the court, Perez admitted he had got angry because he believed Ms Brooks had lied to him about a second pair of shoes she had when he picked her up from work at Centre City on May 31.

They had fought when she said they were an old pair.

"I slapped her on the nose or lip. She was buying heaps and heaps of shoes. I don't know why she wants so many shoes and boots. I said `why do you keep lying to me?"'

Judge Murfitt found the two assaults and the intentional damage proven but reduced the assault charges to male assaults female.

He said he believed Ms Brook's version of the assaults.

But the judge did not find that Perez' had intended to injure Ms Brooks. "I think it likely he was intending to subdue her and impose dominant control over her."

Warning: TRIGGERING This is from the middle of it, click through for the whole thing.

The report certainly sounds like Perez has some serious issues with control, anger and violence. I imagine that would surely be more detrimental to his playing career than any conviction. To be a good rugby player you need to be able to focus, control your emotions and your body, and think tactically. I hope he gets the assistance he needs to sort this out, but going for a discharge without conviction for what are really quite serious charges suggest that he's possibly not on the path to redemption yet.


PS I'm going to start referring to these as Quickies rather than Quick Hits. I feel really icky putting Quick Hit when these posts seem to so often be about violence.

The very public humiliation of Caster Semenya

It's been hard not to cringe watching the fallout from Caster Semenya's extraordinary 800m win in Berlin. Everything about the way she's been treated and reported on has been wrong, wrong, wrong.

It started with the assumption that an athlete so talented couldn't possibly be a woman. Now that testing has confirmed Semenya is intersex, cringeworthy headlines and comments are popping up all over the place: 'Caster Semenya's sex stripped bare' on Stuff; a comment by Peirre Weiss, the International Association of Athletics Federation secretary general, that "It is clear that she is a woman, but maybe not 100 per cent"; and this Daily Telegraph article, which is so disgraceful that I'm not going to quote it.

What's surprising about Semenya's story is not that an intersex woman is competing at the highest level in athletics, but - as a representative of Intersex Awareness New Zealand pointed out - that the sporting fraternity seems so unprepared to handle the jandal. Semenya surely isn't the first intersex person to complete, and certainly won't be the last. But the world of sport is like the wider world in that regard - neatly divided into a binary, and hostile to those who don't fit exactly on either side of the dividing line. Semenya's story is a reminder of the callousness and lack of understanding with which those who don't meet gender expectations are sometimes treated.

I'm not sure how best intersex can be included in sport, but the answer is surely not to require them to go through public testing regimes, like Caster Semanya, while a sneering media looks on. In all the excited attention to the intimate details of Semanya's biology, the fact that she's an extraordinary sportswoman - and, more importantly, a human being with feelings - has been sadly overlooked.

Quick hit: Sailing away or possibly not

From Stuff:

The Australian Family Association has joined Dutch child protection authorities in raising concerns about a New Zealand-born teenager's bid to become the youngest person to circumnavigate the globe.

"Being cut off from parents and peers and all sorts of other social stimulus or interaction just seems to me quite crazy," a spokesman for the association, John Morrissey, a long-time secondary school teacher, told the ABC.

Laura Dekker, 13, expects to hear a court decision overnight tomorrow (NZ time) on whether she should be taken into care to stop her setting off on the solo voyage next month when she turns 14.

The Dutch Council for Child Protection has applied to the District Court in Utrecht to be granted temporary custody of Dekker if her parents do not put a stop to her trip.

Dekker has requested her municipality to de-register her as a resident so that she can move to New Zealand, where she was born on a yacht, but the De Volkskrant newspaper reported her New Zealand passport has expired.

Click through for more.

So what do you think dear readers, Nanny State(s) interfers again or sensible curbing of unwise parenting?

And would the reaction have been different had it been a boy? (I think not, but am interested in your thoughts)

Get your running shoes on!

I feel like a bit of blog sell-out for giving props to a commercial product but since I blogged about my experience of doing the half-marathon last year. I'm going to give some blog-love to women's running group run by the wonderful Ingrid out of Les Mills in central Auckland that is about to start training for this year's half and quarter marathon. You don't have to be the fastest runner to take part, in fact you could be as slow as I am and stil find the experience of group training to be as motivating and empowering as I did!

not so delicate

one of the joys of freeview is that i've been able to watch a decent amount of tennis in the past week. it's one of the few sports that i enjoy watching any more - i used to love cricket, but have gone off it since the match-fixing scandals. and because i refuse to get sky for a number of reasons, there's not very much sport to choose from. no chance to see badminton, table tennis, volleyball...

the final between the williams sisters had some wonderful tennis, but was way too short. both the commentators and joseph romanos on radio nz (nine-to-noon, friday, 11.30am) were advocating strongly for 5-set games for women. mr romanos in particular was very articulate about the notion that the 3-set game was predicated on the outdated notion that women were too weak/delicate to last for 5 sets. he said the same thing had been said about women's marathons, but women now run a full marathon without any problems.

i'd certainly be interested in watching 5-set games for women, although i don't know if the players are interested in playing for that long. one of the commenters suggested that the finals should be 5 setters, and that's possibly a good way to start the transition to 5 sets.

in any case, i'm looking forward to the men's final as well. i'm a total roger federer fan, and by the time this goes up, the result will be known. my fingers are crossed!