"Full-On Violence". Paula Bennett and a culture of victim blaming

I don't want to have to read Paula Bennett's thoughts on domestic violence again. I don't want to have her words in my head as she denies the existence of rape culture, lays the issues of child poverty back on the parents and backs up the men in her Government who so badly let down Tania Billingsley over her sexual assualt (let's stop calling it the "diplomatic case" or somesuch nonsense, can we? It's not about diplomacy, it's about attempted rape). But I'm reading the transcript of her interview with The Nation where she says all these things and trying hard to understand how a woman with so much power to change things for the better can, in one short interview, sweep so many of our social ills off the table as casually as a toddler overturns their plate.

A real woman of the people.

Her comments on poverty in this country are outrageous, her refusal to discuss Billingsley's complaints against her government revealing if not surprising, and I could write volumes on both, but it is necessary to focus.

Yeah but we can only report if it’s happening.
Yeah but some of them are not actually full on violence that I think it makes it sound like. At the moment we can see incidences where there is some.

Full on violence. Full. On. Violence.

I am reminded, horribly, of the traditional damaging adage that sticks and stones (and fists and belts and feet) can break your bones (and blacken your eyes and throttle you and bruise your organs) but names can never hurt you (in the ways that look shocking on poster campaigns). A view espoused by a representative of the legal system, no less. (see my previous article about NetHui)

This is the culture that we live in.

NZ stats: source

It ties in with rape culture, with misogyny, with our inability to address the need for our mental health to be as protected as our physical health.

The discussion of rape culture has opened a rich vein of horror and denial from a lot of men who argue that they, nor their friends, ever raped anyone. They'd never make a rape joke. That to point out rape culture is a hysterical overreaction by "Feminazis" who hate men. We're making it up.

This is the argument that creates "full-on violence". If it's not within a narrow definition written by those unaffected then it isn't legitimate. It's not a real problem.

These men who ask me why I hate 50% of New Zealand's population miss the point. It's not about suggesting that all men are rapists. That all domestic violence is the beatings, the rapes, the thrown punches. That the only violence is physical violation.

It negates the violation of our minds, of our selves.

Rape culture is not that all men are rapists. It's the culture that makes the act of rape the fault of the victim. Nobody ever, ever, asks to be raped. No woman ever looked at her wardrobe on a Saturday night and wondered which skirt would create the greatest invitation to strangers to violate her. No man ever went on a date and had a few drinks in the hope his potential partner would sexually assault him without his consent. Ever.

Every time you add a caveat of "What did the victim do..." you are promoting a culture that condones rape as an understandable response to the victim. Every time you critique a victim's dress, actions, self, you are taking the responsibility for a violent action away from the perpetrator.

You are, consciously or not, saying that the rape was understandable. By blaming the victim you are excusing the perpetrator.

So it is with "Full-on violence". We create a culture where the realities of those assaulted, living in fear, looking for a way out, are negated.

But those statistics that have been talked about this week, 1 in 3 women suffering from intimate partner violence and between 2000 and 2010 the highest levels of intimate partner violence in the OECD in New Zealand. Doesn’t that suggest that there is a degree of apathy towards the problem?
No I don’t think so. I think what we do in New Zealand is we report more than any other country. So actually some of those that are being reported are incidences that haven’t even led to violence.

Partner violence is only legitimate if it is physical violence. The emotional control some partners exert over their spouses isn't "real". The threats of violence, the curled fingers, the barked orders, they're not "full-on" enough for those who've never experienced them to really appreciate. And they don't want to, for the most part. Because, like rape culture, it's too omnipresent, too close. To speak out against it is to make us shuffle in our seats, fumble at our phones, look anywhere except at the people we respect and love in our lives to the aspects we might not like. To look at ourselves.

No wonder it's the victim's fault. They're easier to blame. Easier to silence.

Which leads to my final point. About the value of our mental and emotional health. That a beating is more legitimate, more full-on, than a lifetime of death by a thousand paper-cut words. Our emotional and mental wellbeing is not important because it can't be seen, and we are nothing if not what we are to look at. Live in fear of assault? Toughen up. Spend sleepless nights staring at dark ceilings next to someone who told you to eat outside because the sight of you nourishing yourself disgusts him? Come back to us when he hits you.

Until we peel back the veneer to see what violence in our culture actually is, that sticks and stones will break our bones, but the names and blame will suffocate us if we don't do it to ourselves first, then we will continue to live in a society of rape culture, where the only indefensible violence is "full-on" and where we will continue to be threatened and belittled when we overcome our fears to say otherwise.

I don't want to live in that culture. And neither should you.

Nethui, Trolls and the time I swore at a judge.

I missed Nethui's second day because Real Life intervened (I regret nothing) but today I was back with a hiss and a roar and WHAT a day to be roaring.

There's a lot I could discuss about the various workshops I attended and the wonderful people I met (and the reuben sandwich I ate at Federal Deli- I could talk that up for a long time) but instead I'll skip right to the meat. Enter the trolls.

Seriously. You owe it to yourself.

I wasn't even going to go to the session on Trolling. I wanted to keep this as professional development, so after an excellent session on gender issues I found myself in a session on education that somehow managed to be talking about everything other than what I was interested in, and after twenty minutes of reading the twitterfeed from the troll room I made my excuses and left.

#nethuitrolls is ANY trolling ok in spaces where people w/o privilege are discussing how privilege affects them? Classic e.g: #notallmen
— Zoe Deans (@zoedeans) July 11, 2014

You know when you walk into something late and you can hear pretty much every word that's already been said, just from the atmosphere in the room? NZ4 at Skycity had that. It was an oppressive heaviness in the air that felt like walking into a wall. I took a seat at the back and got listening, a huge double screen showing the twitterfeed in real time.

The conversation was fast-moving and had a snark-factor that made it clear that the people in the room who didn't take trolling seriously were being louder than the ones who do. 

#NetHuiTrolls the privilege thing was a bait joke. nice to see you misunderstand.
— gtx5 (@gtx_five) July 11, 2014

The feed and the spoken words were not matching up, much to the obvious discomfort of the facilitator who was battling hard against a weirdly hostile group. 

@djhdcj in my experience humour rarely disrupts. It enhances. A temporary diversion is different to a route change #nethuitrolls
— David Farrar (@dpfdpf) July 11, 2014

Not at #nethui but damn if it doesn't sound like the #nethuitrolls discussion is avoiding the actual harm caused to marginalized groups
— Stephanie Rodgers (@stephanierodgrs) July 11, 2014

It was not, by any stretch of the imagination, a safe space. I gave up on being nice and took the mic after a couple of comfy-looking white guys agreed with each other on the joys of playing "Devil's advocate". It was time to stand up.

I'm not going to repeat myself verbatim, because too adrenalined, too fast-speaking, but my point was this, once I'd told them to stick their "Devil's advocacy up your arse"

If you are in a position of privilege, you are arguing purely from an intellectual standpoint. You can be as difficult and contrary as you like because at the end of the discussion, you have not been directly affected. But the person you're arguing against? It's not just an intellectual discussion. It is a judgement on who they are. It goes to the core of their being. These discussions are triggering. They are emotional. They are draining. And for you to joke about the joys of devilish advocacy shows your lack of empathy and understanding of the issues that you are advocating against. That's what trolling is to us. It's an attack on our selfhood, our experiences. And you should knock it the hell off.

'Devils advocate may be intellectual curiosity for those privileged, but for the marginalised it is our lives' #nethuitrolls #nethui
— Jevon Wright (@soundasleep) July 11, 2014

 

Consider: for many of us, your “troll” behaviour model mirrors our experience with abuse. No boundary respect #NetHuiTrolls
— Nat ☔️ (@NatDudley) July 11, 2014

 There was a bit more to it. I got personal. I talked about me. I  got a round of applause though, and there seemed to be a shift in mood. A swing away from the self-congratulatory types and not before time. I thought I was done, and started thinking about how I was going to write this down.

Then THIS GUY happened. Old white man, a few rows in front, who trotted out....

"Maybe it's just my generation, but in my opinion "Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me"...."

If I'd stood up harder I'd have literally hit the roof instead of just figuratively. Mic in hand, already switched on.....

"With all due respect I think your opinion is horseshit."

I COULD HAVE MIC DROPPED RIGHT THERE AND IT WOULD HAVE BEEN AWESOME YOU GUYS. But instead I went all-out. Again, not verbatim, but....

Saying that words have no power to damage is to disregard the experiences of marginalised, oppressed and abused people of every age, gender and colour. It disregards the huge emotional, mental and social damage done by verbal abuse in relationships, the classroom, the street. Ask many victims of domestic violence and they will tell you that the bruises will heal but the put-downs, the erosion of self-esteem, the insults take years, a lifetime even, to recover from. Some never do. Children attempt suicide over "just words". To sit there and tell this room that words have no power shows the casualness and disregard with which you clearly use yours.

I sat down, heart going like I'd collapsed over the finish line to some race I didn't know I was running. Mercifully, the time bell went and we were done.

That whole sticks & stones thing is bollocks. Words cut like knives. #nethuitrolls
— nickcarman (@nicholascarman) July 11, 2014

"that's just my generation", old white guy? You betcha! #NetHuiTrolls
— Hadyn Green (@hadyngreen) July 11, 2014

Sticks and stones analogy was distressing on it's own. But it came from a judge. That's terrifying. #nethui #nethuitrolls
— Capital K (@Styla73) July 11, 2014

 I felt like I'd shrunk. Like I'd yelled into space and I was waiting for space to yell back, to tell me to shut the hell up. I was waiting for violence, I now realise. Curled up against the punishment for arguing with my societal "betters". It's hard to shrug off that feeling you shouldn't argue in public, even when you're sure you're right. It's still hard.

"....and you didn't even say "Your honour""

What I got was more shoulder-pats, thank yous and affirmations of my words than I had ever thought I deserved. My phone went bananas as people messaged me with thumbs-ups and likes and positivity. The twitterfeed petered out, a few critical of my language (yeah, I could have been more polite, but it's hard being the one always having to take the high ground in order to be heard),  lots of support from others. I decamped to a nearby cafe for a sandwich and a debrief with a couple of wonderful, engaging people from my many nights on twitter talking about these things. It was there that I found out that Mr. Sticks and Stones was in fact Judge David Harvey, international expert on online legal issues. And I called him out in front of a packed room with an international live stream. There's something you don't get to do every day.

Interesting that so many women felt uncomfortable commenting out loud -our experience was diminished #NetHuiTrolls
— Nat ☔️ (@NatDudley) July 11, 2014

 I'm still processing how I feel about all this. Recently, I have felt safe enough and found the courage to speak out about issues of violence against women, politics and abuse both online and in real life platforms and it has been one of the most rewarding, though challenging, things I have ever done. I have had to come out as a victim of abuse, of assault, to people who see arguing the personal experience of others as a fun thing to do of an evening. I have laid myself bare in public in an attempt to make people see the culture we really live in, as opposed to the one we kid ourselves we inhabit. I speak out because I have met too many people who are never heard, never believed, never given any chance to talk without interruption and if through throwing myself out like this I can force out some space for other people to speak freely and tell their stories then the trolling, the insults and the dismissal will have been worth it.

So Matt Bellamy is me, and the hole is Twitter. Every. Damn. Day.

As ever, I like to do more than just reflect but move things forward. If you were there, if you were following, if you're just reading this for whatever reason, then please, please bear in mind the following. It'd be great.

• The person talking about their personal experience, especially if it is unpleasant, is doing so for a reason. It is not easy to relate these experiences, especially in public. Please listen with respect and without interruption. Do not press for more details, interject or object. 
• Like playing "Devil's Advocate"? Think about the position you are arguing for. Who are you arguing against? Why do you feel the need to do that? If you are DAing with someone who's clearly uncomfortable with your line of argument, knock it the hell off. One man who read and commented extremely negatively on my article on rape culture admitted he wasn't interested in the issue of partner violence at all, he just wanted "to make a point". Not interested in the topic? Then listen or bugger off. 
• Just because a topic is being discussed does not mean another issues does not exist. Talking about violence against women DOES NOT mean that those discussing it are saying partner violence against men does not exist, or that partner violence does not exist in GLBT relationships. It just means that violence against women is being discussed. Don't want to discuss it? Go away. Want to talk about the violence men suffer? THAT'S A DIFFERENT (if related) CONVERSATION. 
• When you interject a conversation about minority issues with "what about the men/white people/straight people" then you actually just need to go away as you are trolling and you know it
• It is NOT the job of the people having the conversation to educate you. Don't understand something? Google it for goodness' sake. In the time it takes for you to derail the conversation with your questions, you'd have found it out yourself already. 

I'm a white person so I have that privilege. I confess that there have been times when a person of colour has made a statement about white people and I have felt that rush of "But I'm not like that!" I've had to work to keep my damn mouth shut. It's hard to confront the negativity with which the group(s) you belong to are viewed by others who don't have your privilege, but if you want to be a decent person you have to deal with that discomfort and learn from it. Compared to living in fear of ridicule, hate and violence I'd say you/me get off extremely lightly. It's the least we can do to shut the hell up and listen instead of just listening to ourselves tell everyone else there is no problem.

If we're ever going to fix the ills we live with, we first have to acknowledge they exist.

Thanks to everyone who supported me to speak out today, and every day. You're all pretty amazing.

Not All Men (but enough of them)

On Friday night there erupted a political twitterstorm that raged through New Zealand's various bloggers, twitter users and media types like a self-righteous fire. David Cunliffe, leader of the Labour party, made a comment that in the context of his speech on domestic violence and violence against women (DV/VAW) was profound and moving but when reduced to five words (thanks, New Zealand Herald!) it made him sound like an idiot.

The storm erupted after our glorious leader and sometime beer-pong-playing friend of the minorities John Key said that he thought the speech was "silly" and then trotted out the three words guaranteed to raise the hatred levels of DV/VAW campaigners everywhere, "Not all men..." and thus the firestorm was sparked.

I'm not going to report on the firestorm, we're still dousing the last few embers and surveying the wreckage but instead explain why I personally felt it worth my Friday evening to argue, be insulted and end up an emotional wreck when what I should have been doing is drinking lemon lime and bitters at a party up in town.

As someone who has experienced both abuse as a child and partner violence as an adult, this matters to me on a very deep level. It matters to have a man who is in power recognise the part all men play in making a hostile environment for women. I am around 90kg, I lift weights for fun and I can outrun most people but I still have to tell myself to keep calm, fists bunched in pockets, when I walk to my car late at night through underlit streets. I am a 31 year old jeans-wearing scruff but I still have to put up with strange men assessing my fuckability, rapeability, molestability if I dare to go out on my own in some places. Online, my appearance is picked apart and insulted when discussing topics lightyears away from how I wear my hair. I have the most beautiful, wonderful men in my life as friends but I have listened to them talk about women in the most derogatory terms and it creates a knot of fear and distrust in my stomach because how do I speak out to my friends and tell them how they hurt me? Do they use that language to describe me when I'm not there?

Just sayin' John.

Key's rebuff that "Not all men" ignores the innate climate of distrust that we women live with every day. We live in a society that considers the only "real" rape to be one committed by a hooded stranger lurking in a bush, and condemns us for any perceived lack of constant vigilance against these extremely rare monsters, whilst ignoring the actions of loving husbands, partners, fathers and sons who rape us and beat us and make us feel worthless whilst telling us we should be grateful they're in our lives at all. We're expected to be fearful of strange men when we leave our homes, because should we be attacked our every action in defence or ourselves will be judged, yet we also know to be wary of the ones we allow over our threshold. We hear you say to your mates about how you raped that test you sat or how you'd fuck the air out of that waitress and we sit with averted gaze and ask ourselves through what lens are you looking at us?

Every man who wants to defend the stance of "Not all men" needs to first reflect on the part he plays in this culture. When your mates down the pub are loudly making jokes about rape, are you silent? Do you join in with the laughing? Unless you are actively calling them out on their behaviour, then you're part of the problem. Be mindful of yourself and how you are viewed by women. Be the one to cross the road, press for your floor in the lift first, take up less space on the bus. Until every man makes the effort to make this country a place where women can walk to the shops after dark without fear, then we will continue to see you all as a potential threat until proven otherwise.

That is why so many women on Friday stood up and applauded that speech. That is why so many women argued to the point of exhaustion against men who assume that just because they don't actively beat up their partner that this issue does not concern them. We argued and we shared despite the pain and the frustration because tomorrow, the men playing devil's advocate and arguing that they never hurt anyone will wake up as normal, whereas we women will wake up in a world where we still feel the need to walk to our cars with our keys gripped between our fingers.

If you truly are one of those good men, then you should not have found Cunliffe's words a threat to your selfdom. The fact so many of you did spoke volumes to those of us who were listening.You want us to believe that #notallmen? Here is your chance to prove it to us.

Want to help? Almost all assistance for women in violent relationships and support for victims of sexual assault is reliant on public support. Please consider donating your money, time or much-needed items. This is just a small selection of the many organisations working tirelessly in NZ to make life safer for all women. 

Women's refuge

Shine

Sexual Abuse Survivors Trust, Christchurch

Rape Crisis Dunedin

Boys will be boys and politicians will be idiots

Following on from my previous post I'd like to extend a massive thank you to the MP from Mangere Su'a William Sio for explaining the issue of knife violence in south Auckland by saying that boys will be boys. Really.

Thank you Mr. Sio for starting the conversation that we need to have about our young men (there's a conversation that needs to be had about our young women as well, and one about our fa'afafine and trans* youth, but one boundary at a time). Through your comments, the media are now asking experts about what it means to be a boy (who, we are assured, will continue to be a boy). They are now discussing machismo in a way that never would have happened if you'd kept your damaging, shortsighted opinion to yourself.

He's done some good stuff. Really. Just.....not today.

Here's what "boys will be boys" means, Mr. Sio. Boys will be boys says men can't help themselves and it's a woman's fault when she's raped. Boys will be boys apologises for the harassment that almost all women and girls face every time they step out of their front door (see @everydaysexism if you still have a shred of belief in humanity left, you won't for long). Boys will be boys means that bullying is tolerated to the point of complicity in our schools and workplaces. Boys will be boys makes freaks and victims of our queer, trans* and otherwise "unmanly" young men who may be boys but just not the right sort for this swaggering statement that drips with contempt and braggadocio. Boys will be boys smothers the right of our young men to be honest and open about any feeling that can't be displayed with a raised voice or a fist.

We have created a culture that excuses the worst excesses of testosterone whilst demanding that our young men abide by the constraints of those excesses. We pillory and mock those young men who seek to live in a way that doesn't fit this straitjacket, and then wonder why they lash out when things are tough.

Stop pigeonholing. Stop stifling. Stop marginalising.

Boys will be boys Mr. Sio, but until we as a society address and change what it means to be a boy then your tautology will be nothing more than an excuse for violence. Of all the things you could have said to the community about these dreadful incidents, I can't think of anything less helpful. I hope you use this as an opportunity to open up the discussion about the young men you represent.

Your electorate will be watching.

We need to talk about weapons

Today has been an upsetting one for education and south Auckland.

This morning two pre-teens at a private school got in a fight that left one of them in intensive care with stab wounds from a pair of scissors. The afternoon, two teenagers at a large south Auckland campus were also treated for stab wounds in an incident police say is unrelated to this morning's violence.

I come from a culture where knife crime is endemic. Social workers used to come into classes I taught to talk to 14 year olds about the consequences of carrying knives. In my home town, nearly all of my male peers have been at least threatened with a blade, some on multiple occasions. The penalties for carrying knives in public without good reason are severe. In the classroom, knives for practical use were unheard of, and any dissection required hawk-like vigilance.

Weapons amnesty, Glasgow.

So when I came to New Zealand to find sharp knives delivered with science practical orders, scissors left out in classrooms, and kids allowed to bring their own little retractable blades for cutting paper, I didn't know where to put myself. It seemed a recipe for disaster and led to some amusing-in-retrospect showdowns between myself and bemused kids. Over time I've come to appreciate the higher trust we have in our children and the behaviour with which our young people repay that trust.
Today's incidents have therefore left me rather shaken, my cosy antipodean worldview turned, in more ways than one, upside down. We teachers strive to make our schools safe havens for our young people, in some cases the only safe haven they have. Schools in NZ lack the security fencing, weapons-amnesty bins and police officers that I've seen in some schools in London and elsewhere, because we trust that our schools are free from weapons and provide an environment where young people feel safe enough not to need one.

Ad campaigns you never want to see.

There is a huge discussion that needs to happen now in schools and communities about whether this idyll is real or if there's been something fundamental that we've missed. We need to think and talk and discuss with our communities and whanau why these young people decided to settle their arguments with weapons rather than words. We need to ask where this need to arm themselves came from, why their anger has become such that it needs a sharp edge. It needs to be a discussion that is sensitive to the needs of the cultures of those communities, whilst not becoming another lazy "That's just south Auckland for you" hard pass. We can't afford to pass it off as isolated coincidence, and we can't afford to turn our noses up because of the postcode these schools find themselves in.

Am I overreacting? Possibly, but I'd rather schools and communities took today as a chance to have some real talk and thought about how they can support their young men and women, than end up with our own version of the London fortress schools.

John Key and the Ordinary Kiwi Bloke

It occurred to me today, listening to Radio New Zealand's Checkpoint and yet another vile National cabinet member ejaculate smugness over whatever pointless bullshit has been deemed Important by the media this hour, that John Key makes me genuinely concerned for the emotional wellbeing of "ordinary" New Zealanders. You know, the only ones politicians care about.

The "ordinary" New Zealander, from what I can gather, is straight, white, male, aged between 25 and 50, follows the All Blacks and the America's Cup, drinks domestic beer and likes his meat to be quality cuts and barbecued. He might even let the missus man the grill, because he's a modern Kiwi Bloke.

He also, if I understand Big John correctly, suffers from dreadful self-esteem and has some horrible toxic relationships that should by rights result in therapy or at the very least an intervention.

John Key's popularity would appear to hinge on his "ordinariness", his "blokeyness". He's like a mate, isn't he? He doesn't waste time talking to those leftie eggheads on RadioNZ, he's talking to the Morning Rumble about how pleased he is that Dan Carter's coming off sabbatical! He pulls derpface in selfies with young voters! He plays beer pong with acceptable homos at their annual funfair! He even bought a samosa at the Diwali festival! Man of the people!

If his popularity stems from the notion that he's a mate you could have a beer with, then you can extrapolate the friendships the Ordinary Kiwi Bloke has. And they are horrible.

Apparently, it's fine to put stuff your mate owns already up for sale, sell it back to your mates, then pocket the profits (what DID happen to all that money from asset sales, anyway? It must have been important if you had to FIRE SALE AIR NEW ZEALAND), if you also appear on Coast FM mid-morning to talk about how well our boys played against Australia.

If my mate decided to take away my access to adult education classes, it'd take a bit more than joking about gay red shirts to make me invite them over to my house again.

The "Regular Kiwi Bloke" seems to have friends who think it's OK to shit all over their front gardens, or sell those front gardens off as parking space to the global equivalent of a biker gang and then pocket the money, and they'll forgive them as long as those friends can sympathise when a yacht (paid for with the profits from all those oil-leaking Harleys tearing up your cuttygrass, incidentally), loses out to a yacht paid for by a different millionaire who is evil because he DOESN'T watch Outrageous Fortune.

If your friends talk to you with the same level of contempt that's shown to the electorate by Key, English et al, then I have some bad news for you. THEY ARE NOT YOUR FRIENDS. They are just hanging out with you to see what they can mooch off you.

I don't want my politicians to be my friends. I don't want to know their opinions of Game of Thrones, roller derby or where they are going for their summer holidays (especially if it's their fucking holiday home in Hawaii). I want to know their opinions on child poverty, education and healthcare. I can live with them not wanting to play beer pong with me if they will actively engage on issues a bit more pressing than Richie McCaw.

We need to stop being placated with trivial mateyness and start holding these people to account.

Your Snark is Problematic: NZ Politics and Voter Apathy

This is not a blog about David Cunliffe. It's not about Chinese businessmen, immigration letters or phone calls to police.

It's not about German multimillionaires flying MPs on amnesiac flights to mansions. It's not about Team New Zealand. It's not about the "Nasty Party", expensive jackets and powdered milk sitting on docks.

It's about apathy.

The only excuse you have for not remembering flying in one of these is if you are unconscious and being flown to hospital

It's about the white, middle-class and middle-aged complaint that "the youth" aren't interested in voting. It's the bewildered look in the eyes of politicians and journalists as they list poor voter turnout stats and wring hands about why aren't brown people, poor people, young people going to the polls. It's that faux-anger about "Well, why don't YOU run for office then?" when those who fail to vote point out that they have no voice and what is democracy without representation?

The handwringers are missing the point.

We watch the politicians as they tear phantasmic strips of trustworthiness off each other over letters that most of us would regard as junk mail. We listen to them sit dewy-eyed in the witness stands as they fail to recollect taking methods of transport most of us will never see up close, unless we become a traffic statistic somewhere picturesque. We grit our teeth as they talk about how there's "no money" to fund breakfast clubs in our poorest areas, while shrugging their shoulders as yet another thousand manufacturing jobs go to the wall. We facepalm as they talk about the economic benefits of funding a bunch of rich white guys to race a FUCKING YACHT against another group of rich white guys, whilst quibbling over the cost of making healthcare accessible to all, in a country with the highest rates of rheumatic fever in the developed world.

Cost to taxpayer: $26million

We see all this, and wonder why the hell we should bother with any of you.

You want to improve voter turnout? Be someone worth voting for.

Government grant to KidsCan for free breakfasts in D1-4 schools: $150,000

I dare you.

Stop with the grubby snarking in the House. TURN UP TO PARLIAMENT AND DO YOUR JOB. some of you have an attendance rate that would get us fired from our places of work, if we're lucky enough to have one. Look at the issues that actually matter. Do I care about some dinner some woman with a tinplate haircut attended with some chairman? Not really. I do care that every column inch dedicated to her hors-d'oeuvres is a column inch that's not asking you how you're going to ensure that every Maori boy gets an equal shot at education as the snottiest Takapuna Grammar girl. I want to see you pull your tongue out from between the cheeks of the investors who give no regard for either our tangata or our whenua (and definitely not for our tangata whenua) and instead get your hands dirty actually trying to make life better for everyone in your electorate, not just the ones who give anonymous cheques.


You can be a rich old white man and still have something worthwhile to say, if for once you stopped talking exclusively to other rich old white men.

There's fewer of them out there than you think.

Only white people get jobs? Representation in career advice

Today at work my students were investigating possible careers in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM), something that's a bit of a buzzacronym in employment and political circles. The class of 14 year olds were taking the Career Quest questionnaire on the government's careers advice website. The questionnaire is not dissimilar to the old pencil-and-cross-out-the-answer careers advice sheet I did half a lifetime ago, though this one was all flash graphics and instant choose-your-own-future. Each of the 78 questions were on a separate web page can came with three photographs to illustrate the possible jobs the question was asking about. So far, so pretty.

Google image search "doctor" on first page. Photo description "Happy afro doctor portrait". Er.

I was talking to a group of girls who were taking the quiz when I noticed something. Every person in every photo was white. White man in hard hat. White women at computer. White person in labcoat. I asked the girls if they'd noticed any people in the photographs who weren't white. They said they hadn't, and I asked them to let me know when they did.

A few minutes later, this absolute gem of an observation was made.

"Miss, miss! I found a brown person! They're sitting being spoken to by a white person!"

Google image search "manager photo Asian". Guess what you get if you only use the first two words

The students were righteously concerned that in a quiz designed for young New Zealanders to choose a possible career path, people of colour did not seem to be represented in any of the possible careers. "Are we not supposed to have a career then miss?" was the half-joking question another asked me.

Having done the questionnaire myself, I did a little breakdown of representation. I tallied up the number of Asian (including Indian), Māori/Pasifika, and other people of colour actually carrying out a job. Customers, students and patients were not included. If I was in any doubt then I counted it as a positive ID. I appreciate that my labels are extremely broad and problematic in themselves but I beg understanding for the purposes of this quick and dirty research.

Google search "stock photo teacher". First page!

The results were depressing.

Of a total of 234 photographs in the quiz....

7 showed Asian people

16 showed Māori/Pasifika people

3 showed people of colour

There were more photos of inanimate objects than black people. 

No photos showing people with disabilities.

I am a forgiving sort and will assume that this whitewashing of the NZ workforce was the result of error, rather than a deliberate attempt to make it look like only white people get jobs. However, we live in a country where, according to the last census, three quarters of the country identify as white/pakeha, just under 15% as Māori and nearly 12% as Asian. Hardly proportional.

"Stock photos disabled". First photo showing a person in a wheelchair not being pushed by an able-bodied person. Or alone looking sad.

If you're reading this thinking "So what? It's a quiz on a website", then think about who it's aimed at. Think about the state-supported drip-feed that subtly reinforces that only white people are employable, that every kid who is thinking of their future sees on page after page the same stereotype.

I was going to write to careers NZ to point this out, but seeing as my pack of 14 year olds are keen to exercise their right to call this stuff out, I'm going to let them do it. They're bound to do a far better job than me anyway, after all, they're the ones not being represented....

Do U even twitter bro?

New Zealand commercial radio is a strange and lawless place. Our Prime minister adores it and is far more likely to be answering questions about whether he prefers vegemite or marmite on a classic hits breakfast show than he is discussing charter schools on our chronically underfunded yet vaguely intelligent public broadcast news programs. Breakfast shows offer listeners the chance to win divorces, wives (not at the same time) and drivetime noodleheads appear in Pride parades after losing bets on-air. As you can imagine many of these professional journalists have their own twitter accounts, and I enjoy not following any of them on my timeline.

This evening, a young purveyor of opinion by name of Polly Gillespie, whose twitter bio invites us to listen to her on the breakfast show on ZM, as well as her columns in that august organ Women's Day, tweeted

Seriously "stay away from Piha" flyers need to be given to people getting off the plane from Asian continent. #Pihahatesyoubro
— Polly Gillespie (@pollyggillespie) February 3, 2014

Now, twitter is a strange and terrible beast. You only have 140 characters to get across your thought. This thought, hashtag and all, looks racist. If I need to unpack why then you're probably reading the wrong blog.

Naturally, the idea of someone hating on Asians wishing to visit New Zealand's most famous beach that isn't ninety miles long being espoused by a national radio presenter is rather concerning and I could help but wonder what her employers ZM and Women's Day might think about this. The more I read her feed however, the righteous leftie anger turned to a kind of pitying rage. When called on her missive by the twitter populace, her responses ranged from:

Does anyone actually WATCH Piha Rescue?? (Rolls eyes)
— Polly Gillespie (@pollyggillespie) February 3, 2014

(apparently tweeting racist things is fine if you're a fan of reality TV)

Ban and block are my favourite twins! (Though I'm quite find of Mary-Kate and Ashley) :))
— Polly Gillespie (@pollyggillespie) February 3, 2014

(because the best way to react when being called out is with smilies and referring to social media buttons as twins)

@Kevthesecond some people sit and wait like creepy weirdos....they should make 'creepin' a course. It amuses me....then I ban 'em! :)) xxx
— Polly Gillespie (@pollyggillespie) February 3, 2014

(because calling out racism makes you creepy weirdo. Like that Mandela guy)

Over the course of many emoticons, kisses and indignation later it transpired that our heroine had been watching Piha Rescue and was concerned about the perceived high number of Asian people who seemed to need rescuing on the show. Her tweet was actually a suggestion that all visitors to our shores should be properly educated in surf safety lest they require the services of the brave men and women of Surf Rescue.

Terrible if my tweet seemed racist. I think if you knew me OR watched Piha Rescue you'd know I'm not. Back to Instagram & kittens for me! :)
— Polly Gillespie (@pollyggillespie) February 3, 2014

This fascinates me because the woman is a professional journalist. Regardless of how quality you may consider those outlets to be, she has at some point I am sure attended at least a couple of night classes on writing things and then saying them out loud to people. Surely, surely at some point the idea that using something like twitter to make a comment that absolutely does not work out of context (and barely works within it if I'm honest, but I'm trying to be nice) was discussed and it was explained why it would be phenomenally stupid to do so?

As I type this Ms Gillespie (Wife, mummy, dork) is describing her detractors as "crazy" (oh dear) and retweeting all the other watchers of Piha Rescue who, like, totally got what she meant. At present neither ZM or Women's Day haven't said whether they think their star presenter/columnist is actually very racist, or only slightly racist and very naive, but I'd hope they'd at least be having a please explain meeting tomorrow morning.

There's a lesson here for all of us, regardless of whether we earn our crust being a professional minor celeb or merely use twitter to post pictures of cats. Your 140 characters ARE your context. If you don't want to sound like a racist, don't write something that looks racist.

Collins, Turei and Racism

Ugh, you can tell we're in an election year. The cellophane is barely off the new stationery for the term before the bitter fighting and mudslinging between parties and politicians begins. National, bless them, have decided that the electorate are shallow enough to vote based on character digs rather than policies and so Judith Collins' vicious little takedown of Green co-leader Metiria Turei this week comes as no surprise, as does John Key leaping to her defence.

A professional. Dressed professionally.

The #nzpol hashtag is alive with this so feel free to check it out if you care enough but the main point I take from all this is that Judith, you are a racist.

There you go sweetheart, this is a callout.

Your insinuation that a Maori woman cannot speak for people in poverty dressed as a professional politician is a twofold slap in the face. If Turei turned up in jandals and cutoffs you and your bitter pointy-shouldered cronies would cackle and point in your contempt for someone not taking their role seriously. You would dismiss her out of hand. If Turei, a former lawyer and advocate for beneficiaries, dares to dress in the clothes of a professional in a country that clings to European standards of formality, then you label her a hypocrite as since when did anyone currently successful ever understand the realities of poverty? The suggestion that a Maori woman should not get ideas above her station is subtle, but there. (It also smacks of a classist assumption that people in poverty are somehow "other" but that's a whole other post.) Her follow-up patronising comments to Turei after being called out is classic privilege. Put someone down, then suggest the wounded party is just oversensitive. "A sensitive little sausage" Judith? This is really how you publicly address another MP?

It is hard enough for a woman in politics to be taken seriously, as Jacinda Ardern's recent comments on the sexism she's faced as an MP testify, without facing the intersectionality of being Maori and female. The fact she's currently popular with media and public is the final provocation for a party that thrives on holding down others to benefit the minority of business cronies and schoolboy networkers. Judith's open admiration for that odious pit of despair and hatred that is Whaleoil (no, I'm not linking) should speak volumes all by itself.

The election is strongly rumoured to be held in September, giving us another seven months of backbiting and personal grudges. One would hope that voters consider what qualities they want in the people who represent them. Are racism and the gleeful snarking at others really the traits we think represent us best?

High-Pressure Navel Gazing: The 24 Hour Zine Challenge

At 6pm. We look, er, ready? Maybe?

As someone who's used the written word all my life to make sense of things it seems a bit odd that the world of zines has until now been a mystery to me. Aside from attending the Auckland Zinefest on a date with someone a couple of years ago I had dismissed zines as being a bit, well, hipster. A throwback to the days before blogs and the internet that were now the bastion of people with too much time on their hands and a penchant for gingham. So when I was invited to take part in the 24 Hour Zine challenge last Friday, the lure of trying something different proved irresistible. For me, it was more the writing side that appealed. Sitting down for a night and a day in a new environment where I could just write? Sounded pretty great. The whole idea of typing, drawing, laying out and creating a 24-page booklet seemed almost an afterthought.

So myself and a friend (do check out her website- some of it very NSFW) loaded ourselves up with caffeine drinks and jellybeans and hit the town centre, really not knowing what to expect. She and I both had a rough idea of what we wanted to do. She wanted to do something queer, sexy and femme-filthy, filled with glitter and claws, and I had the idea of writing 30 letters to various people, places and things that had impacted on me in some way over the last 30 years and would be filled with anger, love, soul-baring and honesty. Basically, our ideas are this photo in zine form:

I'll leave you to work out which is which.

They said "ass"

We arrived at the Auckland Old Folks' Association (wonderfully shortened to the Auckland Old Folk's Ass on the wall outside) and were unfashionably early. In our defense we thought the place was going to be MUCH busier than it turned out to be so we wanted a table to spread out all our junk brilliant ideas on.

Ground Zero for the next 20 or so hours

I got into the writing side almost straight away, just writing out the first 30 things I could think of. They're not necessarily the most important but throwing in the first 30 seemed appropriate. Fuelled by jellybeans and V I managed to write my 30 in an impressive 4 hours, even stopping for a quick vegan pizza break. I thought I'd managed 3000 words which seemed pretty good, only to find that it clocked in at a cool 5,135. Clearly, I had no idea how zines worked. I had decided to write at least part of this opus on a typewriter because, well, they were there and it was a zine, right? I mean, that's what they're like. I think. Typewriters and whimsy.

I now hate typewriters. Hate them hate them hate them. There is a reason why my parents ditched the golfball typewriter almost as soon as they could when word processors came out. They're horrible. My romantic notions of taking an hour or so to copy stuff over turned into an EIGHT HOUR marathon as I grappled with my machine, called Enid for reason other than I needed to give my nemesis an identity beyond "you bastard". They keys were heavy. The tape for the ink needed dicking around with almost every ten minutes as my hard-earned words faded in and out like pirate radio. Apostrophes became 8s about 50% of the time. It was horrible. Unfortunately, by the time I fully realised just how monumental this ordeal would be I felt like I'd done too much to just print off the rest and be damned, and I couldn't just bin the work I had already done. the long dark Night of the Typewriter had begun.

"But how does it WORK?"

It was about this time that most of the other people in the hall left, and there was about five of us still working, not including the "security guard" who came in, found a comfy seat and promptly passed out for the next seven hours, snoring loudly enough to be incredibly irritating. There was nothing but typing now. As my friend grappled with her (much more sensible) laptop, finding photos and content, I sat and laboriously copied out my work, taking twice as long to copy what had been original content. 

While I typed, I got to thinking about that content. It was very raw. I've not had the easiest of lives (though I understand that on the global scale I've had it easy yes I know) and there's been some really nasty points. Why the hell did I want to write about them, much less write about them, type them up, photocopy them into a little booklet and distribute for free? I found myself getting annoyed with the whole idea, round about 4am, feeling like I'd reached almost Amanda Palmer levels of self-obsession. That somehow this little booklet would come back and bite me on the arse. That I should be, what, ashamed of this stuff? It was an interesting thought train. At this point I was listening to some Slayer in order to push on through to the end, which may have done little for my mood but at least it kept me awake. 

I hate you.

And then, suddenly, it was done. At around 6am I put the date on the final letter and sat looking at the pile of paper I'd created. And then, reading through what I'd written, realised I'd have to take some of it out. I'm quite protective of my work and trying not to mix personal with professional so my big piece about my career might not mix in too well with stories of abuse and violence. I took it out, looked at the typewriter in horror, wrote a short apology and drew a picture of a guinea pig in a space suit to compensate. 

By around 7am I'd been staring slack-jawed at my booklet, sticky with glue and still not looking like much in particular when we decided that breakfast and some time outside was in order. Sitting in a cafe eating food that wasn't day-glo helped a lot, as we dissected the process and questioned our sanity. Re-entering the ass was not easy, especially as the sun was up and it looked to be a hell of a good day. 

I'd had vague rules when I sat down at 6pm. No handwriting (my handwriting is comically awful). Sensible photographs from magazines, no computer printing. My art skills are almost as bad as my handwriting, so that was out too. 

Best teapot ever.

By 9am, these rules had been dropkicked out the window. Letrasets were beyond the comprehension of a brain that had been awake for 24 hours on nothing stronger than caffeine and had been staring at the same 24 pages for 15 hours. Collages were beyond my ability to  spell, let alone create. Between us we developed a siege mentality, the need to get the thing done outweighing pretty much anything else. I hand wrote. I drew pictures that a 6 year old would pat me condescendingly on the head for. After half an hour of failing to find a picture of a shark (the closest I came in my 5th edition of National Geographic had the only photo of a shark ripped out. I nearly screamed) I ended up photocopying a photo of some ground squirrels and drawing on a fin with a sharpie. At this point I detested everything I had written, not just tonight but ever, and looked with rage at the lass who'd finished hers hours ago and was now sleeping peacefully in a chair. Finally, there was just a centrefold left. All of my text was stuck in place, everything else was completed and just this centrefold remained. Two pages. With a stroke of manic genius I turned it into an interlude, the halfway point bookended by a recount of some of the hideous things an ex had said and done to me, and a short piece about abortion. I figured any poor sod reading it would need a break as much as I did. 

"You look tired"

At 11am, 17 hours after I'd sat down at a blank screen, it was done. My zine "30430" (see what I did there?) was complete. I felt a bit odd. All that effort, all that time, and for what? Did I ever want anyone to read it? Why had I written it in the first place? I photocopied it a few times and pondered what the hell to do with it. It seemed like a massive waste to just bin it, or take it home and leave it in a drawer somewhere, but did I really want people to read it? Eventually my friend persuaded me that it should be read at least by somebody, and it's now in the zine library at Alphabet City. My friend's was brilliant, a gutsy, gleefully offensive introduction to hot sex and femme fabulousness. Mine looked absolutely depressing next to it, but at least it was done. We high-fived, had our photos taken, and went to our respective beds to try not to screw up our body clocks too much. 

Finished products

 So I still have seven copies of "30430" in my bag and I'm still at a bit of a loss. Personally, it was a great exercise. I find writing incredibly cathartic and there's something quite satisfying about all of these thoughts, experiences and recollections in a physical form, like now they're out there it feels easier for me in here. I feel a little apprehensive reading this stuff, but I rationalise it by thinking that people write and act and sing and perform their experiences and real lives all the time. There's nothing in there that I'm ashamed of, after all. Some might argue the truth of it, but it's experiences as remembered by me so it's as true for me as it ever will be. Maybe someone reading it some day will take something positive from it, or maybe they'll think I'm a self-indulgent asshole. Whatever. It's done.

Will I do it again? Maybe. It was a brilliant exercise in creating something new and stretching myself, but I did make my friend promise that if I said I'd do it again she was to hit me. Though that was at about 5am and I said a lot of things around that time.

I am damned if I'm ever using a typewriter again though.

The few, the proud, the bloody exhausted

Auckland Zine fest is on at St Kevin's Arcade on the 27th July 12-5. I might be there. 

Why liking the Pakeha Party makes you a douche.

Warning: The following post contains buzzwords like "privilege" "racism" and "arsehole". Read with caution. 

I am a white person. Always have been, always will be. I can't help that any more than I can help being an opinionated know-all or liking boobs. Having this skin colour has brought with it several benefits.

• I can approach a police officer in the safe knowledge that they will listen to what I have to say and take care to ensure that my problem is taken seriously! (unless I get drunk and end up raped that is. But burglary? Mugging? I got 111 on my side!)
• Petrol stations will unlock the petrol pump for me before I prepay if I ask nicely, because I'm not perceived as a criminal purely because of my skin!
• I can talk about racism without people telling me I'm overreacting!

Of course, with the perks of being seen as having earned my degree fair and square and being a useful member of society, comes some downsides. The lord giveth, and the lord taketh away. 

He's British you know. We're practically cousins

• I can't use the word "nigga" without people maybe thinking that's a bit racist, despite having watched The Wire twice through and owning several Public Enemy songs
• I'll never get stopped and searched by a police officer for no reason other than walking down the road
• I feel a bit uncomfortable when confronted with the terrible legacy of centuries of oppression and violence committed by people with my skin colour. 

That last one. How dare I be made to feel slightly awkward when I read a tumblr post titled "Fuck white people"? How dare I, a homeowner with the money for an overpriced haircut to go with my latte, even have to conceive of the idea of institutionalised racism and my own white privilege?

BECAUSE I AM ATTEMPTING TO BE LESS OF AN ARSEHOLE.

I live in a world that is almost entirely geared towards my kind. My ancestors were never treated like animals, worked till they died, or shot for sport purely on the basis of skin colour. Sure, as a woman I can expect to earn less than a man. But as a white woman I can expect to earn more than a woman of colour.  As a queer woman I experience intersectionality of orientation and gender, but I'm still of the race that has ruled been a fucking disaster to most of the rest of the planet since before that dude got nailed to that thing. That carries a lot of cachet, you know. 

T-shirt design by Mr Vintage. 

So when I see massive injustices and examples of bigotry that don't affect me directly, it'd be easy to go back to my knitting or listening to whimsical guitar music. However, I am learning not to be an arsehole. Just because I am aware of the fact that being white gives me an automatic cheat code in the computer game of life doesn't mean anything unless I am willing to do something about the fact others aren't given the same cheat code. So if you find yourself nodding as you read the examples of Maori "privilege" on The Facebook, or furrowing your pale brow to some frothing bigot on Seven Sharp...

STOP!

THINK!

"AM I BEING AN ARSEHOLE?"

Usually, when a group is being given more, it's because they started with less. Well actually, they had plenty but then some bugger with a flag and a lot of soldiers nicked it. Which is actually worse when you think about it. Political organisations like the Maori and Mana parties may not get it right all the time but they exist because we are a society build on injustice and until that is righted there is a need for those who have less to be given a louder voice. 

The topsy-turvy world of roller derby

In a previous life I was a skater, committee dogsbody and coach for an established roller derby league. I was privileged to be a part of an exciting, positive sport for women that seemed a world away from the perceived image of more "conventional" sport. Injury, both mine and those of others, eventually caused me to quit skating but I have stayed on the fringes, attending games and recently MCing bouts. In the last three years I've come to know and talk to a lot of players and, alarmingly, a LOT of former skaters and people who got started but quit for one reason or another. One of the most common complaints or reasons for leaving is that of time. Of not having enough to make skating attendance requirements, let alone the various off-skate meetings, fundraising events, organising and running bouts, the list goes on. Add in coaching and an experienced skater could be on skates for up to twelve hours a week, not including off-skates commitments. Even an "average" skater, skating in a home team, could be expected to skate for six hours every week.

That's a lot of your waking moments.

Then there's the bouts. Big events requiring liquor licenses, catering, organising venues with seating for a thousand (in some places in Aotearoa up to four times that many!), ticketing, flyering, afterparties (a whole other event!), half time entertainment, and all on a Saturday night when they're in competition with all the other gigs and entertainment that happen in a big city at that time. It all has to be organised while all that skating is going on. And these huge entertainment evenings are held every month, sometimes even more regularly. For a group of women and men with jobs, partners, kids and a sport to play, it's a huge commitment.

"I just couldn't commit" is one of the most common reasons why people quit. Not because they didn't like playing, not because they found the sport too hard. Because they couldn't commit.

Roller derby, to me, is being run upside down.

Who wouldn't want to play a sport where you got to wear these?

Let's compare. Take ice hockey, a skills-heavy, similarly dangerous sport so I think it's a reasonable basis for rough comparison. Ice hockey is a triangle. At the bottom, you have a huge base of casual players. The Tuesday night social leagues. The kids playing after school. the work teams. No stress, just pay your weekly subs and turn up to a rec centre to play. No glitz, no aspirations to play in the Maple Leafs (mostly). Then you have the more serious players, who'll train more regularly, hit the gym to play better, will spend time watching matches for strategy ideas, but for whom it's a serious hobby to go along with their real lives. Some big games might have a small audience. At the peak of the triangle, you have your Ice Blacks, your NFL, your Olympic hopefuls. Those at the bottom go to games to support the players at the top, they admire them and learn from them. The game is accessible to all and there is the possibility of progression up the triangle, but it's not expected. 

Roller derby? Roller derby inverts the triangle. Every aspiring skater is told from the word go that they are making a huge commitment. Every skater in a league is expected to train as hard as they can, to go further. Every bout is a big event. Every skater is told that if they try really hard they can be the next Bonnie Thunders (the LeBron James of roller derby according to ESPN), and skaters who say that they "just want to play derby" are seen as anomalies, of letting others down, of not pulling their weight.

I've done it myself. On the nights where I'd be replying to emails at 2am I'd shake a fist at the skaters who turned up, skated, packed up and just left again. I made the passive-aggressive comments about the ones who didn't make the meetings. At the time, I thought I was annoyed at their "laziness" or lack of "commitment". Now I realise I was just a bit jealous. A lot of skaters like me are unable to strike the balance between skating and life, and quit. The skaters who stay will invariably have legitimate complaints about their work rate, exhaustion, and stress. It's not a good way to be.

From experience, the main issues that cause player attrition and burnout are attendance requirements, bouts, and fundraising pressures.

Attendance: How often is the league asking skaters to attend, and how is this time justified? Let's go back to ice hockey. Mackenzie ice hockey have their player code of conduct on their website. All players are expected to "Be on time and properly equipped for all practices and games." Sound familiar? Then you see how often teams  have practice: Once a week. For an hour. I've no doubt that there will be other practices, skate sessions, and the like, but an hour a week sounds a lot more reasonable than four, or six, or ten. Doesn't it? How often is reasonable for those who really just want to skate? Which brings me on to....

Bouts: Who are they for, really? They're fun, sure. Good entertainment, usually. But surely asking thirty or so women, most of whom work full-time or in further education and have family commitments, to stage a huge Saturday-night event every month on top of their skating commitments is a bit masochistic? Roller derby has her roots in sports entertainment but if it is to be seen as a sport in 2013, why spend the hours and the tears on the entertainment as well? Here's a challenge. Imagine your league with no home fixtures for an entire year. No bout committee. Your intra-league competition is a once-a-month special scrimmage, with winners announced at the end of the year. Competitive? Sure, just like your Saturday hockey games. Nothing to stop your other half and the kids coming to cheer support, but no tickets, no flyering, no panic over where the chip fryer is for the hot food stand. Maybe you have one or two big bouts a year, an exhibition bout or the final or an inter-league. It's a big deal. It's stressful, but not rushed. Everyone's got the energy, as it's your big celebration. People will go as it's an event, not a regular fixture battling for attention on a crowded weekend. It would pay for itself, which leads me onto.....

Fundraising: So, you drop your attendance requirements. Maybe your league has one skills night a week, and one scrimmage. If you don't make skills you sit out the scrimmage. Your subs decrease as you have fewer venue fees. You host one or two big bouts a year, they're big-ticket events and a fixture on the calendar. So what is left to fundraise for? I'll answer before you do:

All-stars. 

Your best players. They represent you at WFTDA bouts, who are further up the triangle. They work hard for their jersey and let's face it, travel costs, right? Shouldn't we be fundraising for them? 

The high end- WFTDA

Let's try another way. The All-Stars run in parallel to the regular league. They pay extra for their training venues, they run their own trainings. They're higher up the triangle. Before a major away fixture, skaters on the All-Stars agree to a funding contract, to raise x amount towards the cost of travel and expenses. They can either pay it directly, or they can fundraise, find some sponsorship, or a mixture of all three. Many schools and groups run on this system for overseas trips worth thousands. It becomes the responsibility of the player to raise their funds in the best way they can. Players could work together on initiatives, other skaters could help with time or donations or whatever, but their assistance would not be mandatory. Working together to fundraise would help foster team spirit. The skaters who "just want to skate" aren't asked to commit time to raise money for others to travel the country/the world, and if your place on the squad depends on your ability to fundraise you're going to make the effort, aren't you? The first fifteen of your local high school go on week-long trips to Australia because they work hard to raise the money for themselves and their team, and you can bet your ass their training commitments are huge. 

This way, we flip the triangle. The wedge at the bottom are the twice-a-week players who rock the sports court and get a yearly shot at an audience. The better players form almost a sister league, training hard and playing harder. Progression if you want it, a fun sport to play if you don't. And hell, maybe we get our own Bonnie Thunders at the top. 

I know this doesn't address all the problems and issues around the sport, and I know that some people might be reading this and wondering how easy it'll be to cut my brake lines, but I love the sport, the women who play it and the women who want to play it and think that maybe, just maybe, there could be a place for all of us on the track. But I know there isn't space for all of us on the point of a triangle.