Party Politics and Pig Wrestling

As you're probably aware if you've read anything beyond the name of this blog, I'm a lefty. I do union stuff. I voted Scottish Socialist once. I'm a member of the Green party and I've marched up and down Queen Street (once both on the same day!) for various issues like fairer pay, better conditions, and the right for New Zealanders not to be spied on.

I am left-wing because I have a strong sense of social justice and I believe in things like free universal healthcare, education and a benefits system that takes care of everyone in my society. I vote for parties that promise action on climate change, poverty and tackling social ills. I am in a comfortably well-paid job yet I would rather be taxed more in order to see those further down the ladder get the help they need.

For some people, identifying with a political party or ideology suggests that you become absolutely incapable of seeing the good in any other party whose ideals do not match your own. It doesn't help when the opposition stand for the most part for everything you're against, and actively seem to hate everybody who isn't them.

However, I personally will stand and applaud any politician, regardless of stripe, who has a flash of common sense and says something I agree with. Maurice Williamson's much-youtubed "Gay rainbow" speech at the final reading of the Marriage Equality Bill? Loved it, almost as much as National's Chris Auchinvole's less bombastic but equally poignant and funny speech (please have a listen, it's a thing of beauty). Incidentally, Auchinvole was on the select committee when I gave my oral submission on the bill and I found him to be sensitive to the submitters, thoughtful in his questions and a credit to the political process.When Nick Smith dropped the Fjordland monorail project, I actually punched the air with joy. I'd have bought the man a pint.


But when the Justice minister disregards a major report on domestic violence's findings, then takes a selfie at a fight night and tweets about how none of the men there are "ashamed to be men", it's hard to like. When the PM describes the groundbreaking speech on DV by the leader of the opposition as "silly", it's difficult to see that party as fighting for my interests. When the education minister supports charter schools, larger class sizes and more testing, it's a challenge to think of the opposition as anything more than complete bastards.

However, despite their best efforts I shall continue to try to focus on policies not personalities, and politics not parties, because otherwise I'm just failing to take the advice of George Bernard Shaw: "I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it."

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

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.