"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.

Nethui Day One: The Youth Forum

For the rest of the week I'll be at Nethui 2014, a huge conference addressing the internet and pretty much everything to do with it that isn't cat GIFs (OK, there are some of those as well). I'm here because twitter told me to and I was curious about meeting some of the authors behind the 140-character snippets that keep me from doing more productive things with my time.

The first day had a forum around young people and the internet and I wound up spending my entire time there. It's been a fascinating experience, sharing my ideas as an educator with people who come from an absolute galaxy of backgrounds and sectors. I've spent most of the day with some other teachers who are keen enough that they also gave up their holidays and money to attend, Youthline, and the IT sector (only teachers call it ICT. For shame)

Use of social media as an educational tool- how can we get schools to see SM as a positive force? #nethui Youthforum
— Roz S-P (@IrnBruja) July 8, 2014

The key ideas that have fallen out of the tree for me to take away and reflect on aren't anything new, but it's been fascinating and sometimes challenging to bounce them off others who've not been a classroom since they were 16.

Anonymity Vs digital presence: There's a real drive to keep things anonymous on the internet. I don't use my real surname on facebook or twitter, I mention no locations or dates. But in doing so, are we creating an artificial division between our offline and online presence? Why this need to hide our names from what for many people are an integral part of their everyday lives? In creating this division are we giving people licence to be abusive, to troll, because it divorces the online from the offline? I've often thought about "outing" myself on twitter and on here, but I'm not quite ready to make that step. It's an interesting idea.

Our notes on #health, #cyberbullying at #nethui. #yesallwomen #notallmen @ SKYCITY Auckland http://t.co/EOlp6F5b2K
— Roz S-P (@IrnBruja) July 9, 2014

21st Century learning and the "real world": A lot of the discussion was around improving digital literacy in schools and giving young people the skills to navigate social media, as well as "futureproofing" education. This was where I got all hand-wavy and noisy because if there's one thing I struggle with, it's the idea of teaching in a 21st century learning environment, where I'm expected to grow young people into critical thinkers who learn in an authentic and relevant context, and yet these kids will stand or fall based on their results in an exam that wouldn't sound out of place in a Dickens novel.

"When was the last time you had to sit down and handwrite anything for three hours? That's medieval." @IrnBruja dropping truthbombs. #nethui
— Megan Whelan (@meganjwhelan) July 9, 2014

This got very interesting in the afternoon as the discussion of "futureproofing" young people to be prepared for jobs we can't even think of came up. Myself and other teachers in the room made a strong case that we need to move away from content-based learning towards skills/thinking based learning and giving young people the tools to learn whatever they need or want to. Then came a discussion about "core subjects" and asking if programming should be compulsory.

The idea of compulsory core subjects defeats the idea of remodelling education to meet the future #nethui
— Madeline King (@MaddyKing44) July 9, 2014

 This gave rise to a bit of an interesting discussion at our table as there was a strong argument put forward that programming absolutely needs to be included, with the counter-argument that we need less standardised subjects, not more. It was an interesting discussion and then this tweet from someone in the room pinged up:
 

The disconnect between the pace at which jobs are changing and the views of educators, is terrifying me. #nethui
— Nat ☔️ (@NatDudley) July 9, 2014

 Now I appreciate that a tweet is a tweet but this bothered me. I'm not an IT professional. I know my way around a laptop, I know how to use the internet and I like to think I'm a reasonable person online. But I would never claim to know the ins and out of the IT industry, not even close. There seems to be a misconception that teachers are expected to be experts in every field that they move in, even though we as educators teach our students that it's OK to not know things if you're willing to learn. In fact, that's why I'm spending my holidays here! It made me reflect on how teachers are viewed and what we can do to change that view. It's easy as a teacher to forget that the real world/chalkface gap works both ways.


Lots to take away from today, tomorrow I am speaking at the morning hui to the entire conference about what we discussed at the youth forum. Bring it.

ADDITIONAL: Nat and I actually talked about this later, and the need for teachers to upskill in what are the needs of all industries these days, not just IT. It's a valid, if troubling point and it's made me think about just how institutionalised I have become since leaving the private sector over nine(!) years ago. It doesn't help that we as teachers find it difficult to listen to constructive criticism as we're so used to criticism of the destructive kind. It's also my fault for taking a generic comment a bit personally!

So thanks to Nat for engaging with me on this, one of the things I have loved about Nethui was the opportunity for open discussion in a way that remained respectful and positive even when viewpoints differed or misunderstandings were had.

Imagine if we could do that everywhere...

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

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.