QUARTERLY WINTER/HOTOKE 1997 $10 ISSUE 214

Property of the Auckland College of Education Library.

iPlease do not remove from the library. 25r fl BIRTHDAY ISSUE!

A fabulous final fling from New Zealand’s own feminist m a g a zine amousyeministsyarewell Broadsheet

PAM CORKERY SANDRA LEE

"The worst part about being on the 'left' "Twenty-five years of continuous publish­ side of politics is when opinion polls come ing a world record surely for a feminist out and Jim Bolger's one of the most magazine. For me, it seems there has al­ favoured political leaders. You feel kinda ways been Broadsheet. Every issue of lonely. The same problem lies with being a importance to women has been high­ feminist and reading th a t' Baywatch is the lighted, often to the irritation of the world's most popular programme. For that establishment. I think of issues raised by reason alone, Broadsheet has been pivotal Donna Awatere, by Phillida Bunkle and by in many feminist's lives; those of us who Sandra Coney. I think of the issues to do have revelled in the realisation that we're with education and employment. I recall not alone. Broadsheet has awakened the coverage given to women active in thought, given information, and often just literature, the arts and film. The list is end­ plain solace to New Zealand women of less. many ages. Long may its messages en­ In my opinion, the number of Maori d ure ." women in Parliament is in part due to the unremitting conscience prodding by Broad­ sheet So Broadsheet is dead, but long live feminism!" HELEN CLARK

"Broadsheet played a very important role in the rise of feminism in New Zealand. It was bold and assertive in encouraging women to step out of the social constraints imposed on us. The fact that it is going out of print does not signal that there are no barriers for women to brush aside. Indeed there are plenty! But Broadsheet can be proud of its work in leading the way in articulating new perspectives for women over 25 years." Collective Comment

Twenty-five years of Bro a d she e t magazine. In July 1972, a small group of women, fired up with the new ideas of an international Women's Liberation Movement, put together the first issue of Broadsheet, New Zealand's own feminist magazine. What were the issues in the early 1970s? Are they still issues now? Are there new ones?

9 Remember back when a woman couldn’t 9 Abortion was a biggie in the 1970s. Re­ get a mortgage, and had to have her husband’s member that poster of the woman signature to get Hire Purchase or a department haemorrhaging on the bathroom floor? Today store charge card? So many petty discrimina­ women in need (except West Coasters) have tions in law and in business practices. These access to safe legal abortions - and around days women’s money talks as loudly as men’s 12,000 a year do. [ASK FAMILY PLANNING] So - we get send credit cards in the mail and end clearly effective contraception and sex educa­ up with his debts as well as our own. tion are still important issues.

9 1972 was the year they passed the Equal 9 Just why was it that we wanted to get into Pay Act, ensuring that men and women doing the Northern Club instead of the KG Club? One the same job in the private sector would get the of the keys to women organising around their same pay. Of course it took a 15 year campaign own issues in the 1970s was women-only by women to get this. And 18 years later we space - and what a fuss that caused at first. It almost got them to pay women the same as became quite acceptably for a while - minding men for jobs requiring comparable skills. The the kids on consciousness raising night, drop­ Pay Equity Act was repealed within 3 months. ping Mum and male child under 13(11? 8?) o ff Equal Pay is still on the books, and still on the at the women’s music festival. In the 1990s cards, if there happens to be a guy doing the there’s a new angle on delineating women’s same job in the same firm and - in these spaces - who gets to decide what a ‘woman’ is. deunionised, privacy-protected times - you can find out what he’s being paid. 9 Early issues of Broadsheet have a lot of material of alternative family structures - ohus, 9 Sex role socialisation, sexist education and socialist communes, group living situations. education about sex were feminist issues. In Many of those involved in Women’s Liberation the 1990s girls know they have to do better were young married women with young chil­ than boys to get the same jobs. Girls no longer dren, and they were optimistic about finding stop trying to achieve in their mid teens be­ new ways of living with their men, something cause ‘girls don’t really need education’ and different from the nuclear patriarchal family. ‘intelligent women let the men win’, and the ’Ms’ caused a lot of fuss, but is now standard change is clear in the education statistics. The on all official forms. Miss, Mrs, Ms? - single, boys still goof o ff in school, and there are married or feminist? worrying suggestions that they’re the ones who now need a leg up. Still, after 25 years of 9 The Domestic Purposes Benefit legislation ‘Girls Can Do Anything’ the fastest way to find came through in 1973, partly in response to a feminist is to tell a girl she can’t. changing ideas about adoption, and a decade

Broadsheet Winter / Hotoke 2 5th Birthday Issue 1997 1 after the divorce laws changed. Did it destroy the 9 Sexuality - an assertion of personal iden­ sanctity of the family? Yes, thank god. And a lot tity or still a minefield in the war between the o f its hypocracy too. When did you last hear the sexes? (However many there may now be.) We phrase ‘living in sin’? had a quick round to decide our Collective position on this one. Three days and several 9 As relationships and the family were a main lost friendships later, the consensus was.... focus of 'second wave’ analysis, there was a lot either way, Broadsheet’s idea of a brave new of talk about feminists being to blame for the feminist world was never male strippers. divorce rate. Probably true, since dissatisfied women currently initiate three-quarters of them. 9 Violence against women was a focus from Now divorce has become another rite o f passage the mid-1970s. Feminists named rape as and the talk is about marriage rates. Those violence, not rough sex. Feminists named 1970s feminist battles, personal and collective, wife-bashing and gave other women refuge. have changed the shape of the New Zealand Feminists said the word incest out loud and so family. Family law is slow to catch up, but Social many answered, 'It happened to me.' Pornog­ Welfare is catching on. Don’t forget Jenny raphy the theory, rape the practice. Ideas that Rankine’s marital advise (Broadsheet 212), for have changed the country’s thinking, but has official purposes, s/he is always ‘the flatmate’. it made New Zealand a safer place for women? Still the most dangerous time of a woman’s life 9 Yes, it’s the L word. Any good feminist could is when she leaves her man. be called a ‘hairy legged lesbian’ in the early days, but some gay women would have denied the F 9 The feminisation of poverty - there’s a lot word. Now the Topp Twins are in the Woman’s about it in this issue, as women and children Weekly, and the cultural/sexual/socio-economic bear the brunt o f economic downturn, unem­ significance of leg shaving has got very con­ ployment and job casualisation, as well as fused. Top sportsmen do it too. From label to cuts in state support. But it’s also a result of lifestyle in 25 years was a learning curve for inadequate personal and collective economic Broadsheet alright - especially during the Great provisions to support the wide-spread social Broadsheet Split in the late 1970s. A painful changes in the way we live and love. But why subject still for some and a Women’s Studies is it the men who are better o ff and the women essay topic for a new generation. They have the worse off after divorce? It’s the old story - the sympathy of one or two wrinklies on this Collec­ guys still aren’t pulling their weight in looking tive - it’s so much harder to seem radical these after their kids. days. 9 One issue that attracts intense ipterest 9 Another fraught area o f learning has been from young women now was barely around in around Broadsheet's coverage - or lack of it - of the 1970s - the complex and sometimes de­ issues for Maori women. There have been a few structive relationships between self-image and Maori women and women of colour on collective, food. Feminists then objected women’s bod­ and some serious efforts to publish more o f their ies being used to sell cars, and to padded writing. Perhaps the best of these was the serial up-lift bras (burned only in some media man’s publication of Maori Soveigntyhy Donna Awatere imagination). But Twiggy hadn t entirely taken - which significantly impacted on subscriptions. over from Marilyn Munroe to become the only One reason for Broadsheet's inadequate perfor­ permissible female body, and scones and mance is that - as has several times been pointed pikelets were still on the menu. Nineties girls out to us - what white middleclass women see as can do anything if they are size 10. We can call important is not relevant to Maori women or it health and fitness, but is it really mind women of other ethnic groups. Another reason colonisation? might be, who's got time to write for Broadsheet while fighting two revolutions?

Broadsheet Winter/ Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 2 Collective Com m ent FRONTING UP 9 New processes, new structures. How to avoid both power hierarchy and the ‘tyranny of structurelessness’? Learning rotating roles to EDITORIAL share power and learn skills. How to do it Barbara Bennett different and still get it done? There is now a Linda Hill feminist familarity about the way women run Lisa Howard-smith meetings, events and organisations. But the Claire-Louise McCurdy perennial question - remains of whether to work inside or outside the patriarchal structures? Kate Millington Reformist or separatist? We do both, we are everywhere... without much sign of achieving DESIGN critical mass. Kate Miilington 9 Two steps forward, one step back... Most of the old issues are issues still. Yet the range of DISTRIBUTION what is possible in the way we act, dress, work, Anne Hunt live and love is so much wider than it was 25 years ago. Many of us have made a lot of progress in changing our lives, and the collective lives of THANK YOU all the different kinds of New Zealand women Edith Gorringe have surely changed a little. Julie Buchanan

9 Do feminists have a sense of humour yet? Let’s rephrase that - how many feminists does it take to have a sense of humour? Best answer ADVERTISING gets you a free Broadsheet sub and onto the Kate Millington (09) 360 2401 Collective.

Linda, Lisa, Claire-Louise, Barbara & Kate RETAIL & WHOLESALE Anne Hunt (09) 360 2401

BUSINESS Lisa Howard-Smith (09) 834 3472 G r a p h i c * For this issue we decided to use again some of the OTHER delightful graphics from earlier Broadsheets. These Linda Hill (09) 828 9591 illustrations are still relevant for today’s issues. The artists are; ISSN 01-10-8603. Sharon Alston, Judith Ammon, ShonaBoys, Registered at the GPO as a magazine. Published by Womanfile Inc. Marti Friedlander, Donna Hoyle, Vanya Lowry, PO Box 56-147, Auckland, NZ. Kate Millington, Jess Hawk Oakenstar. Printed by Printcorp, Tauranga.

Other art work by Donelan and several unac­ Broadsheet is on file at the Women's Collection Special Department, knowledged artists has also been used. 9 North Western University Library, Evanston. Illinois 6020 1, USA

Broadsheet Winter / Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 3 25th birthday & / inal issue

16 COMPULSORY SUPERANNUATION HOW A WOMAN COULD LOSE $182,777 Sian McEwen 17 VOTE NO!! OR, HOW THE COMPULSORY SUPER SCHEME IS A RED HERRING Prue Hyman 22 FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION: A HEALTH ISSUE FOR NEW ZEALANDERS Nikki Denholm OF CONFORMITY AND REBELLION 25 Phillida Bunkle 32 "LIBERATION FOR THE REST OF US!" Jill Chrisp reports on the Men's Movement. 36 DROP BY DROP-WOMEN’S SELF-HELP GROUPS IN INDIA Linda Hill 40 LESBIAN AVENGERS: MORE SAINTLY THAN SINISTER AND VERY SOCIALLY AWARE Lisa Howard-Smith 42 WIN ON POVERTY Toni Allwood 46 DIRTY WASHING: THE MEANING OF DEPENDENCY Anne Else 53 MYTHS OF OUR TIME ON WELFARE AND WOMEN Celia Briar 57 INHUMAN RIGHTS - WOMEN AND CHILDREN LOSE AGAIN Babara Bennett 91 FEMINIST ENDINGS... with Jillian Cooper, Funeral Director

B o o k / )

62 HOW BROADSHEET GREW Consciousness Raising Was Women's Liberation Feminist? Is it safe yet to be born a Maori child? Hilary Haines

Broadsheet Winter/ Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 4 Sarah Calvert ISSUE 214 HOTOKE/WINTER 1997 Sandra Coney Edith Gorringe Jenny Coleman Jenny Rankine The Broadsheet Bookshop Legacy

( p o e t r y ^ )

86 LARAINE SHEFFIELD Waiting The joys of cellphones Saturday Morning 87 SUE FITCHETT Louis Leakey's Angels

((R egulary)

6 HERSPECTIVE Claire-Louise McCurdy 11 BROADCAST 77 GRIPES OF ROTH Margot Roth 78 CHRISTCHURCH COMMENT Pat Rosier 79 A KITCHEN TABLE DRAMA Lisa Sabbage Graphic Sharon Alston

(^Stroke# a*id/ A rt Attc^ck#()

81 ALL THE RAGE: REASSERTING RADICAL LESBIAN FEMINISM Lynne Harne and Elaine Miller (eds) reviewed by Jenny Rankine 83 VACCINATION AGAINST PREGNANCY: MIRACLE OR MENACE? Judith Richter, reviewed by Judy Strid 84 A LAST LOOK AT LESBIAN FICTION by Lisa Howard Smith 85 BEFORE THE DIVORCE WE GO TO DISNEYLAND Diane Brown, reviewed by Claire Louise Me Curdy 88 PAP SMEARS Literary comment by Barbara Bennett and Lisa Howard-Smith 89 A SERVING OF WELL SEASONED SONG MANIC OPERA reviewed by Lisa Howard-Smith 90 ARTEMISIA GENTILESCHI, THE FEMALE HERO OF ITALIAN BAROQUE ART by Kate Millington 95 THE FINAL FAREWELLS Lisa Howard-Smith

a fabulous final fling from Zealand's own feminist magazine!

Broadsheet Winter / Hotoke 2 5th Birthday Issue 1997 5 Her spective

For the last 15 years, I’ve attended most of the ‘tyranny of structurelessness’. What I valued was Broadsheets fortnightly Collective meetings. Now the space the Collective structure gave to each woman this is the last edition. I can’t quite believe it yet. to contribute. It has been such a privilege to get to The magazine has been part of my life since I know so many courageous, committed, humorous, moved to Auckland at the end o f 1972. I joined the intelligent women. Women’s Liberation Movement in Palmerston North, You might have noticed I didn’t include ‘nice’. where small town pressures resulted in a group of Being a fully functioning member o f a feminist about 80 women determined to develop a structure Collective does require some reassessing of ‘femi­ which would allow ‘unity in diversity’ - for those early ninity’. years at least. Subscribing to Broadsheet, in its first So much for the personal, what about the politi­ Gestetnered, foolscap form, was my connection to cal? Has Broadsheet made a difference? Issues first national feminist politics while I sorted out where I seen in Broadsheet are nowin the mainstream media. wanted to put my energy. Just this week, radio news referred to genital A decade later, I was on the Collective. I began as mutilation in Egypt, and to the problem of sending a a Volunteer’, organising some PEP workers and the six year old girl hospitalised with gonorrhoea back to Broadsheet resource packs, participating in a short­ the home where she had been infected. Genital lived Editorial group and indexing Broadsheet’s first mutilation continues to exist. The sexual abuse of decade of issues. Then 15 years on the Collective. children has not stopped. But feminists broke the Why did I stay so long? Well, others kept getting silence on the violence against women - physical, their resignations in first! ....just joking. I stayed economic, psychological, sexual - and Broadsheet because the women were interesting, the ideas were was a part of that. The magazine gave feminists an alive and the reasons for feminism’s existence were outlet, an opportunity for publication. It was never always before us. The phone calls for information, able to pay for articles, but they kept on coming in. the articles we used - and didn’t use - the discussions The twenty-five years of Broadsheet are a record on policy, the stories that came out in ‘warming-up’ of feminisms in Aotearoa/New Zealand. An incom­ at every meeting. plete and partial record, as any written/published Between meetings, being on Broadsheet meant work must be, but a unique record all the same. A constant exposure to data and details about women’s record of ‘woman’s place’ and of women’s challenges lives which kept my anger simmering, the sense of to that place. injustice intact. There was a continuing challenge to Broadsheet ceases with this issue because we how I saw the world from women older or much cannot afford to continue. I wonder whether we can younger than me, whose lived experience and theo­ really afford to stop? retical positions differed - often greatly - from my Claire-Louise McCurdy? own. Has it been worth it? All those years o f person­ ality and ideology clashes, and anxiety about money. O f all the groups I have belonged to, Broadsheet was the one that took being a Collective the most seri­ ously. By the time I joined, the conventions, the rituals, the expectations were firmly in place. As many have lapsed in the last few ‘voluntary’ years, with a faster turn-around o f members and much more work for each of us, the point and purpose of those conventions has been validated. Not everybody welcomed the brave attempt to create a non-hierarchical consensual structure. Those determined to have their own way manipulated or ignored the processes in place and we did not escape

Broadsheet Winter/ Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 6 Your write ( Regular)

the fin a l issue

Dear Broadsheet, It was with great sadness that I read that the next issue is your last. I Dear Broadsheet Collective, have read every issue and, while I often found that the articles were not I suppose there is a time and a o f interest to me, I still feel there was a real need to read and support season for everything. Neverthe­ your publication. less, I was surprisingly sad to read I first discovered you at the Women’s Convention in Wellington and that Broadsheet was ceasing pub­ managed to get all the back issues. At that time I felt most of your lication. What a brave and brilliant articles were relevant to my lifestyle - at home with pre-schoolers - life-line you’ve been. concerned with equity, abortion and other such issues. Women’s Liberation said things You ask where we were 25 five years ago. Well... . could change. And so they have. I was at home with my first born child - having ‘retired’ from In 1972, your first year, I became teaching just prior to the birth. a permanent resident in New I was finding life frustrating. A young baby doesn’t have much Zealand. Broadsheet, and the conversation and yet time to read (a pleasure for me) was not there. I women associated with it, played remember how much I enjoyed Jessica Weddel’s programme each day an important part in my journey. I - at night I’d bombard my husband with the ideas and issues I heard. have every issue. A treasure. And now... Fondest regards, My ‘baby’ is employed after doing a double degree. My girls - one Margaret Zube, is employed after a four year degree and diploma, the other in spite of Hamilton all her efforts is still unemployed. My youngest is in his third year at Otago. I’m still married to the same man. I’m back teaching and have Dear Broadsheet, been for ten years, mainly to support my children in their sporting I did hear after I sent the cheque to activities and through their university studies. And I’m still reading you that Broadsheet will cease af­ Broadsheet - and passing it on to my daughter. terissue 214, at your 25 th birthday. I’m feeling sad that you are ceasing publication. Thank you for I have no doubt that there are very giving me new ideas and thoughts, reinforcing many of my ideas and good reasons, but I am sorry to see giving me a good read. it happening. I first encountered Patricia Bird (Mrs), Broadsheet when I did a course Karori, Wellington ‘Aspects of Feminism’ at Otago University about three years ago. Dear friends, That was a very broadening and From your yellow sheet which has been forwarded to me, I glean that enlightening experience for me at Broadsheet is about to fold. How very sad. I guess it’s mainly money the time, and I have really appreci­ that’s causing this. I wish I had lots o f it to give, but being a mere ated receiving Broadsheet over the pensioner, that’s a dream. last year or so to keep me in touch I am grateful to Broadsheet for keeping me up with thinking and with feminist thinking and issues. news of women for all these years that I’ve been subscribing - material If there is any magazine being that I wouldn’t find in the ordinary media. published to replace Broadsheet, I All the people who have worked in the collective have done a great would be interested in hearing service to women, and I honour them all. about it.... I know my young friend in Seattle for whom I’ve been paying a sub I trust that ‘life after Broad­ will be sad to know there’s to be no more issues of Broadsheet. My sheet' will be enjoyable and cheque enclosed is for her as well as for myself, plus something for relaxing. postage or whatever. Sincerely, Sincerely, Robert Anderson, Phyl Short, Westmere, Auckland New Plymouth

Broadsheet Winter / Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 7 Dear Collective, ally proud to have worked for are killing themselves, others, When I read that the next issue of Broadsheet. dropping out, in jail, failing at Broadsheet will be the last, I felt The parcel is for all o f you school, angry, controlling, violent really sad and wanted to write and [Herbal tea, biscuits and apricots!! and inarticulate. The baby-boomer let you know. Part o f me is angry Ed.] boys o f my era are the walking that the ‘right wing’ are winning You must be disappointed and wounded. Confused, depressed, and silencing women. It feels like sad that Broadsheet is folding. lonely, unhappy... like icebergs, we as women are constantly hav­ Thank you for doing so much for floating in an icy sea. Young Kiwi ing to battle just to hold on to what a fab magazine. Of course, of men drinking themselves to we’ve got, and even then we seem course I want the last two issues! oblivion, wild and inarticulate. to be slipping backwards. love, Some of them say poor/lack of I have always looked forward Caroline de Castro, fathering is the cause ... how do to each issue of Broadsheet, Dunedin today’s single mothers fix that one? ‘chomping at the bit’ if it seems It’s long overdue for men to band late! When it arrives I savour each Dear Broadsheet, together and go through an aware­ article, and then feel a lot better - I’m still in the denial/disbelief ness-raising process, like we had talk about sustenance! The end of stage of mourning your to. Maybe it’s time for us to stop Broadsheet will leave a gap and I demise...how could you!! For the soothing, sheltering, smothering, will miss it - the stimulation and last 25 years, you have been a part sleeping with them until they get the feeling of connection with like- of my life that regularly affirmed their shit together. Withdrawal of minded women. and supported my feminism, 11 our labour to get them to move. Re the most recent edition, years in Canada, 3 in Zimbabwe, 9 Well, let’s be brave and posi­ last year I got a tattoo, so it was in New Zealand. You never let me tive, and celebrate the fact that neat to read how other women felt down. Just knowing you were Broadsheet was with us for 25 about theirs, which reflected my there helped me affirm my iden­ years. It’s quite amazing really. own feelings. Thanks for that. tity as a feminist and a New And things have got better. There’s And thanks to all the women Zealand woman. far greater awareness that women’s who have worked for free, expend­ So is feminism now so fights are simply human rights, ing their time and energy for the institutionised, so much built-in and there’s no turning back the benefit of the rest of us. Two years to our everyday life that we can clock to the 1950s mentality. ago I wrote a paper on Broadsheet just get on with it? I think not. There’s battles to be fought for for a Masters in Social Work paper. Sure, some battles have been won, human rights and dignity in every I don’t know if it’s of interest to some women definitely have more area, starting in our own relation­ anyone [yes, it is! Ed.], but I thought choices than ever before, but girl, ships ... connections to be made, I’d send it just in case anyone does we ain’t there yet. Too many of us with Maori in their struggle for want to flick through it. have been marginalised for life by self-determination, with men in Again, thanks for all the hard religious/new right policies - anti- the men’s movement, with adoles­ work and I will miss Broadsheet abortionism, cuts to benefits, the cents in their turbulent transition. heaps. under-funding of health, educa­ Let’s use the web to stay in touch Lesley Pitt, tion, housing ... it’s our belt that’s and keep being included, and Palmerston North been tightened. Women are dra­ heard. matically over-represented in the Flinally thankyouthankyou Dear Lisa and the others on the lowest socio-economic group. The youthankyou all of you who ever Collective, big-business interests who con­ contributed to the production of I’m so sad that Broadsheet is clos­ trol our government and economy Broadsheet, including every reader... ing. It’s such a tragedy for have marginalised and alienated you did a fantastic job and I’m proud everyone. Broadsheet does great women, Maori, youth, the poor - to have been part of it. Now, to whom stuff for feminism in New Zealand. everyone except people like them. do I bequeath my back copies?? What triumphs to end with We need to stay angry and vocal In sisterhood, though. 25 years and the longest and active. Everywhere. Maxine Boag running feminist magazine The ill-health of men is a big [email protected] anywhere...wow! You must be re­ problem. More and more of them

Broadsheet Winter/ Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 8 p a g a n ism mission to accept part of my own sane solution. What was to be a psyche that I had denied for years simple vaginal hysterectomy Dear Broadsheet, - and then extend it...In my fifteen changed on the table to an ab­ I would like to comment on the years of contact with these groups dominal to remove the huge fibroid sub-title you added to the feature I was never asked to believe in growth occupying two-thirds of article written by my lesbian part­ anything." (p.20) the uterus and endometriosis so ner Helen Heliotrope - ‘Paganism - I hope that this comment on chronic it completely blanketed a faith for feminists?’ This sub­ the sub-title added to Helen’s ar­ and distorted ovaries and pushed title was not written by Helen, ticle will help to explain how one my bladder out of position. though she accepts it. I do not. can very easily accept Paganism It was a simple operation with Pagans do not have a ‘faith’ nor a which does not have to be believed minimal pain and after effects. (I ‘creed’ of any kind. in. It simply allows for the whole told myself I was pain-free, had Paganism is a way of being in of life to be integrated - no separa- zest and energy and that I healed the world. I think the addition of tion between spiritual and easily and well.) Three months the. sub-title sums up very clearly material, the sacred and the secu­ later I’m a new woman. I feel the misconceptions so many femi­ lar. One becomes part of the great, have no pain, no lethargy nists have about Paganism. There process of life itself. and feel clean inside. All power is no one truth to believe nor one I have always admired Broad­ and gratitude to the ‘surgeon who way to behave, for Pagans. Unlike sheet for its ability to persist, and restored normality’ and the hand monotheistic faiths such as Juda­ it health and vitality over 25 years. that held the knife was a woman ism, Christianity or [Islam], Pagans I have contributed reports, per­ surgeon! do not exclude those who do not sonal life experiences and articles I - and everyone I know who believe certain things. Pagans do over the years. Many thanks to the has had a hysterectomy - say that not convert others. In general, women who have made up the they wish they’d done it years ago. people come across pagan infor­ Broadsheet collective. I was ‘made human’. mation in their own time and they Noreen Penny, Give your daughters the choice recognise it for something that is Rangiora to hear another point of view already in their lives and in - maybe they too have invasive everyone’s lives. I quote from growths and chronic Margot Adler, granddaughter of endometriosis which won’t be Alfred Adler, who researched pa­ ‘cured by making major or minor ganism for her exhaustive survey hysterectomy changes in their lives’. called ‘Drawing Dawn the Moon’ Barbara M. Byers, (Beacon NY 1986): Dear Broadsheet, Christchurch “(At the age of 12] I remember I read Lindsay Nichols’ poem on entering into Greek myths as if I Hysterectomy (Broadsheet Sum­ had returned to my true home­ mer 1996) with interest - having land. (p.l 5)...One day the coven in just recently had one myself. Essex sent me a tape recording of I wish to balance her negative some of their rituals... When it came viewpoint of ‘man’ robbing woman time for the invocation the words of womanhood to disempower and came clearly, ‘Listen to the words sanitise. At 41 I had suffered for of the Great Mother, who was of years with the ‘flood of red tide’. old called Artemis, Astarte, Crippling pain, depression, leth­ Aphrodite, Diana, Brigit and many argy, PMS - a life half lived, other names.’ A feeling of power averaging one-and-a-half good and emotion came over me. For, weeks a month because of men­ after all, how different was the strual cycle and problems. Not a ritual from the magical rituals of wimp or hypochondriac, I could my childhood? The contents of endure no more. the tape had simply given me per­ A hysterectomy was the only

Broadsheet Winter / Hotoke 2 5th Birthday Issue 1997 9 women's action for justice

Dear Broadsheet, Women’s Action for Justice is com­ mitted to challenging, not just the law and the legal services, but the role of the media too. The media assists the maintenance of the sta­ tus quo by selection and sensationalism in its reporting. Doug Graham recently an­ nounced that the Coalition Government is committed to ex­ amining the sentences for women who have killed their abusive part­ that has been discredited by femi­ age. We believe it is vitally impor­ ners. In response, Greg Newbold nist researchers working in the tant that women everywhere are [a criminologist at Canterbury area o f domestic violence there. thoroughly informed about these University] received massive pub­ Nevertheless, Greg Newbold is typi­ issues. licity as he expounded that: cal of a movement determined to If you would like to receive (1 Husband battering happens trivialise women’s experience and information or if you have mate­ as frequently as wife battering, to deny the institutionalised power rial that could contribute to our and that enables the law and practice resource, please write to us. (2) Women are treated more of law to discriminate against Tighe Instone leniently by the courts than men women. for Women's Action for Justice are. Especially men who kill their Women’s Action for Justice is PO Box 33 275 partners. currently gathering articles and Christchurch Greg Newbold’s statements are information with the intention of 9 based on United States research putting together a resource pack­

Conveyancing Centre BARRISTERS & SOLICITORS 624 Dominion Road, Balmoral, Auckland

We specialise in conveyancing especially houses and small businesses together with associated services such as refinancing and property agreements, Wills and Estates.

Please contact Stephanie Tait and Joanne Mears Phone 630 2695 Fax 630 2128

You will find our office conveniently located at 624 Dominion Road in the Balmoral shops (4 doors down from the Capitol Cinema) - ...... — .... J

Broadsheet Winter/ Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 10 Broad

RESEARCH TO IMPROVE INFANT HEALTH WOMEN’S ELECTORAL "NewZealand's infant health sta­ LOBBY REPORTS tistics are poor - in fact, we are at the bottom of the OECD country list for infant and post-neonatal MMP was meant to herald in a new mortality rates.' says Patsy era in Parliamentary politics. The Watson, coordinator of a new politics of confrontation and divi­ major study to improve infant sion were to be replaced by anew health. mood of cooperation and consen­ New Zealand's low birth sus. Some hope! The first few weight rates increased 2796 be­ weeks saw the continuation of the tween 1979 and 1991 and confrontational style of politics. improvement is urgently needed. The coalition effectively put ex­ Poor ante natal nutrition and low ecutive government back on birthweight have linked not only control and ensured that all ap­ to the infant’s later health, but pointments went to government to heart disease and diabetes in members... middle-age. It is very disappointing that Supported by the Ministry of graphic Donna Hoyle Broadsheet Jenny Shipley is the only woman Health, and run by the Depart­ March 1980 in Cabinet, although there are ment of Biochemistry of Massey Mrs Watson is now calling for three new women Ministers on University, Albany, the study will volunteers. Mothers whose babies the outside - Chris Fletcher (Na­ monitor nutrition and well-be­ are due between October and Janu­ tional) as Minister of Women's ing in 500 pregnant women in ary 1997 should phone her on Affairs, Deborah Morris (NZ First) urban and rural communities (09) 443-9627. as Youth Affairs Minister and from Taupo to the Brynderwyns, Massey University Campus News Robyn McDonald (NZ First) as south of Whangarei. 26.5.97 Senior Citizens Minister. Dianne Yates, Labour spokesperson on Women’s Af­ fairs, was denied leave to Superwomen in Parliament introduce a notice of motion on International Women's Day, rec­ The 34 women now in Parliament have been meeting together ommending that the Minister of across parties. In April this year women MPs spoke out as women Women's Affairs be included in against the coalition government's proposal to replace the Cabinet. Murial Newman (who is ACT's spokeswoman on present tax-funded system of pensions with an individualised, Women's Affairs although Act compulsory superannuation. However, the buck for this major does not yet have a position on change is being passed to the electorate, in an expensive whether there should be such a referendum planned for September. Ministry) commented, "We think Mrs Fletcher is probably worth Of course, the encouraging stand being taken by women at least five of the existing men, MPs may be due to commonsense and political nous. But we and we would happily see her know that when women get together and talk about how move into cabinet if they moved political decision affect women, great things can happen. out to accommodate her." All Select Committees except Foreign Affairs and Justice and

Broadsheet Winter / Hotoke 2 5th Birthday Issue 1997 11 Law Reform are headed by National MPs. Georgina TeHeuheu chairs M M P m e a n s M o r e 'M a id e n s ' Maori Affairs, Joy McLaughlan chairs Social Services, CHECK THIS in P a r l ia m e n t ... and Marie Hasler chairs Electoral Law. WEL Newsletter 131, March 1997 Here are just a few of the points made in just a few of the first speeches by newly elected women Members of Parliament.

PATRICIA SCHNAUER (ACT) Down with D olly! I was surprised to find that in Parliament we still have maiden speeches. I can't help but feel that when the Human Rights New South Wales MP Marlene Gold­ Commission finds out they will urgently wish to correct such an smith says leading teen magazine obviously sexist term... Dolly should be banned for contra­ Unless the law recognises the legitimate interests of women in all vening the Australian child respects it should be reviewed and this is particularly true o f the protection laws in the way it fea­ Matrimonial Property Act 1976... From years of practising in the tured a 13 year old winner of a Family Court as a barrister and solicitor, I have seen women and modelling competition in its April children suffer unnecessarily because of delays in obtaining hearing issue. The sexually provocative dates for custody, access, domestic protection and matrimonial portrayal contravenes, in her view, property cases. During my tern in this MMP environment I will try laws designed to protect children to obtain the support of other parties to push for a select committee from situations that are enquiry in to court system. 'innappropriate with regard to the LIZ GORDON (ALLIANCE) child's age, maturity, emotional or I want to talk about women and children because so many have psychological development and become the victims of New Right policies. The family benefit was sensitivity'. eroded in value and then abolished. Our infant and maternal N Z Herald, March 1997 mortality rates have worsened in relation to those of comparative countries, and our child health statistics are getting worse. We tire one o f the few countries to have no paid parental leave provisions for A n o th e r famous workers. The United Nations tells us, 'the extensive economic reform process undertaken in New Zealand has affected support services for man...(yawn,yawn..) children and their families and all necessary measures to ensure the enjoyment by children of their economic, social and cultural rights The publishers Doubleday are have not been undertaken.'.. paying $US 200,000 for The The coalition government's proposals for a compulsory superan­ Anatomist, a first novel by Ar­ nuation saving scheme will again penalise women, especially those gentinian Frederico Andahazi with children. Our lifetime earnings are smaller, and we will save about a 16th century Italian less, and will be less able to afford to save. When we retire, we will scientist who discovered the still get less, because who here believes that women's contributions clitoris (N Z Herald 29.3.97). to society will be recognised by a top-up in our pensions to the level Yes, you guessed it, a male that men get? It will not happen. We are poorer than men all our lives scientist. and we will live longer, but with a poorer retirement income, than our Another example of Ameri­ male peers...Women, as a group, are falling further behind, and I want cans, North or South, claiming to remind this government that we are equal, that we deserve 'discoveries' that whole na­ equality, and that we will fight for it. tions of people already know ANN BATTEN (NZ FIRST) all about! As at December 1996,44% of the employed labour force were women. (Mind you, four centuries To acknowledge this significance presence, further advances in pay later there's still fellas who equity and equal opportunity need to occur. We need to look at the don't....) issue of paid parental leave. Out of 36 selected OECD countries, only

Broadsheet Winter/Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 12 New Zealand and the United States do not yet have paid parental Womesvy Healths leave. Even Turkey makes this provision. Adequate and affordable 'R e se a rc h ' C e # \ tYe / childcare provisions must be made to assist parents who work and \______y we need to foster 'family-friendly' workplaces. I would also like to On 25 March a public meeting of see those who choose to work voluntarily in the home and in the around 50 women endorsed the community given proper recognition and value for their contribution concept of a Women's Health Re­ to the well-being and productivity of our society and a wider search Centre and called on the acknowledgement that the nuclear family is no longer the norm. Health Research Council to fund PAM CORKERY (ALUANCE) this proposal. The idea has been The ethical models offered by the world of commerce are those of put forward by the HRC’s own fierce and mutually destructive competition. This is taught as being Women's Health Committee. How­ a good thing. It masquerades as teaching self reliance and indepen­ ever, the committee has only dence. With greed enthroned as one of the great social virtues, no advisory powers and the HRC's wonder so many of our young people lose themselves in blind commitment to women's health alleyways of drugs and crime. They are our responsibility and as research seems to be slipping to adults we are betraying a whole generation. the bottom of the priority list again. NANIA MAHUTA (LABOUR) This follows on from the Na­ What we see before us is a Parliament which is becoming more tional Women's Health Policy being representative of the people of this nation. For the first time we have developed and promoted by the more Maori representation, more women, more Pacific Islanders, Women's Health Committee, which and the first representation of our Asian communities. This will be received support from women in indicative of a growing diversity in this House of Representatives... three political parties at a Suffrage The major challenge for all members of this House will be to reduce Day breakfast last September. socio-economic inequalities that exist between Maori and Pakeha. The women attending the pub­ DONNA AWATERE HUATA (ACT) lic meeting about the Centre I have a mission: to do what I can to ensure that every single New discussed the form such a centre Zealander has the opportunity to reach their educational potential. should take and put forward many Every Maori MP in our past has promoted the idea the education is suggestions. Better networking the engine of social and economic change for their people and I am about current research projects and simply following in their tradition. But government has in the past future research needs was urgently let us down badly... needed, and might be provided by a Right now 56% of Maori people are dependent on a benefit, and interactive Internet web. However, the single mother is now the biggest family unit [category!. Our they agreed that a physical research unemployment is three times higher than non-Maori, 30% of our centre was needed, rather them just young people are unemployed, we are sicker, have more accidents, an information network or an inte­ fill half the prisons, and have a soaring mental health problem. This grated programme of research is a recipe for disaster. projects which might receive HRC TARIANA TURIA (LABOUR) funding. A Research Centre would I come from a long line of Maori political activists who died without provide the organisation to ensure ever seeing their vision come to fruition... both of those, and would have a Our situation is different to that of tauiwi because it is often through physical presence that would not the media that 'thought control’ is exercised. The average New Zealander so easily 'lapse' when projects were continues to be influenced by the negative stories and images provided completed and funding ended. to them by mainstream media, and then acts against our interests and There was discussion about the hinders our progress and development... relative merits of a university or a Being young, Maori and unemployed is a high occupational hazard. community base. JENNY BLOXHAM (NZ FIRST) For more information, contact Violence has become commonplace in our society...I look to our Auckland Women's Health Action, united determination to deal with this most persistent of issues in (09) 520 5295, Fax (09) 520 4152, email our society. For regardless of circumstances, is there any excuse for mackayl@women's-beatth.org.nz,FO any form of violence? Excerpts from Maiden Speeches WEL newsletter, March 1997 Box Newmarket Auckland.

Broadsheet Winter / Hotoke 2 5th Birthday Issue 1997 13 D&C ABORTIONS NOW ILLEGAL IN MISSISIPPI NZ WOMEN AND HIV/AIDS RESEARCH PLANNED On 14 February, the Virginia Senate killed a bill that would ban most The AIDS Epidemiology Group D&C abortion procedures, just one started recording newly diag­ day after the Missisippi legislature nosed cases of HIV in 1989. At passed a similar bill. last count on 31/12/96, 107 The Missisippi law bans D&C (?HIV+) women have been diagnosed with abortions except where the HIV in New Zealand, constitut­ woman's life in in danger. It also ing 9% of the total count. This is subjects doctors who perform the not necessarily an accurate fig­ procedure to criminal liability and ure as many women may not fines o f $25,000. The doctor could Heather Worth and Alison have been tested. Women with also be sued by the woman's par­ Reid of the research team are HIV in this country are a dispar­ ents if she is underage, or by the committed to making this re­ ate group, representing all ages, father of the fetus. search as inclusive of HIV positive sexualities and a variety of cul­ The Virginia D&C bill had passed women and their supporters as tural and ethnic backgrounds. in the House, but it died in a Senate possible. They would like input The research team at New Committee when Democrat Emily from women into setting the aims Zealand AIDS Foundation are Couric changed her vote at the last and objectives of the study from keen to do some research around minute. She said that although she it's onset. women and HIV/AIDS in New had supported the bill as written, Zealand. There has been very she feared that anti-choice lawmak­ If you would like to know little research undertaken previ­ ers would amend the bill on the more, please call either Heather ously on women and HIV in this floor to remove the exceptions for or Alison at work on (09) 3033124. country. NZAF sees a need for a woman whose life is in danger, further research into this broad and to use the bill as an opportu­ Collective Thinking area. nity to ban other types o f abortion. Issue 32/May 1997 O ff Our Backs March 1997

SayprUe/Surprise/ (Not!) Murder charges dropped against

A list recently compiled by the closest to an equitable average at Mexican woman UN Development Program show­ 92.0 and 91.5 respectively. The pleading self-defense ing women's average wages as a lowest average wage compared to in attempted rape percentile of men's reveals that men is being paid to Bangladesh women throughout the world con­ women: 42.0. While across the Claudia Rodriguez was charged tinue to receive a lower average Tasman, Australian women bring with murder when, in the early hours wage then men: on a world wide their country in third, at 90.8. NZ of the morning, she shot and killed average women get 74.9 cents for is however well ahead o f the USA an acquaintance who had followed every dollar paid to a man. NZ placed 31st at 75.0, UK placed her out of a bar and sexually as­ comes in at number 18 on the list 39th at 69.7, and Canada 47th at saulted her. Rodriguez claimed she o f 5 5 countries, with Kiwi women 63.0. acted in self defense, but receiving 80.6 cents for every Women's International Network prosecuters charged her with mur­ male dollar. This is well below News Vol 23 Spring 1997 Tanzinia and Vietnam who come der. According to an Associated Press article last February, the judge refused to dismiss the murder charge, assuming that she had en-

Broadsheet Winter/ Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 14 ticed her attacker in the bar. Ac­ cording to the judge, "In remaining THE RIGHT TO TAKE in the company of her aggressor, despite his propositions to her, she BACK THE NIGHT provoked him to attack her, so she In Sweden a demonstration could shoot him in some vital part against police brutality de­ o f his body. "After continuing pro­ manded the resignation of the tests from women’s groups, the commanding officer of a precinct murder charge was dropped. in which police attacked a 'Take Rodriguez was required to pay back the Night' march on Interna­ $1538 in damages to her attacker's tional Women's Day. family, and a fine o f $256, for 'us­ Some 50-60 women marched, ing excessive force' in her legitimate shouting anti pornography slo­ Poster Wellington 1979 defense. gans. They were suddenly The Women's Watch March 1997 surrounded by police, who left no exits o ff the street. The attack The police claim that the involved riot gear, 17 cars, 4 vans, women were violent, attacking 3 horses and several dogs. Police porn stores and breaking win­ (gS moking & pregnancy beat demonstrators with the dows. The demonstrators say 5 > handles of their batons, laughing one person threw one stone, A survey of births in New South and calling them 'lesbians’ - and breaking one window. Passers- Wales has added evidence that using obcene language. Male cops by tried to stop the police from mothers who smoke were putting body-searched women, some of beating the women, and two such their babies at increased risk. The whom said they were molested. witnesses immediately filed researchers said that 2296 of women Several women were injured, with charges. continued to smoke during preg­ three needing hospital treatment. The Militant, 14.6.97 nancy, with the rate reaching 4296 among teenagers. Up to 3 3 babies die each year as a result of birth complications caused by their mothers smoking <^A/\arixicL^z? ^ V a t(zan(zi. in pregnancy. Also an estimated 1,012 are born at a low weight, and Figures released by Statistics New Zealand in May show fewer people 441 are born prematurely for the are getting married. When they do so, on average,they are five years same reason. The mothers them­ older than their parents were when they wed. selves were more likely to have The low figure for the number of marriages in 1996 21,056 obstetric complications such as pre­ continues a general decline since the number reached a post-Second birth haemorrhage. World War peak of 27,199 in 1971. The figure for 1996 was 0.3 per The results suggest that stop­ cent less than 1995's total of 21, 579 and 21 percent lower than in ping all women from smoking in 1971. pregnancy would save 587 babies a The numbers of women marrying as teenagers, and the figures for year from requiring the care of teenage pregnancies, show an interesting pattern. In 1971 nine in 25 special care nurseries or neonatal first-time marriages involved a teenage bride. This had dropped to intensive care units. one in 25 in 1996. “ It costs up to $2,000 per day During the same period the number of women aged 20 and under for this kind of special care. If we who had a child but didn't marry has remained at only slightly more halved the smoking rate, we would or less than 5000. But the number of young married mothers dropped. save millions.” In 1971, 8139 so-called nuptial births were recorded for women Sydney Morning Herald, 7.5.1997 aged 20 or under. In 1980 there were 3362, and last year only 497. 'NZ Her aid,May 2nd 1997.9

Broadsheet Winter / Hotoke 2 5th Birthday Issue 1997 15 (Feature) COMPULSORY SUPERANNUATION

ompulsory superannuation up in the woman’s fund? That’s come, would manage. Or why they sounds like a marvellous easy - nothing. should, when staying home to bring C idea. It means you would But wait! There’s more! up a family is not a luxury. never have to worry about how you Maybe her partner (who is in Which brings me to my next will live in old age, or whether there the paid workforce) gets to pay her point. When a woman does return will be enough money left in the $50 a week as well as his own. So to the workforce, it is usually in a government 'kitty' when you turn he is paying twice! And the family’s part-time position. So once again, 65 and retire. All this sounds great, spending power, which is already her superannuation savings power right? Sure, if you are a single man down because the woman’s home is halved - or is she then expected to with no family ties. Currently the childcare is not paid work and be­ pay double to make up for lost government is suggesting that cause he is paying his compulsory payments? Is the government will­ people save $50 a week in a com­ superannuation, drops another $50 ing to keep up the superannuation pulsory superannuation scheme. a week. payments for a woman who stays Read on... Can your family afford to lose at home, caring for her children? WHAT COM PULSORY SUPER SCHEMES COULD MEAN FOR WOMEN Women have an amazing advan­ OR, tage over men - we can have children. However, the flip side HOW A WOMAN of this is that a woman frequently takes ten years out of the paid COULD LOSE workforce to look after her pre­ schoolers. Then she will often return to the paid workforce in a $ 182,777 part-time position. Sian McEwen So here’s the scenario under compulsory superannuation for a $100 per week? I know mine can­ (This is one of the most important women who has three children and not. I am not entirely certain just jobs anyone can do.) leaves the paid workforce for ten where the MPs who support this Or are we taking another slide years: compulsory superannuation think away from equality? $50 per week, not paid into a that all this money is going to come Please think about this care­ superannuation fund which be­ from. Or, for that matter, why they fully. If you have children, could comes think that New Zealand women you afford to be in this scenario? $2600 per year, not paid into a could manage to have worthwhile Or if you don’t have children, could fund superannuation in their name when your friends, family or whanau af­ which becomes they retire under such a scheme, ford to be in this situation? I $26,000 after ten years, not when it would be at least $182,777 believe that all women should unite paid into a fund less than the funds belonging to to fight compulsory superannua­ times 796 interest, which equals men. tion, as I do not believe it will be $182,777. I am not entirely sure how fami- beneficial either to us or to our So, while the paid worker (usually lies who are struggling on a families. 9 male) goes on paying this superan­ benefit would pay compulsory nuation for these ten years, and suprannuation either. Or how they, ends up with this sum, what ends or a family paying twice on one

Broadsheet Winter/ Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 16 (Feature) COMPULSORY SUPERANNUATION VOTE NO!! or, How the Compulsory Super Scheme is a Red Herring to Divert Us from the Government's Intention to Increase the Poverty of Elderly Women Prue Hyman

he superannuation issue is essentially about how - or how not! - to Tensure adequate living standards for older women. But the argu­ The Coalition ments for both compulsory and voluntary savings schemes assume Government that a male pattern of paid work, and take the lives of well-paid white men as the norm (although many do less really useful work than those on resulted from the last lower incomes). referendum in 1992 The major issues for gender equity are all well known, but have is now proposing been largely ignored until Winston Peters’ recent panic when too many women MPs and other MPs started coming out against a another for September compulsory privatised scheme. of this year. This time we will be Why superannuation is largely about women Women on average earn less than men. Women’s average hourly deciding whether to earnings as a percentage o f men’s doesn’t sound too bad, at 8196 in continue the present the Quarterly Employment Survey or 8996 in the Household Expen­ system of state diture Survey. However, it is annual incomes that count with regard to spending and saving, For all women over 15, in and out of the pensions labour force, that’s down around 55% of men’s. At the 1996 Census, funded from taxes, 77% o f those with an income over $40,000 were men. The pay gap or to change to is only narrowing slowly, with more women at top levels being counter balanced in the statistics by a general widening of pay a system of compulsory differentials. Of course, there are considerable differences between savings schemes. women. The few who crack the glass ceiling will do okay under any What we are facing is regime, but part-time and casualised blue and white collar women are barely coping with surviving, let alone saving. the privatisation of Women on average are in the labour force for fewer years than our pensions. men. This is due to heavier responsibilities for caring for children and other dependents, and for household work. V J

Broadsheet Winter / Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 17 For these reasons, women on for basing premiums on identifi­ Why it is irrelevant which average are less able to ‘save for able risk categories where scheme we have except their retirement’. individual behaviour increases risk, Women continue to do unpaid the case is much weaker with re­ as a means of screwing caring work even when over 65 - for spect to gender differences. A w o m e n ______spouses (whom they often outlive), number of countries are moving grandchildren, other extended fam­ towards outlawing use of gender In a civilised society, older people ily and whanau, and the community based actuarial tables. The insur­ need adequate housing, food, cloth­ in general through voluntary work. ance industry in New Zealand has ing, health care and other services, In 1991, 2996 of women over 60 persuaded politicians that actuarial and a range of life choices. Such were caring for another person regu­ principles apply more completely consumption, for older people as larly; a third of these were providing to the risk difference by gender well as all others, comes largely out constant care. We also do commu­ than by race, and that the slight o f current production. nity work. In 1993, 85% of reduction in price or increase in Some goods such as houses, Community Advise Bureau volun­ benefts for women that would re­ ecu’s and household effects are du­ teers were women; and 45% were sult from eliminating gender pricing rable and can be carried forward to ‘retired’. Volunteers averaged 20.5 would be dwarfed by the general retirement, although maintenance hours a month at this work, which increase in costs over time. is still a cost. Owning one’s house at a modest rate is estimated to be Winston Peters recently an­ without a mortgage is the most w orth $8 m illion to this nounced that women would be important asset for retirement. organisation alone. ‘topped up’ to more than the Those who rent, with only New Women on average live longer $160,000 savings target to com­ Zealand Superannuation as income, than men. Life expectancy at birth pensate for this problem. I’m are likely to have a low standard of is 79 years for women and 74 for suspicious. An industry represen­ living, even at present. men(for Maori women 72, for Maori tative has claimed that the top up We have to afford an ageing men 67). Hence an annual annuity for all those with less than $160,000 population under any system. What bought with the same amount pays saved could be more expensive than we are being urged to do is to out less per year to women than to the current scheme. accumulate our claims on resources men. Susan St John found that in Women usually outlive their ahead of time and individually, January 1996 $100,000 would buy male partners due to longevity and rather than collectively, through an annuity from Colonial Mutual of the tendency for women to marry compulsory or collectively volun­ $7,704 for a woman, as against older men. Women are two thirds tary schemes. However, only if $8,714 for a man. This practice is o f those over 80. Three quarters of saving earlier is new saving (rather unlikely to be banned. It was tried men currently over 60 are married, than a switch) and provides extra unsuccessfully when the Human but only 47% of women. Women productive investment to increase Rights Amendment Act was passed are much more likely to be living national wealth and income, will it in 1993, with the insurance indus­ alone; 52% of women aged 75-79, increase the size of the cake to be try winning the day. Ironically, compared with 21% of men that divided between the old and other discrimination on the grounds of age. How to manage alone (despite groups. Those currently in paid race in this area is prohibited, or a new lease o f life for many!) is a and unpaid work (including the eld­ Maori would receive higher pen­ woman’s issue. Together with the erly) must always provide the goods sions for the same lump sum increasing rate o f marital breakup, and services for those currently purchase them Pakeha because they this means that women need some fully or partly dependent. Each co­ don’t live as long. financial security linked to and hort benefits from inter- Averaging risk is a basic insur­ separate from their spouses. generational transfer and provides ance principle. While there is a case for others at different life stages. Claims that the cur­ “We have to afford an rent scheme is un­ affordable are a red ageing population under any system.” herring. What it or any other scheme buys is

Broadsheet Winter/Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 18 too much to pass is reasonably generous, having re­ down to the next duced poverty among the elderly. generation. Why However, that generosity is de­ should those creasing. The married couple rate brought up in a was originally 8096 of the average wealthy family, wage, but is now around 67%. with all the advan­ As a result of this scheme, and tages that already because the incomes o f men are involves, also ex­ lower after retirement age, the pect large income gap between men and inheritances? Per­ women over 65 is far narrower haps the wealthy than for any other age group. New should expect to Zealand Superannuation is about use up some of 70% of regular income of women their assets on re­ over 65, but much less for men. tirement - for The gender income gap would un­ example, by use of doubtedly widen under any other reverse mortgage/ forseeable scheme. home equity con­ The current system gives a version schemes. basic first-tier standard of living, Whether they as of right, to all older residents, should be com­ reducing the perpetuation of in­ pelled to do so is equalities at younger ages into more difficult. retirement. Of course, those on Where a spouse, high incomes will still be able to daughter or other save more and consume more in relative has re­ old age. duced their It is certainly sustainable. is dependent on macro, not just earning power by substantial When claiming unaffordability, the micro factors: the rate of invest­ amounts of caring for an elderly Right pretends there’s a fixed level ment and return, i.e. productivity (rich!) relative, they can reasonably of taxation and government rev­ growth, and the rate of inflation. expect not to have their future re­ enue, whereas both rates o f tax When the rate o f inflation w as high turns totally disappear - so I’m and the tax base can vary. Our and real rates of interest much torn on wealth taxes and tough direct tax rates are low by interna­ lower than now, many elderly who inheritance taxes. tional standards and, with had saved found their savings were reasonable productivity growth, eroded. The advantages of the the tax base will increase. Susan St John points out that current system ______The ageing population must political power helps determine who and can be afforded. Raising the gets what. Claims by the retired on At present, New Zealand Superan­ age of eligibility from 63 (now) to the current production of society nuation is paid to each partner, on 65 years and reducing the level of come though profits from shares a pay-as-we-go basis from tax payment from 67% of the average and financial assets they own, pay­ revenue. Each individual’s super­ wage to 65% will together reduce ments out o f tax revenue, and sales annuation is taxed and together the cost of the current scheme by o f their own assets. Their share with other income currently attracts 18%, and mean less is needed to thus depends on total social out­ a surcharge (to perhaps be abol­ provide for the increase in num- put, the elderly’s share of assets, ished next year). the amount of transfers, workers’ The level of super­ own savings, and the degree of run annuation is “Unaffordability is >\ down of assets by the old. unrelated to previ­ My own view is that both rich ous income, it is another red herring.” parents and their children expect gender neutral and

Broadsheet Winter / Hotoke 2 5th Birthday Issue 1997 19 ian and without the need for spe­ /^‘Political power determines who cial arrangements for those women, married, divorced or single, who ______gets what.*' have not had a history o f attach­ ment to the workforce in the male tradition." bers retiring. With the top tax rate should be reason enough to aban­ only 33%, it would be better to keep don it. Compulsory the 25% surcharge on income other If a compulsory scheme does vs. voluntary schemes _ _ than NZ Superannuation. The sur­ eventuate, one way of acknowledg­ charge is already very generous in ing women’s caring work, adopted The focus on the referendum and its thresholds and abatements, com­ in some countries with social in­ the issue o f compulsory ssavings pared with the benefit system, and surance, is to pay tax funded credits or voluntary is almost a red herring is paid only by those with high into the individual contributor’s (and a clever diversion from the incomes. While it saves only about account during periods of unpaid real issues) with respect to gender $300 million o f the $5,000 million work. This would reduce the need aspects. What will happen if (when) cost of superannuation, this is well for top-up payments at retirement. the referndum says no to compul­ worth saving. Most women and Both credits and top-ups are fi­ sory savings? The most likely about two thirds of ALL nanced from taxation, but the scenario will be: superannuitants have little or no former has the important advan­ 1. To urge voluntary savings (per­ other income and don’t pay any tage of recognising unpaid caring haps with preferential tax surcharge. work as real work. treatment) beyond the means o f While welcoming the fact that All other types of scheme dis­ low income earners, most women MPs - including Cabi­ advantage women. The groups 2. To gradually erode the amount net Minister and ex-Minister of most likely to contribute to occu­ and criteria for the current New Women’s Affairs Jenny Shipley - pational schemes or mutual funds Zealand Superannuation scheme to have joined forces to oppose com­ are professional and managerial, in make cost savings, pulsory savings schemes on gender which women are under-repre­ 3. To subtly move from New and other grounds, I do not sup­ sented. In 1988-89 even o f those Zealand Superannuation as the port Jenny Shipley’s suggestion that actually in such schemes, the base, and other savings as extra top the age o f eligibility should be fur­ amounts contributed by men were ups, to voluntary savings as the ther increased to 67 or 68. While usually four times those of women, base and New Zealand Superan­ more will continue in paid work with men having higher incomes nuation as the saftey net for those voluntarily, people should not be and better access to such schemes. without sufficient savings. This forced to continue working beyond Transferability between jobs and would extend the notion of 'the 65 or face poverty. At the 1996 rules about cashing schemes in underserving poor' to the elderly, Census only 14% of men over 65 mean that those with fewer years of particuarly women. who indicated their work status service (frequently women) cross This scenario is just as bad as and 5% of women were still in the subsidise those with longer years a compulsory scheme, and perhaps labour force. This cannot increase o f service (mainly men). Women worse, because with voluntary rapidly, though with reducing birth who leave the paid workforce for savings schemes (including occu­ rates, some jobs might be there in full time child care often need to or pational schemes), government the future. are required to cash in their super­ cannot regulate requirements for New Zealand Superannuation annuation rights. gender quity, as they could if join­ is universal, not requiring ‘top ups’ Hence, as Susan St John con­ ing one such scheme was or ‘safety nets’ for those unable to cludes, compulsory by law. accumulate an adequate level of “The combination of a taxable There are some extra disadvan­ savings. According to Jenny flat rate benefit, a surcharge and no tages, however, to compulsory Shipley, only 10% of women (and tax concessions is a cost efficient schemes, in addition to the captve 50% of men) could accumulate way of delivering an adequate basic market or bonanza secured for the $160,000 on the proposed compul­ income in retirement... NewZealand insurance industry. They limit the sory privatised scheme. This Superannuation is simple, egalitar­ choice of type o f savings. Paying

Broadsheet Winter/ Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 20 “The income gap between men and women over 65 is narrower than at any other age.” j

o ff a mortgage or repaying a stu­ who can save only a little - pre­ ment between the political parties. dent loan may be economically dominantly women. While any attempt to take policy more efficient for many. Also the The issues around marital entirely out of the political arena is proposed compensating tax cuts property when marriages end, sur­ unrealistic, the 1993 Accord did are much higher for those on high vivor benefits, and inheritance are lead to a degree of agreement about earnings. Those on low incomes, complex. These savings are to be superannuation for a short while. especially if they have young chil­ considered primarily individual, In the face of all this, and a dren or other dependents, will with an arbitrary cut o ff and the second review of the NZ Superan­ simply not be able to afford the 896 estate receiving nothing if an indi­ nuation scheme due in July, it seems compulsory contribution.. Further, vidual dies later than at some set almost beyond belief that a refer­ those with high incomes can put period after retirement. Many cur­ endum on the issue is being held on their savings into schemes with rent private schemes provide soon. In addition, it is the height of riskier but higher returning invest­ survivor (spouse) benefits, often hypocrisy for Winston Peters to ments, as they have enough to be 5096 o f the contributor’s pension. argue, as he did in response to able to spread their risk. Those on In the long term, the logic of the Jenny Shipley’s opposition to a com­ lower incomes will not be able to argument for economic indepen­ pulsory scheme, that the current afford to do this. They will seek dence for women and individual scheme is bad for women because more secure investments, which units of assessment is that these politicians can tamper with it! may mean that, even if they achieve survivor benefits should be phased My worst fear is that the refer­ savings o f $160,000, the annuity out. The saving through reducing endum will reject compulsory they secure may be much lower the cost of payouts could be used superannuation but the erosion o f than in other schemes. to increase the pension or reduce the current scheme in the face of Other issues include complexi­ contributions. In the short term, voluntary savings exhortations will ties in transferring to a new however, they are needed by women be equally bad for women, widen scheme, and the unfair tax rate of who have little or no alternative the gender income gap of the over 3396 on these savings schemes, savings. 65s, and cause greater poverty regardless of the lower tax rate among older women. 9 paid on income by lower earners. C o n c lu sio n ______Further, the annuity bought by any given capital sum varies greatly Even without considering gender according to the real interest rate issues, the Todd taskforce on su­ prevailing, so it will be a lottery perannuation recommended dependent on retirement date. retaining the status quo with minor Administrative costs of private changes. Similarly, the Ministry of schemes are higher than for New Women’s Affairs has consistently Zealand Superannuation (which, argued for the current scheme. A Jenny Shipley says costs 0.3196 of regular plea from the media and the payout, as against charges on groups speaking for the elderly has funds of 0.5- 5%). They are likely been for certainty and stability in Graphic Judith Ammon from to swallow up the savings o f those superannuation policy, with agree Bro a d she e t cover 1984

“Perhaps the wealthy should expect to use up some of their assets on retirement.”

Broadsheet Winter / Hotoke 2 5th Birthday Issue 1997 21 Feature, Female Genita I M utilat ion A health issue fop Mew Zealand ers Nikki Denholm

cern at the lack o f skill, under­ standing and sensitivity among New Zealand health profession­ als. Many women said that they have experienced very indignant responses to their ‘circumcisions’, and had been told they are ‘not normal’. Because o f this disap­ proval, some women have felt apprehensive about going back to Broa d sheet no 72 September 1979 their doctors, midwives or GPs. The challenge for New emale Genital Mutilation is an emotionally and culturally charged Zealanders is to develop greater issue shrouded in mystery and taboo. Globally, over 127 million knowledge and understanding of Fwomen and girls have undergone genital mutilation, and the female genital mutilation. Through practice is estimated to be continuing at the rate of six thousand a this we can provide more skilled day. and effective health care, support Over the last four years there has been a dramatic rise in the and education for genitally muti­ number of African refugees settling here, introducing female lated women and for young girls genital mutilation and its legacies to our health services. In 1995 who may be at-risk. Our care New Zealand made female genital mutilation, or sending a child should ensure that the women are overseas for this purpose, a criminal offence. treated with dignity and respect. However, the historical and social context of female genital It is only through this approach mutilation is barely understood in this country. It is totally alien that there can be hope for a long to our culture, and the knowledge that it is practised by Africans on term change of attitudes and pre­ young girls has provoked racist and paternalistic attitudes toward vention of the practice occurring some refugee communities. Genitally mutilated women settling here. here are faced with shocked reactions, and a health care service that until very recently was unable to care for them adequately. It is important to remember that the women affected by female W hat is female genital genital mutilation are refugees, and not immigrants. Almost all of m utilat ion? them have lost their homes, their land, their lifestyles, their social Female genital mutilation is a term role and status, their family members, their culture and religious for any procedure involving cut­ structure and much, much more. When settling in new countries ting or removing external female refugees often cling to the cultures of their homeland even more genitalia. The three main types tightly. For a community that has already faced so much loss, are removal of the hood o f the female genital mutilation - a ritual that reinforces important clitoris, removal of the clitoris and cultural values such as chastity, purity and fidelity - takes on even labia minora, and infibulation - greater significance. the removal of the clitoris, labia In discussion groups held in Auckland with Somali women, 9896 minora and labia majora. With of whom have undergone infibulation, the women expressed con- infibulation the raw surfaces of

Broadsheet Winter/Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 22 the vulva are stitched together, leaving a very small opening for Health consequences Lack of si menstrual and urine flow. Most of The most common immediate com­ the women in New Zealand af­ plications include haemorrhage, understandinq fected by genital mutilation have shock, pain, urinary retention and undergone infibulation, the most infection. Severe haemorrhage, if severe form. uncontrolled, may lead to death. and sensitivity The customs and beliefs sur­ Damage to the anus or urethra can rounding the origins of female be caused by an inexperienced amonq M Z health genital mutiliation vary greatly. It circumciser, and relatives holding is believed to have begun around down a struggling girl may cause ppofessionaIs. the second century BC and spread fracture or dislocation. through dominant tribes and There are numerous long term civilisations as a result of tribal, physical complications, particu­ feel anything.” ethnic and cultural allegiances. It larly with infibulation, and many For many women who have is practised in 26 African coun­ women experience continuing pain undergone infibulation, sexual in­ tries and by ethnic groups along and suffering. tercourse is an extremely painful the Arabian peninsula and the Per­ With infibulation, there is of­ and frightening ordeal. Initial pen­ sian Gulf. ten great difficulty passing urine, etration through reduced and Female genital mutilation is as the skin is stretched over the damaged genital scar tissue is dif­ practised by a large number of urethra, and urinary tract infec­ ficult without further damage, and Muslims under the genuine but tions are common. For a virgin, it it is usually necessary to recut the erroneous belief that it is required can take an average of 15 minutes scar tissue prior to marriage to by their faith. There is, however, to empty her bladder, and may make intercourse possible. In A f­ no basis in any religious texts for take up to 40 minutes. Teachers in rica this is commonly done by a female genital mutiliation, and it New Zealand are often unaware traditional midwife. However, for is practised by many religious that this may be the situation for refugees settling in New Zealand, groups. young girls in their school. Diffi­ it is not easy to find health profes­ The age at which it is done culty with menstruation is also sionals who are familiar with the varies widely. Among Ethiopians, very common, because the very procedure. A Somali woman in it is 8 or 10 days after birth, while narrow vaginal opening obstructs New Zealand has said, in other ethnic groups it is done menstrual flow. Reproductive tract “We feel very scared, because prior to marriage, at around 14 to infections, chronic pelvic infec­ in New Zealand we don’t have any­ 16 years old. The most typical age tion, constant back and menstrual where where we can be cut open.” for infibulation is 6 to 8 years old, pain often follow. These compli­ Because of this, some hus­ although the age is generally drop­ cations can lead to infertility, bands have simply had to penetrate ping, indicating that female genital which has devastating repercus­ the scar tissue with their penises - mutilation has less and less to do sions in societies where a women’s which is extremely painful and. with initiation into adulthood. reproductive capacity is seen as full penetration has often taken The procedure is most fre­ central to her existence. months. In a few cases in New quently performed by local Most women who have under­ Zealand women have been mar­ circumcisers or traditional mid­ gone female genital mutilation ried for up to two years and full wives, using knives, razor blades, experience a significant loss of penetration has still not occurrred. scissors or scalpels. Anaesthetics sexual pleasure and fulfilment. Problems during pregnancy are not usually used, and pastes The absence of orgasm is extremely and childbirth are very common. and porridges are often rubbed common, and many women expe­ Many women come to health ser­ into the wounds to stop bleeding. rience sexual frustration and vices with gynaecological and The mutilation causes grave dam­ frigidity. As one Auckland Somali obstetric health complications. age to girls and women and woman said, National Women’s Hospital in frequently has devastating health “We don’t ever experience Auckland has seen at least 39 geni- consequences. sexual pleasure because we can’t tally mutilated women over the

Broadsheet Winter / Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 23 last year. Many have complained women in societies practising fe­ clitoris can poison a baby at birth. that New Zealand doctors do not male genital mutiliation. A Some societies believe that female know how to deliver ‘circumcised’ common theme is that they are genital mutilation helps promote women and believe this is the rea­ patriarchal societies where re­ fertility. Infibulation results in a son many are having caesareans. sources and power are passed smooth clean skin surface and is Some infibulated women need to down and held solely under male seen as a prerequisite for the clean­ be cut open for the baby’s head to control. A woman’s access to land liness of a woman and the good emerge, and many women express and to economic resources is en­ health of her baby. This appear­ great fear at the trauma of child­ tirely through the males. For a ance is deceptive. In fact it has birth. Vaginal examinations are woman to be eligible for marriage, exactly the opposite effect, increas­ often impossible, so the progress it is absolutely essential that she ing the risk of infection. o f labour can be difficult to moni­ is a virgin. The association be­ The belief s surrounding female tor. Obstructed labour is very tween virginity and female genital genital mutilation are deeply em­ common in Africa and there is an mutiliation is so strong that a girl bedded in a woman’s increased risk of uterine rupture who has not undergone genital consciousness from childhood, or prolapse, haemorrhage and fis­ mutilation has virtually no chance along with its benefits - social tula formation, and asphyxia of of marriage, regardless of her vir­ approval, eligibility for marriage, the baby may also result. ginity. preserving family honour and the • Because medical staff and The most widely offered rea­ family line. This is why women midwives are unfamiliar with how son for female genital mutilation continue to cling to and uphold to care for genitally mutilated is the attenuation of sexual desire. the tradition, colluding in their women, the women’s fear sur­ It is considered to promote purity, own daughters’ mutilation. Even rounding childbirth increases. chastity and prevent temptation. for mothers fully aware of the Until recently, a large number of Women that have not been ‘cir­ harmful effects, the benefits out­ infibulated women giving birth in cumcised’ are considered loose, weigh the difficulties, as this New Zealand were being given over sexed, immoral and impure. mother’s dilemma illustrates: posterior episiotomies instead of “ It is a deeply rooted custom “What am I to do? As a mid­ having their scar tissue cut up­ in our culture and people think it wife I know the terrible health wards, frequently resulting in the is an important operation for results. As a mother I know the tissue tearing both ways. women, because it prevents them child suffers from being teased, from being over sexed. It is a insulted and excluded from her Sustaining beliefs prerequisite for marriage because friends. She will face even worse problems later when the family of no man wants to have an over­ Female genital mutilation must be the man to whom she will be given sexed woman.” understood within the context of in marriage will turn her down as the societies which practise it. It Female genital mutilation is unfit.” is a deeply entrenched cultural part of a continuum of patriarchal tradition supported by a huge repression of women in societies Nikki Denholm is the Auckland range of beliefs, myths, social pres­ that have sought to control Healthcare FGM Project Coordi­ sures, and religious values. It is women’s sexuality, control their important to understand the pow­ reproductive functions, and en­ nator. Formerly a midwife, she has erful role of female genital sure their subjugation. In some just completed a three month pilot mutiliatiosn, however harmful it societies, it has significant eco­ programme educating healthcare might look to us from our per­ nomic value, as it is a prerequisite professionals, child protection pro- for obtaining a bride price. sonal and cultural viewpoint. fessionals and communities In the societies which practice One of the most important fac­ upholding the practice. Her re­ tors to consider is the position of it, many myths and beliefs have been passed down from genera­ port, Female Genital Mutiliation: A Mo man wants to have an tion to generation. Some ethnic Women's Health Care Perspective groups believe that if the clitoris is in New Zealand, is available from ovep-sexed woman not removed, it will grow long and St Helen's Clinic, 110 St Lukes Rd, dangle down. Others believe the Mt Albert, Auckland. 9

Broadsheet Winter/Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 24 In Fretful Sleepers', Bill Pearson's essay published 45 years ago (Feature) in Landfall, New Zealand in the early 1950s was characterised as narrow-minded, philistine, anti-intellectual, conformist, Of conformity e tyrannised by public opinion, a cultural backwater ruled by the 'almighty norm' 'Still Fretful Sleepers? The REBELLION Intellectual in New Zealand' was the title of the 1996 Winter Lecture Series at Auckland University. This is a shortened Phillida Bunkle version of one contribution.

c onformity isn’t my Our society tends to problem. I’ve tried, of pathologise problems. Sometimes course. I did my best. But it is helpful to consider people I don’t know how. I’ve who do not have the problem we always had the wrong look wish to examine. How did they on my face. escape? Having both grown up My mind turns immediately to to the refrain of ‘Take that two individuals of the generation look o ff your face’, Sandra Pearson considers - Win Chappel Coney and I were going to and Bevan Johnston. In their 90s make a lapel badge that now, they were fighters for human said, ‘It’s not the look on rights in a society which was as my face, it’s my politics cowed and intolerant as Pearson you don’t like.’ describes. These are individuals The idea faded when who broke the conformist mould. we finally realised, they Who have lived productive and didn’t give a stuff about loving lives, calmly asserting their our politics. It really was own humanitarian values unbowed the look they didn’t like. by fear of the group. Defiance is o f course the When you ask where these Janus face of conformity, qualities may have come from, and just as childish. Both they reply in terms of their shout of unresolved separation and individuation issues. mother’s self-esteem, the refusal Today we talk of the problem Bill Pearson identified in the language of their mother to fill the mould. of impaired boundaries - as a damaged self, as a disturbance in the This isn’t to say that there delicate balance of the emergent self in early childhood when survival isn’t adult work to do to reach the is poised around a defence against a parent figure either intrusively maturity that Pearson found lack­ overbearing or unreliably self-absorbed. The self-and-group dynamic ing, but there may be something in has its origin in the first self-and-other connection. It seems as if the family dynamics that demands our psychic process lies in some unresolved issues in the separation/ attention. This is an aspect of dependency dynamic - too much or too little Mum around the emergent society that Bill Pearson did not ego. consider, and he did not consider

Broadsheet Winter / Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 25 the dynamics of sexism, or the Went Out. Mum’s tight new perm, profound racism of this society. the long shiny dress, the white or His sensitive insight was bound gold gloves with funny buttons on by the limits of a class analysis. the inside. Probably it was Ladies’ How did these issues intersect, Night somewhere, and it is doubt­ and how did they produce the ex­ ful it happened more than once a traordinary change that has year. Families were more isolated overtaken our society today? then than they have been before or We now have the dominance since. There was almost no infor­ o f an ideology at least as conform­ mal sociability, no dropping in or ist as that o f the 1950s described hanging out. Some neighbourhoods by Pearson. Intellectual confor­ were perhaps more sociable but by mity to the theology of the New and large the family was at its Right is just as entrenched in the most separate. state and public life as the mind­ One reason was that there were less agrarian toryism of the 1950s, few places to go out to. The soci­ despite being dressed up in a ve­ ety had few social spaces. I suspect neer of diversity in consumer that there was more sociability in between social class and sexual choice. rural communities, but in the new morality. It was women’s special In the decade from 1985 to suburbs isolation was intense. task to keep up the appearance o f 1995 New Zealand went from be­ Women might meet other ‘young suburban happy families. ing one of the most egalitarian to mums’ at Plunket, that’s all. Men So much had gone into pro­ one of the most inegalitarian soci­ brought flagons around to the ducing these families. This eties in the OECD. Between 1980 porch before lunch on Sundays, generation had experienced a ter­ and 1992 the top 20% of income but lunch was eaten inside within rible depth o f injury. The Slump earners gained an additional 25% the family. After lunch the chil­ had sucked out self esteem, and of total income to increase from dren were sent to Sunday School imposed an enormous load of anxi­ 34.5% to 64.5%. while Dad threw a leg over Mum. ety and physical deprivation. The How could it happen? To an­ At least in the happier households. War was dislocating in ways that swer, I ask what was going on in Children had a certain amount have been underestimated because New Zealand families of the 1950s? o f sociability in that they played there were no civilian casualties. Now that the children who grew up outside. There was more The troops were away completely in that society have come of age, unsupervised play than now, for so long. Men and women lived what kind of society have they mainly on the street, but little min­ such changed and separate lives. created, and why? gling inside other families. Before They had no common experiences How was it that the recipients television, the only visual repre­ for more than half a decade. o f such unprecedented peace and sentation of an alternative world Suddenly the men reappeared, plenty have become such carnivo­ was the films, but they were for­ many profoundly damaged. They rous competitors? And what does eign and hardly a plausible guide were supposed to re-establish inti­ it have to do with the fearful con­ to life in Stokes Valley. mate relations with women they formity of their parents? Any visiting involved a degree hadn’t seen for six years! These of formality and preparation. The total strangers were supposed to THE 19S0 S FAMILY emphasis was on ‘keeping to our­ establish ideal families to make I bet if you grew up in the 1950s, selves’ and ‘keeping up the War worthwhile. The whole you can describe the times when appearances’ to maintain respect­ weight of the state poured into your parents went out. I mean ability, that important intersection gluing these families together.

ln a decade NZ became one of the most inegalitari C OECD societies." Broadsheet Winter/ Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 26 Only one sort of family, the iso­ lated nuclear reproductive sort. r "The whole weight of the state poured into Extended Maori families and solo or single women just couldn’t get ______gluing these families together.''^ access to state housing. They couldn’t get credit at all. Within isolated suburban Yet anyone who broke ranks the tensions, the gulf between their houses, there were impossible ten­ threatened the fragile disguise. parents, the void of non communi­ sions. The women were supposed Bub Bridger tells of being a 1950s cation. The shameful dependency, to patch up the creaks and holes in solo mother of four in a state the resentment and the abuse. But these damaged men. They were house in Titahi Bay. The children because they were isolated, they heroes, not dependent wrecks. never forgave her for the vilifica­ imagined theirs was the only fam­ Women were supposed to make tion, the labelling and the silence ily that wasn’t somehow quite unavailable, emotionally distant they all endured. Alison Laurie, proper. men into ideal husbands and fa­ talking of gay and lesbian history, Given the gulf between adults thers. speaks of a similar heart of dark­ in these glued together families, Much of men’s resentment was ness in suburban New Zealand as mothers sometimes turned for the experience of a dependency men meted out punishment to closeness to their children. In which was not supposed to exist. police other men into silent acqui­ particular, they expected compan­ Many were either broken or full of escence. ionship from their girls. Girls felt rage. Withdrawal, ’no speakies’, Men’s real dependence and ambivalent about their mothers, the refusal of communication are neediness was the absolute taboo drawn to identification, yet re­ a powerful control mechanism, just - dependence on women to do all pelled at what they ‘put up with’. as punishing as rage. But the story the emotional work. And sexual So what happened when these o f anger and abuse has only just dependence was worst of all. Emo­ materially privileged children, to begun to be told. The available tionally crippled, the withholding, whom the state offered so much, evidence suggests that the butt of denial and fear of exposure in any reached adolescence and early most o f it was women and girls, communication were certainly the adult hood? but we do not know yet the extent norm. Bill Pearson correctly iden­ Firstly, they had internalised of boys’ abuse perhaps because it tified this problem, but not its high expectations. ’After all we’ve was more ‘normal’. Certainly for internal familial dynamic. done for you’, they had better de- boys brutality was normalised at It is a standard psychological school. observation that when one person Women played an equivocal in a relationship under-functions, role in protecting children from the other over-functions. The part­ abuse. Children often confusedly ners of such unavailable men had blame the mother who was re­ few options. Naturally they made sponsible for protecting them from obsessive attempts to be a ‘good men’s ‘ordinary’ emotional abuse. mother’, despite their real power­ Women were supposed to silently lessness. Hardly surprisingly, they absorb the impact, trying to man­ were often fussy and over-anx­ age the damage. But ‘keeping it to ious. They carried an enormous yourself’ could be emotionally hard load of unspoken need. work. Women were engaged in a massive denial of self at multiple GIRLS GROWING UP levels. It was important ‘no one The children experienced prosper­ knew’. ity and security and opportunities Contempt for men was inevi­ unparalleled in history. Jobs were table. The mother who had three hardly an issue. They were opti­ children spoke of her ‘fourth and mistic and in their future anything largest child’ or the ’biggest and seemed possible. most troublesome child.’ Of course, they also observed

Broadsheet Winter / Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 27 liver. Furthermore, apart from the ners. secret family tensions, material For many of "It was important 'no one knew'." security bred confidence in the the mothers’ gen­ world. For the first time, a whole eration, this was generation finished school, boys threatening, for and girls together. Then more their own lives had been so sadly But something else changed remarkably, the state set out to limited and the delivery of truth by the lives of these young women - recruit teachers for the burgeon­ the young as part o f their own the sexual revolution. And its ing school rolls and targeted one escape was often pointed and un­ contradictions tore women apart. in two sixth form girls for teacher kind. Women did not have the services training. Suddenly a whole gen­ This impulse to personal ex­ or the information to protect them­ eration of girls was offered higher amination was not new, but its selves and yet how else were they education and unprecedented op­ expression in political analysis supposed to establish ‘relation­ portunities to leave home. Girls was. The feminist movement was ships’? If it wasn’t you who ‘got could become nurses, dental born of it. Feminism was not just caught’, then you knew someone nurses, teachers or work for the protest, it was a yearning to end who did. The impact was specifi­ post office. the silent non-speakies; not just to cally gender unequal. The It wasn’t just the pay and the find a voice but to establish com­ punishment meted out was sav­ education. They moved from home munication. Most feminists age, and generated enough fear to and lived together in hostels and believed, I think, that somehow keep every girl in line - well almost. flats in a condition of single-sex men would join them in healing This damage is still surfacing and primitive communism. The walls the rifts lurking at the heart of fuels the current adoption ‘debate’. fell down. A tremendous opportu­ family life. Surely they must have The women’s health movement nity to tell the truth and collectively a common interest in change? was formed by the walking relieve the guilt o f wanting and They were wrong, for the men wounded of the sexual revolution. not wanting to be like your mother, were setting out on a different Out of the pain was born the as­ of wanting to escape her fate. agenda of avoidance and escape. sault on monopolies of Once young women started to information and the medical and talk to each other, the edifice of scientific construction of knowl­ the family dissolved. They discov­ edge. The challenge of the women’s ered they were not the only such movement to the authority of sci­ family. The isolation maintained ence in our society, and to the the denial. It turned out to be a doctors who patrolled the control general problem. A gendered one. of women’s sexuality, emerged The relief was palpable. It wasn’t from the force of this contradic­ your problem, it belonged to the tion. Out o f it came a realism gendered structure of society. The about sexuality and openness that solution was social change. once and for all called the bluff of The insistence on truth tell­ secrecy that had punished women ing, on breaking out of the for ‘sin’. And out of it came for the isolation, was the drive behind first time the possibility for an consciousness raising. To be pub­ independent ‘solo’ reproductive lic was the antidote to personal life, even at a very high price. pain. This was the very essence of My own passion came from feminism in the 1970s. Personal rage at being punished for igno­ life was examined and understood rance while being denied for the first time in political terms, information. I hated being depen­ in terms o f power and social con­ dent on others who ‘knew’. I had struction. It was an innovative to know why they were wrong and politics that has helped society I was right. And then I had an confront some of its darkest cor­ absolute duty to tell everybody

Broadsheet Winter/ Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 28 else, preferably immediately. The sandy-haired, knobbly, gauche ki­ rule o f fools brings that look to my wis. They were so confident, and face. so privileged. They had no doubt Feminism in the 1970s and that they would inherit the world. 1980s was characterised by pull­ And they had extraordinary free­ ing into the light one after the dom from class. They simply didn’t other the abuses that had flour­ hear class cues, and you just ished under the veil of privacy and couldn’t tell where they fitted in. I enforced secrecy. In the public remember a forgettable little world they wanted the things that Aussie who said at breakfast in my would have given their mothers’ Oxford College that he had made lives more dignity - a role and an $300,000 overnight on Poseidon income. Many of their demands shares. Well, you couldn’t be too were directed at the state, but the careful, they might be rich. state provision they wanted was But for all that they were world less exclusive, not one family and travellers, they were not cosmo­ one set o f role options, but one politan. They were deeply which included Maori, single impressed by the world they en­ women and lesbians. A state which tered. It looked a lot better than lived up to its promise o f security Stokes Valley. Their OE left a taste it betten. Now, o f course, contact and opportunity and equality for for the good life and a sense of between administrators of the re­ all its citizens, not one that sup­ shame at the limitations o f the structured state and the United ported the privilege and power of uniform egalitarian culture they States is systematised. The State men. grew up in. It might have provided Services Commission and other unprecedented opportunity and agencies arrange for our execu­ BOYS’ OWN ADVENTURE security, but little ‘choice’. These tives to be sent to the right-wing But what were the boys from these were the recruits for rebellion Duke, George Washington or homes doing then as they grew against the nanny state in the name Kellogg graduate schools. But the up? How were they changing the o f consumer choice. New Right revolution began with world? But it wasn’t them who pulled the enthusiasm of returning, shiny The emergence of the New down the edifice of equality. It eyed graduates, hell-bent on free­ Right was primed in these same was a more specific group - the ing themselves from the stigma of 1950s families. Boys were essen­ intellectuals. the nanny state. tially unfathered and over While women intellectuals were The group in Treasury who mothered. Sometimes recruited inventing feminism, the males brought about the revolution in to emotional closeness by a disap­ were off doing graduate study over­ economic policy was quite small: pointed mother, but mostly just seas. Traditionally this had been Roger Kerr, Rob Cameron, Pat resistant to her omnipotent pres­ to England, but this generation Duignan, Bryce Wilkinson, John ence, they wanted to escape. And went for the first time to the United Chetwin and Phil Chronican. (Ironi­ they had unparalleled opportuni­ States. If you go to Fulbright re­ cally, only one is still in government ties. Distant, uninterested, unions, you will see all the men service. The others are in the unavailable fathers were no tie, so who remade our world. private sector; two are with they spread their wings and be­ I will not chronicle how Ameri­ Richwhite, one with Westpac and came world travellers in can monetarist theory came to one with CS First Boston. They are unprecedented numbers. dominate economics in New working for overseas interests of I remember them well, those Zealand, because Brian Easton does the new colonialism - the compa­ nies that make up the Business Roundtable are now largely over­ "Feminism was an innovative politics that helped seas-owned.) They had Doug confront society's darkest corners." Andrew managing the politicians and Graham Scott with the ‘intel-

Broadsheet Winter / Hotoke 2 5th Birthday Issue 1997 29 transition, which would be hard to "At Fulbright reunions, you'll see the men who undo. They undertook the deliberate remade our world." transformation of this country to eliminate egalitarian sameness and to achieve what they persist in lectuals’ of the Terrace-Talavera hedonism is what they took from describing as ’stand alone matu­ group, to ensure they didn’t get in hippiedom, just like Allan Gibbs. rity on the global stage’. In doing the way. Consumption compensated for so, they unleashed a consumerist But the ground was prepared their humiliating lack of suavity. culture which is very hostile to for them politically. The take-over The sameness and smallness intellectuals, conformist in its val­ of the Labour Party by men who of a controlled, centrally directed ues and thoroughly colonial in its shared the hostility to the welfare culture rankled. They wanted to power relationships. The con­ state and who had a plan to push be big players in an international sumer conformity of a regulated state assets and resources into the pond, and as Fulbrighters they society has given way to the con­ hands of private businesses was learnt the ideology and theory to sumer conformity of a population also crucial. These men also typi­ bring it about. They initiated a ‘free’ and at ‘liberty’ to buy the fied their generation, trained in course which swept away choice products of Chinese slave labour the United States. for the majority of the people of and Asian sweat shops. Transforming Labour Party this country. They made the fatal The sophisticated trappings of policy in the crucial pre-govern­ mistake of imagining we could go the good life are with us. But ment years were Jim Holt, part way down the path of giving much is lost. Stokes Valley was Douglas’s best friend and author this country into the hands of the just too embarrassing, but it did of the document arguing for key transnational corporations, that not have soup kitchens and food changes in late 1983; Geoffrey somehow we could stop when we banks, and people did not die be­ Palmer who pushed the New Right chose. Of course, those we handed cause they could not access agenda through the Policy Coun­ power to thought otherwise. And medical attention. In Porirua there cil, especially at the November this ended by destroying the very are 400 empty state houses whose 1983 policy conference; and social services that had nurtured former tenants cannot afford mar­ Michael Bassett who rode shotgun their own opportunities. ket rents. Housing New Zealand for the New Right ideologues be­ These men are no longer influ­ managers complain that the fore and into cabinet. These men ential, as the Party they broke is no houses no longer have much mar­ provided Douglas with the politi­ longer influential. But their vision ket value, because no one wants to cal words to clothe the theory of society is blooming among a live in such a disintegrated and which Doug Andrew had taught new generation, that accepts all desperate community. The chil­ him. this as given and patronises those dren growing up here now will not --'■The Fulbright gen eration older than themselves who still be going to Harvard. hadn’t just taken on board the think there was a choice. Dependency and constraint ideas o f the New Right, they had In 1983 when the Treasury was were the themes in 1950s families. got the taste for the sort of capital­ discussing how fast to implement But these intellectuals received so ist society it represented. They their new regime, they predicted much attention, so much mater­ fell in love with the power elite and what they called a ‘lost generation’ nal effort from state and from became eager consumers, as a result of their policies. But mother, that it was hard to resist. mesmerised by consumer sover­ the Treasury boys decided to sac­ They did not rebel, because it was eignty. They returned prepared to rifice the youths who came after so hard for them to stand up for sell all the achievements of the them in the name of a speedy themselves within their own nur- welfare state for an Italian suit and a new chrome kitchen. It was amazing how right-wing f "Prepared to sell the welfare state for an Italian those people you last saw in caf­ tans had become. Individualistic suit and a new chrome kitchen."

Broadsheet Winter/ Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 30 turing, claustrophobic families. Because they escaped, rather than reached maturity, they have brought us a new intellectual con­ formity as rigid and obsequious as that described by Bill Pearson. Our public service became dominated by the intellectual con­ formity of the private sector. That conformity is rigidly enforced. The new theocracy is quite as perni­ cious as any belief in benign government, but it spreads its fruits much more narrowly. For ordinary people, it is a disaster t m which is cowing them too into a conformity just as fearsome.

THE INTELLECTUAL CHALLENGE NOW And we 're all members o f the Intellectuals now face a serious problem. There was a drabness Women's Liberation Movement ! and sameness about the welfare state, yet it delivered great goods. graphic Kate Millington 1997 The challenge now is to articulate a vision of social democracy which is both sustainable and inclusive. It will only be found among A vision that respects diversity those whose roots are within the Note: and incorporates creativity. Which green movement, within feminism, 1. Brian Easton. (1988) From articulates cooperation rather than and with those indigenous people Reaganomics to Rogernomics. In A competition as the core of effi­ who have never lost their sense of Bollard (ed) The influence of US econo­ ciency and therefore of social social justice. It may be in the very mics on NZ. NZ Institute o f Economic justice. There is no bigger or more places Bill Pearson did not know Research; (1989) The Making of important task. to look. 9 Rogernomics. Auckland University Press.

The University Certificate in Women’s Studies Study part-time over two or more years to complete the six module Certificate

1997 Campus Modules 1997 Distance Modules (Correspondence) • Women & Society • Women & Society • Women & Popular Culture • Women & Health • Women & Literature • Women & Social Change • Women & Social Change • Women & Popular Culture • Public & Private Worlds; Women & Work • Women of Ideas NO PRIOR QUALIFICATIONS ARE NECESSARY For further information contact Libby Passau, Centre for Continuing Education, on to Jar O The University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland. Continuing Education Te Ara Pukenga Fax 09 373 7419, phone 373 7599, ext 7423.

Broadsheet Winter / Hotoke 2 5th Birthday Issue 1997 31 (Feature) “Liberation for the Rest of Us!"

Jill Chrisp reports on the Men's Movement

he man the Australian men’s movement reasons that men are so badly o ff - and it is from me has been waiting for’, family psychologist that they need liberation! Steve Biddulph toured New Zealand in The Listener had a sensationalist front cover of a May, publicising his book Manhood: An action plan forlorn-looking male child hugging the legs of, one for saving m en’s lives. His publishers claim that assumes, the father. Inside, Bruce Ansley’s article ‘Steve Biddulph is to men in the 1990s what Germaine ‘Father Hunger’, quoted several studies. Canterbury Greer was to women in the 1970a’, and that the book family therapist Don Rowallan found that ‘3896 of flags a movement, to quote a chapter heading, for the children born in any one year would, by the age of 16, ‘Liberation for the Rest of Us’ - that is, men.’ spend time living in a single-parent family’. Another Steve Biddulph’s visit attracted prime media study predicted that ‘6096 of all children born since atteniion - a cover and lead article in the Listener 1987 will not be living with their birth fathers at 13’. (3.5.97), a long interview with Brian Edwards on Ansley quoted David Blankenhorn from his book Radio New Zealand (3.5.97), and a full page in the Fatherless America: Sunday' Star Times (11.5.97). This coverage high­ ‘Fatherless families are the most harmful demo­ lighted the ‘alarmingly poor condition of men’ and graphic trend of this generation, the engine driving long lists of statistics were provided - low levels of our most urgent social problems, from crime to health, high representation in crime, unemployment adolescent pregnancy to child sexual abuse.’ and suicide statistics. A further quote from a spokesperson for FREE - On initially reading these figures, I felt a real Fathers’ Rights and Equality Exchange - reiterated concern for malehood, and personal anxiety as I am the attack on single mothers as the root of social evil. involved in raising a fledgling man. However, my In response to this article, a letter to the Editor suspicions rose when I realised that I am one of the (Listener 24.5.97) echoed the sentiment, stating that

Broadsheet Winter/ Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 32 destruction of what has been built A man is fashioned by being severed from between the mother and son as augmenting the necessary com­ the ‘natural’ world of woman. radeship between the father and his son. ‘studies comparing children from a process of subtraction, decision, In a chapter headed ‘How to single-mother families and single­ abstraction, being severed from Stand up to Your W ife’, he says, father families find that the latter the natural’ world of WOMAN. “Though it may surprise many do better than average, the former We gain manhood by the willing­ male readers to know it, women far worse.’* ness to bear the mutilation are only human.” In referring to a Bruce Mackie, Auckland Di­ imposed on us by the ruling el­ particular therapist who in his view rector of Lifeline, continued this ders... To grow from man-child works effectively, he says: theme in the Sunday Star-Times into man... he must take leave of ‘It’s a measure of Dalbey’s skill article where he is quoted as say­ WOMAN and wander for a long as a therapist that this woman is ing that the most serious problem time in the wild and sweet world of wanting to give up her power in society faces is that of inad­ men.” (p.23). order to experience a really equal equately raised men. What is While claiming to be influen­ relationship, based on intimacy needed, he says, is men who are tial in the making of true and negotiated, not on emotional ‘tuned in to men, sensitive about relationships between men and dominance” (p.84) men. Not women - men.’ women, Biddulph comments: In describing what fathers I realised that my initial en­ “ Most men aged 40 and under should do when, for example, a 14 thusiasm at the thought that men have lived their whole lives in the year old son has an argument with were recognising the need to ame­ feminist era. Men over 40 have his mother, he says: liorate their contribution to usually had to come to terms with “ Many boys at this age start to society was unfounded. Although it too, in some shape or form... it is have problems with their mother. Biddulph claimed in the Listener a world where the attitudinal tide, The son knows deep down he must article that “Manhood’ and the best opinion, the enlightened break free from her. Driven by this the‘new men’s movement which stance is in favour of women’s pressure, he may act ugly, lazy, is gathering momentum’ offers worth, women’s qualities and etc. toward her. The father, hear­ men the chance to change their women’s rights. This is great if ing this start to happen (from lives, to heal the past and form you are a woman - but for even a behind his paper in th>------— -

Broadsheet Winter / Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 33 ing thanks*. Why would a society, The notion of a male role model is a trendy whose systems continue to marginalise women, acclaim the psychological panacea for societal ills. assertions made by the instiga­ tors of this ‘men’s liberation in her relationship with her son. It trendy psychological panacea for movement’ unless it is a reflection is the father who has the power a host o f societal ills, it is taken as of a majority voice? The creation and authority to achieve that and gospel.” (p.85) of organisations such as FREE and the mother needs his power and In Every Mothers Son, Judith SPERM - the Society for the Protec­ authority in order to survive. Arcana described mothers as be­ tion and Encouragement of This exemplifies my major con­ coming part of the larger plan to Righteous Manhood - suggests cerns about the developing agenda assist in male socialisation - a plan cries of panic - in reaction to the of this men’s movement. Rather that ‘oppresses and demeans attempts by women over the last than being a movement of coop­ women and lessens the humanity century to equalise power rela­ eration, for the development of o f men’, (p.118) tionships between the genders. healthy and mutually beneficial There is no evidence of any So far, what I have read is a relationships, the message being contribution, however, from the perpetuation of the undermining given to mothers, and to women in well-grounded research in these or of women and a reassertion of general, is that they are not ad­ similar works in the assertions dominant male paradigms. As the equate - that they have no place in Biddulph makes in Manhood. One accompanying rhetoric makes the life o f their sons and are de­ quotation from Betty Friedan has grand statements in support of structive to men, robbing them of been taken from Wingspan, a book feminist aspirations, perhaps this their power and their manhood. edited by Christopher Harding is even more lethal than the sex­ It is useful to revisit here some (1992) which is the source of much ism we have been subject to so far. of the valuable research and analy­ o f the referenced material. In the The insidious nature of this is sis that has been done about light o f this lack of scholarship, it such that I have heard (feminist) motherhood and the mothering of is sobering to witness how women come out in support of sons. Biddulph is being portrayed as an Biddulph and his colleagues. I ask In Of Women Born, Adrienne authoritative figure in current dis­ only that before we become caught Rich noted that: course around parent/son up in this populist newspeak that “We need to understand that relationships. we thoroughly investigate the there is a difference between hand­ I applaud the attempts men basis from which it stems. ing our sons over to patriarchy on make to discover, and develop, I am currently engaged in a its terms, figuratively or literally their gentler sides and inner four year doctoral project, re­ allowing them to victimise us as strength, to develop meaningful searching on mother and tokens of their manhood; and help­ friendships with each other (par­ adolescent son relationships, in­ ing them to separate from us, to ticularly as this saves women from terventions in this relationship and become themselves.” (p.211). constantly doing the ‘spade work’ the implications these interven­ In The Courage to Raise Good in relationships), to develop ritu­ tions have for the mother, the child, Men, Olga Silverstein notes: als that symbolise and celebrate for women and for the men o f our “ In the name o f being a good life changes, and to recognise their future. It explores the historical mother, sometimes we sacrifice contribution to the gross inequi­ development of matriarchal to our beliefs about right and wrong, ties between men and women and patriarchal societies, and the play­ abandoning our sons to the pre­ work to change these. ing out of this ‘within a life-time’ vailing culture.” (p.51) However, there is little evi­ as the boy is born from his mother On male role models, she com­ dence o f this in Biddulph’s work. and yet is not born as a man until/ ments: When I witnessed the response to unless by his father. “The fundamental issue is the the media coverage of Biddulph’s My experience with this project very notion of a male role model, tour, I was horrified! In his pref­ so far refutes claims made by the that a young boy needs in his life ace, he claims that 40,000 have anti-single mother lobby. Field if he is to become a man. Though bought his book and written work has already shown that single this notion is simply the latest ‘streams of remarkable letters say­ mothers, who don’t have to put up

Broadsheet Winter/ Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 34 Single mothers are happier, more confident - and their sons benefit. with the undermining of a bad confident in their role and ability FURTHER READING: relationship, or one in which soci­ to raise their sons. These mothers Arcana, Judith (1984) Every Mother’s etal attitudes toward women are have described the undermining Son: The role of mothers in the making reflected, are happier and more they have experienced by the envi­ of men. The Women’s Press, London. confident mothers - and that the ronments within which they have Biddulph, Steve (1995)Manhood: An ac­ sons benefit from this. This is raised or are currently raising their tion plan for changing men’s lives. backed up by research by Austra­ sons. Finch, Sydney. lian Babette Smith. She interviewed This project is still in its early Bly, Robert (1991) Iron John: A Book mothers in their late 30s to early stages, but it will continue to ex­ About Men. Element, London. 50s, a generation she describes as plore the existing situations for Keen, Sam (1991) Fire in the Belly: On transformed by the feminist move­ mothers of sons - including les­ Being a Man. Bantam Books. ment. “Their self-esteem is the bian mothers, those parenting on Parker, Rozsika. (1995) Torn In Two: overwhelming factor in their bet­ their own, and those currently rais­ The experience of maternal ambiva­ ter relationship with their sons”, ing their sons in a heterosexual lence. Virago, London. she says (Evening Post 29.3.95). relationship who still feel the Phillips, Angela (1993) The Trouble With Of the men we have spoken to aloneness of their parenting. It Boys: Parenting the men of the future. so far, those who have had sub­ will offer an analysis of the way Harper Collins. stantial positive time with their societal institutions determine the Rich, Adrienne (1986) Of Women Bom: mothers are comfortable with separation of the son from the Motherhood as Experience and Institu­ themselves, are able to relate to mother-world and enhance his tion. Virago, London. other men and women in a healthy position over this world. Silverstein, Olga (1995) The Courage to way, understand the need to take The aim of the research is to Raise Good Men. Penguin. an equitable share of responsibil­ find ways that we can encourage >-- For further information ity in the domestic domain. the individual and separate devel­ The sons who have missed out opment of our sons, whilst on this project have been those whose mothers challenging any actions that re­ contact Jill Chrisp, have not been encouraged or sup­ duce or humiliate us as mothers c/- Private Bag ported to feel their own strength, and as women. and consequently have not been 9 RO 3028, Rotorua.

Want to keep in touch with N Z Feminism?

( jo in the Women’s Studies 1 Association_____

* Membership* 30-page newsletters * Discount on conference papery

High income S30/Middle income $25 Low income $15/Corporate $30 WSA PO Box 5067 Auckland

V______

Broadsheet Winter / Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 35 (Feature)

he India that the traveller sees is a very male world. As two middle likely to respond to what Shramik aged women pottering around the Darjeeling hills and the Ganges Bharati could offer.” T valley, nearly all o f our daily interaction - in trains and buses, in shops, What these community devel­ restaurants and guesthouses - was with men. Since half the population opment workers provide is is under 25, much of this economic activity is in the hands of quite information, political analysis, en­ young men. (Which explains, Juliet reckoned, why some accommoda­ couragement and advice. They tion is run with the same skill and hygiene levels as a Lincoln students’ initiate meetings and groups that flat.) get people talking about their prob­ Head counts on city streets showed around 8:1 men to women. The lems and help them identify an gender ratio is in fact squewed a few percentage points by various nasty issue that collectively they want to patriarchal practices, but what we were experiencing was one aspect of do something about. the position of women in Indian society - their exclusion from most “ It has to be underlined when forms of paid work. Most work out in the fields or tucked away at home, we sit down with women in a new perhaps making the millions of samosas that the men deep-fry and sell initiative that if they are looking at at street stalls. As Marilyn Waring puts it, Indian women are as essential Shramik Bharati as an organisation and as undervalued in the economy as the cow dung patties they make. that will give them something, just So the high point of our trip to India was a day spent visiting two provide the solution for them, then women’s groups - one in a poor area o f Kanpur and the other in a village this won’t work,” says Usha. “We just beyond the city outskirts. We were taken by community workers will help them look at their own from Shramik Bharati, a non government, non-church organisation situation, at why they are poor, which receives some financial support from New Zealanders through and what they can do.” CORSO. It often takes two or three years visiting and talking with people anpur is a working class city of 4 million, with a dying textile before Shramik Bharati gains the i \ ^ industry, and tanneries in which Hindus now work alongside confidence of a community, but Muslims. When Usha Varkey and Ganesh Pandey started Shramik they now work with more than 50 Bharati in 1986 they were organising around wages and employment poor urban areas and 100 villages issues, and providing worker education. But going beyond the factory within 50-60 ks distance of Kanpur, walls they found that working for social change with ‘the poorest of the benefiting a total population of poor’ meant, above all, working with women. around 300,000. “ It was the women who were the poorest and most oppressed - it Their most successful pro­ wasn’t caste or religion,” says Garnesh. “The women have very little gramme has been ‘Drop by Drop’ awareness of anything, they lack information. They were also the most thrift and credit schemes for

Broadsheet Winter/ Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 36 women (Boond-Bachat Sangathan). day. When Trish visited the same a vegetable stall, and the loan had Shramik Bharati helps establish women again in 1995, they had enabled her to expand to selling groups of 25 or 30 women who built a toilet block which produces eggs and bread and other items. each contribute Rs 10-20 a month methane gas for street lighting Kamla had also had a stall with her to a pool which the group then and cooking in the houses nearby. husband, but her husband died lends to one o f their number. If The families who use the toilets and she had needed the loan to go the pool gets as large as Rs 5,000 pay Rs 10 a month, which employs it alone. Now she wanted a second ($NZ 200), the group can access two caretakers. The women then loan to expand. government loans at 8% interest. built a school, which they run. Vimla said she had had a loan Thrift and credit groups are being Because they now function as a before the group began, but it was established by a number of com­ community, the municipality has too expensive and she wasn’t get­ munity development organisations ‘recognised’ them by improving ting ahead. The Shramik Bharati in different parts o f India, and the roads and other facilities. women explained that often the Shramik Bharati is one o f ten first priority for thrift and credit authorised to act as a link for sha and her co-worker Sunita groups was paying off their debts government loans to women for Shukla took us to meet a to moneylenders. Borrowers were income generation projects. women's thrift and credit group in often harassed by the moneylend­ Although the thrift and credit Mannipurwa, a section of poor ers, who resented the loss of loans go to women on an indi­ urban housing huddled against business to self-help schemes. vidual basis, the women’s groups large walled properties on the edge We asked what the men formed have been the launch pad o f the city. Alleys ran between thought about the loans to women, for many community projects. The small houses of mud brick, plaster and the women starting their own immediate local problems that and the odd piece of roofing iron, small businesses. They replied women identify are often around some daubed with white- or pink- that some hadn’t liked it at first, water, sanitation or education for wash. It was several notches up but they soon began to appreciate the children. The groups often on some slums we had seen, but the extra money coming into the provide a focus for primary health there was no running water and household. And they said they got care programmes such as child the sewage ran in open drains. more respect from their husbands immunisation. Shramik Bharati About 40 women and a straggle when they had their own earnings. try to identify women with initia­ of children were waiting for us in Someone repeated what Sunita said tive and natural leadership the courtyard of a small temple to was a favourite example of Usha’s: qualities who become community Durga. A bright, talkative bunch, “ If woman are the smaller wheel, or health workers for their area. clearly delighted to have some visi­ not much progress can be made. In arranging for us to contact tors from New Zealand - well, Usha Wheels need to be equal.” Shramik Bharati, Trish Murray tried to explain exactly where that We said we had heard that in from CORSO’s Christchurch of­ was. We sat down with them on India girl children weren’t valued fice had told us about first visiting spread out mats and began to talk, as much as boys. How did they one of their village women’s groups with Usha and Sunita translating feel about this? nearly ten years ago. The women the questions talked of feeling unsafe when they and answers walked some distance at night to back and forth. the river to wash and go to the We asked toilet. But the real problem wasn’t about the thrift safety, it was that they had ‘no­ and credit where to ease themselves’ in private schemes, what during the day. As Usha explained had they used to us, villages and poor areas in them for? cities have no sewerage or water, Vimlatold us and women will often limit what that she had they eat and drink to avoid the taken out a loan embarrassment of going out to a from the group field or an open drain during the in 1993. She had

Broadsheet Winter / Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 37 The women offered us SHRAMIK BHARATI glasses of wa­ ter and a box of milk sweets receives some government which they had funding from Indian Ministry bought spe­ of Human Resource Develop­ cially from the ment and the Department of market for our Women and Child Develop­ visit. Then they ment, as well as funding from sang for us, and Sunita trans­ non-govemmentorganisations lated the words. in Europe. For ten years it has “Still today girls have no value”, It was a song to the goddess be­ been supported by CORSO, a woman answered. Traditionally hind us. “I am a poor humble New Zealand’s own - and old­ woman, I can’t offer you much, boys’ birthdays were celebrated est-overseas aid organisation. while girls’ were not; but these but please look after me anyway.” CO RSO has a similar focus women said they tried to do some­ And the whole group joined in the thing for their girls too. They chorus. “ I keep falling down but I on self-help, on projects involv­ wanted daughters as well as sons get up again. I keep falling down ing women, and on addressing to go to school. We asked if they but I get up again.” the structural causes of pov­ themselves could read and write. erty. In the late 1970s, when Only a handful could, although alf an hour’s drive away CORSO began to comment on more than a third knew how to was Baniapurwa, a small increasing poverty in New write their own name. village on the north edge of Kanpur These questions prompted one by the river. Mud and dung plas­ Zealand, Prime Minister woman to tell the story of her ter houses in a flat landscape. M uldoon revoked its status as a daughter, who had reached the Water buffalo and goats. This tax deductible charity. This tenth class in school and passed village grew vegetables for sale in was restored when Labour be­ the government exam. But her the city, as well as food for its own came governm ent in 1984. husband had married the girl off families. The United Nations en­ to someone living out in a country The Shramik Bharati workers village. This husband drinks and for this village had already arrived courages developmentprojects hits her, and she is very unhappy. by scooter - a man and two young involving women, as these pro­ Her mother is unhappy about it women, one of whom was respon­ vide most benefit to too. She said, sible for the thrift and credit group, communities as a whole. In “If I had been earning money the other for family planning edu­ line with this, N e w Zealand then, he couldn’t have just told me cation. governments providea2:l sub­ like that and married her o ff to a The village women were seated place like that. I would have had on a wide raised porch in front of sidy for every dollar raised by more say.” a house. Beginning as so many CORSO for women’s projects. One woman had taken a loan meetings o f women do at home, Donations to CORSO may be to buy a goat, and told us gleefully we went around the circle saying used to meet its aid commit­ that when she had sold its kids she our names. But, Sunita explained, ment in general, or may be had put the money in a bank in her this process wasn’t just introduc­ endorsed for a specific project, daughter’s name. “The boys can tions, it was a first tactic in work and eat. I tell everyone in the encouraging women to speak up such as Shramik Bharati. village I’ve done that.” A couple of for themselves. For many village other women were tapping their women, opinions were something chests and grinning, to indicate to men had. Referred to constantly CORSO, us that they had followed her ex­ as ‘Daughter of ...’, ‘Wife of PO Box 1905, Christchurch. ample. ‘Mother of ...’, ‘Sister’, ‘Auntie’,

Broadsheet Winter/ Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 38 saying their own name in public, reason is that they are spending around trees and if we are told saying ‘I am...’ was strange enough. 40% of their money on the mili­ someone is sending us bad luck, we This group were much quieter, tary.” We later saw some of this believe it. Much faster than we and lacked the subversive spark of expenditure displayed in the Inde­ believe what Shramik Bharati tells the urban women. The purposes pendence Day parade the day we us about health or family plan­ for which they borrowed from their flew out of Delhi. More pride in out- ning!” thrift and credit group were less gunning China and Pakistan than For the last four years, Usha directed to their own benefit. One in educating children. told us, these women had all gone woman told us the scheme had But the village had a bigger into town to join in a march for enabled her to get a field pump, but problem than the school. There International Women’s Day. They Sunita added it had been her hus­ was a plan to dam the river to had great fun at the marches, they band and her brother who had gone supply water and perhaps electric­ said, there was always lots of sing­ to town to buy it. Another woman ity for Kanpur, which was spreading ing and dancing. was borrowing so as to be able to in this direction. They were wor­ Then they said, “We can’t go to rent some extra land for growing ried that this would flood the land your country to see how the women melons. These women worked each they cultivated. By this time a are getting on there, so tell us.” day in the fields alongside their group of listening men had gath­ We told them about Plunket menfolk. ered behind the circle of women services for mothers and babies. We asked the women about their and they joined in as the Shramik We told them about our local children. Four or five seemed the Bharati people discussed getting Women’s Centre and the classes usual number; two or three was more concrete information from and groups held there. They were considered the ideal. One woman planners and the possibility of land very interested in the self defence had had 12. Juliet told them she in compensation. classes for young girls. Not to be had four, three of them sons - which As with the women in town, we outdone on the fun, we told them allowed us to slide over my child­ asked what they wanted for the about the Centre’s fund-raising film lessness. The Family Planning future for their daughters. One nights, which have become great educator started asking all the women indicated her daughter who social events for women. young girls how many they intended appeared to be around 14 or 15. “A Again we shared a plate of sweet to have. “Two, two” , they chirped, few years and I’ll be looking to get balls, which one o f the community proud to give us the right answer. her married.” workers had been trying to keep the We asked the women, "Which Usha had told us that young flies off. One woman picked up her would you prefer, a family of five or brides were still common but that tabla and they sang a song, not so six, or two or three and be able to 18 or 19 was now a more usual age much for us as for a young mother send them to school?” Everyone at which daughters were found a on whose porch we were sitting. was clear on that trade-off - they husband. These women seemed to She came out and squatted in front wanted their kids to go to school, agree that was about right, but the of her door with her nine day old but there was a problem. The vil­ mother of twelve asserted, “I was son in her arms. It was a traditional lage school had no teacher. There married at 14 and I wasbig enough.” song for the birth of boy. was a private school close by but it “If God sendsyou children, God Then we sang a song for them cost money. will send the food to feed them,” , “ Now is the Hour’, with a few The Indian government pays another thought. pronouns reversed for the occa­ wages for a teacher if a village “Sometimes God’s too busy,” I sion and an effort at harmony. Usha community provides a school house suggested. translated its words of farewell, and the money for things like black­ “Not a problem in India,” said and we took some photos of the boards and books, pens and paper. Radha Shukla, our young thrift and smiling women. But the salaries are so low that credit organiser. “In India God is As we left the village, Usha many teachers open private schools, everywhere - in every tree, under pointed out a one-room yellow- and few want to live out in the every stone...” She mimed looking washed building - the empty school. villages. for God under her Loans ledger and Perhaps this will be a focus for “Why doesn’t the government under the mat, and the village action by the women of Baniapurwa have more money to spend on women clearly thought her irrever­ village. schools?”, asked Usha. “Well, one ence was hilarious. “We tie ribbons 9

Broadsheet Winter / Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 39 The Lesbian Feature Avengers MORE SAINTLY THAN SINISTER AND VERY SOCIALLY AWARE

Lisa Howard-Smith

o some people Phoenix Llewellyn may look like the avenging Avengers ’zap’ (direct action). Op­ sort with her short, spiky flat-top, black leather wear and a eration Supermarket was held the T profusion o f silver rings; in her nose, ears and abundantly next day at Auckland's Grey Lynn adorning her fingers. However, the truth is she's more saintly Foodtown. "Ever thought doing the than sinister. Phoenix is the co-founder of Aotearoa/NZ’s own weekly grocery shopping is dull fledgling chapter of the international non-violent radical ac­ and boring...” The occasion was a tion organisation, the Lesbian Avengers. great success, and even made the In August o f 1985, along with friend and other LA co­ newspapers, well express anyway, founder, Denise Stuart, she made the pilgrimage to that Mecca with pictures of various notables - o f women’s music, the Michigan Womyn's Festival - lucky gals, "fingering the fruit at Foodtown...' huh? - and met up with women from the Chicago Avengers who Recruitment flyers handed out were running a 'start your own chapter' workshop. Take a by Phoenix on the day asked the pinch of politics, a large dollop of dykes, add a handful of question. "Are you a wanna be?" homophobic experience, spice up with some social injustice, and then when on to explain, "The stir well and zap! Lesbian Avengers abound. Lesbian Avengers is an interna­ "I'd often spoken with other dykes about forming some tional direct action organisation sort of a group, not exactly a vigilante style thing, but some­ using grass-roots activism to fight thing that would promote lesbian issues and give them, and us, a profile," recalls Phoenix. "I've always had a real interest in lesbian politics and activism, being 'out and proud', and both Denise and I come from a socialist political background. So when we saw the 'Snatch the Power' workshop being offered by the Lesbian Avengers in the Michigan programme, it seemed a good thing to check out. "We came away with loads o f enthusiasm. Just as well really, 'cos with only the two o f us trying to get everything o ff the ground back here, it took considerable personal time, energy and expense - photocopying and distributing flyers for recruitment as a start. We certainly called on all our own resources and contacts, but eventually we were able to organise getting some t-shirts printed. My (then) lover arranged the film work for the screen-printing and Denise's mum bankrolled us for payment of the job." My first contact with Phoenix was at Footsteps nightclub later in 1995 (remember, when we still had a club of our own). She was handing out flyers advertising the very first Aotearoa

Broadsheet Winter/ Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 40 momentum up." But it was a happening thing, meetings on every second Thurs­ day evening at Lasso with new members appearing most times - $25 to join and a 'free' t-shirt. A successful first movie night and a couple of raffles saw the coffers filling at a pleasing rate. We even opened our own cheque account, a form of direct action in itself when we shopped around for a bank who’d take us on - thanks, PostBank. There were some really enjoyable social outings, ten pin bowling and mini-golf, that raised our profile for lesbian survival and visibility. and procedures. Well, my hand and more than a few eyebrows. Our purpose is to identify and pro­ didn't stay down for long as I vol­ Then there were the 'zaps': a les­ mote lesbian issues." It finished unteered for yet another women’s bian blood letting, when we all gave with another question, "’Sound like organisation. blood enmasse; Operation Super­ you?" and invited women to fill out Women undertook respons­ market at St Lukes and Grey Lynn the form and post to the Avengers ibilities on various working again, this time we made the TV, PO Box. About twenty flyers were sub committees: Movie - fund- well express report, and another returned. raisin; Patrol - Lesbian safety; more covert operation, a foray into "It seemed like a good start," Recruiting; and Policy - to develop political engineering - an occasion remembers Phoenix, "Names we the group's high on humour and paint fumes! could get back to and actually get Policy, Protocol and Procedures. Sadly our presence at the Com­ something organised with. We also We wrote a damn good paper too. It ing Out Day Parade was a wash out, went along to the Coming Out Day was based on non-hierarchical col­ as was the whole occasion, we had Parade, a few weeks later. Just lective decision making, but on a an awful lot of watermelons and Denise, her partner Chris, and my­ majority basis rather than consen­ pineapples at the ready for another self with our home-made banner sual - some of us had worked on scorching hot, successful day. It and wearing the t-shirt s we'd bought collectives before! A few took on did not auger well for the group, at Michigan. We handed out more more defined roles. I became Trea­ and seemed to signal time-out as flyers and a group of women got in surer, Deb was the official scribe the annual 'end-of-year-burnout' hit behind and marched with us. It (Records) and Phoenix our Facilita­ us all and the silly season kicked in. was really good exposure and gen­ tor. Summer holidays fragmented us erated lots of interest, like the back "It became quite a responsibil­ further as individuals chilled out in of the t-shirts tell it, 'We recruit'." ity actually," Phoenix now says, "I various parts o f the country, and Yes, I know. I had arranged to seemed to be the person everyone it’s certainly been a very long sum­ meet Deb up at Lasso after work looked to. 'What’s happening here, mer break. But now there's work to one Thursday evening early last how does this go, whose doing be done, actions to be directed and year. "The Lesbian Avengers are what, when, where???' Yeah, it outings to be made. The question there," she told me. "Who?" I hadn't kind a felt like my baby, and I haven't is,'"Are you are Wanna Be?" If it quite caught the name, obviously wanted to hand things over en­ does sound like you, give Amy a some new women's music group. I tirely, but sometimes it was like, call (09 3760724) for next meeting thought. Nope. Ranged around the hey, this is a group thing, I don't details and we'll see you then, zap! room when we arrived was a gallant have to do it all. My on-going health over and out. 99 group o f dykes discussing ways to problems didn't help and added to make the new chapter happen. other things that were happening Fund-raising, political issues, so­ for me at the end of last year. cial outings, zaps, finances, policies Sometimes it was hard to keep the

Broadsheet Winter / Hotoke 2 5th Birthday Issue 1997 41 Toni Allwood was at the Beyond Poverty conference in March to talk about the Women’s Information Network campaign...

n Women’s Suffrage Day last year, the Women’s Most relate directly to policy changes but two Information Network’s campaign ‘WIN on Pov­ focus on research which is needed to inform policy Oerty’ was launched, to a storm of media decisions - monitoring the casualisation of the controversy about the involvement of Dame workforce and investigating how much it actually Sylvia Cartright. Some commentators believed costs for an elderly person to live alone. a High Court judge had no business making As Toni pointed out at the Auckland conference, public comment on issues of social justice. these pragmatic goals should not be taken to imply Leading up to the election, WIN wanted to support by WIN’s member groups for existing policy identify a campaign topic that would link the frameworks. For example, most WIN members op­ women-focused work of its member groups. pose a health system that requires some people to Two possibilities put forward were violence need a community services card, but as this is the against women, and the increasing poverty system currently in place, it makes sense to ensure among women and children. Since progress on that all those eligible for the card are aware o f this the first had recently been achieved with the entitlement and encouraged to use it. Domestic Violence Act, the groups decided to “We have no illusions that the WIN on Poverty campaign around the issue o f poverty. goals will eliminate poverty, but we do see them as Seven key areas were easily identified: in­ building blocks towards longer term solutions for the come, housing, health, employment, education, eradication of poverty. These policy goals are also childcare and retirement. But deciding on gender neutral, although WIN is very aware that, both concrete, achievable goals in each area, accept­ here and overseas, the brunt of poverty is borne by able to all o f the very diverse member groups, women and children” took much longer than anticipated. “We think the way WIN works represents a The feminisation of poverty model for the new MMP environment. We use WIN’s background paper for the campaign quotes consensus for decision-making and work hard figures from the 1991 Census, the most recent avail­ to respect and accommodate differences,” ex­ able at the start of the campaign. Seventy-six percent plained Toni Allwood, WIN’s campaign o f women and 52% o f men had incomes of less than coordinator. $20,000 - say, less than $22,000 at 1996 adjusted “What we came up with were very specific figures. But 85% of Maori women and 67% o f Maori goals. Beneficiaries and those on low incomes men had incomes of less than this. In 1991 the typical have told us that if these goals were imple­ income of women aged 55-59 was $9,232 (1996 ad­ mented by the new MMP Government, they justed figures $10,155), the lowest of any age group of would make an immediate practical difference women and only 40% o f the median income o f men to their lives.” aged 55-59 which was around $23,100(1996 adjusted

Broadsheet Winter/ Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 42 administrative resources by the WIN campaign began last October YWCA, the campaign launch and with senior policy managers and leaflet by the Wellington Commu­ some Chief Executives of relevant nity Law Centre, Rape Crisis lent a departments. The long period of desk top computer, many individu­ abeyance during the Coalition talks als have sent donations. WIN is was quite useful as policy sections keen to extend its network to more had not had their work plans de­ women's organisations around the fined at that time. Once the country. Coalition Government was formed, WIN’s Wellington base means WIN sent briefing papers and re­ it is well placed for its important quests for appointments to role in lobbying politicians and se­ appropriate Ministers. The women Toni Allwood nior policy advisors in Wellington. are currently working through these A core group of eight women are and also approaching figures $25,410). In March 1993, of involved with lobbying. Occasion­ Opposition spokespeople. Toni the 200,000 New Zealand women ally the group front up at full feels that progress is being made, who worked part-time, 65,000 strength - to the Ministry of and calls for input to policy amend­ wanted to work more hours. Women’s Affairs for example - but ments have begun. To date only In 1995 Charles Waldegrave and mo stly they work in a smaller group one Minister has refused to meet others at Wellington’s Family Cen­ o f three or four according to areas with them and they are working to tre Social Policy Research Unit o f expertise. overcome this. established a ‘poverty line’ for New “Our lobbying strategy is multi­ The Coalition Agreement con­ Zealand at 60% of the median house­ pronged, in a sense. In the short tains several decisions which tie in hold income. This was based on term, we want to achieve as many with some of the ‘WIN on Poverty’ research into mimum living costs of the specific campaign goals as goals. These include increasing with low income groups around the possible. In the long term, we want the Accommodation Supplement country. A key concern was the the expertise of the Women’s Infor­ and the Special Benefit and provid­ high cost o f housing. Income sta­ mation Network to be recognised ing free doctors’ visits and tistics showed that 20.5% of New and utilised when social welfare prescription medicines for children Zealanders were living on less than policy changes are being consid­ five years and under. that, the majority o f them in sole ered by government departments. parent families. Ultimately we seek an ongoing com- An effective lobbying tactic These figures showed that pov­ mitment for government WIN has adopted one tool from the erty in New Zealand is department/community agency corporate sector which they find disproportionately experienced by interaction that will work produc­ invaluable in lobbying. This is a women and children. tively long after we as individuals ‘Call Report’, which provides an have gone.” official documentation of a meet­ Lobbying role The lobbying process for the ing which can subsequently be used The Women’s Information Network in Wellington has now been meet­ ing for almost five years, despite A WINning Philosophy.... some very different interests and “All New Zealanders are entitled to an adequate political allegiances among its mem­ bers. By sharing human resources income, affordable housing, safety, good health care and expertise, some of the con­ and quality education. We must value and include straints faced by all partially funded community groups have been over­ the contribution of women on low incomes who bear come. Toni Allwood’s position as the brunt of poverty. We need to narrow the gap campaign coordinator is funded by the Projecta Foundation, but re­ between rich and poor as we strive to increase sources have been provided by ^personal dignity and social cohesion.” many groups - office space and

Broadsheet Winter / Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 43 in various ways. Since it is not can be quoted verbally or in commonly used in the community future correspondence. It WOMEN’S INFORMATION sector, Toni was keen to spread the can also be used in the NETWORK (WIN) word since WIN had found it a media. most useful asset. Call Reports are prov­ is an informal network of na­ At lobbying meetings, notes are ing increasingly useful for tional community organisations, taken. These are later written up as WIN. They have been able which focuses on the needs of a confidential minute o f what hap­ to refer back and categori­ pened, who said what and so on. cally state in writing or in a women. Once they’ve been checked by the lobbying meeting that ‘On The WIN on Poverty cam­ WIN women who were at the meet­ such and such a date your paign is supported by ing, they are rewritten as a Call Minister suggested we meet organisations representing over Report. with you’ or whatever. This takes the form of a letter “The only trick is know­ 317,000 people: addressed to the senior public ser­ ing how much of the YWCA, RapeCrisis, Wellington Commu­ vant or Minister at the meeting. It controversial bits of the nity Law Centre, National Council of is headed ‘Call Report. Meeting be­ original meeting you can Women, Women’s Division of Federated tween WIN on Poverty and 7?? : include and get accepted in Farmers, Affirmative Action, Prostitutes date’. It thanks the other party for the final Call Report. Obvi­ the time given to the meeting and ously people sometimes say Collective, Federation of Voluntary Wel­ itemises who was present from both things they later regret or fare Organisations, Positive Action Self sides. It then begins: ‘The follow­ recant.” Defence Network, Barnardos, Women’s ing was discussed:’ and lists the Toni acknowledges that main points made in the discus­ some in the voluntary sec­ International League for Peace and Free­ sion. Doing this in the form of tor may associate this tool dom, Women’s Electoral Lobby, Labour bullet points means it is succinct with the competitive ‘cut Women’s Council, Citizens Advice Bu­ and easily read. For example: and thrust’ of the corporate reaus, NZ Nurses Organisation, Workers “• We outlined the formation, world, rather than with the structure and membership of the consensus style of working Education Association, Society for Re­ Women’s Information Network that WIN uses among its search on Women, Federation ofWomen’s (WIN) and the background to the own members. However, Health Councils, Anglican Social Justice campaign. she believes that a serious Commission, Council of Tongan Women • We expressed our concern at assault on poverty requires the lack of .... various strategies. in Aotearoa NZ, New Mother Support • You explained th at... etc.” “All I can say is that it Groups, NZ Association of Anglican It includes all things that are has been our experience that Women, PACIFICA, Child Poverty Action important for WIN have recorded - focused, structured lobby Aotearoa NZ, Catholic Women’s League, any recommendations, agreements meetings work best. Our or concessions made. Call Reports are increas­ Council for International Development, The Call Report is then sent o ff ingly useful, the more we NZ Federation of Family Budgeting Ser­ to the other party. If they disagree lobby and, as the weeks vices, Women’s Education Coalition with anything that is written and pass, we feel we are being Aotearoa (WECA), Age Concern NZ Inc.; suggest an amendment, it must be taken more seriously. We incorporated. To avoid very late believe the ‘professional­ Angican Care Network; National Collec­ responses to a Call Report, a useful ism’ impresses politicians tive of Women's Refuges; National strategy is to wait a week, then and government officials.” Distribution Union. send a fax suggesting that any 9 amendment should be sent within a ‘deadline’ o f a further week. But PO Box 9315, Wellington if they don’t respond, that Call Re­ Ph (04) 384 8117, port becomes the official Fax (04) 384 3301 documentation o f the meeting. It

Broadsheet Winter/ Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 44 WIN on Poverty Campaign \

Unless there is a strong voice for women on low incomes, their concerns will remain invisible and at the bottom of the policy making agenda. In the new MMP environment WIN has decided to lobby around the issue of poverty. We are concentrating on specific changes which would make a practical difference now in the lives of those on low incomes, most of whom are women and children.

Goals on Income 1. Increase the rates of Standard Costs (in the Special Benefit calculations) so that they better reflect the true discretionary costs of the beneficiary. 2. Extend the categories on non-recoverable Special Needs Grants for emergency needs. Goals on Housing 1. Set State and Council housing rents at no more than 25% of family income. 2. Set the Accommodation Supplement at 100% of any housing costs which exceed 25% of family income, up to an agreed maximum, taking into account family size and regional variations. Goals on Health 1. Ensure that all those eligible for the community services card are aware of this entitlement and encouraged to use it. 2. Eliminate consultation charges (including ACC) and prescription charges for all those eliqible for Community Services Cards and all children. 3. Subsidise costs of transport to access health services for all those eligible for Community Services Cards.

Goals on Employment Establish a definition of casual work agreed by Government, employees and employers Set in place monitoring mechanisms to assess the extent of casual work, any increase in casual work and the conditions of employ­ ment for casual workers.

Goal on Education 1. Increase the Training Incentives Allowance so that those on the DPB, Widows and Invalids Benefit have greater access to training and upskilling.

Goals on Childcare Increase childcare subsidy to 30 hours per week for all families on low incomes. 2. Provide emergency childcare in rural areas, taking into account the need to protect children and maintain the quality of the care provided.

Goals on Retirement 1. Increase superannuation to the maximum agreed under the Accord. 2. Investigate the adequacy of current levels of superannuation for those living on their own without access to other income.

Broadsheet Winter / Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 45 In March a conference in Auckland entitled Beyond Dependence was organised as a showcase for the Department of Social Welfare's latest (Feature) policy directions. At an alternative Beyond Poverty conference held the weekend before, this was one of the presentations which challenged the government's definition of 'dependency'.

Graphic Kate Millington Broa d sheet December 1987 Photo Gil Hanly

Dirty washing The meaning of dependency

Anne Else

D o in g the washing is an un­ this messy business out of sight her, and his children. Women’s tidy business. So untidy, in fact, and out of mind, so that it does financial dependence on men has that United States city councillor not intrude on the real business of been the linchpin of industrialised James Fragoli wants to impose the world. If they fail in either society. The ideal of complemen­ fines of $US 1,000 on anyone hang­ task, they risk severe penalties. tary roles in marriage has served ing washing in their front yard. Yet dealing with dirty wash­ as a convenient mechanism for But someone asked Councillor ing, including the messy business keeping the dirty washing of ev­ Fragoli a very smart question: what of bearing and raising children eryday caring work largely off the happens to his washing? His re­ and caring for the elderly, gets public agenda, let alone the bud­ ply: “I come home, my wife has it paid little or nothing. So how are get for the public purse. done. I don’t know what she does women to survive financially in a All other possible family forms to it.” (Dominion 25.1.97) society where survival depends were until recently literally out­ As False Economy dem on­ absolutely on access to money in­ lawed. Apart from widows’ strates, women are held come, and unpaid work is just that pensions, only in the last 25 years responsible - and for the most - unpaid? has there been any statutory state part, hold themselves responsible Since the Industrial Revolution, subsidy for those caring for chil­ - for cleaning up most of society’s the glib answer has been: by find­ dren without a male partner. Even everyday dirty washing. But they ing, and keeping, a male then, the model has been one of are also responsible for keeping breadwinner, so that he can keep replacing the missing share o f a

Broadsheet Winter/Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 46 adverse circum­ DPB is steadily rising, along with stances, the the age profile of recipients; and Women are responsible welfare state is that the older you are when you unable to func­ become unemployed, the longer for society’s dirty washing. tion properly’ you are likely to be out o f a job. (Social Policy Now here is the $64,000 ques­ Journal tion - or rather set of questions. Is Dec.l996:23). the rising level of 'welfare depen­ male wage with a meagre state It is easy to overlook just how dency' a problem? If so, why, and substitute. Unlike the unemploy­ fast and how extensive the col­ for whom? What is causing this ment benefit, the domestic lapse of full employment and of problem? And what is the solu­ purposes benefit has been based male wage support for women and tion? In other words, what does on the premise that caring for children has been. welfare dependency ‘mean’? children is a full-time job in itself. Department of Social Welfare Even when it is out o f the ques­ Yet like other means-tested ben­ and Ministry of Women’s Affairs tion for a beneficiary to get a job efits, it does not recognise that statistics show the picture. In that pays a living wage, income few two-parent non-beneficiary 1976 the state was paying out tested benefits have never been families can now rely solely on one around 19,000 domestic purposes generous. Since the 1991 changes, male wage for more than a short benefits. By 1996, the number was they have sunk well below any time. close to 109,000. But this rise is realistic poverty line. For this rea­ The old division of labour now dwarfed by the rise in unemploy­ son alone, having large numbers operates to the full in only a mi­ ment benefits. They jumped from of people, especially children, on nority of households, and generally around 3,000 in 1977 to over benefits for longer than a very only for relatively short periods. 134,000 in 1996. Sickness and short time is indeed a major prob­ Fewer women o f almost any age invalid benefits have also reached lem. Unless beneficiaries can earn are living in partnership with men. an all-time high. By mid 1996, a large amount illegally, they and Not surprisingly, fewer women are around 350,000 income tested ben­ their children will almost inevita­ having children, and women are efits were being received. They bly be living in poverty. That is having fewer children. Pakeha were supporting over 45,000 bad for them, bad for the local and women are delaying having chil­ people as dependent spouses, to­ national community, bad for the dren, and Maori women may be gether with over 263,000 children economy, and bad for the future. starting to do so too. Most women under 16 - about 2896 of all depen­ But for those in charge of now spend most o f their adult dent children. policy, the poverty of beneficia­ lives in paid work, or looking for it. These Yet rapidly increasing numbers of statistics are women, and men too, are having o f course to turn to the state for the money merely snap­ The problem is not they need to support themselves shots of one welfare costs and moral decay, and their children. point in time. For all its abil­ it is poverty. A s Brian Easton has pointed ity to match out, New Zealand’s welfare state, up files with like Australia’s, was based strongly other depart­ on full employment - or rather full ments in order to track down ries is not the central issue. The male employment, earning enough benefit fraud, the Department of brochure for the 1997 Beyond De­ to trickle down to women and chil­ Social Welfare cannot accurately pendency conference uses the dren. Ironically, the consequence track how long or how often par­ word ‘poverty’ only once - in the is that although the welfare state ticular people rely on various biography of an overseas speaker. ‘is presented as a means of pro­ benefits. However, it seems clear tecting the individual against that inability to access any form of The Department of Social adverse circumstances... when the long-term employment is growing; Welfare’s 1996 briefing papers to economy persistently experiences that the average time spent on the the incoming government did not

Broadsheet Winter / Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 47 dysfunctional family. What we are than ‘self-reliance’. Self-reliance not told, however, is that fewer means ‘being independent o f the than 6% of the children o f benefi­ benefit system for most working ciaries are the subject of Children age people’ (p.7). Self-reliance is and Young Persons Act notifica­ important because ‘A healthy soci­ tions. ety and economy is based on cycles How has the increase in depen­ of nurturing families and capable dency come about? The briefing self-reliant adults.’ (p.16) papers refer vaguely to ‘social and In fact, the two are not ‘cycles’, economic changes’. They speak of they happen simultaneously. Ex­ unemployment and growth in sole actly how they are to be combined parent families, as if these were is not clear. It is not possible for natural phenomena. caregivers to be in two places at use it at all. They refer to low They have much more to say once. Yet the new policy approach, income, loss of income, families about the role of the benefit system based on the fact of women’s in­ at risk and cycles of disadvantage, itself. The central problem is that creasing labour force participation, but not to poverty. They do not so far it has ‘not required the ben­ is to expect sole mothers and the mention the 1991 benefit cuts and eficiary to take active steps to wives of unemployed men to com­ rent increases, let alone bine nurturing with the Employment Con­ wage-earning. This tracts Act. They do may require offering refer, albeit rarely, to seamless slide some state help with the growth of unem­ from 'illegitimacy' to 'sole ‘removing barriers to ployment, as a major work’, such as factor putting families parents' to immoral ‘childcare and home ‘at risk’ but they stress management skills’ or that employment is now 'single teenage ‘referral to appropri­ growing. ate agencies to obtain A graph appears at mothers'. relevant training’ the beginning of the DS W (p.26). The briefing briefing papers, with the papers cite lack of ac­ caption: reduce their chances of needing a ceptable and affordable childcare ’Welfare Dependency: Economic benefit in the future’ (p.24). here as one of the main barriers to and employment growth have not Nor has it encouraged benefi­ ‘greater self-reliance’. After all, as reduced total numbers of working- ciaries to contribute to society. they note elsewhere, two out of age beneficiaries.’ ‘Contributing’ means ‘directing time three DPB recipients have a young­ Below it comes a scary set of and energy into enhancing the lives est child under seven. statistics about the growth o f de­ of others, in contrast to simply But they do not comment on pendency. The central message is being in passive receipt of benefits’ the implications of the fact that that welfare dependency itself is (p.7). But at no point is there any most sole parents are women, as the problem, and it brings in its reference to any research showing are almost all the 'spouses' o f those train a whole raft o f other prob­ exactly what beneficiaries do all getting the married rate of benefit. lems. The dependency figures are day, or how much they are already Nowhere do they mention the large set alongside and implicitly linked contributing through working in and widening gap between men’s with figures on a range o f major their homes and communities. Nor and women’s earnings in this coun­ social problems, or as the papers is there any discussion of how all try, the much greater typical put it ‘Crises in Families’ such as paid work relies on unpaid work - disparity in lifetime earnings, or youth suicide and crime, school including the unpaid work of ben­ the fact that the Employment Con­ suspensions, teenage ex-nuptial eficiaries. tracts Act has made the equal pay births, child abuse and male family Although ‘contribution’ is dis­ legislation literally unworkable. violence. In other words, the ben­ cussed, the major solution to The section on sole parents efit-dependent family is a benefit dependency is nothing less compares the high rate of workforce

Broadsheet Winter/ Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 48 participation by Swedish sole par­ and Pacific Islands people, and that Current New Right analysis ents with the low rate here. It notes what could be called ‘living wage focuses strongly on high and grow­ that a high proportion of Swedish unemployment’ is higher still. How­ ing welfare dependency. It is seen sole mothers work part-time only, ever, they do note that 29% o f all as a major problem - but not as the and 73% of their children have a jobs are now part-time, that local problem. It is only the worst symp­ place in public child care. But in a conditions vary, and that there is tom of the real problem, which is recent paper to the New Zealand research showing that welfare de­ category-based, unlimited duration, government Professor Maureen pendency ‘has more to do with lack as-of-right, uncapped state social Baker of McGill University, o f opportunity than inappropriate provision. Montreal, pointed out that the high attitudes’ (p.26). This is by far the biggest blot rate of employment has come about As for what are called active on an otherwise radically trans­ through far more than an extensive assistance programmes, the brief­ formed policy landscape. Two main system of public child care ser­ ing paper notes simply that strategies are being brought to bear vices. The Swedish government customised service, the ‘delivery on it. Both involve taking charge of has established public sector jobs platform for benefit administra­ the questions, as well as the an­ with statutory protections, devel­ tion’, has a staff to customer ratio swers. In other words, they offer oped lengthy paid family leave of 1:250. The ‘more intensive’ explanations which in turn deter­ policies for all parents, sole or programmes have ratios of 1:1.25 mine policy directions. partnered, and ensured pay equity, and 1:60 (p.27). There is also a The first strategy deals with and actively promoted gender equal­ slightly acerbic comment on evalu- poverty itself. The New Right is ity. ation of active assistance genuinely concerned about poverty. By contrast, she points out that programmes in Wisconsin - that’s Not only does it result in the redis­ in Canada, as in New Zealand, work the state which requires mothers tribution of great wodges of public incentives and ‘employability’ for of twelve week old babies to be money which could be much better sole parents are being promoted available for work. The evaluators spent by corporate heads; it also ‘within a context of high unemploy­ found that ‘raising the number o f gives the lie, very publicly, to the ment, low minimum wages, little staff to a level where there was much vaunted success of economic emphasis on job creation, a lack of enough staff to actually monitor all restructuring. full-time jobs (especially secure clients raised participation rates That’s why so much energy is ones) with high wages and statu­ significantly’ (p.30). currently being devoted to explain­ tory protections, and a shortage of But taking on more staff means ing poverty away. See, for example, child care services’. spending more money, at least in a recent paper by George Barker o f Professor Baker concludes that the short term. Providing childcare the Institute of Policy Studies on under these circumstances, ‘nei­ and training costs money too. So income distribution, and by Winton ther paying mothers to raise their does topping up the now large pool Bates for the Business Roundtable children at home nor encouraging o f wages which are even lower than on links between economic growth them to find paid work has re­ benefits. All these additional costs and social cohesion. There is no solved’ - or is likely to resolve - ‘the could quickly add up to the same ‘real’, that is, absolute, poverty in problem of poverty among sole as, or even more than, the DPB New Zealand (or the USA or Britain) mothers’. itself. compared with, say, Calcutta, or But of course the point is not to The DSW briefing papers do the Depression o f the 1930s. As resolve poverty. It is to get people not attempt to put forward strate­ Toni Allwood of WIN on Poverty off benefits. gies aimed at reducing either has recently pointed out, this is Considerable unease about the unemployment prospects for getting large num­ or the sole parent bers of beneficiaries into self-reliant population, as a jobs comes through repeatedly in way o f reducing The victims the DSW briefing papers. The writ­ welfare depen­ ers do not highlight the fact that dency. But others of New Right policies are unemployment levels are still ex­ do. tremely high, particularly for Maori being scapegoated.

Broadsheet Winter / Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 49 like saying that there is no ‘real’ sistance child abuse in New Zealand, com­ which is Forcing women pared with, say, the child brothels abso­ of Thailand or Victorian London - lutely into the workforce and therefore we need do nothing n eces­ about it. sary cannot revive 1950s marriage Relative poverty may indeed should exist, and may even have spread come not patterns. and worsened over recent years, from the the New Right concedes, but this public does not matter, either because it sector, but from the private - char­ propaganda, there is now no such does not last long (people move ity - because that is morally and thing as discrimination in the out of it), or because inequality socially better for both donors workplace, there is only choice. If itself does not matter. Those who and recipients. women choose to have children, believe it does have been cap­ This strategy will all but elimi­ and then choose to stay at home tured by the‘politics of envy’. All nate the problem of welfare and look after them, or need to that matters is increasing the size dependency. It will also restore take constant time off, of course of the national cake. Any attempt the self-reliance and social and they will earn less, just as they at redistribution from richer to moral patterns o f the 1950s. If will if they choose to be nurses poorer decreases economic pros­ there is no unemployment ben­ instead of doctors, or teachers perity, because it interferes with efit, men will get jobs, then wives, instead o f lawyers. So argue market freedom. and stay with both. If there is no Katherine Post and Michael Lynch DPB, few men will abandon their of the Pacific Research Institute. The second strategy centres wives and children, and few Whether they are married or on welfare. See, for example, pa­ women will get pregnant to men single, women who can’t afford to pers by Patricia Morgan and who are not their husbands. If keep a child should not choose to Neville Bennett on family break­ they do, they must take the con­ have one. down and by David Green on sequences. As Jane Kelsey recently noted ‘welfare that works’. Welfare de­ Mothers who have to get jobs at the Stout Research Centre ‘A f­ pendency is not a problem because - widows, for example, or victims ter the Revolution?’ seminar, the it leads to poverty. It is a problem of domestic violence - will be able language o f the New Right in New because it signifies moral decay. to, because contrary to feminist Zealand has generally been that The proof of moral decay is the rise in the number of sole par­ ents. And the major cause of this rise is welfare. The state must therefore in­ stitute drastic reforms of its welfare programmes, such as time limits on benefits, workfare, and capped funds. Within the limits of New Right economic principles, it should do all it can to reinforce legal marriage and encourage men to suppqrt their wives and chil­ dren financially, for example, through tax breaks for married male breadwinners with depen­ dent wives. There should be no assistance for sole parents which does not also go to married ones. The small amount of welfare as­

Broadsheet Winter/ Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 50 of neutral logic and technol­ But now the New Right is ogy. But the moral dimension Viable doing its utmost to dirty it has been there all along. It has again. been gathering force ever since employment seems Illegitimacy looms so large Ruth Richardson came to set to go on not because it is seen as sexu­ power. In February, for ex­ ally immoral, but because it is ample, the National Business eroding away seen as economically immoral. Review featured a reprint of an This is the only kind of immo­ article in the Wall Street Jour­ rality which matters. New Right nal by Irving Kristol of the discussions typically slide extreme right-wing Enterprise In­ the nineteenth and early twenti­ seamlessly from ‘illegitimacy’ to stitute. It was headed ‘Forget the eth century, it was careless, ‘sole parents’ to ‘sole mothers’ to money, welfare state’s crisis is ignorant women neglecting chil­ ‘single mothers’ to ‘single teenage spiritual’. dren. In the first world war, it was mothers’. And single teenage moth­ The family is being destroyed sihful women spreading venereal ers are obviously economically by the welfare state, Kristol ar­ disease. In the Depression, it was immoral - particularly when both gues, because it is welfare itself selfish women resorting to abor­ abortion and adoption are avail­ which has brought about a ‘poi­ tion (there have been frequent able. sonous flowering’ of ‘crime, re-runs o f this one). And in the Sole mothers in general present illegitimacy, drugs, divorce, 1950s, it was morally defective, problems. *By shutting men off sexual promiscuity’. We know promiscuous teenage temptresses from the civilising influence of this is so, because ‘in times past, luring innocent boys into carnal marriage and fatherhood, they are when economic inequality, and knowledge. fostering the growth o f a rootless, lack of opportunity were certainly But the perennial favourite has aggressive “warrior class’. As for no less evident than today (and been women who give birth to their children, a raft of studies can for most people were probably and/or bring up children outside be cited to prove that children who much greater), such social pa­ marriage - and so give the lie to are ‘illegitimate’ and/or have a sole thologies were far less the whole system of financial de­ parent fare worse than children in widespread’. But now the welfare pendence on men. Panics over two parent families, ‘intact fami­ state has induced once sturdily this group occurred in the 1960s, lies’, or even just ‘families’. What self-reliant citizens to yield up the 1970s, the 1980s and now is not made clear is that very few of ‘the right of self-government in again in the 1990s. these studies take other major vari­ return for cradle-to-grave secu­ It is hard to see how re­ ables into account, especially rity’. The resulting lack of stigmatising illegitimacy can income. And most of them concern financial responsibility and com­ work. (That term, of course, no children bom to and/or kept by mitment, combined with a ‘bland, longer has any legal status in New sole mothers in an era when illegiti­ permissive toleration o f moral ir­ Zealand with regard to children.) macy and sole parenting were responsibility’ leads to ‘national Just over 40%, or two out o f every stigmatised and punished in pre­ decadence’. five births, now take place out­ cisely the ways the New Right now In other words, a new moral side marriage - though not, of wants to restore. panic is now being generated. The course, necessarily outside part­ victims of New Right policies are nership or the extended family. It is far too soon to know how being made the scapegoats for In 1996 there were 23,499 births today’s so-called ‘illegitimate’ chil­ the failure of those policies to outside marriage, and 34,292 dren are faring. What we do know deliver the general prosperity they births inside it. With numbers is that teenage women make up promised. The central focus is on like these, it seems almost point­ only 4% o f all female sole parents. the delinquent women who have less to go on counting who is in The vast majority of sole parents failed to cope with society’s dirty and who is out. What was once were once partnered; most have washing, and are now being the unmentionably dirty washing only one or two children; between blamed for creating it. of illegitimacy has been trans­ 30% and 38% already have some formed into the clean washing of paid work (though they are not W e have been here before. In parenthood. classified as ‘employed’); and that

Broadsheet Winter / Hotoke 2 5th Birthday Issue 1997 51 sole parent families continue to rising numbers of children with lost in the last three months o f the cluster heavily at the bottom end of ‘neither parent in paid work*. It year alone. The official unemploy­ the income scale. notes that Australia has recently ment rate is one in 17 people, and The 1991 census was taken be­ moved to a system of abating ben­ in 1996 the official number unem­ fore the benefit cuts and state rent efits only against the income o f the ployed fell by 2000. The jobless increases. It showed that 5796 of individual concerned (p.21). rate is one in 10 people, and in 1996 Pakeha sole parents, 7596 o f Pacific The second section is on ‘Basic the number increased by 1000. Islands sole parents and 7896 of Income Models’, or universal basic Perhaps we should just stop Maori sole parents reported annual income schemes. It says they can pretending that we live in a society incomes o f less than $15,000. We reduce high abatement rates and which values anything beyond the also know that the only way most accommodate casual or part-time market. We could put up for sale at women manage to get off the do­ employment. However, it also birth all babies whose parents can­ mestic purposes benefit is not by states (contrary to the available not support them till they are old finding a job which pays enough to evidence) that such schemes ‘can enough to work. Then we could live on, but by finding a new male discourage people from working or humanely dispose o f all the dis­ partner. In view of the large dis­ earning more’. Still, the briefing abled and frail elderly who can’t parities between women and men papers suggest that variants of this fund their own care. That would across the main earning years age model are worth exploring (p.22). leave the rest free to scratch a groups, this is hardly surprising. It is obvious that change must living from the market as best they The New Right are right about come, and quickly. The New Right can. one thing. Welfare dependency is is mounting an enormous, well- Or else we can find new, effec­ only a symptom - but not o f moral coordinated effort to convince tive, sustainable ways to support decay. It is a symptom o f how enough people that what we need is caring work in the real world, even successfully New Right policies a return to the workhouse approach if that means higher taxes on busi­ undermining wages, working con­ to welfare. But for most poor fami­ ness profits and capital gains. A ditions and social services have lies, in or out o f paid work, the social responsibility act would be a combined with rapid post-indus­ problem is not welfare and moral good place to start. Unless we trial economic shifts to destabilise decay. It is poverty and stress. solve this problem, we and our unpaid caring work. Forcing thousands more into the society are history. The core problem is how to workforce cannot revive 1950s mar­ support parents in ways which en­ riage patterns, any more than it can A full page of references is available from able them to combine earning a revive the 1950s labour market, the Broadsheet or the author. 9 living and taking at least adequate soaring rates of teenage pregnancy, care of their children, when secure or the silence about domestic vio­ jobs featuring living wages and lence. United States family manageable hours are now the ex­ sociology professor Frank ception rather than the norm, that Furstenberg points out that: ‘We reliable, high-quality childcare is are no more likely to restore the still beyond the reach of many fami­ conjugal family rooted in the ideal lies, and high unemployment or (but not the practice!) of premarital quasi-employment shows every sexual chastity, early and lifelong sign of being here to stay. monogamy, and a sharply drawn There is some heartening evi­ division o f labour between men dence of radically new approaches. and women than we are to bring The DSW briefing papers, for ex­ back the family farm.’ ample, include two remarkable Caring work is lasting longer short sections. The one on ‘Indi­ and demanding more resources. vidual Units of Entitlement* points But viable employment seems set out that lumping a couple’s income to go on eroding away, as technol­ together in assessing entitlement ogy gets cheaper and staff get FOR THE MAN WHO HAS to benefit often keeps them both dearer. In 1996, 39,000 new jobs EVERYTHIN®! out o f the workforce - hence the were created; but 10,000 jobs were

Broadsheet Winter/ Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 52 dependent on state benefits be­ /T w o very different pictures of welfare policy for the next century' cause of poverty. Historically these emerged at two conferences held in Auckland in March 1977. included many people driven from One, entitled Beyond Dependency, was hosted by the Depart­ the land into dependence on an unstable labour market. For ex­ ment of Social Welfare and cost $ , -$ , . The other, 1650 1750 ample, in Britain in the late 19th Beyond Poverty, was organised by community groups and century much ‘pauperism’ followed academics and cost $10-$80 - but you had to bring or buy your on from the enclosure movement. own food. In New Zealand in the late 19th century a similar process affected CELIA BRIAR, in her paper to the Beyond Poverty Maori. conference, looked a the history of some of the definitions of The concept itself is not new. welfare and welfare receipients being put forward at the other ‘Pauperism’, carrying the same ^ conference.______meaning and stigma, was the term in vogue at the time that New Zealand was first colonised by the women? Will it promote indepen­ British. dence via paid employment for The basic assumption currently mothers? underpinning income maintenance Or are current welfare policy policy, both in New Zealand and in directions simply aimed at creating other English-speaking countries, a return to greater economic de­ is that people dependent on state pendency of women on men? welfare payments are using the nation’s resources without making WHAT’S NEW? a contribution, and should be de­ The policy goal outlined in Strate­ terred from doing so. ‘Transforming gic Directions is to reduce dependency into contribution’, as ‘dependency’ (on state benefits) and Strategic Directions puts it. to increase ‘independence’ (depen­ This idea was established over dence on a wage). In social policy 160 years ago. In the British Poor ‘dependency’ is the most recent Law Amendment Act of 1834, the derogatory term used to describe principle was laid down that: reliance on the state for an income. 'Every penny bestowed that rMyths o f our time Feature's ON WELFARE AND WOMEN Celia Briar

he April 1997 changes to the However, the term is not usu­ renders the condition of the pauper T benefit regulations have ex­ ally used to describe those who more eligible than that o f the inde­ tended t ie requirement to seek em- receive wages, salaries, goods, ser­ pendent labourer is a bounty on ploymen to beneficiaries who are vices, tax cuts or subsidies from indolence and vice.’ widows, i nd even to the wives of the state. That would include most In other words, this Act firmly unemployed men. of those who are normally regarded set out three basic assumptions. Has a significant shift occurred as independent citizens. Firstly, ‘paupers’ (beneficiaries) are in welfare policy? Does this repre­ Instead, the notion o f ‘depen­ by nature idle. Secondly, people sent more equal treatment of dency’ is applied narrowly, to people will only work if there are financial

Broadsheet Winter / Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 53 incentives to do so and penalties single, married, separated, widowed Instead, married women’s finan­ for failing to do so. Thirdly, only or divorced. cial dependency on a husband has paid work counts as real work. The 1938 Social Security Act been actively encouraged and some­ Therefore, it was argued, the posi­ was designed to provide an income times enforced by the state. For tion of beneficiaries should always for people who lost their ‘normal example, through the ‘marriage bar’ be materially worse (’less eligible') source of support’. In general, between the wars, women in many than that of people who earn a male beneficiaries are still more western nations were sacked from living from paid employment, oth­ likely to receive a benefit to com­ state sector jobs such as teaching erwise they will do nothing. pensate for their loss of a wage, and nursing if they married. Women This principle has remained such as unemployment or sickness without a husband have still been centred to the administration of benefit; whereas women have been judged according to the morality of benefits for the unemployed ever more likely to receive one related to the marriage market. The state has since. Strategic Directions reiter­ the absence or loss of a man, such stepped in as a substitute bread­ ates the principle in modern as the Widows Benefit or Domestic winner in ‘deserving’ cases. For terminology when it states that: Purposes Benefit. most of the twentieth century wid­ ’People on benefits should not There has in the past been far ows have been treated as legitimate be better o ff than (low paid) full less pressure upon most women dependants o f the state. However, time workers, (p.75) than most men to achieve ‘inde­ before the early 1970s unmarried These assumptions about hu­ pendence’ through paid work. mothers were not able to depend man nature are highly questionable in relation to men, but even more From 1 April 1997 all beneficiaries, including those on the so if we look at women. Indeed, if DPB and Widow's Benefit, will be required to sign this form the behaviour of women, especially mothers, had been treated as evi­ DECLARATION dence about human nature, I acknowledge that: assumptions about the intrinsic 1. My enrolement with NZ Employment Service and idleness of human beings and the application for a work tested benefit from NZ Income need for financial work incentives Support Service is accepted on he basis that I will: would have lacked any credibility. (a) Actively look for work; Mothers o f young children com­ (b) Attend a suitable job interviw when referred; monly work around 100 hours a (c) Accept a suitable job when it is offered (including week unpaid, and in the process temporary or seasonal work; often forego opportunities for paid (d) Start a suitable job when accepted; work. Heather Joshi has estimated (e) Accept a referral to start and complete a work that this costs on average around related training course when requested to do so half of their lifetime earnings. by NZES; However, historically ‘the pauper’ (f) Participate in any other activity which NZES and the independent labourer’ have considers will improve or maintain my level of been both implicitly male, and employability; women simply regarded as ‘differ­ (g) Attend any work assessment requested by NZES ent’. or NZISS. Different, more complex and shifting and even occasionally more 2. NZES and NZISS will exchange information about humane standards have been ap­ my enrolement, job search activities and benefit status. plied to women in welfare policy in 3. Failure to carry out any of the above activities, the past. Whereas men have been without good and sufficient reason, may result in my losing classified in terms of their position entitlement to an Unemployment Benefit, or any other in relation to employers and the work tested benefit, for a period of 26 weeks. labour market (regular, casual or Signature of Job Seeker:______unemployed workers), women have Employment Advisor:______been defined primarily in relation NZISS Customer Services Officer:______to men and the marriage market, as

Broadsheet Winter/ Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 54 on state support, and single moth­ for women. Rising rents for state welfare, to poverty while combin­ ers were often ‘punished’ by being houses have reduced the dispos­ ing paid and unpaid work. expected to somehow manage to able income of many poorer people, Gender inclusive language in re­ combine unpaid caregiving and low notably Maori women. Policies cent policy documents - describing paid work. of'de-institutionalisation'and com­ everyone as ‘individuals’ - disguises Disapproval of the DPB by op­ munity care have taken many the fact that mothers are frequently ponents has until recently tended women out of the paid work force disadvantaged in the paid to be expressed in terms of the for additional periods of time to workforce. Wives of redundant opportunities it has given mothers care for others. Tax cuts have freezing workers in small towns to leave relationships with men; made higher paid workers (mainly are seldom in a position to take whereas expressed concerns that men) better off compared with those over as family breadwinners. Solo benefits paid to mothers act as a on low pay (mainly women). mothers are not in a position to disincentive to accept paid work In the 1990s more women par­ compete on equal terms with men have been relatively unusual. Treat­ ticipate in paid work than earlier in who have wives. Treating people ing single mothers as primarily the century - slightly over half the equally who are in unequal situa­ potential employees rather than par­ female population of working age. tions can make inequality even ents represents a reversal of the But most do not earn enough to wider. policy which has been in place for support a family. Women work as almost 25 years; and applying a many hours as men on average. ECONOMIC INDEPENDENCE ‘work test’ to widows and the wives However, the 1991 Census showed FOR MOTHERS? of unemployed men, especially at a that, if hours of paid and unpaid Many first and second wave femi­ time of economic recession, does work are added together, over three nists campaigned for women’s appear to represent a new direction quarters of women and over half of economic independence (from in welfare policy. men were earning less than $20,000 men). First wave feminists battled per year, and many earned under for women’s entry to a wider range MORE EQUAL TREATMENT $ 10,000. o f jobs and for women’s ‘right to FOR WOMEN? This is because women and men work’. Feminists of the second Does the work test for mothers are typical employed in different wave took up the struggle for equal represent more equal treatment of occupations, with women in the pay and opportunities for working women in welfare policy? Carole lower paid jobs, and in part time women, and for quality affordable Pateman argues that the traditional jobs with part gender division of welfare is one of time pay. It is the means by which women are also because of constructed as non-citizens, since employer dis­ women are primarily defined not as crimination, individuals but in relation to an­ shortage o f af- other adult. However, more equal fordable treatment of women and men only childcare and the in terms of “work tests’ is unlikely demands made to overcome this problem. on women’s time This shift has occurred within and energy by a wider policy context which not unpaid work re­ only fails to address the conse­ sponsibilities. quences of past discrimination Women are against women at work, but also the working poor, increases the gap in spending power and so moving to between men and women. Since ‘independence’ the Employment Contracts Act and for most women the repeal of the Employment Eq­ on DPB means uity Act, the gender gap in pay has moving from grown. State sector restructuring poverty and un­ has reduced career opportunities paid work on

Broadsheet Winter / Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 55 childcare. REFUTING OFFICIAL MYTHS mythical figure. Children, the sick Superficially, official talk of pro­ Rather than promoting real inde­ and the elderly depend on their moting ‘independence’ for mothers pendence for women, the latest carers. Employees depend on a might seem to reflect feminist de­ policy developments represent in­ wage or salary, and increasingly mands. In general, however, policy tensification of a pre-1970s theme also on the earnings o f a partner. makers are more concerned with - punishing mothers without a man Shareholders depend on dividends removing women’s dependence on able to support them, by pushing generated by the work that other state welfare than promoting genu­ them into menial employment, people do. Because of recent work ine independence for women with only minimal child care assis­ intensification in full time jobs, through paid work, or making tance. career workers rely increasingly on women economically independent There is likely to be more eco­ women’s unpaid work. Commu­ of men. nomic pressure on women to go nity helping agencies depend to a The universal family benefit - into or remain in relationships with great extent on voluntary work done the only independent income which men who are ‘good providers’. by beneficiaries. As Marilyn Waring some partnered women had - was Women are likely to be only par­ points out, the work done by people withdrawn as part of the December tially dependent, since the average classed as dependants - women 1990 policy package. Heterosexual male wage is too low to support a raising children - is more socially couples, with or without children, family. Nevertheless, this will in­ necessary than many jobs done in are regarded as a single economic crease power inequalities between the paid workforce . unit for purposes of benefit assess­ men and women. A critique of the concept of ment; and the cohabitation rule Current official views of ben­ ‘dependency’ can include challeng­ disallows women’s (and occasion­ efit ‘dependency’ as passivity and ing mainstream views o f human ally men’s) entitlement to the parasitism are in fact highly con­ nature and developing more hu­ unemployment benefit. It is most testable, as they are based on a mane welfare policies, based on the unlikely that there will be any at­ myth. In fact, everyone is a depen­ assumption that people work. 9 tempts to persuade mothers who dent. Feminists such as Phillida are the partners o f employed men Bunkle and Jo Lynch have noted to move into paid employment and that the ‘independent’ individual, become financially independent. usually portrayed as male, is a

Sources Briar, Celia (1997) Working for Women? Gendered Work and Welfare Policies in Twentieth Century Britain. London, Taylor and Francis. Bryson, Lois (1992) Welfare and the State London. Macmillan. Bunkle, P. & Lynch, J. (1992) What's Wrong with the New Right? In C.Briar, R. Munford & M. Nash (Eds) Superwoman, where are you? Social Policy and Women's Experience. Palmerston North, Dunmore Press. Department of Social Welfare (1996) Strategic Directions: Briefing Papers for the Incoming Government Wellington, Social Policy Agency. Joshi, Heather (1992) The Costs of Caring. In C. Glendinning & J. Millar (Eds) Women and Poverty in Britain: The 1990s. Brighton, Harvester Wheatsheaf. Pateman, Carole (1992) The Patriarchal Welfare State. In L. McDowell & R. Pringle (Eds) Defining Women. Milton Keynes, Open University Press. Saville Smith, Kay (1987) Women and the State. In S. Cox (Ed) Public and Private Worlds. Wellington, Allen & Unwin/Port Nicholson Press. Statistics New Zealand (1994) All About Women. Wellington, Statistics New Zealand. Waring, Marilyn (1989) If Women C ounted. London, Macmillan.

Graphic Vanya Lowry Broa d sheet April 1976

Broadsheet Winter/ Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 56 InhuMAN Rights (Feature) Women and children lose again

Barbara Bennett

n early May, the television news and the N Z Herald carried Marianne and her new partner short reports about the New Zealand courts forcibly return­ thought their problems were over. I ing six year old Simone Andersen to the custody of her father in "We thought that at last the Denmark. The Herald report stressed Simone's tearful pleas to children could live decent lives and be allowed to remain with her mother, ending with mother our family could live in peace. But Marianne Andersen's words of grief and defeat: this was not to be." “I can't fight it alone any more. I don’t know how to fight it Simone's father appealed any more.” against this decision. Neither the What the Herald didn't mention was why Marianne Andersen High Court, nor the Court of Appeal had fled Denmark, nor how and why the courts saw fit to return disputed the evidence that Simone a six year old child to a situation they recognised to be abusive had been sexually abused by her - all in the name of a piece of international legislation intended father, but both Courts have now to protect the rights o f children. ordered that Simone be returned While in hiding to protect her child, Marianne Anderson not to her father but to the Central wrote to MP Lianne Dalziel, to give the full story. Authority in Denmark. "In 1994 my family and I fled from Denmark and came to However, the Danish authori­ New Zealand to save the life of five year old Simone who has been ties have already advised that on sexually abused by her father. We believed that the New Zealand her return, Simone will be placed in courts would protect Simone and after a court hearing in New a Danish social welfare institution Zealand, we were so happy and relieved that we had been proved and her father will live with her right." unsupervised for 24 hours a day. In August 1995, the Christchurch Family Court had turned No further custody hearing is con­ down an application by Simone’s father to have her returned to templated. Denmark under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of So the Court of Appeal was able International Child Abduction. The Court accepted the evidence to wash its hands of Simone on the o f two court-appointed psychologists that Simone and her half- basis of a legal fiction about who sister Kirsten had been sexually abused by Simon's father. The she was being returned to. psychologists also expressed the concerned belief that the high If Marianne returns to Den­ level o f evidential proof required for cases brought under the mark, to try to find some further Hague Convention had caused the girls severe and traumatic way of protecting Simone, she faces emotioned stress. This evidence was supported by videotapes imprisonment for having removed made by Children and Young Persons Services. The Court the child. accepted that Simone would be at risk of further sexual abuse if "My Danish lawyer confirmed she were returned to her father. by fax to me in New Zealand, that

Broadsheet Winter / Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 57 no new custody case would be al­ tended role. lowed, should Simone be returned In the case o f Simone and her to Denmark, and that I could ex­ mother, the Hague Convention Privileging pect a substantial term of seems not only to have failed to imprisonment. Simone would be protect them, but to have become the paternal handed over to her father and an instrument of punishment. Simone's older sister would be placed in a state institution or in rights of an foster care while I am in prison," \ / \ / h ile it would be comforting she says. to regard this as an isolated case of uninterested "What greater violence needs to questionable judical decision mak­ be committed against a child be­ ing, in fact it points to a problem of and fore the courts wil act to protect literally global significance. children? I need the fundamental The misuse of the Hague Con­ non-supportive human right of my child to be pro­ vention was again exemplified by tected from violence to be upheld. the case of New Zealander Rosalind I need the right to return to my own Freear. Following her ex-partner's father over country without fear of successful application underthe punishmenht or imprisonment for Hague Convention, she is currently the the crime of protecting my child." bound by law to live in Sydney, in Marianne Andersen's repeated what her father descibes as a state well-being pleas for the protection of human o f 'effectve banishment.' rights are both poignant and ironic, When Rosalind first returned of given the instrumental role played to New Zealand from Australia with by the Hague Convention in forcing her seven month old son, she the return of Simone to her father. didn't think to apply for formal the child. Designed to ensure that custody custody arrangements. This is not desicions of member states are surprising since she and the father's recognised and honoured by other child had never married nor lived Austraian law require him to do so. member stsates, this convention is together inade facto relationship. Again, this is not an isolated above all concerned to protect the Nor was he paying maintenance in case of a father using the Hague human rights of both parents and support of the child. However, Convention to force the return of a children. Since men are usually when he initiated procedings un­ mother and child without any inter­ responsible for international ab­ der the Hague Convention, the est in attending to the needs of that ductions of children, theoretically New Zealand Court of Appeal or­ child. This is starkly evidenced by the Convention protects women and dered Rosalind Freear's immediate a list which the Australian Central children. A crucial sub-clause stipu­ and permanent return to Australia, Authority provides for parents re­ lates that: despite the fact that she was a New turning to Australia with children ’...the judicial or administra­ Zealand citizen. She is now legally under the Hague Convention, out­ tive authority of the requested state allowed to leave Australia for lim­ lining the sources o f assistance is not bound to order the return of ited periods, but is effectively available to them. This includes the child if the person, institution, prohibited from resettling in New legal contacts for those seeking or other body which opposes its Zealand. child support, or chasing up spou­ return establishes that there is a Rosalind is living in Sydney, sal undertakings of accommodation grave risk that his or her return surviving on a barely adequate So­ and financial support which have would expose the child to physical cial Welfare Benefit, cut o ff from been dishonoured; contact num­ or psychological harm or other­ the practical and material support bers for homeless shelters; and for wise place the child in an intolerable of her family that would enable her the Domestic Violence Advocacy state.’ to better provide for her child and Service for 'advice on dealing with This indicates an awareness of return to her career. The father actual or potential domestic vio­ the need to protect against misuse continues to pay no maintenance lence'. and abuse of theConvention's in­ in support of the child, nor does This almost incomprehensible

Broadsheet Winter/ Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 5 8 privileging of the paternal 'rights' o f an uninterested and non-sup- portive father over the physical, Rosalind Freear's family and emotional, social, and material friends are gathering together well-being of the child clearly vio­ lates the purpose and intention women who have been of the Hague Convention. affected by Hague Conven­ It also points to the very real need for women having children tion proceedings. Contact to undersand the rights they do - Elisabeth Apel, and do not - have, and the ways in which the administration of these 5 Hillside Road, rights means they may be used Waiheke Island, against women and children. 9 Auckland.

Just as this issue went to press, the NZ Herald reported that Marianne Andersen had left for Denmark to be with her child. By the time you read this, there may have ben be further news of her. Eds. A New feminist Newsletter?

Does the thought of this being the last Broadsheet make you want to DO SOMETHING? Do you think Aotearoa/New Zealand needs a national feminist monthly newsletter to cover cam­ paigns and actions, list groups and meetings, and provide reports, up-dates and analysis of issues affecting women? If so, come to a meeting to gauge interest in this idea on Tuesday, 5 August at 7pm at the YWCA, 10 Carlton Gore Rd, Grafton. If you live out of Auckland, phone Jenny Rankine 09 303 5202 (w ) or 849 3830 (ah), or e-m ail [email protected]

B ro a d sh e e t 1979 (Artist Unacknowledged)

Broadsheet Winter / Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 59 Looking back (Feature)

EDITH CORRINGE SARAH CALVERT ' Broadsheet Collective 1989-1992 Broadsheet Collective 1979-1984 For me, discovering Broadsheet was a revelation. The days and years of my life I well remember that Saturday morning, tenta­ The message on the phone said that there was to tively approaching the Karangahape Road shop be a final issue of Broadsheet and I sat in the where I had offered to help with ‘stuffing’. I hadn’t firelight remembering; faces - events, words and a clue what that entailed, but knomng that I was a places scrolling through my mind. Some of the good volunteer, thought it worth taking the risk. best no longer here, like Sharon Alston. Others So began my association with Broadsheet. long since moved on, some I read about in the One afternoon, some time later at the rear of media, and yet others remain my closest friends. the Dominion Road shop, Athina and Pat asked if Broadsheet was one of the defining parts of my ‘they could have a word with me’. Shades of life. teenage rebellion! - I anxiously wondered what I My first memory of Broadsheet is of Rose­ had done wrong. To my utter astonishment they mary Ronald’s house on an enveloping day, I asked if I would consider joining the Collective. can’t remember which issue (although it would Being a ‘token oldie’ had little appeal, and it have been one of the first) but I do remember the seemed inconceivable to me that these vibrant, excitement, chatter and energy that pervaded creative and supremely talented women genuinely that room. I had become involved in the women’s believed that I had something of value to offer movement in 19 71.1 had already attended marches them. and demonstrations and wanted to become more My time on the Collective was hugely reward­ involved. Broadsheet was one way to do that. ing, often frustrating and never dull. Consensus Over the years (probably 15 in all) I enveloped, decision-making brings with it all kinds of ten­ wrote articles, became a member of the Collec­ sions - clashes of temperament set alongside the tive, all of which I did living out o f Auckland. For very real and genuine care for each other, which a long time I was the primary health writer for has made possible the continuing survival of the Broadsheet, preparing regular articles to give magazine despite the setbacks and financial crises women back the power over their own lives. which have dogged its path. One of the dull, Along the way I took that aspect of feminism to ordinary and repetitive tasks associated with the every part of New Zealand, speaking and meeting successful publication of a magazine is keeping with women, travelling with the shows that Renee up-to-date the record of subscribers, and apart so wonderfully put together, organising the 1979 from a short break, that has been my responsibil­ United Women’s Convention. Out of my years ity. Mastering (!) the intricacies o f the computer with Broadsheet I gained a wonderful collection was certainly a challenge. of memories, a set of magazines which details There is a real and very deep sadness for me years of my life, a book I wrote and a way of being that, despite the energy and enthusiasm of a and thinking that is still with me, and friendships dedicated group of women for whom the feminist that matter more than anything else. ideals are supremely important, who see the real I believe Broadsheet made an enormous con­ need to educate and keep to the fore the on-going tribution not only to the women’s movement in struggles women face in today’s world, Broadsheet New Zealand but also to ways in which we as New has reached its final issue. I have little doubt that Zealanders see ourselves, addressing issues of sometime in the future a new publication will take Maori sovereignty long before other Pakeha un­ its place, and offer my heart-felt thanks to Broad­ derstood the depth of Maori opinion. Broadsheet sheet and the women connected with it for all those was a way of beginning to define ourselves and immensely valuable and intangible gifts it has we can be proud of it. 9 ^ given me. 9______^ \ ------;

Broadsheet Winter/ Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 60 ^SANDRA CONEY (looking back.S^ Broadsheet Collective 1972-1985 \ HILARY IAPS1EY A farewell to Broadsheet (Haines) Broadsheet and all who have sailed on her Collective 1972

I was 27 when the founding group started Broadsheet, and I am now 52. The magazine has been around for almost half my life '' 1972, when Broadsheetbegan, and all my feminism. It feels rather bleak trying to think of it was an exciting year for me. going. It represents the best efforts of many women over the Sisterhood was powerful and years to make advocacy for women visible. Future generations of women's liberation had released women will know what feminists in the 1970s,1980s and 1990s a glorious wave of energy. I was did, believed and argued about. 23, a married mother of two I am trying to be positive. I can understand why Broadsheet young children, and the life ex­ has gone under at this particular time. It is just that feminisim pected of me as a woman went is need more than ever in 1997. The pernicious idea that the againstthe grain. Working along­ market provides women with opportunities creates a context in side Anne, Sandra, Rosemary, which there can be a lot of slippage. Kitty, Sharon and all the others The free market has produced opposing trends amongst was thrilling. women. A small but growing group of women has entered the managerial elite, but a very much larger group of women is doing I would have been horrified to imagine that Broadsheet badly, struggling along in low-paid, casualised jobs, or on miserly would still be needed 25 years benefits. The gulf between these groups of women is widening, later, because our politics were as is the gap between the rich and the poor in society at large. of the present. In health, reproductive rights are vulnerable. The current Minister of Health is conservative on abortion and the chair of the We were not a 'worthy cause', and we differed from Health Parliamentary Select Committee is an anti-abortionist activist. Already some CHEs are not bothering to provide abortion other radical politics. Women's services. Who is going to hold them to account? Should this issue Liberation was for us, young come up in the coalition government caucus, there will only be women of the 1970s. one woman present. As time passed we realised With Broadsheet going it becomes even more important that that feminism had a history, that women activists find new ways o f keeping in touch and network­ our exuberant activism had to ing. That way we can stay tuned to what is happening with women be tempered by a better under­ in different areas and support each other’s efforts. standing of the issues, and that What about a women’s web site where we can all post we would face inevitable con­ information about issues and events? Women’s Health Action flicts in the movement. has a health web site at http://www.womenshealth.org.nz. There But it was a wonderful begin­ ning." must be other women’s web sites as well. If we could link up, then we could keep up the activism even after our mother ship has s wsnaiLi!) isKa a wiAri me>~ Ī?S®C3 V® & R ® d *G 3 S I‘8*. s sfioso,®®! a BeaumsfinevM. 6KKB.$l%i§) ADDRESS T O - V / ■SBOADSHEET* 48 St. XNOREWS TO. EPSOM Au c k l a n d . From Broa d sheet August 1972

Broadsheet Winter / Hotoke 2 5th Birthday Issue 1997 61 BROADSHEET ISSUE NO. 31, JULY 1975 - ABRIDGED ON BROADSHEET’S R D BIRTHDAY

SANDRA CONEY & SHARYN CEDERMAN TOLD THE STORY OF...

How Broadsheet Grew

his may be the first Broadsheet you have ever creating the magazine. The whole thing was typed, bought, or you may have only been subscrib­ proof-read, corrected and laid out by the evening. Even ing for a short time. In which case you’re the illustrations were produced on the spot by the two T probably unaware of quite how much we men of artistic talent who had offered their help. A big differ from other magazines you might pick pot of soup kept us going through the day and we were up at your stationers. all terribly enthusiastic. Looking back we marvel at our Broadsheet began in 1972, when four amazing optimism and self-confidence based on the women from Auckland Women’s Liberation skimpiest of experience and skills. Anne Parsons, who were sitting around after the group’s weekly has been a proof-reader for twelve years, provided the meeting, discussing what we had done so far only area where we really knew what we were doing. We and what other sorts of things we could do. knew nothing about layout and printing but developed We were all fairly new to the movement and these skills with practice, experimentation and the eager to put into action some o f our ideas. ready assistance of sympathetic people within these We were in consciousness-raising groups, fields. had been to seminars, discussion groups, We were all thrilled when the first copy came back had read books, magazines and women’s rather roughly printed by the now defunct Resistance liberation literature, and felt ready to initiate Bookshop. It was twelve pages, side stapled and some project which would further the ideals foolscap size. Most of you won’t have ever seen the of the women’s movement. As three of us first Broadsheet as we only had 200 printed and they were recent graduates in English, it seemed quickly sold out. We were overjoyed at how readily sensible to embark into some field where the they sold, and that the reaction was mainly good. Of skills we had: writing, study, research, criti­ course, we got the odd rude letter, and there were cal analysis, would be most useful. A people who objected to the name we chose for the magazine seemed an obvious choice. magazine (and still do) as being, as one writer put it, The first issue was virtually produced in 'suggestive and derogatory'. We settled on Broadsheet one day. We got all our copy together and because it seemed to represent some of the feelings we then twelve people gathered at Sandra Coney’s had about the magazine at the time - its size and that house on a winter Saturday and set about it was a newsletter. We were fully aware of the way the

Broadsheet Winter/ Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 62 w ith som e people. We ar­ gued that hopefully the bookshops in the Auckland area. magazines This is the eleventh issue in the would make new format and we think over the their way to the last year, we’ve steadily improved wives-at-home. both the content and the look of the Most men in magazine. Our circulation and our pubs tended to subscriptions have soared, particu­ be ruder to us larly since the beginning of this than they would year. This is partly because of ever have con­ International Women's Year and sidered being to the increased interest being shown other men or to in women’s issues. Ironically we women. Obvi­ have been very critical of IWY but in ously because of spite o f that, or even possibly be­ Graphic Sharon Alston our affiliations cause of that, our sales are Bro a d she e t November 1973 we eschewed increasing tremendously. male protection When we began, we welcomed a n d anyone who’ wanted to help. We word could be interpreted and saw patronisation and thus could not believed in the idea o f a loose col­ it as a deliberate send up. expect any of the superficial cour­ lective where everyone who was For our second issue we went to tesies extended to other women. around was involved in decision­ a proper printer, used yellow card We were dangerous and thus we making. However, we found for the cover and the magazine were in danger ourselves. No one conflicts arose when people had then looked as it was to look for the goes pub selling now, we don’t goals or methods which were dif­ next two years. Kay Davenport of need to and I don’t think there ferent from the majority and when Auckland University’s English De­ would be one of us who was sorry. people made decisions which were partment designed a stunning cover After two years of publication not based on either knowledge or which we think holds its own with in the old format, we decided that commitment. We found that it is any cover we’ve had since. We New Zealand women were ready for unrealistic to expect women who increased the number printed, a feminist magazine, but in order put a few hours a month into Broad­ found that they still sold well and to distribute through the bookshops sheet to bear the same people eagerly asked when the next and thus reach a far wider audience responsibility and to have the same issue would come out. Groups of Broadsheet had to be more profes­ share in decision-making as women women from Auckland Women’s sional looking. None of us were who put over one hundred hours a Liberation took armfuls o f Broad­ aware, when that decision was month and have done so for a long sheet to meetings and pubs to sell made, how much extra work we period. to the public. Pub selling was often were letting ourselves in for. Up to After many months of difficul­ frightening, never dull. that time we were still having the ties and conflicts, we devised a A group o f women, clearly la­ magazine typed. We had few pho­ minimal structure to try to deal belled as women’s liberationists, tos and the lay-out only took a with questions such as who makes buying their own drinks, minding couple of evenings. Now we would decisions, to what extent must we their own business and ignoring have 40 typeset pages instead of all agree before we act on a deci­ the come-ons of the male patrons the average 16 typewritten pages. sion, how we bring in new women, was just too threatening to ignore. We did most of the typesetting and what part men should play in Eventually it became harder and ourselves and this, along with the the magazine. harder to find women who were new layout, took weeks instead of So we now operate with a col­ prepared to go pub selling. True, hours. However, we went ahead lective of six women who have all we sold Broadsheets and we had and arranged distribution through been involved with the magazine some interesting conversations a commercial distributor to for a long time. We meet weekly to

Broadsheet Winter / Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 63 From Broadsheet Issue No.l July 1972 WHAT’S IN A NAME? Thompson who co-edits. There are others who work on You may not like the name of this paper. Try and think of a better lay-out or are part o f the ’Contents’ one. Just trying to find a name for this kind of paper will give you group which organises what goes an excellent idea of the way women are regarded in our society. in the magazine. Also there is a Anything that you think up will suffer from one of a number of large group of helpers who address disadvantages: envelopes, and do other routine (a) It will already have been used by another 'women's magazine' work when help is needed. Lately of a very different nature or, worse still, will suggest nothing so much we have also had a number o f women photographers offering as an 'intimate' feminine deodorant. their services, which is a great help (b) It will have excessi vley lewd undertones. It is quite amazing how in making articles have more im­ many ways the English language (and no doubt all the others too) pact and also gives them a chance have of suggestively snickering at women or at portions of their to see their work published. This is anatomy. one o f the main aims of the maga­ (c) The last resort-outstanding women of history and literature. Yes, zine: to provide a vehicle for well. Most of the universally known ones are portayed (by men) as women’s writing poetry, art-work out and out bitches or as passive semi-imbeciles, and we did not and photography. There are problems in working really fancy either of those images. No doubt there are others but as a collective, but we continue to they remain obscure. try to adhere to this principle of the So here it is. If the name puts you off all that much, don't buy women’s movement; that women it, because the contents probably won't be your cup of tea either. should eschew a patriarchal hierar­ If it doesn't, take out a subscription. It will be worth it! We mean to chical structure. Collective be around for quite a while. decisions are difficult to make at Ann Else short notice because we all neces­ sarily have other jobs and thus are restricted to meeting in the evening. Also areas o f responsibility are not deal with problems and to plan finances and also helps with lay­ rigidly defined which means those ahead, and about every month or out; Val Cole who helps with layout; with more free time or who feel so we have a longer meeting on Sandra Coney who co-edits and more committed are often left with policy matters. Decisions are made organises layout; Lorraine McArthur the major share of the work. by consensus rather than by vot­ who does most of the typesetting So far, none o f us is able to be ing, no matter how much longer it and is learning layout; Rosemary paid for work on the magazine. We takes. The collective consists of: Ronald who is in charge of sub­ are reimbursed for expenses such Sharyn Cederman who handles our scriptions and sales; and Julie as stamps, glue, paper but not for

Know Were wokKiKfr ^ M* flANY h 5PEU~T0 tHAtS Nof tfllNfy IN FAiKjo life Mi fbpLe AfFWfWj •fUAt m w p£Op(£ QW A fford and ro°R feopt£

Broadsheet Winter/Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 64 time. We have recently taken on a shop front to (Looking back.». do layout in and this costs us $65 a month. products traditionally found in So until we find a bene­ women’s magazines. If you flick factor or our sales through a Thursday or Eve you’ll increase enormously, we see that the majority are for make­ will not have enough in­ up and deodorants. This is the sort come to pay staff. That o f advertising we wouldn’t accept. is, unless we can get ad­ Some magazines trying to have a vertising revenue. progressive attitude towards Bro a d she e t Glancing through women still use sexist and demean­ no 23 other women’s maga­ October ing advertising, rationalising this zines, you’ll see how by arguing that their female read­ 9 4 ^ much advertising they ers are intelligent enough to reject baby-sitting fees or petrol and trans­ have. If ybu could be bothered to such advertising and the products port costs we might incur. Far from count up the number of pages car­ the advertisers hope to sell. We receiving any payment for our work rying advertising you’d realise that reject this argument. Our early on the magazine we are all actually the ratio of advertising to copy is conditioning can make even the out of pocket. Of course, this is not about two to one. most confirmed feminist subcon­ an ideal situation. None of us feel We have none, and this is not sciously insecure, enough to we can do our best while having our the result of some ideological re­ respond to the intention of the energies pulled in different direc­ jection of advertising but of advertiser - to work on our sup­ tions, not-just by the demands of practicalities. Getting advertising posed inadequacies and fears as our paying jobs but also by those from agencies or manufacturers women. And many of the ads them­ people we live with, are involved takes time. Someone needs to make selves are offensive and sexist. with, or have responsibility for. an initial contact, then keep the While advertising revenue After eight hours of work some of pressure up, informing us rush and pick up children from the potential client of babysitter, cook dinner, bath and the magazine’s contin­ put to bed children and are back at ued existence and work by eight. The main problem is progress. We actually fatigue and some of us even try did contact the agen­ sleeping during our lunch hours. cies initially but have Relationships with other people not had the surplus show signs o f strain when nights energy to maintain it. on end and weekends too are spent Most reacted by saying working on Broadsheet. that our circulation was We are working towards a situ­ small and they’d wait ation where women are paid for and see if we were still their work on the magazine and are round in six months’ able to make a reasonable living time. We are, and our- from it, thus enabling them to put circulation has gone up more into the movement. Payment a lot, but no one has the also reinforces a commitment to time to tell them. In the something which may lessen when meantime we publish the work is voluntary. virtually no advertise­ At present the sales of each ments. issue are only just covering the Another problem cost. If it weren’t for subscriptions with advertising is that being paid in advance, we wouldn’t we would not accept be able to keep paying our bills on ads for many o f the Bro a d she e t no 23 October 1974

Broadsheet Winter / Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 65 would be very welcome and would are not money-making. allow some of us to be paid for our We are pro-women but Looking back.... efforts, we all agree the price that recognise that not all women are must be paid in subverting our good for the movement. We have Broadsheet in other magazines and principles is more than we are pre­ found that often women who are newspapers. Surprisingly, we’ve pared to accept. Maybe one day notable for some achievement they been labelled ‘radical’. Surprising, advertisers will be gearing their ads have made, have little sympathy because one section of the women’s to the sort of audience Broadsheet with the feminist movement. We liberation movement doesn’t think reaches, as is happening in the recently had a woman we wanted to we’re radical enough. What lies at United States, where companies, in interview because of her success in the bottom o f this apparent confu­ an effort to cash in on the increased an unusual field decline to be inter­ sion is that no one attempts to awareness of women and rejection viewed because she didn’t want her define what is meant by radical. o f traditional values and life-styles, achievement to be seen as an ad­ We feel that it is important that are starting whole campaigns aimed vance for feminism rather than an criticism comes from within the at the 'New Woman’. individual accomplishment. An­ movement, where it can be dealt Another difficulty caused by other time, a prominent Maori with in a constructive way, and that not having full time workers is one woman said the women on the cover the movement is seen to be con­ o f logistics. Typesetting is done in o f the previous issue looked like stantly adapting and evolving and town, layout at the shop we rent in lesbians and she would rather not not blindly mouthing simplistic slo­ Jervois Road, proof-reading in be associated with that sort of thing. gans. As for the criticism o f not Anne’s house, subscriptions and We have also been charged with being separatist enough, within the enveloping at Rosemary’s, accounts being out of touch with the ‘real collective we have very different at Sharyn’s work, and so it goes on. movement’, with not reflecting ac­ and strong ideas about the role of Every step in the process from the curately the feeling of the men. receiving of the copy to the final movement. This may be partially Our difficulties in these areas posting out is done at a different true - when you’re working full­ would be alleviated if we had more location. This means a lot of run­ time and putting in another 20 time to spend on the magazine - ning around, as well as inevitable hour a week on Broadsheet, it be­ time to sit and talk about our ideas delays when some part of the chain comes rather hard to find the time and time to critically look at every breaks down. We envy commer­ to become involved in other femi­ article submitted, time to find re­ cially produced magazines which nist activities. But also we see placement stories when something are all under one roof. Broadsheet as being an intrinsic that comes in doesn’t meet with As we grow and develop, we part of the movement. our requirements. sometimes hear criticism that we All of us have been involved in After reading about all the dif­ are becoming capitalist - for some many projects over the years and ficulties we have with Broadsheet, reason to some women anything have served a hard ap­ that is successful in no matter how prenticeship of small a way must be capitalist. Of commitment. Now some course Broadsheet is not and never of us have chosen Broad­ will be a capitalist venture - its aim sheet as our major is not to make money, not to ex­ commitment - we don’t ploit people. But we do need money feel that this calls for behind us to grow and progress apologies. Lately we’ve and improve the magazine, and we been pleased to see that must build resources in order to we’re being noticed and pay women who work for us. So we often in the most un­ are not at present in a position to likely places. We have make grants to other movement frequently been asked projects, as has been suggested. for our opinion on con­ However, we do offer publicity for tentious issues effecting movement events and free adver­ women and increasingly tising of feminist activities which notice quotes from

Broadsheet Winter/ Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 66 you may be wondering why on earth one day see a society where people’s we work for the magazine. Some­ lives are not determined by the sex times we wonder too. But most of they are, where sex roles do not the time there are rewards which exist. And we hope that when that around pointing out injustices and make it worthwhile. Often they are happens Broadsheet will still be encouraging change for the better. 9 intangible - a feeling of satisfaction at doing a job well. There is a real thrill for us when the magazine comes back from the printer. We In July 1997... pore over every page, moaning Sadly, Broadsheet won’t be around when that day comes. Yet the about printing mistakes and above article explains so many of the difficulties in continuing. For crooked lines, and exclaiming with a number of years Broadsheet was able to pay a small number o f delight over pages that have come its workers, but in 1991 a deteriorating financial situation meant out well. The cover is always excit­ it had to go back to production on an almost entirely voluntary ing too, because it is very hard to basis. And this has not been sustainable. Although technology has tell exactly what it will look like speeded up so many of the editorial processes, even feminist when we send it off. ‘products’ need to be marketed. Keeping up subs, expanding When we hear from readers how bookshop outlets, maintaining visibility and a vocal presence in much they enjoy Broadsheet, how the political world, is extraordinary hard to do when collective important it is to them (as one members and other volunteers have to do most Broadsheet outside reader said, it’s like a drink of water the ‘normal business hours’ o f their ‘real’ jobs. in a desert), and how much they It must also be said that we have lacked - tended not to attract enjoy seeing it grow and improve, - women with marketing skills. As both the financial base and, we feel good. And when readers more importantly, the collective energy base have dwindled in the send in donations, some of them last couple of years, we faced the hard decision. quite large, we feel quite over­ Doubly sad, because we feel that the good fight still has to be whelmed that other women care so fought. As Collective Comment so graphically illustrates, issues much about Broadsheet. that first galvanised women into action, in the early Women’s And when we feel angry about Movement, are still relevant today. Who else is going to provide a something, we are glad that we challenging alternative to the malestream press and a forum for have a channel for that anger, and debating issues in our own community of women? 9 that other women can share with us what is happening to women. We’re glad that we can provide a channel for all the material that is written, that other women can share their thoughts and ideas with one an­ other and that the feminist movement can grow and progress by examining what we are doing and thinking. As we see our subscription list growing constantly and our sales also increasing steadily we feel pleased that more and more New Zealand women are receiving the feminist message. We hope that Broadsheet is making a solid con­ tribution to changes in people’s lives and in society overall. We believe that Broadsheet is part of Graphic Kate Millington Broa d sheet 208 1995 the ongoing movement that will

Broadsheet Winter / Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 67 Broadsheet Issue No. 2, August 1972 {Looking back....) CONSCIOUSNESS RAISING

The original CR groups started by Auckland Women’s Liberation have just finished and below we publish views from some o f those who participated. Our CR groups met weekly to talk about our own personal experiences on a variety of subjects. Consciousness raising makes us see through our own experience and those o f other women our common oppression; and that this oppression is the result of the rule o f male supremacy in our society. Overcoming this oppression demands collective a ction by women on behalf of all women. It is hoped that this action will follow from CR. Consciousness raising will help you: Clear out your head Release and redirect your anger Understand other women Discover that your personal problem is not only yours. A new CR group is underway and a fourth will be started shortly. If you would like to take part, ring Sharyn Cederman.9

or me personally, the in an atmosphere of mutual accep­ most immediate effect tance - without fear of judgement o f the sessions was the or reproach. This was vital in help­ relief of discovering ing us to clarify feelings and Fother women with attitudes and it was reflected in the widely differing back­ way that we all developed a greater grounds, experiences, degree of openness and coherence interests and attitudes as our confidence in ourselves and from my own, who have trust in each other developed with shared for some time each new meeting. my concern that 'all is Closely related to this has been not well with the state the chance to gain a much deeper o f women’, and who insight into the varied roles which have had a strong de­ women must fit into. As a married sire to change this woman without children, my sym­ over the situations which did state. My belief in my pathy for and understanding of not affect me directly. own identity has been women in different situations has I believe that our group has restored through ex­ been heightened. In turn, this has been highly successful. We are change of experiences increased my tolerance of many learning to present and defend and ideas, and above women, because I had had a chance our ideas more skilfully against all mutual support. to understand how and why they attack and, above all, we have Running a close are as they are. carried our confidence into the second has been the On the other hand, I have now group at large by actively par­ luxury of being able to become less tolerant of the many ticipating in workshops, public talk directly and hon­ injustices which are constantly per- speaking and social issues.” estly about my own petuated against all women. Jackie feelings of oppression Previously it was possible to gloss 9

Broadsheet Winter/Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 68 Broadsheet Issue No. 2, August 1972 CONSCIOUSNESS RAISING From Broadsheet Issue No. 35,

^ ^ T was apprehensive about attending a Con- December 1975 J L sciousness Raising group. The name put me o ff -1 thought it was pretentious (I don’t now - the name describes exactly what happens) WayWomen/y but I felt conscience-bound to give it a try. In the past I have joined a number of other Liberation/feminist? ‘worthy causes’ but have always been an early drop-out - after spending some time wondering why I was there. Connie Purdue was a key figure in the fight for Equal The Women’s Liberation Movement is Pay in the early 1970s as an organiser of the Clerical the first such ‘cause’ I have felt ‘at home’ Workers Union. By the mid 1970s, however, she was with and I am sure that this is directly related becoming better known for her vocal condemna­ to the consciousness -raising experience. tion of the campaign for abortion reform. This letter We had a list of topics such as: How do from her appeared in the Auckland Starcha\\eng\ng you feel about housework? Menstruation? the priorities of younger Women's Liberationists. Growing old? Were you treated differently Christine Dann, well known these days as a eco- from your brothers? And we worked through feminist, responded on behalf of the Broadsheet these topics - each woman in turn comment­ Collective. ing on her own experience and feelings. Now that the term 'women's lib' sounds so This sharing of experience has made me dated, and the term 'feminist' is often heard in the more politically aware (using the definition phrase 'I'm not a feminist, but...' we thought these o f ‘politics’ which Kate Millett uses - power letters worth reprinting, to recall the flavour of earlier structured relationships - arrangements times. whereby one group of persons is controlled Especially since housing and benefits for elderly by another). It has certainly made me feel a women certainly look like feminist issues to us today. greater commitment to the ideals of Women’s And while still supporting 'a woman's rightto choose' Liberation. to have children, we are far less sure about the One of the things most of us commented power of individual 'choice' in these free market on at the end was a greater sense of being at times. ease with ourselves, more sureness over And 'true'feminism? -ah,thosewerethedays!9 what we are doing and decisions we are making with respect to our own lives. However, I don’t think a consciousness- I am sure I will not be the only feminist active and raising group is therapeutic (in the curative interested in the various projects of International and problem-solving sense) but it does give Women’s Year who is wondering just what were support and a feeling of solidarity. the’feminist issues’ on which Parliamentary candi­ One o f our last topics was, where do we dates were rated by the Women’s Electoral Lobby. go from here? We decided to continue No matter what one’s politics, a survey which meeting as a group as there are still many rates the Minister o f Social Welfare, Mr Norman areas that we can explore and still much Fing, below many untried candidates, in and out o f support we can give to each other. Also we Parliament, seems to me to be highly doubtful in its enjoy each other’s company.” criteria. Most elderly and aged people are women, so Sandra ? good housing, benefits and privileges should have been ‘a feminist issue’. I wonder. Most women are mothers, or hope to be, so was the right to be in such an economic position that a

Broadsheet Winter / Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 69 mother could be at home with her are mostly female. baby and pre-schooler and school- Do these beliefs have anything child to give the love and attention in common with feminism, as an needed, a ‘feminist issue’ in the historical phenomenon, which first neglected for their sex as well as questionnaire? took root in the 1840s and which their age. True feminists do not Did WEL rate it a ‘feminist is­ flourishes today under the newer believe that motherhood is, or sue’ that no mother under any name of Women’s Liberation? Are should be, the primary and justify­ circumstances was made to feel Purdue’s attitudes shared by noted ing goal of every woman - this is that, for social or financial reasons, feminists of the 19th and 20th bad for women and children. It her unborn child was unwanted by century, such as Goldman, Anthony, fosters the traditional attitude to society ? Millet, de Beauvoir, Firestone and woman as sexual being first, hu­ Or was the right to abortion, the many others who have written man being second. Feminists the right for young mothers to go the books and made the speeches believe that the individual should into paid employment, with the which have fired women with their decide whether she will reproduce provision by the State o f childcare feminist ideas? or not, and how her offspring centres, rated more highly? Briefly, no. Purdue obviously should be cared for. At present our May I reassure those candidates believes that feminism is a concern anti-abortion laws make pregnancy who either refused to answer or for women. It is not. Feminism is compulsory, at great cost to reluc­ were rated lowly that most women a concern for the right of all women tant mothers and unwanted babies. have made up their minds which to self-determination. By enabling While there are some women who party to support. New groups with women to make their own deci­ must work who would prefer to sympathies for overseas liberation sions, feminism will free men and stay at home, there are far more groups (such as WEL Australia) will children to be independent too. who would welcome the indepen­ play little part in making all the When women are free from social dence and opportunities for growth decisions necessary on election day. stereotypes and oppressive sys­ that state sponsored childcare Decisions based on the needs tems, men and children will also be would bring to them and their chil­ o f all New Zealanders working to­ free. In fighting for freedom for dren. gether for equality, peace and women, feminists fight for abetter, Purdue’s final paragraphs re­ development as workers and home­ saner, happier society for all. veal her distrust of anything not makers deserve the highest possible Purdue’s concept of feminism stamped with the Labour seed of ratings. is inadequate. It is a restatement of approval - those 'overseas libera- Labour Party Connie Purdue, MBE philosophy, Northcote not a defini­ tion o f fe m in is m . Old people What is a ‘feminist? Connie Purdue have prob­ has gone on record before as saying lems peculiar that she is a ‘feminist’, as opposed to to their age, a “women’s liberationist’. ‘Women’s not their sex. liberationists’in Purdue parlance, are When elderly extremists “who blacken the respect­ wom en are able name of feminism’. liberated they What is ‘feminism? As Purdue will be able to claims to be a feminist, perhaps an deal w ith analysis of what she believes in will these prob­ tell us what-it is. Her letter shows lem s as her to be anti-abortion, anti child­ equals with care, pro-motherhood and men, rather concerned about benefits and hous­ than being ing for the elderly, whom she says patronised or

Broadsheet Winter/ Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 70 tion groups’ which are non-parti­ san and presumably‘radical’. They {Looking back..7) also show how little she cares for the true goals o f feminism. Her vision of a New Zealand composed ‘workers and homemakers’, pre­ sumably o f the opposite sex and adhering to traditional roles, is far removed from the feminist ideal where people are more important than roles, and the tasks of produc­ tion and maintenance in society are shared among men and women and not delegated to one sex or the other. Unlike Ms Purdue, feminists believe that political decisions based on the needs o f women will be decisions which will benefit New Zealand as a whole, and that politi­ cians who continually place other interests before those of women, are not only betraying those women, but the rest of society as well. So­ ciety is composed of individuals, male and female. A society which does not treat its individual mem­ bers justly cannot hope to achieve 'equality, peace and developments’ in its larger units, such as the fam­ ily, school and workplace. New Zealand provides blatant examples of social injustice based on a disregard for the rights of individuals - the refusal to give married women the same rights as married men being but one o f the more irksome. Effective as Labour thinking may be in some areas, it is still inadequate. Only a true femi­ nist analysis can diagnose and cure these deep-rooted faults in our sys­ tem. Feminism is not dogmatic, but all concepts must have limits, if they are to mean anything at all. Purdue stretches the definition of feminism so far as to make it mean­ ingless. If she cannot accept the feminist principles outlined above, ------\ then she should stop styling her­ Subscription Ads from top self a feminist. Broa d sheet no 138 April 1986 Broa d sheet no 139 May 1986 Always innovative! Christine Dann? V------

Broadsheet Winter / Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 7 l (.Looking back...J Broadsheet Issue No.76, January/February 1980 A t Broadsheet’s 1979 Suffrage Day Seminar, Donna Awatere spoke on the same issues that she raised in in Parliament this year. These excepts show that not enough has changed in 25 years...

IS IT SAFE YET TO BE BORN A MAORI CHILD?

he reason we have the topic o f are different, although we have all ‘service’ which has the major con­ TMaori and Pacific Island women arrived at the same end result. tact with Maori and Pacific Island as a separate issue today is There are three main types of people, and it is the least effective. because o f racism. Racism oppression which divide and alien­ Maori children, who are 1296 of ensures that the life experi­ ate people: the child population, occupy 2596 ences o f Maori and Pacific Racism - we’re worse off of the total bed days in Auckland Island women are different than Black men because of hospitals. Pacific Island children, from those of Pakeha women, male bonding and male culture. who are 796 o f the child population and it is these differences that Sexism - we’re worse off than occupy 1596 and Pakeha children, need to be focused on. white women. who are 8196, only 6096. Since you are mostly Capitalism - in terms of alien - The recent Contraception, Pakeha women here, I had to ation from the means o f pro Sterilisation and Abortion Act has ask myself why the hell I was duction, we’re worse o ff than hit Maori and Pacific Women hard. giving the paper, because rac­ anybody. Figures from the Aotea Clinic show ism is a Pakeha concept, created Over half of the Maori popula­ that the numbers o f Black women by your European ancestors for tion is under fifteen. Why is that? attending the clinic for abortion other races and adapted here The reason is because those over were in proportion to their popula­ to suit the needs of the white thirty die o ff at an alarming rate. tion numbers. The cost of flying to colonisers. No one knows The life expectancy for Maori Sydney is prohibitive for Black Pakeha concepts better than women is about 11 years lower women. Maori birth rates are fall­ the Pakeha, so you see why it than that for Pakeha women. Life ing, but they are still high. New should be a Pakeha woman up expectancy for Maori men is so bad Zealand has one of the highest ex­ here today, analysing the way that not even half of them reach the nuptial birth rates in the world, and in which the system she inher­ age of retirement. (Yes, the Super­ the Maori rate is two to three times ited successfully colonised the annuation Fund is a racist plot to the Pakeha rate. Maori people. However, you do the Maoris out o f money.) There is much more data which know yourselves that oppres­ In South Auckland, Maori and I haven’t quoted here today to sup­ sors are poorly motivated to Pacific Island children die from port my contention that the health analyse how they oppress, and respiratory disease at 28 times the services are designed so as not to what the effects o f that op­ white rate. It is our children who give health services to Maori people, pression are on the oppressed. are hardest hit, in spite o f the fact Pacific Island people and poor white I, as part of that savagely op­ that Maori women have the highest people. 9 pressed group, am highly death rate in the world from lung motivated, so here I am today. cancer and the highest death rate in Although most of my com­ the world from cancer of the lower ments are applicable to Pacific intestine. Island women, I’ve concen­ Seventy-one percent of the trated on related aspects of health budget for 1973-74 was spent Maori women’s experience be­ where it does the least good - on cause, historically, the paths hospitals. This is often the health

Broadsheet Winter/Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 72 , . (Looking back....J Jenny Rankine ------2 ------Broadsheet Collective, 1980, 1984-85

Working on Broadsheet has been lished, and the anti-racist impetus Broadsheet didn’t deal well with the best of educations. I started in of the Springbok Tour protests. workers or collective members who 1980 as a naive baby feminist, new I learned how to change the weren’t pulling their weight. It’s a to friendships with women as well world. Women who contributed to common fault - few private sector as to political work. the magazine were involved in the managers are any better. However, I learned a raft of practiced skills women's health movement, lesbian working on the magazine remains - how to design, from helping Sha­ activism, peace struggles, Maori my best workplace experience. We ron Alston, Diane Quin and other land occupations, protest actions were all paid the same and v/e all talented designers who worked on of till kinds. ■ We were doing it as decided our condtiions as workers. the magazine. How to produce a well as writing about it. I learned I ultimately learned from Broad­ publication which appealed to a about lobbying MPs, surveying sheet that we’re in social change for wide range of women. We con­ women's experience, writing sub­ the long haul. My second article for stantly discussed the best balance missions, organising compaigns the magazine, in 1980, was about between introductory articles for and protests. the success of an ad hoc protest new feminists and cutting edge We were enthusiastic, optimis­ against a wet t-shirt competition. theory for long-time activists; tic and enormously energetic. For There’s been another rash of them humour and serious reading; print most of the early 1980s there were in Auckland lately, with little pro­ and visuals; local and overseas con­ months at a time when I had a test. But the environment in which tent; and the best combination of meeting, roster or feminist-related they occur is different as a result of topics. How to organise confer­ activity almost every night o f the those earlier actions. Feminists ences, political meetings, week. (Mothers will have guessed had to explain the objectification workshops, concerts and that I didn’t have kids.) o f women to everyone then. Now fundraisers. Especially fundraisers. I learned how to work together high school students routinely use I learned about ideas by debat­ effectively with other women, what that concept against sexual harass­ ing feminism regularly at meetings, made a collective or cooperative ment. policy days, Broadsheet seminars work and what pulled it apart. The cycle of issues spiralled and other gatherings. For several Consensus decision-making is an around over the years and I began years, I felt like I stood on con­ agreement to reach an agreement. to see the pattern, to feel the femi­ stantly shifting sands in the However, other groups I joined, in nist wave breaking - and anticipate complicated currents of feminist which we idealistically assumed the next one. 9 debate. I was never sure of my we’d decide things by footing and always wondering consensus and whether I should be standing some­ jumped on in, found where else. it wasn’t as easy as I was surrounded by a ferment that. Women need of ideas. Intense discussions of to discuss the op­ politics were normal social conver­ tions, be clear on the sations. These analytical debates time consensus constantly simmered away in the takes, the different background of my thoughts. I'd processes involved just got clear about different and have some prac­ strands o f Pakeha feminism - radi­ tice at it before it cal, socialist, lesbian and cultural - works well. when my ideological world went I learned about upside down again with the impact what contributes to of Donna Awatere's book Maori a pleasant and pro­ Graphic Sharon Alston Sovereign^ ', which Broadsheet pub­ ductive workplace. Broa d sheet No 135 December 1985

Broadsheet Winter / Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 73 Jenny Coleman (Looking back.... Avid Fan, 1988-1997 I’m feeling a sense of loss already a lot of my ‘feminist family’, con­ at the thought o f Broadsheet no tact was usually a quick catch up longer being published. For me, at a Women’s Studies Conference Broadsheet has always been a great every couple of years - which is deal more than just a magazine - where I met Margot Roth. it’s been a connection with friends Helen had told me lots o f sto­ and my feminist family in ways ries that mentioned Margot and I that I’m only now coming to really remember how brave I felt at one understand and appreciate. WSA Conference, going up to I first encountered Broadsheet Margot and introducing myself to sometime around 1986-87 and her as being a friend of Helen’s. wondered why I hadn’t discovered She started talking to me as if we this home-grown feminism before. had been good mates for ever. Looking back, I see that those years From then on I used to wait for were a transitional period for me - Graphic Vanya Lowry Broadsheet and the WSA newslet­ Broadsheet no 79 1974 my experiences were marking me ter to hear her erudite ramblings. as different from what I had been That’s how I met Pat Rosier. Over the years these three bought up to think of as a woman’s When I found out that Helen’s friendships have proved to be very life. I couldn’t believe it when I mother had been Editor o f Broad­ special. Helen and I became best found this magazine that talked sheet I knew in a very powerful of mates and fired off each other about issues that I was interested way that, somewhere in amongst when discussing feminist theories in. I realised that what was being my decision to return to university in a way that I’ve never experi­ called ‘feminism’ was something and work toward a new career, I enced with anyone else. In 1991 I that helped put words to some of was in tune with the cosmos. I still had the special privilege of inter­ the understandings that I was remember parts of that interview viewing her about what being a forming about my place in the very clearly. I was really nervous ‘feminist’ meant to her. Listening world. and overawed at the situation I to that tape has helped me get In 1988 I decided to return to had found myself in. The tape- through some of the harder mo­ university and was thrilled to find recorders played up and I felt like ments since she died in January courses being offered under the shrinking into the woodwork when last year. Over time Pat has come label of ‘feminist studies’. I met Pat gave us a lecture on ‘rule num­ to mean a lot more to me than lots of wonderful women during ber one of being an interviewer is being an ‘older lesbian’ or being those first few years and devel­ to make sure your equipment is in Helen’s mother. We have devel­ oped some very important order’. (A transcript of the inter­ oped a very special bond as well friendships. It was during this view and the assignment that went and, although we spend a lot o f time that I met a very special friend with it are in Feminist Studies ar­ our time together these days shar­ - Helen. We had spoken a couple chives in the Macmillan Brown ing our grief over losing someone o f times at tutorials and I decided Library at Canterbury University.) precious, there are sparks o f con­ I wanted to do my ‘interview with After that interview I felt a versation that ignite in ways an older woman’ assignment with special connection with Pat. One reminiscent of someone I used to her. At first it didn’t look like this of the reasons I would be so look­ hang out with. would eventuate - 1 was very clear ing forward to the next issue of Since I’ve left my home town that I wanted to interview a les­ Broadsheet coming out was to of Christchurch, my friendship bian; Helen was equally as clear check out what was happening for with Margot has taken on a new that she wanted to interview her her through her column. We didn’t dimension as well. I feel at home mother. get to see each other often - as with when I am with her and feel secure

Broadsheet Winter/Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 74 knowing that I am welcome in her home whenever I’m in Wellington. (Looking back.S) I feel strong connections to Helen and Pat when I am with Margot, and it’s great to be surrounded by her books and ideas and experi­ ences and giggles. Broadsheet has brought each of these special women into my life. There have been other impor­ tant connections with Broadsheet for me as well. It’s often my first point of reference for local mate­ rial on research projects and the historian in me loves to delve into early issues and feel the passion and commitment of so many stroppy feminists. In 19901 revis­ ited the Broadsheet collective split in 1979 as a case example in some post-graduate research I did to grapple with the issue of conflict among feminists. I still remember the thrill of seeing an assignment Th e Broadsheet Bookshop written by one of my students published in Broadsheet. Legacy I feel so many mixed emotions at this being the last issue. I am really going to miss reading Margot’s Gripes of Roth and Pat’s ight years ago, Pat Rosier was the editor of Broadsheet. She was Christchurch Comment. I’m really a friend whose opinions I particularly respected, so I listened annoyed that Broadsheet winding carefully when she suggested I should take over the small, down has coincided with me fi­ struggling Broadsheet Bookshop at the front of their premises nally being in paid employment at 228 Dominion Road and turn it into a larger feminist and able to easily afford renewing Ebookstore. If it didn’t have its bookshop, Broadsheet didn’t my subscription! I will miss the need a public road frontage, just some offices, so the whole reading and the debates that have space was available if I chose to take over the lease. gone on in the letters columns. I chose. I also took over the remaining stock, the shelves A big thank you to all the (which we still have), and heaps o f Broadsheet goodwill. I women who have helped put Broad­ rapidly began to investigate the book trade and found women in sheet together and to the women publishing companies and bookshops extremely generous with who were faced with having to their knowledge. With the help of friends I began to learn about make the decision to cease publi­ such foreign concepts as cash flow forecasts. In my backyard cation - kia kaha.9 I hand painted the lime green shelves I had found second-hand in Paper Plus at Orewa. I borrowed money from other generous and trusting friends, increased the mortgage on my house, and gave up nearly 20 years of secure income as a secondary school teacher. In April 1989 the former Broadsheet premises became The Women’s Bookshop.

Broadsheet Winter / Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 75 Eight years later it not only you’re still here!” She had become continues to serve women as a increasingly aware that spaces or community resource, but it has organisations overseas labelled become widely recognised as one 'feminist' or even ’women’s’ were of the best specialist bookshops decreasing, and she was dismayed for 25 years. Thank you for being in New Zealand. to arrive in New Zealand to dis­ part of my growth and understand­ Its existence as a labelled cover that Broadsheet was about ing. Thank you to all the hard women’s space is highly political. to cease publication. working, dedicated women who There are two and a half thousand I assured her that, despite an have been involved in various ways women all over the country on our international climate in which it is over all those years. mailing list. We hold regular becoming tougher and tougher for I would like to publicly invite evening events that have enabled feminist organisations to survive, Pat Rosier up from Christchurch women to meet some of the most we were not only still here but to be a special guest at The prestigious authors in the world. going from strength to strength. Women’s Bookshop 10th Birthday Our constant contact with over­ We have a new computer with ‘Book celebrations in April 1999. Mean­ seas publishing through the Data’ CD Rom so that we can give while, send me an email, Pat! 9 Feminist Bookstores Network customers instant information, a means that we have books in stock new counter (purple, of course!) Carole Beu as soon as they are published in that makes the shop much more The Women’s the United States and Britain. spacious, and we are on email at A recent visitor from Canada, [email protected]. nz. Bookshop on her third trip to New Zealand, Thank you, Broadsheet, for the 228 Dominion Rdf exclaimed, “Thank goodness feminist forum you have provided Auckland

Women’s Studies Journal • New Zealand

• the latest in feminist theory and philosophy

• Women on and in literature ♦Reviews o fN Z books , films and performance

• E xcitin g recent research • Contemplative, analytical andprovocative articles

• Interviews, news and vi(ZWS with m Aot€drOd/Pacific emphasis by New Zealand women

Send this form Q Yes, I would like a year's subscription to the Women’s Studies Journal with your cheque to Individuals $36.00«Unwaged $30.00«Institutions $40.00«Single copy $19.95 University of Otago Press, Enclosed please find a cheque for $...... made payable to the University of Otago PO Box 56, Dunedin, New Zealand. Name...... Tel (03) 479 8807 Address...... Fax (03) 479 8385

Broadsheet Winter/ Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 76 4 jam Gnpes of Roth (Regular) Margot Roth

W h a t a sad occasion it is to be they’ll tell their foremothers.) enlightened Broadsheet readers. writing my last Broadsheet piece. I As I travelled through past How many o f us still worry about have been checking back and find copies, I naturally reflected on the our size, for example, although that my first’Gripes’ appeared in magazine’s accomplishments. To the current official word on diet­ the issue of October, 1987. This is my mind, one of the most impor­ ing, ages after the same feminist a surprise as I was unaware that I tant was the 1984 publication of findings, is that it makes you fat? had been composing these pages the book Maori Sovereignty by I’m sure that Broadsheet has more or less regularly for nearly Donna Awatere, developed from been an important, if ten years. (An idle question here the instalments appearing in unrecognised, element in some for the literary critics: if texts are Broadsheet when Sandra Coney attitudinal changes (not nearly as composed and not constructed do was editor. Today, the author’s large as they should be). Today we they lay themselves open to de­ views may differ from those she have two leading politicians, Helen composition rather than espoused over a decade ago. How­ Clark and Jenny Shipley, who are deconstruction?) ever, her fresh analysis then of the being discussed as possible fu­ Time tends to gallop with ad­ history and political economy of ture prime ministers. Thing is, I vancing age, and reminders of Aotearoa/New Zealand made a really tremble to predict the form deadlines seem to come round so major and continuing impact on such debates might take nearer quickly that it can’t possibly be a the national debate about the next election. Interviews with decade since I began this exercise. colonisation, land rights, the Treaty the women’s hairdressers? The Well, there goes my plan for leav­ of Waitangi, racism, immigration significant news of a cross-party ing instructions that my mortal and associated matters. group o f women MPs uniting to remains should be accompanied Other featured writers have condemn Winston Peters’ fantasy by a tasteful display of contempo­ gone in all kinds of directions - of a compulsory savings scheme rary Broadsheets. some continuing with the printed was given considerably less atten­ In optimistic moments I envis­ word, some not. A few have tion in Wellington than their age a phoenix-like renewal from become national spokespeople (as suggestions of healthier food in the ashes (no, not of me, of Broad­ defined by the media) for Causes the Parliamentary caff. What are sheet, of course). To have lasted at different times. Others remain­ women for, after all? for 2 5 years is a remarkable record ing as half-remembered Names in Those of us who have been for a completely unsubsidised New the publication’s archives (‘What’s involved with Broadsheet for very Zealand magazine that has tee­ X doing these days and where is little or no pay merit appreciation tered on a financial tightrope for she doing it?’). As well as sponsor­ - although in my case at least, I’ve so much of its existence. There ing the famous and not-so-famous, been rewarded by the fun I’ve had may come a time when a future Broadsheet has often led the way doing my own thing. Thank you group of women, for whatever rea­ in tackling issues - like Maori sov­ everyone. As a longtime reader, son, decides there is a need to ereignty or sexual orientation - subscriber and contributor I will reclaim the word feminism by set­ which mainstream media are in­ lament Broadsheet’s absence from ting up a new publication which clined to ignore, misrepresent or my life. truly expresses this concept - and skim. it may well be that members of This has not necessarily led to Postcript: Please note, in view of this group are surprised when a a united, informed, feminist front, comments in my last column, that mother or a grandmother reminds as long-held prejudices reflecting the word ‘media’in the fifth para­ them that Broadsheet also had its popular received wisdom may be graph is correctly used as a plural. proud day. (‘So old-fashioned,’ difficult to overcome, even among 9

Broadsheet Winter / Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 77 Christchurch Comment Pat Rosier

I am struggling to write this ‘Com­ magazines splayed in two rather ment’. Up to now it has been a case elegant fans, my careful filing lost. of mulling over a theme for a few Twenty five years of writing, some days, sitting down at the computer of it world-changing. and writing my 600 words over a I am proud to be in there, even couple of hours, editing, revising a though I cringe, now, at some of couple of times, and sending it off. what I wrote. I remember very well, This time I can’t get going. I during the years I was editor and don’t want to write what will be my co-editor o f the magazine, the re­ last piece for Broadsheet. I don’t curring feeling that what I had history. Broadsheet has been part want to help this ending happen. I written was being published one of these changes. think the present Collective has draft too early. If the deadline were I farewell Broadsheet with sad­ made a courageous and honourable not quite so imperious, if there ness, my two boxfuls more precious decision to end the magazine on its were not quite so many other things now. 9 25th anniversary. And y e t..... to do before the relentless arrival of And yet I don’t want it to go. I that dead- dead- deadline, I could want to hold on to this voice for do another draft of my article, hone feminism, this imperfect, mud- it up, check more information, make dling-along vehicle for ideas I don’t the writing crisper, more telling. always agree with. I want there to Actually, the writing on the page be more than articles in the main­ is never as good as it is while it is stream press about Camille Paglia still embryonic, unformed, ideas and Naomi Wolf, single interest and words in my mind. Somehow it publications like Her Business and always loses brilliance on the way the splendid Feminist Law Bulletin, out. Damn. occasional items on television about I did an interview the other day what feminism means to various with the local Women on Air pro­ public figures.... gramme on the Christchurch However, it appears that the community radio station, about the time for abroad-based New Zealand demise of Broadsheet. I said Broad­ feminist magazine is past. There is sheet published first in New Zealand neither the financial support nor on issues that are now of concern the energy for Broadsheet to con­ to everyone - issues like domestic tinue. violence, childcare, women with The first article 1 wrote for the children and paid employment, magazine was about painter Lois abortion, women’s economic sta­ White. I can’t find the date because tus, education, health, racism, Maori my almost-complete collection of Sovereignty, fertility. And I high­ Broadsheets is in a muddle. Yester­ lighted the June 1973 issue, with day a cat jumped onto the shelf lesbians on the cover and substan­ where I keep them, in two boxes, tial lesbian content, and said how carefully filed in order. The shelf, it is more possible for more women Graphic Sharon Alston cat and magazines all ended up on to live openly as lesbian now than Cover Broa d sheet no 136 the floor, the cat ran o ff and the it has been at any other time in January /February 1986

Broadsheet Winter/ Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 78 A KCtchew Table/ Dra^na/ Regular) Lisa Sabbage

"Did you hear Broadsheet is folding?” “N o way.” “Yep.” “I’m not surprised though.” “I suppose it has been on the cards for a while." “Yeah... for the past 25 years.”

or many people - readers and critics alike - the wave of its readers and I grew up taking its existence ¥ news that Broadsheet is to finish publishing for granted. will come as less of a surprise than the fact that in 1972, when Broadsheet was founded, Linda was it survived as long as it did. Twenty-five years. a 26 year old mother of four trying to forge an identity A quarter o f a century. An entire generation. for herself in South Auckland working class suburbia. Generation F. A couple of years later, having been forced to abandon Three decades of political passions, ideo­ tertiary education when I came along in the 1960s, she logical intrigues, heated debates and fashion enrolled at what was then Auckland Teacher’s Train­ mistakes have played themselves out on the ing College, and began bringing home Broadsheet. pages of Broadsheet, from the heady days of This, you remember, was the decade that not only roll-on lipshine, cheesecloth, denim and the gave us Shona Laing and car-less days, but the mantra 1970s Women’s Liberation Movement when that ‘the personal is political’ I soon realised that my xeroxed copies o f Broadsheet were handed out mother’s attempts to become economically indepen­ in pubs, through the glossy power-dressing of dent were about much more than shopping at Foodtown the 1980s when shoulderpaded women muscled instead o f Three Guys. (She left my father in 1976 their way into ‘the system’, to the individualis­ when she began her personal odyssey from housewife tic 1990s in which people change their politics to artist.) as often as their outfits, Broadsheet has re­ But of far more immediate and practical interest to flected the times in which it has been produced. me was that Broadsheet made an excellent resource It was the 1980s when I joined the Collec­ for my school projects and as soon as she had finished tive as a naive spring chicken in my early 20s. reading them, many a magazine ended up cut and Among some of my friends, Broadsheet and the pasted into my exercise books. F-word were already prompting frowns of dis­ To cut a long story short, Broadsheet and femi­ approval as, fairly or unfairly, both had gained nism have always been a a part o f my life. Like a reputation for being middle-class and white. vegemite, baked beans on toast and Peter Sinclair, they For me, though, it represented a kind of coming were just there. of age. Joining the Collective, then, seemed perfectly natu­ You see, Broadsheet broke up my parents ral, if a little intimidating. In 1988 and 1989 I was marriage. Well, not quite. But it certainly lucky enough to co-edit the magazine with Pat Rosier, changed their lives and mine. At the risk of who inspired me with her warm intelligence and gave repeating the very first Herspective I wrote for me the chance to write about subjects and people the magazine: my mother was among the first that interested me - from sex education to music

Broadsheet Winter / Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 79 videos and women’s rugby. Along times of the magazine - if they ting together their own new and the way I made some terrible and haven’t done so already.) better version of the magazine. embarrassing mistakes, pissed As for the Collective itself, I’d some people off and learnt the be a bad liar if I tried to paint a rosy cardinal rule of journalism - check, picture o f sisterhood. Like any “D id you hear Broadsheet is check and check again. collective - an organic, insatiable folding?" I also met and worked with and constantly evolving creature - some wonderfully talented, inci­ it fostered friendship and worked "N o way." sive, funny and generous women - like a dream at times, but it also led "Yep." Sharon Alston, Athina Tsoulis, Carol to burn-out and witnessed its fair Jillsun and Edith Gorringe, among share o f personality clashes. 1 re­ "I’m not surprised though." member facilitating one meeting countless others. These women "I suppose it has been on the gave me a great gift - endless sto­ which disintegrated into shouts, ries of their experiences across tears and a walk-out - after the pot cards for a while." many different generations, cul­ luck dinner, of course. "Yeah... fo r the past 25 years." tures, sexualities and political However, in this age of irony "Where shall we start?" perspectives, all of which instilled and post-modern posturings, it is in me a sense of what I can only all to easy to be cynical. In the cut­ “You get the scissors and glue, describe as the epic sweep o f our throat and competitive world of and III start drawing up a lives. publishing in which magazines are However, it wasn’t all a bed of lucky to see out a monthly horo­ page plan." scope, Broadsheet carried on - roses. There were personal tri­ 9 umphs and tragedies along the way largely thanks to its loyal readers and at times Broadsheet tried to and supporters. walk a precarious tightrope between It made history (and I use the commercialism and its traditional word advisedly), shaking up insti­ C a r in g a n d U nderstanding base of readers. Attempts to ex­ tutions, challenging and influencing Jillian Cooper, pand and broaden its appeal were the main-stream media’s concep­ Funeral Director greeted with equal amounts of dis­ tion of news, and giving voice to ★ Professionalism may and glee. Moving one way many issues that have since devel­ alienated some readers, moving oped and articulated in a much ★ Personalised service another repelled others. Finances wider political and cultural dis­ ★ Compassion became tight and I can assure you course. Ironically, given its ★ Organising skills that the constant stream of beginnings, many of its articles are ★ Many years' experience fundraising events elicited just as now required reading at schools many groans and jokes from within and universities.

the Collective as outside it. So many women have put their F ro m fun era ls to m em o ria l serv ic es In hindsight, and there will no heart and soul into Broadsheet over J. W eir & C o m pa n y doubt be plenty of Broadsheet post­ the years, not just on the Collective Ph 376 0088 (24 h o ur serv ic e) mortems , perhaps the fundamental or in its pages, but behind the problem was simply that its femi­ scenes, pouring incalculable nist readership was shrinking - or amounts o f energy into any job, THE MEADOWS at least metamorphosing into sepa­ from the sublime to the ridiculous. FUNERAL SERVICE rate academic/lifestyle/arts/ That she survived for 25 years is identity readership’s - all with wildly testimony to each and every one of TO THE LESBIAN AND GAY COMMUNITY different expectations of what the them. At home (09) 422 5554 magazine should be. Broadsheet I like to think that because of Mobile (025) 953 725 could neither bring feminism back all these women, there might be a Office 360 0472 into fashion nor single-handedly few young girls - having raided unite its o ff shoots. (One-day, I their mother’s, aunt’s or sister’s hope, someone will write their the­ bookshelves - who are right now sis about the economic life and sitting around a kitchen table put­

Broadsheet Winter/Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 80 ( Strokes Sc Art Attacks ) Book Review ALL THE RAGE Reasserting Radical Lesbian Feminism LYNNE HARNE & ELAINE MILLER (EDS) The Wom en’s Press, London. 1996, $35

All the Rage is an exciting book for gay men, because o f feminism’s any woman who wants to put the analysis of the different power po­ radical back into her feminism. sitions o f men and women in a Subtitled Reasserting Radical Les­ male-dominated society. Says one bian Feminism, this British young woman: collection is scattered with come­ “On the whole, the influence of backs to the multiple nasty put gay men on young lesbians has downs and stereotypes about radi­ been catastrophic, and young les­ cal feminists o f all sexualities. bians these days are more likely to There’s the stuck-in-the-ideal- meet gay men than radical femi­ an escape from radical politics.” istic-1970s put down; the nists.” The heated American and En­ politically-correct-thought-police Julia Parnaby argues that glish debates between pro- and label is currently thrown about a queers’ ‘shocking’ tactics accom­ anti-pornography campaigners did lot; the uptight-anti-sex-prude dis­ pany nothing more radical than a not flare in New Zealand. However, missal comes from men and women plea to be included in straight soci­ lesbians were central to feminist who like power inequalities in sex; ety- in AIDS funding, age of consent anti-pornography activity in New and the standard old-fat-ugly-and- laws, marriage, council promotions Zealand, as they were in Britain. boring put down from the to tourists, and so on - rather than Carole Reeves and Rachel Wingfield image-obsessed. Altogether it is a a demand that society change. point out the logic of this, as the damning collection, enabling crit­ pornography industry pumps out ics to avoid any engagement with QUEER - SEX IS ALL THERE IS mass propaganda for the institu­ radical feminist ideas. Most gay groups use civil liberties tion of heterosexuality and for This book showcases radical strategies, and Lynne Harne quotes violence against women. feminism’s adaptability and sur­ Marilyn Frye’s description o f these Pornography presents vival, and confronts competing as enshrining male rights: ‘When eroticised power differences as sex, arguments from queer politics, these male rights are threatened by and ‘links male orgasm to the sub­ ‘academentia’, sado-masochism the assertion of women’s rights ordination and abuse o f women’. and psychology. It finishes with (for example, the rights o f women They show the similarity between inspiring examples o f radical femi­ not to be sexually exploited in por­ ‘pseudo-lesbian scenarios in main­ nists in successful, media-savvy nography and prostitution) then it stream porn, and so-called coalitions and conversations with is male rights which are... defined lesbian-feminist erotica’ from a several young women. as civil liberties.’ Sheba (feminist) anthology.’’The Several contributors describe “Queer politics," says Lynne, language of pornography is not the hostility to feminism of coali­ "equates liberation with the end­ being ‘rewritten’ or ‘reclaimed’ in tions and theories based on the less pursuit of sexual pleasure and the extract from Serious Pleasure,” shared interests o f lesbians and tells us - this is all there is. This is they argue." "It is simply being

Broadsheet Winter / Hotoke 2 5th Birthday Issue 1997 81 repeated.” ‘post’ theories - post- structural­ discussed.” Sue Wilkinson examines the ism and post-modernism. As Jill Sound familial? Identity poli­ marketing o f lesbian flings for het­ Radford says, their central aim: tics stifled debate and contributed erosexual women and occasional “...is to disparage,disrespect, to the breakup o f a broad-based sex with men for lesbians in dismiss and ‘deconstruct’ theories feminist movementinNewZealand women’s magazine articles about which came before. They label as as in Britain. It has been deliber­ lesbian chic. The mags constantly ‘essentialist’ any feminist politics ately confused with radical reassure heterosexual women that which holds on to beliefs that feminism, but it was used here by a fling won’t change their identity, women exist, women are oppressed feminists across the spectrum. Julie whereas sex with men is presented and that it matters enough to de­ links it in Britain with ‘Town Hall as just another lesbian boundary to velop political strategies for change feminism’, developed in Labour- be broken, a ‘transgressive’ act to and resistance.” controlled local authorities. prove your 1990s bad girl street ‘Post-it’ theories discuss ideas, The commitment and intensity cred. talk and images rather than the of young radical lesbian feminists “The marketing of bisexuality material conditions of women’s voices at the end of the book is an as fashion functions primarily to lives, she says. effective counter to the stereotype de-politicise sex,” says Sue. “So a lot of time is spent watch­ of radical feminists as old and stuck “Women”s oppression in heterosex ing TV - deconstructing 'dominant in the 1970s. Louise is wonderfully and lesbian feminist politics o f re­ representations' through complex pragmatic. sistance are both erased by an and elitist theory, which includes “I think that part of the reason individualistic focus on pleasure, many long words. ‘Post-it’ theories you come into radical politics in style and fashion.” can demonstrate amazing levels of the first place is the absolute bore­ academic arrogance, inaccessibil­ dom and emptiness in people’s LESBIAN FUNDAMENTALISM ity and incoherence in language.” lives, and you don’t want the op­ Sheila Jeffreys and other contribu­ In contrast, Jill Radford out­ tions that are on offer, but it also tors outline the resurgence of lines how she and other tutors use means that you are a world away biological explanations for sexual feminist processes to discuss les­ from most o f the population... We orientation. bian-feminist theory in women’s are facing huge global forces against “The very idea of feminism studies summer schools. feminism. But I think it only takes depends on fighting the idea of a little to shake them, because they biologically constructed psycho­ “I’M RIGHT BECAUSE I’M MORE are so unused to opposition. Given logical differences between the OPPRESSED” where we are starting from, I think sexes...Gay men’s freedom as men One of the most interesting topics we can be optimistic.” does not depend to the same extent for New Zealand feminists active If you want to regain your opti­ on fighting biologism.” in the last decade is the book’s mism about radical feminism, this However, Sheila sees butch- critique of identity politics. Julie book is a good place to start. femme roles being reintroduced to Bindel describes this as 'using one’s Jenny Rankine? lesbian culture with a similar sort identity to silence and instil fear in o f innate psychological rationale. others, rather than fighting for The new role-playing is the funda­ change’. mentalism o f lesbianism, in that it Sandra McNeill outlines the requires and achieves the same en­ change. thusiastic self-abasement from “Our attempts to recognise dif­ women, she says. ferent oppression very quickly In New Zealand and Britain, developed into a hierarchy o f op­ some of the most radical women’s pression. We moved away from studies courses have been held in looking at the complexity of adult education and community women’s lives to a points-count centres, and these areas of educa­ system, where the oppressions tion have been under attack in both were added up. She with the great­ countries. University-based courses est or most oppression was right - have become dominated by the about whatever topic was being

Broadsheet Winter/ Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 82 Vaccination Against Pregnancy Book Review Miracle or Menace? JUDITH RICHTER Spinifex Press, Melbourne, $34.95

This book would be alarming if its contents were part tissue, making her permanently infertile. Judith Rich­ o f a science fiction novel. The fact that it documents ter argues that such hazards are unnecessary as there actual research and quotes the intentions of people are other alternative contraceptives with less risk. To involved with global population control strategies be considered, vaccines would need to be better and makes it terrifying. safer than what we have already. Vaccines also While large amounts of money have been spent on provide no protection against sexually transmitted population control strategies, Judith Richter points diseases. out that issues of safety, as well us women’s self The book outlines ethical concerns relating to the determination and ability to control the effect of a prolonged use of contraceptives by large numbers of contraceptive, have been a low priority. healthy women. The safety standards should there­ Judith Richter meticulously and systematically fore be more stringent than those for drugs to treat details the potential for abuse and control of women’s diseases. Judith Richter claims it would be difficult to fertility through pregnancy prevention vaccines, as justify exposing people to^the potential adverse ef­ well as the hazards of interfering with the immune fects of immunological birth control methods. The system. She questions whether the research potential for harmful health consequences is high and community’s optimism about anti-fertility vaccines is includes auto-immune diseases, allergies, immune- justified, and looks at whether such vaccines are an complex diseases, interaction with pre-existing acceptable birth control option - and acceptable to diseases and exposure of foetuses to ongoing immune whom. The ongoing difficulties women have with reactions. fertility control make us, as a group, particularly There is clearly a need for increased public debate vulnerable to any new ‘miracle’ contraceptive strate­ about the development o f immuno-contraceptives. A gies. worldwide coalition of hundreds of groups from coun­ She also looks at the peculiar notion of developing tries all over the world has already demanded that the a vaccine to ward off epidemics where the harmful research and development o f antifertility vaccines be germ invading the body is a fetus, just like traditional stopped immediately. The details of this international vaccines are used to ward o ff diseases. However, the campaign are included in the book. response of each person’s immune system is differ­ This well researched book provides an important ent, and unlike the usual aim o f a vaccine to achieve analysis and critique o f fertility and population con­ life-long immunity, an immuno-contraceptive must be trol in the guise of increasing contraception options highly effective but have only a time-limited immune for women. Although strong on detail, it is not a reaction. difficult read. It is an important study that should be The immune and hormonal systems are complex on the agenda of everyone who has an interest in and not fully understood. Meddling with the immune women’s health, contraception options and popula­ system is fraught with hazards for women. As well as tion strategies. the risk of an abnormal immune response predispos­ Judi Strid ing users to auto immune disorders, other potential Women’s Health Action? hazards include an auto immune response capable of eradicating all a woman’s eggs and damaging ovarian

Broadsheet Winter / Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 83 THE GIRL NEXT DOOR Book Reviews MINDY KAPLAN Naiad Press USA HOWARD-SMITH Well, it had to happen. First there was ‘The Net’, then Takes a last look at came the analysis and we had Cyberfeminism. Now there is CyberNaiad - Lesbian love affairs on-line and lesbian fiction cyber sexy. Who said Naiad novels lacked realism, it’s virtually true! Certainly gives a storyline plenty of scope to surf, but somehow this one just didn't quite make the wave. SILENT WORDS There are a couple of curly ones, like the meaning JOAN M DURY of the strange dreams that the level-headed Lina is Spinsters Ink experiencing, and who is the gypsy fortune teller? But the rest is fairly standard Naiad fare: lots of long I like this book. It is Joan Dury’s second, and better lean legs, glistening tanned skin and the abundant than her first. Both feature the character of Tyler waves are of hair. All low on fat, and on fibre, the Jones, a fat forty-something dyke who seems to story is boxed in comfortable middle-America with unwittingly find herself involved in mystery and nary a political bone to get stuck in your craw. Easily mayhem. In this book the writing seems less laboured devoured in one sitting! and the characters more relaxed in their identities - and an interesting array they are. Silent Words is a poignant story of journey, to the WILD THINGS past. At the request of her dying mother, Tyler KARRLN KALLMAKER embarks upon a cross country trip, reminiscent of Naiad Press those travelled as a child, to explore another type of closet; that concealing her family’s skeletons. The Wild Things is another of the ‘Whoops, I nearly journey takes her back to the Mid West and hallowed married a man’ variety, but with enough interesting memories of childhood holidays at an idyllic haven material to take it beyond the usual trite farce. on the shores of Lake Superior - evocative of those Perhaps the most ambiguous thing about this book Kiwi summers at the family bach. is the title. It implies something wild, wacky or way Arriving at the quiet and quaint town o f Stony out and the story is none of these. Instead it provides River, Tyler discovers that it is not just the family the reader with a well crafted, smooth storyline. history that is in disarray but the haven has become Both the main characters are strongly etched by hovel after many years’ neglect. As she embarks Karrin Kallmaker’s pen, making them plausible and upon an enthusiastic restoration of the once mag­ likeable entities. nificent house, Tyler tries to solve the perplexing Cool, suave attorney Sydney Van Allen has suc­ question o f w hy the property has only been passed to cessfully detached herself from a less than illustrious the women of her family (quite right, I say) and the past and built a budding political career - and a identity of the mysterious Louisa, her mother’s name­ formidable wall around herself. sake. Unfortunately Stony River’s remaining older Scholarly Faith Fitzgerald still lives in her father's residents have diminished, along with their memo­ home and as a good catholic ‘girl’ is expected to ries, and it seems that there is no-one left who can tell remain there until the day she marries - something the truth. However, Tyler’s questioning has stirred she hopes will save her from her own tortured past. the town’s tranquillity and the secrets literally tumble Well, the outcome is obvious, but does provide an to a tragic conclusion. enjoyable read and it was certainly uplifting to see a Silent Words provides a contemplative study of lesbian character in such a public and political role what defines family and just how readily misplaced not prepared to languish behind the closet door - art loyalties can bind generations in a sticky web of imitating life, perhaps? I wish. deceit.

Broadsheet Winter/ Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 84 LOVE OR MONEY relationships and totally oblivious as to why. Peg is JACKIE CALHOUN her partner, trying to extricate herself from their Naiad Press unhappy relationship and not in the most honourable of ways - Lauren has been her secret lover for nearly Jackie Calhoun has become one o f Naiad’s more two years. Given the facts, it is Peg who is in the prolific writers in recent times and in Love or Money wrong, betraying her partner as she has done, and yet has chosen the particularly uncomfortable topic of as the story unfolds one cannot help sympathising abusive behaviour as a strong element of the story. with her predicament. It is an area that, perhaps understandably, cannot be While this storyline may be a little weak, Jackie adequately explored within the genre of Naiad writ­ Calhoun has realistically portrayed the powerful ing, so that those o f us who have experienced the dynamic inherent in an abusive relationship that will damage inflicted in such relationships will find this create a sense of deja vue for those who have story lacking in analysis and somewhat cavalier in its experienced the same. Set down in print it does make approach. the behaviours and issues o f abuse seem very black Sylvia is a dynamic and driven woman, success­ and white indeed. 9 9 ful in her chosen career, if not always in her

Before the Divorce We Go to Disneyland Book Review DIANE BROWN Tandem Press emotionally abusive marriages, two sons, two di­ vorces to the closing sentence: 'My fingers prefer As a frequent travel­ writing naked and it’s easier without the glare o f ler on Auckland’s diamonds in my eyes'. Yellow Buses, I There is a through line of narrative, but the short recognised Diane poems change the rhythm and focus attention on Brown’s name. On a specific incidents and images, shifting the perspec­ few trips I have been tive. The characters have no personal names, the fortunate to catch a woman at the centre speaking as herself, T , or dis­ bus bearing her tanced ‘she’. Others are identified by their relationship: poem on the ceiling, son, mother, husband, lover, wife, except for the and enjoyed the re­ accountant and the poet who are almost archetypes. spite from the usual The language moves from naturalistic to meta­ tedium. (I think phorical and back again, undercutting the seriousness poems should be on of the extraordinary, and giving the ordinary the all buses). She has quality o f myth. ‘All night they drop/from me/blood been published in plums/heavy and ripe/black skins/shining'- placenta magazines and anthologies as well as on the Yellow abruptio, a birth going wrong. Buses, but Before the Divorce We Go to Disneyland is Just as the content of both poems and prose can her first book. be prosaic or poetic or both, so too, the shifts in tone Tandem Press has served her well. The cover subvert the narrative traditions. There are allusions to design is like the writing style, low key, but drawing fairy tales from the beginning: ‘inside our castle/ you in, the miniature o f Mary McIntyre’s ‘Disasters in daddy was waiting/Rapunzel on his mind....’. But Love 3’ an appropriate introduction with the woman there is no prince to rescue the heroine. The possibil­ reclining naked against an eroding landscape. The ity of living happily ever after will come only with book’s small size and satiny cover make it very pleas­ leaving the second marriage. ant to hold. But it is what is inside that really matters, Diane Brown writes with shrewd perception, a and that is a little unusual. quiet wit and dramatic skill. Her book survives more Not a conventional novel nor a collection of po­ than one reading. New details register for new reflec­ ems, the woman’s life unfolds in alternating poems tion each time. Watch out for it. and passages of prose from childhood through two Claire-Louise McCurdy 9

Broadsheet Winter / Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 85 r Poetry\

WAITING

Silently I wait one ear on the phone... Please ring.... SATURDAY MORNINGS I aimlessly drift from task to task We wake in a rush stopping to watch And take Jennie to work. the big black rooster Then, paper and map in hand proudly scratching We drive from at the dirt Garage sale loosening the morsels To garage sale. for 'his' hen Rummaging through hoping she will mate Potential new treasures And I have one ear on the phone Finding a pair of plates Please ring.... A lemon squeezer Three liqueur glasses. You did. Finally, feet aching THE JOYS OF CELLPHONES We head for home Loaded down with our finds You ring and leave And most o f all a hot message on my phone Having found each other again I retrieve it and After our hectic week. fall about laughing Having found our peace. unable to stop

I know how hard it was to leave a message like that I replay it again and again Listening to your words Laughing some more But this time more in the pleasure and memory of our shared time I enjoyed it too and want more.

Laraine Sheffield 9

Broadsheet Winter/Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 86 PoetryN Louis Leakey's Angels

I. Louis's angels III. Dian I read were Handpicked Mist woman Watching To study Silverbacks At close quarters Great apes days & months & Open a window Years On humankind's Beginnings I introduced Jane & Dian started screaming Extend back of the auditorium His Work I thought she is going to thump II. Jane her chest

Halo bright No one knew poachers She published papers Had split her head open Pleasing Louis Until the morning

I gave them names IV. Birute wrote 'her' & ’him ' the editor wanted 'it' Her x-husband Ran o ff with Level headed they said Binty's nanny & has a degree From Cambridge & Binty Who monkeyed what a lot to learn In trees if only we saw the world through their eyes Still This rain forest A little unexpected Is a fitting skin All those photo calls Hand in hand with chimps Her eyes pour out Fine wines after David died Of love I needed their company New honey coloured Children & more Than life itself

Each Red Ape Sue Fitchett 9

Broadsheet Winter / Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 87 P A P Sm&ar Uteray Comment Taking a swipe at our most loved, and laboured, literary phrases

If you've ever read lots of book reviews, you will note that certain turns -of -phrase seem to reoccur. Sometimes with monotonous regularity- and that's really irritating when you'retheone doing the writing! Perhaps you've found yourself thinking,' 'Wonder what that means?” Well, be perplexed no longer. Read on for a telling glimpse into the literary labyrinth of a reviewer's mind.

A ripping good yam: - Surprisingly, I didn’t fall asleep^ Well rounded: - Sexually ambidextrous with all the attachments. The characters are at times engaging:- Rather boring individuals, except in bed. An interesting array.: - Pick ‘n mix people

Cardboard characterisation: - More boring individu­ Sharp in style: - Get me that woman’s number! als and equally bad sex. Finely drawn: - Lacking more than sufficient ink. Moments o f haunting beauty:- Exquisitely repetitous. Well directed: - The product of several editorial Time honoured and true: - Oh god, not again. rewrites.

Captures the true essence: - Scratch ‘n sniff writing. Light and fluffy: - Entirely forgettable.

Some genuinely touching moments: - Pass the tissues Proficient and practised: - Usual stuff, but with big I’m going to ... words and better spelling.

A breath of fresh air: - Well, I haven’t tried that - yet! Easily devoured: - Lacking anything of substance.

Walks a fine line...: - Minces along like a queen in heels. Instantly recogniseable: - Oh dear, now I remember her/when/how! Inventive:- If you’ve ever read Robbie Summers, you’ll get the drift. Well written: - Moments of grammatical correct­ ness. A scorching read: - Great for lighting fires. Politically aware: - Moments of political correct­ Made me laugh: - You get your kicks where you can. ness.

On the whole:- Utterly ambivalent, but it seems mean Much beloved: - It used to have the desired effect. to say so. Rattles along: - Finished it before the wash cycle Has real insight: - A rather myopic perspective. was done.

Creative and diverse:- Sex that is anatomically impos­ Tightly paced: - Fast and frugal with it. sible. Tense: - PMT on patrol! Well researched: - That’s the ticket, Robbie. Slick: - Might thrill you but it didn’t thrill me! Tried and True: - Been there, done that. Witty: - Sounds like fun. Hot ‘n heavy/; - Pick me, pick me! Polished: - All that remains is the gleam of an Utterly believable: - Gee, I wish my life was like original idea. that. Adroit: - Very sure fingered. Accurate portrayal: - Sounds just like my ex. Cove n Kisses - Lisa & Barb?

Broadsheet Winter/Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 88 Performance A Sekving of Well Seasoned Songs

first experienced the snap- tent is very close to home. Wist­ working around Aotearoa/NZ for ping wit and sharp observations fully winning Lotto, the boys’ own two years now and have performed o f the ‘a cappella’ trio, Manic of beer drinking, unsatisfactory at heaps of things: comedy festi­ Opera, in the line-up o f a Diva sex and the side effects, and the vals, orientation events, corporate comedy night late last year. In problem of being ‘in the pooh’ and private occasions, even the particular I recall their very clever publicly, nothing is sacred as Hercules wrap party. parody about the peculiarities of these three women in turn point All the women began their ca­ ‘Ponsonby People’; in a song that the finger and flip the finger in reers performing folk, blues or had many of those very same high noted humour. With richly ja zz music. Both Jenifer and Fiona people feeling they were caught textured vocals, using their voices have backgrounds in professional in a lyrical Candid Camera, and as instruments to create backing theatre and cabaret, working as enjoying it. rhythm and harmony, they de­ composers and performers, and So, when the letter arrived stat­ liver an amazingly diverse Anahera has been a singer and ing it was ‘imperative that I made selection o f sound. writer in New Zealand music the effort to drag m yself along to As one who’d be exceedingly scene. As Manic Opera their ma­ The Club ..., because they’d really thin if I had to sing for my supper, terial is written predominantly by made quite an effort under far I was greatly impressed and wish Jenifer and Fiona, with the musi­ from ideal circumstances’ and I’d taken better notice of the lyr­ cal arrangements, acting and something about various personal ics, to repeat here, so readers comedy performance worked on problems and personality disor­ could be too - obviously you’ll as a group. Recently featured in a ders, I knew it would be a highly just have to attend one of Manic 60 Minutes documentary being entertaining night. The comment Opera’s performances to appre­ made about them and they have that one of the members had ciate the fulsome flavour of their just finished writing and record­ ‘found herself single after a num­ riotous fare yourselves. ing music for a new TV sitcom ber of years...’ also piqued my If, like me, you’re intrigued as pilot - ya, more witty women on interest - hmmm, which was the to the origins of these sirens of national TV! one I fancied? satirical song, then read on be­ However, it should be men­ Well, I wasn’t disappointed cause this is what I found out in tioned that their superb singing with the entertainment. Their my enquiries. skills are not restricted to the show Peppered with Smut deliv­ Back 1986 a group called The lighter side of life, Manic Opera ered what it promised; highly Spinsters began three successful is part of a range of services of­ spiced songs of a very saucy na­ years on the London and Brtisih fered by Pitch Perfect. Under ture. Not just your usual garden cabaret circuit, appearing on tele­ this name they also perform mu­ variety ‘witty ditties’, this vision and radio. Six years on, sical jingles, lead and backing women’s trio serve up a sharp and two of the original members, Fiona vocals, compose material and pro­ salty account of everyday events, Muir and Jenifer Calthrop, found vide musical direction. What a making fun of our fears, fanta­ themselves on our fair shores and menu of musical talent to shake sies and foibles. Each performed looking for a good keen kiwi gal out, spice up or sagely season with wry humour and musical ex­ to complete the trio. They found your high notes and needs with. cellence. her in Anahera Higgins (Ngati Lisa Howard-Smith 9 Indeed, good humour is when Porou/Ngati Kahungunu), who we can readily identify with the has brought to the group, and object, subject or person being their material, a distinctly down- satirised, and Manic Opera’s con­ under flavour. The trio have been

Broadsheet Winter / Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 89 Artemesia Gentileschi Visud Arts The Female Hero of Italian Baroque Art

Artemesia Gentileschi was one arm is strong and muscular, her of Italy’s most successful paint­ dress flecked with blood. As ers o f the Italian Baroque period might be expected, the viewing o f the 1600s. No mean feat for a public were at a loss as how to woman o f her time, but then take this version of the story of Artemesia was no ordinary Judith. Even today it is locked woman. away down a long, dark corridor Born in Rome on 8 July 1593, of the Uffizi Gallery and it’s in she was the eldest daughter of the comer. painter Orazio Gentileschi, and Despite the fact that her ge­ the only member of her family to nius as a painter is acknowledged follow in his footsteps as a profes­ back and defend their right to exist. these days, you will still find many sional painter. Orazio took One of Artemesia’s most pow­ of her paintings in Italy displayed considerable pride at her excep­ erful works is the painting of 'Judith in highly inaccessible places. It tional talent, a trait uncommon in Beheading Hoifemes' (1620, Uffizi was only through much negotiat­ the men o f Rome of that time. Gallery, Florence). It is a painting ing with gallery officials, and the Artemesia’s talent was founded on with a potent story behind it. In fact that we had come all the way her technical control, her extensive 1612 Orazio arranged for the from New Zealand especially to see informal art education in Rome painter Agostino Tassi to teach this painting, that I and my partner and sheer creative genius. Artemesia perpective. Tassi took were able to view it at all. I would Artemesia is the only extreme advantage of his position recommend to any other Artemesia Caravaggista of Italian painting. Her and raped her. The case against followers that they write and ring paintings are bold, dramatic and Tassi was taken to trial and, as was to arrange a viewing time before expressive. They express the 'fe­ customary at that time, to make joining the horrendous queue that male gaze' in a manner so honest sure she was telling the truth snakes around the gallery. More o f and true that many of the art estab­ Gentileschi suffered the torture of Gentileschi’s work can be found at lishment were at a loss to accept or sibille - metal rings tightened by the extraordinary Pitti Palace, Flo­ discuss her work. Instead her fame strings around her fingers. rence. Once again you will have to was as an exotic figure o f the art As a result of the trial and actively seek the work out. Both world, and much of her work was torture and the feelings of betrayal the paintings there are hung high pushed into dark corners of galler­ Artemesia experienced, she painted up in the comer o f extremely tall ies out o f sight. the first version of Judith in 1612 rooms. Artemesia’s strong and heroic (Naples Museum) and the version The strength and the beauty female subjects are armed with in the Uffizi in 1620. Both paint­ of Gentileschi’s women and their weapons they do not hesitate to ings graphically display Judith, heroic portrayal, her skill and mas­ use. They feel and express pain and assisted by her woman servant, tery of techniques both painterly mental anguish, are not beheading Holofernes. Blood spat­ and compositional, and the pres­ stereotypically beautful, nor do they ters the women, whose only ence she instills in her work cannot gaze passively at their would-be emotions appear to be determina­ be denied. Artemesia Gentileschi is attackers as in contemporary male tion and a unity to assist each other a true feminist hero. paintings of this time. They fight in the task. Judith’s outstetched Kate Millington 9

Broadsheet Winter/Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 90 And while we are on the subject of going out with dignity... off our backs 26 yeaj?s of the fin e st fem inist journalism Feminist endings... with Jillian Cooper, Funeral Director News InttmatiBMl Health

Broadsheet Winter / Hotoke 2 5th Birthday Issue 1997 91 womerJy bo

Tamaki Makaurau LESBIAN Books by, for and about women WtpMEN NEWSLETTER CO 228 DOMINION RD, MT EDEN, Square Edge, Church Street, a monthly AUCKLAND 3 Palmerston North. At the Valley Road lights P.O. Box 509 newsletter by and f o r lesbians Phone / Fax (09) 630 7162 Phone (06) 358 2644 * news * views -H KATE * events * ads SHEPPARD Annual subscriptions are $15. s Women’s Bookshop Post to PO Box 44-056, § Women’s Bookshop Ltd. 145 Manchester Street, 266 Victoria Street Point Chevalier, P.O. Box 19041 Christchurch Auckland. Hamilton I Phone (03) 379 0784 Phone (07) 838 0656 Fax (03) 379 1769 I e ô 0 0 PINIFEX PRESS S O 0

womenn's * * « 1 O - o

Have you ever wanted to join the circus? established in 1991 as a community theatre project to work with survivors of sexual assault the Women's Circus has grown into a troupe of jugglers, acrobats, aerialists musicians ond technicians. The NZRP: $36.95 women in this book show how it's done. ISSN: 1-875S59-55-8

For Spinifex Press catalogues, write to PO Box 78224, Grey Lynn, Auckland

great reading'!

Broadsheet Winter/Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 92 clcw A ifred A '

GROUPS-SUPPORT WOMEN INVITED to join LESBIAN SUPPORT others and invest in beau­ COMING OUT GROUPS PH. (09) 5285119 tiful bush property just PO BOX 3833 north of Auckland, to AUCKLAND create WOMEN CENTRED LESBIAN TELEPHONE WOMEN’S HOMESTAY environment which could Pam and Alison invite youto stay incorporate HOME AND COUNSELLING in their spacious sunny home in For support 8c INCOME or be just an counselling by Greytown Wairarapa. Twin and lesbians for lesbians 8c double rooms. Seperate guest INVESTMENT. living room. Cooked breakfast. PH.MARAEA MENTOR their families 8c friends Dinner by arrangement. Hours 10am - 10pm PHONE (06) 3048454 09 4225539 evenings ph (09)3765173 9 MOLE STREET GREYTOWN or write RD4 Warkworth.

BRAXMERE FISHING LODGE Have just established Colourful, quality 100% TH E PLACE’ cotton washable menstrual CONFERENCE VENUE pads and resources. For a 2 GILLIES AVENUE NEWMARKET P.O. BOX 9 8 8 7 AUCKLAND 4 hours frorm Auckland and free catalogue, send 40c TELEPHONE (09) 523 1023 Wellington. 35 minutes from stamped self addressed FACSIMILE (09) 523 3114 Whakatane Ski Fields. On the envelope to southern shore of Lake Taupo, MOONTIME ph 07 3868011. fax 07 3867513 PO BOX 836 NELSON.

WOMEN'S STUDIES PROGRAMME a commitment to excellence in teaching, flexible courses and a friendly environment

Wom en’s Studies at Massey University offers 24 courses at undergradual ievel, a BA major and entry to the Graduate Diploma, M.A, M.Phil and Ph.l study. Courses are available in both internal and extramural modes. Fc further information : The Secretary, Women's Studies, Massey Universitv MASSEY Private Bag 11-222 Palmerston North. Tel. (06) 350.4938 Fax (06) 350.5627. UNIVERSITY

Broadsheet Winter / Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 93 Broadsheet Winter/ Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 94 It's goodbye from me & goodbye from them fthe Jinalfarewells)

In the past few years it has fallen to me to write a few words of farewell for departing collective members - sometimes I volunteered, others times I was told, "Guess what In the last issue l/we were rather remiss in not acknowledging the departure of Jacqui Fill and Alex Woodley,whoops. It certainly wasn't a case of 'out of sight, out of mind' as both women have retained their ties with Collective, and while these words may be rather belated, they are no less sincere.

JLA a lth o u g h Jacqui Fill has been a collective our numbers dwindled, this became hugely member since the middle o f 1992, her sup­ important in enabling us to get each issue port for the magazine goes back to her to print. There’s the saying that if you involvement in the funding-raising group, want something done, to give it to a busy The Friends o f Broadsheet, which was estab­ person. Jacqui certainly bears this out - a lished in the late 1980s. This group was very remarkable woman indeed. gradually depleted as members were sec­ onded onto the Collective. Megan Fidler, Juliet Jaques and Karen Woods were others JLA ^ n d speaking of busy parents, by the time who heeded the collective call. this is being read Alex Woodley and her Many will know Jacqui through her role partner Nerida Phillips will have become a as the Coordinator of the Auckland Women’s larger family with the arrival of their first Centre and, more recently, her place on the baby, towards the end of June. We wish COGS Committee - there’s never been any them much happiness with their new child. doubt about Jacqui’s commitment to social Alex has also had a long association with equity, justice, support services and women’s Broadsheet, in earlier work with the Work­ access to these. ing Woman’s Resource Centre, eventually I have long admired Jacqui’s involve­ being invited onto Collective in 1993 - and ment in so many initiatives, particularly that what a fortuitous invitation it was for us she has given so willingly of her time and all. She has always had a clear vision of energy when single parenting four children how Broadsheet should present material, must have already taxed these resources advocating shorter, more accessible ar­ considerably. As a Collective member, Jacqui ticles to engage readers (were we could be relied upon to always be there, at successful?). Another woman working meetings and other events, and to follow with all balls in the air, Alex has often gone through on anything she undertook. And, as above and beyond the call but always with

Broadsheet Winter / Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 95 humour and good grace. Her level think­ continued development of her creative flair and ing, reasoned and rational position on beautifully embelished by her original artwork. issues, and general goodwill made work­ We hope that the magazine has added as much ing with her a real pleasure - actually, I value to Kate’s life as she has to that o f B road­ thinks she’s one of life’s sweethearts. sheet. A JL JLs this is the last Broadsheet, and there JLAA . s Linda Hill has occasionally pointed out, with will be no other in which to farewell those wry humour, when she was asked to join Collec­ who have remained, it seems appropriate tive it was only going to be to attend one meeting to acknowledge them here with some a fortnight! it wasn’t deliberate deception on the words of recognition and thanks - read on: Collective’s part, rather that Linda arrived at a time when collective numbers dropped dramati­ cally and, correspondingly, the workloads I t seems especially fitting that this final significantly increased. There have been weeks issue will be launched by Claire-Louise when Linda has worked daily on Broadsheet, McCurdy - a woman I once referred to as giving unstintingly of her time. It’s fair to say being ‘evergreen’, because in the herstory that Broadsheet may have closed a lot sooner o f Broadsheet she has certainly been ever without the tenacity, commitment and tremen­ present. Fifteen years is an incredible gift dous effort from Linda that has seen recent o f oneself to any situation. Even when issues through the necessary editorial processes other areas of life called upon her time and and into print. We’ve been extremely grateful, resources, Claire-Louise continued an in­ and very relieved, to have had Linda around. volvement in Broadsheet in what ever way she could. A wonderful source o f collec­ D tive herstory, we have long appreciated I l arbara Bennett was another who joined the Claire-Louise’s wisdom, insight and breathe Collective at the time when the going got tough of knowledge. I certainly have really en­ and the tough had gone shopping! When told a joyed knowing her through our few lines were to be written about herself, Bar­ involvement with Broadsheet. bara said, “Just write, ‘she came, broke two pencils and then the magazine folded’” . But of I f course she has contributed much more than JL jL.ate Millington become involved in B road­ those pencils. Well before her time on Collective, sheet in 1994 having had a peripheral Barbara was already shouldering a share of the involvement over the years contributing work load, doing regular stints of proofing, being the odd art critique and graphics. She was a staunch supporter of Broadsheet events and heralded by the comment that there were mentoring to many of the collective members. two things she wanted to experience in Then there were the numerous times she waded life, go to Italy and 'art out’ and lay-up valiantly through endless pages of Naiad novels, Broadsheet-and some people never realise to write those very practised and proficient re­ their dreams! views! As an established artist Kate has been the originator of many a spectacular curve, the learning curve she has created with JLA a nd last, but by no means least, we thank Anne Hunt Broadsheet has been no less impressive. who for over five years has singlehandedly man­ This final issue will be the 9th issue that aged the wholesale and distribution o f each issue Kate has designed and laid-up, each a of the magazine. Over much of this time Anne

Broadsheet Winter/Hotoke 25th Birthday Issue 1997 96 has worked in isolation, an associate collec­ nights, an array childcare arrangements - tive member. For a short time Anne did join being kept up or kept away - and often us on Collective but felt that the time she being prioritised behind the demands of could give was best focused on the important the magazine. I identify strongly with task of getting Broadsheet into the shops. Sandra Coney when she writes of the She has done a wonderful job in this role and constant juggle of responsibilities in the has often acted as our roving ambassador reprint of ‘How BROADSHEET Grew’ on when she’s travelled about and abroad. For page 61. many women, Anne has been the first point It has been my choice to give Broad­ of contact in Broadsheet because her phone sheet that prominence in my life, to have number has been most visible in the maga­ that degree of commitment, as many zine. women before have also chosen. This is what has been necessary for the maga­ zine to survive, that is what was needed 1A M, s I come to write a last few words I am aware for the magazine to continue. It is what how contrary my own farewell may seem in will be required if another ‘Broadsheet’is comparison to others. I could echo the words to establish, flourish and thrive. of Sandra Calvert, about the good friends made and a way of living defined - Broadsheet certainly took me to a place I had long been searching out. Or those of Jenny Rankine,

about the debate, enthusiastic involvement ake a kernel o f political yearning. and wondering just where to position one­ T self. Those words speak of my experiences Plant solidly in a bed o f enthusiasm and

too, but another aspect of Broadsheet has energy. become more pressing in recent times, par­ ticularly as deadlines loom. It is the pressure, Fertilise with liberal amounts ofactivisim

the struggle and the constant demand on and debate, one’s resources. It is this that has been felt acutely by those of us who have remained and water generously with sweat from

and came to the decision to close the maga­ the brow of many women. zine. In my eighth year on Collective, I find I’ve had enough - I’m well past my use-by Lisa Howard-Smith 9 date. So while I am sad that Broadsheet is ceasing, and believe that indeed feminism is still relevant, I am not sorry about our choice.

T t is a wet and wintry night as I write, a Tuesday night, Broadsheet night. But I’m not at the meeting because my daughter unwell. Once-upon-a-time, that wouldn’t have made a difference and, in fact, my involvement in Broadsheet has very much been possible because of the considerable support I have received from lovers, friends and family. Rhian has endure years of very late meeting

graphic Kate Millington