new Zealand’s feminist magazine january/february 1980 90 cents

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The Computer Revolution - will it affect you? Maori and Pacific Island women • State schools— target of God Sauad • Depo Provera trials in New Zealand FRONTING UP Broadsheet office: One big person in our office would like a calculator. Ours is on is at: the blink and in an office where 1st floor, Colebrooks Building, much is already done manually, for 93 Anzac Ave, Auckland. reasons of finance, that’s a drag. Office hours: 9-3, Mon-Fri. Phone number: 794-751 Bleak February Our box number is: Is there a gap in your life in Feb­ P.O. Box 5799, Wellesley St, ruary? We’re sorry, we take a rest Auckland, New Zealand. then, so don’t expect a February issue. We publish 10 issues a year, THE NEWEST AND MOST Fooled! with gaps in February and August. ADVANCED HEALTH AND FITNESS CENTRE IN N.Z. IS Remember the “ Shitachi” advert in Envelopes for recycling NOW OPEN FOR YOU IN Hogwash in the November issue? CENTRAL AUCKLAND. Rather sheepishly we have to admit Our continuing thanks to those that it was not for real. It was in fact who collect and deliver to us large, Expert staff headed by Les and a parody* originally published in brown envelopes for mailing out Colleen Mills offer you The New Internationalist. However, Broadsheet. We need about 1500 of • Fully equipped and we’d like to say in our defence that these every issue so your help is segregated women’s and the take-off was very convinving very welcome. Some women recy­ men’s gymnasiums and our ready acceptance of it, a cle their envelopes before giving • Figure contouring clinic measure of just how bad sexist ad­ them to us for mailing — this is a • Individually planned fitness vertising can be. great help, as recycling is a major programmes undertaking each month. • Specialist slimming courses Enveloping of March issue Other ways to help • Fitness testing centre • Yoga, jazz ballet and martial 1. Write in, sending a stamped, ad­ Stuffing of the March issue will be arts courses dressed envelope for one or more • Supervised child minding on Sunday March 2, 1980, at the car stickers. Keep our name in the Broadsheet offices. Women and public eye. • Jogging groups children welcome*, any time bet­ • Group exercise 2. Encourage friends with busines­ (aerobicdisco) ween 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. ses or products to place an advert with us where appropriate. People • Post and pre-natal classes who have advertised have had a • Social sports teams for fun Furniture, bookcases, and fitness calculator offered good home good response from their adverts. 3. Have you a friend who you re­ • Hot and cold whirlpools We have a play room for children gard as a potential subscriber? If • Sauna, steam, sun rooms at Broadsheet which is reasonably you send her name and address we • Beauty bar for after exercise well equipped with toys, but not will mail a sample copy to your makeup with furniture. Consequently the friend. Just send the name, we will • Sportswear shop room looks rather bare and uninvit­ do the rest. • Genuine HEALTH FOOD ing. We’d like to spruce it up for the 4. Send us a donation. $2. $5, $10, restaurant children who come to visit us and $100, any amount, any time. Many need entertainment. Are there any readers find it convenient to add a readers with a divan, squabs, cush­ dollar or two onto their subscription ions, small tables or chairs which money when renewing their sub. they might like to give us? Also any We rely on money from friendly GENEROUS GROUP large pieces of play equipment, like supporters to keep our finances out DISCOUNTS prams, bassinets, toy boxes, small of the red. (10 or more) trikes (no balls thanks). Please ring 5. Send reports of activities, com­ us at 794-751 if you can help. ing events in your area. Especially And for both children and women outside Auckland. We often ALL ENQUIRIES grown-ups — bookcases. Our get told we’re too Auckland based. Ph: 799-432 books are busting out all over and Without paid staff we can’t manage need better homes. If you have a to reach far flung areas and rural bookcase to spare please help us districts. But readers can help by keep our library books accessible. sending us appropriate material. Features 14 The Computer Revolution; The Technological Takeover 18 Donna Awatere looks at the position of Maori and Pacific Island women 24 Interview with Homemade Jam — Lynda and Jools Topp 28 Interview with Winnie Verspagen 30 History of the Women’s Movement Part 5: Lesbian Separatism, Cultural Feminism and the Feminist Dilemma. Poetry & Fiction 36 Coloured Cutouts — a short story 41 Poetry The A rts 42 Book Reviews: Of Woman Born 44 A Breed of Women 44 Women’s Gallery in Wellington 45 Theatre Review: In Touch, Out of Touch 46 Children’s Book: The House that Grew Regulars 2 Letters 4 Comment 6 Behind the News: Depo Provera Trials in NZ . . . US Conference on Violence against Women . . . Religion in State Schools 27 Health Notes 47 Hogwash 48 Classified Advertisements 13 In Brief

The Broadsheet Collective: Sarah Calvert, Sandra Broadsheet is published by Broadsheet Magazine Ltd, P.O. Box Coney, Miriam Jackson, Anne Macfarlane, Priscilla 5799, Auckland; Registered Office: 1 st Floor, Colebrooks Building, Pitts. 93 Anzac Avenue, Auckland 1; and printed by Wanganui Newspap­ These women also worked on this issue: Ruth Bonita, ers Ltd, 20 Drews Avenue, Wanganui. Published January 1st 1980. Jenny Carryer, Christine Dann, Katie Dugdale, Sandy Permission must be sought before articles may be reprinted. Eriksen. Sandi Hall, Heather McLeish, Helen Porter, Broadsheet is on file at the Women’s Collection, Special Collec­ Jenny Rankine, Jill Ranstead, Doreen Suddens, Sarah tions Department, Northwestern University Library, Evanston, Taylor. Jean Volkerling and the enveloping women. Illinois 60201, USA. Cover: Vanya Lowry Illustrations: Collage Pages 14 and 16: Vanya Lowry ISSN 0110-8603 Pages 36 and 39: Robyn Conway Pages 12 and 13: Sally Hollis McLeod LETTERS

Cops and women totally immovable. tangle the movement and never distorted giving the infer­ My friends and I — being know the good. ence that nothing happened Dear Broadsheet, thoroughly disappointed at Susan St Clair and others of any real effect until the Having spent my youth this juncture, climbed up to put much time, effort and action of women’s libera­ avoiding “ Ban the Bomb” a vantage point and energy into organising what tion of the late 60s. The marches — being of the watched. The police at­ could have been an effect­ truth is, and it is all on re­ opinion that such marches tempts at getting the ive march thus bringing at­ cord. that claims for equal had little effect —'either marchers to reach their tention to a crime which pay and status were put short or long-term — I final destination failed. The needs to be treated as a forward by women’s chose to go against my pre­ marchers were advised serious offence. But instead groups from 1840 on. The vious convictions and that “This march is now the march was more likely Women’s Christian Tem­ joined in a, march in support terminated.” This was re­ to put off the perance movement was ac­ bf what I truly believe to be peated at least three times “ stereotyped” housewife tive on many fronts and cer­ a worthwhile cause — Rape by police megaphone. The and moderates from taking tainly feared by the brew­ Crisis. police, carrying out their an active part in aiming for ers. as Suffrage Day Feeling strongly about duty, formed a congo line to stronger measures to pro­ showed. But they made the this subject, I marched, move the women forward. tect their rights of freedom claim first for equal pay, chanted, sang and took my The “ backbenchers” re­ because of, what appears to supported by the Knights of turn in carrying our slogan: taliated by first harassing be, constant violence by Labour; those working “ We will fight to be safe on the police and eventually women themselves. class women having won our streets.” Little did I pushing them. This caused Surely as women we the vote, then set up the know that some women a struggle between should show up men’s Auckland Women’s Politi­ would take this literally. backbenchers and police — weaknesses and show our cal Reform League (to The march was progres­ then a violent eruption. strength by behaving in change its name in 1925 to sing well, we were united, Consequently three women gentle, loving and under­ that of the Auckland Wo­ people were taking notice; were arrested. standing ways, but forever men's Branch of the some women even joined in What should have been a strong. Instead, we appear Labour Party), raised the along the way. The police successful march, with to be reversing roles and age of consent from 12 were tremendous, march­ tremendous impact on the taking on the weaknesses of years, won independent na­ ing with us, and the few public and good media our opposers — violence tionality for women mar­ men who attempted to coverage, ended with a and domination. ried to foreigners, pro­ harass us were dealt with small newspaper clipping If the women’s move­ tected State wards by im­ quickly and efficiently. The about the arrests. I realise ment is to succeed we must provements to the Child police gave us a lot of lee­ that there are women in this unite, we must have leader­ Welfare Act. together with way — particularly when country who generalise ship and we must have or­ women in trade 'unions, we “ reclaimed” a major in­ where men are concerned ganisation — three very chiefly the Tailoresses’ tersection in the city, hold­ and that they see all men as imperative and important Union and the Shop Assis­ ing up the traffic which, ini­ potential dangerous factors. Without this we tants’, claimed and won tially, should have been for enemies. This form of illog­ can only create adverse lunch periods, better pay, about five minutes. Re­ icality is far from helping ripples instead of positive particularly for unpaid ap­ grettably, this is where our the movement as a whole. tidal waves. We have prentices, and better condi­ unification and organisa­ Cries such as “.All men are strength — we have aggres­ tions. With my mother as tion completely disinte­ rapists” (an incongruous sion — these qualities President of the Un­ grated. Half the marchers statement) and “ Keep men should be directed into employed Women’s continued in the direction off the streets” (impossible positive, political action Movement. I took part in we were heading and the and impractical) do nothing and not into unwelcome, their demonstrations to win other half decided to hold but harm the efforts of the violent outbursts. As far as an unemployed benefit for the intersection. There was movement. I am concerned, the march girls and women and the confusion among those Let us not lose sight of has only given the Pig more right to have access to the who had continued to our aims — to help all ammunition to play with. Labour Department. The march, as they were at a women in every walk of life Bren Lowry tremendous surge of the loss as to what to do. So, — irrespective of our own peace movement led by the looking lost and unsure of personal bitterness. Bring­ Hidden from history Women's International what direction to go in, we ing in personal hatred and League for Peace and Free­ hung around like children in antagonism towards men Dear Broadsheet. dom. had international ef­ a playground wondering generally is not only going My attention ha$ been fects. None of this, and how to fill in time. After to give the movement con­ drawn to the section on much more, is mentioned. about fifteen minutes the stant bad publicity, but will N.Z. women’s history in It is all available on record. dissenters finally decided to act as a deterrent to a lot of Broadsheet. September is­ Why ? They won and prom­ continue with the march, the women we are working sue. I would like to com­ oted the social policies of but then decided to hold for. They will only ever ment that so much has been the first Labour Govern­ and block a major street — hear of the bad aspects of ignored that history may be ment that we now enjoy.

2 and much of this was with formation available from have people heavy­ booze (with donations from the co-operation of the Na­ the same address. breathing their way through the profits allegedly going tional Council of Women, The File is also desper­ a load of trash so as to turn impartially to major politi­ so denigrated in your his­ ately in need of funds, and it into a burnt offering to the cal parties); or letting the tory. Your treatment of the any donations would be Society for the Promotion public health services run Equal Pay and Opportunity welcome. Copies of A of Community Standards down so that private medi­ Council is just as distorted. Guide to Getting On are av­ and their spokesman — a cal insurance companies In Auckland, as a unique ailable from Women’s Ap­ male psychologist yet! It benefit; or using Pacific Is­ combination of trade un­ pointment File for $1. might be more helpful, just land migrants as cheap ions and women’s groups, Yours sincerely, for instance, to use that labour while abusing and we did much to win the Act, Penny Fenwick same energy (magic woman penalising them as over­ the Select Committee on Women’s Appointment word) in finding out who is stayers. Women’s Rights and the File publishing the new The pity of it is that the Human Rights Commis­ Playboy-type magazine in Porn Burn organisers sion. It did happen. Burned up about N.Z., where the finance is couldn’t set rape in the con­ Connie Purdue burn up coming from, what tie-up, if text of our sexist, racist soc­ Past Secretary Equal Pay any. exists with other firms, iety where we still, in N.Z., and Opportunity Council, Dear Broadsheet. who is writing for it, where express ourselves in terms Auckland. The-contributions from the pictures are being ta­ of a former colony. By un­ Co-founder. NOW. Christine Dann and Joce ken, which women are wittingly linking justified Jesson in the November being used as models, how feminist anger with the Women’s issue were more than wel­ much they’re paid and tightlipped outrage of Appointment File come with their call to put whether they belong to a N.Z.’s self-appointed Dear Sisters, the personal into a broader union. When the informa­ Moral Guardians, the Porn The Women’s Appoint­ political and philosophical tion is collated, then is the Burn women have, to me, ment File was set up as a framework. If only the or­ time to think about approp­ behaved like badly in­ result of the publication of ganisers of the Pornog­ riate action. formed colonised people A Guide to Getting On, writ­ raphy Burn-Up had read I find the notion of any trying to play the same war ten for the 1977 United them before plunging into kind of book-burning not games as the colonisers, but Women’s Convention. It misguided action. Why a only repellent, but also without any of the same was envisaged that a cen­ bonfire? Joan of Arc went somewhat irrelevant. firepower. If we want to tralised filing system be es­ up in flames; witches were Firstly, you can burn the examine the beliefs that tablished to nominate incinerated; the Nazis containers — the publica­ give the Seal of Good women for statutory and loved burning books; so too tions — but you don’t de­ Housekeeping to violent similar bodies. did the Chilean junta that stroy the contents — the and exploiting attitudes to­ This system has been es­ murdered President Al- ideas. Secondly it involves wards women let’s dig be­ tablished and is now held in lende; napalm set Viet­ the whole issue of censor­ neath the Penthouses and the Committee on Women namese alight; Ku Klux ship and freedom of infor­ Jet Sets and blue movies offices. Other organisations Klan members attack mation. much too impor­ (and maybe Rugby News involved to date are NCW, blacks while they brandish tant a topic to be reduced to and some columns of the WEL — SROW, FUW and a fiery cross; the Irish a bit of a giggle at Guy N.Z. Women’s Weekly) to GTCO group and represen­ specialise in exchanging Fawkes. Thirdly, I’m not get at the basic text. Histor­ tatives meet monthly to fireworks. very happy with the idea of ically, for the Pakeha domi­ select nominations for vac­ And I was seriously in­ setting fire to pictures of nated culture of N.Z. this is ancies as they arise. vited. as a feminist, to join other women (our sisters, the creed propagated by the Proceeds from the sale of in this wonderful old ritual our daughters, our Plunket Society. Their offi­ the book A Guide to Getting marking the anniversary of mothers) just because, for cial guide was updated (!) in On have been used to November 5. when a group whatever reason, they ap­ 1970. Dr Neil Begg is the employ a women’s collec­ of men plotted arson for the pear in “dirty” magazines. tive to set the files in order purposes of destruction. Surely the circulation of and design an efficient Maybe you should fight fire this ill-defined, profit­ operating system. with fire, but in the case of making “ pornography” is The file needs more cur­ the proposed Porn Burn the as inevitable in our riculum vitae of women flaming torch struck me as a capitalist (society as en­ who are suitably qualified very nasty dank squib. couraging people to drink and interested in serving on I gathered from the ad­ Statutory Boards. If your vance publicity that it was organisation has women about the exploitation and who are so qualified who degradation of women would like to be nominated which, in magazine form, for a Board, they should may encourage rape. Well, send their curriculum vitae possibly it may — but then in to: Women’s Appoint­ the evidence isn’t espe­ ment File, P.O. Box 10-154. cially convincing. Anyway, Wellington. Curriculum it strikes me as a dreadful vitae forms and more in­ waste of womanpower to

3 COMMENT by Miriam Jackson The first reclaim the night march in Auckland was • It was contrary to the organisers’ plan of the marc.i. held on 10 November. It was timed to end a week of • It blocked all traffic in the streets and thus women radio publicity on the plight of rape victims and the waiting on a taxi rank for taxis to get safely home inadequacies of the justice system to deal with the were denied their transport. This alienated these problem of rape. About two hundred women began women from those of us who were also concerned the march at 10.30 p.m. and proceeded down several for their safety. main streets to Albert Park, areas which are notable • By antagonising the Police, the women played for being unsafe after dark. Although Sue St Clair, the straight into the hands of the Task Force, who, organiser, stressed the need for non-violence and a being male, have typical New Zealand attitudes peaceful reclaiming, the march, unfortunately, ended towards women who step outside their designated in divisiveness, hostility, arrests and confusion. As role. the march progressed some of the participants be­ • By expressing hostility towards men who were came increasingly hostile towards male passersby, strangers, women were actually jeopardising the contrary to the idea of women reclaiming the night for safety of other women. One doesn’t have to study themselves as a happy celebration. But the majority of the male mind for long to realise that sometimes a the women maintained a steady stream of chants and man will rape another woman in an indirect attempt songs as they moved along the street. to punish a woman whom he was unable to get at at When the marchers came to the major intersection the time. ot Queen and Victoria Streets the women were asked • Political statements should have goals. The march to sit down for three minutes as a political statement. was an opportunity to gain some positive publicity, The organisers had not previously arranged this and but breaking the law, even when we don’t agree many women were diffident about it on both personal with it, tends to alienate us from the very women we and political grounds. The beginning of the column seek to free. moved on leaving a group of women sitting down on • Encouraging women who did not have political the intersection for considerably longer than the three awareness regarding the reclaiming of the night to minutes. Another group was left standing on the join in, can be seen as irresponsible when we street, undecided about whether to join the marchers know that a young state ward was arrested after or the sitters. Later the sitters (still singing) gradually joining in with the action of older women. Have began to move up the hill with the Task Force practi­ these women found out where this young girl is cally forcing them to move forward. now, and are they visiting her? To those who If this contravening of the organisation of the march shouted, “ Where is sisterhood?’’ at me in the park. was a political statement it has nothing to do with my I wonder where their sisterhood is when it comes to politics for the following reasons: prison visiting. Letters Continued The most important and its reproductive purpose, national descendants: and most rewarding task a and without this it is not why we should still carry author and its title is The woman can have, even specifically, nor necessar­ the burden of this 19th cen­ Child And His Family. (No though it be both difficult ily. a part of married life tury Damned Whores and Virginia, don't interrupt and challenging, is that of . . . For the future of the God's Police syndrome. while your brother is speak­ wife, homemaker arid children as well as the sta­ We must accept that ing). Definitions are tricky, mother. ANY OTHER bility of the home, the women too have been so 1 wouldn't care to TASK IS OF LESS IM­ time-tested wisdoms of socialised in and by N.Z. categorise it as obscene or PORTANCE" (My em­ chastity, faithfulness and just like all those Good pornographic, but 1 do find phasis added. What are you continence bring their own Keen Men. It's important some passages completely lot doing producing Broad­ reward". (Now. about (see Dann and Jesson) to distasteful, e.g. page 20: sheet anyway instead of some of those sacred acts work out. historically, the “ Unless there is a clear homemaking?) Page 17: by some specimens of man­ economic and political need to earn money w hen "Though, no doubt, effec­ kind . . ) t status of our own country the family is young — as tive contraception may be a This is the sort of stuff and how that affects women there is in the case of some boon to some wives, the that SPUC and all their kind and how we in turn can af­ widows — the mother is bet­ easy efficacy of the pill and of mankind would endorse. fect it. Much more impor­ ter in her home. It is an its availability to the un­ 1 would like to see this es­ tant. 1 believe, than waste- empty place without her.' married make it a threat to sentially N Z. garbage fully trying to drum up sup­ (Only widows can possibly the institution of marriage analysed and discu_ced in port for participation in the be single mothers). Page 2 1: itself, and to the integrity of terms of the importance of national commemmoration "Yet despite these new as the family. What mankind the N.Z. family producing of some guy with no par­ pects of life, sex and child- has regarded as a sacred large numbers of workers ticular relevance to us then bearing are biological facts and intimate act of procrea­ for the investors in coloni­ or now. too stubborn to be denied tion is being divorce el from sation and their multi­ Margot Roth.

4 f ------\ CENTRE FOR Auckland Women’s Studies CONTINUING Association Inc EDUCATION

UNIVERSITY OF AUCKLAND Sunday Seminars 1980

Women's Studies March 2 Women and the Law March 30 Women and Psychology 1980 May 11 Women and The Environment Start the 1980s with vitality! Help make the June 29 Women and Herstory decade a breakthrough for the women of November 2 Women and Education today by learning about the struggles and November 30 Women and Art achievements of earlier generations and the challenges and possibilities for women in contemporary society.

Term 1: WOMEN’S STUDIES — An Introduction Enquiries: Please ring Candis 799-501, Claire-Louise McCurdy, MA. DipNZLS, and Panel Linda 794-104, Claire-Louise 605-774. 10 weekly sessions Thursdays, 10am-11.30am V______/ WOMEN AND THE LAW Mary Kennedy, LLB (Hons), Law Faculty 10 weekly sessions Thursdays, 6-7.30pm UNDERSTANDING LOCAL GOVERNMENT — A U THEY CALLED ME 1 Practical Guide Wyn Hoadley, MA, and Panel 10 weekly sessions Wednesdays, 10.30am-12 TE MAARI noon by Florence Harsant $9.95 Term II: Shortly after the turn of the WOMEN AND WORK — Redefining Woman’s century Florence Harsant, as Place a young woman, made three Claire-Louise McCurdy, MA, DipNZLS, and Panel remarkable journeys through 10 weekly sessions Thursdays, 10am-l 1.30am Northland, around the east WOMEN AS ARTISTS coast of the North Island and Juliet Batten, PhD down the Wanganui River. 10 weekly sessions Fridays, 10.30am-12 noon Her job was to visit isolated Maori settlements forming Term III: W.C.T.U. groups and teach­ WOMEN IN CRIME ing hygiene and child care. Jane Kelsey, LLB (Hons), BCL, MPhil, Law Faculty This unusual autobiography 8 weekly sessions Tuesdays, 6-7.30pm is an outgrowth of a A STUDY OF NEW ZEALAND WOMEN POETS documentary series on Radio Riemke Ensing, MA, English Department New Zealand. 10 weekly sessions Fridays, 10.30am-12 noon For detailed brochure: Whftcoulls write to: Centre for Continuing Education, University ^ ethon°6ooks^c of Auckland, Private Bag, Auckland 1. 186 QUEEN STREET or call: Centre, 1st floor, 7 Symonds Street, PH: 778-329 Auckland 1. ^AN^^^UCK^N^RANCHES L Telephone: 792-300, ext. 320, 9735. V >

5 BEHIND THE NEWS

In March 1978, the US Food and will have to be followed over long Drug Administration (FDA) denied periods of time before an estimate of approval of Depo-Provera (depo- this hazard can be determined. medroxyprogesterone acetate) for Since Depo-Provera is charac­ use in USA as an injectable con­ Contraceptive terised by high 'rates of discontinua­ traceptive. This decision was tion. and large numbers of women reached after more than ten years’ can be expected to be lost to deliberations during which time a Research- follow-up over a span of decades, proposal for approval was an­ such studies are hard to perform. nounced and then retracted in re­ It is for such reasons that medical sponse to public concern regarding for whose researchers have come to rely upon the safety of the drug. The FDA animal tests to determine the poten­ Commissioner then sent a letter to tial for carcinogenity in humans. the Minister of Health in each of the Findings from animal studies have 68 developing nations where Protection? proven to be reliable predictors of Depo-Provera was available ex­ * human susceptibility to cancer- plaining the basis for the decision. It Upjohn, the sole causing chemicals even'though was stressed that each country manufacturer of there is disagreement over the ap­ should evaluate the drug in terms of Depo-Provera has long propriateness of various animal local situations and needs. models and the generalisability of The FDA decision is not irrever­ mounted a campaign to have the drug accepted as an findings from animals to humans. sible. Convincing data from a well- Carcinogenity of estrogens for constructed study of the experience injectable contraceptive in laboratory animals was established of a country where Depo-Provera is the USA. Despite all in the 1930s, yet it wasn’t until the used (especially where the “ local” contra-indications that have 1970s that carcinogenity in humans situations and needs are similar to been amassed concerning the from estrogens was'demonstrated. those in the US) would give Upjohn, dangers of its use, Upjohn Beagle dogs in the Upjohn trials the drug’s manufacturer, new evi­ persists in its efforts. showed an increased incidence of dence with which to confront the RUTH BONITA looks at the breast tumours (repeat studies dup­ FDA. Since drugs may not cur­ background to a projected licated these results) and it was this rently be exported for uses not ap­ study of New Zealand fact along with the recognition that proved in the United States. Upjohn Depo-Provera. (like other proges- stands to lose billions of dollars as women. This multi-million dollar stucjy is one of the togenic and estrogenic hormones), long as the FDA ruling exists. The is associated with a risk of congeni­ US Agency for International De­ latest attempts to gain tal malformations in infants inad­ velopment (AID), one of the largest credibility and acceptance for vertently exposed to the drug in ut- agencies for family planning ac­ what is, in effect, a ero. that was at the basis of the FDA tivities. has been prevented from potentially hazardous drug. decision. providing Depo-Provera to prog­ It is interesting to note that the rammes abroad. drug industry did not object to the It is for this reason that a study of validity of using beagle dogs (which Depo-Provera users in New Zea­ have been a standard animal model land (referred to in December for the toxicity testing of all drugs) Broadsheet) has far reaching impli­ until some of their products, includ­ cations. But before we look at this ing Depo-Provera. were associated “ international connection” , let us with an increased incidence of consider why any study on women cancer. While the beagle dogs in the users, quite apart from the ethical Upjohn trials developed breast issue, is extremely difficult. tumours, a recent study made pub­ The greatest unknown regarding lic (since the FDA decision) by the pepo-Provera is its potential for National Women’s Health Network carcinogenity. Since cancer de­ in Washington. DC . reveals that the velops over several years and the same dogs actually died from cancer incidence in the general population of the uterus (except for two which is very low. large numbers of had had hysterectomies). This in­ women exposed to Depo-Provera formation has been withheld from

6 ...... — ...... the medical profession and the pub­ lic. FDA CONSENT FORM The preliminary findings from a INFORMED CONSENT FORM FOR trogenic anti adrenal hormones pro­ ten-year study of the effects of DEPO-PROVERA duced in my body and that the impor­ Depo-Provera on rhesus monkeys tance of these changes is still being inves­ (who are generally accepted as This is to certify that I, tigated. being a closer model to human than I understand also that after a woman beagles) have suggested an associa­ hereby agree and consent to stops taking Depo-Provera, there may be tion between Depo-Provera and receive an experimental drug an unpreditable and prolonged delay be­ cancer of the endometrium. Other called Depo-Provera every fore she is able to become pregnant or animal studies suggest that Depo- three months under the care may be unable to become pregnant at all. Provera and certain other proges- and supervision of Doctor Because of the possibility of an occasional case of permanent sterility, Depo- tins speed-up the growth of pre­ Provera should not be used by women existing cancer — perhaps because I understand that this injection will be who may wish to have another baby in the of the ability to suppress im­ given to me in an attempt to keep me from future. munological defences. becoming pregnant. I have been told that I have tried all other kinds of birth Despite these, and other studies, tests in dogs injected with this drug control methods and cannot use them, or and despite the weight of the FDA showed that some of them developed I refuse to use all other kinds of birth decision, not only is Depo-Provera tumours in their breasts. Some of these control methods, or the physician has available in New Zealand, but it is tumours were cancer and spread to other explained that the use of Depo-Provera in offered by general practitioners and organs. It is not known whether or not my case is particularly indicated. There­ family planning clinics as but one of similar tumours or cancers will grow in fore, I hereby volunteer of my own free my breasts after receiving the drug. will to receive injections of the experi­ the many available choices of con­ mental birth control drug Depo-Provera traception rather than approached It has been explained to me that there are available other non-experimental with the full knowledge and understand­ conservatively. The drug was origi­ methods of preventing pregnancy; such ing that it produced breast tumours, etc, nally intended only for use by as, pills, vaginal creams, jellies, foams, as noted above, and it is not known women unable or unwilling to use diaphragms, various devices which are whether similar tumours or cancers will other methods of contraception. No inserted into my womb, and the use of a develop in my breasts. informed consent is obtained in rubber (condom) by my husband. The I understand that I may withdraw N.Z.ofprospectiveusers(seeboxfor effectiveness of these various methods of from this investigational study of the use a sample of what FDA would regard contraception, as well as the advantages of Depo-Provera for contraception at any as true informed consent, nor has and disadvantages of each method has time. there been any attempt to maintain a been explained to me. Surgical steriliza­ Signed: ...... tion of me or my husband (along with its (Patient) central registry of the thousands of risks, advantages and disadvantages) has users in N.Z. for follow-up pur­ been explained to me as a non-reversible Date: ...... poses if the potential carcinogenic method of contraception. I have also been Witnessed: ...... risks are confirmed. told of the effectiveness of Depo-Provera. I have read and understand the pam­ CERTIFICATION Since it is very difficult to ensure BY PHYSICIAN that real informed consent is being phlet prepared by the American Medical Association, American College of Obste­ I have explained to the patient the obtained, the use of Depo-Provera tricians and Gynecologists, and the Food facts, risks and alternatives contained in invites abuse since those accepting and Drug Administration informing the above. She consents to receive Depo- it are likely to be poor women who users of the pill about the possible prob­ Provera for contraception contraception lack adequate contraceptive infor­ lems which a woman may encounter dur­ for the following reason or reasons: mation and proper medical ing its use. I understand also that Depo- 1. She experienced unacceptable side ef­ scrutiny. These are the same Provera is similar to the pill in that I may fects with other methods. women who are least likely to ^with­ have some of the same problems occur­ 2. She refused to accept the responsibil­ stand the enthusiasm of a zealous ring that are mentioned in the pamphlet; ity demanded by other methods. population control doctor. Further­ such as, blood clots, tender breasts, 3. Other methods of contraception have more, it is not enough to inform a nausea, vomitting, weight gain, spotty repeatedly failed and further preg­ darkening of the skin of the face, mental nancy is not desired. woman of the possible side-effects depression, elevated levels of sugar and 4. She needs ovulation suppression with­ — loss of fertility, heavy bleeding, fatty substances in the blood, dizziness, out estrogen. weight gain, headaches, dizziness, loss of hair, increase in body hair, and 5. She is unable to use any other type of not to mention the increased risk of increased or decreased sex drive. birth control method. cancer — and then leave it to the It has been explained to me that it is Signed: ...... woman to decide if she can afford quite likely that I will have unexpected (Physician) vaginal bleeding, completely irregular the risk. Women are too often Date: ...... forced to put trust in the medical menstrual cycles, or no menstrual bleed­ profession and have been con­ ing at all as a result of the Depo-Provera. This is the consent form required by the I also understand that the injections may Food & Drug Administration for the in­ ditioned to an unquestioning re­ vestigational use of Depo-Provera. spect for authority. It is often have some effect on the amount of es­

7 suggested that Maori and Polyne­ the metabolic and hormonal balance sian women are the prime subjects of women who have experienced ar­ for Depo-Provera use. This can only tificially caused loss of periods. Nor D.S. be speculation, because there are no will it answer any questions on the available statistics. If, however, long-term effect upon the infants Conference these allegations are true, then the who have been exposed to this hor­ use of this drug in NZ has racist mone which has been found in undertones. breast milk. On Violence This is where an interest, by Up­ The major criticism is that the john, in New Zealand, becomes study has methodological weaknes­ Against worth looking at in some depth. Up­ ses such that it will not provide any john proposes to fund a multi­ definite evidence of the safety or million dollar study (much cheaper otherwise of the carcinogenity of Women than a comparable study would cost Depo-Provera: lack of an adequate in the USA because of NZ Govern­ control group, the difficulty of keep­ ment subsidies for family planning ing women enrolled in the Depo- “If violence against women and doctor services) to look at the Provera group on Depo-Provera for were a communicable disease “contraceptive health” of women. 5 years, the inadequacy of the the government would begin The planning and design of the follow-up period, among others. innoculations at once.” study has been largely carried out And so, women in New Zealand That’s the opinion of and discussed in America with little officially join the long line of those Cathleen Schur, co-author of apparent consultation at the local who have provided experimental a book on rape and one of level. An executive committee, subjects for this potentially hazard­ the speakers at the first chaired by a New Zealander, and ous drug. This has been ac­ National Conference on containing well-known and re­ complished without any public dis­ Violence Against Women, spected statisticians . and cussion or debate, or informed ac­ held in Denver, Colorado, in epidemiologists from USA (4), NZ quiescence by those women who (2) and Australia (1), will presuma­ are using Depo-Provera. The prop­ October, 1979. MIRIAM bly ensure that Upjohn’s interests in osed study has been discussed by JACKSON was the only New the drug do not bias the results of the Therapeutic Trials Committee Zealand participant at the the study. of the Medical Research Council of conference. This is her A preliminary study has already New Zealand, but one wonders how report. been undertaken and a group of seriously the proposal was evaluated by the Committee (espe­ general practitioners in the Auck­ Two hours prior to the press land and Wellington areas have ag­ cially in view of the fact that not all the members knew that the drug conference for the opening of the reed to co-operate in “enrolling” conference I was standing alone on women into one of the 4 groups: pill was banned in America). Perhaps it would have been more prudent for the Colorado Boulevard with its users, I.U.D. users, Depo-Provera six lanes of traffic and not a pedest­ users, and natural family planning such a body to call for the with­ drawal of Depo-Provera from use as rian in sight, when three men step­ users. The 3000 women in each ped off a bus and eyed me in a non­ group (total 12,000) will be followed a contraceptive except in excep­ tional circumstances. At the very friendly fashion. One came up and for 5 years. The primary objective tried to touch my silver rings as he of the study is to “observe women least, it should suggest that the Government insist on closer super: spoke in broken English. I kept using contraceptive methods in a thinking of flick knives and mug­ normal use situation for the de­ vision and better safeguards on its use as well as provision for long­ gings in broad daylight but held my velopment of dysplasia, carcinoma ground saying clearly that I was in situ, or invasive carcinoma of the term follow-up. rather than encour­ age the production of pseudo­ from New Zealand and over here for cervix. Secondary objectives in­ a conference on violence and that I clude studying the use of these con­ scientific facts for financial gain by a multi-national corporation. ■ worked for the Department of Jus­ traceptive methods and the de­ tice. At that he stepped back and velopment of breast nodules — be­ talked to his mates; then they sat nign or malignant.” (Upjohn sum­ In the U.S..the National Women’s down and watched me. All the dif­ mary). Health Network has formed a national ficulties of trying to be an indepen­ There is little attention being paid registry of women getting DP. The net­ dent woman, not appendaged to to other negative side-effects of work's address is 2025 I St NW, Washington DC 200006, U.S.A. some male for protection, were so Depo-Provera. Some studies clear and it was probably my affilia­ suggest that up to 959£ will lose their In Britain the Campaign against Depo Provera wants to hear from women with tion with a very male-identified in­ periods completely after 4 years of experience of DP. Write to them c/o stitution that saved me from Depo-Provera use. One wonders ICAR, 374 Grays Inn Rd, London W Cl, harassment or worse at that bus what the long-term effects are upon U. K. stop. This lack of respect for women 8 was raised throughout the confer­ to use as refuges. Flo Kennedy is a ence. black attorney and founder of the It was the first National Confer­ Feminist Party, and at 63 feels that: ence on Violence Against Women “ lam old, impatient and on the way to be held in the world, with over out, so I am going to focus on what three hundred people attending. we can do to see if we can change They included representatives from the attitude of people in charge.” England, South Africa and Puerto She described her approach as reac­ Rico as well as all the United States tive and created a lot of energy with including Alaska and Hawaii. All her ideas of decriminalisation of re­ the states have some refuges but taliatory violence and of boycotting some are better off than others.. products whose profits are used for While one of the refuges in Denver the many sexist and/or violent tele­ (Pop, 1.7 million) had a budget of vision programmes. “ We cannot over $200,000 per annum, was able continue to whine and moan about to house thirty women and their violence when it comes to our door, Flo Kennedy — “use the churches as children at any pne time and for we are politically subsidising it employed a director, four counsel­ through our purchases in the mar­ lors and two public relations offic­ ket, through our tax dollars. “ She ers, other cities were not so fortu­ urged women to be active on the nate. In many states attempts are issue and chastised women for “ sit­ being made to pass legislation to en­ ting on your ass thinking the apples able state funding of refuges, but the are going to drop into your lap in the small cities appear to be without re­ form of apple sauce.” fuges. Rape Crisis centres have The workshop participants con­ similar problems, except for those stantly raised the need to be public, who struggle to maintain their iden­ to gain media time and keep up the tity while attached to a large city fight on the one hand, while recog­ hospital. nising the need to balance activism It was exciting to meet so many with opportunities to nurture our­ people working in the Violence selves and prevent the burnout and Against Women Movement in so exhaustion of too many of our best many different ways. What was dis­ Robin Morgan — covered the vast counsellors. range of violence against women. appointing was the lack of national Del Martin, a gay rights activist news coverage, though local pap­ who founded Daughters of Bilitis' in are so necessary, till, as Sandra But­ ers and TV gave some coverage. 1955 and who wrote one of the first ler (director of the Sexual Assault This is indicative of society’s gen­ feminist books on violence against Trauma Centre in San Francisco) eral lack of support on the issue. women, Battered Wives, expressed said, “our utopian vision is realised. One of the Police Department’s rep­ her anger at some recent Wisconsin We must remain vigilant and re­ resentatives said how disappointed legislation. “The Wisconsin State member that our sisters and our she was that so few states had sent Bill is to raise money for shelters children are the responsibility of all delegates from the Police, when so and support groups for battered of us and have the absolute right to much of their work is in this very women in Wisconsin and the de­ safety, dignity and to freedom from area; the workshop on Police inter­ scription of who would receive the any form of tyranny or abuse vention stressed the need for more services, the consumers, was whether physical, emotional or involvement in Police training. worded in such a way that it could sexual” . Nevertheless the variety of keynote be made to exclude lesbians.” The The enormity of this task was dis­ speakers and the sharing of their constant need for vigilance and in­ cussed in the wrap up session and energy and expertise countered volvement by the hundred or so final address given by poet, and rad­ some of the gloom the anti-violence women at the conference involved ical feminist theorist, Robin Mor­ worker experiences. in gay activism was repeated gan. She covered the vast range of Constantly discussed at the con­ throughout the workshops. The fact violence that is administered to ference was the need to take stock that the women who were proposing women, from the recent U.S. medi­ of the situation and to document it, the Wisconsin legislation had over­ cal abuse of “ love surgery” where whether it’s an individual woman looked this group of women was the clitoris is surgically removed being sexually harassed at work ora thought provoking. and placed nearer the vagina (why group applying for funding. One The need to provide services for don’t they shift the penis for the be­ suggested way to fund refuges was raped and battered women and chil­ nefit of the couple), to the fire bomb­ to incorporate a levy on marriage dren and the problems of creating ing of abortion clinics, the atrocities licences and Flo Kennedy and supporting these services took of the Boston Strangler II and por­ suggested taking over the churches up a number of sessions, but they nography ■ 9 NEWS

Secular education is under threat. Evangelistic Christians and narrow-minded moralists are making determined inroads into the state school system. JO MARCH reports.

These are all headlines taken them . . . This human world of ours and why? from the papers over the last six would be inconceivable without the Two contrasting quotes to set the months. They are headlines we are practical existence of a religious be­ scene: not used to seeing, and to women lief T. . For the masses o f the attempting to raise children free of people, especially, faith is abso­ Internationally financed ‘S.I.S.’ religious and moral indoctrination lutely the only basis fora moral out­ groups keep dossiers on they bode no good. What do they look on life." teachers mean? The author? One of New Zea­ "New Zealand teachers have this In recent years there has been an land’s more zealous politicians or year experienced a new and upsurge in interest in religious and moral campaigners, perhaps? Actu­ frightening form of opposition to moral education in state schools. A ally. the extract is from Adolf Hi­ educational change. It comes from sign of the times? Certainly during tler's autobiography. The war is minority groups of extremist parent periods of economic instability (and over, but the malady lingers on. and church organisations. These New Zealand is surely experienc­ Women in particular know how groups are dedicated to assertive ing such a period!) the cry often dangerous such views can be, since teaching and want the abolition of goes up for a return to the “old val­ they can imprison us in the un­ inquiry approaches in the clas­ ues", to “the faith of our fathers” , lamented “good old days” when sroom. They want the censorship of to the conservative virtues. Readers Church and State combined forces textbooks, rigid punitive discipline, will be familiar with this sort of to officially push women into breed­ the preservation o f the external homily:— ing, housekeeping roles only. examination system testing factual "Today the whole of our public “ Kinder. Kuche, Kirche” (Chil­ knowledge, and the elimination of life may be compared to a hot-house dren. Kitchen. Church) as our values as curriculum objectives un­ for the forced growth of sexual no­ above quoted “ moralist” was also less those be fundamentalist be­ tions and excitements. A glance at heard to say. liefs. They receive vocal support the bill-of-fare provided by our con- However. such historical from the principals o f some ultra­ emas, playhouses and theatres, suf­ perspectives are lacking in essential conservative North Island schools fices to prove that this is not the details about who wants to take us who are far more concerned with right fare for our young people . . . back to the bad old days right here preserving the image and status of This seductive and sensuous at­ and now. Behind every reaction their schools than with the welfare mosphere puts notions into the there are reactionaries. Who is try­ of their pupils. These parent groups heads of our youth, which, at their ing to push “ moral” and religious have introduced tactics which are age, ought still to be unknown to education in New Zealand schools. alien to the educational world. They 10 do not discuss their concerns with others, treated simply on an In addition to COME’s efforts, educationalists, hut by carefully ethical basis.)’’ other religious and “ moral” groups planned strategies they create con­ D. Elliot-Hogg and Stewart W. are forcing their way into state cern and misunderstandings at top Christie Introductory notes, What schools. In July, 1979 SPUC government and political levels. Do You Think, May 1979 launched an essay competition in They inundate New Zealand jour­ Auckland secondary schools on the nalists with articles reputed to be by COME on! topic “ Life Before Birth” . An at­ overseas experts which are often Mr Knight’s statements have tempt to make Bible studies a found to be inaccurate, erroneous been corroborated. Fundamen­ School Certificate subject found­ and fraudulent. These groups have talists have been let loose in our ered for lack of support but the vari­ set up vigilante S.I.S. groups to schools, and what is worse, they ous religious groups pushing it re­ keep dossiers on teachers and other have been paid by the state to prop­ main keen on the idea. Worst of all, educational liberals who dare to in­ agate their doctrines. The booklet the way is now open for religious itiate educational change. They op­ What Do You Think, which is dogma to be taught in state schools. erate a private textbook surveil­ quoted from above, was published How? New Zealand’s first Edu­ lance system and keep biographies by the Council of Organisations for cation Act (1877) stipulated that of all authors. These groups are or­ Moral Education (COME). It is the teaching in state schools “ shall be ganised internationally and receive text of an audio-visual (slide/tape) entirely of a secular nature.” This finance from an American oil com­ programme on “ moral education” principle was retained in the Educa­ pany to sponsor tours by lecturers which was funded by the Depart­ tion Act of 1964, and the religious carefully trained to arouse the emo­ ment of Education to the tune of education periods many of us can tions of parents.’’ $19,633. One of the authors remember from our state primary Colin Knight, senior inspector of (Elliot-Hogg) is the secretary of school days were optional extras, secondary schools, The Press, COME. What is COME? COME is which had to be conducted outside 10/2/78 a coalition of the Society for the the four conservative core hours of Protection of the Unborn Child, the school. Related to the Koran and the Society for the Promotion of Com­ In 1975, after the passage of the Bible — but not religious munity Standards and the Family Private Schools Conditional Integ­ ration Act, which provides for the "(I) This Forms 1-5 Programme, Rights Association. Despite the in­ nocuous name of the two latter or­ state financing of private (largely re­ like the Forms 6-7 What Do You ligious) schools, the Education Act Think Programme, follows and ganisations, readers need to be aware that their leading lights, Pat­ was altered. Section 78A reads: exemplifies the guidelines of the “Additional religious instruction Johnston (sic) Report except in ricia Bartlett (SPCS) and Dr and Mrs Dunn (FRA), are extremely -. . .in any case where the Minister regard to chastity. is satisfied that the majority of pa­ (4) “ What Do You Think" is a conservative and like SPUC are op­ posed to a woman having the right rents o f pupils attending a school philosophy scheme, not a re­ wish their children to receive religi­ ligious programme. The princi­ to choose to control her fertility. With such a narrowly based mem­ ous instruction additional to that ples of living which it brings to specified in . . . Section 78 and he is pupils' notice, or reminds them bership, COME can hardly claim to represent the full range of opinion satisfied that such additional religi­ of, are basic to human life, and ous instruction will not be to the universal, common to all relig­ on morality or moral education in New Zealand, let alone majority detriment of the normal curriculum ions, all communities, all cul­ of the school, he shall generally or tures. We believe therefore that opinion. humanists, agnostics, atheists and people of all religious faiths can make helpful use of this material. m r SAPPHO (5) No doubt teachers in a tradi­ tionally Muslim country would relate these cornerstone princi­ SERVICES ples to directive suras of the Ko­ (Women's Work Co-op) ran, and teachers in a tradition­ ally Confucianist society might For: gib boarding, stopping, wall papering, roofing repairs, sec­ relate them to the Analects, and tion clearing, roof painting, interior and exterior painting, so on. We relate them in our concreting, tiling, carpentry, spray painting, laying pebble own society to the Golden Rule, and bark gardens, general house renovations and mainte­ the Beatitudes and Ten Com­ nance, draughting and offset printing. mandments, as follows. (Units Any jobs considered « /2, 14, 15, 18, 19 appear to be For free quote, phone Lyn 764-115 religious but are in fact, like the

11 what purpose? Neither parents nor teachers asked for it. NZEI, the primary^ teachers union, does not support further amounts of religious education in state schools. Public pressure was completely lacking. It appears to have been inserted at the initiative of the Working Party which drafted the Integration Act. Religious interests on the 11 person Working Party were represented by a large (6 person) Catholic delega­ tion, led by J. D. Dalgety, a Wel­ lington lawyer and ex-President of SPUC. The Integration Act already pro­ vides amazing advantages for integ­ rated schools; such as the right to limit rolls, the right to limit “non­ “ The right use of sex creates preference” teachers and pupils “ Happy are those who are happiness but the wrong use and the right to charge fees in addi­ persecuted for doings what God creates destruction.” tion to teaching the doctrines of requires.” p. 41, What Do You Think? their choice with state money. Yet it Unit 16, p. 4. What Do You Think? appears that this is not good enough in any special case, after consulta­ for some religious interests. They teach “devotional studies” in state tion with the School Committee, au­ want the right to teach their doc­ Teachers Colleges are being consi­ thorise the additional religious in­ trines in state schools as well. dered. The Teachers College As­ struction up to such an amount and This is a frightening trend. The sociation has distributed a ques­ subject to such conditions as he executive of NZEI has realised this tionnaire to its 4,500 members, thinks fit." and has written to the Minister of seeking their opinions on the mat­ Why was this alteration made?To Education requesting that Section ter. Should state money be used to allow for the teaching of religion in 78A of the Education Act be pay for lecturers, buildings, mate­ integrated schools? No, since the amended to apply to integrated rials and other teaching necessities Integration Act already provides for schools only. The issue gathers to instruct teachers’ college stu­ this. It is therefore clearly aimed at momentum with the November, dents in the dogmas of particular state secular schools. Why, and for 1979 announcement that plans to religions? With these sorts of ques­ tions on the cards, teachers and pa­ COMMITTEE FOR THE DEFENCE OF SECULAR rents who prefer the secular system need to keep up with the play. EDUCATION What about moral education? So Help us keep fundamentalists such as SPUC & Co. out of ordinary far I’ve lumped religious and moral state schools. education together. This is largely The Integration Act has established exclusive state sectarian schools which have total legal protection from the influence of any doctrine than because that is how the fundamen­ their own. Teachers and pupils are selected on the basis of religious talists are sneaking their dogmas belief. into state schools (see point (4) in The churches which operate these exclusive state schools should the quote from ‘‘What Do You realise that all citizens want their children protected from indoctrina­ Think” given above), taking advan­ tion. tage of the blurry distinction bet­ ween religion and morality in the The Committee for the Defence of Secular Education, minds of many educational adminis­ P.O. Box 17-081, Karori, Wellington. trators. Yet the two can be sepa­ I wish to become a member of the Committee for the Defence of Secular Educa­ rated, and many people consider tion and enclose a membership fee of $ 1.00 that it is possible to engage in moral donation of $ ...... education without indoctrinating TOTAL $ ...... children into the specific tenets of any religion. Ivan Snook and Colin Name ...... McGeorge go into this in More Than | Address ...... Talk — moral education in New Zea­ land, a 1978 Department of Educa­ j ...... Phone No...... tion publication. This book gives a

12 system was declared secular in 1877 because people could not agree on what sorts of moral and religious education should be provided. One hundred years later New Zealand society remains just as divided re­ ligiously and morally. Religious schools have won the right to teach their doctrines with state assistance — which few secularists would beg­ rudge them — but now we find that some religious people are not con­ tent with their own schools,*but are intent upon forcing their way into state schools. The Education Act has been altered (Section 78A) to remove the protection state schools once had. Underhand attempts at religious indoctrination are being “ 1. As an experiment in human conducted in the guise of “ moral “ . . . the Universal Sex Drive is relationships and development, education” programmes. State for one week do everything your as powerful as a jetplane, and teachers’ colleges are being asked just as much in need on parents ask you to do. to provide religious education. 2„Do it promptly and cheerfully.” control.” Concerned parents and teachers p. 40, What Do You Think? p. 27, What Do You Think? should ask themselves whether the secular nature of state schools good overview of the history of Update: After representatives of parent should not be protected and pro^ and teacher organisations had been in­ moral education in New Zealand vided for as rigorously as the religi­ and then gives a readable account of vited by the Education Department to ous nature of private schools. The view “What Do You Think” , the De­ the significant research into moral tolerance of secular parents has education. In Chapter 9 the authors partment announced that their reactions been abused. They should not be were largely unfavourable and that the discuss different approaches to obliged to have the sort of anti­ programme would not be used in moral education and list six fatal woman, anti-human religious indoc­ schools. COME was dissatisfied with flaws in the dogmatic approach (the trination to be found in What Do this and a deputation saw the Minister of approach employed by What Do You Think even whispered to their Education on November 29 — this oc­ You Think). We may ask, when the casion was marked by a picket in Parli­ children, and they should point this Department of Education had such ament grounds organised and supported expertise on moral education avail­ out to those in authority now, be­ by a variety of groups whose members able, why it chose to fund a prog­ fore things get worse. ■ realise what a menace COME in schools ramme as biased and inadequate as Jo March could be. What Do You Think. While pursuing a concern for the mixture of moral and religious edu­ New Zealand cation one would also be well ad­ Herstory vised to take a look at Section 2.4 of the Johnson Report (Moral, Religi­ ous and Values Education). In the HERSTORY DIARY December, 1978 issue of Broadsheet 1980 Juliet Seule exposed the conserva­ tive religious assumptions underly­ Available now from Broadsheet ing this section and warned of the Please send me ...... copies of dangers inherent in Recommenda­ tion 2.22, which reads “that the fos­ Herstory Diary 1980 at $3.99 tering of a non-sectarian spiritual My name ...... dimension in New Zealand state Address ...... education be accepted.” The whole question of moral and I enclose a cheque for $ ...... religious education in state schools is extremely vexed and complex. Send to Broadsheet, P.O. Box The New Zealand state education 5799, Auckland.

13 ThE CD171PLITER REUDLUTinn — The Technological Takeover?

“ Silicon chips” , “ word processors” , “visual display units” — some of you might not have heard these words before, but they’ll be words we must become very familiar with as we move into the eighties. SANDI HALL looks at the concepts behind the words and discusses how the Age of Technology will affect women at work and at home.

14 From as far back as the wheel, dear Reader, “typewriter” attached to the screen is called a you know well that machines have been the play­ keyboard. The typist (now called “ an operator”) things of men. And when machines got indus­ types (now called “ keyboards”) the material. It trialised, that is, became sources of labour like appears on the screen (called a VDU Visual Dis­ harvesting machines or machines that cut any­ play Unit). She corrects any errors by backspac­ thing from paper to steel, men called it the time of ing and typing over the error. She then press*es a the Industrial Revolution, or the Age of key and hey presto, the second typewriter (the Machines. It was then that you may have printer) automatically spews out the words, all noticed, dear Reader, that the barter and trade correctly spaced and spelt. As well, the material system inherent in all cultures grew in our culture is automatically recorded and stored on a compu­ into the giant we call capitalism. ter disk. With nothing to mark its departure, the Age of With the word processor, one secretary- Machines gave way to the Age of Technology in operator can carry out the same level of work that the mid-40s. Spurred on by inventions spawned 2-5 secretaries did in the same office. Just as the through the needs of war, the Age of Technology Age of Machines gave us the typewriter to help has since produced devices as diverse as the in­ the world of business operate more efficiently, tercontinental ballistics missile, the calculator,' the Age of Technology has given us the word the cardiac pacemaker and the TV game. processor to increase efficiency even more in this The latest push in the technological world has area. Also, word processors won’t go on strike, come from the silicon chip. Silicon is not only a talk back, get ill, distract the boss with its shape natural mineral, but one in plentiful supply. It has or ask for higher pay. And it has reduced a sec­ proven to be ideal for etching electrical circuits retary’s job to an utterly tedious level — the on, and eliminates the need for wires, valves, human being has become, in effect, an auxiliary transistors or such. This means an active circuit of the machine. needs very little space, and has resulted in At present, secretary/typists can pace their miniaturisation. Which means that one chip of own workflow, chat to other colleagues-, check silicon about the size of a baby’s fingernail is able things in other files. With the word processor, to “ store” , or hold, 100,000 bits of information. managers can automatically monitor work. Filing So, because silicon is plentiful, the cost of vari­ information is accessible to the word processor ous items which use the silicon chip as their com­ and can be put up on the VDU screen within puting or memory centre has plummeted. seconds. One manufacturer of the machines says Meanwhile, it won’t have escaped you that “ From secretarial station, all work is produc­ both of these Ages have been dominated by that tive and done on the spot. No waiting, no walking unrecognised religion, capitalism, with its satel­ and no wondering.” It’s no wonder many lites, socialism and communism. The latter two secretary/typists view the installation of word began as political ideologies but have become, in processors with alarm. their home countries, patterns of business and social interplay, just as capitalism is. And I don’t The word processor can undoubtedly cause / think that any of the three will turn its back on health problems, too. As a strictly sedentary oc­ technology, because each of these “isms” sees cupation, circulatory problems in the legs can its people in terms of work units that new arise, not to mention muscle flaccidity and con­ machines and industrial processes can “ help” . stipation. Operators already can document in­ Help in this sense means increased production. creased eyestrain due to looking into the light of This is not wholly a bad idea, because a certain the VDU for long hours, and complaints of level of production ensures prosperity which is headaches are common. (in ny view) always preferable to poverty. The The Australian National Mutual Insurance throe “ isms” differ mostly about the distribution Group (it’s here too) introduced word processing of prosperity.; at their head office and Victorian office two years At the moment, in our “ism” , what’s happen­ ago. Since then, the support-staff numbers have ing is, as an IBM employee told me, “ the cost of been reduced by 29 percent. And 12 word pro­ people is skyrocketing, because the cost of cessors cut staff requirements in an Australian machines is going down.” What he means is Colonial Mutual Life office from 100 typists to 29 amply demonstrated by the word processor. operators. The word processor is quite a nifty invention. In tertiary or service sectors the situation is It looks like a couple of typewriters on a desk top, similar: in New Zealand, Visa cards are the first one attached to a small teevee screen. The step in the Electronic Funds Transfer system 15 (EFT) which enables customers to make debit/ credit transactions at point of sale, threatening shop assistants and bank tellers. In Wellington, the ANZbank is advertising its first automatic teller, which means customers insert their own card into a terminal on the counter, and can get monies according to their balance. Mpst cashiers can thus be dispensed with. Sophisticated com­ puterised credit and stock control systems, al­ ready in operation in Farmers, Hugh Wrights, the PSIS and soon in James Smith and DIC, affect accounts staff, typing and clerical staff. The switch to STD means that 2,500 to 3,000 tele­ phone operators will lose their jobs within the next ten years. It also means no new jobs will open. That’s just the tip of it: printers, librarians, telegraphers, posties, mail handlers, proofread­ ers and researchers all could well be virtually superfluous within the next ten years. Succinctly put, the silicon chip miracle makes it possible to have machines doing more and more of the routine, repetitive jobs that women have been doing for years. Jobs like clerking, filing, indexing, tabulating, measuring, counting, typ­ ing, so rtin g an d also traditionally high female employing jobs like teaching — are now done faster and with fewer mistakes by machine. “ If overseas trends are an accurate indication of what will happen here (and they have been in the past),” Vicki Keesing of the Clerical Workers Union told me, “ by the 1990s we’ll experience a age pensioner benefits, family benefits, and the 20 to 40% reduction in clerical workers.’’ Some domestic purposes benefit as well as taxing the of the suggestions made by top management on dole, I cannot be optimistic that our welfare state the brighter aspects of technological boons are will be able to cope with the welfare of the women calmly'shot down by Vicki: “They talk glibly it undoubtedly is going to have to support. about the workers being free to stay at home and And that’s not all. The Age of Technology isn’t work from home by the simple expedient of es­ going to stop with computers and like devices. tablishing computer terminals at home. I see that Science fiction for years has talked about robots as reducing our collective strength, allowing the and androids and they certainly will appear. We employer to dictate working hours, and under­ are already being conditioned to feel warmly mine the structure of a working day.” about them, through films like Star Wars with its The real and most immediate short term prob­ endearing robot couple (some interesting areas of lem is what happens to the women thrown out of thought presented here, with one being able to work by the increasing automation resulting from talk, being easily flustered and unable to think, ever increasing discoveries in technology. and the other communicating with whistles and The silicon chip technology means women bleeps but basically being the strong (silent) with fewer skills are needed, and fewer of them. hero! , and TV series like Lost in Space, with It means a huge number of job opportunities are Robbie Robot as a major caring, humorous permanently closed. Factories reduce staff with character. In “real” life, robots will make their automation, and the new technology also means entry into the lowest level of the workforce, car­ a massive reduction of staff in the commerce rying out simple, physically demanding and re­ sector of our business structure. petitive jobs like stacking, moving and storage. With the age old cry of “ Family to support” , it As well, technology will install in each house can be taken for granted that men will continue to the computer centre that will order the groceries, receive favouritism when jobs are handed out. answer the phone, stand guard, handle the cook­ And our country’s recent record in cutting old ing and cleaning, and do much of the cooking. 16 These things are certain to happen, and happen welcome the days when tediosities like cleaning sooner rather than later. We have reached again a house can be cheerfully programmed into my point at which inventions can redefine our role own home robot and my business drudgeries all and leave us powerless. But we’re not going to let can be done by the tireless machine. But I am that happen, are we? keeping it firmly in the forefront of my mind that We are helped by two factors: One, we are the new technology could shove women back collectively more aware of our position, both into the home with their primary function being globally and regionally, than we ever were be­ babygivers. I don’t believe we’ll let that happen, fore. And we’re in touch with one another, which because freedom, independence and self expres­ is important. Also, technology is smacking the sion are all like salted peanuts: if you like the shape of our culture around in ways which affect taste, a taste is not enough. men as well, so a lot of serious attention is being I should like to see several things happen. I focused on the problem that has caused. should like to see more interest by women in the Two, the answer will have to be restructuring, forces that shape their workplace, and an under­ rather than continuing the process of oligarchy standing of the power women have there even (rule by a few, in this case, a few huge busines­ now. At Waihi, for instance, the town’s majority ses), simply because the workers are also con­ industry is the Pye Electronics factory. In that sumers, and no matter what the “ ism” , if people factory, rows and rows of women sit all day mak­ don’t earn, they can’t buy, and the economy falls ing the circuit boards without which a variety of apart. Big business in the western countries cer­ machines, including television sets, couldn’t tainly won’t let this happen. They really need us, work. The factory foreman said (as did his coun­ and don’t you ever forget it. terpart in the Pye Industrial Electronics factory Some suggestions on restructuring have been a,t Felton Mathew Ave in Auckland) “ We find made. A scientist-economist in Sweden, Gunnar women are really better suited for these jobs, Adler-Karisson, suggests restructuring our soci­ men get too impatient and often cause trouble.” ety into four sectors: Necessity, Excess, Free­ But even though their business success has been dom, and Power. It’s very interesting. built by the hands of these patient, uncomplain­ The Necessity Sector, he says, must be State ing-women, Pye management has not let on that controlled and would be responsible for supply­ within a couple of years, those boards will be ing people’s basic material needs. People (like made more cheaply and quickly by machines, so me) who want more than the minimum could their jobs will go and the town will face slow operate in the Excess Sector, but only after finish­ extinction. Does Pye not have a duty of care to ing their labour service in the Necessity Sector, the place that has helped build its profits for so Once in the Excess Sector (what a deliciously long? I think it does. decadent name!), you can: “buy, sell, invest, On a global scale, IBM has for years made produce, save, splurge, whatever. All forms of millions of dollars profits and glossed over its business ownership could exist here, with the wider social responsibilities in favour of being exception of State ownership.” concerned about its own employees. Indeed, The Freedom Sector is for those who are satis­ IBM has led the way, several times, in their fied by minimum material standards and to get on employee retraining schemes. But as huge as it is, with a lifetime of culture, sport, art, history, it has made no attempt to start social restructur­ whatever. The Power Sector would be much like ing, or influence political thinking in the direc­ our present elected democracy, but with special tions it knows well society eventually has to go. responsibilities to make sure the Excess Sector does not expand at the expense of the Necessity Restructuring of society begins with attitudinal or Freedom Sectors. change, and that’s hard any time. At the moment, It’s a good idea, don’t you think? Of course, it computer-spokesmen are being heard with this makes no mention of women as childbearers, but message: computers alone are not the cause of his outline of labour in the Necessity Sector does increasing unemployment. There are other key say it should be “ apportioned out among all citi­ changes, like the entry of women into the work­ zens as a right as well as a responsibility.” force. Sound familiar? In a workforce already I have my own ideas on how things should be indignant about women’s increasing place in it, restructured, and so, I’m sure, do you. I’m not this attitude finds a lot of favour, thus obscuring terribly interested in how machines born from the the real problem. silicon chip microtechnology work, I’m much more interested in what they can do. I for one will Continued on page 26

17 “I want a New Zealand where it is safe to be born a Maori child.”

At the Suffrage Day Seminar held by Broadsheet on September 22, 1979, DONNA AWATERE eloquently described the oppressed position of Maori and Pacific Island women. The worst hit by unemployment; harshly treated by a racist justice system; dying eleven years earlier than Pakeha women; the butt of domestic violence from their men — black women are, in Donna’s words a “ savagely oppressed group” . The following is the text of her speech. The reason we have the topic of Maori and Pacific occurred however, not because of racism or sexism, Island women as a separate issue today is because of but because of the needs of British capitalism. Capital, racism. Racism ensures that the life experiences of to survive, must expand, and in the 18th century, it Maori and Pacific Island women are different from expanded to this country. Capitalism had to have raw those of Pakeha women, and it is these differences that materials and markets. The main factor stopping need to be focussed on. unbridled expansion in Godzone was the Maori — hence the alienation of Maori land through some ex­ Since you are mostly Pakeha women here, I had to tremely foul means. ask myself why the hell I was giving the paper, be­ The settlers transplanted, holus bolus, all the cause racism is a Pakeha concept, created by your British institutions such as education, justice, health, European ancestors for other races and adapted here bureaucratic methods and work methods, without a to suit the needs of the white colonisers. No one thought for whether they met their own needs well, let knows Pakeha concepts better than the Pakeha, so alone the needs of the Maori race. Anyway, after the you see why it should be a Pakeha woman up here odd war or two, the odd epidemic or two, most settlers today, analysing the way in which the system she agreed with the N.Z. Herald of 1874, thirty four years inherited successfully colonised the Maori people. after the Treaty of Waitangi, when it stated: “that the However, you know yourselves that oppressors are native race is dying out in New Zealand there is, of poorly motivated to analyse how they oppress, and course, no doubt. . . The fact cannot be disguised that what the effects of that oppression are on the oppres­ the natives are gradually passing away; and even if no sed. I, as part of that savagely oppressed group, am cause should arise to accelerate their decrease, the highly motivated, so here I am today. rate at which they are now disappearing points to their Although most of my comments are applicable to extinction in an exceedingly brief period.’” Pacific Island women. I’ve concentrated on related The facts at the time no doubt seemed to support aspects of Maori women’s experience because, histor­ this, but I can imagine the amount of wishful thinking ically, the paths are different, although we have all that lay behind this attitude. In three newspapers this arrived at the same end result. week there were photos of 58 white men and 9 white There are three main types of oppression which women. There was not a single photo of a Maori divide and alienate people: woman or a Maori man (or a Pacific Island person, or Racism: we're worse off than Black men because of .anyone even remotely black). Generally, Pakeha at­ male bonding and male culture. titudes toward the Maori, well-documented in Sexism: we’re worse off than white women. academic research, indicate that Pakehas would pre­ Capitalism: in terms of alienation from the means of fect if the N.Z. Herald’s prediction had come true. production, we're worse off than anybody. The internationalisation of capital affects all workers Sexism was the first division, which made all other eventually; the changing nature of capital means that divisions possible. The subjugation of half the people capital knows no nationality, no race, only increased by the other half preceded all other subjugations, in­ profits. This particularly concerns Maori and Pacific cluding that of one race by another — that is. col­ Island women, because we have been the first hit by the onialism. The subjugation of the Maori by the Pakeha post-1974economic crisis, which isclearly goingtoget 18 worse. Every other workerwillgethiteventually but we are the worst hit. The movement of capital outside New Zealand to cheaper labour areas affects us. This is the area which at present worries me most. Maori women have made some gains in edueation, health, etc. but the accelerating economic downturn has already brought cutbacks in social services, health, education, housing, employment and the rest. Today, I'm going to give a very brief overview of four major areas which indicate the position Maori women are in because of sexism, capitalism (not so easy to see this in analysis) and in particular, racism: Employment or unemployment Justice or lack of it Health and how bad it is Mental health, domestic violence and rape Employment It’s a fact of life, as young Maori women have al­ ways known, that it’s hard to get a job. It’s hard to get any job at all, even a shitty one. The movement to the cities was in fact led by Maori women who came in search of jobs. Usually they didn’t find them. In the rural areas, there were virtually no jobs to be had Donna Awatere at Broadsheet’s Suffrage Day Seminar outside the home, and I find it interesting that Maori plummeted down a slide. At that time, the women women, even from before World War II, have been earned a whole $20 a week less than the men above, in moving to the cities to escape from working solely in warmer, clean conditions, who shovelled the stuff the home. While the percentage of Maori women through. working outside the home has increased dramatically, The figures show that in 1971 Maori women workers from 7.7% in 1936 to 18.5% in 1971, this simply shows were the worst paid group. Three times as many Maori that in 1971, at the peak of the economic boom and men as Maori women earned over $2,200; and 81% of before the 1972-1974 slump hit, over 80% of all Maori Maori women earned less than $2,199. women were not employed outside the home. A Department of Labour publication pointed out There had never been active encouragement for that at one stage, Maori male unemployment was six young Maori girls to work. For example, the Maori times the Pakeha rate, but that unemployment for Trade Training Schemes have been run since 1959. Maori women ran at eleven times the rate for Pakeha Eleven trades are offered: carpentry, plumbing, etc. women. Of the thousands who have been through these These figures all come from a period when employ­ courses, not one of them was a Maori girl. The only ment prospects were good, and unemployment was course run for Maori girls has been in waitressing. low. By 1973 the total number of women registered as Even when Maori women do get into the workforce, unemployed was only 730. By March of this year, over life is hard. The largest occupational groups are 10,000 women were registered as unemployed, and housekeepers, maids, cooks, tailors, workers in tele­ over 16,000 people were on subsidised programmes. phone and telegraph services, hotel workers, food The employment prospects for Maori women are processing workers and laundry and dry cleaning depressing. New Zealand has the third or fourth high­ workers. These occupations reflect the fact that 88% est penetration of multinational capital in the west, of Maori women have no educational qualifications at after Australia and Canada, and possibly ahead of all. South Africa. Multinationals move capital across bor­ In 1971 a group of women from Women for Equality ders to cheap labour havens. Operations are closed went round talking to women in factories. down, workers laid off. Big companies buy up smaller Everywhere we went. Maori and Pacific Island companies in the process of “ rationalisation” so that women had the worst conditions, and of course re­ there are fewer jobs. Increasing technology means ceived the lowest pay. One example is Sanford’s that the labour intensive jobs where women mainly Fisheries, where about 50% of the workers were Is­ work are also disappearing. Prestige-Holeproof’s landers, many of whom didn’t speak English. The merger (Holeproof is owned by Dunlop, Australia) is women stood in icy water, catching fish gut as it one good example. 19 mythical bogies of black deviance were dealt with by the Task Force in the early 1970s. Eighty to ninety percent of those picked up by the Task Force were Maori and Pacific Islanders. During that time the Polynesian Panthers, Civil Liberties and Nga Tamatoa had a Pig Patrol which followed the cops around trying to monitor their activities. The stand- over tactics, provocation and mass arrests for minor offences showed clearly the roie of the police as agents for social control. According to the police, to be con­ suming alcohol in a bar, to be waiting for a taxi in the street, in fact everything you did, was deviant if you were Black. (If you were white and were in places withi a heavy concentration of Blacks, then you were guilty by association). How any judge or white in the cour­ troom could have taken the charges so seriously is really beyond me, but obviously not beyond the white male listeners, Swearing or casting offensive matter were common “offences” . In spite of thousands of arrests to combat the white bogey of crimes of vio­ lence, the rate of crimes of violence during the whole period of the operation of the Task Force remained the same. Otahuhu police, spurred on by the same paranoia and hysteria which created the Task Force, have now put into effect Operation P.O.W., the same old Task Force under another name. The direct correlation between the increasing num­ bers of Maori and Pacific Islanders having contact with whites, and the numbers arrested, indicated and charged in the courts, is a clear indication that the institution called “Justice” — Justice for whom? — is a misnomer. In the Magistrate’s Courts, the numbers indicated and charged increased from 3,743 in 1961 to 17,264 in 1976. This is an increase of 361%. For whites the increase was 155%. Maoris indicated and charged as a rate per thousand mean population rose over the period 1961-1975 from 22.3 to 69.1 and for Pakehas from 6.5 to 12.5. The situation for Maori children is much worse —55 I don’t need any updated, “adjusted” statistics to to 90% of all children in borstals and social welfare show me what’s happening to young Maori women at homes are Maoris and Pacific Islanders. Between 1961 the moment. I can see it in my own family. and 1975 the number of Maoris convicted and charged Justice in Children’s Courts increased fivefold, while the Ever since the first shady land deal, through the numbers of Pakeha children did not even double. Treaty of Waitangi, through the wars of land aliena­ The numbers of Maori children coming before the tion, through the intense period of acculturation and courts is much higher than the Pakeha rate. In the past assimilation through the search for jobs by young 10 years 112,000 children have appeared in the Chil­ Maoris in the post-war era, through the creation of dren’s Courts, of these 46% were Maori. The deal they housing ghettoes like Porirua and Otara (48% state get in the courts points to the harsh use of the courts to owned), Maoris have lived with white oeople’s jus­ teach our children the rules of living in a white man’s tice, the rules made by white people to cater for their land. needs and not the needs of the Maoris. As Dr Finlay, In every year since 1962, Maori children have had a the then Minister of Justice, said in 1974, “There is higher conviction rate than Pakeha children and have some truth in charges that the New Zealand system of been sentenced to borstal or detention centres at a rate justice is racist.” twice that for Pakehas. On the other hand, Pakeha Throughout the period from 1951 to the present day, children are twice as likely to be fined, and much more behaviour by the white majority culture reflects the likely than Maori children to be simply admonished mounting paranoia towards the Pacific Islanders who and fined. Borstal is the harshest sentence that can be came to New Zealand and to the Maori who moved to inflicted in the Children’s Court. Let me repeat this: the urban areas in that time. Occasionally this For every year from 1967 to 1971, any Maori offender paranoia flares into hysteria, for instance when the was twice as likely to be sent to Borstal as any Pakeha 20 offender. Over that five-year-period 55.3% of all chil­ dren sent to Borstal were Maoris. Maori girls came off worst — of all girls sentenced in this period, 61% were Maoris. In 1975 100% of all 15-year-old girls sentenced to Borstal were Maoris. A Maori woman who is arrested has little chance of being dealt with by another Maori from the time of her arrest to her eventual sentence or release. Till re­ cently, each of the three female prisons and borstals had a white man as superintendent. In 1973, 55% of all the women in detention were Maori women, yet we made up only 12% of the female population, and in fact, Maori women make up only 46% of those women actually in court. These figures make it clear that Maori women are more likely to receive a prison or borstal sentence than Pakeha wo­ men. To re-iterate Dr Finlay’s statement: “There is some truth in charges that the New Zea­ land system of justice is racist.” Health From the grim prediction of the New Zealand Herald of 1894 to the reality of400,000 Maoris today is a big jump. However, we are only now back in num­ bers to what we were before the arrival of the Euro­ peans, when there were estimated to have been 250,000 Maoris, a warlike, vigorous, healthy race. The first reasonably accurate census was that of 1878, when the Maori population was returned as 44,000. By Focus.' in “ Maori from McGarrigle John Photo: 1896 it was returned as 40,000. Changed living condi­ tions, through European contact, loss of land and The pipe-smoking Maori epidemics all left the Maori in a decimated condition. woman of yesterday was At the turn of the century typhoid fever and similar replaced by the diseases were common, while tuberculosis spread un­ cigarette-smoking woman of checked. Infant mortality was abnormally high and today, now ' Maori women the early years of life generally were fraught with have the highest death rate in danger from intestinal and respiratory diseases. the world from lung cancer.’ ’ Maori health since those early years has improved though not, as you might think, because of the care and attention of New Zealand’s health services, but in those over thirty die off at an alarming rate. The life spite of them. Godzone's Health Service, as crystal­ expectancy for Maori women is about eleven years lised in the Public Health Act of 1900, was designed for lower than that for Pakeha women. Life expectancy the colonisers and their descendants, not for the for Maori men is so bad that not even half of them Maori. The Pakehas didn’t quite get their act together reach the age of retirement. (Yes, the Superannuation enough to impose apartheid on us, so were forced Fund is a racist plot to do the Maoris out of money). begrudgingly to share their services with us. We can The other item is the romanticisation of the tangi. see that this has been the pattern from the 1900s to the No one seems to be asking what the hell a tangi is. It’s present day, whether we look at the workings of the supposed to be for old people dying except that the Plunket Society, the hospitals, the selection and train­ ones who are dying are really not so old. Our children ing of doctors, or the distribution of health services. between the ages of one and four have almost twice The health system doesn’t work for white women and the Pakeha death rate. it sure as hell doesn’t work for Blacks.. In South Auckland, Maori and Pacific Island chil­ The New Zealand health system is in fact one of the dren die from respiratory disease at‘ twenty-eight most racist institutions in New Zealand. However, times the white rate. It is our children who are hardest because it doesn t cause conflict in day to day living, hit, in spite of the fact that Maori women have the as the justice system does, the intensity of its oppres­ highest death iate in the world from lung cancer and siveness is not always realised. the highest death rate in the world from cancer of the Tvvo items illustrate the condition of Maori health. lower intestine. One is the fact that over half of the Maori population is Seventy-one per cent o*f the health budget for under fifteen. Why is that? The reason is because 1973-1974 was spent where it does the least good —on

21 Photo: from “Maori in Focus” hospitals. This whichis service” hasoften the health “ h mjr otc wt Moi n Pcfc Island Pacific and Maori with contact major the inAt a ht ar n Pcfc oe hr. Fi­ hard. women Pacific and Maori hit has Act tion hospitals; Pacific Island children, who are 7% of 7%theof are who children, PacificIsland hospitals; to MaoriPacific topeople, Islandpeople and poor white 22 gures from the Aotea guresAotea fromClinicthe shownumbers of the that people, and it is the least effective. least the is it and people, child population, occupy 15%, and Pakeha children, 15%, Pakeha and occupy population, child who are 81% occupy only 60%.only81% occupy are who Aucklandin days bed total the25% of occupy tion, services are designedareso services as the so-called Mangere health centre shows, the whitethe shows, so-calledMangere thehealth centre service which is set up does the least good. least the does up set iswhich service any that ensure to detemined be to seems club male ee oa t spotm otninta h health the that contention my support to today here people. In fact, as the siting,staffingthe as financing In and fact, people. of New Zealand Has one of the highest ex-nuptial birth ex-nuptialhighest Has the of Zealand one New proportion to their population numbers. The cost of cost The numbers. population their to proportion lig o yny s rhbtv fr lc women. Black for prohibitive is Sydney to flying Black womenattending theclinic for abortion werein times the Pakeha rate. Pakeha the times rates in the world, and the Maori rate is two to three to istwo Maorirate the and world, inthe rates high. still are they but falling, are rates birth Maori etl elh Dmsi Voec ad Rape and Violence Domestic Health, Mental h eetCnrcpin Seiiain n Abor­ and Sterilisation Contraception, recent The There is much more data which I haven’t quoted haven’t I which data more much is There ar hlrn woae 2 o h hl popula­ child 12% the of are who children, Maori Apart from the physical aspects, such as the heart the as such aspects, physicalfrom the Apart supposed to be for old people old be for to supposed N n em t e asking be to seems one “No who are dying are really not reallyare dying arewho httehl tnii. It's is. tangi ahell the what yn xet htte ones the that except dying not togive healthservices so old.” so

Black men, whether lover brother, father, or husband. nw h ase, is, answer, the know oetc ilne A fr aea oe, mental women, Pakeha for As violence. domestic whichaffect rate, anddiseasecancer Maori women,I elh aes n cmitl ad oetc violence domestic and committals and labels health are which issues other two with deal to want now the Pakeha rate. The question to which you already youwhich to question The rate. Pakeha the Maori Most double. quite not did admitted women health hazards for them—hazards health mentalandhealth referrals ftoeMoiwmnwr gdbten 1039and agedbetween werewomenMaori those of women are in for schizophrenia and paranoid states, states, paranoid and schizophrenia infor are women white men, and in the other, the controlling agent isagentcontrolling the other, thein and men, white madeby are decisions mental health case, onein the are usedas social bycontrols men. For Maori women, n ms Pkh wmn o dpesv neurosis. depressive twiceis over retardation Maorimental for admissionfor women Pakeha most and and Maoris, Maori women have been hit harder than harder hitMaoribeen have womenMaoris, and er. n h sm pro te ubr f Pakeha of number the period same the In years. thirds Two trebled. hospitals psychiatric to admitted of of young Maoris are killed or maimed in gang violence. any other group. other any ficByaccidents. an comparison, infinitesimal number paranoid or mentally retarded? mentally or paranoid literally knows noand webounds, are dailysubmitted abuse, for any Maori male abuse, is not other Maori other not is maleabuse, Maoriany for abuse, on a known female.known a on media. thein repeated theritualto of thegangs’ activity pathetic latest being whiteof colonisers the hysteria andthe-paranoiaBut targets for physical abuse. 70-75%physicalabuse. for of all targets oc­ violence curs in the home and is perpetuated byknownmalea home inis andperpetuated thecurs type of call.Yet policein New Zealandsay they ignore other any than killeddisputes domesticare attending men, not other gang members, but Maori women.Maori but members,gang other not men, 85%polfce the of inU.S., domesticmurders werethe In men. Maori is,— violencethat domestic women, most domestic dispute calls. dispute domestic most focusses on gangviolence.on focusses ie Pt nte wy tee r 12,500 and women are there way, another Put live. consfrol*1%o h ae nte .. Four only*for accounts U.S. in the 12% rapes the of called at least once prior to the murder. More police More murder. the to prior once least atcalled ture” in whichit ture” was pointedoutinter-racial that rape 300 hlrn Bt o hs gop ae h main the are groups these of Both children. 13,000 andeight per of arecent byrapes white men Black on women. outcry outcry over Moerewa) ordinary citizenand in the“ the per cent of rapes are by Black men on white womenwhite onBlackmen by are rapes of cent per tet . street” intra-racial, i.e. Blackmeni.e.Blackrape intra-racial, and women, in y xeine hs s re Moi e rp Maori rape men Maori is.true. this experience my Between 1961Between 1974and thenumber of Maori women Thebiggest killer of Maori15-19youth aged is traf­ In the use of mental hospitals to subjugate womensubjugate to mentalhospitals of use the In This brings me to the last health hazard for Maorifor hazard health last the meto brings This Themost largestthe target, frequent for target gang firstly, to whites, especiallypolicemenwhites,firstly, to (witness the ’ a scooit n tr, hr 35,000 people where Otara, in psychologist a I’m secondly, interganghostility. The current publicity on gangs and their activities their andgangs on publicity current The atTusa ih ace h im“RapenightCul­Thursday film ILast the watched “ This means that 88% of the rest of the rapes were rapes the of 88%rest theof that means This who eie wa i schizoid/ is what defines women. Last year I took several groups of Maori and Pacific Island girls for what is called Social Skills Training. In one group, four of the eight girls had been raped — yet they had been referred in for other things such as emotional withdrawal, truancy or self-mutilation. In one case I worked with last year, a Maori girll had been block raped. She was extremely withdrawn and negative about herself, lacked confidence etc. I talked to a few others who knew her — their attitude was, “she deserved it because she was so uppity.” That is to say, she didn’t know her place, but was taught it by the local male bonded representatives —- the “glamourous” gangs. This year, in one Black study group, three of the eight Black women in the. room had been raped, two recently, and all by Black men who were known to them. I emphasise these points because if white women want to bond with the Maori people and with the Pacific Island people and with the poor to fight against racism.and capitalistic alienation, then make sure you Photo: Ans Westra from “Notes on the Country I Live In.” do it with those who are most oppressed in each of "Our children between the these groups — that is, with the women and the chil­ dren. ages of one and four have Forging links with our oppressors might make you almost twice the Pakeha feel mighty liberal and do-good, but it does fuck all for death rate." us. I was once asked on a T.V. programme: Did I seek “ The life expectancy for vengeance for my father’s death? I said no. But I’ve Maori women is about eleven changed my mind. I do seek vengeance. I want a years, lower than that for system of justice that works for the Maori people as it did not work for my father. I want a New Zealand Pakeha women where it is safe to be born a Maori child. I want a society where you don’t have to go to Sydney, Rome, Greece or Australia, as many of my family have done, to be treated like a human being. In the third Maori Two Maori Women in a Strange Place migration of the 60s thousands of Maoris slipped out of. New Zealand in search of a better life, escaping the Two sisters racism rife in this4 country. met in Bottmingen (near^Basel in Switzerland) In this Monday’s Auckland Star there is an article after eleven years. that reads: She had changed, “Call to end all special treatment for Maoris.” Mr her Maoriness faded Whaanga is concerned at the one-sided view of from eleven icy winters. Maoris, and the special treatment awarded to Maoris. She had escaped I too call for an end to special treatment of Maoris, (she said) the bitter lie but unlike my Black Mormon brother, mine is acall for of equality. an end to victimisation and discrimination by the No. (she shook her head) police and courts, an end to a racist, alienated and I’ll never go back. alienating health service, an end to racist immigration Her daughter policies which allow more white Rhodesians to settle Sacha, the image here than Samoan and Tongan. of her Koro an end to mental abuse of Maori women from Whanau Hinetapora an end to physical abuse of Maori women (at Mangahanea near Ruatoria) an end to male bonding did not know what Maori was. an end to white, male, capitalistic domination. Two Swiss women. Tama tu! Tama ora! Tama noho! Tama mate! Tama For them, the New Migration toa! is over. Donna Awatere, 1972 Taniko patterns on pages 18 & 19 from N.Z. Maori Arts and Crafts by Glen Pownall, Sevenseas Publications.

23 and I was in the kitchen and every the time I’d finished in­ time she finished a verse, I went terviewing Jools and Lynda ‘White line to Georgia’. What Topp, twin sisters who sing happened between the bedroom under the name Homemade and the kitchen turned into a Jam, my head was spinning. song.” Sentences started by Jools are The Topp twins have been between being n finished by Lynda; at times the singing together ever since lesbians, Jools and two voices blend together and they can remember. At five speak in unison. I con­ they got their first musical in­ we’re still lesbi; templated transcribing the tape strument, a ukelele, but even musicians. We’re with horror. Lynda and Jools before that they would make are, to use an awful pun, totally believe with a tennis racket, in tune with each other. Their and practise in front of the familiarity with each other, plus mirror singing into a hair the special closeness that comes brush. Brought up on a back from being twins means that country farm, fifteen miles out onstage their timing is perfect; of Huntly, they were isolated the two voices soar out and cut from other musicians and con­ off at precisely the same moment certs. As Lynda puts it: ‘‘We even in the most exacting song. haven’t learned from other Jools: “ I know exactly what people, we’ve learned from Lynda is going to each other.” But the family do.” Lynda: “ If Jools puts has always been strongly musi­ something into a song — a cal. Lynda: ‘‘Mum’s always ‘ yeah, yeah’ or a ‘boogie, been a closet opera singer and boogie, boogie’ I know Dad’s always sung. If we had a exactly when she’s going to do party at our house we’d always it.” Jools: ‘‘We don’t practise end up singing. Our country much. When we come home music background came from from work we’re too tired. We the farm, because most of the use playing at La Cava (an music we did at home was Auckland coffee bar where the country music.” Jools: ‘‘We Di Cadwallader, Nancy Kiel, I twins play) as an impromptu didn’t put on the record player, jam session. We like the chal­ we’d sing. When we came lenge of going there and not home from school we used to Sandra Co knowing what’s going to hap­ sing every night for two hours, pen to each song. Ages ago we grab the guitar and play. We used to come out in a cold never went to concerts or sweat wondering if we had the dances. We were just home on names of our songs — we used the farm, milking the cows. In LYNDA to paint them on the guitar.” fact, the cows had a lot to do Lynda: ‘‘Now when we go on with our singing. Cows are stage, Jools «turns to me and really into singing.” says ‘What are we going to K do?’ It’s spontaneous.” Even The country background is song writing is often a joint effort. also responsible for Lynda’s And spontaneous. Lynda: ‘‘We unusual skill in yodelling. She were coming home from our pa­ got interested in yodelling after a! rents’ place and as we were driv- she heard old 78s of Australian ingalonginthe van Joolsjust said yodellers of the thirties, Judy ‘White line to Georgia’ and ‘I’ve Holmes and Shirley Thoms. HOMEIV got my hands on the wheel and my ‘‘The first time I heard a yodel wheels on the road. ’ When we got I just sat there engrossed for homeJoolssaid ‘I’lljotthisdown’ about three hours. I played it so she was singing in the bedroom over and over again thinking

24 ‘How do they do that?’ It took ‘I wish I could see my girl me ages to learn to do it and I again I’ve got the boundary practised and practised.” rider blues.’ Altho’ugh not all Jools: ‘‘We used to send her the songs we sing have a dis­ ^bout two miles up the road!” tinctively feminist message we can’t differentiate Lynda: ‘‘It was a bit hectic for never sing about a man. It’s Isicians and being about two years. I’d go to the about a woman or a thing.” neighbours and listen to the re­ The first feminist song was Because, if we sing, cord, then I’d have to come written for International Wo­ |s, and we’re still home and try and learn with no men’s Day 1978. Lynda: “We music. I used to go up the hills had a ring from Di Cadwallader msical lesbians.” around our farm and yodel in who was organising a women’s the hills and the echoes would concert in Dunedin on the day come back.” asking us to sing. So we hop­ ped in the Standard 8 and as After leaving school Lynda we drove along we said ‘We and Jools joined the territorials should write a song for this’. ‘‘to get to the South Island” You can’t get up on Interna­ and eventually found them­ tional Women’s Day and sing selves in Christchurch, a city “ Bpundary Rider Blues” . We Lynda describes as ‘‘a real felt we needed something polit­ music city, a folk city.” In ical to reach women — some­ Christchurch they met up with thing that would get them all singer Nancy Kiel and through together. So we actually wrote her were introduced to the Freedom on the way up in the women’s movement. ‘‘We used car. When we arrived at three to go to the pub on Friday in the morning we woke up night and if Nancy Kiel was Nancy and Di and tried it out singing we’d just sit there and on them.” Jools: “The first goggle. Then we’d rush home songs we wrote were radical and play for hours and hours. feminist songs, they were from She inspired us to play.” Up our lesbian heart. Freedom’s a la and Jools Topp at La Cava. till this time, Lynda and Jools real fighting song, a powerful had been playing other song. We only sing it when people’s music but frequently we’re doing a women’s concert changing the words when they or when there are other women |y interviews were sexist or inappropriate for on stage. We don’t sing it at two lesbian women singers. La Cava because it’s a special Lynda: “ We’ve been changing song for feeling strong. It’s a songs for years. If we sang a real revolutionary song, it JOOLS song and didn’t know the end­ says: ing we’d write an ending our­ We 'll fight for our freedom selves. If we listen to a song and We'll never be wrong think we’d like to do it we’ll We'll just keep on fighting IPP take the song and do it our No matter how long." way.” Jools: “ Qute a lot of the country songs we used to do Another feminist song, Sis­ had lines'in them that we terhood, was written especially didn’t like as lesbians, they for the concert at this year’s ias were a put-down of women or United Women’s Convention. had men as heroes, so we ac­ As Lynda and Jools swing into tually changed the lines. the song’s lilting chorus the DE JAM There’s a song sung by Slim women audiences to whom I Dusty called “ Boundary Rider have seen it performed join in Blues” that was a really enthusiastically. Jools: “ At the chauvinist, sexist song. It says convention a lot of lesbian

25 women didn’t want the concert And it's called sisterhood get across that we’re openly to go on because they think Yes, it's called sisterhood. lesbian, and if anything comes that lesbian women have been of that, then good.” Lynda: giving their energy to Lynda: “ If you have a really radical song, then you’re goin* “ We get heaps of feedback heterosexual women all the from heterosexual women be­ time, pouring it out, then they to threaten women as well as men. A radical lesbian song cause they’re so fascinated by just get kicked in the teeth by two lesbian women up tl^ere heterosexual women. But there will threaten heterosexual women and we don’t want to singing. We want to get are some heterosexual women through to women. We’re not who are going to be on your do that. When we sing Sister­ hood, any woman can respond consciously singing to get side. If we can bring women someone on our side. The together for tive minutes it’s to that song . . .’’ Jools: “ . . . because they know what sis­ reason we’re out there singing better than separating women. is because we're musicians and We play for women whether terhood feels like.’’ To Jools and Lynda les­ we really like singing and if by they be lesbian or heterosex­ chance the women really enjoy ual.” Lynda: “At the conven­ bianism and music are insepar­ able. Lynda: “ Music is the and support us, that’s really tion a lot of heterosexual neat. We can’t differentiate be­ women said that the concert channel through which we convey our lesbianism.’’ Jools: tween being musicians and, brought all the women to­ being lesbians, Jools and I. gether.” “We put into our songs how we feel. All the feminist songs Because, if we sing, we’re still Sisterhood we write are positively lesbians, and we’re still musi­ Bring all the ladies together women-oriented and that is be­ cians. We’re musical les­ Bring 'em all together to he cause we are thinking about bians.’’ strong women when we are writing. Sandra Coney with help from Sandi and Clare. And thanks to We'll give you something We are not thinking about how Jean Volkerling for transcribing worth fighting for bad men ar.e, just positive the tape. We've been fighting for no­ things about women. When All lyrics copyrighted Homemade thing too long we're on stage we’re trying to Jam 1976.

The Computer Revolution — from P.17 lifetime.” Fortunately, there are activists at trade union It is easy to be positive about the new technol­ level who will not let such remarks go unchal­ ogy, but it’s not something that’s just approach­ lenged, women like the FOL’s Sonja Davis, Judy ing. It is here, now. Employers want fewer Reid of the Shop Assistants Union, Vicki Kees- employees, not shorter working weeks, so as to ing of the Auckland Clerical Workers Union. maximise profits. Unless we are active through With union knowledge that technology poses the unions, employers will be the only ones to benefit biggest threat ever to earnings and therefore the from technology. right to live in dignity, negotiations are being We need to ask what kind of technology is demanded that will involve workers in automa­ desirable: in health, for instance, “ high technol­ tion decisions before thay are instituted. Re­ ogy medicine at the moment reinforces the in­ training is becoming an often heard cry. And if terests of doctors and drug companies, with no you are a worker, you should be active in the concentration on prevention, in spite of in­ union serving your workforce, for it does not lie creased bodily knowledge through biofeedback with the interest of management to support you at and body scanners. this time. We also need, a recognition that this technol­ “ It isn’t all gloom.” says Viki Keesing. “ Al- ogy is ours, to claim it. examine it. understand it thoughl know no real change can happen without and apply it to our lives. We need to have semi­ a change in our basic political structure. I can sêe nars on it, workshops at our conferences, ex­ that change occuring simply because workers are change ideas and experiences with women also consumers. Through technology, society elsewhere, and above all. take a common and could use rather than abuse the position of its supportive stand on what place it will have in our workforce. Technology means a degree of flexi­ lives. It's as useful and as dangerous as a sharp bility never before possible, and opens a new knite. And like Diana the Huntress, we should range of options. It is possible, for instance, for know how to handle it before we hang it from our each of us to have several ‘careers’ in one belts. ■ 26 HEALTH NOTES while denying the entry of sperm. we have been able to find out and is DES daughter wins The cap finally developed is made of not available in tablet form from ______victory______a heat moldable thermoplastic rub­ wholesalers. .A friend going over­ ber. Roughly the size of a US dollar seas could maybe bring back a sup­ In a decision that could have far- it can be custom fitted in a 5-10 mi­ ply but be careful not to get lysine reaching consequences for the nute procedure during which an im­ with arginine, a combination some­ pharmaceutical industry, a Bronx pression is made of the cervix using times available, as arginine actually Supreme court jury ruled against alginate, a common impression helps the herpes virus thrive. OOB a drug company and awarded material. A plaster cast is then made also suggests keeping away from ar­ $500,000 to a 25-year-old woman and placed, with a valve-containing ginine rich foods — nuts, seeds, who had developed vaginal cancer blank, in a vacuum casting machine chocolate. because she was exposed in utero to of the kind found in dental labs Lysine is available in bulk pow­ the drug diethylstilbestrol (DES), throughout the world. When cool, der form in New Zealand at a cost of which her mother was given to pre­ the cap retains the exact shape of $9—$10 per kilo. Perhaps women’s vent miscarriage. In 1972 the the cervix for a perfect “fit” . When health centres or groups of similarly woman had a radical hysterectomy, in place the cap is undetectable to afflicted women could invest in a removal of left ovary, appendec­ the wearer or her partner. It does supply of lysine and have it made tomy and upper two-thirds vaginec­ not dislodge during intercourse and into tablet form. For information on tomy. The woman’s original suit it can be left in place indefinitely. where lysine is available and where was dismissed, as have similar suits The cap cleans itself — the flow of to go for tableting write to Broad­ by other affected women, because mucous under the cap keeps the de­ sheet with stamped addressed en­ she could not isolate which com­ vice clean. velope or phone the office. pany, of the many drug companies So far the device has only been which market DES, was responsi­ tested on a small group of women — Mutilating surgery for ble for the drug her mother took. But however, women throughout the her lawyer pursued the case on a world will be eagerly looking for­ healthy women joint enterprise liability theory. The ward to more information about it decision in favour of the woman and its speedy availability. How­ The latest horror devised by male thus holds the entire pharmaceuti­ ever, since the cap is so simple, members of the medical profession cal industry liable for the drug. long-lasting and cheap, one won­ is prophylactic mastectomies. Lilly, the drug company, plans to ders how many obstacles will be put These words mean that some sur­ appeal the decision. An interesting in the way of its wide distribution. geons are removing healthy breasts aside: during the trial the judge Info from Intercom and the Univer­ from women, in case in the future ruled that respected health activists sity of Chicago Reports. they might get breast cancer. Dr Barbara Seaman and Belita Cowan Reuven K. Snyderman. head of could not appear as expert witnes­ Lysine helps herpes plastic and reconstructive surgery ses since neither has an MD degree. ______sufferers______and professor of plastic surgery at Info from Medical World News Rutgers Medical School, suggests A reader of the US feminist prophylactic mastectomy for newspaper Off Our Backs came ac­ women with premalignant lesions, If the cap fits . . . ross a 1978 medical article which cancer in the other breast, or “for A new cervical cap devised by outlined a successful treatment for those who are emotionally crippled Robert Goepp, professor of oral vaginal herpes. She tried it and re­ because of the constant fear of pathology in the University of ported that the sores disappeared in cancer development.” One Michi­ Chicago’s dental department, prom- a couple of days. The treatment gan doctor reports that he has so far ises great things for heterosex- consists of taking 800/1,000 mg of done 122 prophylactic mastec­ ually active women. Asked by his lysine daily till the sores disappear, tomies; 47 women had bilateral Ob/Gyn colleagues why existing followed by a maintenance dose of mastectomies, the rest elective re­ cervical caps persisted in falling off 312—500 mg daily. Lysine is one of moval of a second breast. One doc­ he suggested they be made to fit the the amino acids not produced by the tor is quoted as saying “ I think it’s individual cervix exactly. Drawing body, but it is found in yeast and an approach that’s going to gain on his experience in the making of dairy products. There are no known momentum.” impressions of oral tissues, he set side-effects of lysine. Lysine does After the mastectomy the woman about developing a cervical cap of a not cure herpes but helps the heal­ often has breast reconstruction, a material flexible enough to accom­ ing of the sores and the suppression procedure which itself involves sig­ modate cyclical changes in the cer­ of future attacks. nificant risks. vix, with some sort of valve to per­ Lysine is not available in health Info from Family Practice News and mit the release of menstrual flow food shops in New Zealand as far as Medical World News. 27 oa o te ukad niers no executive. Union Engineer’s Auckland the on woman oe tn t sy wy rm etn ivle i ter rd uin Bt some But union. trade their in involved getting from away shy to tend Women oe ae raig e gon b becig hs bsin o aeo and maledom of bastions these breaching by ground new breaking are women

paving the way for other women to follow. Pam Pugsley talked to WINNIE VERSPAGEN, WINNIE to talked Pugsley Pam follow. to women other for way the paving Photo: Sarah Lewis so sead t h Nw eln Mtr oprto ad only and Corporation Motor Zealand New the at steward shop a RM IIII O AWAN— TAIW TO TIKITIKI FROM 28 oa o action ot woman a Taiwan. though in most workplaces there has been com­ al­ been has affairs there union workplaces trade most in in little though very participate ckland Engineers’ Union, recently represented represented recently Union, Engineers’ ckland Zealand trade unions are rare. In fact, women women fact, In rare. are unions trade Zealand okr’ ofrne o oe ad ot in youth and women for Conference workers’ Winnie, who is shop steward at the New Zealand Zealand New the at steward shop is who Winnie, e Zaad t h egt Itrainl Metal­ International eighth the at Zealand New Motor Corporation, and only woman on the Au­ the on woman only and Corporation, Motor union. a to belonging not to confessed sheepishly vanised when Winnie Verspagen stood up and and up stood Verspagen Winnie when vanised strongly leproached the women who had just just had who women the leproached strongly raset eia fr ufae a ws gal­ was Day Suffrage for seminar Broadsheet £ h e polite, rather studious atmosphere of the the of atmosphere studious rather polite, e h £ Women holding executive positions in New New in positions executive holding Women the social co-ordinator of the Mangere Labour Labour Mangere the of Committee.’’ co-ordinator social the gain votes in union elections. “ My parents were were parents My “ elections. union in votes gain only party that would do something for the work­ the for something do would that party only before them. I believed the Labour Party was the the was Party Labour the believed I them. before themselves for when their children are off their their off are children their when for themselves ing people. I am the secretary of my branch, I’m branch, my of secretary the am I people. ing hands.’’ forward to something else, they should prepare prepare looking should be they should else, Women something to back. forward come to the got or wilderness, the of out coming like break, bush somewhere. You’re shut away, then you’ve you’ve then away, shut You’re somewhere. to bush — extent certain a to Yes, “ children. looking after work, from away years have to women to a disadvantage itwas thought if she I asked child. Labour Party which, she feels, has helped her to to her helped has feels, she which, Party Labour have to come into the work force again. It’s a big a It’s again. force work the into come to have Labour Party supporters and my grandparents grandparents my and supporters Party Labour Winnie Verspagen on the job at the New Zealand Zealand New the at job the on Verspagen Winnie work for several years after having her only only her having after years several for work oo Cr’ M Wligo factory. Wellington Mt Corp’s Motor factory. At 21 she did marry and left full-time full-time left and marry did she 21 At factory. like that. You must work so you’ll be superior to to superior be you’ll so work must You that. like after two years gave it up to work in a clothing clothing a in work to up it gave years two after what you have to do? . . . Luckily I had a Euro­ a had I Luckily . . . do? to have you what on my own. Who wants to get married if that’s that’s if married get to wants Who own. my on e, vn fi’ ny n ortikn. ’’ thinking.’ your in only it’s if even men, pean grandmother. She used to say ‘Never think think ‘Never say to used She grandmother. pean Gisborne, where the Ngati Porou are well-known well-known are Porou Ngati the where Gisborne, married I’d have to be able to run a home totally totally home a run to able be to have I’d married to trade union secretaries, but it is still men who who men still is it but secretaries, union trade to aa. h hd taiinl prnig “My “ upbringing. the on traditional a outspoken had are She women marae. whose tribe a as male trade unionists is also a problem, according according problem, a isalso unionists trade male later she talked to me about her work and beliefs. and work her me about to talked she later mother said to me once that if I wanted to get get to wanted I if that once me to said mother pulsory unionisation since 1936. Apathy among among Apathy 1936. since unionisation pulsory volved in her union, so I introduced myself, and and myself, introduced I so union, her in volved oppor­ good a was seminar the at presence gen’s uiy o e t ko a oa scesul in­ successfully woman a know to get to tunity occupy most executive seats. Winnie Verspa- Verspa- Winnie seats. executive most occupy Winnie has long been an active member of the the of member active an been long has Winnie Winnie was persuaded to train as a nurse, but but nurse, a as train to persuaded was Winnie near inTikitiki home her about Winnie asked I

A national counsellor for the Engineering Women and Youth, held in Taiwan earlier this Union suggested that Winnie stand for the vacant year. She was shocked to discover the working coachworkers’ representative seat on the Auck­ conditions of people she met. ‘‘What they are land executive of the Engineering Union. “ I had fighting for — and I felt quite guilty about this — to write a statement of a hundred words about is only the money for food, a roof over their why I wanted to go on the executive. I don’t heads, mainly just for survival.” In Singapore know how long it took'me to write, not knowing she found the unions government-dominated and too much about writing. I wanted to be on it was unable to obtain any official visits to work­ because it’s one way of thanking the union for places, despite plenty of advance notice. She did what they have given me, and secondly, if see an industrial labour organisation day-care women want equality then they have to stand up nursery with a high standard of facilities for a low and be counted. I believed that was the place to price. But the conditions of the Malaysian be. There are some things regarding women batik-workers working in under-ventilated, which the male executive members are not aware shack-type buildings for very low wages appalled of, and maybe I could help them.” her. She was elected by a wide margin but when Winnie discovered that many people in these standing for another two-year term was narrowly countries suffer from malnutrition simply be­ defeated. However, as the candidate with the cause they do not have enough to live off. Al­ next largest count, she did get on to the executive though trade unions are legal in Malaysia and again, in the special place reserved for that can­ Singapore their operations are very restricted. didate. Why was she beaten? “I believe it’s be­ Thus the example of achievements by workers cause I still have strong feelings that unions through trade union activity in countries like should be run by the workers and should not be New Zealand is very important for the improve­ run by the ‘tops’. The workers should decide ment of workers’ movements overseas. which way their union should go, after all it’s Winnie stresses the need to see the trade union their union fees, it’s their money, so they should movement as an international one. ‘‘It is neces­ have the benefits and the say. There was a certain sary for us to bring to bear the maximum power of section maybe in the ‘tops’ that disapproved of the international solidarity of the world labour my attitude, people who have better jobs and movement. Otherwise we will be isolated and don’t want the workers to know too much. I divided, weak and defenceless, in face of the believe the workers should know all that’s going growing power of international capital multi­ on. I’m pleased to say I still regard myself as a nationals to exploit us separately.” worker. If I get kicked off at least I’ve ac­ Winnie Verspagen’s involvement in trade complished that, that the workers know their union action and in local politics, her concern rights, they know how the union runs, and what for the education and welfare of workers in they can do to strengthen it.” that context and finally her broad international perspective on the position of women and all Has she a special interest in working women’s workers show a logical political development and welfare? ‘‘Yes. I would like to motivate a lot a willingness to act on her principles which many more women, as many as I can.” Recently Win­ women could well imitate. ■ nie attended a WEA course on journalism in order to write more fluently for women when she works, to be able to explain how the union works for them, or can be made to. Winnie firmly be­ lieves that many women are not aware that all the WOMEN’S CAREER working conditions they already enjoy are thê DEVELOPMENT result of union activity. Individual career counselling and group courses As shop steward at the New Zealand Motor in: Corporation at Mount Wellington, she took part Action planning for career progress in the successful negotiations for showers and Exploring new directions subsidised travel for the workers. The stop-work Assertiveness and confidence building Preparing for management meetings she has held to discuss the workers’ complaints have so far occurred in work time Enquiries: Helen Place and with no loss of wages. Iris Barrow Winnie was New Zealand’s only delegate to Applied Psychology Centre Phone 370-888 the International Metalworkers’ Symposium for 29 A HISTORY OF THE WOMEN’S MOVEMENT-PART 5

In the final part of her article on the ideologies of the Women’s Movement PHILLIDA BUNKLE looks at cultural feminism, lesbian separatism and looks at the effect these strands of feminism have had on the women’s movement as a whole.

ideal of the small group. The iden­ be condemned as expressing a de­ The Feminist Dilemma tification with women learned in the sire to participate in the male world * By 1971 radical feminism was ec­ consciousness-raising group was and hence being anti-women. lipsed. On the one hand the liberal the emotional foundation of The emergence of cultural version of consciousness-raising separatism. The core experience separatism in the period about passed into the women’s rights wing was coming to like other women and 1972-74 finally decimated radical of the movement; on the other the hence coming to like being a wo­ feminism. A new concept of sexist pro-women line led to a strategic man. A feminist came to be defined oppression emerged. Femininity impasse because developing a posi­ as a woman-identified-woman. was analysed not as an oppressive tive appreciation of women seemed Once all activities were defined as construct but an oppressed reality. to lead only to an affirmation of trad­ either pro or anti-women, The pro-women idea that the female itional femininity. If criticism of the separatism was sure to follow. The role is imposed upon women is re­ female role involved hostility to belief that being a woman was a jected because it denigrates women women then it is men who must positive good led to a repudiation by suggesting they are victims. The change. The problem is how? The of equality or sexual integration as idea that women are the victims of pro-women line did not seem to the goal of feminism because it en­ oppression is rejected in favour of provide an answer, since the ap­ tailed becoming like men. The only the opposite view of women ac­ preciation of female values does not political strategy consistent with a tively creating their own reality. make women any the less power­ definition of feminism as the asser­ The delineation of the constraints less, and may in practice serve to tion of female values is withdrawal placed upon women gives way to an reinforce the traditional identity for into a separate women’s culture. examination of women’s reality. women. Activity designed to advance wo­ The oppression of women consists Thg dilemma is a real one. How men's status in any other way will in the suppression of this reality and are women to acquire power with­ the denial of its value. The problem out assimilation to the male sex role becomes not the oppressive nature of aggression and competition? In a of women’s role but the denial of its situation of polarised sex roles validity and significance. women are faced with a choice of The central model for women’s either rejecting femininity and seek­ culture is a matriarchy. This idea ing power directly, or affirming was developed by lesbians uncon­ their female identity and reinforcing nected with the women’s movement the very traits that keep them pow­ like Jill Johnston in Lesbian Nation, erless. or Elizabeth Gould Davis in The The radical feminist proposal that First Sex. The symbols of female women gain poVver through the de­ creativity used by the separatists velopment of class solidarity from revolve around the idea of the Great endless consciousness-raising did Mother. The superiority of female not deal with this dilemma. In the values is located in the nurturant early 1970s radical feminism was in­ maternal essence. The matriarchal creasingly cut away by cultural ideal identifies maternity with feminism which appeared to pro­ creativity. While the rest of the vide a more consistent strategy of women's movement tends to 'see withdrawal into a separate “ wo­ creativity and motherhood as alter­ men’s culture” natives if not opposites, the Cultural Feminism separatists identify women’s unique creativity with the maternal princi­ Cultural separatism was an ex­ ple. tension to the whole society of the One of the first statements of this 30 point of view was Jane Alpert’s arti­ cle “ Motherright” . The reassertion of female values is identified with the elevation of maternity. Cur­ rently the most influential statement of this position is Adrienne Rich’s book Of Woman Born. The difference between the separatist and other feminist posi­ tions is illustrated if Rich’s assess­ ment of the housewife/mother role is compared to the assessment of the same institution in Friedan’s women’s rights book, The Feminine Mystique, Firestone’s radical feminist The Dialectic of Sex, or Oakley’s marxist Housewife. All ex­ cept Rich see the role of housewife/mother as oppressive; they all stress the economic depen­ The Muses Theatre Group — 1977. dence it entails and identify the feminist goal with the abolition of natural childbirth was a right wing source of power. The core of sexism the role. By contrast, as the title romanticisation designed to sell suggests, Of Woman Born, stresses is the savage suppression of this motherhood. They both saw the power by men. The motive of this is nurturance/child bearing as the right to anesthesia in childbirth as a prime female reality and sees the male jealousy of the genuine indwel­ great leap forward for women. ling creativity of women. Tradi­ problem not in economic depen­ Separatists on the other hand see dence but in the suppression of the tional psychological theories of anesthesia as a complete denial of women’s inferiority have been real creativity of women by envious the reality of women’s experience men unable to bear the truth of their stood on their head, to suggest that and identify it not with women’s male suppression of feeling and female nascency. Rich believes that freedom but with the male usurpa­ what’s wrong with the institution of emotional responsiveness.is a tion of childbirth. Separatists iden­ pathological condition that has its motherhood is its powerlessness. tify male control of childbirth as the While other feminists want to roots in envy and fear of female historical ,crux of the denial of power, particularly her lifegiving abolish the role. Rich wants a reas­ women’s reality and value. sertion of its special value. force. This idea that the male Separatists tend to see the female achievement is compensatory in na­ Feminist separatists have then a reproductive energy as women’s quite different assessment of the ture turns the tables on theories of traditional role ôf women from the rest of the women’s movement. Im­ plicitly they identify the feminist counterculture with women’s tradi­ tional domestic sub-culture. Domesticity is seen as an area of female values and feminine solidar­ ity. This should make us sceptical, but Of Woman Born has proved very popular. Of Woman Born exp­ lains women’s dissatisfaction, while reasserting what women feel to be the unique value of their experi­ ence. Many women find this more sympathetic than the implied re­ proof of radical feminism, that the value of motherhood was a delu­ sion. The cultural separatists’ view has gained great support from the Photo: Margot Nash Photo: Sandra Coney natural childbirth movement. Fires­ tone and Friedan assumed that Lesbian Nation banner at 1975 United Women’s Convention

31 female inferiority or inadequacy. telligible ; but then ecstatic feminism Ultimately the lesbian separatist On this model the male personality is bound to be hard if you are stuck position depends upon the belief is seen as perverted or at least de­ in the old critical/controllirig head that men and women are inherently viant. space of heterosexual logic. different. Cultural feminists believe The purpose of construing a wo­ in the superiority of female values men’s culture is to create an alterna­ Lesbian Separatism but are uncertain if these are innate tive reality that completely rejects Most of the theoretical input for or derive from the nurturant role. the symbolism of contemporary cul­ cultural feminism has come from Lesbians not only believe in the ture because it is intrinsically male lesbians like Rich or Daly. It is not superiority of female values but oriented. Within women’s culture yet clear if cultural feminism and maintain that this is grounded in the female creativity suppressed by lesbian separatism will merge com­ innate inferiority of men. male dominance, can be realised in pletely in an undifferentiated The question of innate charac­ the creation of a female oriented feminine separatism. At the mo­ teristics is the major topic of current system of symbolic communica­ ment there are two ideas which dif­ debate. The answer to this question tion. For example, some separatists ferentiate the lesbian position. will determine whether cultural such as Mary Daly, in Beyond God The rest of the women’s move­ feminism merges completely with the Father, reject Christianity as ment has seen sexual preference as the lesbian movement. At the mo­ male supremacist and develop the a personal issue, but lesbians have ment the belief in sex specific cogni­ workship of a female spirit, vari­ extended the idea of the personal as tion differentiates the lesbian ously designated the Ancient God­ political to a unique analysis of sex­ separatists from the rest of the wo­ dess, the Great Earth Mother, or uality that is central to their view of men’s liberation movement. If the witches or harpies. politics. Lesbian separatists see socialisation argument is aban­ By creating an alternative sym­ sexual dependence as the tie that doned in favour of a view of innately bolic structure, women’s culture binds the sexist system together. different male and female essences makes us dramatically aware of just The central dynamic of male then separatism is inevitable. how permeated our current lan­ supremacy is sex itself because the For lesbians the essential differ­ guage is with the symbols of male main motive for the suppression of ences between men and women go supremacy. Separatism locates the women is to obtain her sexual ser­ beyond reproductive roles. Men problem of sexism in language and vices. As an institution heterosex­ and women differ in their thought ultimately our very conceptual sys­ ual intercourse has been defined by processes. Female cognition is tem itself. If sexism is fundamental male needs. Lesbians use evidence superior because it integrates emo­ to our thought processes, then not from studies like the Hite Report to tional and intellectual perception. only is compromise or integration a show how little satisfaction women The cult of emotionless objectivity chimera, but female creativity is the get from intercourse a,nd how much is responsible for men’s destruc­ only form of really radical political more easily women derive satisfac­ tiveness. Salvation depends upon activity. But when the creative ar­ tion from clitoral stimulation to the assertion of the integrative con­ tist becomes the only authentic re­ suggest that sexual needs are un­ sciousness of women. The superior­ volutionary, feminism is in danger equal. Men need women for their ity of female values is then a func­ of becoming an esoteric faith. sexual satisfacLjn but women do tion of females’ cognitive superior­ not need men. They then imply that ity. Separatists believe that these The Creation of the primary motive for female op­ superior modes of perception are “ Women’s Culture” as a pression is men’s sexual need; rooted in biology. Increasingly they Utopian Project women do not need men, but have cite the evidence for the centrality Visionary politics tend to be to be convinced that they do. Men, of the woman as mother in human stronger on inspiration than con­ therefore, seek to distort the female evolution to support this view of crete change. The institutional form experience of herself and to deny genetic differences. In this view appropriate to this feminist culture her own sexuality. Men repress women as Mighty Mother was cent­ is as yet unspecified. The brutal female sexuality making her the ral to development of mankind and honesty of the radical feminist’s self exclusive sexual property of indi­ will once again determine if it sur­ examination has given way to a vidual males to ensure constant av­ vives. search for the source of creative vis­ ailability of sexual services. The To older feminists the Mighty ion within the self., In 1968 the fight distortion of female reality is moti­ Mother may sound uncomfortably was over the place of feelings in vated by this fear that women will close to the place where it all began. politics. In 1978 it is over the place discover their lack of need for men, In the ten years from 1968-1978 of reason. Once the old language of and men’s consequent fear of feminist ideology has come full cir­ public communication has been re­ female solidarity. The assertion of cle. Sexism used to be the belief that pudiated ecstasy becomes the only female sexuality is then seen as in women and men were inherently test of radicalism. itself a release from sexist oppres­ different, now it is the view that Reading Mary Daly’s Gyn/ sion. Sex without men becomes the they are the same. In the 1960’s ecology, it sometimes seems to me foremost radical activity and the blacks began by demanding equal­ that radical has come to equal unin­ key strategy for feminism.. ity, then came to assert that black is

32 beautiful, and finally that the differ­ and, therefore, male-identified. To Anne Coury comments on Phil- ent experience of blacks must be be male-identified is to be the lid a’s discussion of lesbian expressed politically in black spokesperson for the “enemy” and separatism. Anne is a lesbian nationalism. Similarly feminists as­ rtoihing is too bad for him. feminist from Wellington serted initially that women wanted This is a problem with any pas­ equality with men, then that being sionately held belief system. Strife she notes that her article is not female was a positive good, and fi­ has persistently bedevilled the left written on behalf of lesbians in nally that women’s inherently diffe­ with its passionate interest in ideol­ Wellington but presents her rent being should find expression in ogy. But in feminism it has led to a own views. a separate lesbian nation. paralysing contradiction. Lesbians claim, with some jus­ It s luirJ to know where to be yin tice, that they now dominate the Contradictions within when writing about Phillida Bunk- feminist movement. The emergence Feminism le's article on lesbian separatism. One of the main problems is having of these ideas decimated radical The feminist position was based feminism, and most radical feminist no idea where she got her ideas fundamentally on respect for the ac­ from (there are no quotations or re­ groups ceased to exist. Most tual experience of women. women who have not become les­ ferences), and there are no Indica­ Feminism took off from the asser­ tions that she actually talked with bians have dropped out of the active tion of the legitimacy of each wo­ movement. Others seeking effec­ any lesbian separatists. So it is very man’s experience and the idea of a difficult to work out if most of the tive organisation have turned to community of mutual respect. The women’s rights. Marxism is being statements are her own beliefs or if political practice was based primar­ she is in fact quoting a group. Con­ revitalised by fern usts turning to it ily on listening to women and treat­ in search of a ‘ harder” political sequently, criticisms that I might ing their perceptions as valuable. level at Bankle's statements might strategy. Some of the originators While separatists extend this re­ tried to revive Redstockings to con­ not be her statements at all, but / spect to “ordinary” women, can’t help that. front these issues, but there has feminists who question their been hardly any other direct debate I suppose Bankle might be rather analysis are seen as hostile, male- surprised that a lesbian separatist is on these issues. There are a number identified, and the “enemy” . This of difficulties feminists have in de­ actually going to argue with her - means that not only the content of after all, she cleverly tried to defend bating the separatist issues and it is the questioners’ reservations is necessary to recognise these if herself by saying that it's impossi­ dismissed but they are treated as ble to argue with lesbian separatists dialogue is to begin. The separatist enemies and, therefore, contempti­ belief in intrinsically different cog­ because we think intellectual de­ ble. In particular this has led to the bate is a male, and therefore bad, nitive styles frustrates discussion personal abuse of any feminist who because intellectual argument is thing. (However previously she'd displayed particular skill, since also said that lesbians believe that identified as a male activity. To try most skills can be seen as male- and engage lesbians in argument is, identified. The result has been an “female cognition is superior be­ therefore, only to reveal one’s de­ cause it integrates emotional and insidious bullying of activists of intellectual perception. ") ficiencies as a woman. It indicates every variety. only that one has had one’s head so My main criticism of Bankle's ar­ far colonised by men as to adopt The original political creativity of ticle on a political level is that she male modes of cognition. The idea the movement came out of honesty assumes (in typically heterosexual that reason can provide a guide to as a tactic. The end of mutual re­ fashion) that sex is the only basis of belief is ridiculed as the quintessen- spect has produced a new feminist lesbianism and that is all we are tially male belief. Argument is, conformity that threatens to destroy concerned about. She implies that therefore, seen as a futile and prob­ feminism’s dynamic development. we have built up a complicated ably hostile exercise. There are now thoughts that must rationale and justification for our not be thought, issues that cannot “sexual preference,’' which we call Most attempts at dialogue end be raised, experiences that cannot lesbian separatism. This completely only in accusations of being pro or be examined. Instead of being a trivia Uses our experiences and our anti-woman. The substitution of place for honest exploration the politics., She also reduces “the labelling for debate has been pre­ feminist movement has become an (\entral dynamic o f male supre­ sent from the very beginning of the arena of judgment. It would be macy'' to “sex itself," because she feminist revival but has slowly be­ ironic if feminism became; another says the “main motive for the, sup­ come chronic. The strategy of jud­ thing to fail at; just something else to pression of women is to engage her ging everything as either pro or feel secretly inadequate about. sexual services." This misun­ anti-women has been very destruc­ The feminist movement has had derstands the whole complicated tive, especially of the aim of abolish­ major public impact on the image of patriarchal system -men want /need ing sex roles. Those who do not women and has changed millions of women not only for their sexual ser­ agree completely with the separatist lives, yet it is in organisational and vices, but also to bear and rear their position are seen as anti-women ideological disarray. ■ children, to be their housekeepers 33 and slaves, and to listen, bolster heads to complete us-we have it all their egos and be responsible for the to begin with. In her analysis, Kathleen Johnson comments emotions that women can't express Bunkle goes along with the usual on Phillida Bunkle’s discussion theipselves. male, academic ways o f looking at of cultural feminism. To say that “sex without men be­ things - as eitherjor, blacklwhite, The image of a cultural feminist comes the foremost radical activity pro I anti women, you think or feel seems to be of someone who retires and the key strategy for feminism’’ . . . rather than being in process, or to the country and works on setting also denies our political beliefs and change or growth. up an alternative wimmin's culture our political activity. Of course sex At the end of her article, Bunkle without having any direct impact on without men (or more positively, sex seems to have become very defen­ the patriarchy - sort of useful but with women or by yourself) is radi­ sive, and to have invented a lesbian not the real battle. If the fighting cal and dikey strategy, but to a cer­ separatist line that she feels feminists manage to tear the pat­ tain extent it doesn’t matter who threatened by. Funny how it used to riarchy down, then the cultural you have sex with if that’s all you be, and still frequently is, les­ feminists will come in handy to fill do. Certainly the patriarchy would bianism that cannot be thought ab­ the vacuum. totter if women withdrew their sex­ out, the issue that cannot be raised, I find I cannot entirely agree with ual services from men, but it will the experience that cannot be this view. Theory is important to a only crash when all women with­ examined. The rest of the women’s movement. We need a vision of the draw all their services from men, movement (heterosexuals) of sort of future we want to create so and support other women. By the course love to think that sexual pre­ that we can decide what we should way, men aren’t going to sit back ference (lesbianism) is a personal support, what we should protest and let women withdraw - they’ll issue (keep it to the bedroom), and and what we should change. Such a use any means to keep us in their when it does start to be political and vision tells us whether we as place. out front, how they panic and be­ feminists should support or oppose I was bemused to see that it come hysterical. Actually I wish Regional Development or the seems to be a lesbian idea that heterosexuality was just a personal Clutha dam. women and men are inherently dif­ issue, but no, we have it thrust at us Perhaps feminism can best be ferent. I would have thought that all the time from the everpresent seen as a process of exploration was one of the few ideas that we sexism and heterosexism in all in­ rather than as having arrived shared with heterosexuals and stitutions to the advertising, to our somewhere. Patriarchy is more a others of their kind, i.e. that there upbringing, to every aspect of our set o f basic assumptions than a sys­ are inherent biological differences. lives. tem o f beliefs (such as feudalism or As for the “question o f innate Perhaps Bunkle’s statement that capitalism), so feminism is wimmin characteristics (being) the major “sexism used to be the belief that exploring alternatives to the pat­ topic of current debate” - women and men were inherently dif­ riarchal world view and then bring­ WHERE? AMONG WHO? Cer­ ferent, now it is the view that they ing about change. Because the na­ tainty not among any of the lesbian are the same’’ sums up even better ture of the changes sought are so separatists that I know. It may oc­ than I could do, that her under­ radical, usual assumptions about casionally come up in conversation, standing of sexism and of feminist revolutions just don’t apply. We are and we disagree among ourselves - politics is totally inadequate, con­ trying to change everything - we all accept the powerful role that fused and misleading. Sexism is ethics, laws, language, group socialisation plays - we do wonder simply the fact that all men oppress dynamics . . . the list is all- if men are inherently inferior, all women in every aspect of our inclusive. We are seeking long term stunted mutants - and some of us lives. change, to alleviate the suffering of think they are and others don't Lesbian separatism is a strategy ourselves and our sisters now; and (yet). Many lesbians do believe that for some, a permanent lifestyle for to rethink the very tools we must use women and their values are others, a conscious political deci­ for these tasks. superior, but that doesn’t necessar­ sion to identify with and support The very diversity of the wim­ ily mean , that we think this is women (i.e. to withdraw as many min's movement is its strength. “rooted in biology,’’ and even if' services as possible from men, tem­ Every facet of the patriarchy needs lesbian separatists do believe that porarily or permanently). attacking, analysing and the. alter­ women and men think differently (or We are women, we are emo­ natives explored. The first feminists as Bunkle puts it, have “intrinsi­ tional, we feel, we think, we reason gave up the radical elements of their cally different cognitive styles’’) (not in male linear fashion or in cause in the hopes of gaining re­ then how come it's assumed we dichotomies), we argue, we debate, forms, and we must take care the think that reason and logic are male we listen, we share, we fight (and patriarchy doesn't persuade us into prerogatives. As Bunkle (and I) said not only with each other), and we the same mistake. Political reforms before, women combine the emo­ love each other. can and will be absorbed into the tional and the intellectual - to bril­ How dare Phillida Bunkle reduce patriarchal world view unless they liant effect - we are whole, com­ this to such a shallow, negative are matched by a dawning wim­ plete, we don’t need men or their thing as “sex without men.” ■ min's consciousness. 34 Some wimmin are looking at the view is the hierarchic concept of the obviously confused). past and rediscovering our history world with god as the inescapable There is nothing intrinisically be­ which male historians have been despot in the sky and alt o f creation littling about being emotional or carefully concealing from us. ranked in descending order - a di­ rearing children, it’s just that we Through that history we have also vinely ordained pecking order, live in a culture which condemns rediscovered the ancient worship of which gives men the excuse to rape feelings and which puts children the Goddess, and this has greatly and plunder alt they consider and their careers (usually wimmin) aided modern wimmin seeking to ranked below them: wimmin, into ghettoes reclaim our spirituality from relig­ forests, the oceans, the land. The weapons o f cultural feminism ions like Christianity which are bas­ The anarchic world view is based are the arts: literature (both fiction tions of patriarchy. Learning our on recognizing the interconnected­ and non-fiction) music, drama, the own history is important. It helps ness of all things. We treat each visual arts, jokes. Humour has al­ expose the falsity o f the patriarchal other and the environment with re­ ways been a weapon used against propaganda, gives wimmin possible spect, taking no more than we need wimmin, now wimmin are using it to models for the future, provides us and sharing what we have with our validate themselves (A womon with ammunition and helps built up sisters. Conserving not destroying needs a man like a fish needs a bicy­ a positive womon identity. in the knowledge that if we respect cle). Like jokes, music and art have Other wimmin have been looking nature, she will respect us. been a mate preserve for centuries. at language. Words are basic to Using dualism, linearity and Feminists today are reclaiming the ‘thinking; it is almost impossible to hierarchy, the patriarchy has sex- power of music. They are printing think o f a concept if we have no linked various jobs and character pictures from a femelle perspective word for it. Therefore it is a basic traits and then straight-jacketed and writing poems about femelle part o ffeminism that we form new people to fit them. This system is not thoughts and concerns. This re­ concepts then find the words to ex­ only stupid but suicidal. (Men are claiming o f the arts is both a means press them. One of the best-known welcome to kill themselves off if of exploration and a means of examples o f this is the introduction they like. What I object to is their communication. Feminist writers, o f the word “sexism ” into our insistence on taking the rest o f the artists and performers can everyday speech. world with them). Turning wimmin radicalise both by giving informa­ Exploring language exposes the into honorary men only changes tion and by giving expression to the basic philosophy of patriarchy, and them from victim to oppressor with­ way wimmin see and feel. Wimmin it is here cultural feminism makes out altering the patriarchy in any can sing of their anger and hurt one o f its biggest contributions. way. Femelle-identified wimmin are where they could not talk about it. Three philosophical concepts seem rejecting both the stereotype o f Music, art and poetry can give basic and feminism has built up al­ womon as victim and the alternative validation to a womon s experience ternatives to each.- o f womon as male oppressor in and support for her revolt against Dualism divides everything into favour o f seeing wimmin as human the systematic oppression she adversaries and pits men against (a point on which Phillida Bunkle is faces, m wimmin, them against us, animate against inanimate, true against false. It is almost impossible in En­ glish to express a multifaceted idea. Try it. To free ourselves wimmin need to find words and images to vroMEW s t u r n s express the complexity of life and TERM 1 1980 issues. We could perhaps talk about Women’s Studies an issue being rainbowed, rather 8 weekly sessions Fee: $5 Women’s Studies Tutors’ Group than black and white (or shades of Commencing Tuesday 5 March, Convenor: Claire-Louise McCurdy gre$). * 7.30p.m.— 9.30p.m. Anyone interested please get in touch In the linear world view, the line At Women’s Health Centre, 63 Ponsonby with: Road. Claire-Louise McCurdy begins with birth and ends with 25 Wiremu Street, death. Both are seen as arbitrary, Balmoral, Auckland 3. ITutor: Claire-Louise McCurdy unconnected events. In the linear Self-Defence for Women Telephone: 605-774 view we can progress towards per­ 8 weekly sessions Fee: $5 fection, an ideal state where all Commencing Thursday 14 February, For further information contact: striving ceases. Wimmin are return­ 1p.m.— 3p.m. W.E.A., 21 Princes Street, Auckland 1. ing to the cyclical world view where At Outreach, 1 Ponsonby Road, Phone: 372-030 people, ideas, societies and the sea­ Tutor: Sue Lytollis sons are seen as being born, grow­ ing, maturing, declining and dying to be reborn or replaced. Connected closely to this linear

35 COLOURED CUT OUTS Kô

76°F shade temperature. Leavers’ Day 1957. a yearly tradition at the Convent of Our one of the schoolgirls dawdled behind, beneath Australian Immaculate Virgin Mary for Fifth Formers about to sit their invented blue sky. young summer sun reflected off The Hall’s Leaving Exams, traditionally privileged — new white dresses, white wall onto her back and off the Convent’s red gravel drive flower gifts pinned in their hair; traditionally emotional — warming up her stockinged legs, a breeze blew tastes of crying through their last singing of the School Song in The honeysuckle gardenia clover sea-spray; brought sounds of Chapel. bees and car engines mixed together like weekend beach she went to join her First Form in The Hall, squeezed past noise, she dazed, across the drive, over at Our Immaculate friends’ greetings to the empty chair saved for her; then doubt: Virgin Mary’s Grotto — at Her stone cool shell at matted green have to sit down for a long time tunic might get damp patch fernery protecting Her and Her perpetually lighted glass lan­ from pants and can't put pinafore on>top to cover it tern by Her marble feet, the rest of the School — classes nuns tomorrow, girls, in honour of Leavers’ Day, no pinafores lay-teachers as well as mothers and some fathers of Leavers — are to be worn over tunics. seated itself inside The Hall, her underpants felt wet. that’s don’t sit on tunic sit straight onto seat with pants but so why she’d stayed outside but forgot scuffing pebbles and nobody’ll see watching ants, remembered her friends would be saving her a flip the back of your skirt out, discreetly, using both place next to them from where they’d watch the Leavers’ final hands, immediately prior to placing your posterior on performances of drama and gratitude. your chair.

36 bent forwards, tunic skirt pegged up under her chin she used might not. sounds she knew came out of their kitchen, her both hands to investigate wetness she didn’t understand mother’s back was to her and she stooped, in her half-apron, couldn’t see. down in the basement toilets, a moist mark left over their newspaper-covered sink peeling potatoes and drop­ audibly — like ripping off a bandaid — on the blue vinyl on ping them one by one under the cold running tap. their kettle which she’d sat had alarmed her to go away by herself once boiled, their cat prowled her mother’s ankles for food, her more while everybody else crushed into The Hall aisle in an­ baby sister clawed up and down their back doorstep. ticipation of the Leavers’ party, her royal-blue bloomers were where’re your sisters? sopping wet: could almost wring them out better taKe them coming, I left early. off. wiped between her legs: ooo-waah the toiletpaper’s gone you ought all to stay together, make me tea, will you, pink M a rg a re t. “ooo-waah ooo-waah ooo-waah m u m m y ? a man fell down the sewer w h a t? he pulled the chain guess what? and up he came what? I've no time now for games. in a chocolate aeroplane” the mother didn’t turn to her daughter who talked about her second piece seemed normal, third dry. desperate not to miss day at School until she heard, with urns & ahs, how the toilet- any of the party or be missed, she pulled her underpants back paper had gone pink, stopped her peeling, rested the weight on stuffing squares of the horrid opaque toiletpaper — stiff of her hands on the sink, slowly, then stared at her daughter in nonabsorbent stuff like the lunchpaper her mother wrapped a way her daughter had never seen before — with fright and her sandwiches in — inside them wishing she’d had her hanky dislike in her eyes with her. go and change out of your uniform, I'll come in a the toiletpaper scratched and crackled and she reached The m inute. Lunchroom walking a bit the same as toddlers do when more than half an hour later her Auntie Grace, brown paper- they’ve dirtied themselves, caught up to the shrill queue bag bundle tucked under one armpit, intruded into her bed­ exploding into the party of laminex tables laden with goodies, room. into her game of sorting scraps — collection of col­ every girl had had to bring something, which was now boasted oured cutouts/pretty paper pictures — while sprawled across about ignored or denied on comparison with what others had the bed brought, piled her plate with:— 4 cocktail frankfurts and 2 your mother tired, busy. I’m here to help, sausage rolls (kept warm by the nuns) rolling in tomato sauce; te ll me. a tiny triangle of crustless white bread spread with cold her niece silently refused, furious with her aunt for reminding scrambled egg and finely chopped parsley; a hot fruit mince- her, furious with her mother for sending someone else ' pie (made by .the mother who was expert at it); handful of big girl now. puberty, menstruation/period/monthly Smith’s chips (bought at a shop by a weary mother of 7); 1 red bleeding/"the curse”/“george". every 28 days. and 1 green jelly in orange-peel boats; a pink iced cupcake tried not to hear, stroked silver sparkles on a basket of pink sprinkled with little silver balls; piece of passionfruit pavlova roses: after Auntie Grace leaves will go nextdoor and swap (made by a mother wanting to impress other mothers); choco­ some scraps with Julie late crackles (some children had made them themselves). sanitary napkin/towel. Modess/Kotex pad. belt, your she abandoned her paperplate on a table corner hardly having m other w ill buy you your own but for the minute you can eaten anything, near tears, had to leave, alone again, and her use this one of hers, that bit goes here, the other there, friends probably wouldn’t even notice she’d gone, wet elastic like this. so. think you can do it yourself? cut into her legs and the toiletpaper had gone soggy chaffing shrugged, shook her head stinging her skin, not waiting to change it for some dry pieces don't be a silly girl, go into the bathroom and put one she collected her blazer hat gloves schoolcase from her locker on. hurry up now. and sneaked through the side gate in the Convent’s wall. it was white, oblong, reached as far as her elbow when she sat upstairs on the green double-decker bus, rigid, by the pulled it out of its green & white packet from inside the brown window in the big warm brown seat right at the back by the paperbag and held it up by a comer between her right thumb stairs, her schoolcase spread out next to her. when she stood and forefinger— a cotton-wool like object with a cotton-gauze up there d be nobody behind or beside her to comment on the like covering, with ends extending from the cotton-gauze stuff wet left on the brown seat. one being long and tapered the other shorter and broad, and a blue thread ran down the length of one side: had Auntie Grace MEG said the blue thread should be worn underneath? from her schoolcase dumped inside her bedroom their kitchen she heard snatches of her mother and aunt quar­ hat on bed relling gloves shoved into pockets of blazer ... should've been told before . .. couldn t imagine doing anything other than going to her . . . o n ly 7 7... only a child ... I was at least 14 ... mother, but she hung about their dim hallway which cqt their she’d have run outside if it’d been possible without being house in two, separating off all the rooms, fingering round and caught, frummaged for that other thing in the brown paper- round some tear in the wallpaper, kicking one of her shoes bag: dried bloodstains! it fell onto the tiled floor, a narrow belt against the skirting board, listening, her mouth and teeth of false-flesh elastic — 2 tiny gold safetypins dangling from 2 clamped shut as if to seal in a bad taste; her mind too, though satin-like ribbons sewn onto 2 small squares of satin-like an image of red jelly translucent in an orange-peel on a material attached to 2 elastic V-shapes hanging from its elas­ paperplate escaped, it was the unknown yet suspected which tic waistband frightened her. whispering hints circulating in the air — like . . . nobody ever told me anything . . . when climbing into a dentist’s chair or walking into a class­ she stood where she always stood with her pants round her room late or entering a confessional box — and she would knees and dress lifted, in front of their open toilet as if she was never let-herself think of what might happen in the hope that it going to sit on it. pulled the belt up to her waist; pickedup the

37 white object but wasn’t able to pin it on while holding her a small clot of blood rose to the surface of her bath water, and dress in her other hand; held her dress up under her chin but drifted, she jumped out, without having used the soap wasn’t able to see or reach to pin the back and anyway didn’t shouldn’t take a bath when you have it know which end should go at the front and which at the back, shouldn't wash your hair when you have it ripped the whole contraption off, flung it into the bath, sat on shouldn’t swim the toilet seat staring at the plughole, one of her sisters started don't catch a cold banging on the bathroom door to get in so she laid it all out on don’t run about the tiled floor, her mother’s bloodstained belt in a circle don't lift heavy things around the white object, rolled up each end and pinned them or hit girls in the stomach straight onto the 2 small squares of satin-like material forget­ w h y n o t? ting the purpose of the ribbons; took her pants off; stepped b e c a u s e into the middle of the circle and pulled the thing on; then her because what? pants back on top. made herself as scarce as possible for the just because. rest of the afternoon. what’s wrong with you Margaret it’s your mess, why on AT SCHOOL next day earth expect me to do it for you? when I was your age we she didn’t tell her friends had to wear rags, same ones every month, had to boil none of them had it them, the stink! find somewhere to dry them so no­ at least they’d never said body' d see. they were always stained, those rags. nor the nuns. a pair of white Bond’s Cottontail underpants her daughter those whisperings/giggles/horrified glances might be turned couldn’t clean was wrapped in newspaper and hidden against herself, before, it’d been a suspicion a secret even a amongst the rubbish in their dustbin. sin they’d guessed at but which only happened to other people other older girls, not something that could happen to them­ mustn’t use so many Margaret, they're expensive. 2 a selves. during playlunch she hid without telling her friends day's enough, otherwise you'll have to pay for them why or where yourself with your own pocketmoney. - ydu in here, Meg? everytime she’d gone to the toilet her daughter had changed wonder where she went? her Modess not dreaming she was meant to put a bloody one Meg Meg Me-e-eg? back on. can't find her, where'd she go? Me-e-e-eg? whafs the matter? you're not to throw it in there. it was that lumpy thing between her legs underneath her 'her father discovered their toilet was blocked, humiliating his suspender belt and stockings covered by school bloomers daughter by letting her know he knew about her condition, but petticoat tunic pinafore that stopped her from joining in their there was no wastepaper basket no old paperbags or news­ games. paper; if covered in toilet-paper it was still easy to see what it was and she wouldn’t carry it out of their bathroom like that; Margaret Mary Neal put her hand up in class wasn’t going to hide a used one in her clothes as she did a may I be excused please? clean one. torn lengthways, only the fine cotton-gauze stuff and discovered blood, real red blood not watery pink liquid, came off so she pulled it apart with physical force — 1 bit, 2 pouring out of herself onto the Modess which had lost its bits, 3 bits and more — and flushed them separately down the shape fitting against her crotch, and spilling over into her toilet waiting to make sure none came back again. pants, she retched, dropped it into the toilet bowl being care­ ful not to touch any blood and watched the water turn red. then realised she didn’t have another one with her, hadn't y o u lo o k ye llo w , have a c u p o f h o t tea, i t ’ll d o yo u g o o d . thought to bring one to School and no use telling Mother the parents forgot their firstborn child didn’t drink tea. either as she wouldn’t have one anyway, had to go home, COUNTED how many plaster dots weaved among the plaster before any blood showed through her tunic or her friends roses on her bedroom ceiling, though she never got right wanted to know what was the matter at lunchtime, so she round before they’d blur together and she’d have to begin complained of very bad stomach ache and was sent home in a again, tired by that she painted — red roses green leaves taxi but refused to take a sister with her because she wasn’t brown dots/pink dots blue roses purple leaves/black leaves allowed to let any of her sisters find out. gold dots silver roses, or every dot a different colour which THE GIRL almost floated, steaming water lapping around her took much longer to fantasize and remember, from their pageboy haircut, at School they told her she was so skinny she kitchen their wireless played ought to take her bath in a testtube so as not to drain down the "O-o-o-o-oh, YES! plughole, she stretched her proud suntanned limbs till her I'm the GREAT toes just touched the end of their bath, smiled at what she Pre-e-ten-DER called her baby-white skin — her torso shaded into the shape Pretending that you're still around . . ■" of her swimming costume by the sun — she was unsure she’d first heard that song in the School playground squashed though of her nipples which had begun to sting when hit by amongst older girls who had smuggled in a new transistor ocean waves in the surf wireless under one of their pinafores. Mag felt isolated, some­ " m ilk m ilk thing like when she swam underwater and sounds sights sen­ sations filtering through the sea to her were distorted, unfamil­ le m o n a d e round the corner iar. couldn’t get comfortable in her bed. pain in waves broke chocolate made" beneath her belly-button; two fists ground into the small of her once when she was about 7 her mother had chased her round back, she twisted & turned till, lying on her side with knees the house and washed her mouth out with soap for saying that. clasped tight to her chest the somersaulting inside her body

38 eased for awhile, stayed perfectly still, gazed at her room she for her to go to School, he didn’t look at her blood, his cool shared with 2 sisters:— their double bunk opposite; ward­ plump white hands pressed her forehead pulse heart stomach robe’s door hanging off its bottom hinge; clothes on a chair, does it hurt there? there? how about here? the floor; chest-of-drawers they used for climbing out their outside in their hallway he muttered to her mother window scattered with its low-tide treasures — mermaid . . . too young . . . looks pale . . . tonic . . . shells, Chinese fingernails, cuttlefish for somebody’s parrot, his patient lay in bed rubbing a hole into the wall next to her driftwood looking like a witch on a broomstick — jars of pillow as deep and wide as her middle finger, for 2 weeks. tadpoles, marbles; china animals; and, strewn from under­ neath their beds various broken dolls, deflated rubber surf GROWING UP GUIDE FOR GIRLS floats, tennis rackets, every Sunday after Mass their father told a colourless-green booklet them to tidy up. like those on sale at Church near the Holy Water Tricia and Liz and Megan and Helen, home from School, or those the nuns handed round The Lunchroom on rainy clung beside their eldest sister’s bed bouncing their baby days. sister on top of her. she clutched her bedclothes to her chin her daughter didn’t want it, bored by it, suspicious of it, re­ afraid ashamed her sisters would guess something funny was fused to touch it. it disappeared inside her pillowcase after her wrong, begged them to leave her alone mother went out of her room having left it lying on her what's the matter? bedspread, unopened for ages stomach ache have you read that book I gave you yet Margaret? if her sisters were around she hid her Modess inside her n o t m u c h . pillowcase, both clean and used ones, changed furtively in you must, it’s for your own good you know. bed when they weren't watching, didn’t dare go to the old photos of older girls in old-fashioned clothes; drawings/ bathroom with one because they'd be sure to notice diagrams she wasn’t able to relate to herself, identify with her body; sickly talk; words she had no idea of — menstrual cycle mornings she put off going to the toilet until everyone had left ovulation fallopian tubes uterus lining menses cervix vagina the house — father for work, sisters to School, mother some­ vulva hymen pudenda private parts — nor would for years; where. yet even then concealed her red-wet pyjama pants with charts of the days and the months, shrank from it, could do dressing-gown while still in bed. in the bathroom last night’s without all that, and it ended up buried beneath underclothes Modess was stuck to her crotch, her nose revolted against a at the back Of a drawer where it would stay till her child’s room stale smell which she vaguely associated with crowded buses became a young woman’s room when it would be burnt in on hot days and as coming from her mother sometimes, and their barbeque in their backgarden. which made her picture raw cat’s meat in the sun on their back a cousin came. Meg’s very favourite exciting cousin Di, The doorstep, once, she tried to stop the smell by sprinkling tal­ Teenager, who’d saved up and bought Bill Haley’s LP ‘Rock cum powder onto a clean Modess but her dried caked blood Around The Clock’’ despite her father refusing to allow her to later smelt strongly like old chalk-dust left on the shelf of the play it in their house, gave a tiny tiny bottle of French perfume blackboard in her classroom, she found dried blood under — her latest craze was her new French teacher — and told of some of her fingernails: must have been scratching in the family parties in France for girls such as herself on old roman­ night, and chewed them clean, without telling, she took a tic farms with red chequered tablecloths and wine for chil­ bathtowel from their linenpress and tied it on herself like a nappy over 2 clean Modess pads, pulling underpants and dren, of aunts and uncles and cousins, of extraordinarily long pyjama pants on top. but her blood continued to soak through delicious bread, of summer grass and strawberry Jai is, and of to her sheets special presents for the girl who’d become a woman, but her little cousin didn't want to be a woman, women didn’t run in I've already changed your sheets once this week, you’ll the summer grass, women stayed in the house. just have to wait till next Monday now. she wouldn’t let her friends come, not even her bestfriend. it their family doctor was called after days of too much bleeding wasn’t anything like having a cold or the measles or whatever.

39 THE: CHILD thought that if she got through those 2 weeks not musn’t use tampons, you’re a virgin letting anybody else find out what had happened to her, it'd be its string secreted between her labia minor all over and done with, that would be the end of it all. she could constant concealment go back to being the same as before it all happened, could not prohibitions comprehend every month:— “ . . all red snails red flag flying . . blood counting days no swimming no slacks safe days overdue days stains The Pill embarrassment side-effects pimples greasy hair swollen belly mechanical alternatives pains menstrual extraction tiredness irritability depression for 30 or 40 years, deprived of pride. gold pins caught in public hair plastic pants Copyright Leila Rodd 1977 Attention: All Women Photographers Women’s Photographic Competition

The Women’s Rights Action Committee of the 3. Photographs must be mounted on hard white § New Zealand University Students’ Association is card. Total mounting may not exceed 1 6 " by 1 holding a photographic competition/exhibition on the topic of ‘Women in New Zealand’. It is 4. All photographs must reach WRAC Co-ordina­ hoped that this will provide incentive for, and tor by April 31 1980. stimulate, women’s photographic work. Any queries, contact: Denese Black Rules of the Game WRAC Co-ordinator 1. The competitor} is open to all women, students NZUSA and non-students. PO Box 9047 2. Photographs must be black and white and may Courtenay Place not exceed 16’ ' by 2 0 ". Wellington.

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40 oems R.I.P. Freedom To-day I drowned I have severed my connections. in a choppy sea of voices What remains: two small bags at a Playcentre Committee Meeting and a body, loosely draped I sat with my lungs bursting across two seats of a train, for air, and I hinder nothing; eyes bulging dead leaves don’t hold back the rain mouth gaping — — Carol Poster while everyone wallowed in the deep-end discussing in urgent Voices the importance of junk play Two Girls for Helen on the minds of developing fractious egos. Two girls in pink and swirls, Two girls frigid and wild. A vote of thanks was given to the outgoing President Women they were, as I went out Whispered death at lunch, on the carpet And birth at tea. and at the conclusion of the They crushed cars personality swim Between their teeth, I was carefully paddled over Like flies they dies, as the mothers made their way As men they cried. to the coffee and cakes free for all Two Girls in pink and swirls, while the hostess thought Had breakfast for three, what a shame it was And swallowed men that for anyone to be so Dissolved in water iced. bad mannered Their pink arms waving as to drown Through the ripples. on her new shag-pile. They laughed as they — Dorothy Golder drank the pink arms And chewed on hairy pits. “We are the two Girls’’ They cried. Girls two the rescue. Backstreet Floundering men in the ice, We survive and watch them Lifting fragile knees, I made my offering Die like flies, My modest but much-loved gift to the world Tastier than cars, I tried to tell them of my creation We crunch for lunch I laughed and wept over my tiny clot of life Sang the two girls in I held it up to the world and they turned away. Pink and Swirls . . . Sweet as life its small form tangled in my soul — Angela Boyes-Barnes Blossomed there and pure as love it grew. Secret white flower curled in the dark growing in silent joy, quiet as death and torn from out my gentle womb before it smiled. Insulated Winter Each day I sleepwalk through the windy city armoured in layers of I see in dreams my flesh blood-splashed and cotton & wool bandages of clothes feel again the wound of love. I wake again peeled off each night/insomnia bare beneath his death-dealing hands. It must pass, on each day all nightmares fade, and I can wait. — Sue Davis — Rosie Scott

41 The Feminist Eye

the medical profession has taken over, hood and heterosexuality. Rich would book reviews and the experience with all its power and have us break down these categories, and potential is destroyed. “ accept and integrate both the motherand Rich has a chapter on the relationship of the daughter in ourselves” , whether we Two reviews of mother to son, and the contradictory posi­ have borne children or not. Birth is but tion of the woman-oriented woman raising “ one event in the unfolding of our diverse Of Woman Born, a male child. She writes of the need for and polymorphous sexuality” . By under­ Adrienne Rich, caring, nurturing males: “ one exceptional standing our biology in its truest sense, we Virago, 1978, $6.90. individual here and there is a sign of hope, begin to tap our full potential as women. but still only a personal solution.” She is This book spoke to me as the mother of a This book is one of the most powerful sceptical of the genuineness of liberal son, as one who is still caught up in the and stirring I have read for some time. Al­ men’s attitudes: tensions and rages, ambivalence and though scholarly and well researched, it is also personal and poetic. One of the mes­ sages of the book is that women must de­ velop new ways of thinking — to learn to **Rich throws down the “ think through the body” , and Rich’s own gauntlet, saying that the most way of writing is a start in this direction. It revolutionary priority that is* not written impersonally, in the style of men could set themselves the academic, but begins with h.er own life would be to become experience, which is then woven through the rest of the book. assimilated in large numbers She opens the book with passages from into a comprehensive system her journals, with their honest and painful of child care.** reminder of what it was like to be the mother of three sons under the age of seven. “ Men are increasingly aware that their questioning that Adrienne Rich describes. “ the suffering of ambivalence; the disorders may have something to do It helped me to sort out and salvage some murderous alternation between bitter ’with patriarchy. But few of them wish to of the positive experience out of the de­ resentment and raw-edged nerves, and resign from it.” molition job of the institution. I am sure blissful gratification and tenderness.” And she throws down the gauntlet, saying this book will move and challenge many She imagined herself a “ monster” at that that the most revolutionary priority that other women, mothers or not, for it speaks time, when the feelings of rage conflicted men could set themselves would be to be­ to us all on a level that searches far beyond so greatly with the feelings that a mother come assimilated in large numbers into a our trapped, institutionalized behaviour. was “ supposed” to have, according to the comprehensive system of child care. Juliet Seule patriarchy. In the next chapter she explores the Years later, now strong enough to return mother/daughter relationship, one which Having made a conscious decision to to the-experience, she does not reject has been much underplayed by the pat­ reject the role of motherhood I did not motherhood outright. She moves on to an riarchy, one which is “ the great unwritten expect to experience the depth of sadness analysis that reveals the yawning gulf bet­ story” in Rich’s view. She sees it as a rela­ for what I had lost, which I did on reading ween two states of motherhood: the re­ tionship “ resonant with charges” , filled this book. Although, as Adrienne Rich lationship and the institution. Mother­ with sensuality that is later supposed to be notes, motherhood is little written about hood as a relationship contains joy, sen- transferred to a man if we are to be re­ by patriarchal society it has recently been suousness and power; motherhood as an garded as “ normal” . The experience of discovered by feminists. It is an essential institution contains the grind, the destruc­ “ being born between a woman’s legs” subject for women. I do not in fact regret tiveness, the loss of self. may however be a shaping experience that the choice to forgo this experience for my­ She then traces the herstory of women allows us to love our own body, and to love self, but this book had made me aware of as mothers, from ancient times when.the the bodies of other women. the essence of that experience. This es­ power to give birth was recognised and She writes of the need for “ courageous sence is what the patriarchy has tried to "the sacred, the potent, the creative were mothering” , since the patriarchy inter­ destroy, to turn against us. For this es­ symbolised as femaiePatriarchal man feres with this bond, and mothers often sence of motherhood is pivotal to.female destroyed that power and put in its place restrict their daughters' choices in the power and visions, a truth that is valid for “ a system which turned against woman same way that they themselves have been women who are not mothers as well as her own organic nature, the source of her restricted. “ Few women growing up in those who are: awe and her original powers.” patriarchal society can feel mothered “ Before we are mothers we are women” . In a womb-chilling chapter called enough” , says Rich. Adrienne Rich points out the primacy of “ Hands of Flesh, Hands of Iron” , Rich then She aJso speaks to the childless, search­ the motherhood role, stating that the one tells the history of childbirth; the wresting ing for a word that conveys a positive absolute commonality for all human be­ of power from the midwife’s understand­ meaning, rather than defining such a ings is the nine months we spend in the ing hands to the steel hooks and forceps of woman in terms of a lack. “ Virgin” in the womb. Nothing else ties us to the primacy the male obstetrician, who appeared on old sense had this meaning. The polarity of female power in such a way; nothing the scene in the late 16th century between the childless woman is a false else ties us to our humanity, to our global Childbirth has never been the same again; one, serving the institutions of mother­ village. (We can therefore see the impor- 42 tance to men of creating “ artificial” judeo — Christian ethic has taught us all tional web between ourselves and that wombs and test-tube babies.) that childbirth occurs in the midst of other, noting that we are each ourselves The author writes of the two different female pain and anguish, as a punishment and the other: meanings of the term “ motherhood’’: for being a woman. The death, among “ This is the core of my book and I enter (1) The potential relationship of any others, of Mary Wollstonecraft of puer­ it as a woman who, born between her woman to her powers of reproduc­ peral fever, reminds us that it is a death- mother’s legs, has time after time and tion. defying act. in different ways tried to return to her (2) The institutional meaning which Adrienne Rich explores the dynamic mother, to repossess her and be repos­ aims to ensure that the potential, that surrounds pregnancy and child­ sessed by her, to find the mutual con­ and all women, remain under male birth; the dynamic of fear/tension/ firmation - from and with another control. pain/expectation/hope. She uses the woman that daughters and mothers Motherhood is essentially about female concept developed by Simone Weil that alike hunger for, pull away from, make power; the capacity to create, bear, pain/suffering/affliction relate primarily to possible or impossible for each other” . nourish and heal life. It is also about the being powerless. Weil talks, of the “ frag­ Another part of this book, a dark, sad “ magical” power invested in women by mented time” of a person who is at the section, deals with the violence of men — the fear men express of being con­ disposal of others. Such a concept illumi- motherhood. Adrienne Rich notes that in­ sumed by women, of being controlled. Of stead of recognising the institutional vio­ Woman Bom explores this power: the lence of patriarchal motherhood, society power of an institution which is also an labels those women who finally erupt in intense and complex personal relation­ violence as psychopathological. In ship between women and women, and ** In motherhood, as motherhood as everywhere our rage, women and men. Without explicitly saying everywhere, our rage, anger, anger, hate and madness are taken from so it is in motherhood that the author finds hate and madness are taken the antithesis of the personal is political us, disinfected, labelled and made non­ from us, disinfected, labelled threatening to the male world. To Ad­ Adrienne Rich discusses the primacy of and made non-threatening to rienne Rich abortion is also a violent act of the female mothering role (not personally motherhood. The first victim of the vio­ related to actual child-bearing) and the the male world.** lence of abortion is the woman who must ancient matriarchy, after she has first dis­ have it for her own survival (a decision only cussed the “ kingdom of the fathers” . I she can make); the second is womankind found this a more relevant way of doing it, controlled, oppressed by patriarchy which a more relevant order. Instead of looking nates much of the female condition, espe­ has no respect for our lives, choices or at our own herstory and then its takeover cially the experience of motherhood and psyches. by patriarchy, we are first made to view birth. Women, especially in the patriarchal In closing the book Adrienne Rich stres­ patriarchy and then gain a sense of what mothering role, are at the centre of pur­ ses the importance of regaining control of we have lost: poses not their own, which (in the way of our bodies, the clouded meanings of our “ In a sense, female evolution was muti­ all oppressed people) they internalise and body with lated and we have no way now of im­ make their own. This includes producing “ its fertility, its desire, its so-called agining what its development hitherto children (property) to meet a society’s frigidity, its bloody speech, its silences, might have been; we can only try, at need for workers and soldiers, to fulfil its changes and mutilations, its rapes last, to take it into female hands” . needs for immortality, passion and so on. and ripenings. There is for the first time Patriarchy strips away the divinity of the So motherhood has come to be a form of today a possibility of converting our female role. Adrienne Rich notes that our social fulfilment. physicality into both knowledge and power has most often been destroyed by Adrienne Rich explores both the mother power”. the patriarchy “ lashing us to our bodies” , (mother-in-law)/son and the mother/ Adrienne Rich knows that making these taking control of our land and taking ter­ daughter relationship. Both are equally changes, creating our revolution, will cost ritory from our own hands: complex and are again predetermined by women dear. She demands courage of us: “ If rape has been terrorism, mother­ patriarchy. She talks of the conflict of pro­ “ the courage of women — women who hood has been penal servitude" ducing sons (so demanded by fathers) in their private and public lives both in We are made passive, so that the female who are doomed to be the field hands, the interior world of their dreaming, fate becomes one of waiting.* The female heirs, images, or cannon fodder; and of thinking and creating and in the outer experience has been channelled to serve the pain of bearing a child who will grow world of the patriarchy, are taking grea­ male interests. • into the oppressor: ter and greater risks both psychic and Today motherhood means responsibil­ “ Men are increasingly aware that their physical in the evaluation of a new vis­ ity. Yet right at the beginning of the ex­ disorders may have something to do with ion . . . every woman who takes her life perience, both at the point of conception patriarchy. But few of them wish to resign into her own hands, does so knowing (for many women) and at the point of the from it” . that she must expect enormous pain, birth, we have responsibility denied to us. On the other hand, mother/daughter re­ inflicted both from within and with­ Thus childbirth and motherhood are part lationships embody the pain/joy cathexis; out” ! of the entire process of a woman’s life thedoublevision ofourstunted controlled This is a superb book. As a woman you within patriarchal oppression. Our bodies, being and the joy and energy of a could not fail to be moved by the scholar­ our sexuality, our birth rights have be­ womanspace. Adrienne Rich says that few ship and synthesis, the poetry and pain come weapons in the war we fight for sur­ women in a patriarchal society ever feel that co-exist on each page. vival. This is why the questions women ask mothered enough. The power of our Sarah Calvert about obstetrics (who gives birth in reality, mothers, whatever their love for us and * A graphic and brilliant expose of this can who helps, how the process is structured their struggles on our behalf, is too re­ be found in Faith Wilding’s poem “ Wait­ and why) are all political questions. The stricted. Instead we weave a tangled emo­ ing” . (Ms, January 1974)

43 A Breed of Women, rents’ and society’s attitudes, Harriet finds feedback from women artists. What stan­ Fiona Kidman, that the only boy who can give her gentle­ dards do you feel should apply? As the Harper and Row, 1979. ness and care along with sexual fulfilment project is relying heavily on arts council is Denny, a Maori whom she eventually money we have to have a professional ap­ marries. Denny is Harriet’s most affection­ proach in order to establish our credibility Although Kidman’s first novel A Breed of ate lover, yet she cannot share her soul and retain funding. At the same time we Women displays weaknesses in her prose yearnings with him. She crashes from one want to encourage a broad base of wo­ style and the predictability of her charac­ relationship into the next until she marries men’s creativity, rather than reinforcing ters’ responses, it does not deserve to be Max, Mr Average Kiwi Pakeha, but still is the idea that art is the rarified product of a discarded so superficially as in the Lis­ not satisfied. By now the once fascinating privileged minority. tener and Herald reviews. In Harriet Wal­ “ it” has become a tedious sexual exercise. One idea we are considering which we lace can be recognised not only problems Prejudice and hypocrisy is not only sex­ feel could successfully combine these two which any woman might encounter, but ual and racial. Harriet is victimised for needs is to have an “ artist in residence” some specifically N.Z. ones. The sense of being intelligent. After her first sexual ex­ scheme. The woman concerned would live this country as an island, lonely and re­ perience Jim warned her: “ You just re­ in Wellington for two months. The first mote, is reinforced by Harriet’s own isola­ member, fellas don’t like girls that are tion as a woman and an individual. From month could be spent on an exhibition of smart.” It is ironic that the only man who her own work, the second in working with her earliest years she has to discover what recognises Harriet for her true qualities, other women to create a group show and “ it” , (sex) is about by stumbling on it in who is not afraid of her feminine strength in giving workshops in her particular field. blind ignorance. At first, she confused sex and sharp intelligence and who loved her This would mean that six women artists with God since her initial experience of it deeply, turns out to be a homosexual and per year would have a chance to be artists was similar to the pleasurable sensation unable to satisfy all her needs. He gives her in residence. Any feedback on this idea He caused within her. Not afraid to adven­ a new perspective on N.Z. (“ With Francis, please? ture, Harriet often shows up her opponent it was like exploring a new country”). It is For the opening exhibition at the end of (for the war/game element of sex is preva­ not surprising that he had to escape the January we have invited women from vari­ lent in several male attitudes depicted country to find himself, making Harriet the ous parts of the country to exhibit. These here) with her honest and healthy sensual­ only true survivor. Harriet comes to regard women include: Allie Eagle, Zusters and ity (Noddy) or defenceless ignorance society’s rejection of her as a new begin­ Claudia Eyley from Auckland, Bridie-Lonie (Jim). Perverted closet attitudes to sex ning, a “ Time to start breaking free of from Wellington, Tiffany Thornley, manifested in the supposedly normal labels.” Although Kidman does not always Heather McPherson, Helen Rockel and heterosexual parent are evident from the break free of labels she has at least broken Kiri Hume from Christchurch and Joanna novel's opening where a lively and original new ground in describing the problems of Paul and Robyn MacPherson from Dune­ teacher is sacked for allegedly seducing a woman growing up in an indisputably din. This choice obviously misses out Harriet. He was actually reading her Shel­ N.Z. setting who tries to come to terms many women but initially we simply chose ley’s poem Epipsychidian in that shed, but with our particular racial, sexual, religious women we know personally and who had because the policeman, headmaster and and political discriminations. Such a con­ some experience of women’s art. We hope parents are all ignorant of the significance tribution is surely welcome for that alone? all the work will relate in some way to the of the word, taking it for a sexual in­ The depth of Kidman’s vision can only be idea of “ the body” , but there could be a nuendo, both teacher and student are understood by relating this novel to her great range of approaches. punished. The hypocrisy of the situation poetry, which there is not space for here. We hope as many women as possible becomes even more blatent when we will come to Wellington to see the show realise that the headmaster sacks the Read it for yourself. and share their ideas for the gallery’s fu­ teacher to hide his shame of not knowing Cathie J. Dunsford ture. We plan an informal all women open­ the word. ing on Monday, 21 January. During the This theme is carried through when Mr first week (Monday 21 January — Sunday Whitwell, the Weyville librarian who simi­ Women’s gallery planned 27 January) we are hoping to have video larly encouraged Harriet’s interest in for Wellington and film showings, a poetry reading, poetry is sacked because of his seemingly perhaps some music sessions. Some of incestuous relationship with his sister. Yet these performances could be for women men in high authority, like Father Dittmer, A women’s art gallery is starting in Wel­ lington. Hopefully this will provide an al­ only, this depends on the response we get can finger Harriet's body as they please from women who want to be involved. without fear of dismissal, and even make ternative to the existing gallery structures; a supportive environment for showing a Would any woman or group who would her feel guilty for it. Dittmer makes her like to take part — to read, show a film, etc repeat the 51st psalm after him. Although wide range of women’s work. Our intention is a feminist gallery; we — please contact us as soon as posssible, not quoted in the text, this stands as a giving details such as time required, any symbol for Harriet’s martyrdom, for being want to show the work of women who are not only making art but also redefining its equipment needed, whether you want to “ of woman born” (Adrienne Rich): “ Be­ perform for women only. hold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin purpose for yvomen. We know that within After the initial week the show will be did my mother conceive me . . . Deliver me this definition there will be a great range of open for about a month. We would also from blood-guiltiness, O God.” Father forms and attitudes to work; from the more like letters of support for the idea of a na­ Dittmer’s voyeuristic interest in the details traditional forms i.e. video, installations, to tional women’s gallery. The more of these of Harriet’s sexual experience and his embroidery, patchwork and weaving. we get, the better our credibility when ap­ pathetic but evil attempt to arouse her, We hope to encourage this wide range plying for grants. highlight his own lack of sexual outlet and of expression along with a high standard Anna Keir/Marian McKay, abuse of religious power. of presentation. Obviously, this question of professionalism is a difficult one and 10b Oriental Tee, Despite the racism apparent in her pa­ one on which I hope we will get lots of Wellington

44 tive, frail kind of closeness between them. theatre review Two women, in long, white gowns and popish-looking hats, performing a series of Tai-chi movements, gracefully, fluidly, in touch/out of touch, in lighting that is sensuous, and warm, Dir: Sally Hollis McLeod, while yet eerie, and a little frightening, Auckland, November 2, 3, 4. suggesting a power not ordinarily known,- in touch/out of touch was pure theatre of ordinarily used. alienation, a three-part dramatic presenta­ tion of the lack of any real communication The final act begins with a repetition of between people, of the myopia, the care­ the rape scene, and of the court trial which fully created ignorance which New had been performed in the second act, as a Zealanders seem to find necessary to sur­ parody of the sort of justice that finds the round themselves with, and most of all, a victim guilty. In this repeat performance, portrayal of the distance kept between though, ali the actors, are on the stage ourselves, to control us. A blindness, and standing in silent groupings, speaking also a fear of reprisal, a fear of damage that only to indict the woman on trial. And this powerover us is able to inflict, a fear of the time we are taken further, we are shown consequences of challenging it. the suffering of a woman who can no Significantly, it began with a rape scene. longer sleep at night, or let her husband A woman is raped, “ on a night like any touch her, who dreams of a man thrusting other, in the suburbs of Auckland” , by two a knife into her vagina, and who is faced men, one of whom plays the narrator, the with the blank coldness of the man sup­ other, the husband of the woman. When posedly closest to her. In the end, some of they finish, they take their respective posi­ the others, non-comprehending figures tions of narrator and husband again, as­ from the rest of society, come forward, suming different roles of power. The place her on a platform and lift her to the woman tells her husband that she was front of the stage. She sits cross-legged, raped by a friend of his from work. His staring at the audience and clapping' furi­ reaction is to turn away, become dis­ ously, a spectator to her own perfor­ gusted; his back to her, he tells her to go mance. wash herself, there’s blood showing. The In one moment during the rape trial, the scene ends with the narrator, once more woman stands alone saying, in so very standing back to the stage, dealing in clear tones, “ I am being raped, you are measured tones an incantation of myopia: being raped, we are being raped . . .” It “ Turn out the lights, the neighbours must could have been a signature tune for the not see, no one must know what hap­ < drama, bringing together an act of rape pened, it must be shut away from everyday “ upon a single woman by a man, and the light, kept a secret of normal life.” It is a | rape of a people by a system of political comment on the willingness with which g power. The isolation and alienation of one we turn away from any discord#in the flat­ ^ woman becomes the isolation and aliena^ tened harmony we call “ our way of life” ; o tion of a country, and of a way of life, and on the way in which those who should o It was a sombre, and at times a savage take responsibility for that, the rapers, do Q- piece of theatre, with little of the humour not —- the way in which they in fact use in touch/out of touch ... visually, sensu­ or lightness traditionally used as relief tac­ their power to further repress us. ously exciting. tics. Somehow, though, these would have This first scene was threaded through been inappropriate, at least, unnecessary companied by taped sounds of an airport — there were some moments of intense the play, creating a personal situation, set­ voice, of a brilliant, eye-dazzling display of ting a tone for the more abstracted parts. beauty, others were quite brilliant with characters, the exeunteurs, the people colour and sound, and others were using The themes of the first scene were taken leaving the country, walking past the bun­ up and developed through the rest of the movement and dance in refreshing ways, dled up heap of brown on the side, along making traditional theatrical devices seem drame, finally bringing the two, the drama an aisle through the audience and out the and play within the play together. irrelevant. One could wish that it. had door. An abrupt, jerking performance of played for longer than its three short They were visually, sensuously exciting, two men, dressed in black, hideously pad­ these other scenes, using colours, move­ nights; one could also wish that it had ded costumes, rasping out word- reached audiences beyond the confinesof ment, music, dance, mime, and costume groupings of touch me/trust me, and to leave some deeply felt impressions. The the Maidment Theatre. But that is perhaps stripping falls of red cloth from each another matter altogether. regimented rows of drably dressed people other’s clothing, finally managing a tenta­ standing to each side of a piece of rolled Jill Ranstead up canvas, performing a semaphore sequ­ ence, to an exactly timed rhvthm, exactly matched; then ceasing, becoming two Karin who weaves groups, one with sticks rolling, beating, the others into a huddle, a hunk of pushed wall hangings, toe-titillating rugs & what about bodies on the left of the stage, you want invites you to visit, hours informal but after 11 a m where they remain, frozen. An entry, ac- karin Wakefy's Craft Room 49 Hackett st. Ponsonby

45 The House That Grew, Jean Strathdee, Illustrated by Jessica Wallace, Oxford University Press, 1979. "There’s a phrase that really gets me mad — the child of a broken home. I ac- i cept broken marriages but there is no such thing as a broken home. As long as there’s a loving relationship between child and parent there’s a home.” This sort of strongly held and firmly put belief is be­ hind Jean Strathdee’s first children’s book, The House That Grew. The family shown in the book: ‘‘Rachel, her mother, Sally, and Nick, their friend” is a common enough one in the real world, but one pub­ lishers of children’s books have tried to pretend doesn't exist, to the continued frustration of solo parents and others not living in the biological nuclear family. As a solo parent herself and through her con­ important female characters and tion — a tiny house is built just past the tacts with other solo parents through Jig­ nonstereotypic male/female relation­ edge of the “ big” house veranda where saw and Broadsheet, Jean Strathdee was ships.” The House That Grew could have Rachel can sleep and keep all her trea­ conscious of the gap. ‘‘I was very aware of been tailor made to fit the bill, but was, in sures. attitudes towards solo parents and that, it fact, written by Jean on her retirement as Jessica Wallace’s full-colour illustra­ rubbed off on the children. I wanted to Dean at Auckland Secondary Teachers’ tions place the story firmly in a New Zea­ show them to good advantage and in cir­ College to ‘ bring together all the strands land context. Having recently built her cumstances which these children and, in in society in 1976, when I started the book own home at Bethells, on Auckland’s West fact, all children could identify with.” — the back-to-the-country movement, the Coast, Jessica knew “ how they could be Editor Wendy Harrex says that Oxford ideas of the Values Party and conserr building and what a house would look University Press had been looking for a vationists and changes in the structure of like.” She had also been making a lot of children’s picture story book to begin a marriage, different patterns of living. I detailed studies of the bush, so felt confi­ children's booklist which didn’t consist of wrote the book to order my thinking about dent about tackling the lush coastal bush rural adventures and rehashes of Maori the world about me.” around the house. There is a very New legends, but which "reflected more con­ Rachel, Sally and Nick leave the big Zealand feel about the drawings, quite temporary experience of children in New town house they share with lots of others, apart from the obvious things like the fat Zealand.” The criteria were that such to keep bees, chooks and generally rough wood pigeon and the superb nikaus: books should be ‘‘multi-cultural, urban it on the coast. Summer is idyllic, but as Nick’s black singlet, the 44 gallon drum and as we were aware of sex stereotyping winter comes the smallness of their house water tank, the tin bath Rachel washes in, in children’s books, we were looking for creates grumpiness and gloom. The solu­ the primus and the tilly lamp. And there are details, too, to gladden the heart of NZers trying to live in a way that’s different from the two-car garage, Holden for dad, Mini for mum stereotype: Nick in a pinny mixing pudding, Sally never in a pinny, nevereven in a dress, Sally up a ladder, Nick agreeing enthusiastically when Sally suggests Oxford... building Rachel a house. I was curious about the racial ambiguity of the drawings of Sally and Rachel — was publisher s for today’s children this deliberate? "Yes” , says Wendy Har­ rex, “ We decided we didn't want all white faces as not all the kids using the book will THE HOUSE THAT GREW, by Jean Strathdee and Jessica Wallace. be white” . Jessica, then, was aiming for $5.95 something “ vaguely Maori” . Now Oxford is considering producing a Maori lan­ UNDER THE MOUNTAIN, by Maurice Gee. $6.95 guage edition — Wendy Harrex feels con­ fident there is a market among Maori pa­ SINABOUDA LILY, by Robin Anderson. $6.95 rents wanting to teach their children Maori and in schools. BARNABY AND THE HORSES, by Lydia Pender. $7.95 That’s in the future. Meanwhile many New Zealand children will be able to see Watch for further exciting titles in 1980. themselves in a familiar setting, in their sort of family, for probably the first time ever. Sandra Coney

46 COLOUR or BLACK & WHITE TELEVISION. HI-FI STEREO. TAPE hanelkrmmK RECORDER. RADIO, ETC. Any mail addressed to you during the Vacat ion Course; should be addressed: Miss U.R. Cute, gone BUST? “ Extramural Vacation Course". Massey University, _____ PALMERSTON NORTH. TRIDENT WARNING to all male readers in these times of. women’s rights . . . behind every man there is a woman waiting to get his job. ELECTRONICS LTD 49 Giil St, New Plymouth j Phone 85259 SAME DA Y ^ ¥ HOUSE CALLS.

“Discussion on Matrimonial Property Act for far­ mers who have trouble with their wives” .

RUtnotl Report Petticoat firemen: Women await vote

NO NO NO MARRIEO NO V YES — DIVORCE CONTRACEPTION PRIESTS HOMOSEXUALS I TOLERANCE

47 Classified. Ads CLASSIC HEALTH BOOKS INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S Established rural commune wants more AVAILABLE AGAIN DAY SEMINAR members. Phone Oxford 24-388 or write Broadsheet again has stocks of the NOW, Auckland is organising a two- Gricklegrass, Woodside Rd, Oxford, Deidre English and Barbara Ehrenreich day seminar for International Women’s Christchurch. classics: Day, March 8 and 9, 1980. Witches, Midwives and Nurses . .$2.50 The seminar will consist of three ses­ The South Pacific College of Complaints and Disorders — the sexual sions with speakers, followed by work­ Natural Therapeutics Inc. politics of sickness ...... $3.25 shops. Topics to be covered: work, poli­ HERBAL MEDICINE FOR THE Send to Broadsheet, P.O. Box 5799, tics. health and violence against wo­ HOME Auckland.______men. Commencing February 4 VENUE: Auckland Teachers Training A year-long certificate correspondence FREE CAR STICKERS College Cost: $10. is being offered by the above college, in Help publicise Broadsheet by display­ herbal medicine (also a short one term ing a car sticker. Send stamped, self- Women Architectural Graduates in­ course — $60) covering 45 herbs, their addressed envelope to P.O. Box 5799, terested in helping women with any de­ application and uses, systems of the Auckland. sign or building problems. Free advice human body, preparation of remedies, common ailments. AUCKLAND SEMINAR ON and reasonable working rates. Phone: Fiona Christeller 766-379 To include 3 weekends practicals in Au­ THE LAW Mandy Reynolds 760-766 ckland at end of each term. Auckland Women’s Studies Association Cost: $250, including postage First Seminar, Secondary Teachers’ or $100 per term College. Epsom Ave, Sunday 2nd WOMEN’S STUDIES Enquiries 727-543. Auckland or 31-197, March. 9.30-4.00 p.m. Members $1, ASSOCIATION (NZ) INC. Auckland non-members $1.50. Third Annual Conference or P.O. Box 6059. Auckland. Three types of workshop are planned: Auckland 29-30-31 August 1. Law for the Lay woman — Work­ Enquiries: P.O. Box 5067. shops in this area will concentrate on Auckland practical law. including some or all of the following: (depending on resources GAY SOCIAL LIFE and demand): understanding basic con­ The Laetus Social Club, an Auckland tracts, buying and selling a house, draft­ club for gay people, is anxious to get ing a will, how to get an abortion, what more women involved in its activities. to do if you're raped/battered. using the Social events include parties, bar- Human Rights Commission, mainte­ beques, picnics, ice skating, dances, nance and custody agreements —draw­ bush walks, etc. Interested women can ing them up and making them work, citi­ join the club by writing to P.O. Box zenship and legal status of immigrant 3132. Auckland. women, dealing with the Social Welfare Department, matrimonial property ag­ CHILD-FREE COUPLES reements. Couples who have made a decision 2. Women and the Law — an opportun­ not to have children, or who are child- ity for interested women to present COOL CAPS free after two years and consider re­ Keep the sun off your nose this and/or listen to more theoretical papers maining that way. are invited to partici­ on e.g.: women criminals, who are they summer — wear our “ Uppity pate in a survey of child-free couples Women Unite” and what happens to them?, legal lan­ (married or not). We need your help caps. Fits all sized guage — sexist or neutral, changing with this research. Your responses will heads — even swollen ones. legal views of the family. remain confidential. Please fill out the Cost: $3 These sessions would run concurrently, attached slip and post it to: White and electric blue □ with some being repeated if there is suf­ Robyn Rowland Black and gold □ ficient demand. Lecturer in Psychology Please send my cap in the colour-way 3. Women lawyers’ workshop — an University of Waikato indicated above to: open forum for women lawyers and law HAMILTON* students to meet and talk, renew old Name: ...... Name ...... acquaintances and make new ones. This Address ...... would take place at the end of the day. Address: ...... In addition to the above workshops, we will be presenting displays of legal documents, legislation etc. throughout I enclose $ the day. Number of couples who require ques­ Post to: Broadsheet, P.O. Box 5799, Au­ Enquiries: phone Linda 794-104 (even­ tionnaires: ...... ckland. ings). 48 AUCKLAND HAMILTON P.N. Women’s Centre, 338 Broadway Ave. P.O. Box 1608, P.N. Cambridge Feminist Group, Cl- Wendy Ennis, 33 Shakespeare Ph. 72-756. ALRANZ. PO Box 47-169, Ponsonby. Rd, Cambridge. Broadsheet, PO Box 5799. Wellesley St. Ph. 794-751 Cambridge Feminists, 42 Queen St, Ph. 4350, 5998. PORIRUA Council for the Single Mother and her Child, PO Box 47-090, Hamilton Feminists, PO Box 751, Ph. 83-381. WEL, C/o Raroa Place, Pukerua Bay. Ponsonby. Ph. 760-476 Hamilton Women’s Centre, PO Box 7025, Claudelands, ROTORUA Feminists for the Environment, Cl- Adele. Ph. 761-426. Hamilton. WEL, PO Box 2011, Rotorua. Feminist Lawyers (Nationwide), Cl- Linda Daly-Peoples, Ph. NZ Women’s Health Network Newsletter, Cl- Sarah Calvert, 155 Women’s Resource and Education Collective, 23 Grey St, 794-104. Galloway St, Hamilton. Rotorua, Ph. 89-483. Feminist Teachers, Cl- Helen Watson, Ph. 769-126, Lenore SOS, Box 13033. Hamilton, Ph. 65-474. Webster. Ph. 761-986. TAUPO WEL, PO Box 9581, Hamilton North. SOS, Box 850, Taupo. Halfway House, PO Box 47-157. Ponsonby. Ph. 767-635. Women's Studies Assn, PO Box 13-023 Waikato University. Jigsaw. PO Box 47-132, Ponsonby. Ph. 760-001. TAURANGA Working Women’s Council, Cl- Barbara Ware, P.O. Box 80 WEL, 103 Grange Rd, Tauranga, Ph. 63-260. Media Women, Cl- Vanya Hogg. 64 Clarence St, Ak.2. Hamilton. NOW. PO Box 2946, Greenlane. TE AWAMUTU SOS. PO Box 47-090 Auckland, Ph. 766-386. HUNTLY Te Awamutu Feminists, 111 Hazelmere Cres, Ph. 4320. WEL. 33 Ferryhill Rd, Auckland 3. Huntly Women’s Group. C/o Judy Wilson. River Rd. Huntly. C/o Res. 23 Tokanui Hospital, Private Bag, TA. ph. 7894. Women's Community Video, c/o 30 Bellwood Ave, Ak.3. INVERCARGILL TOKOROA Women’s Health Centre. 63 Ponsonby Road, Ph. 760-476. WEL. PO Box 676. Invercargill. ALRANZ, PO Box 380, Tokoroa. WONAAC. PO Box 68-388. Ph. 764-027. LOWER HUTT WEL, PO Box 699, Tokoroa. Working Women's Council, PO Box 68-480. Ph. 763-098. Hutt Valley Feminists. 3 Taka Grove, Normandale, UPPER HUTT BAY OF ISLANDS Lower Hutt. NOW, 18 Cruikshank Rd, Upper Hutt. WEL. c/o P.M. Halkett, Guys Rd. Kaikohe. Media Women, 4 Godley St, Lower Hutt. Upper Hutt Feminists, 9 Thackerey St, Ph. 84-614. CHRISTCHURCH MARLBOROUGH WANGANUI ALRANZ. PO Box 13-129. Armagh St. NOW, PO Box 607, Blenheim. WONAAC, 56 Parsons St, Wanganui. Ph. 42-291, 44-939. Christchurch Rape Crisis Group. Doreen Green, Ph. 858-088 SOS, Ph. 87-561. (home), 62-116 (work). Jennie Hamilton. Ph. 44-254 (home), Women’s Refuge, Cl- NOW, PO Box 607 Blenheim, Ph. 84-099. WHAKATANE 790-940 (work). WONAAC. IA Stuart St, Blenheim. SOS, Ph. Ohope 348, 351, 757; Whakatane 6250. NOW. PO Box 2720. Ph. 881-030. Whakatane Women’s Collective, PO Box 3049, Ohope. MASTERTON Whakatane Women’s Health Group, 281 Pohutukawa Ave, University Womens Group. Student Union Building, Private Bag, WEL. PO Box 201, Masterton. Christchurch. Ohope, Ph. Whakatane 7850, Ohope 550. WEL. PO Box 67, Christchurch. NAPIER WHANGAREI Women's Refuge Centre, PO Box 7299. Ph. 69-187. SOS, PO Box 735 Napier, Ph. 438-484 (Napier); Ph. 798-943 Gay Women’s Group, PO Box 5083, Whangarei. Women's Union. PO Box 2258, Christchurch. (Hastings. Flaxmere); Ph. 68-642 (Hastings); Ph. 775-586 NOW and WEL, PO Box 4294, Kamo, Whangarei. WONAAC. 154 Colombo St. Ph. 35-254. (Havelock Nth); Ph. 437-488 (Taradale). NOW/ALRANZ, PO Box 1222. Hastings. WELLINGTON Working Women’s Council. Cl- Kirsty Campbell. PO Box 13206 Women's Electoral Lobby. PO Box 90. Taradale. Abortion Rights Committee, PO Box 12-076, WN Nth. Armagh. Ph. 68-262. ALRANZ, PO Box 19-052, Wellington, Ph. 758-450. DUNEDIN NELSON/MOTUEKA/GOLDEN BAY Circle Magazine, PO Box 427, Wellington. ALRANZ. PO Box 1289. Dunedin. ALRANZ. PO Box 476, Nelson. Hecate Women’s Health Collective, 6 Boulcott St (rm 14), PO Box Community Childcare Centre and Family Day Care Programme, Motueka Feminist Group. PO Box 163, Motueka. 11-675, Wellington, Ph. 721-804. 97 Forth St. Dunedin. Onekaka Feminist Front, Cl- Val Shapel, Onekaka, RD2 Takaka. Herstory Press, PO Box 3871, Wellington, Ph. 847-583. HERA (support group for gay women). PO Box 11-009. SOS, 7 Queers Road, Nelson. Ph. 83-025. Kidsarus 2. PO Box 9600, Wellington. Musselburgh. Dunedin. WEL. PO Box 145, Motueka. NZ Working Women’s Council, PO Box 27-215, WN. WEL. Cl- Patsi McGrath, Todds Valley, Nelson RD1. Dunedin Collective for Women. PO Box 446. Ph. Cl- Daybreak Women’s Emergency Centre, Ph. 88-605. Rape Crisis Centre, PO Box 28-059, WN, Ph. 728-808. Bookshop. 775-899. WONAAC. 7 Queens Rd. Ph. 83-025. Society for Research on Women in NZ Inc., PO Box 13-078 Dunedin Lesbian Group. PO Box 6105. Dunedin Nth. Ph. 52-944. Johnsonville. Dunedin Women’s Refuge. PO Box 8044. Ph. 52-223. Working Women’s Alliance. 15 Mt Pleasant Ave. Ph. 88-061. WEL, PO Box 11-285, Wellington, Ph. 739-321. SOS Knowhow. PO Box 446. Ph. 775-020. Working Women’s Council, Cl- Wynnis Beveridge. 587 Rocks Rd. Wellington Feminist Collective, PO Box 3871, WN. WONNAAC. PO Box 446. Ph. 65-103. Nelson. Ph. 85-333. Wellington Lesbians, PO Box 427, WN, Ph. 851-540. Working Women’s Alliance. 20 Gillespie St, Dunedin. NEW PLYMOUTH Wellington Women's Refuge, Ph. 728-222. Working Women's Council. Cl- Ann Rodger. Ph. 777-275. ALRANZ. PO Box 72. New Plymouth. Ph. 79-304. Wellington Women’s Resource Centre, 6 Boulcott St (rm 13, 22), Feminist Writers. Cl- Jenny Rankin. Ph. 80-559. Ph. 721-970. GISBORNE WEL. 42 Pendarves St. New Plymouth. Ph. 88-549. Lesbian Women's Group. PO Box 1398. Ph. 4285. Women's Action Group, Cl- Victoria University. NOW. 3 Dickson St. Gisborne. Women's Action Group. PO Box 4030. Ph. 80-168. 83-354. WONAAC, PO Box 2669. Ph. 877-703, 848-541. Women’s Centre. 66 Brougham St. New Plymouth, Working Women’s Alliance, PO Box 9012, Wellington. WEL. 122 Fox St. Gisborne. Ph. 79-532. Working Women’s Council. Cl- Benny Kape, Childers Rd. Ph. Working Women’s Alliance, North City Branch, 6 Halswell St, 82-640. PALMERSTON NORTH Thorndon. Wellington I. ALRANZ. PO Box 639. P.N. Working Womens Alliance, South-East Wellington Branch. 62 GORE Gay Women’s Group. PO, Box 1482. P.N. Waripori St, Berhampore, Wellington 2. Working Women's Council. C/- Sue Crawford. I Viking Place. Gore. Ph. 5370. P.N. Women’s Liberation. 38 Kimberley Grove. P.N. Working Women’s Council, Cl- Sharon Rogers, 7 Koromiko Rd, WEL (Manawatu). PO Box 200. P.N. Highbury. Ph. 847-424. GREYMOUTH WEL (Kapiti). PO Box 66. Waikanae. Working Women's Council (National Office), PO Box 27-215. ALRANZ. PO Box 421. Greymouth. WEL (Levin). 68a Queen St. Levin. Ph. 89-713. Upper Willis St. Wellington. WEL. 7 Domain Tee. Karoro. Greymouth. Women’s Health Group. PO Box 1608. P.N., Ph. 74-643. Values Women’s Network. Ph. 797-611. * & 1 WVI9 0 O ^ I'A Back issues of Broadsheet No. 55 December 1977: Assertiveness-training, rape, music supple­ Set of all available back issues: $20 ment, non-sexist children’s books, Anna and Kate McGarrigle, Alix Dobkin, natural sponge tampons. >viii}» issues are available at 40 cents each No. 56 January 1978: Visions of the future, feminists abroad, birth No. 23 October 1974: Women in advertising, models, airline advertis­ books, interview witft Marilyn French, Silly Sisters and Bett Midler. ing, working in the freezing works, Toffler interview. No. 57 March 1978: New findings on the pill and IUD, 1978 WLM No. 29 May 1975: Becoming a woman lawyer, liberation Chinese Congress, the politics of physical strength, abortion tactics, books for style, a woman psychiatrist, IUD’s, Robin Morgan, separatism. teenage women, menopause part 1. No. 30 June 1975: Payment for housework, consciousness-raising, No. 58 April 1978: Shock treatment and women, Sisters Overseas 1WY, Vietnamese women, Ruth Butterworth on Margaret Thatcher. Service, more feminist news from abroad, menopause part 2, Wendy Waldmanand Maria Muldaur, “The Women’s Room’’ — review. No. 31 July 1975: Women’s Centres, how Broadsheet operates, abor­ tion counselling, Greer, Reid on IWY, Sue Kedgeley on NZ. No. 59 May 1978: Interview with Marie Bell, arson at SOS, getting organised part 1, reporting on Hite, menstruation part 1. No. 32 September 1975: Mastectomies, female offenders, report on the Select Committee on Womens Rights, UWC 1977. The following issues are 90 cents each No. 33 October 1975: Rape, the morality of abortion, women and No. 60 June 1978: Women composers, fear and loathing in Godzone, politics, sexism on TV, some women photographers. on hating men, the meaning of ANZAC Day, getting organised part 2, No. 34 November 1975: Solo mothers, mothers' benefit, demystifying menstruation part 2, TV review — “ A Week of It” . parliament, separatism revisited, more women photographers. No. 61 July 1978: Six years of Womens Liberation, the state of the * The following issues are available at 60 cents each movement, rape trial in France, a letter from Australia, getting or­ ganised part 3, ECT, Sisters in Namibia. No. 38 April 1976: Compensation for housewives, equal pay, family planning, women at medical school, working politically. No. 62 September 1978: Bastion Point, life behind a typewriter, pre­ gnancy testing, Humanae Vitae, international feminist network. No. 43 October 1976: Abortion practices in NZ’s past, women on boards, conditioning or repression, morning-after pill. No. 63 October 1978: The pap smear, Charlotte Bunch on self defini­ tion, the St Helens fight, more on DPB, borstal games. No. 44 November 1976: Marilyn Waring, nursing, Maori women, Tongan women, historical perspective on abortion. No. 64 November 1978: Battered wives, Margaret Crozier, Kate Bush and Joni Mitchell, yourcervix, abortion and single issue voting. No. 45 December 1976: Beginning of herstory series, cystitis, clerical workers union, the pros and antis in the abortion struggle. No. 65 December 1978: Johnson report, UWC 1979 — a preview, Erin Pizzey, Human Rights Commission, freedom of information. No. 46 January 1977: Day care, your rights if you are arrested, radical feminism, woman speaks in synagogue. N o . 66 January 1979: Feminist periodicals, DPB again, “ Feminists are made not born” , daughters of Mother Earth, lesbian health. No. 47 March 1977: Moon madness, male-designed cities, vaginal infections, sexist vocational guidance pamphlets. No. 67 March 1979: Charlotte Bunch interview, womens sewing co-op, the mens conference, sterilisation, Diane Arbus. No. 48 April 1977: The politics of childbirth, feminist mothers bring­ ing up sons, herbs, pioneering health workers. No. 68 April 1979: Abortion Doctors Guide, women in cinema, marriage, self help health, hysterectomy. No. 49 May 1977: Walker’s witchhunt on solo mothers, women in WWL, herbs part 2, interview with a midwife, Helen Marieskind. No. 69 May 1979: Foetal monitoring, marriage and feminism, Self help health 2, Tessa Jones, unmasking the heterosexual institution, No. 50 June 1977: The Catholic Church and abortion, the Royal women discuss their bodies. Commission on Contraception, Sterilisation and Abortion, women in the shearing industry, kindergarten teachers mobilise, equal pay and No.70June 1979: UWC 1979 — 6 page report, 2,4,5-T, Janet Roth how the bosses cheat, depression in marriage. and racist engineers, postpartum depression, Charlotte Bunch. No. 5l July 1977: Sex and violence — the new pornography, inter­ No. 7l July/August 1979: Margaret Crozier, multinationals in the view with Helen .Marieskind, lesbian mothers and custody, women third world, consciousness-raising, sea-defence for women, case in the depression, DPB cuts, 2.4,5-T, UWC report, telethon. against adoption. No. 53 October 1977: Rural women, lesbianism and mental health, No. 72 September 1979: Problems of working mothers, superior sex natural birth control, what’s wrong with the women's movement? — men or women? genital mutilation, sexist advertising, history of the women’s movement part 1. No. 54 November 1977: High school women, the SIS Bill, Depo Provera. consciousness raising, social welfare department. Joni No. 73 October 1979: Stripper expose, psychology and oppression, history of women's movement part 2, Broadsheet looks at love. Mitchell. TeresaTrull, feminist musicians. (------Send this form to I P.O. Box 5799, Auckland. Back issues @ 40c each Nos...... i Your nam e...... I Address ...... Back issues @ 60c each Nos...... Back issues @ 90c each Nos...... Please send me the following: Price Broadsheet 3-colour poster Subscription @ $8.50 @ $1 ...... Overseas subscriptions $12.00 Broadsheet ^pccia| _@_54)c AUCKLAND COLLEGE OF EDUCATION

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