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PoliticsOctober 2, 2017

The many styles of sexism in Election 2017: a retrospective

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It finished over a week ago, yet we still all feel a bit gross. To while away time until Winston Peters decides who our next prime minister is, Madeleine Holden has compiled a handy list of the worst sexism of Election 2017.

The 2017 general election is at a close, and as the main parties jostle for coalition partners, it’s still too early to tell for sure who will be comprising the next government. It’s not too early for a jaunty little retrospective of the sexism that occurred during the election campaign, though!

Comprehensively detailing all of the sexist comments and misogynistic assumptions that characterised the election would be the job of a lifetime, and the average Facebook feed would generate a bible’s worth of material, so treat this instead like a depressing highlights reel of gender regression in New Zealand politics today. Let’s get started!

All the times we focused on Jacinda Ardern’s looks

Despite how often bleating men on the internet insist IT HAPPENS TO MALE POLITICIANS TOO, women in politics have their looks scrutinised and mocked to a unique degree; a worldwide trend that harks back at least to the days of the suffragettes. And Jacinda Ardern has suffered especially badly in this regard this election.

Amidst a constant media buzz about her smile and hair, a (now-deleted) Facebook page with more than 10,000 “likes” was set up to lampoon her teeth, and an attendee at a Morrinsville farmers’ protest carried a sign referring to Ardern that read “PRETTY COMMUNIST”. Ardern herself laughed off the jab in her trademark Chill Girl fashion, and admittedly it was one of those insults that end up sounding like an unwitting compliment. It’s no laughing matter, though: research shows that comments about female politicians’ appearances, even when they are positive rather than negative, do real harm to their chances of winning.

Women can be sexist too!

There was also plenty of infantilising, dog-whistling about experience, and probing about career versus motherhood, all of which you can read about here.

Every second phrase that fell out of Gareth Morgan’s mouth

Worthy of a little section of his own, Gareth Morgan had a cringeworthy election campaign, attracting attention less for his policies – allegedly his overarching focus – than his deliberately inflammatory and sexist remarks. In between calling everyone he disagrees with “whores” on social media, Morgan infamously labelled Ardern “lipstick on a pig” – a dig that played into the existing sexist narrative surrounding Ardern’s looks – and tripled down when he was called out for it; first by re-using the phrase on a billboard featuring his own face and then by calling his critics “femo-fascists”.

“I say it and all the femo-fascists come out and say, ‘You can’t say it Gareth,’ because you’re a guy. That’s crap,” he scrambled to suggest as Lisa Owen desperately tried to wrap him up at The Nation’s minor parties’ debate. He was mischaracterising the nature of the criticism as being about his gender rather than the gendered nature of the phrase and traipsing out a variation of the old “feminazi” slur American conservatives have been using to malign women’s rights activists for decades. Digging in until the bitter end, he made a smug quip about how much publicity the line had afforded him on The Spinoff’s leaders’ debate, yet again making himself almost impossible for women with whom he otherwise shares common ground to root for. This is the guy that called himself New Zealand’s Trump, after all.

Numerous men telling Marama Fox to ‘be quiet’ and ‘calm down’

Whether it was Shane Jones quipping that his ears were sore from sitting next to Fox in The Spinoff leaders’ debate or Willie Jackson patronisingly telling her to “calm down” on Marae (starts at 40:48), men couldn’t resist the ‘emotional woman’ microaggression this election. Telling any woman to “relax” or “be quiet” plays into an existing narrative that women are overly emotional and easily carried away, even if they are being no more forthright and passionate than men are, but there’s an additional layer of ickiness to shutting down a Māori woman in this way, given this country’s history.

It’s worth remembering that research consistently shows that men speak significantly more than women in meetings; women are interrupted more than men; and women are perceived as talking more than men even when they actually talk less.

Winston Peters mansplaining dairy farming to a female journalist

Bonus sexism from the Morrinsville farmers’ protest! Amidst booing from the crowd and a general failure to win them over, Winnie presumed to know more about dairying than a female journalist asking him probing questions, dismissing her as “ignorant about dairying”. Except, whoops, she grew up on a dairy farm. Men, please stop presuming you’re axiomatically more informed on every topic than women are: every time you do, Rebecca Solnit stubs her toe.

NZ comedian Jeremy Elwood making a sexual violence-themed ‘joke’

I hadn’t heard of Jeremy Elwood until I witnessed the above tweet doing the rounds, and then I remembered he drunkenly hosted a quiz night I used to attend out in West Auckland during my uni days, I think?? Anyway, who cares. He’s gross, and he thinks graphic sexual violence is a clever and novel way to illustrate a “point”. Has anyone explained MMP to him yet?

TOP Comms guy Sean Plunket’s weird, obsessive hounding of a prominent feminist writer

U OK, Sean?

Metiria Turei’s forced resignation

The thing about sexism is that it operates on different levels. The most overt and familiar forms – use of slurs like “bitch” and “whore”, say, and arguments that women belong in the kitchen – are becoming rarer and less acceptable, so people with negative attitudes towards women need to oppose female advancement in less objectionable terms. One way to achieve this is through continued support for policies that harm women and the silencing of those who advocate for systemic change.

Enter Metiria Turei. We’re all familiar with the story of her ousting from Parliament for a forgivable, decades-old mistake that shed light on the glaring deficiencies of our welfare system, but perhaps it’s not immediately apparent that her treatment related to her gender. It’s simply a matter of honesty and trust, we’ve been told, and charges of a racist, sexist double standard have been dismissed using fine-tooth comb analysis. It was her attitude, they said, and any MP who broke a law would be expected to pay with her otherwise flawless career in public service.

Let me try to convince you, then, that Metiria Turei being a woman – a certain kind of woman – actually had a lot to do with how she was treated.

Particular types of women always bear the brunt of sexist stereotyping more than others, and Māori beneficiaries are hit the hardest in New Zealand. The local version of Reagan’s “welfare queen” looms large in our public imagination and regularly triggers hand-wringing about abuse of the DPB and “breeding for business”; working class brown women are expected to raise children without complaining about the myriad economic and institutional barriers to doing so – the median income for Māori women is $19,900 – and certainly without demanding more from the state. Misogyny operates in tandem with its preferred coalition partners, racism and beneficiary bashing, to stifle and silence women like Turei who have the nerve to point out the injustices of a system they’ve personally experienced while advocating for its overhaul. Turei’s critics apparently believe a system that keeps vulnerable mothers and daughters poor, desperate and powerless is more tolerable than an “entitled” brown woman with a human past remaining in parliament. So long as you care about all women, that’s what misogyny looks like. Use any narrower a definition and your feminism ends up doing little more than protecting middle class Pākehā women from “make me a sandwich” jokes.

So, Metiria’s treatment was sexist, too. Her resignation will be a permanent blight on our social and political landscape, and poet Hera Lindsay Bird diagnosed the shame of it better than anyone else on the day, with a sentiment as fitting a conclusion to this list as any I can think of:

(Photo by Phil Walter/Getty Images)
(Photo by Phil Walter/Getty Images)

PoliticsOctober 1, 2017

Nandor Tanczos: the Greens need to figure out a way to talk to National

(Photo by Phil Walter/Getty Images)
(Photo by Phil Walter/Getty Images)

Former Green MP Nandor Tanczos writes that while it would be unconscionable to go with National now, the Greens need to prepare for a future where that’s on the table. This originally ran on his own blog, Monkeywrenching.

There is a lot of talk in the media and in the public at the moment about the merits of a National / Green coalition. It is not a new idea but this post-election there seems to be a deliberate and concerted effort to push it.

National, of course, would love to have a second option strengthening their hand with New Zealand First. It is important to understand, though, that this is not just coming from the Nats. People are increasingly concerned about our looming social and environment crisis and some see it as a way to make progress even if we don’t get a change of government.

Let me state clearly at this stage that I do not think James Shaw should be ringing up Bill English to discuss coalition options. To support the National Party to become a fourth term government would be both impossible in practical terms and politically suicidal.

Impossible because any coalition agreement needs ratification by 75% of the party and there is more chance of Winston retiring gracefully from politics.

Suicidal for a multitude of reasons. First, people voted for the Greens on the clear understanding that we would not support a National Government. To do so would be a complete betrayal of our voters, akin to NZ First going with National in 1996 (for which they got badly punished). Second, it might be worth the risk if we could shape the trajectory of an incoming government. To bolster a government almost certainly in its last term, a government that has shown such disregard for both the environment and our growing social inequality, just before their support collapses, would be a tragic mistake. Third, to make such a move without lengthy preparation and discussion inside the party would tear the Greens apart.

Note I did not say ‘because going into coalition with National kills small parties’. Coalitions are always dangerous for small parties but there are many lessons to be learned from the demise of the Alliance and the Māori Party, and from the zombie resurrection that is ACT.

Entering into a coalition with National right now would be a disaster for the Greens and one from which we might not recover. But as I first said in 2008, at some stage in the future we must be prepared to seriously consider the idea.

The tactical negotiating reason is compelling enough, in my view. Labour is currently the only option for the Greens but the same is not true in reverse. Labour doesn’t owe the Greens any favours, and the fact is that Labour will never respect the Greens until we recognise that truth. Rather than expecting a guaranteed relationship with a party that we aggressively target for votes and constantly criticise for not being enough like us, we need to recognise that Labour will give us just as much as they need to, to stay in power. Having an unconditional promise of support means that they don’t have to give us very much at all.

To put that another way, players only respect other players.

But even if the Greens are ourselves content in our current codependency, there is a more fundamental problem. If Greens cannot carve out a constituency beyond the ‘left of Labour’ cul de sac we are in, we will continue to play out the dynamic of this election over and over, soaring in the polls only as long as Labour is doing badly, but dropping back to 5% as soon as Labour turns left again. Or finds a charismatic leader. We may be mighty in opposition, but we will always be puny in coalition until we stop relying on discontented Labour voters for support.

This does not mean giving up our principles. Green politics is, and always has been, as much about social issues as environmental ones. I attended the first Global Greens conference in 2001 when the Global Charter was decided. What struck me was how the pillars of Green politics are essentially the same everywhere – ecological wisdom, social responsibility and economic justice, peace and non-violence, and local decision-making.

The idea that Green should “stick to the environment” is confused. It shows a deep misunderstanding about what Green politics is, what the environment is, and what human beings are. But does a commitment to social responsibility mean the Greens are left of Labour? Or a left-wing party at all? What does it even mean to be ‘left wing’ in Aotearoa New Zealand today?

Some people on the left think being left means you care about other people and being right means you are selfish. Some people on the right think being left means you are economically illiterate and being right means you are clever. It is sadly common in political debates for people to assume that their opponents are either stupid or morally deficient or both. My experience is that most people from either side are neither.

In fact, if you look at the fundamentals, there is very little genuine political difference between National and Labour. What we have now is more in the way of different political clans, held together by a sense of shared identity (often inherited) rather than by any coherent political core. It is in that way that the Greens have become tied to Labour. Not because our principles demand it, but because of a sense of kinship.

Because if you look at the most fundamental Green concerns: climate change, protection of waterways, child poverty, growing inequality, protecting civil and human rights, tāngata whenua rights, the last Labour government was barely more progressive than National. In fact the main argument used against ever forming a coalition with National – that their economic agenda is fundamentally at odds with a Green agenda – applies just as strongly to Labour.

It might be that Labour is more willing to address these fundamental issues than National, but that would require us to play hard-ball in our negotiations. You can’t do that when you have given your bargaining chips to the other side before you begin. Our current position on coalitions guarantees that we can never do more than greenwash a Labour government.

The problem is that we have bought into an inadequate conceptual model of politics that kind-of works in a First Past the Post political environment but which starkly reveals its flaws when confronted with the political diversity of MMP. This is the idea that political philosophy can be represented in one dimension on a straight line between left and right.

A left / right continuum is simply incapable of representing Green politics. Our most defining issues don’t figure on it at all and neither are the solutions to them a simple application of any one ideology, whether ecosocialism or green capitalism. Both the left and the right have valuable contributions to make to this discussion, but more important for the Greens is the opportunity to articulate uniquely Green solutions as the third point in a left / right / green triangle.

If we take ‘left’ to mean a collectivist orientation and ‘right’ to mean an individualist orientation (which is the only definition that seems to make sense) Green politics is not simply about adopting left social policies and applying left ideas to environmental problems. It is a fundamentally different way of understanding those problems, based on an ecological worldview. When we understand how human society operates as an ecology, when we see how ecological principles can be applied to foster a better education system, or health, or in addressing poverty and inequality, then we are able to offer real, green solutions. This is the approach some leading edge thinkers are already taking in economics, in industrial design and in community development and it has the potential to transform our politics as well.

To illustrate: in order to build a more robust support base and grow the vote for a progressive government, the Greens need to stop trying to poach Labour voters and identify new constituencies. There are around 450,000 small businesses in Aotearoa employing five people or less. Self employment speaks to core Green ideals of supporting local economies, building self-reliance and personal autonomy, helping people lift themselves out of poverty and fostering stronger linkages between businesses and the social ecological communities in which they are located. I know a great many small business owners who support the ideals of the Greens but who don’t connect with us a party because we are not speaking to them.

There are actually lots of Greens who are small business owners – probably a disproportionate number compared to either National or Labour. Both National and Labour tend to focus on large corporate bureaucracies and play little attention to how their policies impact on small businesses – who as we know are New Zealand’s biggest employer. For years the Greens put loads of effort into trying to woo the unions. It would be worth putting the same effort into understanding how to support a sustainable, resilient and regenerative business ecology. Certainly no one else is doing much in that space.

Escaping our ‘left of Labour’ trap is not about ‘moving to the centre’. The very notion of a centre sitting half-way between Labour and National is irrelevant when we locate ourself on a triangle. Neither is it about ‘abandoning our principles’. Rather it is about embodying them in their entirety. What they cannot mean, though, is relegating ourselves to the periphery of power just because we are committed to giving Labour a free run.

I expect that Labour will always be a preferred coalition partner for the Greens. We share more values with them than we do with National. And I think it will be a while before the Greens are self confident enough to even find out what might be on the table in a coalition discussion with National. Maybe what is on the table would never be enough, but I think that just asking could make all the difference.

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