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The Rally for a City Free from Sexual Violence held in Wellington on April 7, 2021 (Photo: RNZ/Samuel Rillstone)
The Rally for a City Free from Sexual Violence held in Wellington on April 7, 2021 (Photo: RNZ/Samuel Rillstone)

SocietyApril 7, 2021

When Wellington took to the streets

The Rally for a City Free from Sexual Violence held in Wellington on April 7, 2021 (Photo: RNZ/Samuel Rillstone)
The Rally for a City Free from Sexual Violence held in Wellington on April 7, 2021 (Photo: RNZ/Samuel Rillstone)

Last week, 500 Wellingtonians rallied for a city free from sexual violence. Maddi Rowe, one of the organisers, explains why they’re calling for change.

I stood behind the makeshift stage in a pink hi-vis vest, glancing hopefully up at the low, rain-swollen sky. The dozens of makeshift cardboard signs pitter-pattered with the rhythm of the light rain. A week before this moment, the organising team of the Wellington Alliance Against Sexual Violence crammed into a tiny office lobby to talk logistics and strategy. Now, we were looking out at the 500 faces of people we didn’t know, but understood that they were hopeful and angry, just like us.

We chose to gather at the head of Courtenay Place, Wellington’s bar and nightclub strip. The place where sexual violence seeps into the brick footpaths, sticks to the dancefloors and slips inconspicuously into cocktails. The place where the problems manifest, encouraged by a culture of silence and shame that leaves citizens feeling disenfranchised and unsafe.

We yelled over bus engines and car brakes with borrowed microphones and megaphones. A Rally for a City Free from Sexual Violence, unearthing and displaying the ugly underbelly of Wellington city – the home of a sexual violence epidemic.

The WAASV came together following the huge influx of responses to a questionnaire by Sophia Harrison and Ella Lamont that asked people in Wellington to share their experiences of sexual violence in the city. The organising team consisted of a number of people who work in sexual violence prevention and student groups, including Thursdays in Black Aotearoa, the National Council of Women NZ and NZUSA, with the support of local expert sector groups such as Wellington HELP and RespectED Aotearoa.

As Wellingtonians, we noticed three gaps in particular that we implored the city council to act to fill. Our city needs urban revitalisation, where the streets are filled with structures that reflect the needs of the community. Our city needs a comprehensive revamp of the hospitality district, to train and upskill hospitality staff on sexual violence prevention procedures, so our citizens can drink without fear of anything but a hangover. Our city needs to prioritise funding streams for local sexual violence prevention organisations, so locals can access professional services with a much higher capacity.

Our goal was to invite anyone who had experience within the realm of sexual violence, because with such a pervasive and complex issue, acting as a community is the only route to tangible change. This rally was born from the same concept that every community-based action is born from – care.

Wellington has seen a 50% increase in reported sexual violence incidents in recent years – a hugely worrying statistic – with a lot of the incidents involving drink spiking and date rape. Our citizens do not feel safe any more. This is a city where circles of lamplight are safe zones, places to urgently hail Ubers, to adjust keys between white knuckles.

SIGNS AT THE RALLY FOR A CITY FREE FROM SEXUAL VIOLENCE HELD IN WELLINGTON ON APRIL 7, 2021 (PHOTO: RNZ/SAMUEL RILLSTONE)

The dialogue around sexual violence scapegoats marginalised, impoverished communities and skirts around the broader picture – a lack of education around the complexities of sexual violence. This stems not only from insufficient resourcing but also a lack of the right vocabulary to express the issues. Because there’s a stigma surrounding it, we often can’t find the words to accurately and inclusively discuss an instance of sexual violence, words that understand the intersections between disability, race, ethnicity, cultural expression, sexuality and gender expression, as a few examples. 

This means the different variations of sexual violence aren’t well understood, meaning an instance of sexual assault can be described as harassment, or an instance of sexual abuse as assault. The use of language in this realm is exceedingly powerful. It’s important to know that sexual violence in any form is not OK, and that we should challenge our notions of what we perceive sexual violence to be. It’s a vicious cycle, and it’s why we hold our decision-makers accountable. This is why we ask for better funding for sexual violence prevention groups – to hope that this information can become much more widely accessible.

As well as this, the current sociopolitical climate focuses heavily on punitive reaction, not rehabilitative prevention. Punitive measures begin an isolating process, wherein people who have experienced or perpetrated sexual violence are pushed to the margins of society. This is rape culture in action, creating ridges and rifts that are impossible to scale alone.

The Rally for a City Free from Sexual Violence was our way of holding light to the darkest corner of Wellington. We saw this happening across borders, with phone torches shining for Sarah Everard on Clapham Common in London. Sarah’s case reiterated to the whole world that those who are sworn to protect us can abuse their power – in a way that most of us know with a sickening familiarity. Watching Sarah’s vigil flowers being trampled by police boots would be a breaking point for a lot of victims/survivors in this city.

The recent sexual violence reports within the Australian parliament, meanwhile, show us the extent of closed-door rape culture – what happens when “locker-room talk” leads to sexual violence within the offices of elected officials. What it feels like to know key decision-makers are forcing their secretaries and aides into toxic, uncomfortable and life-altering situations. 

The bottom line is that sexual violence is about an imbalance and abuse of power. Those who perpetrate sexual violence use this inherent dynamic to inflict harm, including the police and political leaders. People who are supposed to protect us. 

With only a week’s notice, seeing a 500-person turnout to our rally was no surprise to us. Wellington showed up to say that they’re sick of seeing sexual violence on their streets, just as London showed up a few weeks before, pushing at barriers to hope something gives, and Australia erected platforms to stand parallel to parliament house and look them in the eye.

Wellington city needs care and attention. It needs community-based action. Most importantly, we need to be aware that living in the absence of sexual violence is a right, not a privilege.

Maddi Rowe is a sexual violence prevention community organiser, and a key organiser of the #LetUsLive For a City Free of Sexual Violence rally. 
Keep going!
Image: The Spinoff/Getty Images
Image: The Spinoff/Getty Images

OPINIONSocietyApril 7, 2021

Autism isn’t an illness – it’s an identity

Image: The Spinoff/Getty Images
Image: The Spinoff/Getty Images

It’s time autism be recognised as a valid identity rather than a puzzle with missing pieces, writes neurodiversity advocate Kahukura Sinvold.

April is Autism Awareness month, a time many in the autistic community dread. Traditionally, it’s accompanied by a stylised puzzle piece – a symbol the majority of the autistic community rejects (we prefer the gold or rainbow infinity symbol) – as well as the colour blue and “inspirational” stories from parents about their autistic child. I think of this kaupapa as the medical perspective, and it’s one that heavily dominates our current social narrative regarding autism.

I want to see a different kind of kōrero based on a perspective countless advocates across the globe want people to listen to – the identity perspective. Meaning, I don’t have autism, I am autistic; it is my identity.

Perhaps criticism around the puzzle piece is something you’re hearing for the first time. Perhaps you have an autistic child or person in your life who loves the puzzle piece and feels it represents them perfectly. Of course, people are free to like what they want, but it’s important to understand the history behind the symbol.

There’s a lot of pain associated with the puzzle piece, particularly as it was created without our input during dark times when autistics were dehumanised and hidden in institutions. The concept was that we were like a puzzle missing a piece: finding a cure for this terrible disease was necessary, with the narrative focused heavily on tragedy and suffering.

In more recent history, the puzzle piece has been adopted as a logo for an organisation called Autism Speaks which, again, reinforces the notion that we autistics are incomplete and in need of early intervention to correct our deficiencies.

The fact that people continue to use the puzzle piece, despite the autistic community often viewing it as a hate symbol, gives a small indication as to why April can be so hurtful. Even during a month that’s supposed to be about us, our voices are rarely prioritised and our requests to be seen as a valid identity aren’t respected.

The puzzle piece is a symbol the majority of the autistic community rejects (Image: Autism Speaks)

“Don’t let it define who you are” is the common catchphrase surrounding autism. To that, many of us reply: “But it is who we are”. For me, being autistic is an integral part of who I am and it can’t be separated. I’m not a regular non-autistic person with a “side” of autism, and I don’t see autism as a condition, disorder or illness. Instead, I see it as a natural variation in brain types which can be referred to as “neurotypes”. That doesn’t mean there aren’t very real challenges with being autistic or that being autistic isn’t a disability that might require support, but it does mean that we as autistic people want others to learn and accept us as we are.

As it stands, the word autism is loaded with stigma and a resistance to giving children “labels”. There’s this idea that, with the right support, children can be pushed along some imaginary scale from severely autistic (non-verbal, low functioning) to mildly autistic (verbal, high functioning). But the reality is there isn’t a sliding scale: you either are or you aren’t autistic and it’s our support needs that vary depending on the individual, similar to all humans.

When it comes to labels, I can assure you those with autism are given plenty of those, except the labels we get tend to resonate through our self worth for life: lazy, rude, selfish, stupid, dramatic, oversensitive, manipulative, weird, and odd are just a few examples. Equally, we often know we’re different from a young age but assume the reason for this is our own fault and our own lack of trying. This frequently leads to poor mental health and self-worth issues, often reinforced with a helping of trauma on the side.

When I realised I was autistic I finally had the reason for why I never felt like I fit in and why I had the challenges I experienced. I could stop blaming myself for being broken because I wasn’t broken, I just had a different brain. As someone who was diagnosed in their mid-thirties, it’s not worth thinking about how knowing this earlier would have impacted my life because it’s too overwhelming.

Another aspect of being autistic is community. Social media is full of fellow autistics coming together as a community who are free of neurotypical expectations on how we interact. There’s straightforward dialogue which we aren’t called blunt or rude for, and we can dump information about our special interests without being told we’re obsessed. We have non-linear conversations jumping from one thing to another and then back again without a negative reaction, and we can show we empathise with a person’s experience by sharing a similar experience of our own without being called self-centred.

Basically, we can be who we are and embrace our autistic identity and culture without being reprimanded by those who don’t accept our ways of doing things. The solidarity of our shared experiences helps us feel less alone and also gives us a sense of pride in who we are, pushing away the shame and embarrassment of being misunderstood, misinterpreted and rejected for our differences. It’s powerful, it’s healing and it’s all because we see ourselves as a valid identity rather than a disorder, condition or illness.

So how do we interweave this perspective of autism with the everyday rhythm of life? It comes with a question: what does autism look like to you? Because there’s no adequate answer to this other than there is no “look”. What there is, though, are a lot of social rules and expectations that autistics can have trouble hitting correctly, which inevitably leads to us not being accepted. We aren’t accepted for listening without making eye contact, we aren’t accepted for our natural communication styles and we aren’t accepted when we stop trying to cover up and mask our differences.

I’m not saying everyone that does things differently is autistic, what I’m saying is we as a society need to get better at realising that “normal” has many forms. Question yourself when you judge someone on how they act, their facial expressions, their ways of communicating or the things you think of as “quirks”.

Hold your judgement when someone acts “out of character”, especially if they’re tired or in a busy environment. Normalise making mistakes and saying awkward things without cutting someone off. Give people an opportunity to explain themselves if you’re offended by something they said. Respect that people can have different levels of tolerance around noise, lights and chaos.

Please listen to the words someone uses and not just the tone, and recognise that things often thought of as “common sense” in our dominant culture are based on a certain kind of brain rather than all kinds of brains. Because this is what accepting differences looks like. This is what Autism Acceptance looks like – letting us be who we are without fear of repercussions.


The identity perspective is based on the work of Judy Singer and the Neurodiversity Movement. Here is a list of suggested resources if you wish to understand more:

https://neurocosmopolitanism.com/neurodiversity-some-basic-terms-definitions/

https://neuroclastic.com/

https://autisticadvocacy.org/

https://www.reframingautism.org.au/

https://www.facebook.com/theicannetwork/

https://www.youtube.com/c/autistictyla/

https://www.instagram.com/fidgets.and.fries/

https://www.instagram.com/the.autisticats/

https://www.tiktok.com/@auteach