Convicted sex offender stages play about overcoming depression

[MillyMollyFarmer]

In news that will surprise nobody here, a male actor in NZ who admitted offences against 6 women who took his acting classes, is staging a play in Auckland about overcoming depression and suicidal thoughts following his horrible experience losing friends and family, everything apparently, last year. He was triggered by a fellow actor committing suicide after a domestic assault conviction.

Once again men who commit horrible acts against women are trying to change the narrative and make it about their mental health. Despite women also suffering from mental health struggles and suicidal thoughts, we don’t beat and assault men in the same huge numbers. This man has no thought for how the victims of his crimes will feel about this play or how they might be impacted. Violence against women in NZ is so high because it’s almost normalised, every excuse is given and accepted and we don’t seem to be getting any better. NZ has the highest rate of domestic violence in the developed world and the recent unicef report on child wellbeing rates NZ as one of the worst places to grow up. It’s horrific. The focus must be on accepting responsibility and not making excuses every time a violent or sexual offence takes place.

www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12362213

Anything the PM says or does on women’s rights was for me totally overshadowed by the fact she does things like celebrate with the All blacks when there’s a violent offender, not kiwi, who escaped conviction months earlier, when she apologised for a foreign born woman being murdered months after a young special needs Māori girl was horrifically murdered by a trans woman and male accomplice which she said nothing about.

I think this is a really painful and difficult aspect of both Australia & NZ. The deracination of the Maori peoples, and the migration of many young male Pacific Islanders to the north Island (apparently Auckland is the largest Islander city in the Pacific), and the deracination & attempted genocide of the various Australian indigenous nations, has left a really deep and difficult to speak about culture of domestic violence.

Yes, the indigenous men are deracinated and set adrift, and the racism is appalling. But the women in those communities bear the brunt of it.

A friend of mine worked for the Legal Aid service in an Australian city, and did a fair bit of work in collaboration with the Aboriginal Legal service - he said there was a huge problem for women in that community as the Aboriginal Legal service would not prosecute Aboriginal men, on principle, even when they had been violent towards indigenous women (or other men). You can understand that principle in a deeply racist country, but as usual - it's women who lose out.

but I’m Māori and I just can’t deal with the awfulness of the place

That's very sad. I was a migrant & needed to be home - it's very sad to be separated from your country - in your heart & body, as well as the day to day ...

And so sad & difficult that the issues you talk of are still about. As part of something I did for work - back in the early 1990s - I hosted a Maori woman writer for an event. She was talking to me about the differences between the Maori independence movement, and the Australian indigenous one (remember the closing of the Sydney Olympics - the amazing "Treaty Now" and the amazing Yunupingu brothers?) - she told me that the Maori men had been told very clearly by women leaders of various Maori nations that they needed to deal with their anger, before real steps to liberation & independence for indigenous peoples could be achieved.

I always thought that the Maori nations had achieved so much in this respect.

I hope you find your way home eventually.

it's very sad to be separated from your country - in your heart & body, as well as the day to day ...

It is, yes. Thanks for the kind words and the understanding. Women bear the brunt in every culture, but some have heavier burdens and societal judgement to deal with and so more is hidden.