Page 2 | New Zealand "Gender Balanced" Cabinet

CaveMum · 2023-04-12T09:04:17+00:00

Apparently the NZ Cabinet is now 50/50 men/women. Great news, if it is true, though the cynic in me wonders what the Cabinet looks like when actual biology is taken into account. Anyone know more details? [[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-65247904 New Zealand cabinet reaches gender equality for the first time - BBC News]]

landOFconfusion · 14/04/2023 01:15

shiningcuckoo · 13/04/2023 23:07

@Whaeanui
I don't think I'm 'insisting', rather stating my opinion, which isn't a particularly controversial or groundbreaking opinion either. I'm pretty comfortable with it as it's shared by the late Moana Jackson.
Big picture - the traditional bonds and safeguards of Māori family life were broken by colonisation and replaced by a system where women and children are chattels of men. Resources to support women and children in wider whānau settings were destroyed and stolen. Toxic masculinity became prized. Add in poverty, societal demands for assimilation and bare faced discrimination towards groups of people who prize mana and you have perfect conditions for everyday violence. Smaller scale - all men who habitually practice violence towards women and children minimize their actions. Māori men may use colonisation as their 'excuse' but that doesn't make colonisation an invalid explanation. Other men use poverty, generational family violence, trauma and mental health issues as excuses - of course there is nothing that should minimize their behaviours but it doesn't mean that these factors arent impactful.
Coming back to the original premise of this post, the Aotearoa New Zealand political landscape is complex and often contradictory partly because of colonisation and hamfisted attempts to reindigenise. It's all early days. NZ is no longer an outpost of mother England and needs to find its own way through its stance on the rights of girls and women and self id. And part of that isn't undermining our women politicians whose achievements are in spite of the confines of a toxic patriarchy that actually is the result of European interference.

You are making the common mistake of regarding tangata whenua as uncorrupted and idealised creatures of nature. We are not.

Our dreadful abuse stats are the sole responsibility of the broken men who raise their fists against us.

The only people who benefit from the narrative that abuse is a consequence of colonisation are abusers.

Mamaneedsadrink · 14/04/2023 02:48

Whaeanui · 13/04/2023 13:32

But colonisation particularly impacts on family violence in Aotearoa.

I know it’s not the discussion, but I’m Maori and a victim of family violence so I’m interested in how you’re insisting this is about colonisation. I don’t think it is, at all. It’s a way for Maori men to try and minimise their responsibility.

Perhaps, but it is Maori themselves that blame much of their issues on this, which I understand and sympathise with to sone degree. I am married to someone who was the victim of racism as a young boy, and his mother was one of the ones who had his mouth washed out with soap for speaking Te Reo. When you grow up in your own country and and told you are scum all the time it does have an effect on your general psyche. I still see the hurt in him now and he is a grown man.

Whaeanui · 14/04/2023 05:46

Perhaps, but it is Maori themselves that blame much of their issues on this,

Do we now? Did our representative tell you this? ‘Our issues’? What issues? Colonisation does affect us in numerous ways, but it is not the reason for domestic violence. There may be some Maori people who think it is, but I’ve only seen twitter activists claim it. I haven’t seen any actual reasoned argument on it nor is it what most of us actually think.

Whaeanui · 14/04/2023 06:02

shiningcuckoo · 13/04/2023 23:07

@Whaeanui
I don't think I'm 'insisting', rather stating my opinion, which isn't a particularly controversial or groundbreaking opinion either. I'm pretty comfortable with it as it's shared by the late Moana Jackson.
Big picture - the traditional bonds and safeguards of Māori family life were broken by colonisation and replaced by a system where women and children are chattels of men. Resources to support women and children in wider whānau settings were destroyed and stolen. Toxic masculinity became prized. Add in poverty, societal demands for assimilation and bare faced discrimination towards groups of people who prize mana and you have perfect conditions for everyday violence. Smaller scale - all men who habitually practice violence towards women and children minimize their actions. Māori men may use colonisation as their 'excuse' but that doesn't make colonisation an invalid explanation. Other men use poverty, generational family violence, trauma and mental health issues as excuses - of course there is nothing that should minimize their behaviours but it doesn't mean that these factors arent impactful.
Coming back to the original premise of this post, the Aotearoa New Zealand political landscape is complex and often contradictory partly because of colonisation and hamfisted attempts to reindigenise. It's all early days. NZ is no longer an outpost of mother England and needs to find its own way through its stance on the rights of girls and women and self id. And part of that isn't undermining our women politicians whose achievements are in spite of the confines of a toxic patriarchy that actually is the result of European interference.

Oh dear god. The lack of self awareness from you regarding how you’re talking to a Maori women is 😬 So you learnt your theory from a Maori lawyer so it must be true. It’s not controversial? Oh but within our communities, it actually is. Maori has as much history of violence as any other race. There’s plenty of evidence of that, ditto the misogyny that kept us speaking on marae- some still today. All of these excuses are exactly that. There’s nothing inherent in poverty that leads to beating your family either. I’ve actually grown up in domestic violence so I find much of what you’ve said offensive, but doubly so as a Maori women. People like to romanticise indigenous cultures, including people from those cultures. To pretend we are some kind of flawless sacred beings that were without any of the ugliness we see in white cultures. It’s a myth that hurts women and children, from pakeha it just looks like ally theatre. You’ve not explained in any way how colonisation caused this either, you just repeated someone else’s theory that is did. It is absolutely just an excuse, one that prevents ownership and creates resentment rather than solution.

the traditional bonds and safeguards of Māori family life were broken by colonisation They actually weren’t you know. This is very offensive to suggest and demonstrably false.

Whaeanui · 14/04/2023 06:03

*You are making the common mistake of regarding tangata whenua as uncorrupted and idealised creatures of nature. We are not.

Our dreadful abuse stats are the sole responsibility of the broken men who raise their fists against us.

The only people who benefit from the narrative that abuse is a consequence of colonisation are abusers.*

Jesus Christ, you’ve forced me to agree with Landof for once!

shiningcuckoo · 14/04/2023 11:02

@Whaeanui
You know nothing about me and my own family history and identity. Quite dangerous jumping in with your accusations. Shouting loudly doesn't make your opinion more valid you know.

Whaeanui · 14/04/2023 11:33

@shiningcuckoo what accusations did I make about your family? If you’re Maori my answer would be the same. You ‘splained my own colonisation to me. What I’ve said is you’re wrong, it’s dangerous, and I’m offended. Feel free to tell me something about yourself which would apparently change my response ( it won’t ). I find the position you are taking offensive. So did another poster.

shiningcuckoo · 14/04/2023 12:11

Sweet Jesus. Which other poster have I offended? Having an unexceptional mainstream opinion isn't offensive - my point of view on this is nothing out of the ordinary. And you are not the arbitrator of opinions. And now I'm offended by your assumptions and deliberate misinterpretation of my words.

Whaeanui · 14/04/2023 12:15

@shiningcuckoo what does having an apparently mainstream opinion got to do with it? Are you going to engage with anything I said? How is it linked? You just said, this caused that. How? Where is the evidence Maori weren’t violent pre colonisation? There’s lots of evidence to the contrary. All you’re doing is getting very upset and defensive that two Maori posters are in disagreement with what you’ve said about our culture. I take it you live in NZ? Are you Maori yourself? I haven’t made any assumptions or attacked your family ‘identity’. Whatever identity means.

Whaeanui · 14/04/2023 14:37

Ok so took me 1 minute to find this

Lived here for 20 years but originally from the UK. from you @shiningcuckoo so I’ll say that you probably should back off and not talk down to Maori about their own colonisation and family bonds. The fact you’re British and spoke to me like that, responded after I was offended by attacking me, is incredibly disappointing.

Mamaneedsadrink · 14/04/2023 22:30

Whaeanui · 14/04/2023 05:46

Perhaps, but it is Maori themselves that blame much of their issues on this,

Do we now? Did our representative tell you this? ‘Our issues’? What issues? Colonisation does affect us in numerous ways, but it is not the reason for domestic violence. There may be some Maori people who think it is, but I’ve only seen twitter activists claim it. I haven’t seen any actual reasoned argument on it nor is it what most of us actually think.

Well it would be a reasonable assumption to think colonisation is a root cause of many issues. Why do you think Maori are disproportionately overrepresented in almost every negative statistic? Given they aren't inherently lazy or stupid or just 'bad' people?

Whaeanui · 14/04/2023 22:36

Well it would be a reasonable assumption to think colonisation is a root cause of many issues.

Yes I said that. It is not the root cause of male violence, which is within every culture and every race in the world. Some cultures more than others because of the way they deal with it.

Mamaneedsadrink · 14/04/2023 22:58

Whaeanui · 14/04/2023 22:36

Well it would be a reasonable assumption to think colonisation is a root cause of many issues.

Yes I said that. It is not the root cause of male violence, which is within every culture and every race in the world. Some cultures more than others because of the way they deal with it.

That's fair, and I agree

DemiColon · 15/04/2023 01:59

Isn't this the problem with a lot of current rhetoric? There is certainly some cultural variation, but the basic human evils, like violence, greed, the will to power, the desire to dominate, cruelty - those are human drives that probably can't be extinguished. In part because they are adaptive in many ways and are attached to impulses that we need.

You see these things play out in all societies.

TheClitterati · 16/04/2023 23:19

This is why we talk of patriarchy and women's liberation from it. Patriarchy & the male violence that enforces it affects women of every country and culture and has done so for thousands of years.

To think the NZ Parliament is compromised 50% women and yet sets out to deny women exist as a class by voting in self id, beggars belief. The "select committee" openly sneered at women who spoke up for women and against the amendment, including many indigenous Maori women with specific concerns of another damaging colonisation attacking their culture.