NZ has unresolved race issues! OMG WHO KNEW?

Soooooooooo Hone Harawira.  Here’s a Stuff link which vaguely outlines the situation for any non-Kiwi readers, as I can’t imagine there’s a New Zealander with access to the Internet who hasn’t heard about this.

First recommendation: rocky’s two excellent posts at The Standard on the wider foreshore/seabed issue, and ta, rocky, for the link to NZ History Online’s map showing Maori land loss to the present day.  That was a nice sobering hit for a Wednesday evening.

First thought: gee, I wonder if that’s the kind of thing a person, whose ethnic group remains at the bottom of the socio-economic heap, and whose language is apparently so terrifying to the ear that non-Maori will just die if they’re forced to find the mute button hear it, might just be a little pissed off about?  (And see Zetetic’s comment below – of course not!  Nothing to be angry about here!  Just a little diversion from that thing Harawira was totally unapologetic about!)

Second recommendation: the sprout’s post, also at The Standard, on why no, Harawira didn’t actually advocate violence and why yes, this is all just a bunch of privileged white wankers* summoning the spectre of Scary Brown People Who Will Climb In The Windows Of Other New Zealanders At Night**.

Third recommendation: Play bingo with any discussion of this story against the classic Wite-Magik Attax.  It may help, but probably not.

And now, my own little bugbear.

An “unbalanced response”

You know it’s a bad fucking day when I have to agree, in part, with fucking WhaleOil.

Point the Zero: I’m actually not going to rehash his situation here, because then I’d feel hypocritical for slagging off Eddie at The Standard for Point One.*

That being said, Point the First:  It’s a bit fucking rich playing the “we kept quiet about this because we are Such Noble Creatures” card as a prelude to:

but seeing as the Sunday Star-Times felt differently, a few comments.

It’s a lovely tactic of some of our Parliamentarians to try a variation on this spin, the “well I might call the member a liar, if it weren’t against Standing Orders” line.  It’s childish bullshit and, in Eddie’s case, serves as a handy warning that things are going to go rapidly downhill.

Protip:  if it weren’t okay to comment on it before, it ain’t okay now that one of the trashiest newsrags in NZ has decided it’s a good time to rake through their Most Unflattering Photos file.

Quickhit: QoT <3 NRT 4 eva

After a crappy day full of news about the exciting new ways National/Act are fucking up my country, it’s nice to know there’s a blogger out there who will actually bother to check out the proportion of Parliament’s time spent in urgency this term vs. last term.

Have a fun Labour Weekend, people.

It’s sex, Jim, but not as we know it

Hoyden About Town has another post up in their depressingly-long-running series entitled “It’s not sex, it’s rape” – reporting the nigh-countless occurrences of sexual assaults being described as “having sex”.  Lauredhel includes a link to the fairly comprehensive and highly-recommended Pulling the Plug on Rape Culture One Word at a Time post at The Curvature:

What incorrectly using the word “sex” in cases of rape does is cast a shadow of doubt over the accusation.  The phrase “the defendant had sex with the woman” does indeed assume innocence for the defendant, but does not afford the alleged victim the same courtesy.  Her version of the events is entirely erased – and it also presents the “sex” as an objective fact, though the victim certainly might not view it as such. As far too many people don’t get, rape is not merely sex, but an act of violence – and this wording erases that as well.

Cara talks about how referring to things as “sex” and not “rape” implies consensuality, it implies that what occurred was just sex, not an act of violence – but on reflection, I realised there was a whole other, fairly grotesque, narrative in play.

To wit, that “had sex with a woman” may as well read as “had sex with a mobile vacuum tube“.

Down Under Feminists’ Carnival: I learned the truth at 17, that love was a patriarchal construct keeping me down

It’s that time of the month again – carnival time!*

Here it is, people, Volume XVII of the DUFC, containing the very best of Southern Hemisphere feminist discourse for the month of September.

Ten Simple Rules for Surviving Patriarchy

1. Mess Up That Dominant Paradigm Good And Hard

Boganette is leading the charge here with her sheer audacity in letting people know she isn’t going to change her name on marriage.  Gold star for the bonus cognitive dissonance caused by having a male partner willing to take her name!  It’s just not right!

Chally needs to you understand that you cannot actually be that progressive if you refer to things as “lame”.

In A Strange Land destroys Greg Sheridan’s reasoning why women shouldn’t be allowed in frontline combat positions.  I’m just amazed he didn’t raise the extra cost involved of shipping manicurists to warzones.  Then she takes on gender essentialism and what “woman” means.

2. Speak Truth to Power/Bigotry/Douchebags/Patriarchy

Just in case there were any concern that feminists just don’t talk about important issues enough …

Lauredhel reports on a Canadian study about the actual risks of injuries to mother and baby in homebirths vs hospital births.  Jo Tamar provides some analysis of why, despite the facts, doctors still prefer hospital births.

Spilt Milk writes an open letter to Kyle “Trigger Warning” Sandilands, whose work I am eternally grateful has never made it over the Tasman.

Chally reminds us that there are many different ways to be an activist.

Julie at the Hand Mirror reports on the Roundtable on Violence Against Women’s factsheet, released in response to the sentencing of Clayton Weatherston; and Anna takes on the odious CYFSWatch.

3. Break Down Controlling Narratives

shinynewcoin takes apart the notion of being “high maintenance” and the way it punishes women for doing what they’re supposed to.

Blogger on the Cast Iron Balcony draws a fantastic comparison between men’s and women’s “risky” behaviour.

Richie dissects the good old “But I didn’t meeeeeeeeeeeean to!” line.

Lauredhel says yes, “these things” did happen in your day, you just said “boys will be boys”.

4. Don’t Forget The Men

Feminists are often criticised for making it all about the chicks and not caring about the poor oppressed suffering men.  There’s something in that.

We should definitely care about the men who get to have parental-celebration barbeques while women-parents shop, as documented by Fuck Politeness.  And we would be terribly remiss not to care about fathers getting governmental thank-yous for having the balls to financially support their own children, as brilliantly savaged by shinynewcoin.

Boganette has a Public Service Announcement about how it’s not your period that broke up your relationship, it’s the fact your boyfriend was an asshole.

5. Eat, Drink, Wear a Size Blah and Be Merry – or don’t

Chally links to an online feminist bookclub.

Boganette would be most delighted if you could not tell her she’s lost weight, asshole.  PodBlack Cat doesn’t drink, and has not been stripped of her Aussie citizenship for it.

Boganette and News With Nipples both cover the report which shows some women drink before sex due to self-esteem issues with their bodies.  Boganette is full of scorn, NWN wonders what the connection is with the study’s funders, Femfresh (for all your labia-deodorant needs),

6. Be Inspired By Women Who Rock

The Hoydens About Town presents an obituary of Barbara Moore:  Feminist, Lawyer, Writer & Grad Student of the University of Melbourne.  Bloody powerful stuff there.

Godard’s Letterboxes has the mighty Sarah Connor at #3 on their Top 100 Sci Fi and Fantasy Women list.  So far, so kickass, but if there ain’t a Servalan or an Ivanova showing up shortly there shall be a reckoning.

7. Have Kids and Consign Yourself to the Fight Against Gender Stereotyping and Societal Expectation

This is clearly a big issue of our times, and that’s just going by how often it crops up in the Australofemiblogosphere.  Heck, it starts before the bub even arrives!

Two posts on breastfeeding laws in WA: Lauredhel celebrating the likely law change, and girliejones explaining that yeah, she WANTS the freaking symbolism.

Godard’s Letterboxes has boys, not aliens.  blue milk has a boy and a girl – clearly the perfect sample for making wide conclusions about inherent gender differences.

Wildly Parenthetical wonders what’s so great about having a normal childhood.  Made in Melbourne sees people comparing the pole-dancing doll to the breastfeeding doll and is perplexed. Tor notes that the lovely paradox of performing femininity hits you good and young.

Lauredhel struggles with the eternal question, “How can feminist mums avoid being humorless childhood-ruiners?”

8. Celebrate Suffrage Day

September 19 was Women’s Suffrage Day in NZ.  Anne Else used the occasion to savage Chris Trotter’s waxing lyrical about the NZ Labour Party getting its manliness back on – apparently those 9 years in power under a woman leader were the worst thing to happen, or something.

In A Strange Land reprints the Women’s Christian Temperance Union’s reasons why women should get the vote, and Homepaddock features a cartoon from the era – why my househusband isn’t in the kitchen cooking my dinner right now is my question!

9. Refuse to Give a Fuck About Artistic Careers

In A Strange Land looks at the concept of moral luck, and about sums up the Polanski argument for me:

I don’t care how great a filmmaker he is. The fact is that he was convicted of raping a thirteen year old child, and he fled from justice.

An Irritating Truth gives good tips on how to be a socially-acceptable sex offender.

10. Remember, Little-p Politics Matter

The policing of trans people’s gender presentation.  Being a feminist in the open-source world.  The wider issues about “right to die” arguments – like the limited options people may be given.  The dominance of the male voice.  The wording of and assumptions underlying “scientific” surveys.  Whether privileged people’s “choice” trumps basic cultural sensitivity.  And why fear of genital mutilation doesn’t warrant refugee status in Australia.

That’s all she wrote!  Remember to submit your posts for the next edition of the Carnival, being hosted by Jo over at Wallaby.  ETA at Jo’s request:  The theme is Carers’ Week / Caring.  See her comment below for more info!

And if you’re ever at a loss for some good reading material, check out my own DUFC Contributors’ List (soon to be updated with this month’s new additions, I promise!).

Next time on Ideologically Impure:  savaging critique of the “posts” that didn’t make it into the Carnival, largely due to being horrible spam.

*Remember, boys, if you don’t actually want to know the details of my menstrual cycle, you are free to (a) not ask and (b) not ascribe my annoyance at you to it.

Rich white man expected to suffer consequences of own actions, end times nigh

Kate Harding basically nails it on the Roman Polanski issue, at Salon.com and then Jezebel.

Roman Polanski raped a child. Let’s just start right there, because that’s the detail that tends to get neglected when we start discussing whether it was fair for the bail-jumping director to be arrested at age 76, after 32 years in “exile” (which in this case means owning multiple homes in Europe, continuing to work as a director, marrying and fathering two children, even winning an Oscar, but never — poor baby — being able to return to the U.S.).

I don’t really have anything to add, because it’s just boggling my mind how this is even an issue.  How “he raped a child and fled the country to avoid being punished for it” is somehow not that bad because he’s made some movies and been forced to live in the cultural wasteland that is France for years.

December 12, 2015: Russia invades Georgia, Security Council member “relaxed about it”

Via Imperator Fish, because let’s face it, I have steadfastly avoided all coverage of That Nice Mr Key’s overseas circus act, it seems that New Zealand is in the running for a seat on the UN Security Council.

This is not objectively a bad thing; NZ has already served on the Security Council three times, we’re hardly a country to back out of lending a hand in international situations, hell, we still cling to the geographic accident that made us technically the first country to declare war on Germany in ‘39.

The problem is summed up nicely by Scott at IF:

Having a seat at the big table sounds fine, so long as there’s no international crisis at the time putting pressure on us to lean one way or the other.

Key likes to be all things to all people.  He doesn’t so much express opinions as give people the answers he thinks they want to hear.  That might be all well and good when we’re talking to President “Son of Jor-El” Obama, but what happens when it’s President “Prime Minister” Kills-Siberian-Tigers-With-His-Bare-Hands Putin on the other end of the line?  When we’ve put ourselves out on the international stage and simply cannot keep everyone happy – when any decision is going to produce a whacking amount of public, media-attracting ammunition for the Greens/Labour/the Maori Party,* and backing away, saying “Well I’m relaxed about it, they can meet with me, I mean my Chief of Staff, I mean I haven’t seen any proof and anyway I was on a plane, they’re just scaremongering” is simply not an option?

We’ll be looking back on having our leader reading the Top Ten on Letterman with fucking fondness and nostalgia, that’s what’s going to happen.

*I mean, just the basic “sending our boys to die” vs. “letting [group] be slaughtered” is a bitch to juggle.

A loss to Parliament

As Idiot/Savant puts it, and a loss to the entire fucking country, too.  You’re going to be really sorely missed, Sue B.

Sue’s maiden speech from way back in the days of 1999 is here.

I am here on a mission. Unemployed people and beneficiaries have had enough of being treated like dirt, taking the blame for every problem in society. Previous Governments have institutionalised another form of apartheid in Departments like WINZ, where a culture of contempt underlines dealings with socalled customers as well as with hard pressed frontline staff.

I am here to do everything I can to turn this around. We need immediate relief of poverty in this country, including a radical overhaul of WINZ and the whole benefit system, and a commitment to progressive increases in the minimum wage. The compulsory work for dole scheme known as ‘Community Wage Community Work’ can and should end tomorrow. We should look at restoring the universal family benefit, acknowledging the needs and rights of those who have the courage to bring children into the world in an overwhelmingly child-hating society.

We should also start seriously researching the implications and possibilities of some form of Universal Basic Income which has the potential to replace the whole shattered and inadequate apparatus of the old welfare state.

It’s time that we put the blame for overdependency on the State directly where it lies – on those who use unemployment and inadequate income support systems as tools of deliberate economic strategies. And we should also examine why dependency is OK for some, and not for others.

In honour of this kickass woman,* get your posts in for the next Down Under Feminists’ Carnival!

Next time on Ideologically Impure:  how angry will QoT get over attempts to drag her country kicking and screaming back into the Dark Ages an FPP electoral system?  How many times will QoT headdesk over That Nice Mr Key being on Letterman? Will QoT explode with joy when Dexter season 3 finally premieres 4 October?  Will any of these questions actually get answered?  Tune in, same feminist time, same cussword-filled channel!

ETA: More on Sue Bradford at The Hand Mirror and Kiwipolitico.

*Seriously, lauredhel, tigtog, here’s a right contender for Hoyden of the Week.  Anyone who had to worry about getting her trespass notice from the grounds of Parliament revoked so she could start work as an MP is a hoyden worthy of recognition in my book.

I want YOU! to submit to DUFC!

Reminded by this post at Hoyden About Town, this is your beginning-of-the-month reminder to get your posts in for the Seventeenth Edition of the Down Under Feminists’ Carnival!  (And while we’re on the topic, if you run a feminist Australasian blog, please consider hosting a future edition! It is easy, fun AND cheap, and thus possibly a universe-destroying paradox).

Carnival info here!

Submission form here!  If that’s not working, try qotblog @ gmail dot com.

No particular theme, but I’m always on the lookout for Kickass Women Who Rock The Party That Rocks The Party – speaking of which, gratuitous plug for 2D Goggles:  The Adventures of Lovelace & Babbage, most fanfuckingtastic webcomic EVER.

And some gratuitous Natalya Neidhart love.

Fat hate ain’t just American

Via Fatshionista, a highly-recommended article on America’s Fat Hatred.  Here’s the bit, also quoted at Fatshionista, which leaped out at me:

In a study published in the 2005 issue of the Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law,Abigail Saguy and Brian Riley found that many overweight people decide not to get help for medical conditions that are more treatable and more risky than obesity because they don’t want to deal with their doctor’s harassment about their weight. (For instance, a study from the University of North Carolina found that obese women are less likely to receive cervical exams than their thinner counterparts, in part because they worry about being embarrassed or belittled by the doctor because of their weight.)

And of course, when those women drop dead of preventable cancer, it all gets ascribed to “ZOMG obesity epidemic fatties are UNHEALTHY why didn’t they put down the baby-flavoured donuts” and the cycle keeps going, dumbasses.

The reason this jumped out at me is that it’s only been in the last year (i.e. two six-monthly appointments) that I’ve started to just not like going to the doctor.

It was great when I was at uni.  The doctors were generally so head-over-heels with getting to deal with a patient who didn’t smoke, used two forms of contraception and knew exactly when her last smear had been that the dreaded BMI calculation often didn’t even make an appearance.

These last two?  Yeeeeeeeeeeeeah, different story.