The NZ Green Party have some very good policies for women and low-income people, particularly ones that will help a fair number of women struggling to pay essential bills. However, they have significant silences, confusions, and/or contradictions in their policies and plans that will have a negative impact on females.
Posts
We are living through a time of turbulence, instability, and uncertainty. The decades long neoliberal dominance within Western-European patriarchal capitalism is under extreme pressure. The four biggest political parties in NZ have all been infected to a greater or lesser degree by neoliberalism, with National and the ACT parties being the most deeply contaminated.
In anticipation of real men throwing real punches, trans rights activists who had called for mass protest against Let Women Speak, promptly bottled out
Gender identity as an issue and a movement was created and marketed in the first world. In that context, a leader of women opposed to gender identity, who “channels her inner Monroe” while surfing a wave of anger on social media, is unsurprising.
I don’t know if Kelly-Jae Keen believes in her brand, but I do know that many of the women who support her are well-intentioned and genuine in their beliefs and concerns.
This is Part one of a three part post which expresses the writer’s personal opinion. It may not be that of all members of WLA.
Part One: Appearances Can Be Deceiving
If we all dressed in sex neutral clothes, wore our hair etc in sex-neutral styles, would we have such a thing as gender identity?
Do the existential crises and social conflicts flowing from the claims that an individual gender identity outweighs biological sex, have their roots in the soil of the capitalist era’s heavily sex-defined personal appearance standards?
Towards the end of March, Kellie-Jae Keen, aka Posie Parker, will be visiting NZ with her Let Women Speak roadshow. On cue, some members of the Green Party have called on the government to ban her, either from entry to NZ, or from speaking in public. They claim what she has to say is “hate speech”, and she’s depicted as a fascist, a white supremacist, and a transphobe.
While many feminists’ attention remains focused solely on gender identity, issues like access to clean air and water, adequate food and shelter, quality social assistance through health, education and welfare services remain central to good lives for women and children.
On October 22, feminist writer Renee Gerlich finished publishing her seven volume Brief, Complete Herstory series, a female centred, colour illustrated history of the world from the Big Bang to the present day. If you have ever wanted a succinct, digestible overview of history, here it is!
Think what is happening in Afghanistan couldn’t happen in ‘civilised’ countries? Do you believe women’s rights here are secure?
Contact Us
womensliberationaotearoa@gmail.com
Please email us for membership details, essays you’d like published or anything else you’d like to bring to our attention.