Guest Blog By Catriona MacLennan.
A 16-year-old Kenyan girl was walking home from her grandfather’s funeral when she was attacked by six men, beaten and gang-raped for several hours. She was then thrown into a sewage ditch and left for dead. Liz, as she is known, crawled out of the pit to call for help.
The attack has left her with a broken spine, obstetric fistula, in a wheelchair and incontinent. Despite this, the courageous young woman identified three of her attackers, who were dragged to the local police station by villagers.
Their punishment ?
The police detained the men overnight, before directing them to cut the police station grass and then sending them home.
In 2014, there is not yet a single country in the world in which women have sovereignty over our own bodies. Women are subject to the risk of sexual assault in every nation, at any time, both at home and outside our homes.
In New Zealand, it is estimated that only one rapist in a hundred will actually be convicted of the crime.
Moreover, in every country on the planet, the rape victim will find that her behaviour is scrutinised more thoroughly than that of the rapist and the legal system and public opinion are likely to conclude that she is the author of her own misfortune, rather than being the victim of a serious crime.
French actress, Eleonore Pourriat, in 2010 made a movie called Majorite Opprimee (Oppressed Majority) in which she envisaged a world in which the tables were turned and it was men, rather than women, who were the oppressed gender.
The film shows house husband Pierre spending a day being casually, and then increasingly aggressively, sexually harassed by the women in a female-dominated world. The movie makes its disturbing points imply by reversing gender roles, thereby shining a spotlight on the pervasiveness of sexism and violence against women.
Although the film attracted little attention when it was first released, it has gone viral in the past month, clocking up hundreds of thousands of views.
Obviously this movie will not on its own change sexist attitudes which have prevailed in every country for thousands of years.
But nor, it seems, do law changes or years of action by women worldwide make a significant difference.
Progress in terms of eliminating violence against women, closing the gender pay gap, creating permanent and adequately-paid jobs, recognising and rewarding the importance of child-rearing and improving women’s advancement to the tops of the political and business spheres has all but stalled in most countries. In some cases, it appears to be going backwards.
2014 in New Zealand is election year. I have written a 100-point Women’s Election Agenda Aotearoa 2014 – 100 steps on the road to equality for the women of Aotearoa.
The agenda sets out policies relating to:
- violence against women
- benefits
- the workforce
- parenting
- child support
- wahine Maori
- immigrant and refugee women
- Parliament
- health and reproduction
- sport
- leadership
- disability
- lesbian women
- credit and financial literacy
- media and internet
- animals
- international
- funding the Women’s Election Agenda Aotearoa 2014.
I regard what I have written as a draft and hope that other women will read it and add to it to improve it. The agenda needs to be advanced in a non-partisan way and across all political parties.
The general election offers women in Aotearoa the chance to use our voting power to achieve improvements for women. Too often, political parties take women’s votes for granted and regard women’s policies and “women’s issues” as afterthoughts and far less important than the “real” election issues such as the economy, law and order and asset sales.
This attitude is plainly illustrated by the dismissive labelling of discussion about increasing the number of women and non-pakeha people in Parliament as “identity politics.” The subtext is that such issues are trivial and only of concern to “minorities” such as women, Maori , gays and lesbians – even though we are actually the majority.
Similarly, last year when the Labour Party was discussing the idea of taking positive steps to increase the number of women in Parliament, the discussion was rapidly labelled a “man ban” and was then swiftly put on hold.
Actually, more than 100 countries have taken steps to address the chronic lack of female representation in politics worldwide. New Zealand is lagging behind in failing to take steps. Imagine the outcry there would be if only a third of MPs were men – that would never be tolerated. Yet one-third representation in the House is the highest representation women have ever achieved in New Zealand. Throughout most of our history, our representation has been far less.
The women of Aotearoa have the chance to achieve significant change this year by working together and making sure politicians hear our voices. Let’s do it.
Catriona MacLennan is a barrister and journalist and the presenter of Womenpower on Sky Channel 83. This is her first article for The Daily Blog.
“Too often, political parties take women’s votes for granted and regard women’s policies and “women’s issues” as afterthoughts and far less important than the “real” election issues such as the economy, law and order and asset sales.”
I would go further than this actually Catriona.
Too often people (mostly male) regards women’s policies and women’s issues as less important.
This is clearly evident here at TDB.
Every time an article particularly relevant to women appears here at TDB the number of comments is very few.
Articles on subjects more traditionally considered “masculine”, such as the politics and shenanigans currently ongoing within Labour, attract much more attention.
“Women’s issues” are human issues. If we improve the lives of women and children in NZ we improve the lives of everyone. Men win too when women are safe and supported.
And we need the good men, who are the majority, to step up and show some interest. We need them to support us because doing it on our own is so far not working well enough.
I thank you very much Catriona for speaking up loudly and publicly on issues affecting women. It gives me hope that the next generation of women in NZ won’t just lie down and take our second rate status. Thank you. Kia kaha.
@ Lara: “Too often people (mostly male) regards women’s policies and women’s issues as less important.
This is clearly evident here at TDB.
Every time an article particularly relevant to women appears here at TDB the number of comments is very few.”
Dead right. Unless, of course, it’s about abortion rights. Or (gasp!) devising ways to get more women into parliament or on boards. Then, I’ve noticed, the censorious blokes leap to the comment thread, with reaction ranging from spitting venom to patronising psychobabble.
and strangely enough I thought I could expect better from the “progressive” left
we’ll just have to keep on keeping on Merrial
like water wearing away rock, just keep on
one day enough of them will get it, that we’re not taking anything from them in order for us to be equally respected, that feminism advances rights of all human beings and is not a threat to men, and then eventually we can all win
@ Lara: ” I thought I could expect better from the “progressive” left”
Indeed. Bizarre, isn’t it? Mind you, the Greens have managed to increase the representation of women, so evidently the men in that party don’t feel too threatened.
It would be interesting to see the detail your 100-point Women’s Election Agenda. Do you have a link please?
No parties have moved on women’s rights in over 40 years..back then only marginally and they are not about to now despite requests to do so.
Check out all policies for women and children (in detail)and see what you find…or more precisely NOT find.
Unbelievably “Womens rights” are still considered too controversial for public discourse and policy (and this not only from men). The laws are for men and written by men with their token women’s full permission. They are not our laws.
I agree their should be affirmative action in parliament now…even the PC brigade won’t address this either…how can this be?
You cannot expect a male dominated culture to fix the situation for women and children. History tells us they won’t.
Any women who sides with this oppression is a traitor…they do and they have.
Our rights will not be handed to us by either of these groups and women need to take them now.
Without full participation and representation by worthy and courageous women this is not going to occur.
I suggest a general strike from all women everywhere. Lock your kids in the house and play with them, put your feet up for a day (or two)and simply DO NOT go to work or work in the home.
Everything will come to a grinding halt.
I like the idea of a general strike by women for all the unpaid work we do.
But… the problem with that is we would be striking on work which is not just essential to wider society, but essential to those who are closest to us and whom we love the most. There is no way ever I will not feed, love and care for my son. Ever. And you can bet the majority of women everywhere would be the same.
So the strike idea is kinda masculine.
Unfortunately I think the solution is more education, awareness and conversation.
And.. just randomly… it has often occurred to me that if the majority of decision making powerful positions were occupied by mothers (particularly mothers of young children) the world would be a much nicer and peaceful place. War would become rare. My world changed when I gave birth, and it has never been the same. No longer could I look at pictures of starving children or war without crying and feeling the pain.
Glaringly, not a single male comment so far, and I have no wish to be a “token male”. There are many issues to address in creating a sustainable society, and having full and equal rights, participation, and representation is surely the most basic. Get with the picture, guys!
@ Dave Robinson: “Glaringly, not a single male comment so far, and I have no wish to be a “token male”.”
Except (possibly) Gosman. And,of course, your own good self.
But it is sad, isn’t it, that – one or two aside – you can bet that most men will have simply bypassed this post, concluding that it doesn’t apply to them.
And yet it could scarcely be more important: don’t they have mothers, sisters, wives, daughters?
Thank you for this heads up to women, Catriona, a woman does not have to be an ‘activist’ (as per Guardian news) or an aberration to wish to be included in the direction the world takes.
Lara, your comment moves me to second what you said about being affected by the plight of children worldwide when the media constantly overload on distractive hype and celebrity hysteria. International Womens’ Day, now yesterday, did not seem to engender a great deal of noise, although Femen activists got some new body paint, as for the majority of women worldwide, struggling to keep their heads above water and feed their families, opinion/comment is a luxury.
Too passive…and busy. The days of being a martyr (Mater) should be over by now. We need to organise.
@ Kath Lauderdale: I’ve thought for some time that a revolution is overdue here. We’re sucking up far too much: too much abject acceptance.
Feminist obsession with rape is the reason you can’t get too many guys interested in your cause. Falsely accusing every guy of being a “rapist” or a “potential rapist” or that “all men rape all women as a ‘class'” discredits the Feminist movement.
@Kiwi_Guy: “Feminist obsession with rape is the reason you can’t get too many guys interested in your cause. Falsely accusing every guy of being a “rapist” or a “potential rapist” or that “all men rape all women as a ‘class’” discredits the Feminist movement.”
I think that you need to reread Catriona McLennan’s post. It’s more subtle than that. Don’t leap to hostile over-generalisations.
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