GUEST BLOG: Donna Miles – Female perspective matters- a response to Chris Trotter

Chris Trotter’s response to Rachel Smalley’s controversial column starts with a spectacular misrepresentation of the prime intention of the suffrage movement.

Trotter gives the impression that the suffrage movement aimed to transform society by ensuring the “mere presence of women in the halls of power”.

The reality is that the suffrage movement aimed to transform society through structural and legal changes that support justice.

The movement’s views are well summarized in Kate Sheppard’s famous statement: “all that separates, whether of race, class, creed, or sex, is inhuman, and must be overcome.”

The suffrage movement was about achieving justice for women and enabling the gradual institutional and structural changes that flow from it.

The reality is that the lives of women and our society have been transformed by the ability of women to participate in the political process.

Trotter goes on to mention Emmeline Pankhurst as a warmonger and names Golda Meir, India’s Indira Ghandi, and Britain’s Margaret Thatcher as no less willing “to unleash fire and death than their male counterparts”.

So we learn that some women are like some men. Surprise, surprise!

Is the brutality of some female leaders an unpredictable outcome of the suffrage movement?

Here’s what the great women’s rights and anti-war activist (yes, they were not all warmongers) Jane Addam had to say back in the early 1900s:

“I am not one of those who believe – broadly speaking – that women are better than men. We have not wrecked railroads, nor corrupted legislatures, nor done many unholy things that men have done; but then we must remember that we have not had the chance.”

In a male dominated political arena, is it any wonder that high-level success for a female politician is dependent on the ability to adopt the dominant mode of thinking and behaviour? No, of course not.

Can we expect this situation to improve over time as more barriers to political leadership for women are gradually dismantled? Absolutely.

Trotter claims that the suffrage movement’s argument (he means his misrepresented version of it) comes out frequently and names Rachel Smalley as its latest protagonist.

I read Rachel Smalley’s column and, without knowing anything about her, thought to myself that the overall point of her argument was legitimate and to argue otherwise is to argue against the need for affirmative action which is often, depending on the target audience, misunderstood as reverse sexism or racism.

I will not turn this into a lesson on what affirmative action is but suffice to say that it does not discouraging the important notion of “the best person for the job”.

I might not agree with Rachel’s finer points or some of her examples; but I agree with her overall point that diversity matters.

Trotter seems to suggest that our lived experiences and our resultant perspectives do not matter; or at least, in case of true professional journalists, should not matter.

I agree with the great philosopher David Hume: “Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions”.

Chris Hedges and Robert Fisk, both respected war correspondents, have confessed that their work and writings have been shaped by their up close and personal experiences of war and poverty.

There is something unique about the smell of death, the wailings of a grief stricken mother refusing to let go of her dead baby that cannot be conveyed in any image or any writing.

Jon Snow was a visibly different man after his special visit to Gaza during Israel’s rocket attacks last year.

He stepped out from behind his newsreader’s desk and delivered the most amazing heartfelt piece to camera that clearly conveyed his anger, passion and frustrations of what he had seen and experienced for himself.

My own experiences of living through a revolution and city bombings in my younger life, and later on, as a female academic, an immigrant and a mother, have given me a unique perspective.

I see and absorb life through my own unique lens tinted with shades of my race, gender, class, sexuality, culture and so on.

Yes, women bring a different perspective by virtue of the experiences that are unique to them and Chris Trotter’s own writing from a male’s perspective proves it.

In talking about female prime ministers, Trotter did not mention the appalling misogynistic treatment of the former Australian Prime Minister Julie Gillard whose famous speech on the treatment of women in professional and public life gained worldwide attention.

Women like Gillard act as role models and enable gradual structural changes that pave the path for other women to follow in their footsteps.

These changes are not just about female toilets and crèche facilities that came to the parliament as more women found their ways to the halls of power; they are about major shifts to cultural and social attitudes that benefit society as a whole.

I agree entirely with Chris Trotter about the importance of ideological diversity in our media; but why shouldn’t we ask for gender diversity as well?

I think it matters that we do not attack valid messages just because we dislike the ideological stance of their messengers.

My only wish is that Rachel Smalley’s comments came when Paul Henry, a broadcaster with a history of sexist and racist comments, was re-appointed as a broadcaster in our male dominated, class biased corporate media.

Donna Miles is a British-born, Iranian-bred, New Zealand citizen with a strong interest in human rights, justice and equality issues.