Dr Liz Gordon: Questions never asked about men

41
1253

Isn’t it interesting how many column inches have been dedicated to telling the public that new women/ Māori / Rainbow ministers may not be fit for office.  As long as it is white and male, any slithy tove is assumed competent.  Those criticising Nanaia Mahuta, for example, have really got up themselves. Nanaia may not set the world alight, shs is quite a quiet woman, but she is a competent pair of hands and brings the exotic style of the moko to the world stage.

More broadly, many have accused Jacinda of that thing-now-known-as-virtue-signalling (I am not sure it even had a name before) for putting lots of the above diverse persons into cabinet, rather than promoting on ‘skill’, a slithy concept if ever I heard one.

Whether this is everyday sexism / racism, unconscious or conscious bias, all of these commentators are guilty of a pro white male norm.  Because there have been plenty of disgusting, incompetent, alcoholic, even wife-beating male ministers over the years, and no-one has ever asked whether they are competent to do their job.

What pisses me off is that those concerned now start out on the back foot, and the media will be patrolling to test their competence in action.  Should they do something wrong, there will also undoubtedly be calls of ‘we told you so’.

As a nation, and especially among the commentariat, we need to scrutinise ourselves for our presumptions and reactions. Sexism and racism are alive throughout our society, and we need to stamp it out wherever we see it.

 

Dr Liz Gordon is a researcher and a barrister, with interests in destroying neo-liberalism in all its forms and moving towards a socially just society.  She usually blogs on justice, social welfare and education topics.

41 COMMENTS

  1. The questioning of Nanaia Mahuta’s role, in particular, all seemed to reduce down to one thing: “She doesn’t look the part”!! However they tried to dress up their arguments, that was it in essence. People’s old, old, old outdated, unrealistic, stupid perceptions of the way a Minister for Foreign Affairs should look. (Some Aus reportage was the worst, the most blatant, the most stupid.)

    • To this day still a strong racist undercurrent more virulent than in NZ runs down the Australian underbelly. Plus a great dollop of misogyny too. Not so long since Gillard suffered the slings and arrows of pale stale white males there.

      • Very true about Aus.
        However I’ve just learned that it is a female NZ’er who has made one of the most disgusting comments. Someone called Olivia Pierson .

        From that TV1 link: “Pierson also writes columns for the BFD, a blog website associated with Cameron Slater.”

        Olivia is projecting, as her comment reveals her as “ugly and uncivilised”.

        • Olivia Pierson is The Canadian that wanted the speaking tour along with John Petersen I think his name is they were both far righty speakers but they had their Visa’s cancelled.

  2. The most shocking and disheartening thing for me was the response from LEFT wing male ‘journos’ and commenters (as well as the usual right wing mob) to Jacinda’s re-election. She had not even named her cabinet, let alone held even one parliamentary sitting, and there were these hows of “We must MAKE her do this”, and even, “We must FORCE her to do that” !!!!!!!!

    Words fail me. (Printable words, anyway.)

  3. Virtue signalling/ champagne socialism/ holier-than-thou-ness are similar terms of impugning hypocrisy to an opponent. Social desirability bias; being more willing to say something you think is good, than bad; is an important foundation to any society. Insufficiently humble altruism? Outgrabe?

    ’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
    Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
    All mimsy were the borogoves,
    And the mome raths outgrabe.

    • Forget now: “Virtue signalling/ champagne socialism/ holier-than-thou-ness are similar terms of impugning hypocrisy to an opponent.”

      Yup. Often with some justification. Virtue signalling means more or less what it says. Some years back, Don Brash accused Guyon Espiner of it, over the latter’s use of te reo on Morning Report.

      With regard to the PM’s appointment of Mahuta: I wouldn’t personally characterise it as virtue signalling. It looks to me a bit like tokenism: you know, let’s have another Maori as foreign affairs minister! Certainly she hasn’t been appointed on the basis of her performance to date.

      Champagne socialism….haha, that was a term flung about in politics many years ago when I was much younger. I haven’t heard it for a long time.

      As a child, I loved “Jabberwocky”. In adulthood, I read it to my offspring. At uni, I studied philosophy. Lewis Carroll was an important figure in Logic: either propositional calculus or lower predicate calculus. I forget which now.

      Outgrabe? Doesn’t that mean the noise made by the mome raths? A sort of squeaking, or some such. Though when I think about it, that could be applied to virtue signalling, I suppose.

      • D’E
        Outgribing’ is something between bellowing and whistling, with a kind of sneeze in the middle.

        Outgrabe is the act of Outgribing.

        A frabjous outpouring seldom experienced whilst galumphing

        • John W: “A frabjous outpouring seldom experienced whilst galumphing”

          Hahahahaaaa!

          Applicable to virtue signalling, nonetheless?

  4. Despite us still being very patriarchal I would like to think we as a country based on the recent election results have moved on from old white men and old brown men always representing us on the world stage.

  5. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you Dr Liz Gordon. You’ve taken the words out of my mouth and put them in writing.

  6. This has been the standard technique used after every single labour government in my living memory.. Seriously, what else can we expect from a “fourth estate” installed, and sponsored by the colonial descendants? What I’m waiting to see is new ministers in said labour governments putting a rod up the press gallery reporters/punditry gaggle, and treating them as what they are.. The barking dogs of the tory power base.. All hiding behind the Queen, using their near monopoly of the airwaves, TV broadcasts,and print space, to ensure the period of progressive, democratic governance is as short as possible, in order that the rape and pillage of our resources can continue unfettered again… I cringe watching ministers being obsequiously polite to “journalists” who aren’t bothering to interview them, but simply haranguing them with tory memes, or openly insulting their competence and questioning their honesty while telling lies about their policies… Peters had the right of it, but wasn’t classy enough to carry it off long term… I believe that this is something that there needs to be a comprehensive plan of attack for… To counter, push back, and eventually reduce the worst of the tory pundits to irrelevant blowhards, which is what they are now, but can pretend relevance only because politicians treat them with undue respect…

  7. Who was the freethinker in the middle with the Beatnik beard? Oh, wait, probably a former naval person ;->

    • Chris Harris: “Who was the freethinker in the middle with the Beatnik beard?”

      I remember when that government was elected. Marilyn Waring was in it. I didn’t vote for the Natz, though.

      I can’t summon up that fellow’s name, but I doubt that it’s Frank Gill: looks to be too young.

  8. “….how many column inches have been dedicated to telling the public that new women/ Māori / Rainbow ministers may not be fit for office.”

    Is that so. I haven’t seen any thus far.

    “Those criticising Nanaia Mahuta, for example…”

    I criticise her on the basis of what I’ve seen of her performance in government to date.

    She’s accomplished little. It isn’t at all clear what her qualifications are for the foreign affairs portfolio. On that basis alone, her appointment looks like tokenism, whether or not somebody would characterise it as virtue signalling.

    I note this in my news feed today:

    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/author-olivia-pierson-labels-nanaia-mahutas-moko-ugly-uncivilised-mighty-ape-pulls-books/WW6GEQON7BK4HADJW43Z3FPMEE/

    We still have free speech in NZ. Pierson is entitled to her views, and to express them. What Mighty Ape ought properly to have done was to have stated that it disagreed with her, and left it at that. It ought not to be pulling her books from sale: that is censorship and edges dangerously close to fascism.

    “….putting lots of the above diverse persons into cabinet, rather than promoting on ‘skill’….”

    In virtue of what would anyone claim that past parliaments and governments weren’t diverse? The notion of diversity isn’t exhausted by skin colour, ethnicity and gender, you know. Skin colour isn’t an a priori marker of ethnic differences, either.

    “……guilty of a pro white male norm.”

    Careful, careful: isn’t this what you characterise as racism? Certainly it’s sexism.

    What matters is our pollies’ ability to do the job, not what they look like, what genitalia they have, or what their skin colour may be. This is the only way in which it’s feasible to run a modern representative democracy such as NZ purports to be.

    People must be judged on what they can do. Nothing else.

    “What pisses me off is that those concerned now start out on the back foot, and the media will be patrolling to test their competence in action. Should they do something wrong, there will also undoubtedly be calls of ‘we told you so’.”

    Er…so what’s different from how things have always been? If pollies cock up, they get called out for it by the msm. And that’s exactly as it should be.

    “As a nation, and especially among the commentariat, we need to scrutinise ourselves for our presumptions and reactions. Sexism and racism are alive throughout our society, and we need to stamp it out wherever we see it.”

    Sounds like the thought police to me. This isn’t a racist society (except for the Maori seats), though there’s plenty of prejudice and bigotry. Some of that on show here on this blogsite.

    Plenty of sexism, too: well, fancy that. Nobody can control what other people think and say. If people don’t like it, they can put forward a countervailing argument, instead of slinging insults about.

    The best we can do as a society is to have a legal system which sanctions people’s attempts to act on their prejudices. And that’s what we now have.

    • Fair comment D’Esterre
      We will all be delighted when Nanaia comes through and makes a good fist of this challenge including yourself I am sure.
      The people who have expressed concern, notably Chris Trotter, did not disparage Winston Peters in the role of FM because he was Maori, and neither does he disparage Jacinda as PM because she is she, very much on the contrary.
      D J S
      .

      • David Stone: “We will all be delighted when Nanaia comes through and makes a good fist of this challenge including yourself I am sure.”

        I’ll be pleased if this happens. But on the basis of her performance to date, I’m sceptical. I’m not interested in the fact that she’s Maori: in my view, that’s neither here nor there. Skills are what’s of moment in such an important role.

        I remain very unhappy at the outcome of the election. As would be anybody who voted for MMP, back in the 90s. This is exactly what we were hoping to prevent.

        For the same reason, I was unhappy at the outcome of the 2014 election. Luckily then, the Natz didn’t have as many seats, and specials lost them the governing majority. That cannot happen this time, of course.

        Those of us who were obliged to live through both Rogernomics and Ruthanasia are vividly aware of the fact that we cannot trust a majority government of the sort we now have. The vote for MMP was intended to shackle the power of the Executive.

        In which enterprise, it was successful. It prevented further neoliberal depredations, which would almost certainly have been inflicted upon us, had FPP continued to be the electoral system.

        Now here we are. Sadly… Another centre-right government, able to govern alone. Neoliberalism continues to infest its membership, and the PM has shown herself to be a Blairite.

        Judging by its last term, it’ll either do nothing (though no excuses this time for its inability to manage the political process) or it’ll inflict upon us a programme of radical change. Just not the radical change this country needs. Were it serious about any of that, we’d have seen evidence of it in the last term. We didn’t.

        • I remember thinking when we got MMP through , having ignored the idea while SC tried to interest the country in proportional representation for decades, that it succeeded exactly because the FPP system had enabled rogernomics. and was a means to prevent that kind of power to scorn the understood will and interests of the people from ever happening again. We believed in State ownership of things only the state could have created for us all. And that we all contributed to and thought we all owned.
          Ironically i could see that that same mechanism would probably prevent that evil from ever being reversed. But could it be that the extraordinary support this government has been afforded does give them that mandate. And will that be what they do?
          Jacinda’s comment a few days ago that 40+ Billion of Reserve bank created money was going to be used to build infrastructure is not being recognised for it’s significance in this regard . IMHO.
          D J S

          • David Stone: “…was a means to prevent that kind of power to scorn the understood will and interests of the people from ever happening again.”

            That’s exactly as we understood it at the time.

            “Ironically i could see that that same mechanism would probably prevent that evil from ever being reversed.”

            It didn’t have to be that way, of course. What was needed was the political courage to reverse the changes, along with the ability to negotiate with coalition parties to bring about those reversals.

            Trouble is, the longer some structural changes are in force, the harder it is to reverse them. We’re pretty much in that situation now, I fear.

            We should never have lost state control of major infrastructure; and the building of state houses ought to have continued at pace.

            We should never have lost most of our local manufacturing. Even if it required subsidies, it was worth preserving. We feel the consequences of that loss every day. More so now that the borders are closed for the foreseeable.

            I apportion to the Clark administration (elected in 1999) most of the blame for failure to reverse, for instance, the swingeing benefit cuts of the early 1990s.

            That government was pusillanimous: caved to the first signs of discontent among the citizenry, instead of Clark using some of her political capital to put forward a coherent case for reversal.

            In my view, the social problems we now have, mostly among the very poorest, can be sheeted home to the failures of the Clark government in its first term. The rise and rise of the drug scourge, from the 90s on – and especially the arrival of P in the very early noughties – is I suspect an unintended consequence of those benefit cuts. As is the gang problem.

            “But could it be that the extraordinary support this government has been afforded does give them that mandate. And will that be what they do?”

            I doubt it. The evidence from voting patterns suggests that this election was about fear. Citizens have had the shit scared out of them over the coronavirus, courtesy of the efforts of the msm, along with that propaganda-style stand-up each day at parliament (of which I watched none). At times of perceived peril, people will rally around whichever government is in power. We saw this after the Canterbury earthquakes, and during WWII, according to my late mother.

            With regard to rural party voting patterns, it looked to be a concerted effort to make sure the Greens were politically impotent. In which effort, they’ve been successful. God bless the lot of them, say I!

            We here in Wellington are being plagued by the consequences of that Genter woman having a say in transport and urban development issues. Many of us are greatly relieved that she is now nowhere near anything to do with transport. Or urban development, I sincerely hope.

            I am a former Green voter, from many years ago. But no more: if that party were purely environmental – as it once was – it might well still have my vote. Not now, though.

            As to the PM: from the beginning, I’ve thought her a show pony. I’ve seen nothing since to change my mind. In my view, support for her in Labour has become cult-like. And general public reaction to her puts me in mind of the late Princess of Wales. This isn’t a good basis for government, now that Labour cannot fall back on the usual excuses (coalition partners!) for failure to implement the programme on which it campaigned in 2017.

            Labour has again fallen into the political trap which has ensnared it over and over in my lifetime (except during the neoliberal nightmare). It has managed to win power, and won’t want to do anything to put that at risk. Eventually the voters will tire of it and turf it out; and it’ll have done nothing really transformative during its term(s).

            • Hi D’Esterre
              The neoliberal management plan was one thing, the sale /confiscation of our state assets was another . I still don’t think most people grasp what a felony that was. No one ever thought of them as being disposable. We had built them for all of us and our future generations. If it had occurred to the far sighted people who built them for their country that a government might one day get into power and chose to hock them off to their friends they would surely have put legislation in place that made it impossible to do that. At least without it passing a referendum, which it never would have passed of course. It should not have been within the power of an administration to rip the heart out of our country that way.
              D J S

              • Indeed DJS, asset sales was utterly felonious. And to think the primer mover was knighted for his efforts …

              • David Stone: “….the sale /confiscation of our state assets was another.”

                Yup. But the concept was integral to neoliberal thinking and I guess that we should have foreseen it. Not that we were asked, of course.

                In those early days, I was still a union member. We protested about the structural changes, right enough. Hence the hated ECA: designed to white-ant the union movement. Which was, sadly, successful.

                Doubt that they’d get away with such chicanery nowadays. However. The governments which did this stuff were FPP governments. And that is what we now have. I wouldn’t trust the current lot any more than I would have, were it the Natz with that kind of mandate.

                “I still don’t think most people grasp what a felony that was.”

                Agreed. And the young – who’ve grown to adulthood in a neoliberal environment – know nothing else. They have no idea what was done to this country.

                “It should not have been within the power of an administration to rip the heart out of our country that way.”

                No indeed. But we voted for MMP so as to prevent this sort of wholesale theft by a government happening ever again.

                Yet here we are…. Clearly, the lessons of the past haven’t been learned.

    • God – more pontificating by a know-it-all stock and trade ranter! Just take the first quote, then read what follows it – plenty of “column inches have been dedicated to telling the public that new women/ Māori / Rainbow ministers may not be fit for office.” Of course, that is followed by the expected abusive put downs, innuendo and high-minded fallacies extolling old white male meritocracy. As for the Mighty Ape reference – the company exercised its write to free speech in a way that many New Zealanders have endorsed on local and internatinal websites. Yes, Ms Pierson (who is entitled to stuff off and join her fellow Canadians, Molyneaux and Southern who also got short shrift) can think what she likes, but like the internet feeds of the Christchurch attack, do we want that crap fueling those who would want to harm others on the basis of ‘prejudice and bigotry’? Oops overlooked that being the domain of this site in D’Esterre’s opinion! As for thought police – this has been in response to an exemplar.

      • aom: “….more pontificating by a know-it-all stock and trade ranter!”

        In saying that, I assume that you’re referring to your good self. My comment wasn’t a rant: I don’t do that sort of thing. Blame my education in argumentation, courtesy of philosophy studies many years ago. Best to stick to making arguments, in my view.

        “…abusive put downs, innuendo and high-minded fallacies extolling old white male meritocracy.”

        Oh dear. I’m not sure whose comment it is to which you’ve taken exception. Not mine, in any event.

        “As for the Mighty Ape reference – the company exercised its write to free speech in a way that many New Zealanders have endorsed on local and internatinal websites.”

        I guess that you mean “right”. And no: pulling books from a company’s catalogue isn’t free speech. It’s censorship, pure and simple.

        “….those who would want to harm others on the basis of ‘prejudice and bigotry’?”

        I read what Pierson said. She isn’t either harming, or wanting to harm, Nanaia Mahuta. She was simply expressing her opinion. Nobody is being asked – or forced – to share her view. That’s free speech for you. Perhaps you need a definition of it? I can rustle one up if necessary.

        “…thought police…”

        My terminology, I believe. That’s what it looks like to me. I cannot control what others think and say; neither can you. Nor should society at large be attempting any such endeavour. The best we can do is to have a legal system which sanctions people who act on their prejudices. That’s what we now have.

          • aom: “Don’t you love it when a serial pontificator blames ‘education in argumentation’?”

            Clearly not something you’ve had. More’s the pity….it’d give you the tools to analyse the evidence and make arguments, instead of just resorting to ad homs.

            I take the term “pontificator” as a compliment. It seems to me that people use it when they can’t think of a counter-argument, and they secretly know that a commenter is correct.

  9. Muldoon was a dangerous little shit. When he was at school he was named “the Bully of Sandringham” ???

    • Hongi Ika: “Muldoon was a dangerous little shit.”

      A dangerous little shit he may have been, but he was far more left-wing than anybody now in parliament. I well remember him: I was already a voter back then.

      • “… but he was far more left-wing than anybody now in parliament.”

        Possibly an overstatement D’Esterre, but at least Muldoon was a Keynesian. This irony is completely lost on the millions who fawn over Jacinda’s “progressive” government.

        Imagine a journalist asking Jacinda what she understood by “Keynesian economics” – do you think she would be capable of an informed response?

        • PP II: “Possibly an overstatement…”

          We certainly didn’t see him as a left-winger at the time: it’s only looking back, that we can see how far to the right politically NZ has been shoved in the intervening years. So from this vantage point, he looks far more left-wing than he actually was.

          “….Muldoon was a Keynesian. This irony is completely lost on the millions who fawn over Jacinda’s “progressive” government.”

          Heh! True….most wouldn’t know anything about economics, I’m guessing.

          “….a journalist asking Jacinda what she understood by “Keynesian economics” – do you think she would be capable of an informed response?”

          Hahaha….no to the notion of any journalist here (except the oldest and best-educated) asking – or being able to ask – the PM a question of that sort.

          And no to her being able to answer it.

          The evidence thus far says that she herself is a Blairite. And it’s very likely that she wouldn’t know what that meant, either.

  10. Hongi Ika: “Muldoon was a dangerous little shit.”

    A dangerous little shit he may have been, but he was far more left-wing than anybody now in parliament. I well remember him: I was already a voter back then.

      • Don’t worry AOM, it all sort of fits at the moment.
        There’s writing on the wall. As we decipher it, could this mean the last rites for the far ‘right’? Can we make right what was written in scorn by the ‘Right’? Is there need to issue a writ to make right the wrongful acts of others? Are some rights ‘sacred’, and if so, which? Do all rights eventually die and become mere rites? Is there anything ‘sacred’ about the written word?
        (er.. well… you get the pic 🙂 🙂

Comments are closed.