Dr Liz Gordon: Suffrage 2018 – Until death
A couple of days ago, a woman leaving work and her partner were attacked by a man with a sharp knife on the attractive streets of Ilam in Christchurch.
As she lay on the ground, the attacker lay down beside her (according to an onlooker) and tried to hold her hand, saying: “That’s my wife. If she’s going to die, I’ll die with her”. He stabbed himself in the stomach.
The upshot was that the woman died and the two men have survived and are in hospital.
This, of course, is only the very tippy-top of the domestic violence iceberg. New Zealand has extremely high rates of domestic violence, which always seems quite strange to me, given our high rankings on the world peace and happiness indices.
The incident above indicates one important subset of domestic violence. It is the “if I can’t have her, no-one can” viewpoint. It is extremely dangerous. It occurs at or after the end of the relationship, and often out of the blue. In the worst cases, it includes not only the ex-wife, but also the children of the relationship. Whole families have been wiped out.
It is not something that women do to men. The kind of sense of ownership that justifies, in the minds of these men, that they can kill their ex-partners, is not generally found in woman. It derives from an earlier time when men did, to all intents and purposes ‘own’ their wives, legally speaking, in Western culture.
This is no excuse, however. Times have moved on in that regard, and in general so much for the better. This week we are celebrating 125 years since women in New Zealand (some of them at least – it was not universal suffrage) became proper persons in the eyes of Parliament (“Person includes women”) and were allowed to vote.
As we see from the Ilam incident, there is a kind of possessiveness that can be exceptionally dangerous. Lesley Elliott realised, after her daughter Sophie was brutally stabbed to death by ex-boyfriend Clayton Weatherston, that there was a significant lack of knowledge and understanding about this in the community.
In particular, young women tended to interpret possessiveness as a form of love. “He won’t ever let me out of his sight – isn’t that sweet?” Lesley Elliot’s wonderful programme for secondary school students, called ‘Loves me Not’, is an attempt to inoculate young people against getting into overly-possessive relationships. Her aim is to stop it happening again, and I am sure she sighed in despair over this week’s incident.
It is, in a sense, a perfect storm. The increasingly possessive and alienating behaviour of the partner drives the woman away, and then she is punished for leaving. Very difficult. If you see such a pattern in some of your friends, bring it out into the open (yes, it is hard). The ‘bystander effect’, where people stand by and watch because they don’t feel able to intervene, is well-known. And very dangerous. Better to intervene and stop a disaster than to read about someone you know, dead.
Her programme also explains that leaving such a relationship can be particularly difficult and dangerous. Used to treating their partner as an extension of self, such men can become violently enraged if she leaves. And, if taking up with another partner, the fires of the rage are stoked further.
And so, about once a month, every year, one such relationship ends up with the woman dead, often after being stabbed with a knife by a person she once loved and thought she knew.
Interestingly enough, there is not even a name for this disorder. Weatherston was named as grossly narcissistic, others are obsessive, some are even found not guilty by reason of insanity.
So this suffrage day, celebrate 125 years, mourn those no longer with us as a result of domestic violence, whisper in the ear of men friends who seem to be overly possessive and let’s work towards a violence free future.
Dr Liz Gordon began her working life as a university lecturer at Massey and the Canterbury universities. She spent six years as an Alliance MP, before starting her own research company, Pukeko Research. Her work is in the fields of justice, law, education and sociology (poverty and inequality). She is the president of Pillars, a charity that works for the children of prisoners, a prison volunteer, and is on the board of several other organisations. Her mission is to see New Zealand freed from the shackles of neo-liberalism before she dies (hopefully well before!).
In NZ we know we have a problem with family violence, what I can’t work out is why we seem to be inviting people to our shores, who seem to be using marriage to women as a means of residency and doing nothing to stop and prosecute the lawyers and middlemen profiting from this?
Huge silence from the lefties on this issue…
Apparently more than 90% of work and residence partnership applications get approved and two thirds of partnership visitor applications – so very high odds of success and so easy to do in the age of Tinder but nothing talked about to shut these scams down and make them impossible to do … Is this then country we want NZ to become with more and more people doing this?
Women/feminists and government groups seem silent and complacent on this one and seem to be leaving it up to the migrant groups themselves to try and sort out the new waves of scams against women.
Indian husband allegedly prostituting intellectually disabled Kiwi wife, police complaint lodged
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12126605
Immigration marriage and dowry scams on the rise, says charity
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12123831
Also interested to see how the woke left react, is it
a) worry about the “racism” of investigating immigration fraud
b) worry about the intellectually disabled women’s rights
c) worry about womens rights of exploitation
d) worry about the investigation of consenting sexual partners (missing the point as like incest or different in power relations, in some cases there is not a case for consenting partners or using sex as a means to fraud for residency or is just a fraud as the cases of women getting scammed into sending money or trafficking drugs based on a perceived offshore relationship)
e) do not worry as too complicated and go back to abusing Martyn Bradbury and death threats his daughter over perceived slurs against Trans activists
Stop marginalising immigrants SAVE NZ, and if you think someone should be protesting about it, how about doing it yourself instead of criticising “feminists” and “lefties”, and making dumb assumptions about things which you know nothing about.
There are wonderful people out here in the community giving generously to others, of their time, and their skill, regardless of race, colour or creed, and just as violence transcends all barriers, so does the milk of human kindness, and it is your loss that you seem so oblivious to all of this.
Even worse is your making it very clear indeed that the left, and women, are the people who you expect to be addressing society’s ills.
Whatever happened to the conscience of the right ?
Yep, I’m sure we are going to have a ‘wonderful’ future in NZ for women because Auckland has 40 -60% of “marginalised immigrants” (not sure how the numbers fit marginalised people but I have noticed many people can’t do Maths, I’d say Maori are the marginalised ones and many former residents can’t afford to live in Auckland any more and being forced out are more marginalised) than people spending 500 million gambling or getting tens of thousands for free workers fake work permits.
Indian woman faces deportation after losing more than $30k to ‘parasite’ scammers
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/366859/indian-woman-faces-deportation-after-losing-more-than-30k-to-parasite-scammers
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11842563
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/365583/punjabi-singer-gets-home-detention-for-drivers-licences-bribes
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12077932
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11905478
Migrant worker describes ‘modern day slavery’ scam
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/339373/migrant-worker-describes-modern-day-slavery-scam
Sushi restaurant owner to pay $30k for exploiting workers
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/321156/sushi-restaurant-owner-to-pay-$30k-for-exploiting-workers
Jailed trafficker committed ‘crime against human dignity’
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/320465/jailed-trafficker-committed-'crime-against-human-dignity‘
https://www.hindustantimes.com/world/indian-sentenced-to-life-for-murdering-wife-in-nz/story-MpDOdR9DJXcKI2pkfpBTMK.html
And this is the type of people that are coming here, see links above. So yep, in the country that could be attracting the best and brightest, nope we seem to be selecting for scammers and people who contribute to the scams and people with such low skills in areas like IT that they are not employable under normal measures. (IT is desperate for people with skills at the top end not bottom end, like everything bottom end skills are generally obsolete) .
In my view our future is pretty bleak in NZ for our kids because nobody is interested in stopping our country turning into one full of fucked up scamming parasites and how can normal Kiwis get a house and job when families with overseas money are paying for crap jobs, the people doing it are expanding their businesses and bankrupting other legitimate business that don’t get thousands of dollars of bribes and free employees.
Yep there are plenty of wonderful people out there who are migrants, but our system has geared towards giving residency to scammers and supporting scamming migrant parasites instead.
It’s rampant. The woke left lefties are supporting it, because they close down any discussion of some really despicable crimes against others happening in our country because they think anyone who comes here can do what they like without censor it seems and you are “marginalising immigrants”.
At a time where the lefties spend screeds of time and protests going on about Brash, far right Canadians and Heather du Plessis-Allen (one of those wonderful migrants that help people, sarcasm).
The reality is that migration in NZ has changed to be a weapon for neoliberalism.
I’m in general pro targeted migration, but completely disgusted at how our immigration system has become so dysfunctional where it has turned into a scam business and people born here have few opportunities because our system has become obsessed with overseas hires.
Skilled people in NZ are not offered international wage rates and have to leave NZ to pay off student loans, while scammers, people with such poor skills they have to pay for jobs, kids being born and marriages being arranged just for residency and the dowry system further used to profit from is happening under our noses and politicians are not interested in any action or even censor of the practise.
These scammers are absolute pigs. Maybe our system has reverse racism where they think all Indian/Chinese people or what have you are like this so that is all we can get here?
The really smart migrants go to the US and UK for study, NZ has developed a Rogernomics system to get the educationally challenged students here and their road to residency through Internet cafe style jobs and fake jobs.
The problem is, long term, what the fuck is gonna happen to the smart people who already can’t get a job with the low wages and scams – ummm leave and so whose gonna pay the taxes… cos all these people on those Internet cafe jobs qualify for welfare eventually and what happens when the fake job ends and they have residency, but if they couldn’t get a legitimate job before, they clearly can’t after and the kiwis have to support yet fake employee and given tens of thousands to another scammer for their expansion here.
The modern migrant being sought from the last decade seems to vote for the Natz (and I don’t think that used to be the case) … NZ immigration policy has become akin to election fraud and tampering because the racial vote bias is so clear once settling here.
For some reason our immigration policy has settled on low educational levels, questionable skills as well as questionable ethics especially in the last few years.
This from the Spinoff of which in practically every article they advocate more immigration, maybe to keep their sponsors in construction and private equity happy with neoliberalism full frontal and a Natz led government in the future while “advising” Labour how to lose (oh I mean win)?
“All but one (looking at you, Helensville) of Auckland’s electorates have a proportion of residents who were born overseas that’s higher than the New Zealand average of 23.6% – often much higher. And many of them went National’s way. East Coast Bays, where 47.4% of residents were born overseas, gave 63% of its vote to National. New Lynn, where 42.7% were born overseas, put National over Labour by eight points. Pakuranga, with a 44.1% foreign-born population, went 62.9% for National. Te Atatū, where 34.3% of residents were born overseas – and where Phil Twyford was a candidate – went narrowly for National, 43.3% to 41.9%.”
Studies show that 75% of Chinese will vote National and they overwhelming turn out to vote. Not sure Chinese believe in the Natz or maybe Chinese government tells them who to vote for, who knows???
So wah, wah, if Labour, NZ first and Greens don’t do something about lazy immigration and the scam floodgates then Natz are back!
I don’t think anyone is kidding themselves that Natz have women friendly policy!
What about the very physical, at times violent rugby field ‘culture’ so evident in New Zealand? And what about Once Were Warriors, the movie, portraying one part of NZ society, that was so typical for a sad and lost part of the society here?
While there have been cases of immigrants abusing each other, e.g. in arranged marriages and so, there are many, many cases where it is the born and bred NZers who are guilty of what Liz writes about.
what about violence towards Men folks from there crazy jealous ex,s, equal rights is about equal responsibility and this me too# bullshit is a powerplay, grow some balls, if that boyfriend wacks you once call the cops, dont wait till he kills your ass.
Oh bye the way general rule of thumb apply,s here, If it seems too good to be true, it is.
That applies to internet dating as well, including just fukin with people online.
Happy suffering in rage day
“a violence free future”?
Nope, don’t think so. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkCVuxuWB9o&feature=em-uploademail
Stop marginalizing the trans community folks. Cmon
When was the last time you voted for a Labour? Nobody here is trying to court your vote, nothing short of Labour adopting all National policies would get you to vote for one. Who do you think you’re fooling with this “oh I’m friendlier with persecuted people than your are” act?
“This, of course, is only the very tippy-top of the domestic violence iceberg. New Zealand has extremely high rates of domestic violence, which always seems quite strange to me, given our high rankings on the world peace and happiness indices.”
Strange indeed, but there also seems to be a small percentage of the population that is quite promiscuous. And with men and women going with various ‘partners’ at times, jealousy may be behind a lot of this.
Whether it is the archaic sense of entitlement in the form of ‘owning’, I am not so sure. A breach of trust is a big thing for many, especially when it is in a relationship. And that can result in those having a tendency to be forceful or violent, to act in very abusive and violent ways, lashing out and even killing.
As men tend to be more aggressive, so they will naturally have a higher likelihood to offend in such ways.