A vision for constitutional transformation grounded in Te Tiriti o Waitangi

Hopefully the title of this blog is slightly more inspiring than "submission to the constitutional review". Maybe not! Can't say this is really a "vision", but it is at least a stab at saying something. This is not as long or in-depth as I had hoped, but better short than not at all right? 

Still got a few days before sending it in, so would appreciate any feedback. 

Also, I highly encourage anyone else to submit - the more voices we have demanding positive change, the better!! (the Greens have an awesome submission guide here and see below for more helpful links)

1.     Introduction

1.1.  I am a Pākehā woman living in Wellington/Te-Whanganui-a-Tara. I am studying Law, Political Science and History. I have a very strong interest in social and environmental justice.

1.2.  This submission will focus on three aspects of Aotearoa’s constitution which I believe require transformation. Firstly, Te Tiriti o Waitangi must be the starting point for all constitutional change. Secondly, our Bill of Rights Act must be strengthened in various ways. Thirdly, our constitution must protect the rights of nature.

2.     Te Tiriti o Waitangi

2.1.  Te Tiriti o Waitangi is the founding document of New Zealand and must be recognised as such.

2.2.  The text in Te Reo Māori is the text that was understood and signed by Māori, and according to the contra preferentum rule in international law, when there is a conflict between versions of a treaty, the indigenous language version must prevail.

2.3.  Therefore, we must recognise that Te Tiriti allowed Pākehā the right of kawanatanga or governorship, and Māori to retain rangatiratanga or sovereignty. To see Te Tiriti as a document of cession (either legally or morally) is erroneous.

2.4.  As Pākehā, I acknowledge that Te Tiriti allowed, and continues to allow, my people to settle here. It must be the basis for all current and future settlement of Tauiwi in New Zealand, and the foundation of our relationship with Tangata Whenua.

2.5.  New Zealand’s Constitution must take Te Tiriti as its starting point, rather than Te Tiriti being fitted within some other framework.

3.     The Bill of Rights Act (BORA)

3.1.  Economic, social and cultural rights must be included in BORA. We are bound at international law to protect these rights.

3.2.  Civil and political rights are also important, but are unable to be realised when people are denied rights such as food, shelter and a living wage.

3.3.  Parliament’s current scrutiny of rights violation is inadequate. Section 7 reports are frequently ignored, and under urgency, the process is bypassed completely.

3.4.  We need a more robust system. Options include mandatory s 7 reports for every bill, or a dedicated Select Committee for human rights issues.

3.5.  The BORA should be supreme law, in order to give the judiciary some power to protect minorities against Parliament’s majority rule.

3.6.  The BORA should be entrenched, in order to protect against the erosion of rights. This could be as part of a written constitution, or incorporated into the current BORA.

4.     The Rights of Nature

4.1.  Everything that our society and economy depends on stems from our relationship with the environment. The rate of environmental degradation in New Zealand and internationally is alarming, especially as we begin to feel the effects of Climate Change.

4.2.  Intergenerational justice depends on us taking action now to stop this spiral of destruction.

4.3.  New Zealand is one of only 16 countries in the world that does not in some way recognise environmental rights in its law.

4.4.  One way we could do this would be to enshrine the (human) right to a healthy environment in our BORA. This has been done, for example, in South Africa.

4.5.  Another, more preferable option is to give rights to nature itself. This has been done in both Bolivia and Ecuador, in different ways.

4.6.  New Zealand should look at these different models and assess what would work in our legal framework in order to offer the environment the best possible protection.

4.7.  This should be done in a way which is consistent with a constitution grounded in Te Tiriti, giving appropriate decision making power to Tangata Whenua.

4.8.  A New Zealand model should give power to the judiciary to enforce the rights of nature against breaches by both the Government and private bodies.

Helpful links!

The Greens' submission guide, as already mentioned, is a fantastic starting point.

Forest and Bird have an excellent analysis of environmental rights.

Peace Movement Aotearoa have some great ideas for Te Tiriti based constitutional change.

Patriarchy at law school 100 years on?

I am struggling through the process of drafting an essay for the Wellington Women's Lawyer's Association competition. It asks us whether the challenges faced by female law students and graduates are the same or different to 100 years ago, and invites us to also explore other forms of oppression and how this intersects with patriarchy (my words, not theirs).

If you are female, and a law student, you should enter. Check out the details here.

So its a really exciting opportunity, because law school and feminism are two important parts of my life, and it is not often that I get to interrogate how the two overlap. The excuse to rant for 3000 on a topic so dear to my heart is exciting, and the prospect of winning money makes it doubly so.

The only question then, is what on earth to say!

I am well aware that being Pākehā, heterosexual, cis-gendered, able bodied, middle-class, from a family that has always valued education, privileges me above many other people, in general, and in a law school context. I am well aware that feminism too often focusses on the voices of those like myself, while many other women (and people) are further marginalised.

On the other hand, I have realised that even the most privileged women are still disadvantaged by law school and the legal system. It is inherently patriarchal, and values "masculine" traits. This is as true of Vic as anywhere else. As a study by Caroline Morris concludes: “Academically, women law students at VUW found the place more competitive than men, were more dissatisfied with the performance, spoke up less frequently in class and were less happy about it.” And we all know that female lawyers are disproportionately unrepresented at the higher levels of legal practice.

I know these two things are not contradictory, yet I am finding them difficult to reconcile in a coherent way. Does focussing on my own experience continue the feminist trajectory of marginalising women who are more oppressed than I am? Or by focussing on, for example, race and disability, am I refusing to really confront the patriarchal system? Is it even valid to speak of a patriarchy that oppresses all women (and other genders), when every individual experience is so different?

I am also struggling with the part of the question that asks me "how such challenges may be addressed". Obviously, overthrowing the patriarchy and de-colonising the legal system would be great, but in terms of practical suggestions I'm pretty stuck. Obviously, individual women can and have done well in this system - this encourages other women and shows that it is possible, BUT it also makes patriarchy and sexism even more invisible.

In an article I read recently (not specifically about law students), most of the women interviewed saw that women faced barriers on account of their gender, but saw the solutions as a matter of individual empowerment rather than collective or structural change. This is largely due neo-liberal ideology individualising everything. Its flaw, of course is that it blames failure squarely on the individual's lack of merit and refuses to recognise structures which oppress some groups and privilege others. But because of its pervasiveness, how to overcome it is a difficult question.

So yeah, hmm. As always, if people have thoughts I'd love to hear them, either on how to attack this essay, or on experiences you've had of sexism or any other form of oppression at law school or in the legal profession. And yeah, enter the competition! It's such a great opportunity, and you've still got like another month.

Overthrowing consumerism... One mooncup at a time?!

Mooncups are fucking great.

Just thought I’d throw that out there for the world to know. After all, as we all know “the personal is political” and there’s not a lot more personal than talking about PERIODS.

Luckily I have had some amazing friends over the past few years and now have no qualms talking about menstruation at all. I think it’s really empowering to be able to talk about it, openly, freely and proudly. Why not? It’s just a natural function of the human body.

Anyway. So mooncups are awesome. The generic term is actually menstrual cups, and mooncups are one particular brand. But like glad wrap, the name seems to have stuck (seriously, who calls it “cling film”!?). There’s a whole bunch of other brands out there: Me Luna, Femme Cup, Diva Cup, Lunette, etc. They’re all pretty similar, although they come in different shapes, sizes, and even colours.

The best thing about menstrual cups is you only need one, and it lasts up to 10 years. This means they create heaps less waste, and they are also heaps cheaper than disposable products. They’re also way more comfortable than tampons (in my humble opinion) and don’t have the bulky awkwardness of pads. You can leave them in for up to 12 hours, especially if you have a light flow. Swimming, sports, and all that stuff, not a problem. If you’re going on holiday, you don’t have to fill up your suitcase with pads. If you are out tramping or whatever, you don’t need to worry about carrying around the waste.

But, starting with the basics. Menstrual cups are made out of silicone. They are a reusable cup which catch menstrual fluid rather than absorbing it. You empty it out, give it a rise, and put it back in. Pretty simple right? At this stage you are probably thinking “sounds great. But like, ew.”

Fair enough.

But really, if you think about it, this aversion to dealing with our own bodily fluids is actually pretty recent. Commercial tampons and pads have only been around for about 100 years, so they’re actually a pretty recent thing. I think we have been socialised to be grossed out by periods, and actually, I reckon disposable tampons and pads are all some big capitalist marketing ploy to get us to BUY MORE CRAP.

If we look at these products within the wider context of global capitalism, we can begin to see their major flaws. For example: the environmental impact. Can you imagine how many sanitary products a women uses in her life time? Answer: HEAPS!!! Apparently, up to 150 kgs in a lifetime. Gross! Why create this unnecessary waste?!

So, I’m pretty sure the reason mooncups are less popular than they should be is that the big brands have no interest in them. The reason is simple. You buy one, it lasts approximately 10 years. Obviously much less profit to be made from them than in something you need to buy every month. This means that although mooncups are WAY better than tampons and pads for a bunch different reasons, they have not been widely marketed. So when you buy a mooncup, you are subverting capitalism, just a tiny bit, and that feels pretty great.

Sweeeeeet! So why wouldn’t you get one? Well for some people, there’s still an element of squeamishness, which takes a bit of overcoming. Taking it out can be messy, especially when starting, and you have to deal with seeing your own blood. Putting it in can take a bit of getting used to, and it can be uncomfortable and/or leak if not inserted properly. I’m not getting into the graphic details here, but if you google it you’ll find plenty of helpful explanations. Basically the trick is to relax, and persevere. Totally worth it in the end.

Yay! I want one! Where do I buy it? Well, I got mine from green girl stuff, a Wellington based online business. There’s also other online stores which you can find with not much googling, and you can get them from places like Commonsense Organics.

Of course, another option if you want to say “fuck you” to capitalist consumption but you’re not quite ready to take the leap to mooncups, is to make your own reusable pads. I’m not joking! A few of my friends do this and I think it’s great. A little bit of googling will get you on the right track with that too.

I’m also happy to answer any questions people have, so feel free to comment below :)

More info:

• The Guardian, on the benefits of mooncups
• Some very thorough FAQs
• A mooncup vs tampon rap battle (!)

I'm vegan and I don't love animals.

I’m vegan and I don’t love animals. And I'm (sometimes) not afraid to admit it.

Yep. People find this weird, but I don’t see any inherent contradiction in this statement. I've been meaning to write about this for quite some time, so here we go.

I don’t really like animals that much. They’re ok, sometimes. They’re all individuals – I can’t lump them all in one category. I wouldn’t say I like cats, or I like dogs, or whatever. Some cats and some dogs are awesome, but given that I haven’t met most of them I can’t make this blanket statement. They are individuals, not a category of things. This is a fairly usual thing for vegans to say, since we see animals as beings rather than commodities.

But for me, it's more than this. I don’t really like most animals particularly much. I don’t get excited over cute cats or dogs the way a lot of people seem to. Well, not that often. It’s cool having companion animals around, but I wouldn’t like the responsibility of having to feed one. I just can’t really be bothered. There’s also plenty of humans I don’t like at all either. I don’t think that’s a bad thing, it’s just an aspect of my personality.

Anyway, so when I tell people I’m vegan, apart from all the “don’t plants have feelings” bullshit, a lot of people say “you must really love animals.” Sometimes the answer is “yeah.. I guess” but other times I bother to explain my position.

You see, for me veganism is about respect. Like the rest of my politics, it’s about respect for the dignity of individuals. I don’t have to like them to respect their fundamental rights. I don’t know every person on the planet, and of those I do know, there are plenty that I don’t like at all. Lots of them are dicks. Yet I believe we all have fundamental rights that deserve to be respected.

Most non-vegans seem to value different species very differently, depending on societal perceptions of what role those animals should have. Some of them are food, others are pets, others are for testing cosmetics. This is all kinds of problematic, for reasons that I won’t go into here. But further than that, vegans, and “animal lovers”, still differentiate between and within species, based on “cuteness”, personality, utility, whatever. Conservationists, for example, have vastly different respect for different species depending on whether they are valued as “native”, or condemned as “pests”.

Some animals are cute and fluffy, some have awesome personalities, others don’t. Some are more likable than others. Why should they not all have the same fundamental rights? It is no longer socially acceptable in most circles, overtly at least, to recognise different human rights based on gender, race, sexual orientation, nationality, or any other arbitrary factor. Why should respect for animals depend on species? And why should I have to “like” animals in order for them to command my respect?

I’m not advocating that animals should have the same rights as humans, of course. Humans and non-human animals are different, and it would be nonsensical to argue that they should be treated exactly the same. I don’t know exactly what rights non-human animals should be entitled to, but the right not to be needlessly tortured and killed is a good start. And I think this right should absolutely apply to all animals, regardless of human projections of their value or worth.

Anyway this is basically just a way of me trying to rationalise something which is an essentially an emotional thing. For me veganism (and I guess most of my politics) is entirely emotional and intuitive, and doesn’t really need some kind of rational explanation. But other people seem to find it interesting and helpful, so hopefully that’s the case. Would love to hear anyone’s thoughts on this.

Email to my IPE lecturer on how to teach feminist theory

So I feel like I'm getting in the habit of emailing my lecturers to complain about stuff way too much. My mum thinks I should be spending the time more usefully doing assignments. Maybe. But this one at least has given me context for how I want to do my next assignment, so its useful in that sense.

This is a response to the lecture I talked about at the start of my previous post (oops, by start I mean beginning in the 9th paragraph :P) when my IPE (international political economy - think international relations smooshed with economics) lecturer managed to get through an entire lecture on feminism without mentioning patriarchy and barely using female authors. 

I chatted to him about it afterwards, but I approached it more in the context of me wanting to find female authors, rather than critiquing his lecture. But it continued to bother me, so when he emailed me with a bunch of suggested readings (which was very nice of him, and he is a lovely guy) I really felt the need to respond with my thoughts.

Here's what I said:

Thanks for the suggestions, I appreciate you following up on this.

I've decided not to do that question. Instead, I'm going to do the question on the global financial crisis from an eco-feminist perspective. I think that while it is important to look at how our current system affects women, an equally important aspect of feminist analysis is looking at the way that the system as a whole is fundamentally flawed - not just in terms of how it negatively impacts women, but also its impacts on the entire planet. I plan to argue that feminist/ecological/radical/non-orthodox approaches have explained the GFC better than any of the mainstream analysis, but have not had a big enough impact on "the global politics of finance".

I have also been thinking about the lecture the other day, and realised I didn't articulate myself very well. I guess the point that I wanted to make (but didn't,really) was not so much that I was looking for feminist authors to use myself (although this is appreciated), but that I think it would have been really great if more female perspectives were used in the lecture. I think that the whole discipline of economics is biased in favour of men, and it is alarming that female perspectives are barely even used in the one lecture on feminism (let alone the rest of the course!!). What example does it set for young women if almost all the theorists we look at, even the experts on gender inequality, are men? To be clear, I think men engaging in feminism is absolutely fantastic. It is only problematic when this is done at the expense of women.

I was also interested that, although you gave a bunch of possible explanations for the gender wage gap, the concept of patriarchy was not mentioned (that I noticed). I think that patriarchy is probably the most fundamental element of any feminist analysis. Women are not paid less simply due to a bunch of related reasons that were mentioned, but because of the overarching social and economic system skewed in favour of men - patriarchy. We can't look at these factors as discrete issues and try to pinpoint "causes" for the wage gap without looking at this overarching system as an explanation.

Anyway those were just some of my thoughts in response to the lecture. This is not about your teaching in particular, but rather my frustration at the way that gender inequality continues to be entrenched in an academic setting, despite the gains that feminism has made. In fact, alarmingly, I think in many respects we are going backwards. I am aware that there used to be a paper on feminist economics, and now there isn't. In light of this, it is even more important to be include feminist critiques in every paper as much as possible. This is what I would like to see more of.

Cheers

Better articulated thoughts on feminism and men's inclusion

My history lecturer started our class the other day by talking about feelings. She asked us to talk to each other about emotional reactions we’ve had to reading history.  This made me really happy, mostly because it’s absolutely the LAST thing most of my lecturers would do, and I think it’s brilliant. Too often we learn in the abstract, and are taught to detach from what we are studying, and forget that people – real, living, breathing, creatures – are at the centre of everything we do.

My lecturer told us to think about our emotions as we went through the class. To recognise them. And to acknowledge them. But also to not let them get in the way. Emotions can distort good history, and good writing generally, because if a piece is too emotionally-laden, its factual merits are far less likely to be taken seriously. Emotions can also make us prone to exaggeration, which undermines our entire argument.

This seems obvious, and it is. But in the moment, it is very easy to forget.

So it was with a great deal of cringe that I re-read my post on the WSA conference the other day. It is very different to my usual style. Full of swearing, bold assertions, wild accusations, and just a whole bunch of inarticulate rage.

I would be very ashamed if any of the older members of WSA read that post and knew it was me, but thankfully, this is the advantage of writing under a pseudonym. Nothing in it was constructive in the slightest, and while I do appreciate the platform of my blog as a space for venting, this has its limits and should be done respectfully.

I was tempted to thoroughly edit the post, at least removing the offensive language and toning it down. But then I realised that most people who are going to read it probably have already – and also that this is not a particularly honest way to respond. Plus, I think that post has the value of reflecting a certain emotional space that I was in at the time.

I want to revisit the topic in an attempt to articulate myself more coherently. I want to look at the nuances of arguments for and against cis-men’s inclusion in feminist spaces. I want to point out, again, that discussion around including gender minorities, and especially transwomen is far more urgent than including men, although I feel strongly about both. The need to explicitly include transwomen seems pretty obvious and I feel I’ve made a decent stab at addressing why in my last post. The inclusion of other gender minorities in women-only spaces, as I am learning, is a highly complex issue, because of all the different layers of privilege society gives people based on what gender they are assumed to be. I don’t feel qualified to discuss this, so I won’t in this post – but I think it is a glaring issue which should absolutely be on the table.

On the subject of cis-men’s inclusion, I’ll start by explaining why women’s only spaces are important. After spending the weekend with feminists, it was a bit of a shock to go back to uni. I have a new lecturer for one of my law courses, who seems to be just as much a  fan of sexist jokes as the previous one. He referred to a man’s ex-wife’s divorce lawyer as an example of his point that every story has a villain.

And in my international political economy course, we had a token lecture on feminism. Although it was barely even about feminism, really. Only a very narrow aspect of it, namely income inequality between men and women. This is an important subject, and I’m glad we discussed it, but a deeper inquiry into feminist economic thought would have been nice.

A range of explanations for the wage gap were given. Societal perceptions of men as breadwinners, women as carers. The value of work done at home, which isn’t part of the market economy. Babies. Unequal access to education and training. Different cultural expectations of men and women. All legitimate reasons, sure, but I found it really interesting, and shocking, that the word patriarchy was not mentioned at all.  I don’t know of any strand of feminism that doesn’t use the concept of patriarchy as the basis of its analysis, but please, correct me if I am wrong on this. Maybe you can mansplain it to me. 

And on the topic of mansplaining, I found it deeply offensive that the author that the lecturer drew on for 80% of the class was male. When I asked him about this, the response was that this author was the most prominent theorist on the topic. Which he probably is, but that is, I would imagine, the result of gender discrimination in the field of IPE, and more broadly, a conception of economics which is biased towards men. I think the ideal place to challenge these perceptions would probably be a 200 level paper. I have decided, rather than getting pissed off and writing an email to the lecturer, I’m going to usefully channel that energy by using entirely female authors for my next essay. Which won’t actually be hard at all, because heaps of awesome critical types are women anyway. This is probably another reason why they are ignored by the mainstream literature. But I digress, this is a topic for another day.

The class made me realise the context from which the need for a women’s only academic space emerged. And why this space matters. Women are still not taken seriously in an academic setting, and the issues that these second wave feminists were fighting in the 70s are absolutely still there. In some cases they are more subtle (for example, there are now more female than male undergrad students, although this does not translate into academic positions, and especially high-up positions) and in others more glaring (Vic used to have a feminist economics paper; now it doesn’t. And of course it used to have a whole Women’s Studies department. Go figure.).

I think this is why women’s only spaces are so valued. They are a space to be taken seriously, to be heard, for once, on equal terms. A chance to escape the insanity of the world we live in and the people we have to deal with, to be surrounded with those who share in our struggle. And, given that those spaces had to be fought for so desperately, I can understand the reluctance to give that up.

On the other hand, I stand by my argument that Women’s Studies must be a space where men are included. They too have a role to play in this struggle, and we should be encouraging that.

The thing is, it is largely men who are responsible for rape, domestic violence, objectification of women, paying women less, passing ridiculous retrogressive laws, etc etc etc. And that most men think that feminists are a bunch of angry, hairy, man-hating lesbians, or that feminism has already achieved its victories so shut up and stop complaining, or both. Of course there's nothing wrong with being lesbian or hairy, and we have every right to be angry, even if it's unconstructive. But the way that society clings to this stereotype in a negative way is harmful to feminism as a whole.

I am not convinced that we are going to get much further in these struggles without engaging with them. I am all for sitting around theorizing about the problems, and I absolutely think this has its place. But social change is always about engagement, and men have to be a part of the solution, otherwise we will just continue to inhabit completely distinct worlds. At least, distinct academic worlds, because the world we actually live in involves all genders, and we need to figure out how to function alongside each other.

I also suspect that young men are far more likely to look up to older men as role models than a bunch of what they perceive as angry-man-hating-lesbians. Men learn about sex and relationships from other men, or from the media, or porn, or whatever. I imagine they don’t learn about rape culture, or male privilege, or how to respect women, unless they have really strong male role models demonstrating this behaviour, and actively fighting for change.

I imagine lots of men are put off feminism because they see it as separatist, and I can understand why. But for most feminists, we don't want separatism, we want equality. It is not helpful moving forward if we continue to exclude, because this leads to increasing divisions, and I'm sure for many men, complete disengagement from feminist thought. Anyone who wants to fight for equality should be encouraged to do so, and warmly welcomed. This should of course, come with the caveat that they have a basic understanding of feminism and acknowledge their own privilege.

And there's plenty of awesome men, whose perspectives on feminism I would love to see included. Like this guy. 

There are also lots of less awesome guys. I don’t think we want conferences to be overrun with men who don’t actually understand feminism, and who just want to be in control and tell women what to do. And I think that’s part of the reason for excluding them. We don’t want a bunch of trolls coming along and derailing the conversation. And that’s a totally valid point. But I’m sure that there can be procedures to address this, like being able to throw people out if they are making others uncomfortable.

And most guys that I know who are actually feminists (and yeah, there’s not many of them) would really benefit from attending this kind of conference. They would benefit from hearing women’s perspectives, and they would benefit from the experience of being in the minority and not feeling entirely comfortable in the space. They would also have a lot to contribute, in terms of how we can educate and engage with other men.

Another argument, of course, is that as feminism moves into the 21^st century, it needs to become intersectional. I think by now it’s uncontroversial that second-wave feminism focuses on middle/upper class, white, able-bodied, cis-gendered women, to the exclusion of everyone else. I do think that the inclusion of all women is more urgent than the inclusion of men. But if we accept the existence of intersections of oppression, and reject gender binary as a social construct, then why not include everyone in our struggles for equality?

I still believe in women’s only spaces, and I think it’s a really good, practical solution for conferences to have some spaces open to everyone, and others only open to women, maybe with parallel workshops for men at the same time. (I don’t know how this would work in terms of how to include gender minorities in women’s only spaces, and this also needs to be part of any discussion, of course.) There would also have to be rules and boundaries about how men are to be included.

So I don’t proclaim to have any of the answers, and I do realise that the issues are rather more complex than my last post made them out to be. My point though, is that this issue absolutely has to be on the table if feminism is to remain relevant and engaged with society as a whole.