The war on woke

In my inbox this evening ...27 March 2023
To Prime Minister Chris Hipkins,

Accountability, please.
I liken the counter-protest during the Let Women Speak event to a pack of frenzied rabid dogs frothing at the mouth.

I attended the event on Saturday to represent and speak up for women; it was an event about women, by women for women. What I witnessed was an attack on women. No matter what people thought about Kellie-Jay, her event was a free speech opportunity to listen to the concerns of a sex that feels let down and vulnerable in their spaces and that's why I was there.

The counter-protest from the trans community was an attack on another protected group - women. It shows that women are clearly not protected. Abusing women for their opinion is nothing to be proud of. The crowd celebrated in a frenzy when their intimidating behavior forced the handful of women remaining on stage to seek safety.

Prime Minister, whilst there was a crowd from the rainbow community, I know there will be as many, maybe more, from their community who were disgusted by the display of hatred, intimidation, and vitriol that was directed at a very small group of women yesterday.

The more important concern I wish to convey, is my utter disgust and disappointment with the role of government officials. The government ministers who are servants of all NZ should be ashamed of themselves for enciting one group against another. Will they be held accountable for their role in encouraging the abusive behaviour towards women on Saturday? I would like you, as Prime Minister, to uphold the decency and standard of behaviour expected of all Members of Parliament.

The government is there to protect and serve all New Zealand individuals and groups without compromise and bias, and yet members of your government have enabled one protected group to trample on the rights of others. Trans people get accolades and praise for their courage. Women who stand up for the safety of themselves and their children get ridiculed and abused. How is that for equity and inclusion?

I was stationed on the rotunda where I witnessed a war on women by many males.

It was unsafe for us. Many in that crowd were there to hear from the women, many of them were abused, spat on, intimidated, and threatened. I have messages and emails from those who were attacked. There was a moment when I wondered how I was going to get from the rotunda to safety. If it wasn’t for the assistance of a handful of men who had accompanied me to the event I hate to think of the harm that could have been inflicted on myself and on other women we helped to get out of harm's way.

As if violently silencing women was not enough the event also used by one of your Ministers, Greens Co-Leader Marama Davidson, to attack our boys and men. I have two sons and I hate to see them subjected to the racist man-bashing tirade she was spewing. It was putrid and an assault on my senses and I feel for every male, who will be looked at like public enemy number one when it comes to violence.

How are our men going to develop when they are constantly blamed for the sins of others instead of being respected for all the good they do?

Marama Davidson should stand down for the following reasons:

1) for her male-bashing, stating all violence is caused by men

2) for her racist comment that violence comes from white men

3) for her misuse of power and influence

4) for her unprofessional frenzied rant

5) for using the event to attack a vulnerable group in society who are calling for protection, and last but not least,

6) for using her position to pit one section of society against another in such a divisive way.

Considering Davidson is minister in charge of family violence, I would have expected her to have a rounded knowledge of research before making derogatory remarks about one sex. As explained by Dr Neville Robertson of the University of Waikato, "many studies have shown that in the context of heterosexual relationships, women are as violent as men. These studies typically use measures such as the Conflict Tactics Scale, which ask respondents how often they have used specific acts of violence against their partners – and/or how often their partner has used those acts against them". Why then has Davidson stated that all violence is from males? Even more outrageous, why blame everything on white males? This is blatantly false.

The latest research on unreported sexual violence reveals that almost 30 percent of New Zealand adults experience intimate partner violence, or sexual violence, at some point in their life. There’s been no significant change in the level of crime in New Zealand in the past five years. Is this not an important discussion that we need to have as a society? With this in mind, how can you justify the blasé dismissal of women’s concerns around abuse and the violent suppression of an event held to highlight these concerns? Why would you condone the counter-protest on Saturday not only silencing women’s voices but also adding to victimisation of women through violent and intimidating behaviour - women, many of whom have already suffered from previous trauma? Please, do the right thing for these women.

www.justice.govt.nz/about/news-and-media/news/latest-crime-survey-reveals-surprising-high-levels-of-unreported-sexual-violence/#:~:text=The%20survey%20reveals%20that%20almost%2030%20
regards
Co-leader New Conservative Party
Helen Houghton

www.nc.org.nz/policy -fairly straight forward

while we may not agree with their position on abortion that doesn't detract from her observations/experience on saturday . no fair-minded person should be condoning that performance.

Slater reaching for the smelling salts finding him self in agreement with Rachel Smalley
thebfd.co.nz/2023/03/28/knock-me-down-with-a-feather-i-agree-with-rachel-smalley/
some quotes from her
I watched what the Greens posted on social media over the weekend, and I’m sure the Government did as well. I imagine Chris Hipkins and the Labour Party will be pretty troubled by what they saw. And they should be. We all should be.
Remember this date – Saturday, 25th of March. It’s the day the Greens stepped up and publicly applauded the intimidation and silencing of women.
50 percent of our population is women. 50 percent of the voter base is women. And the Greens say our voice doesn’t matter. Worse, they applauded the men who raised fists, called women c-words, and backed the men who pushed through security fences to intimidate and mob Posie Parker.
Hate has no place in society, they say. Hate against who?

None of us are allowed to speak. Women, if they raise their hands to speak, they are silenced and abused. Since I wrote my editorial on Thursday, I have been called many things. A Nazi. A Terf. A supporter of hate. Anti-trans. A bigot. A bitch. And far worse.
I am none of those things. But I am a woman and I’ve been around these traps for a while. And I do believe that we should all be afforded a voice and an opportunity to speak to issues that impact the world that we live in. That impact our world.
And that’s why I wanted to talk to James Shaw and Marama Davidson this morning.
Four of the Greens’ senior women were utterly fervent in their opposition to women at the weekend, calling on the public to rise up against the Let Women Speak group, and then applauding the abuse and intimidation that rained down on them.
How on earth did the Greens become so anti-women?

The Greens won’t accept that you can be pro-trans rights AND pro-women rights. You don’t have to pick a side, but the Greens did. And they opposed women’s rights. In 2023, they opposed women’s rights.
And for me… well, the hypocrisy is breathtaking.
Earlier this year, I interviewed Greens MP Golriz Ghahraman on the issue unfolding in Iran. She said New Zealand must stand up, and stop the misogyny and the hate and the violence that was raining down on the women of Iran. And then on Saturday, I watched her dog-whistle misogyny and violent behaviour against the women of New Zealand. In the moments before the protest, she posted a picture of herself smiling on Twitter holding a sign where she labelled women’s rights campaigners as Terfs and she wrote “Ready to the fight the Nazis!”
That’s me, Golriz. The same woman who stood with you and called for Iran’s women to be given a voice… that same woman is me. And now when I ask for women to be given a voice in a situation that significantly impacts women’s rights, you call me a Nazi and a Terf.

In some ways this has been a good happening, because it makes it very clear to the voter base that the Greens are living up to their "Watermelon" label, and are just another repressive party using the environment as a Trojan horse for their true beliefs

as always bryce hits some zingers

Saturday’s clash of cultures is a sign of where politics is heading in New Zealand – towards a fully-fledged culture war. This is something normally more associated with American politics – but also increasingly in places like the UK.

“Parker’s opponents made sure that she was in the news most of the week”, and “They helped her spread her message. They played right into her hands.”

“So ready to fight N*zis”. Co-leader and Government Minister Marama Davidson put out a video to say that she was “so proud” of the protesters. And obviously wearing her hat of Minister for Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence she used the event to declare that only “white cis men” commit violence.

Leftwing activist and blogger Martyn Bradbury attended Saturday’s rally and counter-rally and was appalled by both sides. He says: “Right now the entire community need to actually step back and consider how the militant cancel culture element of the debate has alienated everyone else and created the environment where Posie Parker can thrive.”

The two parliamentary parties stoking the culture wars are Act and the Greens. Those parties will gain a much higher profile if cultural issues keep rising to the fore. The Greens will pick up middle class supporters whose main focus is on social justice issues, while Act might be able to pick up more anti-woke working class supporters in provincial New Zealand.

Squeezed in the middle are the major parties of Labour and National, who are desperate to stay out of it all

Peters pushed all the buttons on the culture war issues – claiming that the education system was the victim of “virtue signalling tinkerers”, and that government departments were more focused on relabelling themselves with Māori names than actually doing the mahi. Co-governance was also targeted as an elite agenda that would take away the “one person, one vote” Western tradition of democracy.

The main problem in culture wars arise when there is no room for nuanced discussion, openness or a willingness to learn from others and opponents. Overall, there is a need for healthier debate and engagement in New Zealand politics.

This is something political columnist Janet Wilson wrote about in the weekend, arguing that we have a declining culture of critical thinking and open-mindedness: “That growing inability to think critically enables what Illinois University Ilana Redstone calls The Certainty Trap, that sense of self-righteousness that comes with having brutally judged, then condemned and dismissed, someone with whom we disagree.

eveningreport.nz/2023/03/27/bryce-edwards-political-roundup-the-ugly-stoking-of-a-culture-war-in-election-year/