Over the semester teaching break, I took a short trip to Palmerston North where this item was front page news on the Manawatu Weekend Evening Standard, Sept 1-2.
“Bullying and intimidation is scaring women away from the Palmerston North City Council chamber..only a small number of women are standing for local government election this year…councillors said the environment is not a welcoming one for women…No matter what the outcome of the election the council will be dominated by men for the next three years. Of the 34 candidates for the 15 spots on council only 6 candidates are women (that’s a little over 15%).
Alison Wall, a councillor for 15 years said she is “very sad so few women are standing because it is vital that there is balanced representation”. “Its very important, because we have a different pespective and another point of voiew”…But the small number is to be expected said Cr. Wall because many women are aware of the bad treatment they would receive on council”…”This behaviour includes bullying tactics and name-calling generally..The environment of intimidation with males sanding over you and shouting across the table would be very off-putting to a lot of women. They’re male chauvinists”.
Council structures were also geared against women..all the meetings are at 5pm!! This is definitely a problem if you are a parent, and especially a mother who take those responsibilities seriously as many women are and do. Whose interests were considered when this time was chosen??
Remember our question — what explains the massive gender gap in political representation – the fact that only 16% of national representations are women worldwide? We always thought things were more gender balanced in local government. But not so in this and many other cases.
How many women do you see standing for Auckland city mayor among yesterday’s businessman, a pornographer and a few others?
Would you consider standing for a local government position if the meetings were all at 5pm and the hyper-masculine adversarial culture prevailed?
Your thoughts?
Jacqui
I think it would take a pretty strong person generally to not feel intimidated by all those men standing over you, I am sure even some of the men on the council must feel a little uncomfortable at times. It appears to be such a hyper-masculine environment that it must be serving some other purpose besides local issues…perhaps the only place that men feel they can go and assert their authority!!
I have never really thought about the 5pm meeting slot before, but it is completely un-family-friendly just before dinner time, especially for those women with young families and well before their partners would be home to take over care duties. This would necessiate women having to find and arrange child care at a difficult time. Even for women without families, 5pm is stil well before most of us finish work and would then require possible extra hours to be worked in lieu, adding to an already long working week.
I also know that generally its not just one meeting a week. Having had a father serve on council and various other community service organisations, he was (and still is) hardly ever at home. My mother was expected to keep the home fires burning and sit waiting night after night, and I imagine she got pretty lonely at times. For women serving on council they would be expected to drop ‘home duties’ and/or work duties at a moments notice and go to many functions, most which would faciliate the need for child care as their partners may well be included.
I applaude any woman who has the stamina, organisational abilities and a skin thick enough to take on these men in council. I agree that a women’s perspective needs to be heard, but I don’t think I would be putting up my hand, which is possibly exactly what these men want!!
reading this I had to pinch myself to make sure I hadn’t time traveled back to the early 1900’s
have we come NO where – I have long intuitively suspected our gains were superficial – at worst – and unsustainable at best and now from the comments on this site I am beging to see the validation of that
me thinks a re read of some early feminist literature is in order, especially ones that speak of our early – very early formothers experience so that we can see first the male patterns of exclusion and second – to get angry enough to empower some sort of action
seems the gains made in the 70’s have been erroded by in action – did women think they achieved equality already and therefore there is no need to do anything ?