This page features computer generated text of the source audio. It may contain errors or omissions, so always listen back to the original media to confirm content. You can search the text using Ctrl-F, and you can also play the audio by clicking on a desired timestamp.
Marilyn Waring is a personal hero of mine, and I'm sure of many of the people sitting in the audience today. If she isn't already, she will be soon. She's a professor of public policy at a UT University in Auckland and has held fellowships at Harvard and Rutgers universities. She was elected to New Zealand Parliament at the age of 23 in 1975 and served three terms, and during that time she chaired the public [00:00:30] accounts and Public Expenditure Select committees. She's internationally known for her work in political economy, development assistance and human rights, including working right throughout the Asia Pacific region. She's the author of a number of books and please join me in welcoming her Now [00:01:00] to and Thank You for Our Sisters from Samoa. Male. Um, it's first of all in this space I've been saying to myself, It's almost like I'm sighing, but I'm not. I'm taking these huge breaths and exhaling [00:01:30] with the relief of being in a space with my extended family. Um, what I want to focus on a little bit today is what I call the silent human right dignity, not one. The New Zealand courts have ever engaged except in minority judgments. Uh, like many of you, I've been monitoring international news. And so I noted that this week the future [00:02:00] debate on the BBC was the question. Is homosexuality an African wow, I went, is disability. An African is religion, and African is old age, an African. How amazing that they think they can take who we are and question whether or not a whole continent [00:02:30] might be an African. Because not only might they be part of our extended family, but they might even live in a country like South Africa where we're allowed to get married. It's been a long road for all of us to get to this hall, and I'm just gonna share some of that part of my own journey in the 19 sixties when I was 13 [00:03:00] or 14. And I know this because I can remember very clearly the room in which I sat everything about it. I began to watch a black and white movie in what used to be the Sunday afternoon cinema programme. On television. It starred Audrey Hepburn and Shirley McLean, and both were stars in our household. But it must have been a fine day because I was alone in that room and [00:03:30] I watched it because it seemed to be about a girl's boarding school. It was Lillian Hellman's The Children's Hour. Some of you, I can hear already know this. In it, Karen and Martha are just beginning to succeed in their struggle to make a school for girls a going concern. They have to discipline this young pupil who's a congenital liar and always wants everything her own way. And, uh, so the [00:04:00] kid calls on her grandmother, who's very rich and, uh, repeats to her, not to, uh, repeats to her that she thinks that Martha has an unnatural attachment to Karen, and Grandma's horrified and she spreads the words to all the parents and car after car begins to arrive at the main entrance of the school, loading their daughters into them and driving them away. And not a word is said and no explanation is [00:04:30] given. But with the final child to leave, they are told of the rumour. Karen thinks the lie is outrageous, but Martha declares herself guilty of ruining both their lives. I do love you, she says. I couldn't call it by its name before and soon after Martha makes this confession, Grandma arrives to say that the granddaughter's been congenitally lying again. She agrees to [00:05:00] a public apology. She wants to hand over a large amount of money to support the school, uh, and pay for all the damage that's been caused. And during all of this Martha Leaves and Karen hears all of this. Thanks. Goodness, it's OK. We're all right, sits alone for some time and then you. You know, the film sees something triggers, and she races across the school to Martha's Room. [00:05:30] She has to break the lock of the door to get in, and the cut in the film to the inside of the room simply shows a noose in silhouette and an overturned chair with a single shoe beside it. Now the lesbian word wasn't used anywhere in the film, but that was my first lesson in what might happen to women who loved women. And despite the fact I'd had no sexual experience at all, I knew I was one of them. I was amazed to discover [00:06:00] a couple of years ago that Anne Marie McDonald, in her novel as The Crow, flies uh, gives her central character exactly the same experience with the Children's Hour. One or two years later, in fact, I was shifted from high school to a private girls boarding school to be finished off. Um, [00:06:30] I was quickly introduced to a term used of some of the friendships that my contemporaries used referred to as Les Friends. I had no idea what they were talking about, and it took me some time to unobtrusively inquire. And when I learned the term lesbian, as I did with new words, I went to the dictionary in the public library and I discovered the will of loneliness. Radcliffe Hall's novel, of course. When it was published in London, the authorities [00:07:00] declared it obscene and seized it. And, um, the US charged the publisher with obscenity. As soon as the well appeared in print. And in the New York court, a presiding judge ruled that the book tended to debauch public morals, found that pub publisher guilty, and all of that was a good enough recommendation for me to hunt it down and read it. Now the book tells the story of a girl who's born into a wealthy English family. She's nicknamed Stephen She has [00:07:30] tomboyish ways. Uh, her father, Sir Philip, um loves her to bits and isn't going to get in the way of this, but is heavily influenced by both Carl Ulrich. Um, some of you might know his work. Um, he certainly thought that homosexuality was natural and healthy. Uh, and Richard von Kraft E. Who, of course, um, called us inverted, uh, and began expanded [00:08:00] on the theory of disease, Uh, and that most homosexuals had mental illness. Uh, Sir Philip never says anything about this to Stephen. He dies, Stephen becomes a successful novelist, falls in love with Mary, the two of them race off to live harmoniously in Paris, Going to the bars. Um, And there, of course, gay and lesbian people are portrayed as people who lead lives of despair, finding momentary relief in creme de monde and cocaine. [00:08:30] Um, tragic, suicide prone and alcoholic. Um, Stephen loves Mary so much that she feels guilty for Le Le, leading her lover into this tragic life in a seemingly hostile and accepting society. So she resolves to kill herself so that Mary can be freed to pursue a more rewarding life as the wife of a mutual friend. So in my short [00:09:00] life to that point, suicide or suicide was not great role modelling. There was no Martina and no Allen. The media images of the sixties of the feminist movement, either, frankly, weren't promising to me. Boots, boiler suits, bikes and anger didn't do it. For me. To see several dozen women, neither Su suicidal nor leather kitted dikes on bikes under a Lesbian nation banner at the 1975 [00:09:30] United Women's Convention was the first exposure I'd had to alternatives. It was also the year I entered the New Zealand Parliament. I remember on the first couple of days, handwriting out the man's field risk, risk, anything. Care no more for the import. Let me start again. Risk, risk, anything. Care no more for the opinions [00:10:00] of others. For those voices do the thing hardest on Earth for you to do, act for yourself and face the truth. And beside it I put TS Elliott, I'm sure, out of context, but it worked, and right action is freedom from past and future. Also, for most of us, this is the aim never here to be realised, who are only undefeated because we have gone on trying [00:10:30] well in the New Zealand parliament, I was definitely the gayest MP for nine years. I don't know what it is about this testosterone competition the lads have. Tim was always desperate to claim he was the first out. MP obviously missed [00:11:00] six weeks of the truth in 1976. Uh, it was fabulous in there for me in the national party caucus, especially when I was the only woman in the caucus. Uh, I was frequently advised most Thursday mornings that, um, most normal women didn't think like me. Um, the opening survey from Muldoon the night that the government fell was really interesting because it told me immediately that he wasn't interested in mediation. [00:11:30] And that was What the fuck do you think you're up to now, you perverted little liar that I It's OK. He, uh, was no more seen much after that. Um, certainly the years, um, have seen lots of changes in my life since the viewing of the Children's hour. My sexual preference was never [00:12:00] subject to criminal sanction. Thanks. Um, to the interpretation of Queen Victoria's exercise of the Royal Assent. Assent to legislation. Um, I've been interested in the story about Queens today. I actually forgot to bring all my medals, Um, which I normally only wear on occasions like this because it says you've got to wear them in the presence of royalty. Um, and also, I was thinking during the last [00:12:30] contribution that not only, um do we have representatives of Queens, but we have kings as Queens as well. Um uh, in New Zealand, it's especially thanks to two women members of Parliament Frank, Fran Wild and Catherine O'Regan that there's been development of equality legislation. But while I'm thinking about development, um, I should say something about working in development. I have, [00:13:00] um, worked in many countries where I'm not afraid to tell you that I pull out the old gold Russian wedding ring. I stick it on his finger. I carry around old photographs of my three nephews as Children. I carry around a photograph of my brother, and when it's necessary to try and get domestic violence into the national plan of Bangladesh, I bring them out and show everybody my Children and husband, um, I'm not afraid [00:13:30] to use what has to be used to get through it, and I know that some of the work I do is more important, frankly, than my own pride and integrity at that very moment. And I tyre of those who think that there's only one way to be gay all the time, and that's to be out everywhere because you can jeopardise other [00:14:00] people's movements in doing that at the same time. Now that everybody can google me and find out exactly who I am, I really tyre of the silences and Presumptions that I am especially greeted with when I work in the Pacific. Every New Zealander who works for our high commission is there, knows I'm gay. Um, and [00:14:30] most of the women activists that I'm working with know that, too. And yet I'm expected to endure tedious breakfasts, lunches and dinners while they share what's happening to their partners and their Children and their grandchildren. And nobody even bothers to ask of my own parenting and Children straight. People still have a lot to learn in New Zealand. Internationally, [00:15:00] we have started to say some of the right words at unit United Nations venues. I'm thinking in particular of the late Clive Pearson, Um, speaking on behalf of New Zealand at the Commission on Human Rights 60th session and on behalf of the Cairns Group. So Canada and Australia in there as well discrimination against people on the grounds of their sexual orientation takes place in all too many countries. [00:15:30] It's silence that allows human rights to flourish. It's silence that allows misunderstanding and mis mistrust to grow into fear, intolerance and discrimination. We are not prepared to compromise on the equality and dignity and rights of all people, end quote. But it wasn't the truth. Australia hasn't even got me a civil union and civil union is certainly a compromise on our dignity. I understand our Australian brothers and sisters [00:16:00] wanting to visit here for a civil union. But what of the essential question of human rights in Canada? I witnessed Jenny Rowan and Jules Jocelyn's wedding. I've witnessed Tel Dawson and Angie McDonald's, Uh, and I wonder, since their marriages there are not marriages here. Just what was I at? I'm familiar with many other types of [00:16:30] marriages that are uncivil unions, but I'm not sure that that's the term, Uh, that is appropriate here in my professorial inaugural for a UT University, um, which is available as a podcast if you're desperate. Um, actually, it's a damn good lecture. Um, uh, [00:17:00] and I focused on the framing of the debate around marriage in Canada and New Zealand, and I focused on it, particularly because, with the exception of about two or three words, New Zealand's Bill of Rights and, uh, Human Rights Act, uh, and the Canadian Charter are identical. Both of them are drawn from basically the civil and political covenant and protocol. Um, [00:17:30] and so, you know, in politics, you always understand you're talking about really important leadership, Elizabeth, that most important political issues, just like strategic planning draughts are framed before they hit the community. Somebody's already determined how far they think we can go. And in New Zealand, from the very beginning, we were framed to lose our dignity. [00:18:00] Two phrases I recall as central to the Canadian Civil Union versus marriage debate. First of all from Michelle Douglas, the woman who won against the Canadian defence Force who tried to decommission her on the basis of her sexual orientation as she led the Ontario Gay and Lesbian Defence Task Forces. She's also who paid employment in the Ontario, Ontario, Attorney General's Office which helped a bit during all of this. Um, she she [00:18:30] talked to me about how civil union represented separate but equal the apartheid solution. And I recalled John, uh, jean's response to the pressure from the Liberal Party to have a referendum. We don't have referendums on human rights for minorities, he said. It's why we have human rights laws so the majority cannot impose their lukewarm efforts on [00:19:00] minorities. And from the attorney general in, uh, Jean Paul, cabinet equivalence is not equality. And I think of those, um, Jews in Germany, those blacks coloured whites in South Africa, those coloured white people in the southern states of the United States. They were all [00:19:30] asking for the dignity of marriage. They weren't asking for all the other 102 laws to be changed. What they were centrally interested in was the equality and dignity of marriage, not equivalent equivalent and not the apartheid solution. It was a sad but understandable uh, experience in New Zealand that our gay [00:20:00] leaders could not wait to move until equality was the only purpose. I understand. In a parliamentary context, I certainly do. I just mourn that second class rights were deemed enough yet I take heart in this gathering and the research that is available and or ongoing just in the last couple of years in Australia. The work by [00:20:30] La Trobe de Deacon Relationships Australia on same sex parent families doing work on organising home work and home and same same sex families. Um, no surprises. Really. Um, same sex couple couples divide household labour significantly more equally than heterosexual parents. Lesbian couples shared parenting tasks more equally. Um, no matter who [00:21:00] had the child or who breastfed among lesbian couples, you could not then determine, um or that it was assumed that that mother would be the primary child carer. Certainly in the longer term, um, the other work that they're doing around, um, sexual orientation and mental health and well-being, um, things that we equally that we all know. But it's always great to have the rigour [00:21:30] of academic research supporting what we always knew. The feminist movement came through this, and now our own organisations are doing the same. I want to pay tribute to Mark Hendrickson and Stephen Neville, the leaders of the Lavender Islands surveys in New Zealand that gave us some of the first material that we had about ourselves. But again, the figures also tell us of the threats [00:22:00] of fear of unsafe places. Only 41% of the respondents in relationships and 27% of singles reported being out to everyone in their lives. I'm enjoying reading the work of David, um, on questioning, using queer theory to inform research and practise in public mental health services. I'm working with the Auckland District Health Board. Uh, in that that tension [00:22:30] between do we expect, um, gay, lesbian, trans intersex people to only be working with therapists who are like them. Um, because very often in our institutions, that kind of silo treatment is the norm. It's like sitting in the room waiting for everybody to speak up about human rights offences against us [00:23:00] and in the finish, knowing since you're the only one in the room, you're gonna have to do it again and yet again and yet again. And the TDM of that, uh, and David asking that question and then also asking the question. But isn't it the responsibility of everybody in an institution or service? And if that's the situation, how do we keep safe? Um It's been a long way from the Children's out of disciplinary the majority of my life. [00:23:30] I would not have believed this conference possible in a in safety and with dignity to see our lives begin to figure and research on teachers roles and queer discourse. Pedagogy and practise the experiences of gay mothers in early childhood education. Asking about how supportive union organisers are on the rights of queer workers talking about our challenges in Tonga, Thailand, Samoa, India, [00:24:00] Malaysia, the Philippines, Nepal, our stories having rainbows and uni uniform rainbows and sport focusing on our health and well-being and much of this now through what I call an appreciative inquiry approach rights based as opposed to a catalogue of deficit indicators. We are battling towards dignity and I hope we get there in my lifetime.
This page features computer generated text of the source audio. It may contain errors or omissions, so always listen back to the original media to confirm content.
Tags