Shutting us up and shutting us out

The dedicated efforts to remove NZ women from public life

When word got out that the Women’s Rights Party was bringing Sall Grover to Aotearoa it didn’t take long for the usual dramatic announcement of a counter protest to arrive on social media. It included all sorts of lies about and accusations against Sall and the WRP. Same old, same old. Women talking about their rights is now considered, by this contingent, hate speech. It was just the latest in a growing line of Shut Women Up events in our country.

The biggest tragedy to me is when women who think they are feminists go along with these protests eagerly sharing them on Twitter and Facebook. They’ve decided that the best most feminist thing they can do for women is wait…um…stop women talking. Yeah, that’s it. Specifically stop women talking about their rights to their own spaces, to safety, to their own boundaries and to language that is meaningful to them. They have also convinced themselves of a somewhat desperate need to stop women talking about how kids are being medicalised for gender non-conformity. Also urgent is the need to stop woman complaining that girls are being taught that they’re only real girls if they like girly stereotypes. Yup, good feminist thinking there. And no matter how many times the women who want to chat say they are entirely fine with trans people they just don’t subscribe to weird anti-science theories about sex, the really important ‘feminist’ thing to do is to denounce these women as anti-trans-bigots-who-want-to-literally-erase-the-most-marginalised-and-vulnerable-population-in-the-entire-solar-system-now-and-forever-more-amen.

Yup, it’s officially a trend now. There’ll be books about this era where women could not meet in public without being told they were genocidal bigots. The era where the only women who were permitted to speak without being harassed were those with penises or those that had made a public declaration that they believe men can be women, or better, that males can be females or best, that sex doesn’t exist at all, but was invented in 1937 or 1732 or in Ancient Egypt by a hateful TERF who was just a shrivelled up old prune jealous of trans joy.

Anyway, I think we need to document what’s happening. Do I even need to say how dangerous it is to decide half the population is only allowed to talk if their views are in vogue with the right people? It’s a bit like granting women the right to come to political meetings but just to make the sandwiches. It ain’t freedom, it’s subordination.

Garwhoungle’s official:

In Aotearoa we like to Shut Women Up timeline

TRAs, I hope you are super proud! Have you told your Mums how now you’re all grown up and have developed your political analysis you really hate women who disagree with you and how that makes you like the most progressive loving, tolerant, inclusive person ever not like those evil hateful TERFs who don’t think gay teens should be medicalised?

2019

• Jill Abigail's article raising concerns about the impact of trans inclusion on women: ‘Solutions that are fair for everyone’ is published in the Green Party newsletter Te Awa and on the Party website. It is quickly removed and Green leaders apologise.

• After receiving a petition with 6000 signatures, Massey University (Wellington Campus) cancels itself as venue for Speak Up For Women's Feminism 2020 conference.

2021

• Numerous public and council venues cancel (or try to) Speak Up For Women (SUFW) events around the country. Eventually SUFW takes Palmerston North City Council to the High Court and wins making councils more wary of cancellation.

• Rainbow Midwives start a petition to remove Milli Hill as keynote speaker at the NZ College of Midwives conference. Milli Hill is a prominent feminist and positive birth movement author who uses accurate language to describe the birth process. The conference is cancelled due to Covid and the College apologises for inviting Milli Hill.

• A SUFW commercial banner with the dictionary definition of women (adult human female) lasts than less than 24 hours in central Wellington before it’s pulled down amidst complaints. Official complaints were not upheld by the Advertising Standards Authority.

2022

• Teens against Terfs start a petition to stop the Child and Adolescent Therapists Association (CATA) from holding a conference in Nelson on the impact of gender ideology. As a result of the venue pulling out, CATA has to change the venue to a secret location.

2023

• Rainbow Greens send an open letter to Minister Wood urging him to prevent Posie Parker from entering the country. Minister Wood declines, and Gender Minorities, InsideOUT and Auckland Pride file an injunction trying unsuccessfully to get a High Court ruling against the Minister’s decision.

• Before any woman has had a chance to speak noisy crowds shut down the Let Women Speak event in Albert Park. The Shut Women Up side storm the stage, punch women, beat women up and otherwise assault women. The police appear to hang out round the corner ignoring what’s going on.

• In the wake of not upholding complaints about Kathleen Stock’s interview on RNZ’s Saturday Morning, the Broadcasting Standards Association issues guidance on the reporting of transgender issues. The guidance says that New Zealand law allows people to change sex (citing legislations which allows people to change their sex on their birth certificates—a different thing). It also states that transgender people are particularly vulnerable, and that language like ‘people with cervixes’ was accurate and not denigrating to women. In this context it said BSA would decline to determine complaints that relied on transphobic stereotypes or tropes. In doing so apparently granting itself permission to ignore and silence gender-related complaints it doesn’t like.

• Emma Barraclough announces that she was put through disciplinary action for asking questions at an InsideOUT training session at her workplace, the Ministry of Transport. Her questions were about whether InsideOUT’s definition of lesbianism as same gender attraction rather than same-sex attraction was in fact erasing a meaningful definition of lesbianism.

2024

• Women’s Rights Party hosts a tour by Australian Sall Grover who is being taken to court for refusing to let a man who identifies as a woman on her women-only app. New Plymouth Citizen’s Advice Bureau cancels the WRP booking. The Wellington venue is changed at the last minute after protesters make it clear they intend to stop speakers being heard. The Wellington protesters gather at the old site until someone finds out where the Plan B venue is and they gather round trying to drown out the kind of feminists who still think women should be allowed to do some stuff by themselves.

What attempts to shut women out of public life have I missed? I’d love you to leave a comment.