Our Place: womanhood in Aotearoa New Zealand

KAHU TUMAI, 32, ON RECONNECTING WITH HER WHAKAPAPA (NGĀTI NAHO, NGĀTI POU) 

Meet Kahu - an Ōtautahi local, Kaiārahi Kaupapa Māori (The Green Lab), Kaiwhakahaere Takatāpui (InsideOUT), and loving māmā and partner.

"I think in the current social climate of Aotearoa I have a feeling of slight fear, especially as an openly queer Māori woman," Kahu says. 

"I wear moko kauae (traditional chin tattoo) and while most people are friendly and respectful in real life, there has been what feels like a rise of right-wing anti-Māori sentiment online". 

When she was little, her Pākehā mother and Māori father separated. Living with her mother, Kahu was raised in a conservative extended Pākehā family that "like so many other kiwi families, used casual and overt racism as a way to police expectations of success". 

It wasn't until Kahu was in her twenties that her father opened up about his whakapapa.

"Anti-Māori sentiments were a part of building good character, which in turn created ethnic dysphoria within me."

She says her dysphoria heavily influenced her choices toward a Pākehā way of life, until as a young mum, she went to university to study law. Two years in and very depressed, Kahu made the switch to Māori studies instead.

"Something ignited in me and I found so much of myself and my Māori whanau reflected in what I learnt," she says. "It has been ten years and huge life changes and I now feel grounded in my identity as a wahine Māori."

Kahu got her moku kauae the day after her mother passed away. Both her and her mum had been on a massive journey unlearning ingrained racism. Her mum was supportive of Kahu reconnecting with her whakapapa, and was planning to be next to her as she got her moku kauae done. 

Living in the intersections of being "openly queer, fat (and cute), and proudly Māori", she's spent the last seven years on a journey to where she is now. As an activist, Kahu gained quite the following in her twenties for her work in the community. 

"[My activism has gone from] being navel-gazey and churning out activist content for clout and people-pleasing, to now just being my online diary that tends to still hit people in the feels".

Kahu's social media has been through a change too. It's curated to be, as she describes, excessively intersectional. 

"I follow mostly queer, art, fat, community-focused, mostly Māori people and pages," she says.

Choosing what she watches, engages in, and interacts with, has changed her whole outlook on the world. 

Trying to buy from local Māori businesses where she can, she says on social media, Māori wahine are having a beautiful moment. 

She says the Māori wahine community is mostly very supportive of each other. 

But on the flip side, she's concerned almost 60% of women imprisoned in Aotearoa are Māori - the highest imprisonment rate of any ethnicity. 

In their latest study Corrections NZ reported 56.5% of women in prison were of Māori descent.

Kahu's biggest concern is of a "conservative undercurrent" in New Zealand, a land that she believes continues to lean on European ideals - something she spent her twenties learning a lot about.

Describing her twenty-something self as loud and calling people out, now that she's in her thirties, she's all about 'not giving a shit' about other people's opinions of her. 

Kahu continues to make change, but she does so quietly, spending her days focusing more on herself, her whanau, and her work with collab space Understorey and rainbow education organisation InsideOUT.

Her version of activism is community work, mindful consumerism, living with good intent, and being a mum to her thirteen-year-old son.

NIKI BEZZANT, 52, ON WOMEN IN MEDIA AND IN MENOPAUSE 

"If you look at the landscape of women's magazines now, it's very different to what it was once upon a time. Not even that long ago, women's magazines were just all about fashion and sex tips and make up and how to make yourself look younger," Niki says from her Tāmaki-Makaurau home. 

"I think those days of those stories are gone now. There's a lot more recognition that women are powerful, and have agency at every age and stage of their life."

Meet Niki Bezzant. Since her twenties she's been a strong part of the New Zealand media industry. Covering topics from news to women's health, Niki has just ended her stint at Thrive as editor. Alongside her media career, she has written a book called 'This Changes Everything: the honest guide to menopause and perimenopause'.

In New Zealand, the average age for menopause is 51. Perimenopause usually begins in the mid-late 40s, but can start as early as the late 30s. This 'reverse puberty' (hormonal milestone) can last from 2-10 years.

Menopause is something Niki is very passionate about. 

"A lot of my generation and older have got to this stage of life, knowing nothing of what to expect," she says. 

Describing her experience and others as turbulent, hormonal, and rather awful, Niki decided to open the conversation and write a book about it. 

In her research for 'This Changes Everything', she found over half of the women involved shared symptoms of brain fog, lack of concentration, memory issues, and sleep problems. Almost half of participants experienced mental health issues, and 46% of women suffered mood swings.

Aspects of life such as sex and self-image took the biggest blow.

"Women have described to me feeling like they are getting early onset dementia, like they're going crazy...like they're just losing themselves, and not really understanding why," she says. "[They] also feel quite alone and isolated, which is far from the truth. If you're experiencing that then a lot of other people are too, and what I'm hoping to communicate is that you're not alone."

Self-describing herself as 'a bit of an evangelist', Niki hopes to spread the discussion on menopause far and wide - because every woman (or those assigned female at birth) will go through it. 

Her advice for younger women is to learn about their bodies and what happens inside. Now that education and conversation around the 28-day menstrual cycle are circulating social media, Niki marvels at the fact that this information is now so accessible. 

Before she started her book research, Niki admits she didn't even know what happens to her hormones during a normal menstrual cycle. Now, she helps menopausal women feel empowered and seek treatment if they need it. Niki tells me women who have 'reached the other side', have told her that life is great, and that they feel newly powerful. 

Here in Aotearoa New Zealand, she thinks being a woman is "pretty good". 

"I think we do have quite a good life here. I mean, it could be a lot worse," she says. "Look around the world - we're not American, we're not losing the right over our body. Iran, Afghanistan...there's a lot of places where there are terrible things happening to women."

When asked about ageism and invisibility, she says it's a topic she has heard discussed amongst women she knows. But she hasn't experienced that herself. 

"I think I can understand how women are made to feel invisible. But I also think there's a little bit of a 'if you don't act invisible, you won't be invisible' kind of thing to it as well."

"Women are not allowed to age, right? And this is still prevalent in the media...we are seen as being past it or irrelevant once we get to a certain age. Men in their 50s are perceived to be at the height of their power, which women also are absolutely, and I think our Gen X are the women who are not actually going to be quiet about that and be shoved into a corner."

Niki hopes that with conversations starting around midlife and menopause, there will be a realization that women still have about half of their life to live.

"That's a lot of living to do. There's no way that women are just going to be sidelined all of the time."

DR KARYN LEONA STEWART, 54, ON FEMINISM TODAY

Dr Karyn Leona Stewart, a part-time lecturer in Anthropology and Sociology at the University of Canterbury, thinks it's "quite shit" being a woman in New Zealand.

With a PhD in Psychoanalysis, Dr Stewart has spent the last thirty years on the University of Canterbury campus. Seventeen years ago, she watched her male colleagues get a job before her female colleagues did. 

"There were eight of us, sort of in the same areas. Four of us were women and there were four men. The four men got jobs at the university as lecturers almost straight away, I was the only one that is still there as a lecturer, [but] I don't have a continuing position."

The University of Canterbury says it is making an effort to change.

In its 2021 Annual Report, 49.9% of staff at the University of Canterbury were women. In 2005, 29% of academic staff were female. But, the university could not provide the percentage of women as academic staff in 2021 due to confidentiality.  

In reply, a University of Canterbury spokesperson says that UC has been investing in equity transformation for over a decade. They have been prioritizing investments and approaches into Maori, Pacific, and female equity on campus, and are aware of the persistent gap.

Not afraid to fight injustice, Dr Stewart classifies herself as a radical feminist.

"I don't think that I've ever really cared what other people thought, and that probably might have been problematic too. I will always fight for the underdog."

She says New Zealand hasn't moved away from the settler society ideal, and that women are still treated similarly to when they were pioneers: expected to be the mother, the wife, the person who looks after the house. 

Before she was elected prime minister, Jacinda Ardern was asked by The Project co-host Jesse Mulligan if she planned to have children. The next morning, ex-cricketer Mark Richardson said New Zealanders had a right to know if their potential prime minister might take maternity leave. Jacinda Ardern replied that "it is not a women's decision about when they choose to have children and it should not predetermine whether or not they are given a job or have job opportunities". 

Dr Stewart says she thinks that's the hangover when it comes to pregnancy and maternity leave.

"Even though Jacinda Ardern had a baby in office, she might not have been elected if she'd been pregnant going in. I remember Helen Clark saying she had to make that choice," she says. "A lot of my female colleagues made that choice."

Five years since that comment, and Dr Stewart feels not much has changed. Societally, she believes there has been a recent swing toward the far-right. 

Referencing Kanye West and his 'White Lives Matter' t-shirt, she says there is an idea that white men are being left out, creating a domino effect on everything else. 

"White men still have the power. You've got the white men at the top, old white men. If you look at the past, the social movements that are connected to the left with women and any marginalized group, there's just a real swing back against it."

This is just one of several controversies currently happening in America. Roe vs Wade is another.

In 1973, a US Supreme Court ruling called Roe vs Wade recognized the right to abortion was down to the individual, not the government. This year, the Supreme Court ruling was overturned, and as a result abortion was automatically outlawed in some states.

"It's unbelievable that they would be rolling back Roe vs Wade," Dr Stewart says. "It's frightening, people should be frightened."

She says with a National party leader who is against abortion, whose to say it can't happen here if the party was elected?

However, last year, Christopher Luxon told Newshub journalist Jenna Lynch that although he is pro-life, he would not make changes to New Zealand's abortion legislation. Newshub reported that Luxon said "that's settled." Dr Stewart is not entirely convinced.

Looking ahead, she says she has major concerns for young women. 

"My generation was the generation that didn't go ahead and get married and didn't change their names."

But when women are still expected to have children and potentially leave the workforce, Dr Stewart says it's putting women on the periphery, again.

Mentioning social media trends and tropes such as 'girlboss, 'that girl', and those who go on their 'hot girl walks', I asked her opinion on this kind of representation.

She says it all comes back to control.

"What I notice with young women now is that they think they have autonomy. And actually the autonomy is less than the autonomy we had. It's much more controlled [now], to be a certain way, to think a certain way, to look a certain way."

"We've all got to belong. We have to belong to our society," she says. "It's very hard to be outside of it."

In the 1990s, Dr Stewart says she was asked by a student why she was studying feminism. Their reason was that she was 'too pretty to be a feminist'. 

"You have to be one or the other, women can't be intelligent and attractive apparently. And as you get older, you think that will lessen, and it does, but it only lessens because you're an old woman. So you're not considered important anymore."

She says as women get older, they own their own voice more. But as she teaches her students to develop and own their voice, she says nobody wants to hear a radical female one.

Now in her fifties, Dr Stewart continues to speak up and speak out.