Women | Issue 19

The Women’s Issue

Vol. 78

Issue 19

17 August

Identity 03

CONTENTS 4-15

NEWS AND OPINION

5 Is the Uni exploiting prison labour?

9

The cost of being female

REGULAR CONTENT 3-4 Editorials 6 Notices 6

The Week In Feminism

8

We Drank This So You Wouldn’t Have To

8

16-33

FEATURES

12

16

The Golden Speculum

20

What a Girl Wants

26

There’s No Such Thing As “Post-

Racial Feminism” 27

28

Allies vs Axis

30

Feminist Fandom

32

Stolen Saris and White Girl Hair

33

Feminist FAQs

Editor Sam McChesney editor@salient.org.nz Design and Illustration Ella Bates-Hermans Lily Paris West designer@salient.org.nz News Editor Nicola Braid news@salient.org.nz Investigative News Editor Sophie Boot Chief Sub Editor Kimaya McIntosh Sub Editor Zoe Russell

Senior Feature Writer Philip McSweeney Feature Writers Sharon Lam Gus Mitchell Distributor Beckie Wilson News Reporters Tim Grgec Emma Hurley Charlie Prout Beckie Wilson Elea Yule News Interns Jordan Gabolinscy Alexa Zelensky News Photographer Jess Hill

The Moan Zone

14 Letters 34 Film

36 Science 38 Books

39 Games

40 Fashion

Wāhine ō te Mana Māori

Guest Editors Nicola Braid Chrissy Brown

Ask Agatha

41

Visual Arts

42 Music 45 VUWSA 46 Comics

Section Editors Sharon Lam (Visual Arts) Jayne Mulligan (Books) Bridget Pyć (Science) Kate Robertson (Music) Fairooz Samy (Film) Jess Scott (Fashion) Cameron Gray (Games) Other Contributors Brittany Mackie-Ellice, Auntie Agatha, Lydia and Mitch, Tom and Luke, Evan Rogers, Rhys Williams, Charlotte Cudmore, Kayla Ngatai Polamalu, Kahu Kutia, Charlotte Hann, VUW Women’s Group, Livné Ore, James Keane, Jess Knipping, Kari Schmidt, Miro Bond, Josh Ellery, Madeleine Ashton-Martyn, Puck.

47 Puzzles

Read Salient online at salient.org.nz Contact Level 2, Student Union Building Victoria University PO Box 600, Wellington 04 463 6766 Advertising Jason Sutton sales@vuwsa.org.nz 04 463 6982 Social Media Philip McSweeney philip@salient.org.nz fb.com/salientmagazine @salientmagazine Printed By Inkwise, Ashburton

About Us Salient is published by, but is editorially independent from, the Victoria University of Wellington Students’ Association (VUWSA). Salient is a member of the Aotearoa Student Press Association (ASPA) and the New Zealand Press Council.

Salient is funded in part

by Victoria University of Wellington students through the Student Services Levy. The views expressed in Salient do not necessarily reflect those of the Editor, VUWSA, or the University.

Complaints People with a complaint against the magazine should first complain in writing to the Editor and then, if not satisfied with the response, complain to the Press Council.

See presscouncil.org.nz/ complain.php for more information.

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Editorial NICOLA BRAID This editorial wasn’t easy for me to write. It certainly wasn’t for lack of ideas. I had plenty to say; my problem was producing something I could publish.

I’ll admit, readers, I was a bit anxious about it. I had ghastly visions of some demented Vic Deals meathead posting a link to my editorial, accompanied by some snide comment about periods. I had premonitions of some arse nudging another in the line at Vic Books and sniggering at me, calling me a “Tumblr Feminist”.

It shouldn’t be hard; I’ve written plenty in these pages this year. I’ve written and edited the news since February. I must be capable enough or Sam would have fired me by now. Hell, in just 18-odd sleeps I will have handed in 40,000 words of gleaming thesis and the University will have no choice but to award me an MA. I can write, okay. And yet, here I am, pondering how “not to appear aggressive”.

Being familiar with current events, both serious and celebrity, I know that when women put themselves out there, men react. Just this week I’ve seen reporter Rachel Smalley called “self-promoting” and “bitter”, Serena Williams labelled “a man”, and journalist Megyn Kelly told she only questioned a GOP candidate because she was menstruating. The things I see every day in the news show it’s scary to be a woman with a voice.

There’s also a good chance that, had I used the nom de plume “Nick” and given readers the impression I was male, you would have been more inclined to read this editorial (eight and a half times more inclined actually, according to author Catherine Nichols, who sent her manuscripts to publishers under a male name). Like George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans), J. K. Rowling/Robert Galbraith ( Joanne Rowling), Currer Bell (Charlotte Bronte), and George Sand (Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin), I could have adopted a male name and been read and respected.

This is also a hard editorial because it’s one I shouldn’t need to write. I shouldn’t need to remind you that we live in an unequal world, right?

Surely, our loyal readers (those who haven’t skipped determinedly to

the sudoku section already) are aware of the litany of issues facing women. I’m not going to give you the stats (page 9 can do that for you), but I’m also not going to tell you why you should be a feminist, because we should be past that shit by now. I’m tired of having to prove quotas are a good thing or that women are subjected to scrutiny men aren’t. I’ve had the same discussions with my father, my friends, people on the internet, and my classmates—all under the pretence that I should have to “prove” why women deserve equality. Women shouldn’t have to feel like this.

Really, I think the difficulty I’ve had writing this editorial demonstrates just why this editorial (and the Women’s issue) is necessary. We need to protect women’s voices because it is hard for them to speak and even harder for them to find an audience. For as long as women’s issues remain, editorials like this will be both difficult and necessary.

This issue tackles discussions that should be mainstream and demonstrates the value in having conversations about women’s issues.

We should all be thinking and talking about abortion as a medical issue, like Jayne Mulligan has in her interview with Dame Margaret Sparrow. We all struggle with how to be allies to women and others who are disadvantaged, as described Philip McSweeney in his article.

We’re also allowed to have questions. We’re allowed to discuss what women want as well as men. Sharon Lam and Charlotte Cudmore ask Victoria University women what they want on page 20 of this edition.

Most importantly, it’s okay to acknowledge that we’re different, and to recognise intersectionality. I’m a straight, Pākehā, cis-female and I can’t speak on behalf of all women (nor should anyone, really). We’ve been very lucky in this issue to have Kahu Kutia and Kayla Ngatai Polamalu discuss Te mana o te wāhine, and you shouldn’t finish this magazine without having read them.

Despite my concerns writing this editorial, I’m very proud to present 2015’s Salient Women’s issue. It has been lovingly filled with people’s views, words, art and experiences; I hope you enjoy it.

editor@salient.org.nz

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Editorial CHRISSY BROWN W o m e n - o n ly s pa c e s a r e i m p o r ta n t Hi there, my name is Chrissy and I am the President of the VUWSA Women’s Group.

Recently, I have noticed an increasing amount of people asking, “isn’t feminism about equality?” The concept of equality is of course a good thing, but only when everyone starts on an even playing field, and this is not always the case when some groups hold more privilege than others. I believe that feminism should ultimately be about understanding what people need. Something that women may need are women-only spaces.

Women-only spaces exist because women need these places to feel safe, which other spaces do not provide. Here at Vic we are lucky to have our own women’s space on campus. The women’s room is tucked away behind the Hunter Lounge; most of you may not even know it exists. The women’s room is an amazing space for all self-identifying women. It is a place where we can come together, metaphorically and literally. It is a space where we embrace community and respect one another as women generally, feminist or not. For me personally, the women’s room has definitely positively shaped my experience at university. It is a place I and others can go and not feel watched by other people. It is a place where we have gone and taken a nap. It is a

www.salient.org.nz

place where we hang out with our friends. It is a place for women to breastfeed and a place for people to go and be comfortable, which is something a lot of women need.

We at the VUWSA Women’s Group have done a few things to try and make the space better for those who use it. Last year we painted one of the walls and wrote “women’s space” on it (you will recognise this on the cover of this issue). We rang up Campus Care and got them to take away the broken fridge that stank out the place. This year there are new blankets and cushions in the room too to make the couches comfortable, and plenty of fake flowers to give the room a bit of colour. This little room is very important for us to have and is something that women need and use on a daily basis. So yeah, to phrase it simply, feminists may not want only equality—we want to recognise that people have different needs, and that this may sit outside of the borders of what others may consider “equality”, and that’s okay.

I hope you all can make the most of Women’s Week! We have a whole bunch of awesome events organised for all genders to attend.

These events are about learning about different perspectives within feminism, celebrating creative women, and embracing community. I look forward to seeing you all.

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NE W S .

KEE N EYE FOR NEWS? S END ANY T IPS , LEADS OR GOSSIP TO NE WS @S ALIENT.ORG.NZ

Airing Victoria’s laundry

Is the Uni exploiting prison labour?

Emma Hurley Victoria University has been contracting its laundry services to Arohata Prison, a women’s prison in Tawa, whose inmates are paid between 20 and 60 cents per hour for their work.

Cookery, Laundry Washroom Procedures, Painting and Decorating, Horticulture and Textiles Manufacture. In the year ending 30 June 2014, 3,801 prisoners across New Zealand achieved 3,858 qualifications.

Prisoners who work in the laundry clean linen, bath mats, pillowcases, sheets and towels for Victoria University’s Campus Services, Human Resources and Weir House.

Helen Kelly, head of Council of Trade Unions (CTU), told Salient that the work programme at Arohata would not realistically lead to employment for inmates, and the women are not paid fairly.

Women who work at Arohata can be employed in the kitchen, laundry, textiles, asset maintenance and ground maintenance sectors. Their pay is typical of working prisoners in New Zealand.

The Department of Corrections has held the contract for the past 11 years. The University does not pay the prisoners directly, but pays a fee per item to Corrections, which then distributes pay to the prisoners.

A spokesperson for Victoria University told Salient that Arohata Prison, as opposed to a regular laundry service, is used because the Department of Corrections “provides a very good service”.

Prisoners in New Zealand are encouraged to spend 40 hours each week in rehabilitation, education and training, and work as part of the Government’s working prison strategy. The Government intends for all New Zealand prisons to be working prisons by 2017 as part of their goal to reduce reoffending by 25 per cent.

While at Arohata Prison, those who are able to work can gain qualifications including National Certificates in

Kelly said the CTU supports working prisons, but only when the conditions are right. For the CTU this means that the work is not undermining the market, that those doing the work are paid properly, and that the work includes “an element of real training that will lead to real work”.

“They should at least earn minimum wage and that can be put into a bank account and be used to pay for study or for training. Everyone that’s contributing through their labour should be paid the minimum wage,” Kelly said.

“Victoria University shouldn’t be exploiting the labour of these women in that way. There’s not going to be work in laundry for when these women [are released], and it will be undermining other laundry service workers.”

CTU would like those using prison services to pay market rates for the work.

“We think there should be a market price paid for it by the person who is benefitting from the labour… and we think that would stop them doing it simply because it’s cheap.”

CONTINUED ON PAGE 7

editor@salient.org.nz

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News and Opinion

N otices

Feminist Law Society Sexism at law school got you down?

Over smug privileged BS? Us too!

The VUW Feminist Law Society is for law students (and others) who want to critique, calmly discuss, or rage about feminism and its place at law school.

We do things like host panel discussions and fundraise for other groups. We also provide support for students who want to raise issues with lecturers and we lobby to improve the curriculum.

We meet on Thursday 11.30 in G34.

Once every three weeks these are manfree discussion and planning zones.

Join our FB group or like our page for more info

Careers and Employment

SPCA Cupcake Fundraiser!

2015-16 Internships and 2016 Graduate Jobs

Tuesday 18th of August from 10am to 2pm The Hub, Kelburn Campus Come along to The Hub on Tuesday to buy some delicious cupcakes and cakes and help fight animal cruelty in New Zealand by raising money for the SPCA! The SPCA provides a safe space for the many animals around New Zealand who are without loving owners and healthy homes. Alice and Alicia from the Development Studies department will be baking a range of tasty cupcakes and cakes in order to raise money for them to continue this incredible work.

See Recruitment Schedule for details: http://bit.ly/1zGNacY Currently recruiting: EY, IAG New Zealand, Fletcher building, BNZ, Toyota NZ, Clemenger Group, OMD, Zomato, Accor, Communication Agencies Association NZ (CAANZ), Compac Sorting Equipment, GHD, IBM, Tasman District Council, Optiver Australia, Scion, Palantir, Microsoft… and many more.

Connect with employers via Recruitment events: http://bit. ly/1DOS0WK JET Programme – Teach English in Japan (18 Aug) Check in with a Careers Consultant during our daily drop-in sessions! http://bit.ly/1A1ORgv Get help with your CV, Cover Letter, Interview skills etc For more info, login to www.victoria. ac.nz/careerhub with your Student Computing login!

Correction In last week’s article “The VUWSA Executive Half-Year Reports”, Salient referred to the grant VUWSA received this year from the VUWSA Trust as “unsustainable”. The grant was made as part of a sustainable long-term and the Trust continues to post a surplus.

As a result, Rick Zwaan’s award for “most misleading statement” has been retroactively rescinded.

The Week in Feminism

Modern Witch Hunting in Eastern India Brittany Mackie-Ellice Last week in the Eastern Indian state of Jharkhand, five women were woken in the middle of the night, dragged from their homes and beaten to death in the street by their neighbours and friends. In parts of India, specifically the Eastern states, there are frequent attacks on women who are believed to be witches by their peers. Accusations of witchcraft that result in communal murders have long been a part of rural India’s history.

Part of the reason it is especially rampant in Jharkhand is due to the state’s indigenous religion Sarna, which views women as second-class citizens.

Many accusations of witchcraft come from villages having bad crop harvests, rampant www.salient.org.nz

disease and illnesses, and the deaths of children. Single women, especially widows, are targeted by accusations saying they are casting curses and practicing black magic when things start to go wrong in their villages. The accused women are “branded” by the accusers, which makes it impossible for them to socialise within their villages, and they are consequently forced to live on the edge of their communities. Eventually the women who have been branded as witches are hunted, tortured and killed in grotesque ways.

in states of India where witch hunting has caused excessive deaths and violence.

Eastern Indian states especially have a sobering history of witch hunting and communal murders, but perhaps the most haunting part is how few are believed to be reported to the officials. According to Indian government statistics, around 2000 women were killed in the Eastern Indian states after being branded witches between 2000 and 2012, but activist Dr Dinesh Mishra believes these numbers are just 10 per cent of the real total. After seeing a woman dragged into the streets and beaten to death in 1995, Dr Mishra became a social activist for women

The nature of the murders is horrific in detail, and the scariest part is that they are carried out ritualistically by entire villages— these aren’t isolated murders committed by a few individuals, but rather a violent, ongoing consequence of beliefs held by a majority in some Indian states. Some of the arrests made have shown even young, educated youth being caught up in the mob mentality that occurs in these rural villages. A mixture of fear and desperation means communities are willing to kill those who they believe threaten their safety.

The branding of women as witches has more widespread consequences than death. A man claiming to be a shaman was recently arrested in Eastern state Chhattisgarh for forcing women to drink poison in a “witchcraft test”. This is one of many violent and often deadly ways that villagers test whether accused women are actually witches.

Some of the other methods include physical abuse, starvation and poisoning.

News and Opinion

issue 19

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 5

07

Dr Stephen Burnell, a senior economics lecturer at Victoria, says that if the University paid lower prices for the prison services then other laundry businesses would suffer.

“If prison industries charge lower prices, that would impair the working of the free market. The prison would be contracted rather than other firms, so it would stifle employment opportunities in Wellington.

The University refused to confirm the value of its contract with Corrections or whether it paid market rates for the services, claiming that the information was “commercially sensitive”.

John Pratt, Head of the Institute of Criminology at Victoria, supports the University’s use of the prison laundry service.

Pratt said it was “patronising” to suggest that the work would not teach inmates marketable skills.

He said the work would impart productive habits and increase prisoners’ employment opportunities in dry cleaning organisations or laundries upon their release.

“They are likely to have such poor work records and such limited educational backgrounds that their opportunities for employment are very, very small at best in most cases.

If this does something to improve those chances then it’s a valuable skill.”

However, Pratt is concerned that prisoners are paid “absolutely minimal” wages for their work in New Zealand and would like all prisoners to be paid the going rate for their labour.

“Prisoners have always been paid remarkably little in this country as it’s thought they shouldn’t make a profit from their crime,” he said. “They have to be disadvantaged and inconvenienced or made to suffer in some demonstrable way.”

Pratt believes this is a key problem within the New Zealand prison system, and compared our system to that of the Scandinavian countries where prisoners often earn the going rate for their labour, with necessary deductions being made for their board, food, fines and child support.

If a similar system could be implemented in New Zealand, Pratt says prisoners would be “able to take some sort of responsibility for the development of their lives”.

“If you’re only being paid 20 or 60 cents an hour then you’re going to feel pretty worthless, you’re going to feel ripped off, and you are still not able to assume any great responsibility over the course of your life, because ultimately the state is there.”

“Competing laundries will not like the prison laundry, as it undercuts their commercial activities.”

However, Burnell did not take issue with prisoners receiving low wages as they “have a debt to society”.

John Weeds, operator of commercial laundry service Executive Laundry, is concerned about the competition from Corrections for his business.

“We do not support any government funded organisation competing with the private sector. The private sector has to pay real costs for capital and operating costs, whereas government funded organisations do not. Therefore there is not a level playing field,” Weeds said.

“It is not just business opportunities that are impacted on.

By competing with unreal costs they impact on the entire market. It could have the direct effect of taking real jobs within the community.”

Although Weeds thinks it is valuable for prisoners to gain work experience, he is concerned that their work should “be conducted with the industries and not against them”.

His business has employed prisoners as part of the Government’s Release to Work scheme, and has hired some of these people upon their release from prison.

In the Release to Work scheme, prisoners nearing the end of their sentences are able to spend time working in the private sector to increase their likelihood of employment upon their release.

While employed under this scheme, prisoners are paid market wages for their work and then deductions are made for child support, board, fines and work-related expenses such as travel and equipment.

Kim Workman, founder of lobby group Rethinking Crime and Punishment, told Salient that in his experience, “there are very few able prisoners who would not grab at the opportunity to work, or engage in constructive activity.

Those that are part of the small group getting qualifications while in prison will grab that with both hands.”

He feels that the most pressing problem comes when prisoners want to find a job on leaving prison, as “employers will not touch [people] with a prison background”.

editor@salient.org.nz

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News and Opinion

Ask Agatha Q: Agathaaa, my boyf isn’t texting me back. How can I trick him into texting me more?

Gregarious Girlfriend.

GG, stop.

Agatha Q: How much Facebook stalking is too much Facebook stalking?

-Facebook Fanboy Hey FF, I like to think that there is no limit to how much you can Facebook stalk someone. However, if you ever wake up after a night out to a cleavage-heavy pic of that girl you went to intermediate with for a year, you may want to reassess your life choices.

Q: Hi Agatha,

Q: Hi Agatha,

My girlfriend of 12 months just came out to me as post-op trans. I’m so happy that she felt comfortable enough to tell me, however I can’t help but feel a little uncomfortable that she waited an entire year to tell me! Should I confront her about how I feel uncomfortable about how long she waited or is it too trivial?

My flat is surrounded by a few adorable stray cats and I’ve started to feed a few of them. Once I started feeding them, they started sneaking inside and chilling on my bed. Now I’m juggling a few strays, what do I do?

-Awkward Albert

Hey CE, I like my stray cats like I like my men. On a rotation where I can kick one out of bed and have another one around in half an hour. Just apply the same rules as casual sex. Don’t talk about the other cats in front of your stray-de-jour, never commit to future plans, and don’t catch feelings (or ringworm).

Hey there AA, I’m sure this was a really hard decision for her and I’m glad that you’re cool with it too. Talk to your bae about how you feel and I bet it was an issue of “Oh God I’ve waited so long to tell him already”.

Cyber stalk responsibly,

So yeah, definitely talk to them about how you feel weird about them waiting a year to talk to you, because I’m sure it’ll be a non-issue!

Agatha

Aunt Agatha

Cat-niss Everdeen

Play the game and enjoy having all of the strays fighting for your attention when you know you can drop them any time.

Enjoy your street urchin feline love.

Aunt Agatha

We Drank This So You Wouldn’t Have To Lydia and Mitch

Crabbie’s Original Alcoholic Ginger Beer Cost: $4.99 Alcohol volume: 4% Pairing: Steak and cheese pie, McCain’s Hotdog Pizza Pocket Verdict: “I’m having uncomfortable flashbacks to campylobacter” www.salient.org.nz

Are you feeling a bit colonial and also have a sore tummy? Crabbie’s it is then.

This alcoholic ginger beer, which imports its ginger from “the Far East”, tastes a bit medicinal, but is actually quite nice.

It started to hurt after a few sips, but it’s nice. Given that Crabbie’s tastes exactly like regular ginger beer, it’s not really worth getting a DUI over. Just add rum to your ginger beer like a normal person. If you’re on antibiotics and need something that is both low alcohol and soothing, you should try Crabbie’s. For any other purpose though, it’s a bit pointless.

It’s rare that we can bothered mixing our drinks with anything. It’s rare we can be bothered even chilling them. However, we will admit that Crabbie’s would probably be nice in any of the various cocktails listed on their website. Though we still believe it’s fundamentally bourgeois to buy any alcohol that requires the input of labour to be drinkable, maybe you should add a slice of lemon or two. Or they could add the lemon for us and avoid the outbreak of class war.

Just a suggestion.

On a fucking freezing Wellington night, Crabbie’s could be described as having a warming aftertaste. But if you’re relying on alcohol to keep you warm, we would suggest something with higher alcohol content—or indoor heating. But you might be out of luck if you’ve already spent your course related costs on strippers. Get it? Because you’re young and can’t be trusted with money. You might spend it on something dumb like getting a degree.

Why are we drinking ginger beer with a whiff of alcohol in it? Well, it’s Tuesday and it was the first thing that jumped out at us when we walked into Discount Liquor (other than the 500ml Woodstock RTD).

Lydia even got her ID out when paying, like she’s not their best customer. Even though neither of us would buy this again for any other reason than to disguise alcohol at Sunday School, it’s fine in principle.

Principle won’t make you forget about your crushing debt, though.

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Average Uniform Cost in Wellington

$90.16 $151.75

The Cost of Being Female Average Cost of Menstruation

sanitary pads

tampons

$50

shirt and skirt Difference of 50.91% shirt and pants

$52.68

Mooncup

$74.94 (annually)

(annually)

Period Tax (Sanitary products classed as “non-essential”)

Average Cost of Contraception

contraceptive pill

UK: 17.5%

AUS: 10%

$128

app and prescription (annually)

Average Cost of Healthcare smear test

$27 $475

mammogram

$180 pregnancy test

IUD

$102.5 (annually)

Average Cost of Haircuts

$43.69

$67.87

Man’s haircut HPV vaccination

$17.50

Woman’s haircut editor@salient.org.nz

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News and Opinion

SCOTT WALKER

A Grand Ol’ Party: A Review Alexa Zelensky With the 2016 United States Presidential Elections to take place in early November, the competition for nomination is heating up in the Democratic and Republican primaries.

The Presidential Elections for Dummies (AKA anyone that doesn’t watch as much Aaron Sorkin as we do): Parties in the US have what are called primary elections, which decide who will run for President on behalf of the party. As part of the primary races, Republican candidates are placed head to head in 12 debates in different parts of the US.

Performance Reviews, (Mainly) White Men Who Can’t DONALD TRUMP Finicky. Indecisive. Egocentric. Threatening to run as an independent if he doesn’t get the nomination—dude’s got some balls.

Quote of the evening: “The Mexican government is much smarter, much sharper, much more cunning. And they send the bad ones over because they don’t want to pay for them. They don’t want to take care of them.”

Score:

The first GOP debate took place on 6 August in the armpit of America: Cleveland, Ohio. It pitted various Republican candidates against each other in two different time slots, like a more racist version of American football.

The GOP—the Grand Ol’ Party, or for those of us who choose not to lie to ourselves continually, the Republicans—selected debate participants by averaging the results of five US national polls. The top ten were Donald “Xenophobe” Trump, Jeb “My Big Brother/Dad Got Me Here” Bush, Scott “Nobody Knows Where Wisconsin Is” Walker, Mike “I’m No Longer Relevant” Huckabee, Ben “Is This the Right Room?”

Carson, Ted “I Was Born in Canada” Cruz, Marco “Attempting to Appeal to Minorities” Rubio, Rand “I’m the Only One Who Has a Chance” Paul, Chris “Pillsbury Doughboy Reincarnate” Christie, and John “Ohio is a Lame State” Kasich.

The candidates were questioned on a variety of topics including electability, immigration, terror and national security, ISIS, Obamacare and the role of the Federal government, how to appropriately sass Hillary Clinton, Social Security, the economy, the Iran Deal, whether women deserve basic human rights, gay marriage, religious liberty, the Black Lives Matter movement, foreign policy, and, of course, the military. www.salient.org.nz

Trump, you did exactly what we expected you to do. You’re kind of predictable, average, and now a little boring. I feel like you’re filling out your 15 minutes of fame just to shake up the Republicans and make them sweat, and when things get serious you’ll duck out again like you did last time.

BEN CARSON Lost neurosurgeon who accidentally wandered onto the political stage. Confused.

Bad at foreign policy. Wants to redo the taxation system.

Quote of the evening: “And the one thing I’ve advocated is based on tithing, because I think God is a pretty fair guy.”

Score: Just for trying. It’s very Mr Smith Goes to Washington of you. When I heard you were running, I laughed. It’s a shark tank out there and you’ll be gone soon enough. This political move is so Joe the Plumber of you—a little outdated. Good job on mentioning God though, that’s definitely going to win over some votes.

White. Cis. Hetero. Male. Tiring. Boring.

Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt.

He’s nothing new.

Quote of the evening: “Everywhere in the world Hillary Clinton touched is more messed up today than before she and the President [INAUDIBLE].”

Score: You bore me so much. You are so stereotypically Republican and I’m over it.

You are what would happen if a dudebro went into politics, and the only thing that could possibly make you an interesting contender if that inaudible bit was something like, “fucked things over” or “dabbled in witchcraft”.

MIKE HUCKABEE Christian campaign commercial. Into retirement planning. A toddler trapped in an old man’s body.

Quote of the evening: “We got nothing, and Iran gets everything they want.”

Score: Of course one of your big policies is retirement planning; you’re old. You didn’t contribute too much else and I bet you were bored the whole time. Did you doze off ?

Finish a crossword puzzle? Guilt trip your grandchildren for not writing thank you cards? I hope you didn’t get drool on your sweater.

JEB BUSH Sick nickname: Veto Corleone. Awful real name, though. Floridian, but that can be forgiven (the Texan brother cannot).

Redeeming. Dopey sweetheart.

Quote of the evening: “In Florida, they called me Jeb, because I earned it.”

Score: Jeb! You pleasantly surprised me! I expected so little from you, and in that regard I was rewarded. You seem like a sweetheart—but I say that timidly, because I know you’re still very much part of a political dynasty (plus, you have that awful habit of reminding people you live in Florida).

issue 19

News and Opinion

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John Campbell: a blow to gender equality?

Charlie Prout John Campbell is returning to Radio New Zealand National, replacing Mary Wilson in the Drive Time slot of 5pm till 7pm. Wilson has taken a new role as the Radio New Zealand Director of News Programming.

But not everyone is happy about the shift. Newstalk ZB journalist Rachel Smalley created media controversy last week, writing that Campbell’s appointment was “extremely disappointing”.

Smalley’s protests were levelled at the New Zealand media industry for its lack of female representation in primetime.

“We have a near-monopoly of white male broadcasters who shape our day, who direct our news agenda, who influence our opinions and perspectives,” Smalley said.

Carol Hirschfeld, Campbell’s former co-host on 3 News and the current head of content at Radio New Zealand, called Smalley’s comments “muddled” and “selfpromoting”.

Hirschfeld pointed out that Wilson would be Campbell’s boss, saying Smalley “seems to be suggesting somehow that it would be better if Mary Wilson stayed on air to satisfy some kind of false gender balance, rather than taking on a role where she is shaping a day-to-day news operation that is one of the biggest and most powerful in New Zealand.”

However, Smalley defended her comments. “I have worked with all of them [primetime male broadcasters], to varying degrees,” she said. “Each one is a brilliant broadcaster. That is not in question, it never was.”

Smalley has made similar comments regarding gender disparity in the past. The former Firstline host described

her time at TV3 as a “dead end” due to MediaWorks’ lack of support for women.

“I didn’t feel that there was any desire to invest in women in senior primetime roles and I knew I couldn’t keep doing those hours. So I was at a real crossroads. I was frustrated,” she recalled.

A 2013 survey of journalists carried out by the University of Waikato and Massey University found that female journalists outnumbered their male counterparts in all age bands other than 51-60 years old, with women making up 57 per cent of New Zealand journalists as a whole. Overall, Pākehā comprise 83.1 per cent of people who work in the journalism industry.

However, the survey results pointed out while women were more prevalent, men were more likely to hold positions of power.

Another study in 2013 found that “women’s experiences and views are still seen and heard much less frequently than male voices in almost all news topics”, and that “women are virtually absent in sports and politics, areas dominating the Kiwi news agenda”.

The so-called “Smalley debate” has also raised questions about representation more generally in New Zealand media. New Zealand Herald journalist Lee Suckling wrote last week that “we need to go further. New Zealand can do better than switching out straight white men with straight white women. Whether they are gay white men, straight Māori women, bisexual Asian men, or trans Pacific women, we need them all in prime time. These people are New Zealand.” editor@salient.org.nz

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salient

News and Opinion

We Do Bro Science Girls won’t know what Bro Science is, neither will guys who don’t lift (also known as girls). So for the rest of you who think we are ripping off “Gym-Bro-Dom Mazzetti”, we are, but in our own special way. Put on your Nikes and let’s go… Oh wait, you’re a uni student, you’re already in casual sneakers.

In most gyms you are likely to find “bigboned” people, extremely good looking people and an overpriced vending machine selling pretentious “super-foods”. On closer inspection, and with the help of David Attenborough, we found an array of other common sights—most of which we find annoying.

The Mail Man : Although the average

workout takes about an hour, the lockers don’t seem to cut it for some people, who feel the need to take up valuable gym floor space with their enormous gym bag and 3L water bottle. The contents of the bag is a complete mystery, but you can bet your Chai Latte that they can do without having it at their feet for the entirety of their workout, along with their water bottle, which houses

more H2O than Mozambique experiences during their dry-season.

The First Timer: Doing things by yourself is hard. Tom only went to PSYC101 if Luke was going (okay, I bet you are wondering who is typing right now).

Going solo at the gym is no different. But most guys will respect that you are putting in the time and will leave you alone. That is unless you are in the middle of the gym floor, trying to lift twice your bodyweight with your elbows. So hit up YouTube and learn how work out in a way that is safe and sound.

Albert Einstein: It’s ironic that you go to the gym to do exercise but you’re too lazy to put the weights back in the same spot. Either this or you’re so intellectually challenged that you struggle to count up in twos, or match the number on the weight to the number written so clearly on the rack.

The Love Maker: The feeling you get when lifting weights is well worth attending the gym, but some people get a bit too

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www.salient.org.nz

much stimulation from doing so. There’s nothing more uncomfortable than standing next to someone that looks like they’re about to climax mid-set.

#ProgressionPic: Unless you’ve lost 100kg in two weeks, we don’t want to see your topless selfie accompanied by a ridiculous ensemble of hashtags. But since we are all about helping you out, we have prepared some hashtags that you can use if you ever feel like being a “tool”. Here they are: #fitspo #summershredding #progress #doyouevenlift #motivation #noteventensing (make sure you include the winky face for bonus douchebag points).

See you at our next leg workout, Tom and Luke P.S. We’re joking, we don’t train legs.

(Luke does, but you can’t tell.)

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THAT M A ES I R

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issue 19

A doobie-ous Endevour The “7 Leaf ” Bud’n’Breakfast has opened in Seattle, where guests can bring their own recreational marijuana and have it cooked into their meals via infused oils, butters and spices. With guests willing to pay as much as US$420 for the experience, the hotel’s owner Jeremy Cooper insisted “we’ve had a number of what we refer to as virgin smokers here” and “we make sure they’re not getting the most potent cannabis they can”.

Wond-oeuf-ul (We’re so clever we make our puns in French) A Gloucestershire woman has cracked a quadruple-yolk egg while making her tea and toast. The egg, which she dubbed a “mega-monster”, was almost 7.6cm long, 7.6cm in diameter and weighed around three times that of a normal egg. While the chances of discovering a four-yolker are 11 billion to one, the woman, Jan Long, was more concerned about the laying process—“I imagine there must have been a certain amount of clucking when that was laid!”

She has a critter-cal eye for Art Retired Washington nurse Christine Pierce has created a series of photographs using chipmunks found in her backyard. While Piece doesn’t have an art degree or the internet(!?) she says she “considers herself a chipmunk wrangler” while her husband builds the photoshoots sets. Often in the shoot, Pierce hides food as a means of capturing the creatures at their best angle while playing basketball or having a tea party with cowboy garden figures.

Bullet Point Bangers •

A pair of Pennsylvania dogs reportedly started a small stove fire while trying to reach a box of cupcakes.

• A New Jersey man planning a robbery inadvertently called 911 last week allowing dispatchers to hear his whole scheme.

• Australian artist Stelios Arcadiou has grown an ear out of his arm and “plans to connect it to the internet so people can use it to listen to him”.

• A British man was asked to leave a supermarket while he was dressed as a Minion and trying to buy bananas to “cheer on his friends” running a marathon.

The third story about Minions that Salient has covered The pilot of the world’s first solar-powered balloon was forced to turn on a back-up fuel burner after a giant promotional balloon for the Minions film blocked out its sunlight. The balloon is the first of its kind to be certified as a passenger-carrying aircraft, but attempts to promote sun-powered travel were thwarted WHEN A HUGE FUCKING YELLOW THING GOT IN THE WAY. AGAIN.

The burning passion of a thousand suns Council executives in Llandudno, Ireland were forced to turn out street lights after it found the illumination was affecting the sex life of glow worms. A local resident and amateur naturalist found “up to 50 male [glow worms] were congregating under streetlights” and wondered “whether that was stopping them finding females”.

13/09/15

editor@salient.org.nz

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L

etters

Letter of the Week:

Sounds hot Dear Salient, I’m writing to inform you about the recent student fees forum. I didn’t see you in the two dozen strong crowd, which consisted of the VUWSA exec, some Vic councilors, three foreign exchange students and myself. As such, I thought you might like me to summarize the proceedings for you - it was biggest wank-fest since John and Bill first announced they would reach a surplus. · The Chancellor fapped to the amazing quality of the PowerPoint he was reading from and the accompanying music, despite the fact he said absolutely nothing in five minutes of speech. · The Vice-Chancellor beat himself off talking about what a great job he was doing in running the university, climaxing when he blamed all student fee rises on the government. · Rick Zwann bashed out an embarrassed wank after his proposal to move to group discussions was shot down in favour of continuing to actually quiz the V-C. · The VUWSA executive had a collective masturbation session in congratulations for putting on an event where attendance actually reached double figures. · An attempted hipster with a poorly constructed beard fiddled with himself while aggressively asking loaded questions, which the V-C answered politely and constructively. The failedhipster-turned-failed-crackpot-studentactivist proceeded to leave the room early, out of either shame, or the shame of having prematurely-ejaculated. · After the farce was over, I went home and jacked myself off.

In conclusion, don’t attend a public meeting when you need a wank. It tends to pervert your thinking.

Yours sincerely, Student-cum-watchdog.

Letter of the Week receives two coffee vouchers and a $10 book voucher from Vic books. www.salient.org.nz

Definitely genius po-mo

They’re mobilising!

Kia ora,

Hi,

I’m curious as to why Bridget Bone’s article ‘The Working Girl’s Class’ reads so much like advertorial. And why does it suggest that the only place women can ‘explore their sexuality’ is in brothels?

My name is John Thompson and I am writing regarding the recent issue of salient featuring a column by Jess Scott.

I’m all for women being empowered to do what they will, but this article is bizarrely uncritical of the constraints on some people’s lives that lead them to become sex workers – and the fact that it only talks about female sex workers is odd too. Lines like ‘No one is forcing you to become a sex worker’ is problematic.

How does Bridget Bones know why I or anyone else might become a sex worker?

There are systems of power related to gender and privilege which go unexplored. Why, why? I expect a little more critique and a little less product placement from Salient.

In fact it reads like a Sugar Baby Advertising Exec doing some promotion under the guise of a ‘provocative’ student piece.

Or is this genius postmodern rhetoric and I just didn’t get it?

I am appalled at the quality of student writing here, whilst critically analysing parts of consumer culture and fashion can be an entertaining and worthwhile thing to read about, Jess Scott seems to miss the mark and instead resorts to making fun of people who she deems are of lower social standing than herself. It’s pretty upsetting that Salient tolerates this stuff, she’s written quite a few articles before but her article about boyfriends who dress badly this week goes a step too far. This article isn’t far from naming and shaming students at this university and anybody who knows the author personally will easily work out who the article is referring to.

I am sure salient strives to create a positive atmosphere in their journalism, but the recent articles by Jess Scott only serve to undermine this.

Yours faithfully, John Thompson.

Cheers, Emma

That’s three: a new record!

To the disney impoverished Jess Scott

Sad sandals Salient, I’m really concerned about the fashion column in Salient. The fact that Vic strives so hard to be an inclusive and positive community and then the student paper posts weekly an article basically ripping on every single person ever. I understand what satire is. But this is not satire. This is straight up bullying. You might’ve thought if you put it on the second to last page people wouldn’t see it. But I am a massive fan of the sudoku.

From a Severely disappointed reader

To quote the less than necessary disney sequel Cinderella 2, “it’s what on the inside that counts”. Rather than making fun of those who dress poorly, look beyond what you can see as love is stronger than hate. Look for the beauty in the beast and reveal your inner disney princess because that’s how you’ll find your real prince charming.

Sincerely, your flatmate’s cardigan clad boyfriend

Salient letters policy Salient welcomes, encourages, and thrives on public debate—be it serious or otherwise—through its letters page. Letters must be received before 4pm on Thursday for publication the following week. Letters must be no longer than 250 words. Pseudonyms are fine, but all letters must include your real name, address and telephone number—these will not be printed. Letters will not be corrected for spelling or grammar. The Editor reserves the right to edit, abridge, ordecline any letters without explanation.

Email: editor@salient.org.nz Post: Salient, c/- Victoria University of Wellington Hand-delivered: Salient office, Level 3, Student Union Building (behind the Hunter Lounge)

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TPP-eh?

Could you be more trans-pacific?

Evan Rogers and Rhys Williams The other week Ministers from the countries involved in TPP negotiations met in Maui to wrap up negotiations and conclude the agreement. But unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view), the negotiations failed to produce an agreement that satisfied all parties.

The TPP can trace its origins back to little ol’ New Zealand under the previous Labour Government. What initially began as trade negotiations between NZ, Singapore, Brunei and Chile in 2002, soon gathered momentum with the election of US President Barack Obama in 2008.

After Bush spent years fighting ill-considered conflicts Afghanistan and Iraq, Obama was keen to show some US love for the relatively neglected Asia-Pacific region.

Barry’s inauguration was soon followed by a strategic “pivot to Asia” as a policy response to the so-called “Asian Century”.

Obama’s tactical “pivot” emphasised a comprehensive strategy to counter China’s rise, incorporating diplomatic, military and economic aspects. Consequently, the TPP has gradually transformed into the economic arm of the pivot.

So, where does this leave NZ? For a long time, NZ was the weird kid at the back of the class that no one was very interested in talking to. Now, however, all cool kids suddenly want us to go to their parties. How we position ourselves in these parties is important because it will determine our economic and strategic position in the future.

All trade is good trade, so therefore all free trade is good free trade, right?

Unfortunately, it’s not quite as simple as that. NZ has signed numerous Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), and the “jewel in the

crown” has arguably been the NZ–China FTA signed in 2008. NZ became the first OECD country to sign a comprehensive FTA with China, which has reaped significant benefits for the NZ economy.

Contrast the success of this bilateral deal with the multilateral nature of 12 states all vying for often contradictory interests and you have a recipe for potential disappointment.

From a NZ perspective, although the potential gains from a successful TPP are high, the potential losses are equally large.

Japan, Canada and the US are the three markets NZ desperately wants to crack in terms of agricultural access. However, the democratic nature of the political systems in these countries means NZ will have a hard time getting its preferred outcome in negotiations.

Headlines and soundbites will tell you the TPP is a “free trade” deal. It is indeed a “free trade” deal, but that’s not all that it is. International trade has been undergoing a process of liberalisation for decades.

Consequently, the TPP is not necessarily just about cutting tariffs because the liberalisation process has already minimised them (with the exception of agriculture, which was a major bottom line for NZ throughout the negotiations).

Rather, the TPP is an attempt to impose a “high quality” regulatory environment in which international trade will become more streamlined and all states involved will begin to read from the same page.

The reason that the TPP is so important is that it zooms in and focuses on setting new rules and regulations for global commerce in the 21st century. This is something that is needed in the new millennium as international commerce no longer maintains the same emphasis on the exchange of

material goods that it did previously.

Yet this need for global rules and regulations conflicts with a notion that we hold dear, a notion that has been a rallying point for TPP opponents. Sovereignty.

If we put aside the issues of agriculture and medicines, herein lies the heart of many people’s struggle with the TPP. We want a 21st century approach to global challenges such as climate change, but we’re living and thinking with 20th century politics. We can’t cling to the same notion of sovereignty that we used to.

To tackle this new environment, it’s argued we have to devolve decision making authority to supranational agreements and treaties. We have to be willing to give up some of our sovereignty. We’re not just NZ citizens, we’re global citizens.

What’s that saying? “You can’t have your cake and eat it too.”

This is important in dealing with a range of challenges, from the environment to copyrights. The current lack of comprehensive international laws and regulations is a negative, not a positive.

We’re not saying that the TPP is perfect.

It has many flaws. How many? We don’t know for sure as it’s being negotiated in secret. This is our biggest beef with the TPP. There is something intrinsically unsettling about an agreement of this magnitude being negotiated behind closed doors.

Yet, despite its drawbacks, the TPP has the potential to be a progressive agreement that sets the tone for 21st-century trade. Its scope and depth are its biggest enemies. That said, can we dilute it when the stakes are now so high? The Maui outcome does not spell the end for TPP. Far from it.

editor@salient.org.nz

Features

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The Golden Speculum Jayne Mulligan

It is a symptom of the cult of celebrity, at every level, that expectations of a person’s character never marry perfectly with reality. I had heard about Dame Margaret Sparrow, and the stories I had been told led me to envisage an elderly hippy whose wild days still showed. My sister had protested alongside her at a rally for abortion rights. My friend’s mother had worked with her at Family Planning, and waxed lyrical about her contribution to sexual health.

But for someone who was at the forefront of so many women’s rights issues, she was decidedly normal and unassuming. This isn’t to degrade her or her achievements; she was welcoming, kind and encouraging.

Her stories made me want to cry. She is an important figure in second wave feminism in New Zealand. She is someone to remember and learn from. But she is 80, and she is someone’s grandma.

Her house is nestled into one of the many Kelburn hills, tucked away behind a giant pohutukawa. As we walked to the lounge, we passed a corridor where the walls were covered, top to bottom, with aged newspapers and pamphlets; I prepared myself for the revelation that she might be crazy. She wasn’t, and isn’t. Aside from the wallpaper, what I saw of her house was quintessential to an elderly woman, with embroidered pillows covering the couches, and bluish faded paintings of landscapes adorning the walls alongside framed awards, certificates and degrees. We sat on the couches, and I rested my phone on the coffee table, next to her golden speculum. A trophy given to her at the end of her time at Family Planning, it perched regally in the centre of the room, entirely at odds with the quilted throws I sat on.

As Sparrow told me about her time in the sexual health world, she spoke in a considered and thoughtful manner. The conversation itself was brief and succinct. Pleasantries fell flat and felt unnecessary.

Sparrow isn’t one for tangents, not often at least. For the most part, she was content to answer questions, providing only the information sought. It really was a conversation with a doctor: factual and exact.

An exhibition currently running at Te Papa shows the collection of contraceptive devices that Sparrow curated over the years she worked at Family Planning. The collection boasts douches, diaphragms, and IUDs, all from a range of years and stages of development. It displays the early condom—a lambskin sheath that looks equally uncomfortable for both parties—and the more sleek contemporary designs. In the centre of the room stands a dedication to the Pill, and the revolutionary power it possessed; a tiny dose of hormones that liberated women from the oppressive equation of sex=motherhood.

Sparrow worked and lived through the introduction of the Pill. In fact, due to her husband being a doctor at the time, she was one of the first people in New Zealand to try it. “It was 1961 then and I was having time off studies then because I had just had my first child,” she said. “He came home with some free samples, as you do when you do general practice, and he said ‘why don’t we try these?’ and that’s how I started on the Pill. I lived on free samples for a long time, which is not medically correct.” Sparrow seemed largely unphased by the potential risks; fortunately she experienced no side effects, but there were many who did.

In the early days of the Pill, it was prescribed only to married women; those out of wedlock were left out in the cold. For Sparrow, the Pill allowed her to avoid the daunting realities of fertility; it gave her a choice about her family, and a choice about her future. In her book Abortion Then and Now, she wrote that “without the benefit of the pill I doubt if I would have finished my degree”. She worked for Student Services at Victoria University from 1969 to 1981, and while there she was confronted by the demand for contraception and abortion.

Despite the rules around who was prescribed contraception, Sparrow felt “it was more ethical to provide a service that students wanted, needed, and expected”. After a conference with Family Planning, she set up a display for contraceptives in the foyer of the practice, despite the clinic director’s disapproval. Ever since, Student Services have provided contraceptives to all, regardless of marital status. editor@salient.org.nz

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It was from this same perspective that Sparrow promoted the introduction of the controversial Morning After Pill. Many in the medical industry were loath to engage with a product that so closely resembled an early abortion. But its value to women exceeded its moral ambiguity; Sparrow was not deterred, and continued to promote its introduction.

As Sparrow met the needs for contraceptives, she was unable to so readily meet the demand for abortions. Her patients were students, and falling pregnant. Abortions in New Zealand remained illegal until 1977. Before it became a legal procedure, they were sourced through a backstreet word-of-mouth system, often leading to incredibly risky or fatal procedures. As a doctor, Sparrow found herself stuck in a bind—she had to follow the law, but she saw their need, a need she had experienced in her own youth.

At 21, Sparrow had an abortion. She had deferred entrance to Otago Medical School due to an accident; it was simply the wrong time to have a child. She attempted to induce a miscarriage several ways— from vigorous skipping, to taking a whole bottle of De Witts Pills (pain relievers). None had any effect. Her husband knew of a Dr Bettle in Christchurch who had a mail order service. She posted £3 ($150 in today’s money) down to Christchurch, and received a large bottle of some black concoction. The abortion occurred one day at work and was entirely anticlimactic.

Sparrow’s story is very typical, but not everyone’s abortion was effective and safe. While Dr Bettle had quite a lot of business, there were other options, each a fairly rudimentary version of the surgical abortion process designed to induce a miscarriage. There was a black market; most people knew someone who knew how to get an abortion. There was also a trend to send people to Australia, where abortion was legalised in 1969. Sparrow and several other doctors set up an organised system that sent women to reputable doctors to ensure their safety.

I clarified that I had never had an abortion myself, and that I was fairly naïve about the whole matter. I asked Sparrow to explain the procedure. I hadn’t been sure whether I should ask it or not; why didn’t I Wikipedia it before I arrived? But Sparrow was most obliging, and with clinical precision outlined the procedure that has been so controversial, divisive, and misrepresented.

The procedure is thus: the cervix is injected with local anaesthetic, and a speculum is inserted. The cervical canal is opened using a series of incrementally increasing dilators, until the cervical canal is the size of a pencil. The doctor inserts a catheter “which can now go right into the uterus because you’ve opened up the cervical canal. And that’s connected up to a suction pump—that’s like a vacuum cleaner—and it just suctions away the products inside. And the surgeon will inspect the products to make sure everything is removed… and [the patient] will rest in bed for an hour or two, and then go home.”

Since 2002 a second option has been available to women. Sparrow, along with several other doctors, established a medical company to import an abortion pill; no other pharmaceutical company was interested. The process requires two pills; the first is mifepristone, an anti-progesterone (progesterone keeps a pregnancy going, antiprogesterones stop it). The second pill is a prostaglandin “which stimulates the uterus to expel the products which are in the uterus”.

The pills need to be separated by either 12, 24, or 48 hours, and both pills need to be taken at a licensed premise. www.salient.org.nz

salient

After Sparrow outlined the two methods, she noted that “it’s really the difference between having something done to you, and doing something yourself.” The choice is ultimately about suitability and control: “some people, if they have a busy lifestyle, will say ‘oh blow this’—you know, worrying about when it’s going to happen—so make it ten o’clock on Friday. Some women think ‘hey if this is something I can do myself, I’d much sooner just be in charge’. And you find that people easily come to that decision; it’s part of their fabric.”

Each procedure is incredibly safe, and there are many doctors willing to perform the procedures. The legalisation of abortion has allowed the medical profession to take over what had been a back-streets operation—“we haven’t had a death since we started collecting proper statistics in the 1980s”. However, for many, it isn’t the procedure that is the most difficult, but the steps between falling pregnant and procuring an abortion.

The 1970s was a decade of mounting global support for abortion rights. In the US, the 1973 case Roe v Wade ruled that laws prohibiting abortion were unconstitutional, a landmark for women’s rights. In New Zealand, after a historic all-night sitting of Parliament, the 1977 Contraception Sterilisation and Abortion Act was passed, along with amendments to the Crimes Act. The new law was based on the recommendations of a very conservative Royal Commission. The Act does not recognise rape, for example, as grounds for abortion, but simply another factor to be taken into consideration. The Commission focused primarily on the rights of the foetus, rather than those of the woman. In Abortion Then and Now, Sparrow wrote of the ruling that “women were portrayed incorrectly as being incapable of making a rational decision”. She was “dismayed” at the Royal Commission’s report—“a great opportunity for advancement had been lost.”

The Act has remained untouched, and time has stood still for abortion rights. “Our law is so old, it’s creaking at the seams,” Sparrow says. “It was devised at a time when only surgical options were there, people didn’t even dream of having a medical abortion pill you could take.”

Modern medicine has eclipsed the law. And most significantly, abortion is still a crime.

The Crimes Act only recognises four grounds for an abortion— danger to the mental health of the mother, risk to the physical or mental health of the child, pregnancy by incest or unlawful familial relationships, or severe mental subnormality of the mother.

The rigmarole women face to procure an abortion is an absurd reality.

All abortions must be approved by two certifying consultants, one of them a specialist in gynaecology or obstetrics. Sparrow’s tone grows serious, and her frustration is palpable. “You have to have grounds for an abortion, and in New Zealand 98 per cent of the grounds are mental health, which I think is an absolute farce. It’s just ticking boxes, and just putting people into categories, and just pretending that… having an abortion will be for the sake of your mental health.

Well, I think that’s all just barriers that are put up.”

Is New Zealand simply abusing a loophole in the current law? “Yes, which is why I feel very strongly about this,” Sparrow says. “But you have to work around it and we’ve got doctors who are prepared to do this—thank goodness, otherwise we wouldn’t have an abortion service. We have a lot of doctors who are quite prepared to say ‘yes, this really should be done on the grounds of mental health’, even

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Sparrow has great distaste for what she refers to as the “awfulisation” of abortion. Abortion is treated as a traumatic procedure with profound emotional impact—a symptom of the silence and suspicion in which the subject is cloaked.

though I think they don’t really believe that that’s the reality… That’s why I’m so passionate about changing the law, because it really is so ridiculous.” The system relies on the willing compliance of doctors who are well aware they are gatekeepers of the loophole. Take that away, and we’re back to square one.

The same process is required for medical abortions as for surgical abortions. But the road has a different set of speed bumps. “The law says that all abortions must be carried out at a licensed institution,” Sparrow says. “Well, that’s okay for a surgical abortion, but for a medical abortion it’s a two-stage process and you don’t need a licensed premise to take a pill.” Returning to take the second pill is restrictive, putting those who live in rural, isolated areas at a disadvantage. With medical abortions making up around six to eight per cent of all abortions, it’s not yet a viable or popular option for many who need it. Most of Europe and the US require the patient to simply take the first pill on site, usually in the examining room, and they then provide the patient with information and instructions for the following pill.

Sparrow has great distaste for what she refers to as the “awfulisation” of abortion. Abortion is treated as a traumatic procedure with profound emotional impact—a symptom of the silence and suspicion in which the subject is cloaked. Bringing abortion into the medical mainstream, and recasting it as a standard medical or surgical procedure, would eradicate the stigma and shame it can cause to the vulnerable.

Sparrow has written many articles, both medical and political, advocating for a change in the law. She has two books under her belt, Abortion Then and Now and Rough on Women, on abortion in New Zealand and its history of unnecessary fatalities. Her 2004 article “A Woman’s Choice” provides a tidy summary of her perspective on this issue—“it is more healthy to respect autonomy and selfdetermination rather than adopt a ‘we know best’ stance, whoever that ‘we’ is—politicians, lobby groups, religious groups or health professionals.”

Sparrow speaks fondly of the new generation of feminists. “I’m very encouraged by the way young women have taken a leadership role in abortion law reform,” she says. “It was a great weight off my shoulders.” A second-wave feminist, Sparrow recognises the lessons to be taken from her generation—“I don’t think we talked about

rights so much,” she says—and is pleased to see a much clearer handle on this now.

It’s the conservative movement she’s despondent about. As we spoke, and as this article goes to print, Sparrow is awaiting a ruling in Right to Life Inc vs Abortion Supervisory Committee, a case heard by the Wellington High Court in June. Tauranga’s Family Planning clinic was granted a license under the Abortion Supervisory Board, but only offers medical abortion. Right to Life, the anti-abortion lobbyists whose tagline reads “Upholding the Sanctity of Life in New Zealand”, have taken them to court arguing that practicing only medical abortions is unlawful. Right to Life has framed their move using feminist language—abortion is described as an assault on women, and therefore as part of a “war on women”. The same regression and doctored rhetoric is rife in the US, where politically motivated state courts repeatedly undermine the Roe vs Wade precedent.

Considering the broad social support for the marriage equality bill in New Zealand, could there be a similar push for abortion law reform?

Sparrow doesn’t think so. She believes the status of abortion as a “women’s issue” reduces its urgency. Even in liberal circles, Sparrow has come up against a “don’t rock the boat” mentality—a mindset that keeps women in their marginalised position.

Our conversation finds a natural pause, and there’s an emotional exhaustion in the room. I’m tired after an hour of discussing these frustrating realities; Sparrow, on the other hand, is ready to head off to a debate about how workplaces should treat victims of domestic abuse. Her spare time is filled with a ceaseless focus on the marginalised world women have resided in. We say goodbye, and I walk back to work, my stride somehow feels stronger than it had before I had met her.

Please see the Family Planning website (familyplanning.org.nz) or the Abortion Law Reform Association of New Zealand website (alranz.org) for more information.

editor@salient.org.nz

Features

20

Girls Don’t Like Sleep, Girls Like Coffee and Diarrhea Charlotte Cudmore and Sharon Lam

Since the dawn of womankind, humanity has been continually confronted by unknowable questions. Is there a God? What is true happiness? Why are we here? Just what happened in the last episode of Lost?

In particular, these were female-identifying students of Victoria University. The numerical rationale behind 100 interviewees was largely due to the fact that neither of us know how to calculate percentages.

In the year 1999 AD, philosopher Christina Aguilera vaguely posed this question-y statement: “what a girl wants, what a girl needs, nana galala something hmm hmmm brie”. In her song she thanks a party for providing said “what” and of her fulfilled desires setting her free, but does not make explicit what “what” is. What does a girl want and what does a girl need? And so through Sony discmans, we entered the new millennia with this question ringing in our ears. For the past sixteen years we have been puzzled—nay, haunted—by Christina’s question-y statement. As stargazing, tarot cards nor oracular cave fume inhalation brought us any closer to the truth, we turned to the allure of rationality: science.

Sharon “Litmus Paper” Lam caused shockwaves in 2011 by dropping out of first year med after her radical assertions that if the earth was the size of a golf ball then Jupiter was a medium-sized cauliflower and not a basketball as previously believed. Academic acclaim from herself quickly followed and her self-published book The Vegetables of the Solar System received a very good review and threestar rating from her mother on Google Reads. Today, she regularly experiments with the boundary between sleeping a lot and being legally in a coma.

We did not undertake this endeavour lightly and prior to the conducting of our experiment, we were already recognisable voices in the scientific community. Joining forces, we used the latest in academic protocol, or what we remembered from high school biology, to identify, locate and communicate with 100 female human specimens to ask them what they wanted and what they needed.

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Charlotte Cudmore had conducted a groundbreaking experiment in 2008 involving carrots and water where she proved the effects of osmosis even after forgetting to weigh the carrots at any point in the experiment, by ingeniously copying Caitlin Bretson’s results. Ever since her resulting “Achieved” in NCEA Biology Level 1, Charlotte has gone on to other successful experiments, such as the observation of mouldy bread upon the human stomach and testing the limits of the supposed expiry dates of milk.

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OBSERVATIONS: Our research approach consisted of a nervous “Hello, sorry for interrupting”, which quickly segued into both of us singing the chorus of “What A Girl Wants”, which generally garnered recognition and one Grammy nomination. After this we asked the arresting questions—“What do you want?” and “What do you need?”

The one hundred answers ranged from “money” to “lots of money”, with each response diligently recorded. Here we found that women reacted and responded differently according to the size of their party.

Groups were difficult to approach and yielded homogenous results, with respondents usually following the tone of the first brave soul to answer. Friendships were seen best in pairs, with responses either being deep and personal, or approachably light-hearted. When deep, the other of the pair would show support and when light-hearted, personal in-jokes often followed. We found ourselves wanting to befriend these women so that we too could be part of their injokes, but alas, the cold, unfeeling barrier of science meant we had to leave without so much as organising coffee in The Bubble. Finally, we made the mistake of asking the lone woman. The increasingly uncomfortable subject gave polite answers, but would be forgiven for actually “wanting” and “needing” for us to have never interrupted her study with our weirdly personal questions.

TOP RESULTS: MONEY

Unsurprisingly, money was the most popular answer to what women wanted and needed.

Money is needed to pay rent, the train, for chance events, bail money for jail, buying houses, buying hotels, community service, hospital tax, property tax and trying to afford Mayfair. At the same time, it is difficult to come by—second place in the beauty contest only gets you $10, you can’t seem to pass Go without landing on Income Tax, and investing in Old Kent and Whitechapel Road is really not paying off at all. All is not lost, however, as we have some sage advice for all you enterprising ladies out there— become the banker! Times have changed and more women need to know that you can be the banker, it is not always your brother’s turn. As banker you will have access to a large body of funds, although stealth and discretion will be important for your safety as not all colleagues will approve of your alternative source of fortune.

FOOD

There are some topics that remain sacred and cannot be mocked (such as everything else we have discussed). Food is one such topic and it is indeed essential to women—a prolonged lack of food results in death, and a lack of food for two hours results in deep sadness. Food can also offer great happiness, and the “money can’t buy happiness” myth has been disproved by the fact that money can buy onion rings. Naturally, we found that many of our respondents were quite enthused about their next meal. In particular, some favourite female items of ingestion included sushi, Midnight, Nam D, “weird chia pudding thing”, and chocolate. Personally, Charlotte’s favourite food is dirt and Sharon’s is knowledge.

FEET

Shoes, socks and shoe-related adhesives were amongst the more popular responses, suggesting that women’s favourite body part is their feet. The importance of looking after, dressing up and providing comfort for feet mean that feet have a special place in the female heart (not literally). One social movement we can link feet to is the emergence of women using their bodies, their naked bodies especially, as a form of protest.

Although intended as a reclamation of the nude and as a symbol of female strength, the media’s warping of this often reverts this supposed subversion back into mere attention-seeking imagery. The importance females are placing upon their feet suggests that feet will become the solution to this how-to-correctly-use-body-as-a-politicalweapon conundrum. Soon, we may see feet quite literally under the nose and in the face of The Man.

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COFFEE

No other beverage stood out in our results as much as coffee did. The caffeinated concoction was on many female minds, offering energy and bowel movement like two coffee beans in a coffee bean pod. Many also noted that they wanted or needed more time to do things, with some respondents relating this to the possession of coffee, reflective of society’s misplaced yearning for productivity over sleep. There were no foul feelings towards coffee, despite everyone’s at least singular experience with either too much, or poorly timed ingestion of coffee. In fact, after dreamily saying the word “coffee”, some respondents even said that it would be their third or fourth coffee of the day.

Because of this trend, the impending attempt

by Good Charlotte to become relevant again will most likely result in the rewritten hit “Girls Don’t Like Sleep, Girls Like Coffee and Diarrhea”.

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DEGREES & JOBS

THE UNEXPECTED

Our confusion continued when many respondents replied with “job” as another popular item they wanted or needed. Jobs often offer people financial security and thus the foundation for people to achieve other things such as shelter, nourishment and access to healthcare. The way we see it, Kelburn campus’ new Bubble is able to solve all of one’s problems, including those that are often solved with employment. In fact, The Bubble has been such a successful university project that we predict that by 2020 every student at Victoria will be cohabiting inside The Bubble, and neither employment nor education will be necessary in this future VUWSA-funded utopia.

Also mostly unmentioned was equality for women. We recognise that the circumstances of the questioning were likely to be the reason for this, with people being put on the spot and the pressure of two strangers expecting a quick-fire answer not exactly the most conducive. Answers may have been very different had there been more time, privacy and anonymity. Furthermore, the way we put forward the question was not as what was wanted and needed for women, but woman.

Perhaps if we had worded it as such, concern for the gender would have been more prevalent, as it was, the answers were more an illumination of individual desires.

This answer surprised us considering that all interviewees were sourced from a university.

Both of us, while also “students”, are here purely for free VUWSA wall planners and Huge ice creams. The wall planners are especially versatile, making good material to sew clothes from, roll into a fully functioning telescope, display as highbrow artwork, and use as a bargaining chip in high-stake poker games. We had assumed that our classmates were also here for the same reasons, and so were highly confused over these “degrees” so many were after. The use of a “degree” was not made clear to us and may have to be the hypotheses of a future experiment.

CONCLUSION

There were some results that, also due to popular musical prophesying, we had expected to have seen but were not at all mentioned.

This included just wanting to have fun, our old best friend diamonds, and really really really wanting to zig-a-zig-ah. Songs seemed to have failed with their psychoanalysis of what women want and need, it also seemed like western-heteronormative-capitalistpatriarchal-societal standards had too.

Body image concerns were refreshingly not raised, not even once; the desire for children also received no votes; and every woman’s perpetually acknowledged need for a partner barely made a dent.

Nevertheless, it was kind of sad and rather telling that it didn’t appear to be implicitly linked as a want or need for women today.

Perhaps women think equality has already been achieved, or perhaps all the desire for money was code for “address the gender pay gap”. We do hope that it is the latter; our societal structures still very much create and sustain systems where women are at a disadvantage. Until this changes, our money, food, coffee, university degrees and shoes will have to be enjoyed within a system of double standards, biases and discrimination.

When a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? Yes. It’s the sound of what women want and need.

And what is that? Careful reading between the lines of this very article, paired with an acute awareness of societal issues does reveal an obvious, single, answer. It is what Christina crooned about in 1999, and it is what we and our female counterparts still yearn for in 2015.

Regardless of the debatable amounts of awkwardness we imposed upon female strangers, we genuinely did feel a connection between us and the women we talked to, and curiosity in how people would answer. We like to think that we were able to encourage, at least briefly, a period of contemplation of just what one wants and needs, both as a modern woman and as an individual.

Along with this enlightening and very clear answer, the path we took to get there was greatly enriching and more than just a rigorous scientific endeavour. We saw friendships, we saw delicious lunches (none of which we were offered, despite our dribbling, then asking politely, then asking rudely) and sharing laughter with strangers, surely convincing passersby that we had known each other for eons, or were at least collectively laughing out of social unease.

Finally, as scientific protocol dictates, it was important that we also had a control group (yes, we know the correct definition of a control) and so we interviewed one male specimen. His response was that what he wanted was “an ol cuppa o’ fresh brew in my swanndri upholstered lounge with my missus making me meat”, and what he needed was “my gumboots to be less muddy”.

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Other

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A Holiday

Sex

Sleep

Coffee

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A kitten Food (x8) Sex (x2) Pass uni/finish degree (x6) Success for my one woman Fall Out Boy cover band A job (x2) I don’t know (x4) Find a rich husband Nam D To meet Hamish Blake Clothes (x4) New phone Money (x12) A fuckboy Self-control Assignment to be over Sleep No-one to take my computer at uni (x2) Friends Health Holidays To travel (x3) Chocolate (x3) Socks to stay up Balance (physical) Warmer weather Shoe glue Everything To be witty A raise Happiness Coffee (x3) Temperature-adjusting clothing To get the boy I like’s attention Knowledge To be organised Brain to work Do well academically Good hair Cheaper public transport Have life to continue being as awesome as it has been Contentment Easier navigation around uni To know what I want Leave uni Know own mind better Cancelled class Mcdonald’s to deliver Freedom Good job after uni A pet dog New car Equal rights Shoe budget (x2) Freaky Friday body swap with a boy Pass uni/finish Pass uni/finish degree (x4) Time

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Wax Good job after uni Food (x9) Originality Tarot Cards Tampons Enough money for weird chia pudding thing Approval More motivation Coffee(x4) Money (x10) Dismantling of the patriarchy Sleep (x2) Love Brain to work at work Security in relationships Inspiration A holiday (x2) Abs Knappstein Shiraz at Matterhorn Marry the boy I like and have his children A job (x3) Me-time Family Security Health Finish assignment (x3) Wisdom teeth to leap out of mouth and attack the dentist who killed Cecil To go to the beach A swim in the sea Free gym membership Own pool To relax Balance (work-life) Time (x3) Good travel companion Understand 3D modelling software Inhaler Shoe glue New togs Mum Do well academically Continually appreciate myself Period cramps to go away Don’t need anything (x2) Tuition payment Friends To be taken seriously Contentment and satisfaction with what I’ve got Cleaner public toilets Better memory Answers to exam questions

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Pass uni/finish degree (x4) Time Wax Good job after uni Food (x9) Originality Tarot Cards Tampons Enough money for weird chia pudding thing Approval More motivation Coffee(x4) Money (x10) Dismantling of the patriarchy Sleep (x2) Love Brain to work at work Security in relationships Inspiration A holiday (x2) Abs Knappstein Shiraz at Matterhorn Marry the boy I like and have his children A job (x3) Me-time Family Security Health Finish assignment (x3) Wisdom teeth to leap out of mouth and attack the dentist who killed Cecil To go to the beach A swim in the sea Free gym membership

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Own pool To relax Balance (work-life) Time (x3) Good travel companion Understand 3D modelling software Inhaler Shoe glue New togs Mum Do well academically Continually appreciate myself Period cramps to go away Don’t need anything (x2) Tuition payment Friends To be taken seriously Contentment and satisfaction with what I’ve got Cleaner public toilets Better memory Answers to exam questions

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Sharon Lam sharonshot.tumblr.com

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There’s no such thing as “post-racial feminism” Kayla Ngatai Polamalu My name is Kayla Ngatai Polamalu.

I was named for my major bloodlines—my middle name is that of my great aunt and it loosely translates to “tides”.

My parents gave it to me so that wherever I went in life, I carried my cultural identity. It says to people “I am Māori and I am proud.”

Alongside being Māori I am also a feminist, and key to that, an intersectional one. Having existed for years, the theory of intersectionality was only named and defined in academia by Kimberlé Crenshaw in the late 1980s. Its official definition is: “The view that women experience oppression in varying configurations and in varying degrees of intensity. Cultural patterns of oppression are not only interrelated, but are bound together and influenced by the intersectional systems of society.

Examples of this include race, gender, class, ability, and ethnicity.”

My feminism isn’t about “equality for all genders”. My feminism is more revolutionary than that. It is about overhauling the oppressive power structures that dictate the framework within which equality can be achieved. My feminism does not pander to men and it does not pander to whiteness because it is, and always will be, informed by my race.

Feminists everywhere are struggling for more representation, less objectification, and the right to feel safe—all of which are worthy causes.

But sometimes it’s really hard to celebrate when another white woman gets elected to a position of power and Māori women still aren’t being represented in candidacy. While objectification of women’s bodies everywhere is rife, women of colour are consistently hyper sexualised to a further degree—their twerking bodies dehumanised and used as props in the “liberal” performances of white women (cough, Miley, cough).

Being able to feel safe walking home at night is a right all women should have. But with Māori women stopped by police more frequently and incarcerated at rates in excess to those of their Pākehā counterparts, the bigger struggle is getting the institutions employed to protect us to treat us with respect—let alone strangers in the dark.

Actress Kerry Washington made an important point in an interview with The Guardian. Starring as Olivia Pope in the television series Scandal, Washington was the first black lead on a network primetime drama in almost 40 years, and she’s www.salient.org.nz

not enamoured with people celebrating her show for being “post-racial”.

“I don’t believe in post-racial… I don’t want to live in a postrace world because being black is really exciting. I mean, it’s who I am. I’m interested in living in a post-racist world, where being African-American doesn’t dictate limitations on what I can do—but I don’t want to live post-race.”

Similarly, recognition of my experiences as a person of colour and the racism non-white passing women experience are and always will be integral to discourse I engage in regarding gender equality. I am uninterested in a movement that does not view those elements of my reality as imperative to creating a more just system.

In 2010, white feminists took issue with Te Papa asking women who were hapū (pregnant) and mate wahine (menstruating) to not attend a particular exhibition of taonga—calling the practice discriminatory. It would appear few put the effort into understanding why this restriction was in place. In Māori culture, particular objects are deemed to have their own wairua, and some of the taonga on display had been used in violent combat—making their wairua potentially hostile. Māori women are revered for the role they play as life-givers—their womb and reproductive systems being so tapu, so sacred, that to come close to such taonga may put both themselves and the objects at risk.

Academic Deborah Russell accused Te Papa of imposing religious and cultural values on people, conveniently forgetting Aotearoa’s history of colonialism and the imposition of Pākehā culture on Māori, and encouraged women to disregard Te Papa’s advice (which had been one of the conditions insisted on by the iwi to whom the taonga belonged).

I do not want to be part of the feminist movement Russell is a proponent of, where my people and their culture are not afforded the respect and dignity they deserve, where practices important to the continuance of tradition are disregarded because they do not marry with Pākehā notions of equality. I want no part in a movement that erases my Māori heritage, or calls for me to disregard it so that I might instead dedicate myself to the struggle for “all”. My experiences with my culture are what make me, and consequently they are what also make my feminism.

To all Māori women, in the words of Chimamanda Adichie, “never apologise for the space you occupy in the world.

Make your strides long, wide and sure.” Our perspective is important and our culture is important. Kia kaha, be proud.

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WĀHINE Ō TE MANA MĀORI Kahu Kutia

Historically, feminism has always been more widely discussed in relation to social, political, and economic movements in Western culture. However, a slightly more diverse representation of feminist ideologies has been observed in more recent times. Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TED talks speech features in Queen Bey’s hit “Flawless”, and there is of course the endlessly important work of Pakistani teen activist Malala Yousafzai. But despite all this, not much is devoted to discussions of feminism in Māori culture.

I certainly did not learn the label of “feminist” on the marae. But I think my upbringing immersed in my māoritanga has, nevertheless, been incredibly influential on who I am as a feminist.

In cultural practices and rituals, Māori have established ideas surrounding the roles each gender can play. However, these roles reflect no hierarchy, but rather, envisage all people working together as one, well-oiled Māori machine. Our cultural practices have been efficiently honed into over hundreds of years. In a pōwhiri, it is the kuia, the matriarch of the marae, who calls visitors onto the marae.

In most iwi, it is the men who then host the whaikōrero speeches, but in some Eastern tribes, the women present speeches as well. In our rituals, our kapa haka, our everyday social practices, there are alternative understandings of the different roles that genders can play.

These roles come from spiritual constructions of tapu and noa, of life and death, and above all, our beliefs recognise the value of all people.

Māori have a very strong oral tradition; many of my family members love to talk. The stories told to me by family members and teachers helped me, as a young person, to articulate Māori values. My hometown is named for the acts of Wairaka, a brave female leader in local mythology. Wairaka noticed the waka Mātaatua floating away into the ocean, and grabbed the paddle to row the women and

children to safety, even though touching the paddle was sacredly forbidden to her as a woman. In Māori mythology, the land is personified in Papatūānuku, the mother of gods. Above all else, Māori hold a very sacred respect for the land, as a giver of life and substance. The concept of “Whare Tangata” celebrates the womb, and asserts the connection between both the land and women as givers of life to the people. Māori myths that I was told over and over again offered a substantial and diverse range of female figures—Hollywood cinema could learn a thing or two from. Stories featured lovers and fighters, happy women and sad women, figures that were rooted in history, and figures that were magical, all of whom influenced me immensely.

This is not to say that there are no issues for Māori women in society, both in contemporary times and historically. But here, I can acknowledge the work of groups such as the Māori Women’s Welfare League. They work hard to promote Māori values of kotahitanga, mana tangata, whanaungatanga, and hauora for Māori today. I have always been surrounded by influential women who shaped my conception of what it was to be myself in the world. Aunties who are just as capable of bringing back food from a hunt as they are at weaving together a harakeke flax mat. Grandmotherly figures who remain formidable leaders on the marae. I have witnessed young Māori women deliver technically excellent and culturally beautiful whaikōrero. This culture is a thing of beauty, and something I am extremely proud of. Ko au he wāhine, ko au he Māori, ko au he tangata.

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ALLIES VS AXIS Phillip McSweeney It should be so easy, and for a while you think it is. You get that the decks are stacked against women; you’ve absorbed the research that proves Māori are structurally and systematically discriminated against; you’re cognisant that what genitalia someone happens to be born with does not augur an identity or personality. You’re also a dude and you’re well-intentioned and you want to distinguish yourself from the innumerable fuckbois out there, so you give yourself a new moniker: ally.

Except that’s where the tidy trajectory ends.

The reality of being an ally is messy business, largely because the term has come to connote disingenuity and self-serving liberalism gone hugely wrong. Mia McKenzie, creator of BlackGirlDangerous, threw down the gauntlet a couple of years ago with her (very polarising) essay titled “No More ‘Allies’”, which bemoaned “the constant cookieseeking of people who just can’t do the right thing unless they are sure they’re gonna get some kind of credit for it”. I quote her here wholesale: “It’s not supposed to be about you. It’s not supposed to be about your feelings. It’s not supposed to be a way of glorifying yourself at the expense of the folks you claim to be an ally to. It’s not supposed to be a performance.”

Yikes. So we know what being a good ally isn’t: making the whole things about you and how great you are for understanding that something in our society is a little bit amiss. That’s the bare minimum required for a pass: consider that the most tenuous of Cs. The next step in being an ally is to create spaces that are inclusive and welcoming; to take spaces that are unwelcoming and disquieting and make them inclusive, vibrant, welcoming; to seek to eradicate injustice without superseding the voices of people with an experiential framework to base their protest on.

But how do you do that effectively? These are obviously treacherous waters, cap’n, and often the advice is conflicting based on who dispenses it. So I’m here to guide you through the waters, pitfalls and trapdoors.

First of all, and most crucially, it’s imperative that you understand this, because this is the single trick to becoming a good ally and maybe even a halfway-decent human being: I have no idea. I don’t know.

Because I don’t. I don’t know if I’m a good ally or not. I can’t know because it’s not my call to make. This is because being an ally isn’t even, really, a thing you are or you aren’t.

Being an ally is a process.

But I do know this: Rule Numero Uno = STFU + GTFO (of women’s spaces) Being an ally is fundamentally about listening to the voices—and often the experiences—of the people you’re allying yourself with. Listening to voices does not mean “listen to the voices that say what you want to hear”—that disregards the eclectic range of marginalised voices out there. Listen and absorb. This is deceptively difficult, especially in a university climate where you’re compelled to share/show off what you know constantly, but it’s probably fair to assume that you know less than the people who have experience with discrimination. Also, acknowledge the need for women’s spaces.

The world’s not gonna implode because women get their own room where they can feel safe.

The issues are more encompassing than Male vs Female Or: How I learnt to stop worrying and love Intersectional Feminism. The term was coined by Kimberle Crenshaw, and posits that oppressive power structures (i.e. stuff relating to race, gender, ability, sexuality et al.) are interconnected, and urges you to

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consider every manifestation of privilege and every manifestation of power inequality and the way they—here it comes—intersect. This means being aware that if you’re reading this, life has probably privileged you in some way seeing as how you’re at a university institution and all; this does not elide the suffering you face if you’re a woman reading this, but it does put it in a wider context of stupid injustices.

Keep abreast of developments in this field, by the way; two buzzwords—“transraciality” and “monosexual privilege”—have emerged recently, and it’s worth investigating whether they’re horseshit or not. … But this article is mostly one for the lads Woah there, transmen! Don’t you try and slink away! This includes you too. If you’re fortunate enough to pass as male, you are beholden to a vast set of privileges in dayto-day life that aren’t afforded to the female gender. This permeates pretty much every aspect of society. Just have a look at the stats. We need to acknowledge that when it comes to gender inequality and power relations, Men are systematically—though not invariably—the Problem. This doesn’t mean there are aren’t wonderful dudes out there, just that as a statistical group they’re prone to more, y’know, violence, rape and discrimination.

Do not let your voice supplant theirs Save your hot takes (as scorching as they no doubt are) and use the retweet or share button instead. John Cage’s 4’33 should vocalise more than you do.

Acknowledge that identifying as an ally isn’t your call to make A couple of years ago, in a fit of naïveté, I wrote about identifying as a feminist. These days, I don’t think of feminism as a position I can claim, but as an adjective that women can ascribe to men but that men fundamentally can’t assert ownership of. If other people want to confer the label on me then that’s their call to make, not mine. I think the same thing can be said for ally-dom. Being an ally isn’t something you can claim to be, but something you can aspire toward and hopefully achieve every now and then.

Don’t fetishise otherness By “fetishise” I mean venerate a specific culture because of how you think it meets your personal ends, or reduce a disadvantaged

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group to a sexual peccadillo. Do not try and pass yourself as disadvantaged where you are not; this detracts from the real disadvantaged people, and you’ll only be doing it for the sake of your personal advantage. Being an ally is about other people.

Use Correct Pronouns ALWAYS This one isn’t so much about being a good ally as not being the dregs of humanity. Correct pronouns—and names—are mandatory, non-negotiable, capiche? If I found out you’ve purposefully misgendered someone I will haul you before the Queer tribunal and have you arraigned for your crimes. You will also be beaten.

And use denigrating slurs NEVER I never thought I’d agree with libertarians on anything, but turns out I too subscribe to the idea that intangible things can be owned.

Certain groups “own” certain words because, having had those words used against them to incite harm, hatred and violence for centuries, it’s only fair that they get to reclaim it. They have exclusive rights; if you’re white, impose a moratorium on saying the n-word. Don’t use gendered slurs if you’re a dude (unless it’s in the context of consensual coitus, I guess).

Just don’t use the r-word or that f-word.

Lots of people I know complain about being “censored”, but think of all the other words you have at disposal that aren’t in the framework that upholds inequality! Besides, no-one’s taking “fuck”, the best swear word by far, away from you.

Call your family and friends out (especially if they share the same identity as you) This one is crucial because it’s the only way you’re going to make change—by targeting and engaging with others who share your identity. Gently rebuke them when necessary, of course, but more importantly explain why.

It’s no good using your knowledge trying to ingratiate yourself into groups that aren’t yours or by smugly correcting people actually experiencing the discrimination.

Don’t get all sanctimonious and humourless on us In the 1970s, the FBI tried to infiltrate an anarcho-feminist cult. I say “tried” because their agents were spotted for the obtruding moles they were almost immediately. How? Because they were so damn serious and pofaced about their beliefs. It’s okay to make jokes and talk about things other than

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the everyday struggle the people you align yourself with face. There are other things to talk about! Also, don’t be like the unnamed past VUWSA member whom I overheard say of hip-hop, “it’s so negative towards women, I would NEVER listen to it” in what I can only assume was a pathetic attempt to get laid on Cuba Street once. Ironically, he was wearing a Rolling Stones t-shirt at the time. HACK. Credit people directly involved in the cause / financially remunerate where possible I’m kind of reiterating the point/bludgeoning it into your skull with the delicacy of an ape lobbing shit at you at the zoo, but: let other people speak. If people express an interest in learning, link them to relevant pieces based on experiential frameworks, not your own rotelearned stuff. MOREOVER, because we’ve yet to put our capitalist overlords against the wall, money is where power and opportunity revolves. Put your money with your mouth is and help address the pay parity directly.

Contribute to causes that do great work in redressing the bullshit women have to put up with (Women’s Refuge, WGTN Rape Crisis) and, if you’re able, contribute to trans people’s transition funds. In New Zealand, about two of these operations happen yearly.

Consider the rush to increase those numbers if it were any other operation fundamental to a person’s dignity and well-being and you’ll get a glimmer of the systemic oppression and, shit, outright violence trans people face every time they leave the house.

You’re gonna screw up; don’t distance yourself from the problem, acknowledge that you are racist/sexist/transphobic by design This is crucial. Privilege is an insidious ratbastard, and as such there’s no way you’ll ever be aware of all of its manifestations and minutiae. So there’s no point in being holierthan-thou, or acting like you’re better than people who aren’t in the know or whatever.

There will always be residual sexism, racism, ableism etc. encoded in your mentality. Don’t distance yourself from this—acknowledge it and strive to always, always, do better and be better.

Keep educating yourself Goes without saying but I said it anyway. You can never know enough. Knowledge, in this case, is the good kind of power.

editor@salient.org.nz

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Feminist Fandom: Charlotte Hann In February the Centre for the Study of Women in Television and Film found that only 12 per cent of clearly identifiable protagonists in film and television were women, and that women made up only 30 per cent of all speaking characters.

Below is just one take, and uses the established Bechdel and Mako Mori tests to assess whether a work is feminist/ representative. While these measures are subjective, and hardly all-pervasive, they can give us a basic indication.

They can give us a starting point.

Unfortunately the same trends are found on and off the camera, and representation is even worse when it comes to people of colour and the LGBTIA community. There remain a myriad of problematic areas in Hollywood film production from the lack of female directors, “chick flicks” being made by men (Bridesmaids, The Devil Wears Prada, Dirty Dancing etc.)

The tests:

Sci-fi and fantasy films, series and books are no exception, and many of our favourite fandoms have problems. Women and people of colour are constantly underrepresented and stereotyped, and queer characters are rarely given importance. Whether it’s depictions of the gay best friend or the racial stereotypes that underpin representations of “backwards peoples”, minorities and other disadvantaged groups continue to suffer from warped understandings of sexuality, masculinity, femininity and race.

The Bechdel Test: This test asks if a text has: 1. Two Female characters 2. Who talk to each other 3. About something else than a man

The Mako Mori Test: This test asks if a text has: 1. At least one female character 2. Who has her own narrative arc 3. That is not about supporting a man’s story

While there are other important tests being developed to focus on the lacking representation of race and LGBTIA characters in films (e.g. the Racial Bechdel test and the Russo test), these tests are, of course, not enough by themselves.

Star Wars:

½

Bechdel Test:

Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones pass

Mako Mori Test:

Phantom Menace and the Originals pass In both the Prequels and the Originals of Star Wars, there is only one main woman character—Padme in the prequels and Leia in the originals. Both are given the damsel treatment: Padme in Phantom Menace and Leia in A New Hope (even if she kind of takes over).

Leia is an epic, well-built character who enables the Original films to pass the Mako Mori test. Padme has some character development, but after Phantom Menace, her plotline revolves around Anakin. Both Anakin’s mother and Padme are killed for Anakin’s character development (and because they must be dead for the Originals).

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Doctor Who:

Bechdel Test: Pass Mako Mori Test: Fail Doctor Who has some great female characters, the only problem is that a lot of them are “Strong Female Characters” whom director Steven Moffat seems to think are perfect if he gives them a gun. While strong female characters might seem like a good thing, SFCs often all into the category of a love interest who doesn’t like feminine things and who can fight (and does so with completely unsatisfactory armour).

Of course, not every sci-fi show has an inter-species lesbian couple! And we finally got a female Master.

However, the main problem is that most of the companions are obsessively in love with the Doctor (so this barely passes the Mako Mori test), and will do anything for him at whatever cost. Plus, most of the female sidekicks get unhappy endings.

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A Song of Ice and Fire:

½

Bechdel Test: Pass Mako Mori Test: Pass

The books of A Song of Ice and Fire are pretty feminist.

There are multiple Point of View female characters (Cat, Sansa, Daenerys, etc.) While some do fit into established stereotypes for women characters (e.g.

Ayra the tomboy, Cersei the evil queen), the characters all go beyond this two-dimensional level (e.g. the tomboy Arya still has her “songs” of Nymeria the warrior Queen).

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Sherlock: ½

Bechdel Test Pass: Occasionally Mako Mori Test: Fail The only very developed female character in Sherlock is Irene Adler, who is a lesbian, but is heterosexualised so that she can fall in love with Sherlock and then be rescued by him. Irene also fits into the stereotype of the femme fatale (as does Kitty Riley). Sherlock’s attitude towards women is degrading and comments regarding the “weaker sex” are rampant . While Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is, again, a product of his time, the continuing celebration of Sherlock’s male genius, masculinity and rationality consistently relegates female characters to lesser beings.

Game of Thrones: Bechdel Test: Pass Mako Mori Test: Pass

The tests may be the same but the TV show is antifeminist. Female bodies are continuously objectified, often with sexualised rape. Consensual sex scenes (e.g. with Jaime and Cersei in Baelor’s Sept) are changed into rapes for shock value, but fail to be treated like rapes (for instance, there was no long term emotional damage from the rape in Baelor’s Sept). Rape is used for “character development” and “empowerment” for Sansa, who is raped so that she can potentially turn into a revenge-filled “Strong Female Character”.

Writers also turned some female characters into twodimensional stereotypes (e.g. Brienne is changed into a “Strong Female Character”) and used them for male character development (e.g. Ros being killed off to emphasise Joffrey’s madness).

Lord of the Rings: ½ (Movies:

)

Bechdel test: Fail Mako Mori Test: Pass The Lord of the Rings is sadly a product of its time. In the books, the only major female character is Eowyn.

Now Eowyn is pretty kick-ass, right? In the books, she is constantly objectified as beautifully fragile and her fighting brilliance is portrayed as an unnatural state caused by extraordinary circumstances. In the end, she gives it all up for the more traditionally female roles of wife and healer. And Arwen only appears at the end of the books to marry Aragorn.

The movies do alleviate the sexism of the books by giving Eowyn a greater part (although she still has to be saved by Aragorn at the end), and expanding Arwen’s character, proving that something can be done to update dated books for film or TV.

Harry Potter:

½

Bechdel test: Pass Mako Mori Test: Pass Harry Potter lacks most anti-feminist tropes and has many female characters who are not Strong Female Characters such as Hermione, Luna and Ginny.

The gender ratio is not equal but higher than most.

Individual problems occur such as Tonks becoming boring when she gets married and Cho Chang fitting into the stereotype of girls crying over guys.

Star Trek (mostly the new movies): Bechdel Test: Sometimes Mako Mori Test: Occasionally

Lieutenant Uhura is the only major female character in the 2009 Star Trek reboot and her function is as a love interest for Kirk and Spock. Kirk continuously harasses Uhura in Star Trek after she tells him within a minute of meeting him that she’s not interested. In fact, we have no evidence in either Star Trek, or its sequel, Into Darkness, that Kirk thinks of women as anything other than sex objects. The only other major female character in Into Darkness, Dr. Carol Marcus, undresses in front of Kirk and is rescued by male characters.

Star Trek is one of those series that has actually managed to get more sexist over time (like the Jurassic Park franchise). Kirk was more feminist in the original series, in the 1960s version of the show when one male crew members remarks that “a woman just walked past”, Kirk points out that she’s a crew member. The original series also had more female characters.

editor@salient.org.nz

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Features

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STOLEN SARIS AND “WHITE GIRL” HAIR Charlotte Hann

In theory, we can wear anything we like in today’s world, but in reality, we are socialised to dress a certain way according to our gender, race, sexual orientation and body size (in this article, I focus on how society’s attitudes to clothing affects women through an intersectional feminist lens).

In nineteenth-century Western society, it was scandalous for a woman who wasn’t a sex worker to wear a skirt shorter than her ankles; her body and her person were seen as the property of her husband.

Women today are still expected to cover up in public, despite the fact that it is legal in New Zealand for women to leave our top halves bare.

Worse than this, a woman wearing fewer clothes is labelled “slutty”.

The assumption that a woman’s clothing choice reflects her sexual behaviour and/or is made in the hope of gaining male attention is flawed and unfair. Not only does it take the agency away from women and their right to make their own choices, it assumes that there is a level of “appropriateness” when it comes to women’s sexual appetites.

Then there is the fashion industry. Thin, white, able-bodied models are so ubiquitous that their image is readily accepted as the typification of beauty standards. The pressure to be skinny perpetuated by this industry can lead to fatphobia, eating disorders and depression, and with the continuing rise of social media, women are getting these messages earlier and earlier. Currently, 90 per cent of eating disorders in New Zealand affect women, and the average age at which they develop stands at 17. The pressures associated with fashion and clothing also maintain society’s gaze on women’s appearances instead of their achievements. The most obvious examples perhaps is female politicians. Former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard was made into a pornographic cartoon and was constantly characterised by her physical appearance, while Helen Clark was mocked as “dowdy and drab”. Both women criticised the media for diverting attention from their politics and achievements towards their clothing choices, but the trend continued when Auckland MPs Jacinda Ardern and Nikki Kaye’s electoral race was touted as “the battle of the babes” in 2014— hardly the “battle of the intelligent and qualified”, is it?

The fashion industry, and society in general, perpetuates the notion that white beauty is the only beauty. Women of colour can have their natural hair deemed “unprofessional” and are forced to wear it in a

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“white way” to fit in. Women of colour are discouraged from wearing traditional clothing, but when white women wear the same clothes, they become “cool”. This is cultural appropriation, which sees the customs of people of colour taken and used by white people, without regard for its cultural significance. Recently we’ve witnessed the cultural appropriation of bindis, saris and Indian headdresses. Kim Kardashian and Lady Gaga have appropriated the niqab and the burqa, while New Zealand designer Trelise Cooper was criticised for her models wearing native American headdresses down the runway last year.

There are also expectations that surround what it means to be “feminine” or “masculine”. Women are told that we should not dress in a masculine way or cut our hair too short (long hair has traditionally been associated with physical beauty), as it might make us look “butch” or like lesbians (based on the flawed assumption that there is something wrong with being a lesbian). This pressure to look feminine is especially strong within the heterosexual dating scene, as women are encouraged to be feminine in order to attract men.

However, dressing in an overly-feminine way is also frowned upon as our patriarchal society characterises femininity as silly, weak and childish (think about how much people dislike Sansa Stark). Being “feminine” means fitting into a closed definition that someone else has established, with very little room for “excess” or androgyny.

Unfortunately, not even young people are spared from the tropes associated with gender. Toys like Barbies, donned in pink, are given to girls and clothing remains distinctly separated according to gender: from pink and blue baby clothes, to uniforms to school balls. Not only are these attitudes harmful to cis folk (those who identify with the gender they are born with), but trans and gender-nonconforming individuals are affected by clothing expectations throughout their lives. Members of the LGQBTIA community are criticised for being hyper-feminine or hyper-masculine in a different way, and judgements on people, and as a result their clothing, are continually made according to the gender binary.

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FEMINIST FAQS 1. What is Feminism?

Feminism has several different interpretations and means different things to different people. But in short, feminism is a movement/ideology that recognises that there is a gender imbalance within our society which negatively affects all genders, not just women.

2. But, if feminism wants to help not just women why is it called ‘feminism’ not ‘humanism’?

With any social movement, there has to be some kind of focus otherwise the goal becomes too ambiguous. By calling yourself a “humanist”, you can deny the importance of marginalised groups needing their own specific movement—feminism being one of them. A range of inequalities such as sexism, homophobia, transphobia, racism, classism, ableism, xenophobia, fatphobia and many forms of bigotry and disempowerment simply exist, and they have not gone away because of people declaring themselves “humanists”. Calling yourself a humanist is not an alternative to calling yourself a feminist, basically.

3. What is this ‘Patriarchy’ feminists keep talking about?

Unfortunately, there is no secret patriarchy headquarters inside an isolated mountain range for us to overthrow. It is a system made of a bunch of social constructs and attitudes which are insidiously ingrained in the way we, as a society, think and act—which makes it a whole lot more difficult to get rid of. It is a social construct that values a certain form of masculinity over femininity. Patriarchal ideals are imposed on women—from promoting men as the “head of the household” to centring society around men’s needs.

But patriarchal ideals can also work against men, who are expected to be physically strong, emotionally stoic, and dominant. It does not benefit everyone as a collective to live in a patriarchal society.

4. What is ‘privilege’?

White people, men, heterosexual people, able-bodied people, cis people (people who identify with the sex they were assigned at birth) hold what we call “privilege”. This is not to say that people that hold privilege do not have an immunity from hardship, but they do systemically benefit from the way our society is organised. For example, men in general may not worry about walking home alone at night, a cis person would not worry about which bathroom to use, and an able-bodied person would not worry about accessibility in their day-to-day routine. People that hold privilege may not think about these everyday things compared to those who don’t hold certain privileges, and it is important to recognise that privileges exist and to challenge them.

5. What is ‘intersectionality’ and why is it so important to the feminist movement?

Intersectionality is about recognising the overlapping issues of oppression and injustice that affect minority groups. Being an intersectional feminist is important because often the inequalities facing women are not based solely on gender, but are also affected by class, race, and sexuality, among other factors. A lack of focus on intersectionality within the feminist movement leads to forms of feminism that are very white, middle class, and heteronormative, and therefore exclusionary to other minorities groups.

editor@salient.org.nz

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Film

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Guardians of the Galaxy, Summed up in Five Livne Ore 1) The Music Let’s face it. The soundtrack is what made this movie good. Great music, great choreography to that music—the retro tunes really lifted up every scene that they were featured in.

2) The Scope The world-building aspect of Guardians of the Galaxy was very clever, in that it has allowed Marvel to elaborate on dynamics between realms other than Earth. With most of the MCU set on Earth, the films which centre on Thor stand out as slightly dissonant, bringing elements of magic and powers of mythological proportion to an entirely human world. The directors have so far been cautious, ensuring that whichever world, be it Asgard, Xander or Svartalfheim, is always framed by scenes on Earth. We have seen more of these intergalactic worlds progressively through the latter Marvel films as the universe expands out of Earth, and Guardians of the Galaxy plays a very important part in this.

3) Female Representation On the plus side—two females! Who were named! And talked to each other! However, this seemingly glorious moment for women was somewhat lost, in that both Nebula and Gamora are slim, athletic warriors who are somehow meant to typify their entire gender. In addition to this, Gamora’s romantic arc, not present in the comics, and Nebula’s mostly silent hovering was rather disappointing.

4) Humour Various reviews have labelled this film as comedic, especially Rocket.

I watched this film expecting to laugh, and enjoy the witty quips that the Guardians often offer in comic form. I, unfortunately, did not find it funny. It just wasn’t! The tough-guy act from Rocket was predictable and the so-called “sardonic wit” failed to impress me either; it was also jarring for the more serious scenes, as the funny elements weren’t properly integrated.

5) Chemistry The team dynamic was, shall we say ... lacking. Similarly to the drollness of the film, I am speaking out of personal experience rather than the regurgitation of another’s views. Personally, I felt that the action sequences of the team didn’t really impress and coupled with the ungainly “marriage of convenience amongst murderers and thieves” made for an unremarkable ensemble.

In sum: I don’t see what all the hype was about, and the old “manpain” origin story is exactly that: old. A mediocre film. www.salient.org.nz

Terminator Genisys Directed by Alan Taylor

James Keane I’ve learned from this film that nothing matters. Everything is inconsequential. From the beginning of the film to the end, nothing of real consequence happened. This isn’t a spoiler, as it made the mistake of revealing “crucial” plot points in its own marketing, some of which were bigger than others (*cough* Robo-John Connor *cough*). The movie tries to bill itself as a rewriting of the series, a “what-if ” scenario of the first film. Instead it plays out like a carefully constructed and spliced fan edit of Terminator 1 and 2, characters and all, with the end result appearing not unlike an episode of How It Should Have Ended.

It also became really convoluted. As convoluted as time travel logic is in any film, the exposition and jokes made at both the concept and designated protagonist Kyle Reese’s expense flew right over my head, and after a while I started wishing for Schwarzenegger to return to brandishing his catchphrases and mannerisms that the people attached to this film are obligated to show.

Without sounding like a devotee to the first two films, why they worked (and still do) was that although they were structured as long chase scenes, these were motivated and had significant stakes in them due to the nature of the antagonists: nigh-indestructible and terrifying robotic assailants that made triumph over them seem futile.

They were a necessity to progress the actions and development of the characters, and, oddly enough for a film, make us care about them and want them to succeed. In Genisys, the action is meaningless and without investment, as you’re simply waiting to get to the inevitable fight at the end, turning Reese into an unintentional audience surrogate because of his consistently tired facial expressions. There is little investment if the end goal is to stop the villainous Skynet system from ever existing when the same thing was attempted on film in 1991, and if anyone knows the ways of Hollywood’s nonexistent “hands off the priceless Ming vase” policy, to sum up, this will not be the last attempt made.

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Film

The Falling Directed by Carol Morley

½ Kari Schmidt The Falling is set in a strict all-girl’s school in the 1960s and begins by following the intense bond between Abbie (Florence Pugh) and Lydia (Game of Thrones’ Maisie Williams). Abbie, with her long, blonde hair and angelic face, is uniquely compelling—she loves poetry, established the school’s Alternative Orchestra and generally moves gently through the world. In contrast, Lydia is rebellious and abrasive—clinging to Abbie’s friendship in light of her home environment, which includes a cold, agoraphobic mother and a brother not beyond committing incest. Spoiler alert: Abbie keeps fainting and then dies, and the girls at the school are subsequently beset by spells of dizziness and brief unconsciousness.

I LOVED this movie. But I’ll continue this review with the proviso that, despite my high rating, it won’t be for everyone—as evidenced by the attendant who gave me my ticket whilst simultaneously expressing her distaste for it. I will admit that some of the dialogue is lacking in subtlety. Similarly, the ending, while it technically made sense, didn’t feel like it fit that cohesively with the whole. However, there was SO much to redeem The Falling. Abbie and Lydia were perfectly cast and the female friendships—between teenage girls, middle-aged women, and young and older women—were incredibly refreshing to see. Abbie and Lydia’s friendship reminded me so much of being at an all-girls school as a teenager—the way you would fall in love with and idealise other girls, or being such close friends with a girl you would lie in each other’s arms and have them stroke your head in a completely non-sexual, beautifully platonic way. Similarly, the ritualistic nature of the girls’ interactions and the choreography of their “falls”, while being wonderfully melodramatic, reminded me of my pre-teen Wicca phase. It was kind of a magical time, and the movie captures this beautifully. Similarly, the music and dramatic intensity of the girls’ fainting spells were really effective, and I loved the tableaux created by Morley of the school grounds—gnarled trees and rain on water, contrasted with the austere interior of the school and the headmistress, constantly smoking cigarettes, their crackling forming part of the aural terrain of the film.

I would highly recommend this film. The Falling was something completely different, and an example of the rich diversity we have the potential to experience when a director chooses not to utilise entrenched (read: totally overdone) tropes, character types and narratives.

Why J.J Abram’s Star Treks don’t work (but I so wished they did) Jess Knipping In 2009 Star Trek was introduced to us all over again. With the brash yet honest Captain James T. Kirk, the logical half-Vulcan Mr. Spock, hard-nosed Bones, earnest Mr. Sulu, take no shit Uhura, and the loveable scot, Scotty. All the gang back together, but with a twist— they are young and all the things they went through together never happened. It is brand spanking new, but why does it feel like I am watching something very old?

Now first, do not get me wrong, I love references, they are my life source and J.J. Abrams would be a fool and disappoint everyone if he did not bring across so many elements from the original into the franchise reboot. These references are what make Star Trek so much fun. The referencing is fun and necessary to connect the old with the new, and to show that these guys are indeed the guys we know from before.

However there is a fine line between referencing the previous show and it stepping on the toes of the new franchise. This becomes very clear in Into Darkness (2013) in regards to Khan. When Khan reintroduces himself to Kirk, why is there a reveal when there is absolutely no reference to Khan in this new universe? The dramatic pause makes no sense, Spock’s irrational scream “KHHHHAAAAAN!” when Kirk dies makes no sense at all in this new universe, and yet it is still included in these new films.

Khan is the villain of this piece, but because the film tells instead of shows his villainy there is no real fear in regards to Khan’s power. We do not get to learn this for ourselves as we are watching, but have to be told what he is capable of (in reference to the original show). And this is why Into Darkness fails to ever get off the ground. The film spends its entire time referencing a show that was cancelled almost 50 years ago. It is never allowed to make its own statement or own footprint in the Star Trek universe, but just reminds us of what we really want to be watching—the original show. editor@salient.org.nz

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Carjacking now possible from the comfort of your couch Zoe Russell

American car company Fiat Chrysler has recently issued a recall order for 1.4 million vehicles. The recall followed serious cybersecurity concerns raised in a study by US experts Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek.

A series of trials run by the pair showed that these vehicles—automatically connected to the internet via the Chrysler UConnect system—were alarmingly vulnerable to external hacking attempts. Using a phone, Miller and Valasek were able to remotely identify a targeted vehicle, disable the brakes, slow and stop the engine, and play havoc with the car’s electronic interface.

The weaknesses identified are a recent development for the industry. Automakers have responded to consumer demand for connectivity by equipping cars with increasingly sophisticated electronics.

Internet connection allows enhanced in-car entertainment and navigation features, and use as a wifi hotspot. These connectivity advances have been accompanied by other electronic features designed for improved safety, such as automatic brakes and locking.

Advances in security, however, have followed more slowly. As Miller and Valasek demonstrate, the connection used by a car’s entertainment system can be www.salient.org.nz

exploited by skilled hackers. Once inside the systems, there are few barriers between components—software can be re-written remotely to control, stop, and track the car. It may even be possible to take over the car’s system and use it to identify and control other cars in the network, moving through vehicles in the same way that computer hackers use botnets. Navigational functions can also be exploited, using false signals to “spoof ” GPS devices. University of Texas researchers recently used a GPS unit to change the course of an $80 million dollar super-yacht without being detected by the captain.

While manufacturers are increasingly aware of these concerns, they also face market pressure to add innovative new features.

Security expert Josh Corman says, “If it takes a year to introduce a new hackable feature, then it takes four to five years to protect it.” Car theft using electronic keys is on the rise in the UK; in London, 42 per cent of all car theft is electronic.

The digitisation trend seems inevitable.

Japanese electronics company Hitachi predicts that by 2020, 90 per cent of all cars will be internet-connected, and Google is pouring significant resources into developing self-driving cars, where zero driver input is

required. Proponents of the new systems say that the features allow greater mobility and independence for people who would otherwise have difficulty driving. Greater automation can also help prevent accidents, as the impact of human error (from drunk, tired, or reckless drivers) is minimised. There is also hope that car-to-car interaction can be used to prevent gridlocks and increase efficiency, as cars will be able to remotely coordinate to optimise traffic flow.

In order to take advantage of these opportunities safely, industry groups as well as legislators will need to be vigilant. In the US, a Bill is currently being introduced to set new vehicle cyber-security standards.

Miller and Valasek say that the auto industry must follow the lead of computer companies. They urge business leaders to invite budding hackers to work with corporations to identify bugs.

Other industry experts remain optimistic.

Maciej Kranz (of Cisco’s Connected Industries Group) said in a recent article that current fears are disproportionate.

He states that when you connect cars to the net, “Good things happen. More good things happen when you connect all of the systems.”

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Hard on all life long Miro Bond Scientists recently found that damselflies (a slimmer, better looking version of a dragonfly) are basically super horny no matter what age. Researchers at the University of Leeds tagged more than 1000 damselflies in Hampshire, England and found that these horn-dog flies mate for most of their lives at the same pond. “For the damselflies, it doesn’t matter how much sex they have had in the past, they can still keep on going until they die and they don’t appear to pay a price for it,” reports Dr Christopher Hassall, one of the leading researchers.

However, the lifespan of a damselfly is quite short; most die within a week of arriving at the pond. This barely leaves enough time for getting it on. It’s like that episode of Futurama in which Fry, Kif, Zapp and Bender get abducted by Amazon women and are sentenced to “death by snu snu” (sex).

Female damselflies will produce eggs in which males will line up to fertilise. This might involve biting and fighting, some

Gotta Make Drugs from the Homo Superior!

Gus Mitchell Drug companies are tracking down superhuman mutants to use their genes to cure debilitating medical conditions.

This may sound like the premise of the next X-Men movie, but it’s actually happening right now. Thanks to advances in epigenetics and genome sequencing, drug companies like Amgen and Genentech have been able to identify these genetic “outliers” and examine their genomes. Like some of Marvel’s merry mutants, they look like ordinary humans and show no outside hints that give them away as having these rare conditions, until you look at their genes.

Take Steven Pete, who possesses a superhuman insensitivity to pain. If he were

burned by a hot stove or pierced by a piece of glass, it wouldn’t register to him. His parents first noticed his condition when he almost bit off his own tongue as an infant.

How’s that for an origin story?

Neither of his parents have Steven’s condition, but they do possess a single, normally benign mutation that, when combined, led to Steven’s bizarre “superpower”. His genome and others like his are being investigated by Californian company Genentech to create more effective painkillers that aren’t based on potentially addictive opioids like morphine.

Another man, Timothy Dreyer, possesses a condition known as sclerosteosis, which gives him enhanced bone density, due to a mutation in a protein that normally acts as a “brake” on bone growth. Subsequently, he can resist injuries that would cripple a normal person. Amgen is trying to create a drug that mimics Dreyer’s genetic mutation

rough foreplay, and once the eggs are fertilised, the successful male will guard the female until she lays her eggs. After that, the female will fly away to generate a new batch of eggs and continue the process again. Talk about the village bicycle.

Another fab thing about the damselfly is when they are doing the snu snu, their bodies form a love heart, and sex lasts more than 30 minutes. After copulation, the male sticks around for another 90 minutes while the female chooses a site to lay her eggs. This is a 100 per cent increase* on the human male, which usually makes do with a pat on the back followed by a roll over and go to sleep.

This research provides scientists with a greater understanding of other insect populations such as mosquitos and teste flies, and allows insights into how reproduction works across a life cycle. In the case of the damselfly, reproduction never stops, no matter what age! *Disclaimer: This may not be scientifically accurate.

as a treatment for osteoporosis. After positive results in lab mice and human trials, the drug is currently in its final stage of testing, with results due in 2016. NASA has already shown interest in Amgen’s results, hoping to use the resulting drug to combat the bone wastage that astronauts undergo when they encounter extended periods of microgravity.

So why the sudden appearance and interest in these “gifts from nature”, as one Amgen researcher dubbed them? Thank the Human Genome Project. Where previously it took 13 years and three billion dollars to sequence all the genes of one person, today we can sequence the genomes of thousands of people, keep a database of them and search for genetic “outliers”, all for the low sum of $1000 a patient.

People like Pete and Dreyer aren’t quite exciting enough to make a movie about, but they are helping to save the world in their own way. editor@salient.org.nz

Books

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salient

Thanks to Vic Books for providing a copy to review

On Joan Didion Jayne Mulligan Moments of revelation are a common phenomenon; you meet your future significant other, you see people you love come and go, you watch milestones unfold, and each moment seems to hang in a suspend state of permanence and transience.

The same such revelatory moment occurred when I first read Joan Didion’s work.

I remember lying in the lounge of my last flat, strewn across an incredibly uncomfortable couch, of which the bottom was falling out and our attempts to rebuild the base using old cushions and pillows had only marginally saved it from complete disaster. I had issued several books from the public library; I was unemployed, or imminently so, and had decided to undergo a comprehensive range of reading to circumvent the inevitable employment-related depression.

I have probably picked up the name Joan Didion as an important author to read from a writer friend, or through Gilmore Girls (my unashamed source of many pop/high cultural knowledge).

I found her in the city library and selected my favourite of her covers. It was an old hardback and the plastic that had been wrapped around the dust jacket had yellowed with age. It was a 1970s cover: Play It as It Lays: A Novel by Joan Didion, the front cover read. The title was positioned towards the top, and was set against a pink background with a sunburst. The rest of the cover had a white background with a black, almost geometric, snake coiled into a spiral in the middle of the cover.

As I lay on the couch, with the plastic cover creaking between my fingers, the old smell of library books filling my nostrils, I felt an immense shift within. I read the story of a floating woman, whose life of ornament had severed her realities between how she existed as a person, and within her mind.

The descriptions of affairs, of abortions, and of suicide, were gripping and unsettling. The story traces the mental collapse of the central character, which was a powerful thing to read as I faced my own version of a collapse.

There seemed to be a cellular change, and I knew I had to have more. I tracked down her collection of essays Slouching Towards Bethlehem; after a simple peek into the collection resulted in reading a whole essay, I decided, for whatever reason, to ration it. I didn’t want to destroy the sensation of having read her different works for the first time—I didn’t

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want to rush my first time, any of them. I still haven’t finished this collection.

Joan Didion is a novelist, memoirist, scriptwriter, and essayist.

Her writing is razor precise and compact. Her writing has been described to possess “Unsentimental precision and compactness”. Taking her lessons from writers such as Ernest Hemingway and Henry James, in their sparse and meticulous use of language, she saw the importance of the sentence.

She started her career writing for Vogue in the 1950s, the position a prize for an essay competition in her final year of university. The shift from university to Vogue was “so profoundly unnatural”; however, she quickly became senior feature editor. While there, she wrote her first novel Run River, her first collection of essays, her second novel, and then met her husband, and moved to California.

Joan Didion, however, is one of those writers. I’m pained by the cliché; she has probably inspired most writers to be writers.

Despite this, I remain unable to find a reason to eschew my adoration. Quotes from her work fill pages upon pages of Tumblr, and so, too, do images of her—she has a cultish following.

This year saw Joan Didion become the face for French fashion brand Celine. In her usual black over-sized glasses, and chic bob, Didion seems to embody effortless elegance as well as intelligence. But as critics lampoon her for succumbing to the advertising machine, I consider it a testament to her particular brand of womanhood.

As an author she cultivated her image. Her covers often featured her picture; often she was in some very Californian car, or smoking, or wearing very large, black sunglasses. Images are part and parcel with her sense of womanhood, something that was very settling to learn from such a wise and inspiring author. Sartorial precision is exacted as she details her essentials when packing, in an essay in her collection The White Album—a collection for which I have just won an auction online.

Joan Didion is essential reading for everyone in early adult life, and her importance doesn’t diminish as you age. A harrowing two-part series of memoirs outline the loss of both her husband, and then her daughter. Her observations are eternally universal, and profound in their lack of sentimentality. Rather it’s her earnest and honest emotional realities that slip into your core.

Joan Didion’s Bangers Slouching Towards Bethlehem (1968) Play It as It Lays (1970) The Year of Magical Thinking (2005)

Games

Five Steps to Becoming an Indie Developer Cameron Gray

So, you like video games. Good for you, so do millions of others. The gaming industry is a major juggernaut in the entertainment business these days, so it’s only natural that everyone wants a slice of the pie.

Normally, ordinary saps like yourself get in on the action by recording themselves looking silly while playing, but that’s for people with actual comedic talent. You want to feel empowered, you want to create, and you want to be a true artist of the interactive medium!

“But wait!” I hear you screaming from your dingy little apartment, “Games are expensive and I don’t have money, plus I’ve never typed a line of code in my life!” Well, never fear! Even with your lack of a budget or any discernible skill, it’s no problem at all; just follow these five easy steps and you’ll be kickin’ ass, takin’ names and makin’ great games in no time.

Choose a genre Like all forms of entertainment, the gaming public likes to follow trends; certain genres will become really popular at any one time.

You’ll definitely want to keep up with these trends, because otherwise anything you make simply won’t get noticed! Open-world survival games are super in-vogue right now, and even though they can be incredibly tricky to master, anyone can make one, as you’ll see below.

Get an engine and some assets The best developers out there tend to create their own engines to power their games and the assets to fill them with content, but that unfortunately takes actual effort. Don’t worry though, the Unity engine is here to save you! Unity is super easy to use and there’s plenty of tutorials out there to help you out. There’s even a store where you can buy and download assets to put in your game, because you know you can’t make anything vaguely resembling an original idea—hundreds of hard-working folks have done it all for you, and by using their stuff, you’re supporting independent developers such as yourself !

Make your game As I said above, just follow the tutorials, stick to all the assets you

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bought and you’ll be fine. Don’t worry about any bugs—they’re inherent to the engine and someone else will fix it eventually. Besides, glitches are funny as hell! Oh, and if you’re making a survival game, don’t forget the crafting system.

Put your game on Steam Once you’ve finished something that looks pretty much playable, it’s time to rake in the big bucks! Getting a game on Steam used to be super hard, since they used to hire curators that sorted through all the games and made sure they were of decent quality. Now that they’ve ditched them all and replaced them with Greenlight, you’re a shoo-in to get on the Steam storefront. Just pay Valve $100 to become a certified developer, put up some gameplay footage you recorded with the free version of Fraps and bribe voters with free keys for your game; that’ll reel them in. Once your game’s been approved, charge the punters $10 for your masterpiece and watch the money roll in. Oh, and don’t forget to say the game’s in Early Access if it’s a little (read: very) unpolished.

Revel in the adulation It feels good to be an indie dev, doesn’t it? Your game is fucking awesome and you know it! Hell, some bastards actually paid their hard earned money for something you made in just a few hours!

Who cares if they ask for a refund, their money is yours now! Even if that fat bastard Jim Sterling calls your game a piece of shit on YouTube, he used game footage that belongs to you! That gives you all the rights to hit him with a copyright takedown notice, so his criticism is deleted from the internet forever! Nothing can stop you now, because you’re an indie game developer!

Once you’ve followed these steps, you’ll be well on your way to being the best damn game developer the world has ever seen, with the money and the adulation to back it up! Go out there and make ol’ Cameron proud!

DISCLAIMER: Salient and the author of this article take no responsibility for any losses or personal injury to one’s ego arising from the use of this guide, including, but not limited to, DDoS attacks, death threats on Twitter, and legitimate negative criticism. Any resemblance to actual thought processes of shitty indie developers is both purely coincidental and totally intentional (seriously, people have actually done these things). This article is a work of satire and if you haven’t realised that by now, may God have mercy on your soul.

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Fashion

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salient

How not to look like a first year Jess Scott

2 for 1 Margherita

pizzas every friday from 3pm

Bartending has ruined numerous things for me*, including but not limited to my social life, Tinder dates, the illusion that two-for-one cocktails will actually get you drunk, and everything I was wearing the time I spilt 135 mL of flaming Chartreuse down myself.

I am, however, enabled prime observational opportunity of the extremities of human behaviour, from the painfully sober side of the bar. I have been privy to the mating rituals of middle-aged couples grinding on each other against bar stools, have witnessed drunk first year girls solicit kebabs from complete strangers, and have deflected the slurred seductive attempts of every straight male to pass the threshold. Tip me and perhaps I’ll endure your mindless rambling for an extra 30 seconds, but no, sweetheart, despite your claim that you have lost your number, you cannot have mine.

I have also adapted the acute ability to spot freshers from 800 metres away. My spidey senses begin to tingle ferociously when a pack of first years stumbles down Forrester’s Lane, preempting the cacophony of screeches and tequila shot requests destined to erupt upon their arrival.

How to disguise the fact that you live in a hall: 1. Don’t wear white sandals to town (or in any context whatsoever). For more advice see my previous column “White Sandal Girl”.

2. Avoid shrieking. Please, for the love of God, do not shriek.

The Hunter Lounge

3. If you own one of those atrocious fold-over skorts that looks like a fancy napkin, ritualistically burn it.

4. Playsuits. Specifically those ghastly, shapeless ones with the scalloped shorts and stupid little pompoms. They are so incredibly frumpy and unflattering. On everyone.

5. T-shirt dresses. Honestly, ew. Love yourselves.

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6. If you’re going to snog strangers, by all means go wild, but be sure to remove the tell-tale lipstick smudges from around your mouth (and nose). Not a gr8 look. (As someone who has had to taxi her flatmate from home to the bathroom of Edison’s with emergency makeup supplies to avoid this scenario, stay woke.) *Disclaimer: I am however now immune to the eternal question “Is he hot or is it because he’s a bartender?” He is merely the supplier of alcohol. The allure is gone. (Unless aforementioned alcohol is free, in which case he is a fabulous human being and here is my number, looking forward to never returning your calls or to this bar.)

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Visual Arts

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Vaginal Arts Sharon Lam Art is important and vaginas are important. Here are three important vaginal art pieces that say as much about contemporary art as they do about society: 1. Casey Jenkins—Casting Off My Womb This Australian artist spent a month in an art gallery knitting from wool stored in her vaginal tunnel. After receiving overwhelming internet backlash, she responded by saying that “Commentators seem to be genuinely outraged that I would dare to do something that they view as strange and repulsive with my body without displaying shame.

Women putting themselves forward in any capacity in the world is frowned upon, and for a woman to put herself forward in a way that is not designed to be attractive or pleasing is downright seditious.” I for one think that not only is the piece clever feminist commentary, but that the resulting woollen “scarf ” holds in itself high in artistic merit. Impossible to ever exactly replicate again, the period-blood patterned wool is a completely original and organic creation that is better to look at than most things in galleries these days.

2. Rokudenashi-ko a.k.a. Megumi Igarashi—Pussy Boat This Japanese artist made her vagina open source by publishing its 3D data online. She also used the data to 3D-print her own canoe, and for these activities she has spent time in jail on obscenity charges. On her charges she says, “the fact that I was arrested for this at all shows that Japan is still very backwards about women’s sexual expression, that it is not acknowledged at all except as something for men’s pleasure”; and on her work, “the vagina is ridiculed. It’s lusted after. Men don’t see women as equals—to them, women are just vaginas. Then they call my vagina-themed work ‘obscene’, and judge me according to laws written by and for men.” She is currently on trial where she faces up to two years in prison and a fine of up to ¥2.5m. You can help support her by visiting her store (ganka.buyshop.jp/) where she sells products such as glow in the dark vagina characters.

3. Deborah de Robertis—Mirror of Origin This Luxembourgian artist sat in front of Gustave Courbet’s The Origin of the World, spread her legs apart and displayed her own vagina to cheers, applause, and disgruntled security staff. Courbet’s painting itself was, and still is, controversial. It shattered homogenous European painting tradition by actually including pubic hair, a symbol of sexual power. As John Berger writes, “the woman’s sexual passion needs to be minimised so that the spectator may feel that he has the monopoly of such passion. Women are there to feed an appetite, not to have any of their own.” De Robertis builds on top of this conversation, unflinchingly displaying herself to all spectators— her gaze is not welcoming or coy like that of the classical female nude, but daringly confrontational.

Casey Jenkins - Casting Off My Womb

Deborah de Robertis - Mirror of Origin

Gustave Courbet - The Origin of the World

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Music

Errbody got beef with Drake Kate Robertson In my eyes Drake can do no wrong. I don’t care how arrogant people claim he is, or how disconnected he is from the hardships that so many great rappers have faced; I will always see the goofy Nickelodeon alum through rose tinted glasses.

But not everyone has been so favourable. In case you live under a rock, Drake has been at the centre of some serious beef these past few weeks. Said beef that got me thinking about all of the other catfights that our seemingly sweeterthan-honey Drizzy has gotten himself into over the years.

Like a bad boyfriend you keep running back to, all it takes is a flash of his Hollywood smile to have me weak at the knees all over again. So in an effort to properly establish where we stand, I decided to take a trip down memory lane and revisit some of Drizzy’s very best battles.

Pusha T – May 2012 Who even is Pusha T these days? Good question. And this beef sure as hell didn’t do his B-grade career any favours.

Like all great rap wars, this drama was born out of a song Pusha released dissing Drake for signing with Lil Wayne’s label Cash Money. Like two parents fighting over custody, Drake was merely a pawn in a much bigger issue between T and Weezy. Pusha never stood a chance. Moral of the story—never pick fights with rappers whose mentors are 10,000 times more successful than you are.

Drake – 1 Haterz - Nil Kanye West – July 2009 A couple of passive-aggressive teenage girls these two were. It all began when Kanye directed Drake’s first video back in ‘09 and it was a royal fuck up. Kanye then bailed and left Drake to clean up the mess. They stole each other’s girls, dissed each other in songs, and sent many a Twitter burn. Then, in August 2013, the rap music gods performed some voodoo magic and they somehow patched up the friendship. It was almost too easy. Was the four-year drama nothing more than an extravagant PR stunt? We common folk will never know. I’m calling this one a draw.

Drake - 1 Haterz - Nil Kendrick Lamar – Early 2013 With a history more complex than a Home & Away love triangle, I’m not even gonna bother with these two. www.salient.org.nz

Where Kendrick released a politically loaded album that will be cherished for years to come, Drake continued to throw stones like a kid in the playground. One point to The Haterz.

Drake - 1 Haterz - 1 Childish Gambino – July 2014 Ahhhh Childish Gambino. The sexiest, most swoonworthy rapper of them all (ahem, Magic Mike XXL). Mid2014 this small fry decided he was ready to play with the big kids and hung Drake out to dry in an interview, saying, “Nah, I ain’t Drake. I sing better. I do better.” As if that wasn’t enough, he came back for round two in December with what might just be the sassiest backhanded compliment of 2014: “I don’t hate Drake at all. I really like Drake, if not for no other reason than he makes me better… I think he’s a really good writer and rapper. Right now, I think I’m better than him.” And that my friends, is how you burn in style.

Drake - 1 Haterz - 2 Meek Mill – July 2015 Ooooh yes, the beef that tipped me over the edge. Here goes. A few weeks back, Drake made headlines over a catfight that more closely resembles an episode of Real Housewives. Nicki’s current boo (and opening act for her Pinkprint Tour), Meek Mill, started calling Drake out on Twitter. Yip, he pulled the d-bag keyboard warrior move saying, “Stop comparing Drake to me too… he don’t write his own raps!” But Meek fucked up. The so-called ghost writers were in fact co-writers who were properly credited.

So what did Drake do? He dropped not one, but two songs on Soundcloud, calling Meek out. I think it’s safe to say Meek killed the rap battle with his embarrassingly bad rebuttal titled “Wanna Know.” Drake’s smooth moves win.

Drake - 2 Haterz - 2 Well, that ended in a goddamn draw and I have wasted hours of my life that I’ll never get back, so I’ll finish with this—ignorance is bliss. If you can look past my reality TV obsession, then I can surely turn a blind eye to the many verbal wars you’re waging, and we can all live happily ever after in a diamond encrusted mansion. The end.

The essential Drake vs. The Haterz playlist Drake—“Used To” Dr. Dre feat. Kendrick Lamar, Justus & Anderson.

Paak—“Deep Water” Drake—“Charged Up” Meek Mill—“Wanna Know” Drake—“Back to Back” Nick Minaj feat. Drake and Chris Brown—“Only” Drake—“No New Friends” Childish Gambino—“Sober” Drake—“Energy” Dr. Dre feat. King Mez, Marsha Ambrosius & Kendrick Lamar—“Darkside/Gone”

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Music

Compton Dr. Dre

½ Josh Ellery Dre is finally back in the game. After 16 agonising years of waiting for the follow-up to 1999’s classic 2001, Dr. Dre has finally dropped Compton as a surprise release.

Compton is inspired by the upcoming film Straight Outta Compton, which of course depicts the story of N.W.A. As there seems to currently be a lot of retrospect and analysis being applied to N.W.A. and the rap movement around the late 1980s through to the 1990s, Dre too applies this sentiment of retrospection to Compton, and this forms the main theme of the record.

A heap of collaborators pop up on Compton—legends of old and new school rap, as well as a gaggle of underground rappers that Dre has taken under his wing. Some of these rappers pull through in a big way—King Mez’s star turn on the opening “Talk About It” and Jon Connor’s track “One Shot One Kill” spring to mind—and this really adds to the quality of the album.

There’s a wee bit of controversy around Eminem’s verse on “Medicine Man”, but despite this, Dre’s production, and perhaps just his presence in general, brings out what could be one of the best Eminem verses in recent memory.

This too applies to Snoop Dogg, who seems to be rapping

with more tenacity and urgency than in recent times, especially considering the ill-fated Snoop Lion project of 2013. Kendrick Lamar’s presence on Compton cannot be understated, his verse on “Genocide” is an early highlight of the album, whilst Kendrick’s rapping style seems to transcend into Dre’s own rapping on this album, which will perhaps fuel rumours that Kendrick is ghost-writing for Dre. Dre himself comes up with a solo gem to finish the album in the form of “Talking To My Diary”. The track brings back the vintage G-Funk production that Dre became renowned for and it is flawless. Dre’s rap on this track is also super, featuring a ton references to his N.W.A. days—particularly to his deceased friend, Eazy-E. I applaud Dre for releasing another album, given that he really didn’t have to. Compton doesn’t diminish Dre’s discography, but rather acts as a stellar grand finale to one of the best three-album runs in the history of hiphop music. Dre’s influence on the hip-hop/rap genre is immeasurable, and it’s quite a relief that he’s pulled through with Compton: a superb send-off from one of rap’s greatest.

editor@salient.org.nz

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VUWSA

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Ask the Exec: 1. Hey there! What’s up?

Ellen (Education Officer): I just got off crutches after two months so that’s amazing!

Madeleine (Welfare Vice-President): Just came out of the student fees forum, had an interesting chat about student debt with the Chancellor. Told him about how horrified my grandma was the day I graduated in May and told her my grad cap had cost me $40K. 2. What’s a typical week like for you at VUWSA? Ellen: As Education Officer, my role is centred around keeping in touch with students and being the student voice on a bunch of different boards and working groups around the University.

This means reading through different agendas, meeting up with students or gauging their opinions through surveys, and helping any Class Reps that contact me work through a variety of issues that might arise in their courses.

Madeleine: My role at VUWSA is awesome because it’s really varied. Some weeks I’ll be focussing internally within Vic on improving welfare services, others I’ll be looking outward at issues with housing and transport in the city.

3. Who is your current champion of awesomeness for women?

Ellen: Current champion of women: Malala Yousafzai.

Recently read a book about the importance and power of educating women, and Malala is such an inspiring leader in making this happen in her country and others.

Madeleine: Man, I have a different answer to this question every week but at the moment it’s definitely Kiran Gandhi.

She’s so amazing, drummer for M.I.A. and can run a marathon and can do it while freebleeding, what a champ.

4. Is Victoria doing enough to make our university a safe and supportive space for women students?

Ellen: I feel like in general the university is usually receptive to the needs of women, but only when we bring them up—for example the Te Puni walkway lighting last year. The university could definitely be more proactive.

Madeleine: There’s a bunch of fantastic student-driven initiatives that create safe spaces for women at Vic, but the uni could definitely be doing more. The development of a progressive and ambitious sexual violence prevention and response strategy is an example of that.

5. Who would you fight the patriarchy with?

Ellen: Nicki Minaj. Not a huge fan of her music but she seems like a seriously independent and headstrong woman I would love to spend time with.

Madeleine: Deena Mohamed. She draws this really amazing webcomic called Qahera about a Muslim superhero who combats Islamophobia and misogyny. You should look it up!

I’m a grown woman and I can do whatever I want (despite the chronic undervaluing of female leadership) Madeleine Ashton-Martyn

Your VUWSA President usually occupies this space but considering the fact that the total equity groups he’s a part of is 0, I’m taking it for the Women’s issue. I hope this is reflective of the rest of my life, pushing cis-het-white-dudes out of spaces they occupy.

It’s dark that in a university environment, the mass-scale occupation of cis-het white dudes and their voices in leadership is still such a significant issue. And yet, as a female leader working within Victoria’s structures, I have experienced misogyny.

It’s important here to acknowledge the fact that I am cisgender, Pākehā, able-bodied, and from an upper middle class background, so I am still incredibly privileged and many women experience much greater levels of oppression than I do.

My high school teachers told my parents that I struggled with group work because I was “too bossy”. No shit, I know it sounds like a SOSC111 example of socialisation but things like that have genuinely impacted me. Even being comfortable referring to myself as a leader is the result of a long battle of unlearning the idea that I have to downplay my achievements in order to be a Good Person.

While working on VUWSA, my leadership ability has been questioned because of my gender. I have been criticised for having too much drive, for being outspoken, for not being diplomatic enough. I have been cut off in the middle of a sentence in meetings more times than I can count. I have had tertiary issues mansplained to me by people completely foreign to this area. People don’t believe that I am a Vice-President of an organisation responsible for millions of dollars, or that this is one of three governance positions I currently hold.

I have seen the look in various members of university leadership’s eyes when they meet me and automatically assume that I am Rick’s girlfriend, and heard the way they speak to me change when I introduce myself by my job title. I have been in meetings where both of us will be advocating for the same thing, but his voice is heard a lot louder than mine.

University environments are progressive, but they are not immune from encouraging and reproducing patriarchal norms. There is a known deficit and undervaluing of female leadership in academia, there are more barriers for female academics being named professors, and the student experience is still riddled with patriarchal encounters.

Women’s Week rules as an opportunity to assess gendered power dynamics in your actions and your environment. Think about female leaders in your life who you respect. Think about your own positioning. Think about whether this is a time when you should be speaking or when you should be listening. Think about how you can amplify the voices of women around you. Listen to Rihanna. editor@salient.org.nz

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Comics

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Puzzles

Target goals: Pretty good—30, Solid—38, Great—44

“THE FACTS OF LIFE”

Medium

...asking for a friend

ACROSS 1. Scarface of children’s books 5. Type of bladder 9. 1983 Schumacher film starring Mr. T 14. Captain Cook’s first name, in Te Reo 15. Daughter of Uranus, in Greek myth 16. Unaccompanied 17. Spengler of ‘Ghostbusters’ 18. “It’s _____ world out there” 19. Its capital is Valletta 20. Typist’s key statistic 23. It may be found in a core 24. Priests’ wear 25. Prohibition lawbreaker 29. Way over there 32. Healthy look 33. ‘Eldorado’ band 34. The last of 24 letters 36. Slack off 37. Jackrabbit ___ (‘Pulp Fiction’ restaurant) 40. Its anthem translates to ‘The Eastern Sun’ 41. French region whose prefecture is Grenoble 43. Zero, to the All Whites 44. In the thick of 45. Place for roses or dozes 46. Voice role for Mila Kunis 50. Hall of residence opened in 1933 51. Vegetable that can be dried or split 52. It gets teenagers into

gear 59. Swan who inspired Anastasia Steele 60. ‘The Miller’s ___’ 61. ‘Rendezvous with ____’ (Arthur C. Clarke novel) 62. In any way 63. In any way 64. Leave on the cuttingroom floor 65. Fixed some loafers, perhaps 66. Energy-saving illuminators (abbr.)

67. Behave like the moon, half the time DOWN 1. Masticate (no, not that...)

2. Bricks from Denmark 3. Love in Las Palmas 4. Energy from huge fans 5. Wrestles 6. Melodramatic words of sadness 7. Shakespearean king 8. ‘Maxim’, for one 9. “That sucks, dude” 10. Word that’s often a pun in Christmas movie titles 11. Samuel of gunsmithing 12. Starting chip 13. Old actress Arthur 21. Model, as for a portrait 22. Notre Dame is on one 25. Jaded 26. Moved in a viscous

way 27. Right-angled shape 28. On the way out 29. Enrico who built the first nuclear reactor 30. Once more 31. Ayn who wrote books about trains and awful people 32. Lighthearted 35. ‘Be Kind Rewind’ actress 38. Space station that crashed in 2001 39. Footwear you can be forgiven for wearing to

class right now (holy hell is it cold) 42. May’s birthstone 47. “Ich bin ___ Berliner” 48. She left a trail of breadcrumbs 49. Finder’s cost 50. Pixar film that uses clips from ‘Hello, Dolly!’

52. Jared who’s playing the Joker 53. Airline whose hub is Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport 54. Glowstick party 55. Rosebud, for one

(least spoilery spoiler alert ever) 56. Word in ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ followed by “Oooooooooh” 57. “Let’s do this” 58. Host of the Turner Prize contest 59. Humanities degrees, for short

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Want to sit at this desk?

DREAM JOB AVAILABLE!!!!

VUWSA is now hiring 2016’s Salient editor/s The job starts in February and is a paid position of 37.5 hours per week if one editor, or 20 hours each if two.

The job involves putting the magazine together each week of semester, liaising with contributors, managing a group of paid staff and volunteers, recommending the 2017 student media budget to VUWSA, and engaging with the student body. Mac knowledge is preferable.

If you think this could be you, or if you’d like a detailed job description, email the VUWSA Office Administrator timothy.grigg@vuwsa.org.nz.

Applications should include a cover letter outlining your vision for Salient 2016, your CV, and a portfolio of your written work.

The deadline for applications is Sunday 30 August at 5pm.