50 Years Kōrero: Favourite Quotes
Here are some of our favourite quotes from the Sept 2025 evening celebrating the last 50 years of mana wahine, womanism and feminism, with Dr Naomi Simmonds, Assoc Prof Melani Anae and Dame Judy McGregor
On mana wahine, womanism and feminism
“For me now, mana wahine is a necessary holding of space to celebrate, to uplift, to reclaim the uniqueness of being a Māori woman in this whenua.” – Naomi
“Way back in the 1970s when feminism broke onto the scene… I couldn’t understand it because – coming from a Samoan family – women rule” – Melani
I think there’s a solidarity between feminism and mana wahine” – Naomi
“Womanism is a relatively new thread in feminism… It was first coined by the black poet and activist Alice Walker in 1983. She defined ‘womanists’ as black women who are committed to survival and wholeness of entire people, male and female. So it embraces both men and women in the struggle against oppression and men are seen as partners in liberation. And I could relate to that …” – Melani
“They are accessible to us to visit and converse with, and uncover all of the layers of meaning that they have over time….it becomes a relationship that we build and that is beautiful to have.” – Naomi, on pūrākau (stories) about atua
Watch the discussion on YouTube
On activism
“Even if you look back at the times where everything has seemed quite hopeless and quite desperate… we have never been silent passive recipients… [Māori women have] always pushed back.” – Naomi
“There’s grief and anger – and also this hope that we can do something.” Judy on low-paid women affected by extinguished pay equity claims.
“I do worry that we are always in action – action, action, action! – and the grief hits us particularly as wahine…[so] we need processes. We need ritual to be able to tuku [have release]. We need to release that grief” – Naomi
“When I look at the struggles that we’re in around women’s undervalued work, I can see … hundreds and hundreds of younger women being just so outraged that the work that they do is not valued and that they feel disrespected. So I am hopeful that there will be a new uprising across the across the motu … Perhaps this government may be a catalyst for the most amazing coalescence of political forces in New Zealand. I think women will be at the centre of that because they’re galvanised by the horrors that are daily inflicted on us…. [Those horrors] will be a catalyst for a new sisterhood [led by] rangitahi.” – Judy
“We have all the poster boys that got into the media, but it was the sisters that did all the work, you know, the pamphlets, the work delivering newspapers, going to schools and doing the homework centres. Nothing will happen without that.” – Melani, on lessons from Black Panthers and Polynesian Panthers for today
“You see people who are fighting for gender equity in all of the other spaces as well. Very rarely are we sitting in one space of resistance.” – Naomi
On caring (as work, and as activism)
Raising a child is also “an act of activism isn’t it? And how you’re raising your child as well… We need to be caring for those that care for our babies.” – Naomi
“I want [Christopher Luxon] to come and help me change an aged-care nappy. Then he would understand the essence of what we do and why our work is undervalued.” – Judy paraphrases aged-care worker Sushila Devi.
“It altered my entire world view. I haven’t been the same since” – Judy, on her undercover experience as an aged care worker
On future visions
“How do we create models of leadership that embody relationships and kindness and care even when we disagree? … [What] if we create collectives of leadership so that we’re actually not putting one person out to be subject to attack, we’re making collective decisions?” – Naomi
“Imagine the 130,000 women… received the $12.8 billion that was stolen from them in the last budget. Imagine what that would do to revitalize community, family, themselves, their own identity, their own respect.” – Judy
“…we are our ancestors wildest dreams, but we need to walk that every day.” – Naomi