“We are our ancestors’ wildest dreams”: 50 Years kōrero report
The evening’s topics were mana wahine, feminism and womanism during the Auckland Women’s Centre’s lifetime so far – but unsurprisingly, the speakers also made call backs to earlier history, and clarified present and future grief, anger and hope. To read the “short version” of this report (our favourite quotes), click here.
Watch the discussion on YouTube
Pausing to celebrate a history of activism and achievement
Where were you in 1975, the year the Auckland Women’s Centre hatched? Melani Anae was caring for her newborn baby, after three years of community organising with the Polynesian Panthers. Judy McGregor, as a reporter for The Dominion, was walking with and reporting daily on the Māori Land March led by Kahurangi (Dame) Whina Cooper. Naomi Simmonds hadn’t yet been born, but when chair Stacey Morrison asked about te wiki o te reo Māori – which is also celebrating its 50th anniversary this year – the mana wahine scholar commented on the importance of milestones in a fast-paced, transactional and extractive world: to pause, reflect, celebrate and be grateful “for all of the people, the energy, the places that have brought us to the point that we’re in.”
For Naomi – whose whakapapa includes Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāti Huri and Ngāti Wehiwehi, and whose PhD is about Māori maternal well-being – those people who’ve brought us here include wāhine Māori in the 19th century whom she researched for the Waitangi Tribunal’s Mana Wahine kaupapa inquiry. “Even if you look back at the times where everything has seemed quite hopeless and quite desperate, there are examples of Māori women writing letters to the King, writing letters to the Queen, making petitions, pulling survey pegs out of the ground so that the surveyors couldn’t survey their land… there were too many [examples] to count,” she said. Importantly, the Tribunal inquiry “acknowledge[s] that we have never been silent passive recipients of [oppression. Māori women have] always been vocal or we’ve always pushed back… across all areas of social justice.… 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.”
Multi-space resistance has certainly been Melani’s experience – from being a teenage Polynesian Panther, to “conscientising” students of all ages about racism as an Associate Professor of Pacific Studies, Queen’s Service Order member, and a holder of two Samoan chiefly titles, Lupematasila from her father’s village, Falelatai, and Misatauveve from her mother’s village, Siumu. In the early 1970s, the Panthers ran food co-ops with the People’s Union, children’s homework centres, and the “TAB” – the Tenants Aid Brigade, to combat racist landlords. They created a legal aid booklet “because our parents didn’t know their legal rights, let alone human rights,” Melani told us. In 1972, Melani and other Panthers circulated Nga Tamatoa’s petition for te reo Māori to be taught in schools. “We took it around to Ponsonby and Herne Bay. We were spat on. We were jeered at – it was just a terrible time. But we did get those signatures.”
Among people who got us to where we are today, Naomi also included wāhine creating “really subtle expressions of resistance and reclamation” such as “speaking the reo to their babies at home when it wasn’t something that was heard around them.” She acknowledged Melani’s story of looking after her baby and “missing the activism” after her years with the Panthers. As Naomi put it, raising a child is also “an act of activism isn’t it? And how you’re raising your child as well.” (Later on, she emphasised the importance of holding space for raising children, without expecting too much (other) activism from carers: “We need to be caring for those that care for our babies.”)
Now: Slipping backward on pay equity and other issues
Stacey and Dame Judy – Human Rights Professor at AUT – picked up on Naomi’s theme of loud voices and quiet voices. “I’ve had the privilege of working with the E Tū union and interviewing female aged-care workers about their disgust around their extinguished [pay equity] claim,” said Judy. “What I’ve seen is a collectivity and a unity about their anger, about their drive to overturn the legislation, about their ability to speak out and speak up. So, they’re both quiet voices and they’re angry voices. But they’re essentially women’s voice. They’ve got agency. They’re not prepared to let this government grind them down.”
130,000 women are directly affected by extinguished pay equity claims (equating to $12.8 billion stolen over the next four years), but the aged-care claim is the largest with 65,000 women involved, including Māori, Pacific and migrant workers. Judy recalled aged-care worker Sushila Devi challenging Christopher Luxon to come and work with her for one day as an aged carer. She said, “I want him 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 herself accepted such a challenge – for three weeks – in 2011, when she was Aotearoa’s first Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner. “I had an opportunity in a small provincial town to go undercover and work as a carer, because the carers had challenged political figures and public figures to ‘come and do our job before you speak about us’ […] And it for me it was transformational. I lost about a stone and a half [9.5kg, in] 3 weeks. I’d never worked so hard in my life. I couldn’t do the job because I wasn’t physically strong enough. You know, it altered my entire world view. I haven’t been the same since.”
Judy’s resulting report helped lead to pay equity legislation – the very laws the current government attacked by surprise this year. That’s not the only concern regarding women’s rights and human rights currently – other government signals are hostile (such as potentially removing the Ministries for Women and Pacific Peoples) and in the wider community, issues such as online hate and misogyny, which Naomi mentioned. Judy noted New Zealand is “slipping” and “sliding backwards” as measured by formal indexes on political participation for example, (the National Council of Women’s gender attitudes survey was released the day of the forum, and also shows concerning trends). Meanwhile – although Melani is proud New Zealand was the first country to apologise for racism when then-PM Jacinda Ardern apologised for the Dawn Raids – she notes dawn raids are still happening. “Not surprising, right? … It was a dawn raid. They called it a compliance check. … It’s systemic racism and institutional racism which we have to face and fight against.”
Naomi picked up on Melani’s characterisation of colonisation, Christianity and capitalism as the “three Cs” of oppression: “I would say the three Cs are still our biggest challenge. I think they create a [system that’s] very extractive, disconnected and devaluing for women.”
The need to acknowledge grief
Judy reported, among women workers, “there’s grief and anger – and also this hope that we can do something.”
Judy’s identification of grief, anger and hope resonated for Naomi. “A lot of those emotions can coexist in one space,” she said. “I do worry that we are always in action – action, action, action! – and the grief hits us particularly as wahine, the grief hits us in our hauora [wellbeing]… that we feel that grief and our anger, and it manifests in our bodies. […]”
So “we need processes. We need ritual to be able to tuku [have release]. We need to release that grief … Alongside teaching our young wahine how to mobilise, how to create systems of support and action, we also need to … support them to process grief, to process anger, to create networks of support where they can just be mamae [pain] because this stuff is mamae and we can’t always protect our tamariki from that mamae.”
Several tikanga Māori were suggested for comforting, for processing. Naomi mentioned cleansing in water (as actor Miriama McDowell also mentioned in her 2024 kōrero), and Stacey mentioned fire. Naomi also described Matariki as a public, collective opportunity both to process grief and crystallise hopes. “There are lots of other opportunities within te ao Māori, but that’s a really beautiful public reclamation where actually we see so many of our communities use that time and space to process, to be hopeful, to send their wishes to Hiwa i te rangi. That, to me, is a really beautiful example of how we can do that as a nation and not just as individuals.” (Stacey mentioned Matariki is “the first Indigenous public holiday in the world.”)
As for the anger and action, Judy has hope that one will lead to the other. “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.”
Melani emphasised the importance of organisation for action to be effective. She note that in both the Black Panthers and the Polynesian Panthers (and other organisations), “the sisters were the rank and file of that movement” – the “top organisers” of the gains made. “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.”
Judy thinks “a week strike [of low-paid women], and the country would be on its knees. That would fix pay equity forever!” She acknowledged the barriers of cost and carer concern for those missing out on care during the week.
Future: what are we building towards?
For Naomi, the response to the attacks is replacing the three Cs, as merely “making tweaks” to their ideological system will make transformation to a better future almost impossible. She sees the solution as creating alternative systems that are connected, relational, generative and restorative “for us as people, but also for our taiao – for our environment.”
A particular need that Naomi talked about was alternative models of leadership to the current system which subjects women to “very violent masculinist” ways which keep pushing the boundaries so that what’s offensive becomes acceptable. “The current model does not keep women safe….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? We all hold that decision together.”
Naomi sees creation of alternatives already in “the new generation that’s coming through”: “I have to acknowledge Queen Ngawai hono i te po. She embodied that new generation in her speech at Koroneihana the other week. … She said we aren’t Māori because we have a common enemy. We’re Māori because of our language, because of our whenua, because of our taiao, because of our relationships and our whakapapa. And so actually, I think what we’re seeing is a lot more energy going into that restoration and the recreation of the alternatives, those ancient alternatives, a revival of those whilst at the same time still holding the fight. But that [fight] can’t be the sum total of who we are.
“…we are our ancestors wildest dreams, but we need to walk that every day.”
Good guidance for us all, as we build the future we want to see.
Unpacking “Mana Wahine”, “Womanism” and “Feminism” – and the solidarity between them
Mana wahine: reclaiming “the uniqueness of being a Māori woman in this whenua”
Naomi emphasised that mana wahine is an ancient concept “born from this whenua… shaped by the history of this place”, and embodied within other ideas like ‘whare tangata’ (womb; literally ‘house of humanity’) and ūkaipō (mother, source of sustenance; literally ‘’to be fed from the breast at night’), as well as “our relationship to atua” (gods).
“Our ancestors lived it [mana wahine]”, she explained. “It was a very relational way of being. And if there was a transgression of mana wahine, then it was dealt to” – as many histories and pūrākau show. (Stacey pointed out the classic story of Maui and Hine-nui-te-pō can be framed as the consequences of non-consent: “the penalty will be swift”.)
And mana wahine now? Naomi: “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 also emphasised mana wahine as interdependent with mana tane, mana whānau (including our collective responsibility), and mana whenua. So “it’s part of a much bigger ecosystem.”
She has appreciated studying pūrākau about atua wahine – stories about women gods. Up until relatively recently, atua wahine have been presented “either the villains in a story or as the passive observers or assistants to a male kind of demi God superhero” such as Maui. But now whānau of all ages have access to resources that acknowledge atua wahine as their own beings. “I keep learning new atua almost on a daily basis with people sharing the research,” says Naomi. A principle she has learned is that the pūrākau “are accessible to us to visit and converse with, and uncover all of the layers of meaning that they have over time.” They’re not just one-time chronicles; instead “it becomes a relationship that we build and that is beautiful to have.” For example, the story of Taranga, Maui’s mother, having a stillborn baby, is “a story that we can revisit in all different shapes and forms with our tamariki but also as we grow older and and experience the ups and downs of life as well,” said Naomi.
What about feminism? “It’s not a word that I personally would use in the spaces that I exist in; it would be ‘mana wahine’. But I think there’s a solidarity between feminism and mana wahine,” said Naomi, who went on to talk about the two concepts being in a fluid relationship rather than being static, rigid and completely separate – they’re in a “conversation” about people, information and (social) justice.
Womanism: “embraces both men and women in the struggle against oppression”
“Womanism is a relatively new thread in feminism,” Melani told us. “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 also appreciates womanism’s emphasis on spirituality and relationships, which resonates with the important Samoan concept of the Va, which Melani explained as “the social and sacred spaces of relationships. It’s not just empty space. It’s energy that flows between the people who are experiencing the Va – it could be with your ancestors. It could be with another person. It could be with the rock or mountain.”
“Way back in the 1970s when feminism broke onto the scene… I couldn’t understand it because – coming from a Samoan family – women rule,” said Melani. “There’s matriarchy. My mother was a matriarch. My father gave him her his pay packet every week. That was one level of matriarch. And then my grandmother was another level of matriarch. She really ruled the roost [over] the whole [extended] family. So that’s was my background. So when I was burning my bras back then and thinking ‘this movement!?’, I didn’t really know what it was!”
(Later on, Melani cited colonialism, Christianity, and capitalism – “the three Cs” – for taking “the power away from women in Samoa… You go to Samoa, it’s very androcentric. All the churches there have got male … ministers and the government workers are all [men], all going to United Nations stuff and women are silent.” Giving hope, Melani’s 2014 Marsden Grant research uncovered that younger men matai (chiefs) now include women matai in decision-making, in part due to Samoan diaspora being more critical of the three Cs. And again, access to ancient stories can help lead the way – Nafanua was the goddess of war, and it was Nafanua, a woman, who first carried the four sacred titles of Samoa. “So – very strong women that I grew up with,” said Melani.
Feminism: “economic security is something I would attach to feminism”
For Judy, thinking about feminism means thinking about her mother “who was made a solo mother in her 40s as a post-war bride” with three teenagers to support. She went back into the workforce, using her Pitman shorthand. The resulting economic security “gave her a place in which she could stand for herself with us as kids that wasn’t reliant on a man. And she got her power … and her agency from that economic security. And I don’t think we should shy away from talking about money and feminism because that’s what this government would like us to do – to say that we don’t need to value women because women will do women’s work regardless of what value we ascribe to it.
“So … economic security is something that I’d attach to feminism even if it might look a very Pākehā concept. It’s just followed through with me in life that women who are economically secure have an equality with men that’s essential.” That thinking has been part of Judy’s drive for pay equity (for example), affecting tens of thousands of low-paid women workers of all ethnicities (see main text). Resources – money – are seen as enablers and empowerers. “Imagine the 130,000 women… received the $12.8 billion that was stolen from them in the last budget,” said Judy. “Imagine what that would do to revitalize community, family, themselves, their own identity, their own respect.”