New Zealand Labour boss rebuffs TV host’s sexist question | DW |
On her first full day in her new job as the youngest leader in the New Zealand Labour Party’s history and the second woman to fill the role, Jacinda Ardern found herself taking on media misogyny rather than focusing on her upcoming election campaign.
On live television, Ardern told cricketer-cum-chat host Mark Richardson that he went too far in inquiring about her family planning rather than her policies.
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‘Retrograde debate’
On pop culture website thespinoff.co.nz, commentator Madeleine Holden called the fallout a “retrograde debate”: “Asking Ardern about her plans to have children implicitly reinforces the sexist notion that a woman’s primary role is motherhood, no matter how accomplished she is in other areas.”
I see @jacindaardern has already been asked about babies vs career. Please can every nob who asks that ask the same of Bill English?
— Hilary Barry (@Hilary_Barry) 1 augustus 2017
Even Prime Minister Bill English, whose New Zealand National Party Ardern hopes to oust in national elections on September 23, leaped to her defense. “People who are out in the public eye, I think, benefit from a bit of support rather than questions that are really only about their private business,” English, a father of six, told reporters on Wednesday.
A nonscientific poll on The New Zealand Herald’s website attracted more than 9,200 self-selecting respondents, with 65 percent of people backing Ardern, who could become the country’s third female prime minister. In 1893, New Zealand became the first anglophone country to allow women to vote.
“Quite frankly, whether a woman intends on having children or not is none of their bloody business,” said Jackie Blue, New Zealand’s equal opportunities commissioner. “Oh, and by the way, it’s illegal to ask those questions, as they breach the Human Rights Act.”
Across the world, women have increasingly made headway in calling attention to casual misogyny – from sexism in the tech sector to gender bias in the arts. Even Germany’s mainstream right-wing Christian Democrats have acknowledged sexism within their ranks.
○ Jacinda Ardern becomes youngest New Zealand Labour leader after Andrew Little quits | The Guardian |
French women’s rights activist dies – breaking the glass ceiling multiple times over
Simone Veil, French feminist and politician who survived the Holocaust, dies at 89 | JTA |
Veil, a former minister of health who in 2012 was awarded France’s highest honor, passed away this week at her home in Paris, her family told the media in France on Friday. The scholar, former judge and feminist activist was 89.
A lawyer by education, Veil served as minister of health under the center-right government of Valery Giscard d’Estaing and later as president of the European Parliament, as well as a member of the Constitutional Council of France. In 1975, she led the legislation that legalized abortions in France.
President Emmanuel Macron offered his condolences.
“May her example inspire our fellow countrymen, who will find in her the best of France,” Macron said in a message to the family.
Former French President Francois Hollande presented Veil with the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor at the Elysee Palace in 2012. Fewer than 70 people have received the Grand Cross since Napoleon Bonaparte established it in 1802.
Simone Veil, a native of Nice, was imprisoned at Auschwitz and later Bergen-Belsen before she was liberated in April 1945. She published the best-selling autobiography “A Life” in 2007. The following year she was admitted to the Academie Francaise, a highly prestigious institution comprising individuals, often philosophers and writers, recognized for scholarly excellence.
The institution, which has 35 members, of whom only six are women, was “revolutionized” by the admittance of Veil, a longtime campaigner for women’s rights, according to an obituary written about Veil by the RTL broadcaster.
The president of CRIF, the umbrella organization representing French Jewish communities, wrote in a statement that he was “immensely saddened by the passing of Veil.
“With her high standards and loyalty, this activist for women’s rights has left an indelible mark on French politics and its intellectual life,” Francis Kalifat wrote, adding that Veil had done so “with courage and dignity.”
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