The dangers of blogging
March 10th, 2008 at 11:46 am by David FarrarThis is very amusing.
Poneke blogged on the 25th of February about how the era of females occupying almost every top job in NZ seems to be coming to an end, and worried about the lack of role models for young women.
I have two daughters, and since their births I have told them them time and again to look at the country’s political, institutional and business leadership for the proof that “girls really can do anything” in New Zealand. During the last decade, and sometimes for much of the same time, we have had a woman prime minister, a woman leader of the opposition (they even swapped jobs in 1999), a woman governor-general, a woman chief justice, the chief executives of the country’s biggest listed company and one of the biggest banks were women, and latterly so has been the Speaker of Parliament. …
What does concern me is the growing shortage of highly visible top role models for my daughters and other girls and young women. Helen Clark will not be prime minister for much longer – at most till 2011 if she wins the election this year, and only till the coming election if she loses it. …
Then a couple of weeks later on the 9th, Aquilifer commented on the post:
Personally I find being told again and again “girls can do anything” to be demeaning, as is having every woman who has reached success of some degree or another shoved in my face as a role model. I’m not so stupid I can’t work out for myself my own abilities and potential.
It seems sexist to me that we have to gasp in delight and point out every successful woman, as if they have beaten insurmountable odds to get where they are. Now no societal barrier stops woman doing what they want, and we know that women can do every bit as well as men. Do we really need to point it out every time a woman gets into power?
We all reach our positions in life by our personal skills and attributes. The best woman or man will always win. If it’s a woman, that’s great, but if the best happens to be a man, there’s no need to be mournful- they’re still the best, and that’s all that should matter.
— Signed, your daughter
Classic. Poneke has a further thread on his (15 year old) daughter’s correcting of him.
Related posts:
- Women MPs needed
- Contraception and welfare
- The dangers of boat asylum seekers
- Prime Minister Kevin Rudd
March 10th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
Remember Sir Ed Hillary’s non-PC comments years ago about the lack of good role models for NZ BOYS?
Vote:March 10th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
Ouchies.
You go girl.
I could use a standard bearer too.
Vote:March 10th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
I find it had to imagine any man thinking Helen Clark should be a role model for his daughters. That would be like holding up David Benson-Pope as a role model for ones son. A women can be competent, intelligent and successful and still be feminine. Muriel Newman would be be one very good example. She would be a far better role model than Helen Clark.
Vote:March 10th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
Pretty classic really, it reflects so nicely a generational gap, my generation see how much it took for Women to be treated as equals & likely overcompensate, our kids just assume that equality is the way it is & have moved on to best person wins.
Vote:March 10th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
I could use a standard bearer too.
Well spotted. She is fluent in written and spoken Latin, too. God knows where she gets it all from!
Vote:March 10th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
Pretty funny. Thankfully my kids are too young for this. Oddly I had envisaged Poneke as a woman.
Vote:March 10th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
Youngsters like my two daughters need a stable and loving role model parent in their nurturing years, so we can show them how to live a healthy, balanced life once they’re on their own. Only good caring parents know how to prepare adolescents for responsible adulthood. The lack of suitable role models in society is responsible for the upsurge in troublesome youth and girls cannot do everything, but the feminazi’s that run this country will tell you they can. The traditional family of mum, dad and the kids has been under continual attack from the vindictive and vengeful radical feminists like Bradford, Clark, Wilson, Dyson etc…etc… for decades and now the government has no answer to the escalating problems? Girls can’t be men, but men can be girls! It’s a mixed up world – poor kids! Burn the witches now as the damage they have inflicted on this Nation is catastrophic.
Vote:March 10th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Good, I’ll swap her a set of custom made lorica segmentata for latin lessons.
I’ve gotten as far as feline vestis sedat.
Vote:March 10th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
Chuck, Newman still believes moriori lived in New Zealand until they were eaten by maori, whatever your criticism of Clark, I don’t think Newman can be held up as an intelligent role model. (I won’t quibble with competent and successful).
Vote:March 10th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
BBBEEEEEPPPP Thanks for playing llew.
Tell us about the Chatam islands expedition again.
Vote:March 10th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
Yes Murray, the Chathams Island expedition. Newman was ignorant of it.
Vote:March 10th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
You’re trying to have your cake and propagandise it as well Llew.
Sending me private emails wont save you either. Your issue is with Newman not New Zealand history so quit the pc revisionism and tell us you were bitten by a Newman as a child.
Vote:March 10th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Um yes, I also had some professional dealings with Newman & her office which led me to suspect they were all blunt knives in that drawer.
But short melanesian previous inhabitants of NZ? That was the revisionism.
Murray are you disagreeing with me? “Cos that’s not clear from your words, only from your tone.
Vote:March 10th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
AH HA!!!!
You are so busted.
And lets not go down the revisonism trail or I’ll drag out the Celtic New Zealand links.
Vote:March 10th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
AHA!! Busted back. Are you seriously telling me you don’t believe Celts got to NZ first? (take that ny way you like)
http://sunnyo.blogspot.com/2007/04/things-you-probably-didnt-know-1.html
Vote:March 10th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
llew, Muriel Newman has a PhD in Mathematics. Because you disagree with her on one point you think that is proof that she is not intelligent?
Vote:March 10th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
Well… that’s the example I posted, because it’s pretty stupid. That PhD didn’t help with her history. Chuck, I also had a few years dealing with her & her office at parliament. I judge her on the quality (lack of) the documents that issued forth.
She might be a great mathematician, who’d know?
Vote:March 10th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
But yeah, she can’t be a total dullard with a PhD in maths. But we will agree to disagree whether she could be a decent role model.
Vote:March 10th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
If every MP was judged on your criteria none could be considered intelligent. Most of them work very hard including those in the Labour Party. I doubt if there are not many who have not failed to delivery documents when requested.
I am not an expert on history but i not that there is some disagreement over Moriori were a seperate people or another Maori tribe.
There certainly little proof of anthropogenic global warming. Is it legitimate for me to claim that everyone who states that if has been proven beyond doubt is unintelligent?
DPF believes if I followed him correctly that people are born either homosexual or heterosexual. I do not believe he has any logical basis for this belief but an idealogical one. We agree to disagree on this. However, i would be the fool if I were to claim he was unintelligent because of this disagreement.
I have yet to meet anyone who is always right. Do you think you may be the exception?
Vote:March 10th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
You misunderstand, I’m talking about the gibberish that WAS delivered. Anyway, it’s irrelevant, this IS just my opinion, you’re welcome to yours.
really? I hadn’t heard that. Well, not for 40 years or so.
And… now you’ve lost me. Que?
Vote:March 10th, 2008 at 4:28 pm
What if it were a different example, and DPF was unquestionably wrong. And what if he continued to make the same claim repeatedly, despite all evidence to the contrary.
Would you still be a fool?
Vote:March 10th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
A credit to her father (and mother).
Vote:March 11th, 2008 at 8:33 am
Since this is a bit of a soft topic, can I just add how disappointed I am that your current poll, Which is your least favorite minor party, does not include National as an option.
Vote:March 11th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
llew, firstly I am very surprised that you have not heard many people claim that Moriori were in New Zealand before Maori. I have heard this claimed by many people over the years. Whether it is true or not is not relevant. The fact that you have not even heard this mentioned would indict to me that you are very uninformed.
BTW – have you any proof that no human stepped foot in New Zealand before the Maori? Have you any proof that Moriori came from exactly the same place as Maori and did not arrive in New Zealand before the Maori?
Your second question
What if it were a different example, and DPF was unquestionably wrong. And what if he continued to make the same claim repeatedly, despite all evidence to the contrary.
Would you still be a fool?
My answer would be probably yes. If DPF strongly supported the idea that idea that men have not landed on the moon and other conspiracy type ideas I might question his intelligence. In other words he would have to hold some pretty extreme views for me to question his intelligence. However, he does not. He merely hold a different opinion than me on a number of moral issues.
I am agnostic but I know many Christians. Some would even hold fundamentalist views. I would not agree with their views but it would be the height of arrogance to class them as unintelligent.
Vote:March 11th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
1. Did you not follow the link to my post on Celts settling here first? I bet the vikings came too.
2. Other than DNA, the language & oral tradition of the moriori themselves?? No. Although I’ve heard there’s some evidence they may have come from New Zealand itself around 1500AD.
But yes, yes,. it’s all irrelevant, I take back all I said about Dr Newman, there’s a framed picture of her on my wall now.
Vote:March 11th, 2008 at 5:27 pm
Seriously poneke, we’re talking Corbidge A with hand-made brass hinges here.
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