Helen Earth

Hell on earth did Helen Kelly get to have so much sway over the film industry and in particular the production of The Hobbit? Yes she is president of the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions which purports to have 350,000 members which I doubt, but surely in that role her focus should be protecting the interests of members rather than decimating the industry that feeds them? However, the rights or wrongs of the industrial issue are not the issue of this Fryday—despite the fact that Helen Kelly has fostered just about every malcontent going from women’s rights to global warming (oh please!) and her crony Robin Malcolm is almost as bad. No, the issue at issue is who is Helen Kelly? Kelly is a common name but I wanted to know if she is related to the late Pat Kelly—a staunch communist and erstwhile secretary of the Cleaners and Caretakers Union in the 70s. So, where could I find out? Wikipedia of course. But do you know what? When I went there, the page on Helen Kelly had been “deleted.” Deleted? Why does that somehow unnerve me?


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Aitken for it

I am sure there are New Zealanders out there who take the sporting rivalry with Australia seriously. I haven’t met them and nor do I particularly want to, given that they come from Hamilton. But I do derive some modicum (and no that doesn’t mean ejaculation over the Internet) of satisfaction at the look on Australian netball coach Norma Plummer’s face when her team was beaten by the Silver Ferns last night. I have nothing against Norma—I like most men try and avoid that—and I think she is good for the sport and for television, but she along with Australian cricket captain Ricky Ponting exemplify everything that is wrong with Australian sport. Confidence, even arrogance, is good in sport and I wish we had more of it in New Zealand. But supercilious superiority is not. And that is what these two exhibit. Norma lost last night. So did Ricky. One is tempted to say to them get over it. But because they don’t read Fryday that’s pointless and in any case I don’t really want them to get over it. I want them and their superiority to dwell in the loser basement for a little while yet and for the Silver Ferns and their coach Ruth Aitken to enjoy all the plaudits they so richly deserve... as New Zealanders.

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When Whetu Comes Knocking

ME: So you want the job?
HE: Sure do, bro.
ME: And you think you are qualified for it?
HE: Sure do, bro.
ME: But why?
HE: Why what?
ME: Why do you think you are qualified for the job?
HE: ‘Cause it’s a choice job.
ME: Yes Whetu, but why do you think you are more deserving of the job than, say, me?
HE: ‘Cause look at me, bro. I looks and sounds like a New Zealander, don’t I? Nobodies look like they come from Aotearoa like Tangata Whenua, unless you thinking of John Key after he is off sunning in Hawaii.
ME: So you think being brown is qualification for the job?
HE: Yep.
ME: Anand Satyanand is brown.
HE: Who?
ME: Sir Anand Satyanand, the Governor General.
HE: The what?
ME: Look, are we at cross-purposes here…?”
HE: I’m not cross.
ME: You’re looking for a job?
HE Sometimes, bro.
ME: You want this job?
HE: Choice job.
ME: The Governor General’s job?
HE: The what?
ME: The…Look, what job are you looking for?
HE: His job.
ME: Whose job?
HE: Paul Henry’s job. Choice.
ME: Oh God!
HE: Free breakfasts, eh?


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Should that not be pubic places?

I feel embodied and enriched by my vicarious association with these wo-men (see previous Fryday), especially when I read what else the one on the left (in more ways than one) has involved herself with:

Research Interests
In 1985 I completed a Masters thesis in which I argued that sexual violence against women helps to ensure that space ‘belongs’ to men. In 1997 I completed a doctoral thesis titled ‘Geographies that Matter: Pregnant Bodies in Public Places’.

Over the past decade my main research interests have been in ‘geography and the body’. I’ve critiqued the (masculinist) epistemology and ontology of the discipline. I have also focused attention on the ways in which particular axes of embodied subjectivity such as gender, sexuality and maternity become entwined with space.

My current research interests are:
- maternities and space including mothers using ICT
- sex and gender studies including masculinity studies
- feminist, queer and poststructuralist theory
- 'fat' bodies: representations and materialities
- food, place and identity for migrant women
- qualitative methodologies

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Ana Kiss (My A**s)

I don't usually give Fryday over to other writers, but I couldn't resist this, which is, characteristically, from the Hamilton NZ Facebook page. Anarchist Geography?:

Two Waikato University feminist geographers have had their work acknowledged by the New Zealand Geographical Society which is meeting in Palmerston North this week.
Professor Robyn Longhurst has been awarded the society’s most prestigious award, the Distinguished Geography Gold Medal for outstanding and sustained contribution and service to geography.
Her colleague, Associate Professor Lynda Johnston has been awarded a Distinguished Service Award for her significant contribution to New Zealand geography and its community over the last five years.
They both obtained their doctorates at Waikato and have gone on to become well known internationally. The Geographical Society’s Executive Manager June Logie says it’s great to see them rewarded for many years of strategic and important work. “They are significant feminist New Zealand geographers who’ve made enormous contributions in their area of research. Their work has received much acknowledgement here and overseas and it’s great to see them.”
Longhurst and Johnston research and write about people and place and the importance and influence of gender in people’s lives. Much of their work has been a collaboration - their latest book is called Place, Space and Sex: geographies of sexualities published by Rowman and Littlefield.
Professor Longhurst says she was drawn to human geography by a previous Society medal winner Ann McGee who taught at Waikato. “When I was a student, Ann really opened my eyes to radical geographies, she even taught anarchist geography, and it became important to me to do research that brought about positive social change.”
“We’ve also had good support for our work from the university,” says Associate Professor Johnston. “Waikato’s led the way with feminist geography and given us time and space to do work that’s far from mainstream and sometimes risky. So it’s good to be recognised.”

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