Written By: - Date published: 1:08 pm, July 31st, 2008 - 117 comments
Categories: john key, same old national -
Tags: sexism
Speaking in Rotorua earlier this week, John Key offered the following reason why you should vote for him to be Prime Minister:
“The only time we’ve won the rugby World Cup we had a male Prime Minister.”
You make my stomach turn, Mr Key. You’re just another sexist old bigot.
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Only those with a really limited imagination and an extreme lack of depth would think so. Personally, I want the best person for the job and JK obviously isn’t it.
If you want to change the world then going with the flow isn’t going to cut it.
“The only time we’ve won the rugby World Cup we had a male Prime Minister.’
The last time we won the rugby World Cup we had a female Prime Minister:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Women's_Rugby_World_Cup#World_Cup_Final
I think Anita’s pretty much covered it.
I can’t understand how Key could be so stupid to not understand how that comment would come across to women voters. Even if you can excuse the dickhead sexism, why would you want someone running the country who is so ignorant or dismissive of such a large proportion of voters?
It cheered me up to be honest. More of this kind of thing and hopefully we’ll not have the Nats in power.
Anita I don’t disagree with what you have now said, which is slightly different.
My problem arises in the unequal application of those principles from time to time, and with what I said here(conveniently ignored)
“It all seems to turn on the sex or race of the person who says it AND the sex or race of the person who it is about. Depending on those factors, which is inherently racist and sexist itself, the statement can be deemed to be good or bad.”
I think very dangerous territory is being trodden when it is suggested that getting women in to do blah blah blah is ok but it is not when it is suggested that getting men in to do some different blah blah blah. eg, rugby as an example.
(bit of a confused poor and rushed post sorry)
Anita those poll results are interesting but I interpret them very differently to you. National has traditionally done much better with male voters than female voters, even when the Nats had a woman leader. This is the first poll I have seen where National has a higher proportion of women voters than Labour has. John Key’s National Party is doing much better to attract women voters than any of his predecessors. More women support National than support Labour. Is it a problem that a very, very high proportion of men support National? Not in my view. It could equally be argued that Labour is doing very badly in attracting male voters–they are doing much worse than they have in the past. I wonder why that is.
It doesn’t have a lot to do with the Labour leadership, in my view, because Labour has a high proportion of male senior cabinet ministers. It might have something to do with a perception that the Labour Party is anti-men. You might argue that that is just because Labour has a woman leader, but when National had a woman leader its male vote did not drop away.
Paula Bennett has been doing much of the work on the ECE policy and has been going up and down the country promoting it. I don’t know what else you could ask for. National has several high profile women in the caucus, and obviously John Key is doing his best to make sure more senior women join the ranks. There are a lot of women candidates in winnable seats for National this year: Amy Adams in Selwyn, Louise Upston in Taupo, and Nikki Kaye in Auckland Central are all likely to win their seats.
There are others who will almost certainly come in on the list, including Hekia Parata and Melissa Lee.
I don’t see National’s problems attracting women voters as really any different from attracting more diverse voters generally. National hasn’t done well in the past in attracting Maori or PI voters either. One step to achieve that is to have people from those communities representing the National Party. National has a high number of highly credible Chinese, Korean, Maori, PI, and Indian activists to name just a few. Much of this has happened on John Key’s watch.
National needs more women, and it is doing a lot to achieve it.
“But seriously, I honestly believe that a Key-Rich combination with both being visible would be getting higher poll results from women than Key-English (or Brash-Brownlee).”
I know, women are so shallow(kidding). Will have a read at some stage.
Hey Draco, re the earth’s spin. Going directly against or with it wont make two hoots of difference in trying to change the spin. Best to go with it and adjust the weight balance to throw it out of whack.
while we are telling jokes.. at least the guys at PA have a sense of humor => http://www.publicaddress.net/default,5189.sm#post
Umm Key’s comment was ENTIRELY factual. It in no way suggested that NZ could only win if there was a male PM but simply pointed out that this only been the case so far i.e. if you want to increase your chances of winning look to what has worked previously. Fairly straightforward.
It will be horrible day when we can’t speak the truth… SP seems to wish that day on us sooner rather than later
lemsip,
Why did Key say that factual thing?
He could have said “my socks match today” he could have said “we have only bought a govt trainset when we’ve had a female prime minister” he could have said “the only time we won the world cup we had a Pakeha prime minister”.
Actually, we had a male PM when we lost in 1991 and 1995. So that’s two losses under male PM and 3 under female PMs. Maybe we have to consider that the two things are not correlated.
Tim Ellis,
Many good points!! Nice to see National making an effort to get some diversity in caucus.
My question in response, however, is why so little diversity on the front bench? Why so few highly ranked women?
We have a problem, in New Zealand, with a glass ceiling in business. The National Party appears to have a glass ceiling in caucus.
hs I suggest you are taking life far too seriously and are losing all perspective and judgement about day to day life. I suggest you go to a health spa for afew months till you calm down become and bcome rational again…oterwise take three thorazines and go to bed
I’m being lazy and I’m not wading through this comment thread (might do so later if I get time), but thanks Steve for calling this. I just don’t find sexism funny, and I don’t think saying “but it’s a joke! OMG you haz no soh!!” actually magically changes something from being sexist to being harmless.
SP, it was a reference to King Lear in much the same way this was a joke.
Do I think Key was being serious with this comment? Nope.
Do I think this comment shows Key to be the kind of casually-sexist rugby-culture-dog-whistling wanker who’d crack jokes about a high-powered woman picking out new curtains in her office? Yes.
It’s not so much angry-making as predictable and annoying. Woo, Key’s a boring yob.
well that’s settled then – both ends of the see-saw are still as equally dismissive, arrogant, bigoted and ignorant of each other as they have always been.
It will interesting to see how politics changes John Key.
For much of his life he has focussed on getting rich, and like most self-made people he has achieved wealth by obsessing about little else. And this why he likely comes across as mostly well-meaning and affable, but also a shallow, clueless yob from time to time.
But politics is not just all about making money, and if he is to be PM he will be pushed way out of his currently quite narrow comfort zone. His Crosby-Textor minders can only protect him just so far, and past that he will be exposed.
Maybe he will rise to it, and for the sake of NZ I would have to hope he can…. but I’m not about to put money on it.
“Why did Key say that factual thing? ”
Umm cos he’s running against woman, there’s a world cup looming, and it’s TRUE. He didn’t say we could only win the world cup with a male prime minister. He implied it was much more likely. I know it’s tough to spot the subtlety.
Afterall we lost the world cup when we had a male prime minister. That is also TRUE but doesn’t make for a good joke.
cut to the chase…keys will never be PM. he doesnt have the “Right” stuff for a start and being a big swinging dick at a New York boiler room is hardly a qualification for running a modern democracy.
ha ha randal, your colourful but somewhat useless prose and winnie-loving nature are almost one and the same. You sure you’re not winnie himself?
The next Rugby World Cup is in 2011.
So Key obviously wasn’t talking about himself.
what the hell has the world cup got to do with anything except for n intellectually challenged beancounter trying to be smart. if that is Keys level of deate then he should get a job on radio spud calling basketball matches
“Umm cos he’s running against woman” – he’s running against another politican, a highly competent and experienced one, the fact that she’s a woman should not be her defining attribute, it should not be what he considers makes himself more qualified to be PM than Clark.
And as Weka quite rightly pointed out, we’ve had no trouble winning Rugby World Cups recently, if you remember women’s rugby
Steve only you could draw such a long bow as to suggest Key was stating Clark’s defining attribute is her gender. You remind me of the cigarette lobbyist in “Thank you for not smoking.”
On any reasonable measure, whether it be revenue earned, viewership, history or players salaries, when compared to the Rugby World Cup the Women’s World Cup ranks a very very very very very very distant second in terms of importance. It has next to nothing to do with gender. Trying to compare the two is bordering on the absurd.
lemsip. It’s you that’s saying ‘um, he should attack her on her gender because she’s a woman, it’s funny and its TRUE’
Maybe the women’s world cup squad could be coached by Henry and Company Ltd, while the Labour Party could do the make up and eye liner stuff and Robbie will coach the Ockers’ to another men’s final world cup.
Edit – In a deep voice, is she really a woMAN?
Dad. Are you Mike Moore?
Actually I’ve just heard who will be the All Blacks new kicking coach. Any guesses ..?
( ..Tony Veitch)
No, but Mike Moore told me that Labour have a great queer-leader squad for all the sideline antics.
Mike also said; Veitch should be employed as a tackle bag for the prison team and the TVNZ boss as the goalposts set in concrete.
Guys,
I have a horrible feeling Helen Clark and Labour’s ‘money trader’ attacks on Key are dog whistle politics for using his Jewish ancestry against him. Can you rebutt?
[lprent: Actually the only people who have made suggestions like that seem to be some of our occasional visitors from the blogosphere sewers. You are welcome to try and develop this. However I'll clarify my level of bigotry.
I like being bigoted against people promoting bigotry. This may be someone talking like yourself (the blackshirt style) as well as the brownshirt style. I dislike flamewars and I'm intensely bigoted against people starting them. I'm obscenely bigoted against people who attack the writers here. I positively love being bigoted to people who try to tell us what we should do on our own site.
I banned one person until after the election that went too far in accusing our writers of bigotry. They also had a crappy track record for offering any useful comment.
Perhaps you should check our About and Policy sections before proceeding too far along these lines?]
Its not really an attack Steve – it’s a humorous observation – lighten up. You’re the one trying to suggest Key is singling out Clark’s gender as her only notable quality. Quite frankly that’s pathetic.
There are plenty of jokes which could be made about Key’s wealth. He’s rich – it’s a fact. I’m sure you’d laugh.
We could joke about his tubbiness – the same way as you joke about David Farrars. They are both a bit porky – its a fact. I’m sure you’d laugh as you laugh about Farrar.
We could make jokes about Key being a man – women make jokes about men ALL the time. Hell you might even laugh.
You’re just being precious because you treat politics like its warfare. Everything is about attack and defense. Frame things a certain way so the other side looks worse than you. Shit we could even make a joke about that.
SP “he’s running against another politican,”
Fair enough, so why if we are blind to gender should people like Anita be calling for National to promote more women to the front bench? Surley promotion should be based on merit and merit alone
Mr Key is very wise with that comment. Is Helen Clark going to cheerlead New Zealand to the next world cup, in fact has she had any sort of leadership in anything sporting since 1999?
“Key is saying that a man, any man (but specifically him) is better than any woman as PM. It’s not funny, it’s bigoted.”
That may be your point of view but anyone is entitled to hold and express similar views to Key, and I am sure that numerous women would also agree.
We’ve only had two female PMs so far and neither of them has impressed me.
SP, I look forward to a similarly outraged post on the topic of “haters and wreckers”.