People who follow my politics on The Standard will know that I favour strategic voting over voting for the people one ‘likes’ or whether a party is a good cultural fit.
While I am a supporter of the Green Party, I primarily vote for them not out of a sense of belonging or loyalty or partisanship, but because they hold the ground in New Zealand parliamentary politics that is most likely to push us in the direction I believe we need to go, especially on the great crises of climate and ecology. In fact so great is that impending disaster that I won’t abandon the Greens over their well intentioned but fundamentally anti-women positions on gender identity despite my being almost completely opposed to their position.
This is perhaps an easier thing for me because I do like and admire a number of the Green MPs, but if there were a party standing in the election that was to the left of the Greens and pulling harder on climate, and that had a chance of gaining enough MPs to make a difference in parliament, I would most certainly consider giving them my vote. At this election however, the priority on climate/ecology (from which all else flows) is to get as many Green MPs elected as possible.
Others take a different view on voting choice, or perhaps don’t consider climate to be that important, and there are a chunk of former left wing voters who now say they are politically homeless over gender identity politics.
My radical feminist sisters point out that it’s not possible to be politically homeless, because if one is left wing it is because of the class analysis and positions, not the parties we may or may not vote for. A view I largely agree with, along with the position that just because half the left has lost its goddamn mind over gender identity, that doesn’t mean we should abandon the left nor our left wing values and principles. But the thing about humans is the desire to belong is hardwired into us and when we lose that sense of belonging it hits deep. Irrespective of my views on voting, there are people for whom other things matter more.
So despite it running against my long held position of strategic voting, I am pleased to see the emergence of a new political party this election, the Women’s Rights Party. It’s not a party that will win electorates or list seats, at this election at least, but its agenda is elsewhere and smart. Two of its priorities are,
The party’s tagline,
We are the only political party in New Zealand that puts women first
Its list of priorities is,
We exist to maintain and protect women’s rights, including:
- The right to speak freely
- The right to peaceful assembly, association, and movement.
- The right to safe single-sex spaces for women and girls.
- The right to be free from violence in all its forms.
- The right to equitable reward and recognition for women’s contributions to society and work, whether paid or unpaid.
- The right to have control of our own bodies, including reproductive autonomy.
- The right to protect and safeguard our children.
- The right for motherhood to be recognised as exclusively female.
- The right to fair play in sports.
- The right to evidence-based education and healthcare with informed consent.
- The right to use clear and plain language when referring to women in the media, academia, in healthcare, at work and at home.
This is a blast of fresh air. Women speaking up strongly about women’s rights. Unapologetically. In public. Does anyone else even do this anymore? I’m excited by the degree of freedom WRP have to say what they want.
WRP is in the process of finalising its formal position as a party in the general election. They had their Conference last weekend, electing office holders, and endorsing the constitution and policy platform. Members have spent quite some time putting together WRP’s policy positions. The party has been publishing press releases on issues important to women, and doing some initial media work. Fronting the media is WRP National Secretary, Jill Ovens.
Ovens has solid left wing, and workers’ and women’s rights cred. From Wikipedia,
Jill Ovens is a New Zealand trade unionist and former political candidate. She was co-leader of the Alliance party before changing her allegiance to the Labour Party. She is currently the Women’s Rights Party National Secretary, a New Zealand based political party.
She previously had a long history involved in New Zealand Unions, having served as the president of the Association of Staff in Tertiary Education and was heavily involved in the Council of Trade Unions (CTU) Women’s Council Convenor and attended the ICFTU World Women’s Conference as one of two CTU delegates.
Ovens stood for the Alliance in two elections, and served as the party president. Later leaving the Alliance, Ovens became involved in the Labour Party over a long period of time including as a rep on the Labour Party’s Council, and continued her union work. She left the Labour Party this year over concern about women’s rights. More about her background in this interview.
Last week Ovens was interviewed by Sean Plunket on The Platform, Jill Ovens on aiming to get the Women’s Rights Party on the ballot (youtube). While there may be criticism of Ovens for appearing on The Platform at all, she is clearly not resiling from her left wing roots or current socialist politics. Plunket is refreshingly open about this too. It’s like no-one cares about the partisan stuff, it’s there and clear but it’s not a deterrent to having a conversation (this too will be a big attractant to many people sick of the aggressive pressure to pick the right side).
Plunket tries quite transparently, a number of times, to push his right wing agenda by suggesting that people who vote on the left can no longer do so because of gender identity politics and therefore should vote on the right, but Ovens just carries on talking about the WRP’s spotlight on women’s rights this election and the party offering people a new option. I’m pleased to see the WRP doing well on this already.
I’ve been hesitant to write about women’s sex based rights issues lately because of the potential for an election year shit fight around ‘what is a woman?’ This has been an important political dynamic in the UK for Labour, the SNP, the Libdems and the Tories. New Zealand is caught in a kind of culture wars time warp, where we haven’t hit the hard yards on this yet and there is still a large amount of confusion and even denial.
But in the end I’ve come to realise that the most important thing that can happen on sex/gender right now, and to be frank in left wing politics generally, is to have strong left wing voices consistently talking about both women’s rights, and what the gender critical issues are, and maintaining a progressive frame, especially in regards to women’s rights.
WRP isn’t overtly positioning itself as a left wing party, but it doesn’t need to. Its policy platform speaks for itself, and it’s a party for women’s rights. As with Māori and Green politics, women have our own politics that exist independently of the traditional left/right spectrum, but the nature of the positions makes its natural home progressive and feminist.
The WRP constitution is here (PDF) and the party structure and roles are here (power point download).
You can join the Women’s Rights Party here, and donate here.
Mod note: please stay on topic with this post.
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