34 years ago today Tanya came to dinner for the first time at Charmaine’s little cottage in Clarence Street, Ponsonby. And that, as many of you know, was the beginning of our relationship. We still share strong political beliefs and values in common, and mostly enjoy each other’s very different strengths. So we happily weave […]
Round and about in the city
February 19, 2019 by 1 Comment
Tom Scott, New Zealand cartoonist and writer, has scripted two plays about his parents. We saw The Daylight Atheist, a one-man portrayal of his alcoholic and abusive father, and Joan, a two-person somewhat kinder presentation of his mother’s life, a few hours apart on Saturday 16 February at the ASB Waterfront Theatre. We both found […]
Violence against women
December 19, 2018 by Leave a Comment
In our last newsletter we celebrated women winning the right to vote in New Zealand- with some cautions about the very different meanings of suffrage for Pakeha and Maori women. This month, sadly, we have to acknowledge the continuing acts of violence by men against women here in Aotearoa, and the continuing exclusion of women’s […]
Opposing the Violence
December 19, 2018 by 1 Comment
Most of you will know that recently a young English backpacker was murdered on the night of her 22nd birthday in Auckland, and her body dumped in the Waitakere Ranges. There has been an unprecedented outpouring of anger and grief throughout Aotearoa as a result. It’s as though both women and men have had enough, […]
Including women’s work
December 19, 2018 by Leave a Comment
Every murder is a tragedy. But we must also continue to look at the other, less public, kinds of continuing violence that make our nation unsafe, unhealthy and unhappy for many women. Thirty years ago, Marilyn Waring’s book Counting for Nothing: what men value and what women are worth was published. She documented the huge […]
Celebrating Women…
November 18, 2018 by Leave a Comment
Renée … novelist, playwright, and inspiring older woman (in her 90th year) has just been awarded a Prime Minister’s Literary Achievement Award ( with a $60,000 koha- so well-earned!)… An excellent item on the NZ Herald website includes the lovely photo above by Rosalie Phillips for the Otaki News. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12144016 We have many fond memories […]
Women won the right to vote – 125 years ago today, in Aotearoa
September 19, 2018 by Leave a Comment
We caught a bus to the city heart at 6.30am this morning, 19 September, the 125th anniversary of women winning the right to vote in Aotearoa, for a 7am ceremony in Aotea Square. We were all welcomed by the wāhine toa of Ngāti Whātua Orākei on the steps of the Aotea Centre, with Sharon […]
Founding Day at AGGS
September 19, 2018 by Leave a Comment
On Friday 7 September Charmaine was acknowledged at the annual Founding Day ceremony at Auckland Girls’ Grammar School. She has gifted her two medals (for the Suffrage Centennial commemoration in 1993, and for the CNZM awarded in 2002) to the school because, as she told the assembled gathering, it was working with staff and […]
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