Striding Dyke

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are you my mother?

I have been extremely moved over the past week by posts Jan Logie has been putting up via FB with regards to the forced removal of children under the 1955 Adoption Law between the late 50s and 80’s and the trauma birth-mothers experienced.  Minister for Children Anne Tolley has said she will not be holding an inquiry as there is no proof that the practice of coercive adoption was endorsed by the government at the time. In 1997 the then social welfare department, a branch of the government, officially acknowledged that coercive adoptions occurred for more than 30 years.  They however shelved any opportunity to hold an inquiry arguing it would not necessarily help those hurt by past practices. in 2013 our Australian counterparts made an official apology on behalf of the Australian people, for the policies and practices that forced the separation of mothers from their babies.  Gillard told the audience that these practices “…created a lifelong legacy of pain and suffering"

I was born in 1960, in the height of the sexual revolution.  Whilst the rest of the world was leaving the stodgy conservativism of the 50s in their wake, the majority of New Zealanders were getting on with business; working and raising families.  Looking back at how parents raised their children most of us would cringe at their reliance on punishment.  Scolding, shouting, and smacking were considered as necessary and any thought of rewarding and or praising children was tantamount sparing the rod spoiling the child.  

Concomitantly women were experiencing a boom, with increases in job opportunities and for some chance to attend university; life was good.  However for those who found their new found freedom leading to a pregnancy, life was less rewarding.  Prior to the 1940s, it was believed that making mothers who fell pregnant (something I have never understood – the whole falling pregnant concept) keeping the illegitimate child was a fitting ‘…punishment for the mother’s sin and a warning to others’.  In the 1950s New Zealand’s welfare state focused on supporting married couples with young children.  Single, mothers were left to struggle financially and would often have any benefits they may receive withheld leaving them to rely on highly religious welfare organisations.  The 1955 Adoption Act produced a new regime of thought based on a complete break ideology.  The complete break and secrecy shaped our adoption policy for 30 years.” Women were coerced into giving their child away.  Birth-mothers and their adopted children were then to have no contact, ever.  Through government policy “…a wall of secrecy was placed between the adoptee and their origins.  This was sanctioned via a bilateral partnership between governments and church and buttressed by a patriarchal view of women as second-class citizens and ‘fallen-women’ as unfit.  The government, a bastion of maleness (I wonder how many illegitimate children they fathered), supported adoption through various actions such as making it illegal to sell contraceptives to anyone under 16 years of age (1954 and 1977).  Moreover, it was illegal to even discuss contraception with under-16-year-olds until 1989.  Adoption agencies and the bible reiterated the need to ensure those born outside wedlock be given the best opportunity.  Therefore single mothers found it difficult to receive support and were encouraged give up their children as there was morally, and financially no support for them and or their child. 

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Whilst minister Tolley suggests that the government was not active in the forced removal of children she is certainly ignoring the lack of financial support and government policies that rendered women helpless to prevent pregnancy and once pregnant to bring their child up. Abortion was only dangerous it was illegal. 

Oblivious to the political and social environment that would construct a large part of my identity I was immediately whisked away to be put up for adoption.  Looking back on my adoption and childhood I cannot excuse either the system or my adopted parents for their callous mistreatment of myself as an ‘illegitimate children’’.  My adopted parents however, functioned within a structure that felt like a second-skin to them; what they did seemed ‘natural’.  For them it was natural / right for a woman to give up her child, did she not want better for her infant, a loving family, like them, who would offer security, normality and the opportunity to be a better human being than the infants birthmother, wasn’t their home then not the best place for this child. 

This romanticised notion of rescuing a child from bedlam helped construct the savior mentality of both my adopted mother and myself as something ‘special’ until the day, minute, hour – time it all changed.  Maybe it was my father’s sexual abusive nature that opened up the schism they tried so hard to hold shut.  Maybe it was my ongoing questions about whom my mother was, where she lived and why she left me behind, or maybe it was everything as life, my mother’s health, my fathers and mother’s violence erupted into the chaos of family life.  What I do know is that between Joyce, Stand and my adopted grandmother I learnt that the blood flowing through my veins was tainted and it was their responsibility to eradicate this infection.

I felt my abandonment deeply.  As a baby my adopted mother (Joyce) said I was the quietest baby she had met.  I have always wondered if deep within my being I stayed still and quiet so as not to be left again. The veneer of being ‘special’ certainly vanished as I grew older.  Misdemeanors were placed on my origins and it became clear that my parents used Christianity to try and eradicate the evil within my body.  Blood was understood to hold the sins of the mother and as a female child born out of wedlock I was tainted.   My grandmother believed beatings would help, my parents were not overly keen on this idea however tended to overlook and later participate in giving me a good hiding in the hope that it would correct me.

Worse still was the ridicule of some children I attended school with. They took it upon themselves to enforce my place in the school ground hierarchic.  Ridiculed and stigmatised I found solace in daydreaming and beside my friend Karen a young Māori girl who used violence to defend her sister from ridicule.  Like her it became my role to defend my younger brother and sister from children who truly believed we should not be allowed to be part of their world.   Eventually I internalised all this hatred finding an outlet in blaming my birthmother for having given birth to me.  I often swore that if I ever meet her I would spit on her.  This anger ran strongly beside a hope that one day she would arrive on my doorstep and take me away. 

In my early teens I would often find myself drawn to woman who look liked similar to me or who showed me kindness and wonder ‘are you my mother’?  I would construct elaborate stories acting them out in my head using them to protect me from the growing hate and violence that was becoming part and parcel of my everyday life.  Most puzzling to me was why two people would adopt children and then treat them with such hatred and violence.  I finally began to think that this was in fact the sole purpose of my adopted – I was brought into that home to be abused. There were times of great love, rarely occurring as I grew older but those moments fade in the assault of hatred, anger, violence and abuse.  By the time I was in my mid-teens my parents were outright aggressive towards me arguing that they had wished they had never adopted me and that any traits that caused strife were directly inherited from my birthmother.

In the mid 1980’s I finally received my original birth certificate.  In the mid 90’s I made finally found the courage to contact my birth mothers family, only to find out she was dead.  I have learnt to live with the conflicting dichotomy of being adopted - the love / hate confusion has played badly in my life but also given me insights into the human psyche.  Not that it has given me any really concrete answers.

For the minister to state that they play no part in the forced adoptions of children between the 1950’s and 70’s is ludicrous and as a child forcibly taken away from my mother I support those women who are standing up making a noise.  My only criticism of these women is that they have thoughtlessly left us behind.  For nine months those women carried us, a symbiotic being, we went through the good and the bad and on the day of our birth strangers separated us and guarantee our separation would in some cases be for life.  To fight this government’s refusal to acknowledge the evil of the past and to bring about a holistic solution for mothers and children I really believe that those of us who suffered through our adoption should work together with these women, as it is essential that healing plays a massive part of any challenge to a destructive inhumane system. 

Heteronormativity

(thanks to Dayle Takitimu for inspiring me to write this)

Persecuted
Criminalised
Medicalised
Marginlised
Patronised

Yet we embrace them
Want to be like them

Overall clad dykes

Striding the heteronormative streets
Chanting challenging
Every woman can be a lesbian

Straights
Frozen in fear

Radicals demanding liberation

Not equality

Committed to destroying the institution of marriage

Not buying into it.

Master give me permission to breathe

Marriage and Family
Patriarchal prisons

We never wanted equality

We wanted liberation.
We were going to change the world

Conform – Never

Father which art in...

Please give us permission to look up

Conventional

Traditional
Normal

Words diametrically opposed to my dyke identity

State please give me permission to speak

Second class – never

But I quote:

The exclusion of a portion of the population from a major social institution creates a second-class citizenship for that group. This is a humiliating experience, whether as individuals we feel humiliated or not

I have never felt excluded because I was unable to marry

I was excluded because

I am dyke

I am tattooed
I am Butch

I was excluded because

Because I speak out

I have never felt like a second class citizen because I could not marry 

I was made a second class citizen because I would not be like you

Please straight gay people Permission

To live as you

To become you in everything
That is not me

It is not my mantra to beg

It is not my mantra to conform
To just be like everyone else

My mantra

our mantra

revolution

Demanding the right for all straight people

To live as

• Monogamously
• Non-monogamously
• Single
• Celibate
• Child free
• With children
• With cats
• With dogs
• Without pets

As we do

To live as

• Fabulously
• Staunchly
• Politically
• Sportingly
• Spectacularly

As we do

My challenge to all you normalisising homosexuals echoes my Māori sisters challenge

and I quote:

"It is frustrating when those seeking to emancipate themselves seek the approval of those who have assumed the right to enslave them...fundamentally undermining your own inherent mana - shows me you don't really believe in it, cause you won't back it unless the master gives you permission".

Master – god – state - man – heterosexuals –gayley normals

Marriage is an insidious social construct!

APPARENTLY I AM ANGRY

APPARENTLY I AM ANGRY

At a system that intentionally camouflages racism beneath a MULTICULTURAL discourse embedded in a neo-liberal mantle that blames the brown victim

for

Continuing to live in towns abandoned to the neo-liberal turns of economic necessity

Then blames the victim for WEARING THE WRONG COLOUR T-SHIRT

APPARENTLY I AM ANGRY

At the veneer that elevates the Left right and centre

Whilst abandoning those whose land form the foundation of our number 8 wire democracy

APPARENTLY I AM ANGRY

Because nice white folk take benign risks ensuring positionality

Whilst Māori risk life and limb daily in ways nice people will never comprehend

APPARENTLY I AM ANGRY

At us Pākehā who ask what is our commitment to the Treaty of Waitangi at job interviews

But cannot spell Te Tiriti o Waitangi without a Māori dictionary

MOSTLY I AM ANGRY

At playing the white game

Of trying to get ahead and in so doing become something more than I was
But ended up being exactly who I was trying to get away from

MOSTLY I AM ANGRY

At people who say 'get over it'

Yet have no idea what IT is I am meant to get over

I AM STILL ANGRY

With the women I was ready to share my life with but she went straight
For the beating I got and the fact that you never think you need to apologise because it was just me

BUT mostly I am angry

That racism killed your son
That I did not step up and be there for you
That all my shit got in the way of what was needed

I let you down

Apparently I am a lot fucking angrier than I realised I was...

FREEDOM of SPEECH

I am in agreement with Derek Fox. What he has pointed out is bang on. So good on you for saying what people do not wish to hear because racism and colonisation are too hard to deal with.
We have to remember that FREEDOM OF SPEECH inherently ignores colonisation.

Freedom of speech is centre on a small grouping of peoples being able to comment on all other peoples. On their ideas, religion, political hopes and dreams, activism etc. However, if those who are spoken at stand ...up and speak back then punishment will rain upon them through invasion, economic sanctions and it will be done in the name of spreading the freedom of speech and democracy.

Another flaw is the notion that the press is free and independent. It has been proven time and time again that the Western press is neither. It is part and parcel of the political right. And this conglomerate does not present unbiased - independent and free news. instead is upholds racism, drawing heavily on stereotyping, especially on indigenous activism. press stands alongside political party's, mainly the right and vomits out its propaganda without question. If you do not believe me then go read 'Dirty Politics'.

Of course no one should die over a cartoon. But was it merely a cartoon? No it was imperialism at its worst. As Fox so rightly points out

"The editor of the French magazine has paid the price for his assumption of cultural superiority and arrogance, he was the bully believing he could insult other people's culture and with impunity and he believed he would be protected in his racism and bigotry by the French state."
Freedom of Speech comes at a price. For those excluded from speaking it means living in the shadow of words meant to disempower, marginalised and demonise.

For those included in the right to speak - well it is time we thought about the fact that the freedom of speech ignores colonisation.

This possible future of mine

If we want to understand why people take their lives then it is to their words, visions or lack of, spells and incarnations we might look to understand.

A very, very close and extremely loved friend wrote the following piece before taking her life. 

This possible future of mine with no partner and not children, is not the future I envision for myself. It is not what I would choose for myself either. But its seems that it is something I have to accept.

It would be nice if I had the first clue about how to go about that!

I have reached a point where I can see that all over the world all the time people are coming to terms with a life that is not part of the plan, Learning to live with disease, with sudden poverty, with the loss of a child or partner. So I know that this isn't unique to me. which is something. Advance ye soul.

I think that I can accept. I'm not sure that I am ready to make peace. And until I do that I don't know that I will be able to live comfortably. Acceptance only goes so far to create a sense of well-being in ones life. Especially when it's kinda grudging and involves lots of flailing about crying 'why me' and so on. Hokay. Sigh. So for the learning.

R U FOR US OR AGAINST US???

Are you for or against us? The ‘battle cry’  of political commitment or sometimes nothing more than a declaration of war.

If the left loses the war (define them as you wish), they can be found turning on non-voters, utilising trite cries of denigration ‘if you didn’t vote then you cannot complain’. This punitive castigating is victim blaming for the lefts inability to engage honestly with those they wanted to gain votes from. It is a smokescreen for lies dished out as promises. A vote for us is a vote for sanity whilst the political left courts the middle-classes promising them the fruits of the gods and distancing themselves from the great unwashed, yet spouting catchphrases and slogans that make them appear that they do really care about the disenfranchised. 

Well this voter is over it. I have had enough of post-election blame – I am sick of the catch cry ‘if you don't vote you can't complain’ or any of the victim blaming that has washed facebook since election night.

In the 1980’s Andrea Dworkin explored the fight or flight of women in the face of violence in Right Wing women” The politics of domesticated Females (1978).  She explained why many women colluded with the patriarchy - bottom-line: women bought into male stereotypes of womanhood to avoid the violence of men. This violence as many women know is so embedded in society it is impossible find solace from it. Conformity therefore meant survival. She went on to state that unless women could speak their truths about violence then this violence would continue. However, when women did speak they were ridiculed – threatened back into silence, “…buried in a cultural silence”. Her solution - to entirely supplement patriarchal language with a women focused language that identifies woman’s experiences of the world.  

It was this theorising that made me consider the plight of marginalised peoples in Aotearoa New Zealand and the discourse of blame from the left, right and centre . As the great neo-liberal experiment became a permanent fixture in our everyday lives those closest to its fallout - workers, the unemployed and marginalised communities suffered the full brunt of its devastating effects. As unions sold out or collapsed under the weight of consecutive governments anti-union laws, as benefits stagnated and wage increases became a thing of the past a tiredness amongst the poor set in. A tiredness that has become rooted in 30 years of bombardment and the need to survive, to make what little is left in the fridge stretch.

An essential component of neoliberalism is its castigating discourse. It portions out blame on those who have not reaped the rewards of this grand experiment. People are reproached for not trying hard enough, for not saving hard enough, spending too much, not spending enough and not understanding the long term goals of tightening their belts. Just listen to Mike Hosking’s who between whinny breaths, blames the poor for a) not investing in housing and b) thinking that a state house or rented property is theirs to call home. ‘Tut tut’ he says ‘…you have misread the fine print, a home is a white middleclass man’s castle - be away with you’.

30 years of being punished many New Zealanders have become a silent, like an abused child – afraid to raise their heads to high. Linda Tirado in Hand to Mouth points out: “Living on minimum wage… means being on your feet for eight hours at a stretch, having to ask permission to go to the loo and walking miles to work if your car breaks down. Worse than all of this, however, is the assumption made by wealthier people that Tirado and her peers just aren't trying hard enough.” Dammed if you do dammed if you don’t.

Returning to Andrea Dworking’s argument - fear of violence – violence that has become embedded in society for centuries brings about a state of fight or collaboration.  The only hope was the recalibration of language in the hope that all women’s voices could be included and heard. Until this occurred women had only two choices - fight or collaborate. Those of us who call ourselves social justice activists need to take up a similar challenge. We need to cease blaming the poor for our loss. We need to rethink how we speak our truth and the truths of those we fight with and for. Our language needs to be one of inclusion.