An excellent piece by Maddie Holden at The Spinoff on the sexism of the 2017 election got me thinking. She writes:
Enter Metiria Turei. We’re all familiar with the story of her ousting from Parliament for a forgivable, decades-old mistake that shed light on the glaring deficiencies of our welfare system, but perhaps it’s not immediately apparent that her treatment related to her gender. It’s simply a matter of honesty and trust, we’ve been told, and charges of a racist, sexist double standard have been dismissed using fine-tooth comb analysis. It was her attitude, they said, and any MP who broke a law would be expected to pay with her otherwise flawless career in public service.
On the Sunday morning after election day I was on a panel for Radio NZ’s Sunday Morning, where the topic of Turei’s resignation came up. Fellow panelist Neil Miller said it “rankled” with many people he knew that Metiria Turei didn’t apologise, or appear contrite enough. Now, I stand by what I said then, i.e. “what the hell did she have to apologise for?”(weka at The Standard has helpfully transcribed some of my comments in this post, and here’s an awesome round-up of posts analysing the real reasons Turei resigned.)
But with the lens of Holden’s article, another thought struck me: the sexist double standards of apologies.
If you are a woman, especially a poor Māori woman, and you do something wrong out of the noblest of motives – providing for your child – let’s be honest: no apology would be enough. If you didn’t cry, it would be proof you weren’t sincere. If you did cry, it would be proof you were a weak feeeeeeemale and unfit for politics anyway. Whatever words you use, they will be found wanting; it’s all well and good to say sorry now, the talkback twerps would sneer, but why did you do it in the first place you awful bludger?
But if you’re a man? Well.
If you’re a man, you can shrug your shoulders and say “oh, those things I said weren’t actually my view, or even factually correct, soz.”
If you’re a man, you get to say “my lawyers told me it was okay” or “I reckon it’s pretty legal” and this does not in fact rule you out of being Prime Minister or Minister of Finance (but then, even blatantly lying about budget figures apparently doesn’t rule you out from being Minister of Finance).
If you’re a man, you get to say “oh well my life was just really hard back then when I physically assaulted my partner repeatedly” and pillars of the community will queue up to denounce anyone who doesn’t give you a second chance even when you continue to propagate violent rhetoric and label yourself the victim.
If you’re a man, you get to demean survivors of sexual assault live on air, refuse to take personal responsibility for it and get handed plum political roles while other people insist that we should just take it on faith that you’ve changed, even as you offer more non-apologies.
Hell, if you’re a man you can say “I’ve offered to apologise” when your government utterly screws up the handling of a sexual assault case and that’s somehow the end of the matter, and even if you subsequently refuse to apologise you get damning headlines like: “PM not keen on apology”.
Not.
Bloody.
KEEN?
Can you imagine it? Can you hear the shrieking that would have ensued if Metiria Turei had called a press conference, sniffled a bit and said “Look, I feel bad if anyone was offended, but I only offer apologies when there’s a serious reason for me to do so, I obviously never intended to hurt anyone’s feelings, but it was a long time ago and has been taken out of context”?
Because that’s all a man would have to do.
It may well “rankle” for some people that Metiria Turei never apologised, for something which requires no apology from anyone with a heart. But let’s not allow this to become the received wisdom, as though any apology would have satisfied the critics. They are not fair-minded even-handed assessors of a complex situation; they are hateful troll-monkeys who would always be able to find some reason to demonise a Māori woman whose true crime was surviving and challenging the status quo.
Stephanie Rodgers 
So true. WP can make it everyone else’s fault. For poor women who arevictims of an ex partners rage when he dobbs her in – often her only recourse to escaping a jail sentence is to plead guilty and show remorse
I was there, she did say it was wrong and that she would pay back the money when WINZ told her how much it was – but that original speech got lost in the media frenzy. It still sickens me to think of how such a good, caring woman was treated by society.
That made my day, thanks for the great piece.
Accurate. But not the full story. Metiria pressed all the haters buttons at once, as well as holding up a mirror to their own meanness of spirit.
Young person having sex. Breeding beneficiaries. Maori. A woman. Bludging bene. Poor. (Which to RWNJ’s is a moral failing) and challenging the current take from the poor to give to the rich system.
Succesfully challenging all the current memes to justify right wing meanness’. They had to shut her down as fast as possible.
Metiria and James showed great courage. But I think we all underestimated the amount of bad faith, hypocrisy and toleration of unfairness there is, out there.
The lack of support from some in Labour and the Greens, including the two Waka jumpers, and the Labour leadership, says a lot about their comfort with the current Neo-liberal paradigm.
It was good to see the support from my local Green branch and the parties remaining and new MP’s.