Winding roads to feminism for Māori and Pākehā wāhine

I walk into my close friend's flat without knocking and make myself at home at her kitchen table. She laughs at my audacity, at the way I treat her home like it’s land to reclaim as she joins me at the table. When I look at her, Emma Stein, I see a woman who has learned to carry the weight of years of putting up with the patriarchy and still make space for other women. When Emma looks at me, she sees a wāhine that, while not exempt from the patriarchy, has grown up with a supportive whanau and culture that recognises the inherent mana wāhine have within them. At that table we look back on the consequences of patriarchy on Māori society and Aotearoa as a whole, and its effects on our own experiences as women. 

Art by Keelin Bell

Emma turns on the jug to make some tea, and we start talking about how patriarchy has been a plague upon Aotearoa since the colonists first landed on our shores. While Aotearoa is placed high in terms of closing the wage gap between genders on a global ranking, our country still struggles with gender roles and expectations. Emma agrees that something must change, “We’re all out here fighting tooth and nail for structures that just don’t work”. She says, “we’re now trying so desperately to push back while also keeping ourselves in balance”. 

It was tragic to me to discuss how we must claw towards a society that values its people in equal measure, because that is exactly the society early Māori lived by. Most academics attest to there being little to no restriction imposed upon Māori wāhine and the role they could play in their lives. Many wāhine acted as rangatira within their iwi and owned land to secure their mana and survival. But as colonisation and its effects overtook Aotearoa, wāhine were quickly subjected to sexist ideas from the settlers.  

Only twelve wāhine were permitted to sign Te Tiriti o Waitangi, with most other women like rangatira Hine Aka Tioke being turned away due to English laws and constitutions. This enraged many Māori at the time, with their hapū and husbands often refusing to sign out of solidarity. But this initial exclusion paved the way for wāhine to be slowly erased from history and society. Looking into the steam of my tea, I felt the same rage my ancestors would have felt. When I explain this erasure to Emma, she is sad but not surprised, “Somewhere along the line, we lost the ability to appreciate who we are and what we can do as women.” 

This loss had trickled through the centuries to haunt Emma and I in our childhoods. This, she tells me, is where the patriarchy first influenced her demeanour by demanding certain behaviours. It is also where I first noticed how our different cultures lead us to different paths. We speak about how we were both sensitive children growing up and were frequently brought to tears by things that others thought were silly. Emma recounts that she was often given advice to the tune of “don’t react, don’t bite”. She was often made to shut down her emotions in favour of acting more “placid and balanced”.  

But growing up Māori, while I was also met with similar advice from outsiders, I was encouraged by my whanau and iwi not to listen to it. Whenever a boy sent me home with tears in my eyes, I was told to stand up to them (usually in much more colourful language). I learned to fight back when a boy was bullying me, but also to cry whenever I saw fit. I’ve carried this mentality with me as I’ve grown, and as Emma grew up she also decided that the “idea of the quiet, docile little girl is just so unhealthy.” 

Looking to the future, there’s a lot that feminists must do to uplift and support the differences our cultures carve in our experiences. In the past Māori feminists were expected to sacrifice one part of themselves in favour of the other. The suffragist movement, led by Kate Sheppard, required Māori wāhine to pledge against receiving their moko kauae if they wanted to join the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and fight for women's right to vote. Once again, Emma nods along like she’s heard this before, “In early waves of feminism, people would only want you on their team if you were like them or ready to change yourself just to fit in.” But these early sacrifices have left most wāhine preferring to focus on preserving their Māori needs first, with many feeling that the differences between Māori and Pākehā women are too great to unite in a singular goal.   

But sitting at a table with an empty mug in my hands, I have never felt closer to Emma. Regarding her ideals, she simply says, “We’ve gotten to a point where feminism is about more than just yourself. You can’t really call yourself a feminist if the only people you’re supporting look like you or talk like you or live like you.” And as our conversation turned to gentler topics, I knew that regardless of our different cultures and upbringings we would always have each other's backs.