Finance Minister Nicola Willis. Photo / Mark Mitchell
A Stuff columnist’s use of the C-word in a critical tirade aimed at female Government MPs over pay equity has sparked anger in some quarters. Finance Minister Nicola Willis and the media company respond to the furore, and PR leaders have their say.
News publisher Stuff has defended one of its top journalists directing the C-word, in a published column, at Finance Minister Nicola Willis and other female coalition Government ministers.
But those who were targeted and some other politicians, including at least one former Prime Minister, have variously described the comments as “unhinged”, “repulsive”, “demeaning” and “threatening”.
In a column taking aim at the Government’s halt on pay equity claims – including those for nurses, carers and teachers – The Post and Sunday Star-Times national affairs editor Andrea Vance used phrases such as “girl bosses” and “girl-math”, and took a personal dig at the likes of Act MP Brooke van Velden.
Vance also referenced the C-word.
She wrote of the Government’s announcement last week of the halt on pay equity claims and its subsequent move to tighten legislation to clear up what it has called a muddied and confused process: “There was so much to choke on.
“Willis pretending that this wasn’t about digging her out of a hole by filling a hole in her upcoming Budget.
“The coalition sisterhood trying to sell us the idea that this is somehow progressive.
“And the phalanx of female MPs, a generously-paid, traditionally overvalued trade, shafting the underpaid women doing vital, feminised labour that keeps the country functioning.
“Turns out you can have it all. So long as you’re prepared to be a c*** to the women who birth your kids, school your offspring and wipe the arse of your elderly parents while you stand on their shoulders to earn your six-figure, taxpayer-funded pay packet.”
On social media, National Party MP Judith Collins described the column as “one of the most repulsive articles I have seen in my time in politics. Unhinged and an appalling personal attack.”
In a right of reply on the Post website on Monday, Willis wrote: “Having the C-word directed at me by a journalist in a mainstream publication wasn’t on my bingo-list for Mother’s Day 2025. Nor was being accused of ‘girl-math’.”
She also posted that line on social media, in a message reposted by Prime Minister Christopher Luxon.
Willis told the Herald she had not considered laying a complaint, “but I wouldn’t be surprised if others do.
“The language used in the article was misogynistic and demeaning of women and I don’t want other women put off entering politics for fear that their sex will be used against them.
“I particularly don’t want young girls to think girl-math is different from boy-math. There is only math.”
Stuff sent a response through its communications team, to be attributed to a spokesperson: “The issue of pay equity has caused robust debate.
“This is not the first time our editors have allowed the use of this word – it is carefully reviewed by experienced editors and on this occasion it was decided it was acceptable usage in this context.
“Andrea Vance, and her editor Tracy Watkins, are two of the country’s foremost political writers. Stuff has also published a spectrum of views on this issue, including today from the Minister of Finance.”
Former Prime Minister Dame Jenny Shipley said she was appalled by the language.
“How can we complain about misogynistic behaviour and abusive language by men when women use the same sexual slurs and demeaning language against each other,” Shipley wrote on LinkedIn, in a response to a post by Willis. “Surely, we can disagree vigorously and debate the substance of an issue without going low.”
She said she had always been intrigued that female leaders were attacked personally when difficult decisions had to be made.
“...to the point you would swear these woman leaders had made these decisions entirely alone and their male Cabinet colleagues were not involved at all.
“Clearly, there is room for debate on these matters but using threatening sexual language against women and girls is never justified, regardless of the circumstances or who you are! We are better than this as a nation.”
Canterbury University senior law lecturer Cassandra Mudgway also posted a response to Willis on LinkedIn: “I’m sorry you’ve been targeted with sexist slurs, that’s never acceptable.
“But structural misogyny isn’t always loud or crude. Sometimes it looks like policy changes that disproportionately harm women. Making it harder for female-dominated sectors to prove pay inequity entrenches historical undervaluation based on sexism.
“That’s not fairness or being responsible, that’s systemic discrimination, and it needs to be named. That name is ‘misogyny’.”
One leading PR practitioner told Media Insider that Vance had done herself an “immense disservice”.
“It allowed National/Nicola to focus on that to discredit the piece.”
That said, said the PR person, Willis hadn’t rebutted the column – she had essentially admitted all the points that Vance was making.
Vocations that were dominated by women were being euphemistically called a “blowout in costs” or a “hidden, exploding and ultimately unaffordable price tag”, said the PR practitioner.
“Never mind the fairness or otherwise of it.”
The PR practitioner believed the National Party should have let the column lie. Willis’ response had given the story “legs”.
“There is no positive framing for them out of this.”
On Newstalk ZB on Monday night, Trish Sherson of strategic communications firm Sherson Willis said that Vance’s language stopped her from getting to the “guts of the piece”.
“... the shock value outweighs and dilutes the message that Andrea was trying to put forward in the article,” Sherson told ZB host Heather du Plessis-Allan.
“It is unprecedented, in my view, to have been put in this way.
“I think what it does also do is call into question where the bar is shifting between what you might expect in an online comment, which is pretty loose, and what you would expect in the mainstream media, and I would expect them to uphold higher standards.”
In a piece on the Spinoff on Monday, writer Anna Rawhiti-Connell considered the question of whether the C-word was the worst thing a woman could be called by another woman.
She referenced previous research which had judged it one of the most offensive terms in broadcasting, but also added context: “It’s been turned into convivial slang.
“It’s pretty common to hear someone described as a ‘good c***’ or ‘GC’. Over the years, feminists have tried to reclaim it. The various arguments for doing so have been in lockstep with an abundance of discourse around sexual and gender politics. One of the strongest is the contrast between our shock and horror at the use of the word when contrasted with hearing words for male genitalia, like dick, prick and c**k.”
(The Herald has chosen to asterisk these words).
Rawhiti-Connell concluded: “I would rather be called a stupid b**** than a c***. I also wouldn’t call someone else a c*** in such a public way. But stupid b**** wouldn’t work as well in Vance’s column.
“It’s cruel but lacks bite in this gendered context. If you get to drop one shocking word bomb during your career, Vance has chosen correctly.”
Editor-at-Large Shayne Currie is one of New Zealand’s most experienced senior journalists and media leaders. He has held executive and senior editorial roles at NZME including Managing Editor, NZ Herald Editor and Herald on Sunday Editor and has a small shareholding in NZME.
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