Karen Chhour, Auckland clothing manufacturer and Act Party MP. File photo / Mark Mitchell
Karen Chhour, Auckland clothing manufacturer and Act Party MP. File photo / Mark Mitchell
In a week when a microphone-toting protester at Parliament called Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern "some girl in a skirt on a power trip", and Wellington waitress Marika Beauchamp was awarded $25,000 compensation after being fired for getting pregnant, the Herald on Sunday asked New Zealand women to write about their own experiences of bias.
They wrote of discrimination at home and in the community, at school and in the workplace, and of their determination to encourage - and, when needed, more - slowly changing attitudes around equality.
Ahead of International Women's Day on Tuesday, marked this year with the theme "Breaking the Bias", these are their stories. As told to Cherie Howie.
Karen Chhour, ACT MP
When I was 13 years old a teacher told me I would be just another Māori on the benefit with six babies to six different dads.
Growing up I faced abuse at home, bullying in school and I had to deal with CYFS, who tore down my confidence.
What I saw as obstacles then, I now see as stepping stones to who I am today.
Becoming an MP was personal to me, it's my way of giving back, to help young people, and to make real change to a system that is still as broken as the day I faced it.
Novelist Charity Norman, whose new book Remember Me comes out April 5. Photo / Vivienne Haldane
Charity Norman, author
Back in 1990, I was the third woman ever to join York barristers' chambers.
Sometimes we had to swing a pick axe at glass ceilings and rage at blatant pigeonholing, but over the years I met – with infuriating exceptions – camaraderie and respect from male colleagues, while more and more women joined the profession.
It wasn't until my family's emigration to Waipukurau that gender stereotyping truly bleeped on my radar.
"No," declared my mother-in-law, on seeing my husband carry chocolate brownies to our car while I started the engine.
"No. That's not how we do it. He drives. You hold the plate."
Talking to other young women about experiences of bias helps, Papatoetoe High School year 13 student Yanazee Samuel says.
Yanazee Samuel, Papatoetoe High School student
As a Pasifika woman living in South Auckland I have encountered stereotypes and biases, whether it be towards me or the women around me.
My peers and I have come across situations with occupational gender segregation in school. Decisions made consciously or not, there have been large tendencies to prefer the boys over the girls so we'd have to work double just to get the recognition we deserve.
Overcoming these experiences includes just having a nice chat with the girls.
When one has an experience and shares it with the rest, it's like we've experienced it ourselves so we learn and grow from it!
Actress and playwright Marianne Infante is leading the way for Filipino storytellers in Aotearoa. Photo / Supplied
Marianne Infante, actress and playwright
For the longest time, I and many fellow kababayan [Filipino citizens] felt unseen and underrepresented by the environment we were living in.
Filipinos are the third largest Asian population in New Zealand; many of us call Aotearoa home. I decided to change that.
In 2018 I wrote a theatre play titled "PINAY" an intergenerational heart-filled story bursting with Filipino flair which tells the tale of a Filipina mother and daughter testing the definition of unconditional love through Mt Pinatubo's eruption and the Christchurch earthquakes.
PINAY made history as Aotearoa's first theatre production to champion Filipino voices and present Tagalog to a sold-out premiere season which then won an award in 2019's Auckland Theatre Awards.
From the stage to now on screen, I'm humbled to represent the Filipino community as the first Filipina nurse in Shortland Street, as Madonna Diaz.
I am proud to be a Filipina and I am thrilled to say this is only the beginning for our thriving Filipino storytellers here in Aotearoa.
As a young woman, Annabelle White was told university education would be a waste of her time. But education has brought the food and travel writer "great joy". Photo / Supplied
Annabelle White, food and travel writer
Education is the key.
When I was 16 one of my father's colleagues (in an attempt at humour?) would say there was no point in me going to university.
"Waste of time and money, marriage and kids for her!"
My personal happiness and joy with my work is due completely to those years of study and receiving an MA First Class Hons in History and Geography – and unexpectedly, in 2009 a Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Waikato.
History has nothing to do with cooking, you say - that's the joy of breaking the stereotype with a whisk!
Doris de Pont is a fashion designer and historian. Photo / Supplied
Doris de Pont, fashion designer and founder of New Zealand Fashion Museum
Breaking the Bias is such an appropriate framing for me because it relates to fabric and dress, which are at the heart of my mission.
Fashion, what we wear every day, is not frivolous, commercial, exclusive to women or any other categorisation that invites dismissal; fashion is essential.
Every day we fashion our personal appearance in a way that gives creative expression to who we are, our culture and our truth.
For 12 years now at the helm of the Fashion Museum I have struggled to open the eyes of the gatekeepers of culture in Wellington to this reality.
Alice Mander is founder and president of the National Disabled Students' Association. Photo / Supplied
Alice Mander, Victoria University of Wellington law and arts student
Growing up as a disabled girl meant that people always expected less of me; patting me on the back for small achievements.
During my disabled adolescence I resisted this assumption by overperforming, overachieving, and overexerting.
While I am proud of what I've achieved, and continue to strive to make changes for my community, I'm also worn out.
Now, as a young disabled woman, I'm relearning my idea of resistance. I'm breaking the bias by trying to remind myself that resistance doesn't always have to be about protest.
It can also look like being young, silly, and having fun.
"You do not want my pūkana twice", says Te Pāti Māori MP Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, Te Pāti Māori wāhine co-leader
As a wāhine it is not my role to overcome biasis, discrimination, and stereotyping.
It is my role to assert my mana wāhine to remember my tupuna wāhine, to breathe our atua wāhine and live as my most authentic self, and then to ensure I live that example for every other wāhine, kotiro and tangata.
I do that by using every sphere of influence I have to hold our space and call out oppressive actions and behaviours that impacts on us as wāhine.
I walk equally beside patriarchy and tap shoulders if they forget our value. You do not want my pūkana twice.
Broadcaster Estelle Clifford was surprised by the gender bias she discovered upon first entering the radio industry. Photo / Supplied
