Being a boss bitch comes with an asterisk. Even that term, boss bitch, still carries the word “bitch” in it, as if women can’t be in charge without being insufferable. But despite all the resistance, many have forced their way to the top. Like a modern Elle Woods, pushing on in style, her pink umbrella elegantly propped between her shoulders and an endless tirade of bullshit from above.
These wāhine may be taking back their seat at the table, but they’ve had to do it wearing Elle’s pantsuit the whole time, forced to walk and talk in a Pākehā world. Many are itching to get the kaitaka back out of the closet.
In small towns like Pātea, politics starts at the kitchen table. The candidate for Te Tai Hauāuru electorate in this year’s election and co-leader of Te Pāti Māori, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer (Ngāti Ruanui, Ngāruahine, Ngā Rauru), said that while growing up with her whānau “we didn’t even call it ‘politics’... it was about advocating for others.”
Pātea is a town that’s “been on every side of the counter,” said Debbie. It’s had some serious highs and lows; following the closure of the town’s meatworks, many whānau were driven out of town en masse in search of work. Those that stayed behind got to witness the rise of ‘Poi E’. And Pātea is where Debbie Ngarewa-Packer calls home, in all its richness: a place that, before colonial rule, placed a lot more responsibility on the shoulders of wāhine Māori.
Such is the way things were for a long, long time. Before Debbie was co-leader of Te Pāti Māori, before she was even born, her tūpuna wahine were running the table. The role of mana wāhine was central to society’s function - something that didn’t mix with the politics of British colonists. And this is something we’ve seen play out over and over again overseas; the Haudenosaunee relied on councils of grandmothers, Malagasy society had women at the top, the Lil’wat and Squamish Nations had elements of matriarchy with an established welfare state… the list goes on. When colonial powers came ashore, the imported patriarchal system struggled to mix with what was already in place, and often tried to strip wāhine of their mana, disrupting the entire fabric of society.
Patriarchy assumed that women were subservient to men; “chattels”, as Debbie put it. Colonisers even pointed to haka, with its row of wāhine behind tāne, as evidence of gendered separation, illustrating their ignorance. “Sadly, it’s a part of their colonised state, to see women as chattels that they can diminish and deprecate… like an asset. Just look at how the Royal Family traded and brought in women for the purpose of making babies; that’s all they saw them for. But for us wāhine [Māori], we are revered for our ability to create life,” said Debbie. “I am an equal, if not more than, and our tāne know it.”
Colonialism also introduced a system of individuality, another value that disrupted te ao Māori. But community spirit remained, passed down at the dinner table in towns like Pātea. “Coming from a very collective community, where not everyone got across the line together, or even at all, I was raised to be as fast as my slowest person,” Debbie explained. All of her life experiences combined to produce something much more than an individual. “People feel the need to box you,” she said, “but how do you label a wahine from Pātea who was a teen mum, adult learner, got her masters in Tasmania, did Stanford, who started her own business at 23, and was a CEO?” You can’t.
When British influence shook up Māori society, things got messy. For a long time. And now things are changing again, and once more, they’re messy. The rise of wāhine to reclaim their mana has been met with all sorts of objection, with some even pointing to moko kauae as a political tool to acquire votes. “People make grand claims that our wāhine get their moko kauae for “brownie points” [pun intended] as though they haven’t been forced to believe that it’ll put them out of work,” said Māhina*, a younger student that looks up to wāhine like Debbie.
But even with role models in place, many young Māori still can feel like imposters in their own land. Imposter syndrome is common enough amongst young people, but Debbie reckoned that even this was a consequence of colonial rule. Not that she suffers from it herself: “We don’t suffer from imposter syndrome because we simply don’t live the way they do. My aunties still tell me what needs to be said or if I’ve dressed wrong - my dad still rings me and says whether I had a good interview or a bad one. We don’t live lives that allow us to be an imposter.”
Māhina said that, “When we have wāhine like Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Nanaia Mahuta in such influential positions, mau moko and all, it sets the tone for our next generation of rangatahi who will see that as their norm.” And with the rise of moko kanohi nationwide, particularly on the faces of the younger generation, Māori continually refuse to choose their mahi over their moko, especially in the halls of government. “Every day when I go to work, I put on my Pākehā voice and speak their language. If I have to do all that, they should be fine with my moko kauae. Wearing my culture is not unprofessional… businesses repackage and sell our culture all the time. It’s only ‘professional’ when they can make a profit out of it.”
Pushing back against colonial influence has been a long time coming, but Māhina reckoned it first started really taking hold in the ‘80s with the start of the reo revival. “Tāngata whenua have been escalating ever since. Along with the return of our reo, so too has our sense of self-worth… almost as if they’re synonymous with one another,” said Māhina.
And this broader push to return to the old ways has been championed, largely, by wāhine. Two of five political parties are co-lead by wāhine Māori, and we finally have a wahine Māori Governor-General. “This page of Māori history has women written all over it,” said Māhina. Debbie concurred: “Wāhine Māori don’t have that battle anymore - we know our value. We make wakapapa. Listen to the names of our wenua and you’ll hear that they’re predominantly wāhine. We don’t have to sit there and fight for street names because we’re everywhere. That is my default setting.”
Debbie spoke of her own experiences with pushing back against the systems as a Māori woman in a Pākehā environment. “I say absolutely not. They don’t value ANY woman. Show me in any English story where colonisers treated their women with the same regard that indigenous people do,” she said. “I feel sorry for women that say, ‘But you’re still one of us.’ Yeah, I am… but I’ve never been a chattel. I know my context as a wahine.”
And today, things are changing. In Aotearoa, only so recently colonised, wāhine have retained significant mana in the face of colonial pressure. “As a wahine Māori, I get to karanga and I get to tell our kaikōrero what to say. I am more privileged in most positions of leadership-ā-wahine.”
Still, things aren’t perfect. “There are still many ‘firsts’ yet to be filled,” said Māhina, “but I have no doubt about it. It’s just a matter of introducing our tamariki to spaces we too are unfamiliar with: reaffirming self-worth, and validating their experiences. Just because you’re the only brown kid in a room of Pākehā doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be there. If anything, it means you should be.” This is a time of change, after all. Conference rooms have become Zoom squares, war rears its head overseas, and new fires burn in old forests.
Once more, the waters have been muddied. Time will tell how things settle, but one thing’s for sure: this time, it’s wāhine Māori stirring the pot. “We have a lot of work to do,” said Māhina. “But let’s also take a minute to admire what our wāhine have done before we do.”