Discrimination times two for smart Maori women

By JAN CORBETT

Helen Potter remembers how it was okay for girls to be bright at her all-girl high school, but not to be bright and Maori - as though no one expected that.

She felt her Maoriness became invisible, helped by her fair skin and blue eyes, so rather than being encouraged to study Maori she was guided into the traditional academic subjects. For Maori women, she says, racism and sexism cannot be separated, each making the other more acute.

Being in the top stream, she became imbued with a love of test tubes, bunsen burners and periodic tables. At the same time, social pressure made her feel she was unfeminine because she was good at school and sport.

She went on to do a science and technology degree at Waikato University. In her final year she took a paper on women in management and was introduced to theories about racism and sexism which resonated with her experiences as a young Maori woman. In her first job in the veterinary pharmaceutical industry she got a practical demonstration of how discrimination works.

"All the people in senior positions were men. It was my first job and there was high unemployment in the early 1990s. Their attitude was 'do as I say or you'll join the dole queue. You've got a degree, but really you're nothing'. They would have drinks in the boardroom but I wouldn't be invited. One on one they could be quite lovely, enlightened men. The problem was how they acted in a pack."

She had kept in touch with the women students she met in the women in management course, and they formed a self-help network, developing strategies for dealing with sexism at work.

"These were women who had got honours degrees and they were seeing the men being groomed and sent on overseas trips and the women wouldn't be."

When Potter realised how damaging this situation was, she changed jobs.

She landed a highly paid position in the food industry. And loved it.

But her ultimate dream was to study for a PhD. When the chance came for voluntary redundancy, Potter used the money to return to academia, something she would have been reluctant to do if it meant raising a student loan.

Much of the study has been funded by scholarships. At 33, she is now on the home stretch of three years' study towards her doctorate on the possibilities for Treaty-based partnerships between Maori and Pakeha.

This year Potter was one of two students awarded the Ministry of Women's Affairs Maori women's scholarship, worth $3500, and the opportunity to work in the ministry for three months next year.

Although she has climbed towards the top of the academic tree, she still sees sexism operating within the university. She says the male students get picked for research jobs and are shoulder- tapped for junior lectureships much more readily than the women. She knows she would get those opportunities if she pushed for them, "but the men don't seem to have to".

Studying for her PhD has not only given Potter the chance to address issues affecting Maori, but she believes it will give her the freedom to combine contract research work with one day having children and her professional life with a desire to act as a conduit between Maori community needs and aspirations and Pakeha decision-makers.

She says her personal connection to these issues has propelled her through her study, helped by the close association with other Maori, men and women, through the Massey Albany Maori staff and student whanau.

Read the rest of this series:
nzherald.co.nz/nzwomen