Kate Hawkesby: Julie Anne Genter dragging women back into the dark ages

Green Party MP Julie Anne Genter. Photo / File

I see Women's Minister Julie Anne Genter appears to be continuing her crusade of dragging women back into the dark ages under the guise of feminism.

Feminism is about choice, the right to have one, the right to be equal. It is not about trampling men to death in the process. It is not about spending so much time telling girls that "they can do anything" that they become curious and confused as to why you keep telling them something they already knew.

Guess what? The girls we're raising haven't had it occur to them they can't do anything.

But back to Julianne Genter. She it seems is of the breed of feminists who feel you're not a "real" feminist unless you've imposed your own view of feminism onto every other living breathing woman in your orbit.

Her latest victims? Children at a Christchurch intermediate.

In a speech to these students, she told them that "old white men" need to "move on" from company boards in order to help close the gender pay gap. So in a nutshell, a racist, ageist and sexist statement, but don't let that get in the way of what she regards as a profoundly feminist message.

If you can get past the insults, what she was saying was, the low level of female representation on private sector company boards could be improved if these jobs were given to females.

Saying that kind of stuff relegates all women to sounding like they have some kind of disability or flaw which means we must lift them up and help them on their way, pushing out "old white guys" in the process.

Her message is that if more people just stepped aside to make way for women, who obviously need special treatment because they're, well, women, then the world would be a better place.

Women are completely capable of course. It's just the more we tell them they're not and that we need to make allowances for them, the more we demean them.

So what was the take out message for the girls at that school?

That because you're a woman, you should grow up and demand to be on a board?

That you should stampede over any old white man in your way?

I get the gender pay gap's real, and yes I get men dominate boards and wage packets, but it is changing. We have the momentum, we're on our way, and we need to spend less time weighing down young people with our tired old agendas and arguments.

Genter told them the gender pay gap had stalled in the last decade. The last decade? Kids are front and centre, living in the here and now, they are not interested in living in our pasts.

Intermediate age kids, and I speak from experience here because we've had four go through the intermediate years, and one currently there, they know they can do what they want.

They're growing up in an age where we are exploring space, we are electrifying cars, we are creating flying taxis and making limbs with 3D printers. We do not need to keep banging on about issues that won't be relevant to them, far less tossing racist, ageist, sexist lingo into the mix.