Personal choices: Jacinda Ardern has come under fire for the wrong reasons. Photo/file
Personal choices: Jacinda Ardern has come under fire for the wrong reasons. Photo/file
It's as if a dam of silence has been breached and each day brings a flush of revelation about the prominent people in power - mostly men - who have used that power to exert their sexual wishes without regard for the consent of the other person, the woman, mostly.
Whether it's show biz types (Harvey Weinstein) or media men (Bill O'Reilly) or US politicians (Anthony Weiner) or Brits (Michael Fallon) or Kiwis (John Key), the accusation is that the arrogance of power gave them a sense of entitlement to intrude into the private sexual space of a woman without her consent.
Out of revelations comes a better understanding of sexual harassment. It's about sexual attention that is imposed because it is unwanted by the other person. It's a definition which is broadening as we learn of unwanted kisses, sex pictures, or even hair pulling. Even sexualised language that is unwelcome may fit the definition. Until now, the perpetrators relied on their victims' own shame, keeping silence.
In his October 27 editorial, Mark Dawson took the Right To Life group to task for crossing the line from their usual turf of anti-abortion politics into the personal life of our new Prime Minister.
Ms Ardern is unmarried and lives with a male partner. That's got the RTL group preternaturally worried about how we, the people of New Zealand, will be judged internationally, because of our PM's personal choices. Mr Dawson posits that the group's ire has its source in Labour's proposal to remove abortion from the criminal statutes, making it an issue of health, a matter confidential between a woman and her doctor.
That supposition as to the underlying motives of RTL may be accurate. It is even a bit too generous, giving the impression less of malice than of political payback. Jacinda will make abortion a health issue, and RTL takes umbrage over Ms Ardern's own choice to live and love outside the marriage canopy.
It turns out that such unwanted intrusion in anyone's sexual life is another attempt - however weakly done here - to exert power over personal sexual decisions and is therefore a form of sexual harassment. But that, of course, is part of the hypocrisy under which the group functions. Their stated concern is with the foetus but their intention is to exert the power of control over women.
Choice and the decision-making that enables choice are among our most intimate and private functions. It is quite accurate to acknowledge that many political groups, many special interest groups, attempt to influence that choice, sometimes openly, sometimes in underhanded ways - as the recent US election demonstrates. But even there, the attempt to influence acknowledges that the individual's choice exists. By taking affront at Ms Ardern's unmarried status, RTL would deny the validity of her right to make choices for herself.
Ironically, RTL provides ground, in their concern over the PM's bedroom, for the need to remove abortion from the criminal law. That law is directed at the actions of the doctor and ignores the woman's capacity to choose entirely. Its paternalism is clear in intent. Abortion is a crime under the 1961 Crimes Act, but a woman seeking an abortion may be allowed to have one providing two doctors can agree she meets certain criteria, generally of deficiency.
Keeping abortion under criminal law is prima facie stigmatising - something RTL, in intruding on Ms Ardern, knows well. The current law offers nothing to the agonising experience of a woman who must make such a deep personal choice. In fact, it ignores her human dilemma in favour of adding the burden of shame.
After making an apology to Jacinda Ardern and Clarke Gayford, RTL can redeem itself by fulfilling its claim to supporting life by joining the PM's campaign to remediate poverty for the 25 per cent of New Zealand's living children. Failing that, the shame should be on them and not on women who struggle with painful choices.
Jay Kuten
■Jay Kuten is an American-trained forensic psychiatrist who emigrated to New Zealand for the fly fishing. He spent 40 years comforting the afflicted and intends to spend the rest afflicting the comfortable
