Theresa Gattung has resigned as chief
executive of Telecom, New Zealand's largest listed company. Her record
has not been impressive.
As TVNZ put it on the page http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/411419/976037
:
"At first the market believed in Gattung, with shares peaking
above $9. But in the seven years since, the company's share price
has tumbled to under $5."
This should be seen in the context of all the media hype that surrounded
her appointment. What seemed like millions of media interviews fawned
over her supposed brilliance.
In fact, the only time that the women's newspaper The Dominion
Post (Wellington, New Zealand) ever interviewed me was when New
Zealand "achieved the great milestone" of having -- at the
same time -- a female Governor-General, a female Prime Minister, a female
Chief Justice, a female Attorney-General and a female chief executive
of New Zealand's largest listed company. The reason the feminised male
reporter rang me up, of course, was that he thought I would express
displeasure, which he could use in some headline such as "Men's
Rights Activist Angry at Demise of Patriarchy!" In fact, as I told
him, I was not nearly so concerned about who held such positions as
about what policies they put in place -- as he would have known if he
had bothered to do his research by reading my
book. So he did not even mention me in the article that appeared
in the newspaper the next day.
(Similarly, the only time that the women's radio station Radio
New Zealand ever aired an interview with me was when the self-confident
feminist Kim Hill [known to men as "Him Kill'] interviewed me live
on air. She established that I was anti-feminist. Then, since I ran
an organisation called "New Zealand Men for Equal
Rights", her main question (said in the arch tone of voice she
uses when she thinks she's setting a trap) was: "I thought that
feminism was about equality?!" She had no answer
when I replied that feminism was not about equality -- it was about
selective equality.)
