In 2004, Victoria University of Wellington Students' Association
(VUWSA) instituted a "Men's Space" -- a room for men,
paralleling the "Women's Space", which has existed for
some years already. This is described as a trial, and it will
be apparently continuing into 2005.
The initiative came from the Maori Students' Association, which
has a Men's Rights Officer, but part of the background is also
the fact that Hannah Collings, the 2004 Women's Rights Officer
on the VUWSA Executive has been sympathetic to Men's Rights. She
is supposedly a member of Act, the right-wing party to which Dr.
Muriel Newman belongs. Dr. Newman is famous in New Zealand
for championing Family Court reform in the interests of justice,
fathers and children.
Student newspaper "Salient" on 6 September 2004 reported
VUWSA Vice-President (Welfare) Jennifer Jones as claiming that
the Men's Space "undermines the whole point of the women's
room on campus." This only makes sense if the Women's Space
exists as a symbol of, and to perpetuate, the ideology of Female
Supremacism. Female Supremacism (usually called "Feminism")
exerts its power by perpetuating the myth that women are disadvantaged,
compared to men. It is only by persuading people that women are
disadvantaged that women can continue to enjoy, and increase,
their special privileges and their power to oppress men.
