‘I was in awe of Germaine Greer’s face, her neck, her hands’

The following interview with former Green Party MP Sue Kedgley came about because she features in the new memoir Hine Toa by activist Ngāhuia te Awekōtuku; the two knew each other at the University of Auckland in the early 70s, when they were both took on leadership roles in the first wave of feminism. ReadingRoom is devoting all week to Hine Toa. Two of the pieces being published this week are in Ngāhuia’s own words. I was interested to get another perspective from a contemporary. Kedgley, too, has written a memoir, and included a chapter on the feminist uprising. Ngāhuia went on to become the first Māori woman professor. Kedgley entered the bear pit of politics.

What do you remember of Ngāhuia when you first ran together at Auckland University in the very early 1970s?

I would say she really was a unique sort of warrior woman. You know, she was spunky and outrageous. I’m just so happy she’s written her memoir. Ngāhuia and I shared a platform at the Auckland Writers Festival when I launched my book, and I said to her, “Ngāhuia, you have to write your own memoir.” Because her life has been so interesting. Does she write about her evening with Germaine Greer?

Yes.

I’ll be most interested to read that.

Here it is. She writes, “I was in awe of her size, her physicality, her face, her neck, her hands, her breasts, her legs, her nipples, her throat, her hips. She was as big as her fame. And that scared me. She exuded a musky scent, possibly a perfume, possibly herself. She wore a low-cut shimmery shift, bronze like her hair, streaked with a moving pattern. She’d told the world about her lack of underwear; she wanted her body to feel always ready, always free – stimulated. She liked the awareness of moist skin, of erect nipples, of her own juices, right there. Ready. Always.”

That’s very good writing, by the way.

Oh, she’s a brilliant writer, so I’m delighted her book has been published.

What did she look like back then? Do you have a picture of her in your mind?

She was incredibly dynamic. Forthright. She was a force of nature, you know.

There’s a photo of her on the cover possibly from that time and it looks like she had very long hair.

She wore her hair back a lot when I think about it.

She was one of very few Māori students at the university campus. Did people stare?

It was a very, very white place. I’d read a feminist book and turned up at Auckland University and said, “Where’s the women’s liberation group?” And there wasn’t one. So I started one. And initially Ngāhuia was part of that, but then she went off and was a key founder of gay rights, and then she got into the Ngā Tamatoa group too. But she was very active in our women’s liberation movement.

There’s a lovely photo of her and I at the front of a Suffrage Day protest march at Albert Park. That was really the first time that women’s liberation hit the headlines in New Zealand, because we had this big demonstration, a mock funeral procession in Albert Park, and Brian Edwards’ TV show Gallery turned up with all their cameras and suddenly it was just everywhere. It was all over the media. And when Dairne Shanahan interviewed us, Ngāhuia said, “I am a Sapphic woman.” So not only was she Māori, not only was she a feminist, she was an outspoken lesbian. It was very radical for that time. Connie Purdue, who was a trade unionist and part of this early women’s liberation movement, said that Ngāhuia had put the movement back a decade by saying she was a lesbian.

How did you respond to it? Was it challenging to you personally?

No, not really. I was very good friends with Caterina de Nave, who was gay. I would just say I was full of admiration.

This must have been so shocking for men in middle New Zealand, for a Māori woman who says she’s Sapphic, who is an activist, who is feminist, at a time when all New Zealand blokes aspired to look like Keith Holyoake.

The media just ridiculed us. The portrayal of us was just these ludicrous, you know, man-hating lesbians with chips on their shoulders. We were not taken seriously really at all.

And it wasn’t really until Germaine Greer came out here and she got saturation coverage right through all of the media, that women’s liberation really seeped into the mass consciousness of New Zealand. There were huge meetings all over New Zealand. But until then we were just seen as these sort of extreme bunch of man haters. We were dismissed.

Bear in mind too, of course, that we were not taught at university about Māori. I’d learnt nothing about New Zealand history, about the history of oppression.

Were there particular sections of the media or particular people in the media who were leading the ridicule?

Oh, yes. Max Cryer was one.

Max Cryer!

Yeah. I remember he did an interview with me and was just, you know, absolutely withering and patronising. 

Ngāhuia writes quite a lot about her lover at the time, a sex worker called Mandy. Do you remember Mandy?

I remember her. I don’t think her name was Mandy, though.

Perhaps she’s given her a nom de plume.

Ah, okay. She definitely had a woman who was her lover, but I don’t think she was called Mandy.

What did she look like?

I remember she had very short hair. But she wasn’t part of our feminist group. She would just turn up at things, you know.

Ngāhuia writes about a group who met in Herne Bay and were called Women for Equality. Did you attend these revolutionary cells in Herne Bay?

Yeah, I went along to some of their meetings. Sue Bradford and others were there.  They were focusing on equal pay. That was their main focus, but basically I was focused on the Auckland University Women’s Liberation group.

I’m just going through my book and found this. “The media portrayed us as a bunch of miserable, angry, eccentric man haters. And the New Zealand Herald wrote we were a sort of female Viet Cong set on inciting suburban housewives to rise up and dominate men.”

The Viet Cong!

Yeah, I know. But what finally gave us credibility was when a man came out in support of what we were doing, Doctor Fraser McDonald, the superintendent of Kingseat Psychiatric Hospital. He coined the phrase “suburban neurosis”. And he talked about the incredible unhappiness of New Zealand women. He was treating entire streets of women for depression. No one could dismiss him because he was this eminent, highly articulate man who was 100 percent behind us and spoke at many of our meetings and was saying how desperately depressed and unhappy women were. So he gave us a lot of credibility.

How do you see yourself and Ngāhuia now? You’re both kind of survivors, veterans, in a sense, of that movement.

Well, I mean, we’ve obviously taken different paths. She’s been enormously successful and important in her field. And she’s never stopped challenging and questioning, and being a very authentic voice. You know, she never just sort of gave up.

Did you make any attempts to try and woo her into politics?

No, I didn’t, although I think she told me that she had been possibly somewhat involved in the Green Party in her area. Maybe she’s now with Te Pāti Māori, I don’t know. But you’re absolutely right. Why didn’t she get into politics? I think her thing is really academia. She loves academia, and she’s carved out her own niche. And she probably couldn’t be  bothered with all the compromises that are inherent in politics or being a politician.

By the way, how do you assess the current Green Party situation?

I think what happened with Golriz is almost what you’d call inexplicable. You know, it’s just tragic. It’s just unfortunate that it’s happened.

Are you Team Chlöe?

Oh, absolutely. I think she’s outstanding. But getting back to Ngāhuia – you know, it is a shame in a sense that Ngāhuia didn’t go into politics. Obviously she found it more important to do what she’s doing. Arguably, she could have had more influence in her chosen career than going into politics. But I’m sure she could have been very effective because she is a great communicator.

Was she fun as well? I bet she was fun.

Oh yes. I mean, for example, I don’t know if she’s written about this in her book, but when Germaine Greer arrived at the airport, she and some of the others were all dressed up as Halloween witches, wearing black gowns and witches hats with whitened faces, interestingly enough. They were chanting loudly, protesting the fact that they felt her visit was being dominated by middle-class women like me and excluding “ruffians and undesirables”, as she put it.

Germaine took it all in her stride, although I remember she was exhausted because she’d spent three months in Australia, where she’d fallen in love with Mike Willesee, a well-known married television presenter. She was pining to be with him. I travelled around New Zealand with her and she was just obsessed with this Mike Willesee and trying to speak to him on the phone and behaving like a helpless female, which she was telling us all we shouldn’t be. Bizarre. But Germaine was full of contradictions, as probably most people are.

When you think of Ngāhuia’s involvement in early woman’s liberation in New Zealand, what would you say was her contribution, do you think?

Well, I think she was extremely radical and provocative and challenging, and she was uncompromising. That interview on Gallery was watched by the whole of New Zealand and she was probably the first woman to stand up and say she was lesbian, and be proud of it. That was pretty amazing. She was just so fiercely sort of independent, provocative, challenging, and a real wahine toa.

ReadingRoom is devoting all week to the new memoir Hine Toa: A story of bravery by Ngāhuia te Awekōtuku (HarperCollins, $39.99), available in bookstores nationwide. Monday: in an extract from her memoir, she recalls two violent incidents (in 1967 and 1971) when being lesbian in Aotearoa put her life in danger. Tuesday: an interview with the author, who tells Dale Husband, “Somehow, as a people, we’ve lost our vision. I’m disgusted at the investment of my own iwi in shopping malls and a luxury spa, when we have a housing crisis.” Tomorrow: a review by Talia Marshall, with portraits by Jane Ussher