(incorporating the International Ex-Fetus Association)

Victoria University of Wellington's Men's Space

© Peter Zohrab 2004

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.