I have been a member of the New Zealand National Party for two years, with a gap in between those two years (I have also joined other parties at other times).  My electorate was Hutt South, in Greater Wellington.  I first got to know Bernadette Lindsay, the Chair (or whatever her title was) of the National Party electorate committee, when she and her husband lived around the corner from me in Wainuiomata.  Then her husband died, and she moved to a house to Lower Hutt proper, where I attended committee meetings as the Men's Representative (or some such title).  There was a women's representative, but I don't know if my own title was official, or if they were just humouring me.

The committee was female-dominated, and I remember the women once discussing a women's conference they had been to, some of the participants at which had been, according to Bernadette Lindsay, "extreme".  Committee meetings were held in a squarish room, into which you stepped as you entered the front door, and which may have been a converted garage.  But one evening I turned up for a meeting and found that it was being held in the living-room.  What was also unusual was that there were no other males present, and that there was a small reproduction of Michaelangelo's statue of David very close to the circle of chairs.  That was a slightly embarassing situation, and the only satisfaction I got from it was that the woman sitting next to me nearly jumped out of her chair when I flicked a speck of dust off the crotch of my trousers!

What were these women playing at?  My guess is that it was probably retaliation for some incident which I vaguely recall, when a feminist woman had been placed in a meeting of men, with a statue or painting of a nude woman in close proximity.  This woman then complained of sexual harassment and got massive coverage from the feminist media.  I suspect that this woman may have been the lesbian feminist former National Party MP, Marilyn Waring.  She brought down the Muldoon National Party government in 1984, and caused the introduction of market liberal (right-wing) economic policies, after the election that ensued, which have dominated New Zealand ever since.

If that was indeed retaliation, it gives an indication as to the mentality of some National Party women.  Why would they want to retaliate against me for what some other men did to some random woman?   They must see themselves as involved in a sex war.  In that case, should I retaliate for all the abortions which National Party women have doubtless had carried out (without any legal requirement for consent from the father or from the unborn child) by "aborting" some National Party women?  Should I retaliate in kind against National Party women for the war service of my father and of my uncle, and for the latter's death as a soldier in World War II?