Helen Joyce gives some thoughts on free speech and gender ideology in New Zealand, garnered from her time here.
We're not imagining things - free speech is still being suppressed in NZ, and gender ideology is still being championed.
Helen Joyce is currently on a speaking tour in New Zealand, hosted in the first instance by the Women’s Rights Party, and then subsequently by the Free Speech Union. She’s due to talk at the Free Speech Union event and Annual General Meeting in Christchurch on Saturday 8th November.
The panel discussions at this event will be moderated by Chris Lynch from Chris Lynch Media, an independent Christchurch-based newsroom. Chris also interviewed Helen Joyce, while she was previously being hosted in Christchurch by the Women’s Rights Party, about her impressions on the state of free speech and gender ideology in NZ since her arrival.
As expected, Helen gives a very clear, concise, and interesting summary of what she’s learned since being here, and finishes up by saying that free speech in the workplace is very important to target. Without that, we can be made to shut up about injustices, ideologies, and irrational demands for fear of losing our ability to earn a living, and it’s how totalitarianism begins. Suppression of free speech in the workplace is happening right now here in NZ, as Helen discovered from people who relayed their personal experiences of it to her.
The interview is below on YouTube (17 mins) -
It’s also on Facebook and X -
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/reel/720528327262483
X: https://x.com/chrislynchmedia/status/1985437923848933800
It's not just paid work that suffers from a lack of ability to be honest about well, facts, but many women who engage in volunteer work, sometimes for decades like this woman who lost her position after 60 years of volunteer service: https://nypost.com/2024/02/15/us-news/calif-volunteer-fran-itkoff-90-forced-out-of-ms-society-job-for-asking-about-pronoun-usage/
And Marian Tompson resigned from a mother-to-mother breastfeeding support organization that she (and her friends) founded in 1956 when the official "inclusion" policy required its volunteers to support men breastfeeding babies: https://lucyleader.substack.com/p/is-la-leche-league-international
Chris Lynch put his finger on the central driver of this social activism’s movement, that being the common foible of many of us, as mere humans, it is one of narcissism, which feeds the desire to appear virtuous. When that driver of narcissism becomes reinforced by teaming it with misplaced compassion, it becomes beyond the individual’s capacity to acknowledge the complete abrogation of personal humility in expressing support for ideological causes such as gender identity. I recall Jordan Peterson’s reply to being asked what we , as individuals, might best contribute to a functioning society, he suggested we should cultivate personal humility, gratitude, and passion, and at the same time consciously reject responding to any feelings of resentment, envy and spite. Hard to think of better guidelines to give our young ones.