Gloriavale’s last stand

By Dr Liz Gordon |Insight Aotearoa | Blog

It is difficult to fathom the arguments being made in court about the ‘Gloriavale six’ – six women who revealed that women at Gloriavale were expected to do women’s work from a young age and, as adults, for around 90 hours per week. Slaves, they were.

The first issue to be confronted is that, at Gloriavale, women are barely human.  I heard the argument being made that while there might be a case for employment rights for the men, because the work they do had economic value, the work that women did there had no such value and could not be considered work.

This is truly neanderthal thinking.  How long would the men be able to do their brave money-making work for without clean clothes, houses looked after, food in their belly and someone to look after the hoards of children they spawned without thought?

But it was quite interesting to be reminded of the roots of the continued under-valuing that women still face today at work and at home in our society. The literal notion that women have no economic value – that all their value derives from men – is a sober reminder of the roots of women’s oppression.

The second issue at stake here is the treatment of these women.  If they did not perform to the expectation of the men who led Gloriavale, they were starved, shamed, hit and otherwise punished. In short, they were treated more like dogs than like women, and indeed no compassionate person would even treat their dogs like that.

It is important to remember that the movement set up by Neville Cooper – the Cooperite sect – preceded the enlightenment era in New Zealand when women were, at last, able to be treated as persons in their own right, including fully participating in society on equal terms with men.

Gloriavale was based upon a men’s fantasy where women pleasured the master and looked after the men in every single way. The ‘work’ that women did to achieve this was not considered to be employment.  Of course it wasn’t.  It was their natural role played out in a perfect patriarchal society.  Women were doing as God ordained. Having babies and looking after men was what women were and did.

Further reading: Gloriavale’s last stand