Marama
“[Being a woman] means embracing our feminine strength and spirit, and that is not limited to people who are born as cis-women. It means reconnecting ourselves to the Big Woman, the big mama Papatūānuku, and listening to her guidance and signs of health and healing.”
As co-leader of the Green Party of Aotearoa, Minister for the Prevention of Family Violence and Sexual Violence, and the Associate Minister for Housing (Homelessness), Marama has devoted her life to fighting for change. She is passionate about amplifying the voices of vulnerable communities who have been systematically silenced. Though opposition is a part of the job, Marama has had to endure threats and abuse for her work ensuring there is space for all wāhine (women) to succeed. Nevertheless, she persists. She is a strong and courageous politician who leads by listening rather than telling, shows up rather than sitting on the sidelines, and speaks with communities rather than just on behalf of them. Meet Marama. This is her story.
P: Please introduce yourself!
M: My name is Marama Davidson and I am a descendent of the Te Rarawa, Ngāpuhi and Ngāti Porou iwi. I have lived all around Aotearoa in large cities as well as isolated rural areas, and am privileged to have spent a large part of my childhood growing up in Hokianga in my small papakainga village of Whirinaki.
My husband and I have six children and one mokopuna and we live in Manurewa in Auckland. I have been a Member of Parliament for almost six years and I have been the co-leader of the Green Party of Aotearoa/New Zealand for three and a half years. It is my privilege to have been appointed as the Minister for the Prevention of Family Violence and Sexual Violence, and the Associate Minister for Housing (Homelessness) since Oct 2020.
Marama with Green Party co-lead James Shaw
P: Describe or define yourself in your own words.
Marama in her parliament office with photo of her grandparents
M: I am focused and determined to contribute to a better world. I enjoy stepping up to challenges when the going gets tough, and I enjoy digging into complex issues and projects to achieve collective goals.
But what I cannot live without is my family and my solitude, and in a busy world in public life my home life and home people are my sanctuary. I can’t get enough of nature and I depend on regular contact with our sea, rivers, lakes, bush and natural wild-life to keep me well and functioning. The small simple things in life have become so much more important to me now, given I have to focus on how to fix the world each day. I love art and creativity and am inspired by all of our creatives - especially our feminine and indigenous artists.
P: What is your favourite thing about yourself?
M: I think I am easy to be around and make people feel comfortable if I have chosen to be around you ☺
I like that I am emotionally generous to people and seek to see what is good about you first. But I also like that when someone is clearly exploiting me or my energy, I have no problem dismissing them from my time.
I have become so much better at making the most of my time with my kids and loved ones when I have the privilege of putting them first.
I am a flawed but loving mum and I love being a nana. I am the sort of nana I wish all mokopuna had – my little baby girl is the absolute treasure of my life.
P: Tell us a story. Have you had an experience that’s defined you or made you stronger?
M: I continue to have dark, tough moments on the regular! Some of these experiences have steeled my resolve after they have put me in a metaphoric foetal position in the 'gutter'. Sometimes I admit I have no idea how I get up again and keep going.
For example, I was annoyed and shocked at the vitriol that I get for engaging with people who are 'gang' affiliated. For many many years, including before I became a politician, I have focused on enduring solutions and working with the very people who need to improve their lives and whose lives have come up against barriers to wellbeing for generations. For many years I have been working with women who are gang affiliated, which includes women who have been impacted on most harshly by behaviour from gangs that they need to be accountable for. These are women who want their whānau and children to have access to safe housing, health, education, social support, employment, further education, and their culture – women who want them and their children’s lives to be safe and free from violence. Women who want to lead the change within gang communities for wellness for all.
I’d love to see more of that group of women profiled, celebrated, and understood – to me they are worthy of Queen’s honours given what they have to endure but still keep trying anyway. I am humbled that these women have entrusted me to listen to them, and to share in their higher visions and support them where I can. I have a privileged background compared to what they have had to withstand, and the fact that they can welcome me into their lives is something I do not take for granted. On one of my most recent visits, I took my mama with me. Mama listened and received their kōrero with tears running down her face. My mama is a Māori woman who has faced a tough life herself but she was humbled by their stories, their fight for change, their resistance to the awful stigmas surrounding them.
And so I am very proud to support their events and join the call for returning to an understanding of women and children as sacred and having a special mana that must be protected and supported to thrive. True accountability for that can only come from supporting the change that is needed, not from suggesting that we exterminate gangs?!?!?
I get aggressively attacked for days when opposition politicians chose to use these families as political footballs to criticise my work. I have had to spend days and weeks receiving and managing abusive insults and threats across all my platforms of communication. One of my children was exposed to these same abuses of me via their social media platforms.
What gets me through these moments, is remembering that I am not here to please politicians who bait racist and classist narratives because it is popular to do so. Engaging at the grassroots frontlines where change needs to happen is absolutely my job. And at the systemic level I engage with power holders to urgently work towards ensuring people have what they need to live good, safe, positive lives. The evidence, research and expertise has been clear for a very long time - a punitive de-humanising approach does NOT lead to enduring change or safety for any of us. Those politicians are not interested in evidence or best practice, or even positive outcomes. They are baiting purely for political profile and that is abhorrent.
We have so much work to do still, but my gosh I will KEEP DOING MY JOB to support the very whānau-led, long-term solutions no matter how much garbage is thrown at me, my family, my office and my political party.
What gets me through, is having the undying and staunch support of my office team, my political party team, my MP colleagues, my family, my communities and our progressive collective movements, and most importantly, those wāhine at the frontlines of gang communities - to keep holding me up through some really ugly, nasty abuse. As they have said to me: "Marama we get death threats regularly whether we do good or bad." But it is so normalised for them that they keep their chins up and do the best they can, which requires more grit than what many of us have to pull on.
That is inspiring leadership, from people who get exploited just to attack me. I've apologised to these whānau for this, and have told them I will cease my approach if it brings them further harm. But they have told me that they feel it is positive in the long run, to have these issues out there being debated by us.
I was reminded that we are better, that we have good sense, evidence, loving values and righteousness on our side, and that we will prevail over such short-sighted frenzied ugliness.
Much love to everyone for your unwavering support over the many years, of the work to go where most politicians won't. I will continue to be accountable to doing that mahi. I will continue to be proud of who I choose to engage with.
P: What is one piece of advice you’d give to your younger self?
M: When people who care about you believe in you, listen to them.
P: What does being a woman mean to you?
M: It means embracing our feminine strength and spirit, and that is not limited to people who are born as cis-women. It means reconnecting ourselves to the Big Woman, the big mama Papatūānuku, and listening to her guidance and signs of health and healing.
P: Who is one woman that inspires you? What would you say to her if she were here now?
M: My nana, for being so strong in the face of life-long colonial oppression and trauma and still passing on to us a love and pride for being tangata whenua. I miss her so much, that I know what I want to say most to her if I had a chance, is how much I love her deeply and feel her everyday.