[A screenshot from a msm clip of the Tauranga by-election. Unrelated to the post]

What caught my attention was the T-Shirt in the picture and that it got mainstream attention.

Tauranga has long been an independent back burner on men’s issues and it’s been the hub of probably more new (relevant) organisations than any other place in the country.

For those of us who go back 20 odd years to the early days of the Clark Administration bumper stickers and T-shirts were highly political.

Even JP wasn’t going to wear a bumper sticker on his car and the one that was donated to the cause outside the North Shore Men’s Centre had a very short life on his bumper bar.

T-shirts were expensive to print and I know as I got a few quotes and even contributed to the production cost of some.

The real problem was getting guys to wear them outside of any orgnised event. The political pressure or the effect of political pressure meant that advertising fathers issues was like an admission of failure.

It’s great to see someone with a T-shirt even if it suggests that particular organisation is in the recovery stage after failure.

Fathers and men are still a highly political subject and we’ve got used to that rather than men actually being fathers “in their own right”.

I say that, meaning any man who isn’t in a stable relationship with a supportive partner is in a highly contestable position.

I couldn’t make out much of the question being asked at the time but it was around the issue of fathers, families and gangs … gangs being a current political issue in the Bay of Plenty.

We’re still a sensitive subject and I haven’t got around to tracking down the recent Listener article about the “War On Men”.

I haven’t seen any comments on that Listener article here, JP and can we republish it on this platform?

Is there still a war on men?
Still a political controversy around fathers?
Have we reached irrelevance and are we considering a comeback?

Anyone else got a new T-Shirt?