Issue 26, March 2022

Woman NZ

A new magazine with a new voice. Yours.

Woman NZ1 min read
Woman
Editor Susanna Andrew Design Anna Revell, Bronwyn Mackenzie, Matt Dykzeul Chief Sub-editor Louise Adams Fashion editor Anastasia Doniants Digital Artist Andy Kirkup General Manager Lisa Hay Auckland Sales Manager Kim Blewett Wellington & Christchurch
Woman NZ2 min read
Editor’s Letter
There’s a lot of “can’t” in the world right now. Can’t have the village at the wedding. Can’t embrace a stranger on the street. Can’t have an arts festival, a concert, a dance. Can’t come home… but this too, we know, and hope, will pass. It’s distres
Woman NZ1 min read
Things We Love
Hold your own hand Not the idea of it or the theory of it Hold your own hand with your own hand Hold it See how confident how knowing it feels how held it feels It will cross the road with you It will be your older brother sister it will be your pare
Woman NZ2 min read
“Ko E ’apí ’a Fafine”
The eruption of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai and the subsequent 1.5m tsunami on January 15, 2022, caused shockwaves around the world. Cochairs of the Aotearoa Tonga Relief Committee, Hon. Jenny Salesa MP and ’Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki, have been coor
Woman NZ4 min read
That C word
When I was 12 years old, I received a postcard from my older sister. She’d mailed it from her job as a receptionist, a few suburbs away. The image was of a baby bird in a nest. Mouth open, eyes closed, screaming for masticated food. Only, where the m
Woman NZ9 min read
There Has To Be A Better Optionon
Lianne was 61 when her oncologist told her she was going to die and there was nothing the doctors could do about it. Well, not nothing, exactly. After diagnosing her with Stage 4b terminal endometrial cancer and informing her it was too late for both
Woman NZ3 min read
‘She Changed The Game Completely’
I have found myself in a row about medical cannabis,” Helen wrote to friends. It was typical understatement. Helen had barely touched dope as a teenager when friends were experimenting, but now she was the country’s most high-profile user. People had
Woman NZ5 min read
To Ban or Not To Ban
In January, a Tennessee school board voted unanimously to remove Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel, Maus, from its eighth grade curriculum, because of “objectionable words”. The book depicts Spiegelman interviewing his father abou
Woman NZ8 min read
I’m With The BANNED
Popular music is about, guess what, popular things, issues that matter to people. To slip past the powers that be, you need to speak in code, and if they’re not hip to the dots and dashes it’s just an awful racket. The illicit, the improper, the cont
Woman NZ3 min read
Mere Boynton
Mere Boynton (Te Aitanga a Mahaki, Ngāti Oneone and Tuhoe) was a young girl when her mother, Tangi, picked up a ukulele and taught her to sing her first song, but decades later she points to that moment as an influential one, along with the books she
Woman NZ7 min readGender Studies
It’s All About The Money, Honey
I spent countless hours berating myself for being so useless. How could I know all the lyrics to Meatloaf’s Bat Out of Hell album and next to nothing about how to manage my money? Was it because I only got a C-in School C maths? Was it the patriarchy
Woman NZ4 min read
“Are We There Yet?”
It’s particularly confusing times on the economic front at the moment. Are we in a boom, a bust, or something in between? Should we be worried? There are no certainties when it comes to what the year will bring. The last two years have shown us the p
Woman NZ5 min read
HOW THE CHIPS FALL When A Couple Separates
Splitting up is an emotionally fraught time, especially when there are children involved. Even for those who manage to maintain good relations with their exes, it is always a time of big change – whether it’s agreeing on childcare arrangements, divid
Woman NZ7 min read
A House Divided
The rubber hit the road this summer as we discovered how loved ones really feel about the covid-19 vaccine. Christmas Day gatherings with unvaccinated family members left off the guest list. Friends absent from routine holiday camping trips. But what
Woman NZ4 min read
‘The Straight Line Leads To Hell’
Kathleen Drumm, the chief executive of the Hundertwasser Art Centre with Wairau Māori Art Gallery, grew up in Whangarei. Her father, Brian, was the headmaster of Tikipunga High School, which she and her four siblings attended. He believed in an arts-
Woman NZ8 min read
The Day Jobs Of Authors
The first advice for any person wanting to write a novel is usually “don’t give up your day job”, and that’s not meant as a criticism of their talent but a reality check on their earnings. Most New Zealand fiction writers lead a “double life”. A NZ r
Woman NZ9 min readDiet & Nutrition
The Hidden Toll Of A Mid-life Eating Disorder
If Cate Eaton’s life was a movie it would begin with the death of her father and end with an eating disorder. In between there would be scenes with Cate leaning over the toilet, purging the food she’s just eaten, and the slow pan of the camera across
Woman NZ4 min read
Secluded Sanctuary
To have a conversation with Lise Strathdee is to be drawn into a tapestry of stories, where one thread pulls on another and you just hope to keep track of the unravelling. A fast-talking, charismatic woman, Lise is open and familiar with everyone she
Woman NZ6 min read
Fast Fresh Keto
Caa-ute! I love a rustic pie, and these are perfect for brunch, lunch or dinner. The avocado pastry keeps its gorgeous green hue and is nutty and moreish. Makes 4 small pies 1½ cups almond meal1 tsp baking powder pinch of salt1 firm but ripe avocado,
Woman NZ3 min read
The Search
I went secondhand clothes shopping the other week with my friend Nick, a poet. He was looking for a T-shirt. I was looking for anything, because when you are in a secondhand clothes shop you have to be open to it all. As John Lennon supposedly said,
Woman NZ1 min readPopular Culture & Media Studies
The Clothes Of Others
I went to pretty much every op shop in Auckland. I was on a mission to find certain pieces, influenced by two movies with strong and memorable aesthetics. The provocative noir The Last Seduction by John Dahl was my style inspiration. Linda Florentino
Woman NZ5 min read
The Science Of Sleep
Chances are your daytime skincare regime is sorted-with specific products and their precise order of application expertly finetuned. But what about the PM plan? Adding a hard-working night cream or serum into the routine is the ideal way to complemen
Woman NZ3 min read
A New Look In Sight
I’m not what you’d call an early adopter. I don’t understand Bitcoin, TikTok is pretty much a foreign country and when people talk about Alexa I think they’re referring to the teenage barista at my favourite cafe. So I waited until the words began to
Woman NZ2 min read
What’s In My BATHROOM
The textbook move would have been to stick with marketing. But Emma Lewisham has always been passionate about sustainable business practice and when the Aucklander couldn’t find 100 percent natural luxury skincare with scientifically backed results,
Woman NZ4 min readArchitecture
He Leaped The Fence, And Saw That all Nature Was A Garden
HORACE WALPOLE FROM ON MODERN GARDENING (1780) In New Zealand, we tend to place a very high value on tidy gardens. Edges, hedges and lawns, as I once heard a prominent gardener espouse. Attend to those and the rest of the garden will look fine – alth
Woman NZ2 min read
#askabookseller
A true, feel-good romance can be hard to come by in the literary section of your local bookshop. However, the underlying theme of many great books is the examination of complex relationships. While they are not always romantic, the nitty gritty reali
Woman NZ2 min read
Self Contained
Humans, we’re told, are meant to pair up: Adam and Eve, Elton John and David Furnish, the Kardashians and a revolving cast of partners. But what if you don’t? The mating dance, being part of a couple and reproducing are at the heart of this honest, f
Woman NZ1 min read
Poem Of The Month
I am trying to go vegetarian but finding myself weak, week to week browsing the meat aisle at a linger close enough to chill my arms to gooseflesh. I only buy stuff so processed it hardly makes sense to call it meat. Saveloy, nugget, continental fran
Woman NZ2 min read
Crime Book Of The MONTH
by Gregg Hurwitz (Penguin, RRP $24) Just north of south of the border, in a community centre in the desert community of Eden, Aragón Urrea is throwing a birthday party. His little girl, just turned 18, has become a woman. Speeches are made, stories a
Woman NZ2 min read
The Edifying Power Of Waiata
As the sounds of the Encanto movie soundtrack blast from my car and around our whare yet again thanks to my pōtiki (youngest child), I find myself singing along to the lyrics that have found their way into my head. There are some kupu (words) that I’
Woman NZ3 min read
Lady Lessons
When Princess Diana failed all her O-Levels she was packed off to finishing school in Switzerland. This taught her an important lesson: exams are for nerds who don’t want a free trip to Switzerland. Finishing school was designed to train young women
Woman NZ4 min read
That’s the SPIRIT
Becoming a gin-maker was never Sarah Bonoma’s Plan A. Or Plan B. Or even Plan C. So no one is more surprised than the 39-year-old Brit that she and her American husband Ben co-founded Dancing Sands Distillery, an awardwinning gin distillery in Tākaka
Woman NZ4 min read
Stoked
Zoi Sadowski-Synott feels free when she’s riding a snowboard. As she soars into the air, executing tricks and moves that leave observers in awe, Zoi is as close to flying as a human can get. “It’s got to be one of the best feelings ever, being in the
Woman NZ3 min read
Volcanic Uproar
If you live in a volcanically active area, you know all too well the familiar rumbles and motion as the earth’s crust moves under your feet. Activity along the chain of volcanoes dotted from the central North Island, Bay of Plenty and along the Kerma
Woman NZ3 min read
Camp Lightly
If you’re after a “getaway”, your first choice mightn’t be a holiday close to home. But hear me out: despite the temptation of getting as far from the daily grind as possible, a good getaway needn’t be hours away. In fact, there’s likely to be a whol
Woman NZ4 min readDiet & Nutrition
Protein POWER
It’s not always useful to think of what we eat as nutrients. Any expert will tell you to think of food, not nutrients, for the healthiest and most intuitive eating. Most of us do this naturally anyway; only the most obsessive is ever going to track h
Woman NZ6 min read
Astro Woman
Pisces Ingress Feb 19, 2022, at 4.43 am NZT The Sun moves into the mutable Water sign Pisces. The sign of “the fishes” is the 12th and last sign of the tropical Zodiac. Those born under its influence are said to be adaptable, compassionate and highly
Woman NZ4 min read
Mind Games
1 Tiger Woods’ profession 4 Deadened 7 Tropical lizard 10 Feather pens 13 Fair 15 Most disobedient 17 Facial twitches 19 Build up 21 Competent 23 Menace 25 Adversity 28 Lapse 29 Jellied petrol 30 The States (1,1,1) 32 Christening ceremony 36 Hollywoo
Woman NZ2 min read
Severance Pay Turned Sinister
The opening of this understated thriller series sees a woman lying on a boardroom table with a disembodied voice coming through the conference call system asking “who are you?” and subsequently insisting she take a five question phone survey. She isn

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