Late this afternoon, I went to the street corner Q&A held by Reuben Davidson, Labour MP for Christchurch East, as part of his election campaigning. I asked him what is a woman. He was clearly ready for it, and dodged it with a slick answer - i.e. that it is someone the current government pays less than a man (in reference to the changes to pay equity). Sounds like they’ve been prepped for this question. When the bill to define women and men in law was raised, he trotted out all the standard ‘reasons’ we hear ad infinitum - divisive, marginalised, intersex, and trans. When I asked for an explanation, none was well articulated, but instead he did a smooth segue into ‘more important things’, and disagreed that on that basis it was strange there weren’t ‘more important things’ when letting men into women’s spaces was being ushered in. To be fair, I think that Reuben is quite a good MP for Christchurch East in general, but he’s no friend to women who want women’s spaces, and the word ‘woman’, back. I asked if I could video our engagement, but he said he preferred not, because of the other people there who might get into the video, so I respected that.