More on the NZ Herald article, which covers a lot of ground.

In Wellington City, a Speak Up For Women billboard has been removed from the CBD today.

In a statement Go Media general manager Simon Teagle said it was removed as soon as the company started fielding calls from offended New Zealanders.

He believed the billboard could be in breach of the Advertising Standards Authority’s codes.

A billboard that gives a dictionary definition of the word “woman” could be in breach of the Advertising Standards Authority’s codes? They must be very strange codes.

“Go Media is an inclusive, locally-owned New Zealand business and we support all communities. While we believe in freedom of speech, we do not condone content that upsets our community.

“We apologise unreservedly for any distress this may have caused anyone, and remedied the situation as soon we could.”

They support all communities, but if women put up a billboard with the definition of women, that “upsets our community.” What community? The community of everybody except women? If they support all communities why don’t they support [the community of] women? Are women the one “community” that doesn’t get to be considered a community? Why are women being singled out for shunning and exclusion this way?

Go Media is also a partner of the Wellington Phoenix [a football club].

Club general manager David Dome tweeted this morning that he has contacted Go Media for its position on the advertisement, which would be reviewed accordingly.

He said the billboard was at “complete odds with the club’s position on diversity and inclusion and specifically LGBTQI+”.

What on earth? Saying a woman is an adult human female is at complete odds with a football club’s position on diversity and inclusion? How is that possible?

Speak Up For Women’s spokeswoman Beth Johnson said in a statement the billboard was up for 24 hours before it was pulled down.

“The same vexatious complainants who have been harassing the women’s group for years have managed to bully a media company into bowing to their demands,” Johnson said.

Speak Up For Women is holding an event at the Michael Fowler Centre in Wellington on Thursday.

But from tonight Wellington Mayor Andy Foster and councillors Fleur Fitzsimons and Teri O’Neill have organised for the sails of the Centre to be lit in the colours of the transgender flag.

In other words a kind of visual shouting down – visual and official. The city government is making a big show of bullying women for defending their own rights. So much for their “community.”

“The conversation which is being had around the country has caused angst for the trans community in particular,” Foster said.

“This is a vulnerable part of our community so we are trying to say to them that we’re standing beside them and we support them.”

So women are not vulnerable? Women do not experience angst? Women don’t need councillors and mayors to stand beside them and support them? Women are the all-powerful domineering monsters who can crush men between their thumb and forefinger? Is that it?