<\/p>\n
\nLyndal Ludlow.
\nPhoto: Matthew Rosenberg\/LDR\n<\/p>\n
The only female elected member at a southern council admits you sometimes have to put on “armour” for the job.<\/p>\n
Lyndal Ludlow has been the sole woman councillor at Environment Southland since 2016, bar one term in 2019 when she was joined by Bonnie Mager.<\/p>\n
Only four other women have put their hand up for election across the four terms she has now clocked up.<\/p>\n
Ludlow wasn’t sure why there was such low representation, but had a few theories including remuneration and the schedule not fitting around being a mum.<\/p>\n
She also acknowledged the strong male presence could put some people off because of a fear they would not be heard.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Working with her male colleagues was great most of the time, she said.<\/p>\n
“Funnily enough I’ve ended up in an all-male household, so I’ve got that at home as well. The guys, I really enjoy their company because they’re decent human beings, most of them.<\/p>\n
“And we all have our moments, I’m not perfect myself.<\/p>\n
“But it is challenging at times because our perspective is very different on some things. There’s one really good advantage and that is that I don’t have to wait for the bathroom.”<\/p>\n
Ludlow said she noticed she approached conversations and debate differently to her male constituents and was less likely to have an outburst.<\/p>\n
However, she had faced sexism in the role, including an incident at a regional meeting where a man introduced himself and asked if she was the minutes secretary.<\/p>\n
“So I rose to my full… 5ft2, took a deep breath and said ‘no, no, I’m actually one of the councillors’.”<\/p>\n
On another more recent occasion, Ludlow was again assumed to be a secretary.<\/p>\n
She was used to giving a “bit back” when faced with inappropriate comments but acknowledged it was upsetting at times.<\/p>\n
Ludlow encouraged women who were interested in influencing the future to get involved, whether that be through submissions or partaking in community discussions.<\/p>\n
This election, she finished with the second-most votes of any candidate in the Invercargill-Rakiura constituency.<\/p>\n
Local Democracy Reporting is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lyndal Ludlow. Photo: Matthew Rosenberg\/LDR The only female elected member at a southern council admits you sometimes have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":127254,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[48,47,42,43,49,46,44,45,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-127253","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-current-affairs","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-podcasts","13":"tag-public-radio","14":"tag-radio-new-zealand","15":"tag-rnz","16":"tag-top-news","17":"tag-top-stories","18":"tag-topnews","19":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/127254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}