Rosjke Hasseldine

In January, Hon. Andrew Little, the New Zealand Justice Minister, told the United Nations that the New Zealand justice system is failing women. He said this because, as the Family Violence Clearinghouse reports, 1 in 3 New Zealand women experience physical and/or sexual violence at the hands of their male partner at some point in their life.

The truth is, not many women can name what they need emotionally from the people they love. Think about it. When was the last time someone asked you “what do you need?”

In September, I traveled to Budapest to talk to a wonderful group of psychology students about my mother-daughter relationship work. They created a video of the talk, which I want to share with you. During the talk I explain that mothers and daughters do not relate in a socio-cultural vacuum, rather the mother-daughter relationship is a mirror reflection of how families and society treat women.

At a recent networking event, a male colleague deliberately blanked me. Yes, I do think that him being male and I being female has a lot to do with why he blanked me. Not being able to avoid me in the small gathering, he came up to me pretending he didn’t know me.

Last month CBS contacted me asking if I would provide mother-daughter couples coaching for a mother-daughter couple on their new show “Face the Truth”. At first I felt flattered. I thought “wow, CBS is calling me”. But when I spoke to the production assistant about what they wanted from me and googled what the show was about red flags started popping up.