Speaker shines light into male headspace

Woman dairy farmers wanting to get inside the heads of their male staff will get some valuable insights from leading author and social commentator Celia Lashlie at this year’s Dairy Women’s Network conference.

The conference kicks off in Invercargill on March 23 and 24, with a world class calibre of speakers covering dairy women’s interests as diverse as high fashion to agronomy.
With young males often playing a critical role in the day to day operations on large dairy farms, understanding their motivations and thought processes can go a long way to helping the whole operation run more smoothly, says Network Temporary General Manager Lynda Clark.

Celia Lashlie is well known for her bestseller “He’ll be OK - turning gorgeous boys into men,” which sold to critical acclaim six years ago. This followed her first book “The journey to prison, who goes and why.” Her latest book “The powers of mothers, releasing our children” is an attack on present approaches to dealing with at-risk children. It is a wake up call to middle classes about what she describes as an appalling waste of children born “pure and full of magic,” only to fall into an endless cycle of imprisonment and abuse, often with authorities working against the best efforts of the children’s’ mothers.

Celia Lashlie’s staked her claim to social advocacy when she became New Zealand’s first female prison guard in a male prison, working at Rimutaka prison in the mid eighties. She was also manager of Christchurch Women’s prison for three and a half years. Since then she has garnered a profile as being a straight talking, no nonsense advocate for young males caught in repercussions of violent, uncaring relationships resulting in violence, addiction and often death.

Lashlie’s involvement in a 2001 project, the Good Man Project,was the catalyst for her second successful book. She held discussions with dozens of boy’s classes, providing an insight to how young males think and act.

“It gave me an insight to the pragmatism and intuition of boys, and a sense of how we might be able to harness these attributes and so make their journey through adolescence a little easier on both them and us.” With it came a burning desire to see these young males reach their potential, rather than end up dead in a ditch behind the wheel of a car with a system full of alcohol.
Lynda Clark says farming families are well regarded for their ability to “adopt” young staff into their business and their lives, taking an interest that extends well beyond the formal boss-worker relationship.

“This is more so now, with larger farms seeking staff from further afield who are being taken out of their familiar area to a new region, without whatever support was there in the past.” She maintains dairying women with their own sons at home will also learn more from Celia’s insights, and that “we are probably doing a better job than we realise.”

Celia’s time in the prison system meant she saw many young men whose decisions had dropped them in jail. She has emphasised the importance of adults to continue to work with young men to ensure they make the right choices.

Bosses on dairy farms can have a lingering and positive effect on their young male staff, given they so often share the same boundaries, workspace and time with their staff, often in a family business context.

Lynda Clark says the industry requires young men with the inner strength to handle the physical and mental demands that come with dairying, and that will only come from nurturing, engaged mentors within the family, and the industry.

“There is a physicality to boys, and a degree to which they live outside their bodies for a great deal of the time, which influences their behaviour, and is an area to consider in their management,” says Celia.

The theme for the Dairy Women’s Network annual conference is “Milk Fills the World’s Cup.” A sampling of other speakers include: designer, Trelise Cooper; dairy industry leader, Dr Helen Anderson; and CEO of Westland Milk, Rod Quin.

To learn more about the Dairy Women’s Network conference visit: www.dwn.co.nz. There are still spaces and accommodation available.