The Mongrel Mob is divided over plans to set up a women's chapter.
The high-profile gang operates around the country through a number of independent chapters. Now The Waikato-based Mongrel Mob Kingdom has announced plans for the all-female chapter, to be named the Mongrel Mob Wāhine Toa chapter.
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Paula Ormsby, who wants to lead the group, told NZME the chapter was part of an effort to separate the Mongrel Mob Kingdom from other chapters.
"We want to get the message across that enough is enough around methamphetamine and other types of things that the gangs are still doing that we don't agree with," she said.
However, there has been pushback from other chapters around the country, who say they wouldn't have approved the proposal if they had been consulted.
Mongrel Mob Porirua member Dennis Makalio told Radio New Zealand that women had no right to wear the patch.
"If they're going to try and talk to you about how they'd love to go forward with their families, their kids, they'd most probably get 100 percent support from all the chapters in New Zealand.
"But when it comes to our patches, I don't think so.
"Wāhine have got nothing to do with the patch. Never has, never will."
The Mongrel Mob has a history of treating woman badly, including several notorious gang-rape against both members of the public and woman involved in the gang.
"The lot of women was terrible really," gang expert Dr Jarrod Gilbert told TVNZ. "[They were] chattels there for domestic and sexual purposes only. So from that, then proposing to give them membership is a remarkable transformation.
"Feminism is catching up, even in the gang world apparently."
Newshub.
