A Brief Rundown on Women’s Rights in New Zealand…
I threw together this little primer in honour of this being a pretty important day for feminism, not just in New Zealand, but around the world. You see, 120 years ago today New Zealand became the first self-governing country to grant all women the right to vote in parliamentary elections.
To quote from Dr Katie Pickles’ article:
What happened here in 1893 was orderly, largely good-willed and fusty compared with the awful events to come elsewhere. We escaped the militant desperation of the hunger strikes, bombs and martyrdom that women around the world would resort to in later decades as they attempted to catch up to the rights and respect that New Zealand women enjoyed. Writing letters to newspapers and MPS, holding meetings, distributing leaflets and signing a massive petition actually worked here.
It is very telling that it was the liquor barons who opposed votes for women. A vote for women was widely considered a vote for the settler family man against the “loafing single men.” The men who supported women’s suffrage believed that women’s votes would have an orderly, conservative effect on society. In the colonial setting, women’s art as maternal, civilising agents was especially needed.
Demonstrating the clear connection between alcohol and the vote, the New Zealand campaign was run through the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, a part of an international women’s maternal feminism dedicated to improving family life through ridding the world of alcohol and its attendant problems. Source
(In fact, one of the first things women did post-voting rights was to have a chain-link fence put up along the banks of the Avon River. This was to prevent drunkards from toppling down the steep banks and drowning in the water. Parts of the fence remain to this day).
But it wasn’t all easy going. Henry Fish, one of the aforementioned “liquor barons” would pay anti-suffrage campaigners to sign his petition - though his credibility was damaged when it emerged that some of the signatures were faked and that some women had been tricked into signing, thinking that his petitions were for women’s suffrage.
Then there was the worry from men in Parliament, who believed that women would only pose a distraction if they were allowed to vote. One concerned parliamentary member wrote:
“Although I am getting up in years I must confess I should be affected by a weakness of that sort. If the honourable gentlemen in charge of the Bill would introduce a clause providing that only plain women should be allowed to come into the House, I think the source of danger would be removed, but if any beautiful ladies were sent to this House I am sure they would lead astray the tender hearts of some honourable gentlemen, particularly the elder members of the House. I say in conclusion that if attractive ladies are allowed into this House I am quite certain that my own wife will never consent to my returning here.”
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The most prominent figure in the Women’s Suffrage in New Zealand was Kate Sheppard (10 March 1847 - 13 July 1934) who in her most famous statement, said: “all that separates, whether of race, class, creed, or sex, is inhuman, and must be overcome.” She was true to this claim, for there were many Maori women’s voices present in the New Zealand suffrage campaign, and plenty of evidence that the dominant white middle class women actively sought to include Maori perspectives.
In her 1888 pamphlet “Ten Reasons Why the Women of N.Z. Should Vote”, one of Kate’s arguments was that:
“It has not yet been proved that the intelligence of women is only equal to that of children, nor that their intelligence is on a par with that of lunatics or criminals”
The Temperance Union presented a petition in favour of Women’s Vote to Parliament in 1891, 1892 and 1893. Each one was bigger than the last, and the third was signed by one quarter of adult New Zealand women (32, 000 signatures in total).
There was a setback when Liberal Party leader and Woman’s Rights supporter John Balance died in April 1893. He was succeeded by Richard John Seddon, who was fiercely opposed to the suffragettes. When the Woman’s Suffrage Bill was introduced to Parliamant, Seddon worked against it behind the scenes, expecting that the Legislative Council would negate the vote. However, realizing that opposition and support for the bill was more evenly divided among members of the Legislative Council than he had expected, Seddon sent a telegraph to one member, demanding that he change his vote to opposition.
Sadly for him, news of his scheming got out, and two members who had initially voted AGAINST the bill changed their votes, partly because they were disgusted by Seddon’s tactics.
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That year, the women’s suffrage bill was successfully passed with 20 votes in favour to 18. But with only ten weeks until the 1893 election, Kate Sheppard and the other suffragettes (including Amey Daldy, Meri Te Tai Mangakahia, Harriet Morison, Mary Ann Muller, Helen Nicol, Annie Schnackenberg, Margaret Sievwright and Anna Stout) knew they had to work fast in order to register women voters.
Despite the short notice, nearly two-thirds of New Zealand women, European and Maori alike, cast a vote.
Today Kate Sheppard’s life and work is honoured by her image being placed on the New Zealand ten dollar note.
In her own words:
“We are tired of having a ‘sphere’ doled out to us, and of being told that anything outside that sphere is ‘unwomanly’. We want to be natural just for a change … we must be ourselves at all risks.”