The Organisations

In 1966 Betty Friedan's book. The Feminine Mystique' was published. Its appeal to discontented middle-class housewives was enormous and immediately a number of new women's organisations sprung up, beginning witht he Society for Research on Women. Today, there appears to be a definite split in aim's and outlook between these post-1966 groups and those established earlier. Significantly, however, the pre-1966 groups still include all those we interviewed with memberships of over 1000 [5]. In other words, involvement in the current movement continues to be largely in organisations dating from the 1920s and 1930s. Their function was most often to complement (and certainly not challenge) existing male organisations [6]. The National Council of Women itself, the 'official voice' of New Zealand women, has its origins in the late 19th century.

In order to define the nature of the movement more clearly, we attempted to get details of the age, marital status, education and occupation of all those on the governing bodies of the organisations we interviewed. Our findings showed that power lies overwhelmingly in the hands of middle-class, high-educated married women in the 45-60 age group. The vast majority have families, are supported by professional husbands, and are either full-time housewives or work themselves in business and the professions.

Several important conclusions emerge from this: The leaders of the largest and most influential organisations tend to be housewives with no other paid employment. Orientation towards the family is thus inevitable, producing an outlook which tends to perpetuate existing female roles. The young, the single and the employed - these sectors most capable of challenging the traditional 'wife and motherhood' stereotype - play very little part in the movement overall. Even radical groups are led primarily by 'housewives only', finding it extremely difficult in practice to break out of a role they see to be oppressive and limiting. Indeed, only such groups as Sisters for Homophile Equality which have rejected heterosexual relationships and the family set-up altogether have completely overcome this particular problem.

Equally significant is the absence of working-class women in the New Zealand movement, at least in leadership positions [7]. This stems partly from the fact that only housewives supported by professional husbands have time for the amount of voluntary work implicity in active involvement. Regular governmental grants to groups are exceptional and usually cover categories not specifically concerned with women [8]. N.C.W. itself is forced to depend totally on voluntary labour apart from 12 house paid secretarial work per week. In other words, the "cause" of women is considered unimportant and goes largely unrecognised by the bodies which hold power in society at present.

But the problem runs deeper still. With almost no exceptions, the current groups unquestioningly accept middleclass structures, aspirations and activities. These have little relevance at all for working class women and the Working Women's Alliance alone is involved with them. In this situation, the vision of the movement is tragically limited to the equal participation of middle-class women in the present economic system. The fact that working class women (and men) would continue to be 'exploited' by such a system goes largely unrecognised. The right of some women to participate, euq equally with men in injustice has been substituted for the total liberation of the female sex in every sphere of life.