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Salient. Newspaper of the Victoria University Students' Association. Vol 42 No. 2. March 5 1979

The Chains are Breaking

page 8

The [unclear: Chains] are [unclear: Breaking]

March 8 is International Working Women's Day — a day to celebrate the advances made in the position of women in New Zealand society. An understanding of the position of women in New Zealand today would make one wonder if there is, in fact, anything to celebrate. But compared to the position of women last century. New Zealand women today have made tremendous strides. Below is a brief outline of the changing position of women in New Zealand society, and a history of the role of the women's movement in pushing for these changes.

Our British Heritage

The women who came to New Zealand from Britain in the nineteenth century brought with them the customs and attitudes, as well as the economic and legal status of the sisters they left behind. Nineteenth century Britain was still in the throes of the Industrial Revolution, The rapid growth of industry and accompanying urbanisation had had a drastic effect on the position of women.

In feudal society the vast majority of people were serfs. Women played an important part in the feudal economy. In the home they produced the necessities of life: butter, cloth, garments, etc. Their important place in production ensured their important (but not equal) status in society.

The upheavals of the Industrial Revolution: the development of industry, and the rise of the middle classes dramatically changed women's position in society. The middle class women were trapped in the home, stripped of all economic and legal rights, as wife and mother. Working class women were thrown into either the factories or the brothels, often with the added burdens of motherhood and housewifery.

Thus in nineteenth century Britian there evolved two movements concerning women; the one to protect them and their children from dreadful working conditions, long hours and exploitation by low wages; the other, mainly involving middle class women, to fight for civil rights, for the right to vote, the right to an education and the right to work. Both these movements were to take root in colonial New Zealand.

The First Generation of New Zealand Women

The majority of colonial women were working class. Many of the single, working class women were servants, seamstresses or tailoresses. Married, working class women both brought up a family and went out to work whether on a factory, or handling a cross-cut saw on a farm. There were a few upper class women who did no manual work and employed servants, and there were a few middle and lower class women who did not go out to work - they were their own servants.

New Zealand Working Women in the C19th

In New Zealand's earliest colonial days there was very little factory legislation to protect factory workers from extreme exploitation. The worst cases of exploitation caused by economic lawlessness were those of women and girls in the clothing industry. Extensive unemployment, the absence of any trade union or social security system and competition for work forced wages to starvation levels. The workers would spend a long day in the factory and then carry a pile of work home to work on until the early hours.

The lot of working class women was, of course, inextricably linked to the lot of the working class generally. The working class movement in New Zealand at this time was comparitively weak, but it wasn't long before they began to organise. One of the first important working class organisations was the Knights of Labour, formed like a friendly society lodge into districts and branches "for the purpose of organising, educating, and directing the power of the masses without distinction of trade or craft". Both men and women could join and many women did. They combined with the rather conservative craft unionists and the several associations of women to form a broad, largely working class and small farmer movement that was primarily responsible for the improvement in social conditions of people in New Zealand, including the protection of women and their partial emancipation.

Women's Suffrage

Two of the most important aspects of the struggle for women's suffrage in New Zealand are often overlooked by New [unclear: Zealar] historians. One is that the struggle was a very long one, begining in the 1840's and involving thousands of women and men. The other is that it was part of a wider struggle for women's emancipation.

Women in ninteenth century New Zealand were second class citizens both socially and in the eyes of the law. Married women did not have the right to own property, no woman had the right to vote, women had no right, as against their husbands, to the custody of their children, and the first universities were not open to women. In Britain women's rights had been hotly debated since Mary Wollstonecraft wrote her very famous book "A Vindication of the Rights of Women" in 1792.

New Zealand women were quick to organise in defence of their rights. The first woman who worked actively for women's suffrage was Mary Muller who wrote a pamphlet advocating votes for women under a pseudonym, as her husband believed very strongly that while women had thier place, it was not in politics. Mrs Muller kept in touch with a group in London who were advocates of women's emancipation and, perhaps influenced by them, she organised the agitation for giving married women the right to own porperty. The passing of the Married Women's Property Act 1884, was very much related to her leadership.

The women's leadership in New Zealand set about organising public pressure for women's suffrage through the Women's Christian Temperance Union. As the first national organisation of women the WCTU was in the forefront of the fight for women rights. Quite correctly the WCTU saw that much of the suffering that women endured was related to the high level of alcoholism and drunkenness that existed in New Zealand. The sale of liquor in New Zealand was almost completely uncontrolled. The liquor lobby was most antagonistic towards the suffrage movement as they realised that the vote, once it was given to women, would be used against them. The then Prime Minister, Richard Seddon, used the powerful liquor lobby time and time again to destroy and derail measures coming into the House that would have given women the right to vote.

Katherine W. Sheppard was given the task by the WCTU of organising public pressure for Women's Suffrage. She campaigned extensively; within the literary and debating societies, the synods, assemblies and [unclear: junions] of the Churches and the public generally. In 1878, 1879 and 1881 the question of women's suffrage was introduced into the house, but each time it failed. However the heavy voting in favour of each motion showed the influence of the women's movement in the country. Finally after a protracted, mass campaign, women won the right to vote on 19 September 1893.

The National Council of Women

The next step was to federate the Women's Organsiations; this was initiated by Ada Wells of Canterbury in 1896. Ada Wells wrote in 1899 "before she can hold her place by the side of man, as a companion and as an associate, she must be relieved of the burden which drags her down; and this is why she has set about to organise societies to secure that cohesion, coherence and unity of method which are necessary to enable her to break her chains".

THE FIGHT FOR THE VOTE EQUALITY FOR ALL

Photo of women marching with banners

Photo of women working in a sweing factory

Kate Sheppard was the first President of the National Council of Women and the Vice Presidents were all leaders in the womens emancipation movement. One of their main aims was to gain the right for women to stand for parliament — this was achieved in 1919. Its general aims were equal pay and opportunity for women, the economic independence of married women, international peace, social reforms related to pensions and the treatment of prisoners, and an objective attitude to the economic system exemplified in their discussions on nationalisation, the single tax on land and soc- page 9 ialism.

In 1902 the NCW went out of existence. The WCTU continued but on a smaller scale. New Zealand was full of patriotic fervour and support for its soldiers in the Boer War. Prosperity had come with rising overseas prices for farm products, made possible by refridgeration; the scandalous abuses of factory labour had been removed and liberal labour laws introduced. Much of what the women had fought for had been won; better divorce laws, regulations of the liquor trade, education for women, matrimonial property rights, protection for the well-being of women and children, and above all the vote. Furthermore the leaders of the Women's movement were getting old and younger women were taking what existed for granted.

The "Housewives Unions"

In the years before World War I. House-wives' unions which were founded in the main and Provincial centers. They regarded themselves as citizens concerned not only with the family but also the community. The different Housewives Unions had slightly different political leanings In May 1914 the Wellington Housewives Union objected to the imprisonment of workers concerned with the great 1913 industrial upheaval.

World War I

In World War One the labour movement was split on whether to cooperate in the War or to take no part and work for peace and against the mass killing. The New Zealand Communist Party was one of the few Communist Parties in the world to take a strong stand against the war from its onset. However the influence of the Communist Party was small and the labour movement generally succumbed to patriotic fervour and support for the war. What was left of the Women's Movement at this time was abandoned for the war effort.

The Depression

During the Twenties and Thirties all women, especially married women, were heavily downgraded economically, women became cemented into their minor role.

In 1932, at the depth of the deppression, there were mass meetings of women protesting at the absence of jobs, but jobs were not provided; women did not receive unemployment relief and depended largely on charity. Married women were sacked from their jobs.

During the deppression years political discussion and analysis among both men and women was revived; by then the Labour Party, a middle-of-the-road grouping, was well established, and the Communist Party was influential. Professional and wage-earning women were receptive to study and discussion of ideas aimed at a type of society which would abolish unemployment and economic exploitation.

In October 1934 the first National Conference of Working Women was called to found a Working Women's Movement, though many thousands of women were unemployed. In November 1935 the movement produced a printed periodical. "The Working Women", a Communist Party paper with Elsie Freeman (now Locke) the editor. The articles were nonparty and as well as international affairs (such as Italian aggression and Fascism) they concentrated on the women's movement housing, the removal of starvation, food depots, free milk for the unemployed and unemployment relief for women.

The last issue was printed in November 1936. The Communist Party felt that a women's paper should have a wider basis and be controlled by a broader group of women. Again with the consistent help of Elsie Freeman, "Women Today" became until 1939, an independant journal 'for women writers and thinkers. It covered the Women's Movement, equal pay, medical aid to the Spanish Republicans and the boycotting of Japan. With the coming of World War II and the sweeping up of women into war activities, publication ceased.

Photo of a woman fixing machinery

World War II

Women as well as men, were, under manpower regulations, conscripted and directed to essential work. In 1944 all men from 18 to 59 and all women (with no dependent children) from 18 to 40 were liable to be directed to a job. Whereas in 1938 - 39 there were 33 women in jobs for every 100 men, by 1942 there were 46. The national emergency had a liberating effect on women; they became recognised as people who could and should contribute to economic life. Now, because it suited the state, child-care facilities were set up, women drove tractors and buses, did all types of farm work, mended the tram tracks, cleaned out the railway carriages and entered the public service as clerical workers. In 1939 the percentage of women clerical workers in the public service was 5 percent; in 1947 it was 25 percent.

The Women's Charter Movement

After World War II the thread of the cause of women was held briefly by the Women's Charter Movement from 1947 to 1949. This movement emphasised democratic education, supporting international unity and vigilance against fascism, the right of women to enter all industries and professions; it advocated day care centers, workers' holiday homes, home and nursing aides, mid-day meals' for school children, equal pay and opportunity in training and promotion and the end of the exploitation of women as cheap labour. They insisted on the right of married women to work. The Women's Charter groups in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch published leaflets on such subjects as China, Greece, Indonesia and the Atom bomb as well as on subjects particular to women. In 1949 the organisation was declared black by the Labour Party, whose leadership had joined the Cold War against social and economic emancipation, and it gradually faded out.

The Nineteen - Fifties

After World War II the government did everything in its power to push women out of the workforce and into the home. They pushed propaganda portraying women's place as in the home, they sacked married women, who, they said, were taking the jobs of the men who had returned from the war, they emphasised the need to build up the population depleted by war, and closed the child care centers. While it was impossible to remove all the women from the workforce who had joined the workforce during the war, the percentage of women in the workforce dropped significantly.

There is very little evidence of a women's movement in the fifties. Due, I feel, to the partial removal of women from the workforce, and their isolation in the surburbs, the cold war mentality that pervaded New Zealand in the fifties and the serious defeat which the labour movement suffered with the Watersiders Lock-out in 1951.

Stirrings of Revolt

From the late 1960s to today women's rights have featured prominently in every sphere of New Zealand life. This is partially due to the revival of the women's movement in the United States, sparked off by Betty Freidan's book on suburban neurosis, "The Feminine Mystique" published in 1963, the resurgence in critical thinking unleashed by the anti-Vietnam war movement, and the rapid development of light manufacturing in New Zealand in the late 1950s and the early 1960s which drew women into the workforce to a greater extent than ever before.

Since 1974 New Zealand has been gripped by a severe economic crisis. Again the Government has tried to created more jobs for men by pushing women out of the workforce rather than facing the real problems of New Zealand's economy. Through the D.P.B. cuts and the changes in the D.P.B. law women have been attacked for leaving bad marriages, through the Abortion Legislation women have been denied their right to decide for themselves whether or not to have a child. In reaction to the viscious attacks on Women's Rights the Women's Movement has grown stronger and stronger. This trend will continue, for women now recognise that in times of economic deppression it is women who suffer most.

Leonie Morris

Activities for March 8

Forum on "A Woman's Place is in the House of Parliament?" Speakers will include Lisa Sacksen from Working Women's Alliance;

Mary Batchelor (MP)

Representative of the view that women belong in the home.

12 noon - 2 pm Union Hall Thursday March 8th International Women's Day (Organised by Progressive Students' Alliance)

"Occasional Work of A Female Slave" — a feature film from West Germany. Director Alexander Kluge. R 18, 2.15 pm Memorial Theatre Student Union Building

Social Evening to celebrate International Women's Day. Film showing of "We Shall Never Forget" followed by Progressive Students' Alliance AGM and Elections. Get together and general piss-up.

7.30 pm — 12 pm Lounge and Smoking Room