Monday 17 September 2018

This Week in World History...

Did you know that New Zealand was the first self-governing country in the world to grant the vote to all adult women?

This allowed ALL women in NZ (with the exception of prison inmates) to officially and legally have their say on the decisions and laws that impacted them for the first time in November 1893.
I say ‘all’ proudly, as even subsequently, in other select places, rights were not given straight away to all women but selected pockets that were deemed worthy such as the wealthy, property owners or rate payers.
Previously only the Isle of Man, as an internally self-governing dependant territory of the British Crown, had enfranchised women property owners in 1881 and on Pitcairn Island female descendants of the Bounty Mutineers were allowed to vote for ruling council members from 1838.
It was not until after WW1 that Britain and America allowed women the vote.

Interestingly (to me, at least!) this would have occurred even sooner in NZ had it not been for the concern of certain members of parliament with friends (and fingers) in the Liquor industry who opposed the bills put forward to parliament to allow the vote on the grounds that women would use their new found influence to negatively impact the availability of liquor (as was one of the main drives of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union in those times, which they believed went hand in hand with improving the conditions for women and family life in general).

Kate Sheppard and fellow suffragists travelled our country gathering support (and educating) under fierce opposition. Women who came out in support were ‘recommended to go home, look after their children, cook their husbands’ dinners, empty the slops, and generally attend to the domestic affairs for which Nature designed them’; and told they should give up ‘meddling in masculine concerns of which they are profoundly ignorant’.
They gathered signatures of around 32, 000 women from all over the country, glued the sheets together and presented it dramatically as a 270 m roll bowled across the chamber of the House in July 1893.
The Electoral Act 1893 was passed (by both houses) and became law on Sept 19th (even with the opposition of our Premier at the time; Richard Seddon – a friend of the Liquor Industry!).
You can view the list, read the names of the people that signed and find out more info about the NZ Suffrage on the NZhistory.govt.nz website.
Nelson had its own list of signatures of support which was submitted separately and subsequently lost from history so we can’t look at that – however,  I have included below, the text of a leaflet published by the Women's Christian Temperance Union in May 1888, which was sent to every member of the House of Representatives. I imagine at the time people didn’t giggle at all as much as I did when I read it! ( please note: I am grateful I live in a time where I have the right and am able to giggle about such things!).
Ten reasons why the women of New Zealand should vote (1888)
1. Because a democratic government like that of New Zealand already admits the great principle that every adult person, not convicted of crime, nor suspected of lunacy, has an inherent right to a voice in the construction of laws which all must obey.
2. Because it has not yet been proved that the intelligence of women is only equal to that of children, nor that their social status is on a par with that of lunatics or convicts.
3. Because women are affected by the prosperity of the Colony, are concerned in the preservation of its liberty and free institutions, and suffer equally with men from all national errors and mistakes.
4. Because women are less accessible than men to most of the debasing influences now brought to bear upon elections, and by doubling the number of electors to be dealt with, women would make bribery and corruption less effective, as well as more difficult.
5. Because in the quietude of home women are less liable than men to be swayed by mere party feeling, and are inclined to attach great value to uprightness and rectitude of life in a candidate.
6. Because the presence of women at the polling-booth would have a refining and purifying effect.
7. Because the votes of women would add weight and power to the more settled and responsible communities.
8. Because women are endowed with a more constant solicitude for the welfare of the rising generations, thus giving them a more far-reaching concern for something beyond the present moment.
9. Because the admitted physical weakness of women disposes them to exercise more habitual caution, and to feel a deeper interest in the constant preservation of peace, law, and order, and especially in the supremacy of right over might.
10. Because women naturally view each question from a somewhat different standpoint to men, so that whilst their interests, aims, and objects would be very generally the same, they would often see what men had overlooked, and thus add a new security against any partial or one-sided legislation.

https://nzhistory.govt.nz/files/styles/fullsize/public/images/women-voting.jpg?itok=7AN74OuW
Women vote for the first time at a polling station in the tiny South Otago settlement of Tahakopa on 28 November 1893. Despite ominous warnings by diehard suffrage opponents that delicate female voters would be harassed and jostled, the conduct of the election was peaceful and orderly throughout the country.

Of the around 120, 000 NZ women at the time about 102,000 turned out to vote for the first time in the election following the Sept 19th law pass.

So – this Sept 19th (Wednesday), 125 years on – take a moment to think about the rights you have, how you got them and how you use them.