WHAT HAPPENED NEXT: CONSEQUENCES OF THE SUFFRAGE CAMPAIGN
"Women have now got the franchise, but they have still to prove that they can exercise it wisely and well. The women of New Zealand have a great responsibility in the matter. If it is shown that their exercise of the right to vote conduces to the good government of the colony, then New Zealand will be an example to be followed, and in a few years the sex will be endowed with this power in the other colonies of the Empire and in the mother country."
The New Zealand Herald, 20 September 1893
SHORT TERM CONSEQUENCES: THE ANTI-CLIMAX
Three years after suffrage for women was attained, not a lot had changed. Radically speaking, the status of women in New Zealand had changed little after they were allowed to vote. There was no ‘political revolution,’ no dramatic upheaval in the way Parliament was run; election day, which many had thought would be a schlockfest of immorality once women were included, went off without a hitch, and was in fact more orderly than it had ever been before women were involved. However, this while this outcome was favourable, it was not preferable. It is argued by the more deluded oppositions of third-wave feminism that when women became enfranchised, they instantly became equal with men, but this was just not the case, and the suffragists knew it. Becoming enfranchised was not the end; in fact, it was only the beginning. THE NATIONAL COUNCIL OF WOMEN A less significant, but still relatively important, consequence of the campaign was the formation of the National Council of Women (NCW) in 1896. It was formed by Kate Sheppard and many of her fellow suffragists, although Sheppard was elected its president from the get-go. Created to continue the success of the suffrage movement, the NCW made history as being the first council of women who could legally vote, and sought to extend the success of winning the vote by working for equality elsewhere. The group continued their political agenda – improving the lives of women by establishing equality for them in all realms of social, political and economic life – and continued to influence and affect public opinion about the political adequacy of women. In its constitution, the group pledged to "unite all organised Societies of Women for mutual counsel and co-operation, and in the attainment of justice and freedom for women, and for all that makes for the good of humanity" (Constitution of the National Council of Women of New Zealand). Among the many things the group sought was equal pay and equality in marriage for both sexes, the abolition of the Contagious Diseases Act 1869 (which legalised medical inspection of female prostitutes in case they had venereal diseases but completely ignored men), women to be eligible for election into Parliament, the age of consent for sex to be raised from 14 to 21, and the annulment of the Death Penalty, to name but a few. Some of their goals took time to evolve into realities - women couldn’t be elected into Parliament until 1919 and the Contagious Diseases Act was not abolished until 1910, while equal pay wasn’t on the books until 1972 - but they also had several early onset wins: in 1896, the age of consent was raised from 14 to 16, females were allowed to become lawyers, and conditions of divorce for men and women were made equal. The National Council of Women gave women strong and supportive connections, as well as providing an abundance of opportunities for political action that might not have gone ahead without a united front behind it, and as a matter of fact, the NCW still existent today. That it was created is a short-term consequence; that it still exists shows that in the long-term, the suffrage movement had a significant impact on New Zealanders, inspiring over a century of radical change. |
LONG TERM CONSEQUENCES: THE END OF AN ERA, BUT THE START OF AN AGE
(GRADUAL) POLITICAL METAMORPHOSIS By far the most significant consequences of the campaign were the political changes in the name of equality that it enabled - although like the campaign itself, the desired results of twenty years of lobbying came through with disheartening sluggishness. Disappointingly (but not altogether unsurprisingly), gaining the right to vote did not instantly solve all the world’s, nor all women's, problems; the right to vote was not a domino in a quick-fire chain reaction of events, but more a building block upon which to slowly build. By 1893, women could vote, but they could not actually stand for Parliament until 1919 (a 26 year difference!). Even when they were legally able, women were unsuccessful in getting seats for another 14 years; the first women to be elected into Parliament was Elizabeth McCombs, became the first female Member of Parliament (MP) in 1933. She was followed in 1938 by Catherine Stewart, the second female MP. In 1941, women were granted the right be a part of the Legislative Council, although none were actually appointed until Mary Dreaver and Mary Anderson became the first female members of the council in 1946. 1947 was the year that the first female Cabinet minister (Mabel Howard) was selected, and after this, there was another lull in activity, until 1989, when Helen Clark of the Labour Party became the first female Deputy Prime Minister. Finally, in 1997, 104 years after women gained the right to vote, the real jackpot was hit. The National Party was the incumbent party of New Zealand at this time, and its leader the Prime Minister, Jim Bolger, was under fire from his colleagues due to his "cautious nature." Jenny Shipley, a member of the National Party, rallied the support of her National Party co-workers and coerced Bolger into resigning. Shipley replaced him, and as she was now National's leader, she became the first female Prime Minister of New Zealand. Her achievement was overshadowed only by that of Helen Clark, who, in 1999, defeated Shipley in the November election and became the first elected female Prime Minister of New Zealand, a role she held for nine years (making her the fifth-longest serving PM in New Zealand history). DIRTY POLITICS In the long-term, the morality of politics did not significantly change. Ridding the world of corruption and bribery etc. in Parliament was one of the primary prerogatives of the campaign, but unfortunately on this count, the suffragists failed. Sir Lady Stout, wife of Robert Stout, wrote in 1914 that “New Zealand women were emancipated before they realised the great power and responsibility they now had on their hands” - because they were granted the franchise before every other country in the world, the women of New Zealand didn't really realise that they had achieved something so monumental, and thus took for granted what overseas was still considered scandalous and unthinkable. Patricia Grimshaw's Women's Suffrage in New Zealand claims that generally speaking, and despite all the bravado about social revolution, women "did not enter public life in large numbers, they failed to compete favourably with men in the professions and industry, or to assume their share of responsibility in government and political life. They opted instead to retain the private family structure, to rear their children in their own homes in which increasingly high standards of living absorbed the free time which modern appliances afforded." They remained, in short, second class citizens, because - at least according to these two women - they didn't realise how good they had it. However, while the general morality of politics was left unchanged - we can see proof of this in the recent release of Dirty Politics - it seems that its humanity and interest in family-first laws and policy were increased by the work of the suffragists, and by the ability of women to vote. This is quite a significant outcome of the campaign. It was something that the suffragists wanted: desire for reform of family-friendly policies that influenced a large part of their campaign. Richard Seddon is said to have attributed his passing of the old age pensions scheme to the pressure applied by women to push it through, and many other sources state that it was the work of women that increased government interest in reforming children's welfare, education, and maternity services - all things that men, blind-sided by the patriarchal society they inhabited, would fail to notice, as many of them believed that taking care of their children wasn't manly. Professor Macmillan Brown had an interesting take on the humanitarianism inspired by the enfranchisement of women: “[Men] are all afraid of the women’s vote, and are slowly getting educated by it into real philanthropists.” By facing their fear of what the women may vote for, men were becoming educated on the topic of feminism and inequality, and were being taught about doing the right thing. |