DOES IT STILL MATTER? THE CONTINUED SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SUFFRAGE CAMPAIGN
"We, the mothers of the present, need to impress upon our children's minds how women of the past wrestled and fought, suffered and wept, prayed and believed, agonized and won for them the freedom they enjoy today."
Nelly Perryman, editor of The White Ribbon (1918)
Nelly Perryman, editor of The White Ribbon (1918)
IMPORTANCE TO NEW ZEALANDERS
1993 marked the 100-year anniversary of women being granted the right to vote. If the suffrage campaign was not still held near to the hearts of the New Zealand population, the date would have passed by unnoticed, but instead, the exact opposite happened. Two memorials were erected in honour of the centennial - one in Christchurch, a 3.3m sculpture titled Tribute to the Suffragettes and depicting key members of the suffrage movement, including Meri Te Tai Mangakahia, Amey Daldy, Kate Sheppard, Ada Wells, Harriet Morison, and Helen Nicol, and one in Auckland, a mosiac tile mural and fountain honouring the New Zealand suffrage movement. Both memorials were built to commemorate the success of the campaign and celebrated the impact and significance the campaign had, and clearly still has, on the people of New Zealand. Aucklands’s arts and architecture community actually requested the demolition of the Auckland memorial in 2011, but it was denied by the City Council; though pretentious art-lovers saw no value in it, the community and the council fought for the memorial, showing patriotism and pride that highlight how the event still resonates with New Zealanders today. That it was constructed in the first place represents the lasting impact of the suffrage campaign on New Zealanders: that we choose to commemorate so vibrantly and publicly shows pride in the efforts of the suffragists, and pride in the fact that the campaign is so essential to our national identity. This event was and is incredibly important to New Zealanders, so much so that we honoured its 100-year anniversary in a similar fashion to the way we honoured the 100-year anniversary of the Gallipoli Landing: with devotion, patriotism and pride.
If you want further proof of the continued significance of the suffrage campaign to New Zealanders, open your wallet and fish out a ten dollar bill. New Zealanders clearly have an everlasting gratitude for the work of the suffragists, given that Kate Sheppard, widely acknowledged as the head of the movement, appears on it. The ten dollar bill is a mark of the continued impact of Kate Sheppard and her masterpiece – the suffrage movement – in New Zealand today. Our currency depicts people, animals, places and symbols that define our national identity: native birds, significant buildings/infrastructure, politicians, scientists, adventurers, and Kate Sheppard. They didn't just stick her on the obscure $50 or $100 bills, seen only rarely out in the wild; she is commonplace, seen everywhere by everyone, and her work and campaign is remembered every time a New Zealander orders a Premium Sub.
There's also the fact that the 1893 petition – the one Kate Sheppard called the ‘monster’ – has been kept in Wellington by Archives New Zealand all these years. This symbolises how important the suffrage campaigns remains to New Zealand, and how it remains integral to our identity - the petition that threw the Bill is still in our possession, like the Treaty of Waitangi, and is kept to preserve the hardships the suffragists went through in order to give women the status they have in New Zealand society.
HOW OTHER COMMUNITIES WERE AFFECTED/HOW NEW ZEALAND'S RELATIONSHIP WITH THEM CHANGED
When the women of New Zealand were enfranchised, they were showered with praise and congratulations from overseas suffrage movements and feminist societies. Catherine Wallace wrote to the New Zealand suffragists from Melbourne, saying that their “long, patient, faithful, untiring, earnest, zealous effort is finally rewarded, which means so much, not for you and the women to New Zealand only, but for women everywhere on the face of the globe.” New Zealand’s radical accomplishment gave ‘new hope and life to all women struggling for emancipation’; it paved the way for other women abroad to stand and fight their oppression. When visiting England in 1902, Richard Seddon reported that "The mother country (...) admitted that New Zealand was the brightest, the happiest and the most prosperous part of the [British] Empire, and the women had had a great deal to do in bringing about that desirable result." Our national identity and our appearance abroad was positively altered by the enfranchisement of women; the country became not only respectable, but esteemed, especially by foreign suffragists, for having done what had yet been achieved by nobody. So the New Zealand women's suffrage campaign did not just impact upon New Zealanders; it also had a significant, lasting impact on countries outside of it. The work of Kate Sheppard in particular had “considerable impact” on suffrage movements abroad.
HAS THE SIGNIFICANCE CHANGED OVER TIME?
Time changes everything, and so in that sense, yes - the significance of the suffrage campaign has changed over time. We have born witness to the decay of something radical into something commonplace; A. E. Cohen said in 1907 that “New Zealanders cannot understand why other countries make such a fuss over so simple a business; that women should vote as well as men seems to us self-evident," and if that wasn't true 108 years ago, it sure is true now. We value the suffrage campaign as a source of pride just as New Zealanders did in 1893, although our pride is a little different; New Zealanders now seem to consider suffrage as more of a "We did it first!" rite of passage, whereas the people of 1893 were content to simply celebrate that they had done it at all. However, if we consider the activism side of affairs, the significance has not really changed at all. The suffrage campaign is still a point around which women can rally their arguments, still an event/movement that inspires and promotes and leads feminist ideals and activity - and it is a reminder of the fact that when it comes to equality, there is still a huge gap between men and women - smaller than the one present in 1893, but present all the same. Dame Catherine Tizzard said in : “It was important to remember that the memorial did not mark the final resting place of a set of goals; instead it was a physical reminder of the need to keep making progress towards them." Kate Sheppard also said that “the mere doing of such an act of justice as enfranchising women was the outcome of a larger vision of rights and duties – a growing enlightenment – a broader conception of humanity as it now is, and as it may become.” Suffrage may have been a hugely significant stepping stone in the road to equality, but it was just that: a stepping stone. As they did then and as they do now, we can and will build on the work of Kate Sheppard and the invaluable men and women she campaigned with. If there is one thing about the women's suffrage campaign that has remained consistently significant, it is this: no matter what we do, there will always be something else to overcome. There is still work to do.
1993 marked the 100-year anniversary of women being granted the right to vote. If the suffrage campaign was not still held near to the hearts of the New Zealand population, the date would have passed by unnoticed, but instead, the exact opposite happened. Two memorials were erected in honour of the centennial - one in Christchurch, a 3.3m sculpture titled Tribute to the Suffragettes and depicting key members of the suffrage movement, including Meri Te Tai Mangakahia, Amey Daldy, Kate Sheppard, Ada Wells, Harriet Morison, and Helen Nicol, and one in Auckland, a mosiac tile mural and fountain honouring the New Zealand suffrage movement. Both memorials were built to commemorate the success of the campaign and celebrated the impact and significance the campaign had, and clearly still has, on the people of New Zealand. Aucklands’s arts and architecture community actually requested the demolition of the Auckland memorial in 2011, but it was denied by the City Council; though pretentious art-lovers saw no value in it, the community and the council fought for the memorial, showing patriotism and pride that highlight how the event still resonates with New Zealanders today. That it was constructed in the first place represents the lasting impact of the suffrage campaign on New Zealanders: that we choose to commemorate so vibrantly and publicly shows pride in the efforts of the suffragists, and pride in the fact that the campaign is so essential to our national identity. This event was and is incredibly important to New Zealanders, so much so that we honoured its 100-year anniversary in a similar fashion to the way we honoured the 100-year anniversary of the Gallipoli Landing: with devotion, patriotism and pride.
If you want further proof of the continued significance of the suffrage campaign to New Zealanders, open your wallet and fish out a ten dollar bill. New Zealanders clearly have an everlasting gratitude for the work of the suffragists, given that Kate Sheppard, widely acknowledged as the head of the movement, appears on it. The ten dollar bill is a mark of the continued impact of Kate Sheppard and her masterpiece – the suffrage movement – in New Zealand today. Our currency depicts people, animals, places and symbols that define our national identity: native birds, significant buildings/infrastructure, politicians, scientists, adventurers, and Kate Sheppard. They didn't just stick her on the obscure $50 or $100 bills, seen only rarely out in the wild; she is commonplace, seen everywhere by everyone, and her work and campaign is remembered every time a New Zealander orders a Premium Sub.
There's also the fact that the 1893 petition – the one Kate Sheppard called the ‘monster’ – has been kept in Wellington by Archives New Zealand all these years. This symbolises how important the suffrage campaigns remains to New Zealand, and how it remains integral to our identity - the petition that threw the Bill is still in our possession, like the Treaty of Waitangi, and is kept to preserve the hardships the suffragists went through in order to give women the status they have in New Zealand society.
HOW OTHER COMMUNITIES WERE AFFECTED/HOW NEW ZEALAND'S RELATIONSHIP WITH THEM CHANGED
When the women of New Zealand were enfranchised, they were showered with praise and congratulations from overseas suffrage movements and feminist societies. Catherine Wallace wrote to the New Zealand suffragists from Melbourne, saying that their “long, patient, faithful, untiring, earnest, zealous effort is finally rewarded, which means so much, not for you and the women to New Zealand only, but for women everywhere on the face of the globe.” New Zealand’s radical accomplishment gave ‘new hope and life to all women struggling for emancipation’; it paved the way for other women abroad to stand and fight their oppression. When visiting England in 1902, Richard Seddon reported that "The mother country (...) admitted that New Zealand was the brightest, the happiest and the most prosperous part of the [British] Empire, and the women had had a great deal to do in bringing about that desirable result." Our national identity and our appearance abroad was positively altered by the enfranchisement of women; the country became not only respectable, but esteemed, especially by foreign suffragists, for having done what had yet been achieved by nobody. So the New Zealand women's suffrage campaign did not just impact upon New Zealanders; it also had a significant, lasting impact on countries outside of it. The work of Kate Sheppard in particular had “considerable impact” on suffrage movements abroad.
HAS THE SIGNIFICANCE CHANGED OVER TIME?
Time changes everything, and so in that sense, yes - the significance of the suffrage campaign has changed over time. We have born witness to the decay of something radical into something commonplace; A. E. Cohen said in 1907 that “New Zealanders cannot understand why other countries make such a fuss over so simple a business; that women should vote as well as men seems to us self-evident," and if that wasn't true 108 years ago, it sure is true now. We value the suffrage campaign as a source of pride just as New Zealanders did in 1893, although our pride is a little different; New Zealanders now seem to consider suffrage as more of a "We did it first!" rite of passage, whereas the people of 1893 were content to simply celebrate that they had done it at all. However, if we consider the activism side of affairs, the significance has not really changed at all. The suffrage campaign is still a point around which women can rally their arguments, still an event/movement that inspires and promotes and leads feminist ideals and activity - and it is a reminder of the fact that when it comes to equality, there is still a huge gap between men and women - smaller than the one present in 1893, but present all the same. Dame Catherine Tizzard said in : “It was important to remember that the memorial did not mark the final resting place of a set of goals; instead it was a physical reminder of the need to keep making progress towards them." Kate Sheppard also said that “the mere doing of such an act of justice as enfranchising women was the outcome of a larger vision of rights and duties – a growing enlightenment – a broader conception of humanity as it now is, and as it may become.” Suffrage may have been a hugely significant stepping stone in the road to equality, but it was just that: a stepping stone. As they did then and as they do now, we can and will build on the work of Kate Sheppard and the invaluable men and women she campaigned with. If there is one thing about the women's suffrage campaign that has remained consistently significant, it is this: no matter what we do, there will always be something else to overcome. There is still work to do.