The Story of the Otago Pioneer Women’s Memorial Association Hall – An Interview with Rachael Francis, Historian in Residence The hall today The hall as it appeared in 1925 Suffrage in this country was undoubtedly a major achievement, with New Zealand being the first nation in the world to achieve this step towards gender parity. However, progress in terms of gender equality after 1893 was halting in many respects – the suffrage movement dissipated and not much changed in terms of legislation or cultural attitudes towards women. In fact, 50 years after suffrage in New Zealand women still couldn’t sign off on renting a public hall in Dunedin but had to have their husband do this for them. Thus began the story of the Otago Pioneer Women’s Memorial Association hall. - In 1936 preparations had begun for New Zealand’s centennial in 1940, which would include various memorials to New Zealand’s early settlers and pioneers. The Otago Women’s Centennial Counci...
In 1971, a small group of women in Dunedin began holding meetings to discuss the ideas of Women’s Liberation, and they called themselves the Dunedin Collective for Women (DCW). This was a consciousness-raising group, and some of its main concerns were equal pay, good childcare, women’s control over their bodies, and the ending of stereotyped gender roles ( Rape Crisis Dunedin: Herstory , http://www.rapecrisisdunedin.org.nz/herstory.htm). In the 1970s, the Women’s Liberation Movement discussed women expressing and celebrating their sexuality and thus there was a focus on issues such as access to birth control and abortion. The 1980s saw the second phase of the feminist movement begin, and there was an expanded awareness of, and increased focus on, women’s vulnerability to sexual violence (Charlotte Macdonald, The Vote the Pill and the demon drink: a history of feminist writing in New Zealand, 1869 – 1993 , 208). In 1980, after a m...
An Authentically Intersectional Institution: Te Whare Pounamu Dunedin Women’s Refuge – An Interview with Wenda Parata-Muir As of 2017, New Zealand had the worst rates of family violence in the developed world, with 1 in every 3 women having experienced some form of domestic violence in their lifetime. Te Whare Pounamu Dunedin Women’s Refuge ( TWP ) exists to assist women, children, families and whanau to escape domestic violence, through providing short-term residential housing to affected women, and through offering programmes to women, children and men enabling them to understand the cycle of domestic violence and how to escape it. As Manager Wenda Parata-Muir states, the 5-week programme offered to women is “to empower them to take responsibility for their safety and that of their children. Many women find it helpful to attend a group run especially for women who have experienced family harm and intimate partner violence. In the programme they learn about what...
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