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...
Protestors, 2012, gouache on cold-pressed tiepolo, 190mm x 280mm, Emma Chalmers from her 'Around the Block on Tenterhooks' series An Interview with Jocelyn Harris, Founding Member of the Dunedin Collective for Woman (active 1971-1986) “It was great fun really. You had a sense of doing and saying things that hadn’t been done for a long time” – Jocelyn Harris The Dunedin Collective for Woman ( DCW ) was a Women’s Liberation group active in Dunedin from 1971-1986. Jocelyn Harris, author and Emeritus Professor at Otago University, was a founding member of this movement. New Zealand was a very different place back then. Women had very well defined gender roles and were expected to get married, to be mothers and to wear make-up. There was nothing even remotely reflecting pay parity in the working world. When Harris was at Otago University in the 1970s there were only 6 women in the medical school year. Judy Medlicott was the only significant wo...
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