Transcript
TAHS
Women’s Suffrage
MĀNI: In 1869 a woman sat at a desk in Nelson, writing. She starts with a title:
“An Appeal to the Men of New Zealand”
WILLIAM: At the heart of this appeal was a question:
“Why has a woman no power to vote, no right to vote, when she happens to possess all the requisites which legally qualify a man for that right?”
MĀNI: The name of our writer is Mary Müller, she was born in London in 1820 and migrated to Aotearoa in 1849.
These days she’s celebrated as New Zealand’s first feminist writer. Her pamphlets and articles were published all over the country.
WILLIAM: But in 1869, very few people knew Mary Müller held these views.
MĀNI: Her husband disapproved of her activism, so she hid her identity behind a pen name, Femmina.
WILLIAM: In her own words she worked “like a mole” - underground in the dark.
MĀNI: To some it might have seemed like a hopeless struggle. At the time, there wasn’t a single self-governing country in the world where women could vote in national elections.
WILLIAM: But Mary Müller could see a different future. As she wrote in her pamphlet:
“...change is coming, but why is New Zealand only to follow? Why not take the initiative?” - Mary Müller, An Appeal to the Men of New Zealand, 1869
WILLIAM: And 24 years later, that initiative would be taken.
MĀNI: On September 19th, 1893, Aotearoa became the first self governing country in the world where women could vote.
Sting
WILLIAM: So let’s start in the country which brought this whole idea of democratic elections to our shores: The United Kingdom.
MĀNI: But actually… “Democratic” might have been a bit of a stretch.
WILLIAM: In early 19th century Britain voting rights were heavily restricted based on class, sex, and the ownership of property.
MĀNI: Basically, if you weren’t a guy and you weren’t really, really rich - no votes for you.
WILLIAM: In Scotland it was estimated just 4,000 out of 2.4 million people could vote in 1831. That’s less than 0.2 percent of the population.
So, to deal with this lack of representation, Britain passed the so-called “Great Reform Act of 1832”.
MĀNI: “Great” might have been a bit of an overstatement. It’s estimated only 1 out of every 7 British men could vote under that law.
WILLIAM: So a Second Great Reform Act was passed in 1867.
MĀNI: …Still not that great, only about 2 in 5 men could vote.
WILLIAM: But compared to what was happening in Britain, Colonial New Zealand had radically inclusive voting rights.
MĀNI: About three quarters of European men were eligible to vote in our first parliamentary election in 1853. And by the standards of the time, that was a lot!
WILLIAM: Technically Māori men had the same voting rights as Pākehā, but in practice the vast majority were excluded.
MĀNI: To vote you had to own or rent property.
But most Māori men weren’t counted as landowners because they owned their land communally rather than individually.
WILLIAM: By the end of the 1880s those property restrictions were dropped so virtually all men could vote.
MĀNI: The government had also established four Māori seats which ensured some level of Māori representation.
WILLIAM: Although based on population numbers there should have been about 15 Māori MPs.
MĀNI: These voting reforms in Britain, New Zealand and other parts of the Western World were part of an international movement known as Liberalism.
WILLIAM: Liberalism was a big deal in the late 18th and early 19th century, partly because of the French Revolution, and its Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.
Right at the top of the page this Declaration said:
“Men are born and remain free and equal in rights.”
- Article 1, Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, 26 August 1789
MĀNI: But more than a few women thought “you know, maybe it’s not just men who are born free and equal in rights? Equal rights sound awesome, we’d love to get some too.”
WILLIAM: And a lot of liberal men were like “Yeah we’ll definitely get around to that, but let's focus on some other stuff first”
And they did get around to it… About a hundred years later.
MĀNI: OK, so that’s the European context. What about the Māori context?
Well this idea that men should be the only ones with a say in politics was something new to Māori.
In Māori society leadership is substantially based on whakapapa, and female rangatira of high birth commonly become leaders of their hapū.
WILLIAM: There are oral and written histories of some male rangatira refusing to sign the Treaty of Waitangi because British officials wouldn’t accept the signatures of some female leaders.
MĀNI: But at least 12 Wahine Māori did sign the Treaty on behalf of their people, and there may have been more.
WILLIAM: Traditionally, Māori names weren’t gendered, so some of the signatures assumed to belong to men could actually be from women.
MĀNI: As Māori law expert Ani Mikaere writes:
“[Māori] women and men featured in all aspects of life, and fulfilled all manner of roles. It is clear from [oral] histories that Māori women occupied very important leadership positions in traditional society, positions of military, spiritual and political significance.” - Ani Mikaere, Maori Women: Caught in the Contradictions of a Colonised Reality, 1994
WILLIAM: In early 19th century European society, women were considered property.
They were transferred from the ownership of their father to their husband. They usually held no rights to property themselves, and had no rights to custody of their children if they separated from their husband.
MĀNI: The same wasn’t true for Māori. As Ani Mikaere explains:
“...“marriage” did not entail a transferral of property from her father to her spouse … In cases where misconduct was shown, divorce was relatively simple so long as the correct procedures were followed. Divorce carried no stigma, and any issues as to custody and ongoing support of children were sorted out within the whanau context.” - Ani Mikaere, Maori Women: Caught in the Contradictions of a Colonised Reality, 1994
WILLIAM: As history professor Barbara Brookes writes, some Pākehā women may have been inspired by the relative equality between genders in Māori society.
“Pākehā women could see Māori women participating in warfare, acting as eloquent advocates in court, and exercising unquestioned rights with regard to property.” - A History of New Zealand Women, Barbara Brookes, 2016
MĀNI: All this goes to show the fight for women's rights in the 19th century looked different for Māori and Pākehā.
WILLIAM: Pākehā women were fighting to gain rights they never had before, while Wahine Māori were often fighting to regain rights they were losing through colonisation.
MĀNI: Māori women were also living in societies with relatively even numbers of men and women, whereas Pākehā women were vastly outnumbered by men.
WILLIAM: By 1871 it’s estimated Aotearoa had twice as many European men than women between the ages of 21 and 65.
A lot of these men were young, single, and pretty rowdy - which upset a lot of the conservative landowning men who dominated the political establishment.
MĀNI: And history professor Katie Pickles argues this was a major factor in the battle for women's rights. As she says:
“... the relative scarcity of women put a premium on women as wives, mothers and moral guardians… The men who supported women's suffrage believed that women's votes would have an orderly, conservative effect on society. In the colonial setting, women's part as maternal, civilising agents was especially needed … Women's value in New Zealand was on a high.” - Prof. Katie Pickles, Colonial Context Behind Suffrage, Press (newspaper), 2013
WILLIAM: And that high kept rolling through the 1870s.
In 1875 female ratepayers gained the right to vote in all municipal elections - and in 1878 a bill to allow women to vote and stand for parliament was only narrowly defeated.
MĀNI: And at the same time men and women were fighting for equal rights in other areas.
WILLIAM: They wanted equality in divorce laws.
MĀNI: They wanted married women to have rights to property, and to their children.
WILLIAM: They wanted an increase to the age of consent, which was just 12 years old at the time.
MĀNI: But maybe most of all, they wanted restrictions on alcohol.
WILLIAM: The battle over booze was absolutely fundamental to the campaign for women's voting rights.
MĀNI: Traditionally, Māori never made alcohol - that was brought to Aotearoa by Europeans.
WILLIAM: And as social historian Jock Phillips points out, Europeans were big drinkers.
“In [British and Northern European] cultures alcohol, especially beer, was regarded as an essential food which helped make blood and give energy … milk could carry disease, water was often contaminated and alternative drinks such as cordials, tea and coffee had not yet established themselves – alcohol seemed a daily necessity.” - Jock Phillips, Alcohol - Colonial drinking, Te Ara, 2013
MĀNI: Kiwi colonists seem to have drunk even more heavily than people back home. Especially those rowdy young men we were talking about earlier.
In the 1860s conviction rates for public drunkenness were two and a half times higher in New Zealand than the UK. It was the biggest category of crime in this country throughout the 19th century.
WILLIAM: Then, as now, alcohol contributed significantly to domestic violence and sexual assault.
MĀNI: It wasn’t uncommon for husbands to drink away their weekly wages - and in an era where married women were usually unable to find well-paid work, that could leave their families in dire straits.
WILLIAM: Given all the problems drinking caused for women, it’s probably not surprising the most prominent anti-alcohol group was led by women - the Women's Christian Temperance Union, WCTU for short.
MĀNI: Temperance by the way is just an old-timey word for “no drinking”.
WILLIAM: The WCTU was an international movement, it was founded in the United States in 1874, and its mission was summed up in a single policy: “Do Everything”.
MĀNI: And they really meant EVERYTHING. By the 1880s representatives of the WCTU were travelling all over the world to build support for the movement.
WILLIAM: In 1885 one of these women, Mary Leavitt [pron: LEV-IT], came to Aotearoa.
She made speeches and delivered lectures all over the country, encouraging kiwi women to set up their own chapter of the WCTU.
MĀNI: But she wasn’t just there to talk about booze. Mary Leavitt argued forcefully for women's equality.
According to one report of a meeting at St Paul’s Church in Christchurch:
“[Mary Leavitt] considered that woman, as an integral part of humanity, was entitled to freedom under the law of God … It was said that women could not fulfil certain duties; that they could not, for instance, be Judges, but she contended that though all women were not fit to be judges, neither were all men. The latter fact did not prevent men from being allowed to study the law … neither should the former fact prevent women.” - Christchurch Star, 23 May, 1885.
WILLIAM: But the WCTU wasn’t just a narrow, anti-alcohol, pro-women's rights movement. As historian Dr Raewyn Dalziel points out:
“Following the 'Do Everything' policy, the WCTU worked for social reform on a broad front. Its members visited prisons, set up kindergartens and ran clubs for young mothers … [The WCTU] provided evening classes in cooking, sewing, carpentry and bible instruction and a club for boys.” - Prof. Raewyn Dalziel, Women Together, 1993.
MĀNI: And even though Mary Leavitt advocated some radical ideas, the WCTU generally wasn’t seen as a radical organisation.
WILLIAM: After all, it was led by devoutly Christian middle and upper-class women. It wasn’t some coven of anarchist, communist agitators.
How could any upstanding kiwi bloke object to his wife or daughter signing a pledge not to drink alcohol, and helping out at a bible class?
MĀNI: As History Professor Ian Tyrell put it:
“[The WCTU was] a bridge between home and church, on the one hand, and social and political action ... on the other'. - Prof. Ian Tyrell, International Aspects of the Woman’s Temperance Movement in Australia, 1983
WILLIAM: But of course the Temperance Union wasn’t some perfect organisation which never did anything wrong.
As Dr Tyrell says…
“Historians have generally portrayed the WCTU in Australia … as a group of religious bigots and fanatical wowsers” - Prof. Ian Tyrell, International Aspects of the Woman’s Temperance Movement in Australia, 1983
MĀNI: Wowser by the way is a dismissive term for someone who doesn’t drink alcohol.
And while New Zealand historians tend to have more positive views of the WCTU than their Aussie counterparts, there are aspects which were… Problematic.
WILLIAM: With the benefit of hindsight it’s clear the Temperance Union’s idea that outlawing alcohol would lead to some kind of utopia was pure fantasy.
MĀNI: Prohibition in the United States led to huge growth in organised crime. Illegal beer houses in Aotearoa were also hotbeds for criminal activity as late as the 1960s and 70s.
WILLIAM: Māori women who joined the Temperance Union had to take a pledge that they would never receive Moko Kauae, reflecting a prejudice against tā moko from many Europeans at the time.
MĀNI: But, many Wahine Māori still set up local WCTU chapters in their communities.
WILLIAM: Alcohol contributed to land alienation. Grog sellers targeted Māori attending the Native Land court to trap them in debt and force them to sell land.
MĀNI: So while the WCTU had some skeletons in its closet, many still saw it as a positive force. And, of course, it played a central role in winning both Māori and Pākehā women the right to vote in Aotearoa.
WILLIAM: The woman who led the battle for voting rights within the Temperance Union was, of course, Kate Sheppard.
MĀNI: Sheppard was born in Liverpool and migrated to Christchurch in 1868 when she was 21 years old.
WILLIAM: She was an extremely intelligent, well educated woman from a middle-class background, and active in her local church.
MĀNI: In short: Exactly the kind of person who’d be drawn to the WCTU.
WILLIAM: One of Kate Sheppard’s first priorities was a petition to outlaw barmaids, and ban the sale of alcohol to children.
MĀNI: But when this petition was rejected in 1885 she realised that male politicians wouldn’t give a hoot about women's concerns unless they needed those women’s votes.
WILLIAM: By 1887 Sheppard had risen to become the WCTU's National Superintendent of franchise and legislation in New Zealand.
MĀNI: And from that point on she focused virtually all her efforts on women's suffrage.
WILLIAM: Suffrage by the way just means the right to vote.
MĀNI: Sheppard was exactly the right woman for the job. A skilled organiser, talented public speaker and master of propaganda.
WILLIAM: Sheppard didn’t write long essays on political theory or philosophy. Instead she wrote short, punchy pamphlets like her famous “Ten reasons why the women of New Zealand should vote”
The number two reason was:
“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.” - Ten reasons why the women of New Zealand should vote, 1888
MĀNI: Shots fired!
WILLIAM: But the story of women's suffrage isn’t a one-woman crusade.
MĀNI: Yeah, Kate Sheppard depended heavily on allies, and not just in the WCTU.
WILLIAM: Sheppard forged an alliance with the Women's Franchise Leagues, which advocated for women's suffrage but didn’t take a position on the controversial subject of alcohol.
MĀNI: The WCTU also won the support of the Tailoresses Union, and of some influential Māori women like Meri Te Tai Mangakāhia and Ākenehi Tōmoana - more on those two in a minute.
WILLIAM: And, of course, in a system dominated by male politicians, women couldn’t have won this fight without support from men.
MĀNI: There were plenty of guys who opposed the campaign. One letter published in the Lyttelton Times complained that if women got the vote…
“...instead of tempering society with grace and softness [women] would embitter it with the asperities of debate; instead of being man’s comforter and better angel she would be his intellectual antagonist.” - Letter to the Editor, Lyttelton Times, 12 October 1892
WILLIAM: But a lot of men were actually keen for a bit of intellectual antagonism from women - including some of New Zealand’s most prominent politicians.
As former Premier Julius Vogel said in parliament:
“What right has man to demand of a woman the sacrifice of what may be called her higher intellectual qualities in order that she may be a greater pleasure to him?” - Julius Vogel, New Zealand Parliamentary Debates, 1887
MĀNI: One of the strongest supporters of suffrage was the conservative former Premier Sir John Hall.
WILLIAM: Sir John is a guy with… Shall we say a mixed legacy? He supported the Parihaka raid when he was Premier, and stood for the rights of rich landowners in Canterbury at the expense of poorer colonial farmers.
MĀNI: But that reputation was actually a big help in convincing other conservatives to support women's suffrage. As Sir John put it himself:
“...the fact that the proposal is made by an old man who is not an inexperienced politician [gives] some assurance that it is not a rash or dangerous proposal.” - Sir John Hall, 1891
WILLIAM: Of course, that support frustrated some other conservatives like George Stead, the Editor of the Press newspaper, who told Sir John:
“...you are making a fatal mistake in advocating the female franchise. It will double the majority against us … I have been amongst the poor in Christchurch quite lately and it is among women that one hears the most democratic and revolutionary theories.” - George Stead to Sir John Hall, 19 June 1891
MĀNI: Left-wing members of the Liberal Party couldn’t have agreed more. As Liberal Party MP William Earnshaw said:
“...the greatest thing the working men can do is to bring their wives and sisters to fight the battle against organised capital.” - William Earnshaw, New Zealand Parliamentary Debates, 1891
WILLIAM: But Sir John Hall and many of his fellow conservative MPs had a very different view of Pākehā women.
As History Professor Patricia Grimshaw put it:
“For [conservative politicians], woman was undoubtedly a conservative element in the community … Their belief in the direction the women's vote would take was conditioned by their view of women as largely domesticated, home-loving country wives; and these, they felt sure, would swell the conservative ranks.” - Prof. Patricia Grimshaw, Politicians and Suffragettes, NZ Journal of History, 1970
MĀNI: But, spoiler alert: Both sides were wrong.
WILLIAM: The first election in which women voted did swing in favour of the Liberals, but women’s votes weren’t decisive.
MĀNI: It turned out women weren’t all radical progressives, or die hard conservatives. Their views on politics were just as diverse as New Zealand men.
Shocking!
WILLIAM: Who’d have guessed?
MĀNI: But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
A big problem faced by the suffragists was the argument that they only represented a radical fringe. As one letter to the Lyttelton Times asked:
“Have the women in New Zealand asked for the franchise? Does one woman in twenty know anything about the matter?” - Lyttelton Times, 1 October 1889
WILLIAM: But Kate Sheppard and her allies knew how to answer that question. They organised a petition so New Zealand women could speak for themselves.
MĀNI: The first was circulated in 1891 and got about 9 thousand signatures.
WILLIAM: The following year a second petition got more than 20 thousand signatures.
MĀNI: Then, in 1893, Sheppard and her allies presented their third and final petition.
WILLIAM: It turned out quite a bit more than one in twenty women wanted suffrage - the 1893 petition was signed by nearly 32 thousand women, almost a quarter of all Pākehā women in the country.
MĀNI: And this is a key point: The battle for women's suffrage wasn’t just fought by a small group of activists - it was a mass movement which involved direct action from a huge chunk of New Zealand’s population.
WILLIAM: And it wasn’t like today where you can sign a petition online, many of these signatories travelled long distances from remote rural areas to have their say - and the petitions themselves were sent all over the country.
MĀNI: The sheets of the 1893 petition were gathered in a reel of paper 270 metres long which Sir John Hall dramatically rolled down the aisle of Parliament.
WILLIAM: But the weird thing is, none of this should have been necessary. It was clear women's suffrage was already supported by a majority of Members of the House.
Several times in the late 1880s and early 1890s it looked like suffrage was going to be passed, only to fail at the last second.
MĀNI: The problem was a relatively small number of anti-suffragists who carried out a bewildering campaign of backroom deals and dirty tricks to prevent the law being changed.
WILLIAM: For example, there was a last minute attempt to prevent Māori women from gaining the vote alongside Pākehā women.
MĀNI: But the Auckland Star reported that…
“Before a [vote] was taken the voices of the friends of the Māori ladies rose in such a roar that there remained no doubt that [preventing Māori women from voting] was displeasing to a large majority of members.” - Auckland Star, 9 August, 1893
WILLIAM:So, Māori women actually won the right to vote before a lot of men in Britain.
But the trickery wasn’t over yet… and the final bit came from Premier Richard Seddon himself.
MĀNI: Seddon opposed suffrage, but he avoided saying so publicly because he worried that if women knew he opposed them voting, and they did end up winning the vote, they’d punish him at the next election.
WILLIAM: Instead, Seddon worked behind the scenes to sabotage the Electoral Bill, ordering one pro-suffrage politician to change his vote so it would fall at the final hurdle.
MĀNI: But when two other anti-suffrage politicians found out about this, they were so disgusted with Seddon’s sneaky behaviour they changed their votes to support the bill! Without those two guys, Edward Stevens and William Reynolds, suffrage would have failed yet again.
WILLIAM: Finally, on September 19th 1893, the Electoral Act was signed into law.
MĀNI: Aotearoa became the first self-governing country in the world where women could vote.
WILLIAM: And you can go further. Every country to this day has some limits on who can vote, but by usual definitions we can say something pretty damn cool: In 1893 Aotearoa became the first self-governing country in the world with universal suffrage.
MĀNI: And get this, Richard Seddon, announced the news to Kate Sheppard in a telegram which said:
“[I] trust now that all doubts as to the sincerity of this Government in this very important matter has now been effectively removed” - Richard Seddon to Kate Sheppard, 19 September, 1893.
WILLIAM: Yup, after all his behind the scenes meddling to block women's suffrage, Seddon turned around and pretended he’d been for it all along!
MĀNI: No wonder his nickname was “King Dick”...
WILLIAM: But Kate Sheppard and her allies were probably too busy celebrating to care.
One WCTU member telegrammed Kate Sheppard from Dunedin describing a…
“Splendid meeting last night in City Hall crammed mostly [with] women enthusiasm unbounded thousands of handkerchiefs waving for victory.” - Marion Hatton to Kate Sheppard, 20 September, 1893.
MĀNI: Our old mate George Stead was less enthusiastic, saying
“We have now got the Female Franchise as surely as we had the measles ... It has come to stay and we must make the best of it.” - The Press, 19 September, 1893
WILLIAM: At the same time Pākehā women were fighting for a voice in the Pākehā parliament, Wahine Māori were fighting for representation inside the Kotāhitanga Parliament.
As we mentioned in our episode on the Native Land Court, Te Kotāhitanga was set up in an attempt to counterbalance the Pākehā-dominated Colonial Parliament - and especially to put an end to the alienation of Māori land.
MĀNI: Te Kotāhitanga was established in 1892, and just like the Pākehā parliament it was a bit of a sausage fest. Only men could vote or stand for a seat.
Kaupapa Māori researcher Professor Leonie Pihama suggests that…
“Although Māori women attended Te Kotāhitanga in equal numbers to Māori men the impact of colonial gender beliefs, and practices, were already embedded, with Māori women at that time being denied the right to vote or stand as members.” - Prof. Leonie Pihama, Some Reflections on Māori Women & Suffrage, 2018
WILLIAM: But unlike the national parliament, women did have the right to speak at the Kotāhitanga assembly.
And on May 18th, 1893, Meri Te Tai Mangakāhia of Te Rarawa delivered a speech challenging the rules on voting.
MĀNI: She pointed out that many Māori women were landowners and knowledgeable in the management of their land.
WILLIAM: And she pointed out that when Māori men had travelled to England to lobby Queen Victoria for an end to land sales, they had been ignored.
MĀNI:As she said…
“Perhaps the Queen may listen to the petitions if they are presented by her Māori sisters, since she is a woman as well.” - Meri Te Tai Mangakāhia, 1893
MĀNI: But later that day another female speaker addressed Te Kotāhitanga, Ākenehi Tōmoana of Ngāi Te Rangiitā, Ngāti Papa-tua-maro, Ngāti Ngarengare and Ngāi Turahi.
Ākenehi supported Meri’s proposal, but thought a debate over the role of women in Kotāhitanga should wait until the movement won official recognition from Pākehā politicians.
WILLIAM: Of course, that recognition was never received.
MĀNI: But Meri Te Tai Mangakāhia and Ākenehi Tōmoana fought on. In 1895 Tōmoana argued…
“For many years the men, the chiefs, the Members of Parliament, [and] the Kiingitanga, have been searching for answers to our issues regarding land and the betterment of our people … they even went to England. … All of this was done without us; the women … and no benefit has come back to our people. … We women have not yet tried!” - Ākenehi Tōmoana, Speech at Te Haukē Marae, 1895
WILLIAM: Wahine Māori won the right to vote in Kotāhitanga in 1897. They also gained the right to stand for election.
It was another 22 years before women won that same right in the national parliament.
MĀNI: Part of the problem in Wellington was that those conservative politicians who’d supported women’s voting rights wouldn’t support a law change so women could become MPs.
WILLIAM: Many conservatives were annoyed that female voters hadn’t rewarded them at the ballot box. As one wrote in a letter to Sir John Hall:
“The women have greatly disappointed us in the demand we thought they would make for pure and safe governments.” - Alfred Saunders to Sir John Hall, 1900
MĀNI: Without the support of conservatives like Sir John, efforts to get women the right to stand for parliament repeatedly failed.
WILLIAM: They didn’t win that struggle until 1919, 26 years after women won the right to vote.
MĀNI: The first female MP, Elizabeth McCombs, wasn’t elected till 1933 - another 14 years after that.
WILLIAM: And it took another 16 years before Iriaka Rātana became New Zealand's first female Māori MP in 1949.
MĀNI: It’s only been in the past decade that parliament has approached equal numbers of male and female MPs.
WILLIAM: After the 2020 election, 48 percent of our MPs were women, an all time record.
MĀNI: Also, we’ve now had three female Prime Ministers.
WILLIAM: And while the slow progress must have frustrated Kate Sheppard, she wasn’t discouraged.
MĀNI: On the 21st anniversary of women's suffrage she wrote:
“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 … the enfranchisement of women was in itself an expression of the growing sense of justice and humanitarianism in New Zealand.” - Kate Sheppard, Evening Star, 19 September 1914.
WILLIAM: That’s all from us this episode. Hei kona.
