On 19 September 1893 New Zealand became the first state in the world, which granted women the vote . At this time Kate Sheppard, who was of great importance for the feminist movement, perceived the feelings of women in New Zealand as follows: “The General Elections have come and gone. For the first time the women of New Zealand have joined with men in choosing members of Parliament, and we have waited with bated breath for the deluge of calamities which it was prognosticated would follow the admission of women into the political arena.” Although this step seemed to be revolutionary and sudden considering the restricted political rights of women in many other countries, the development of the women’s suffrage movement in New Zealand was without violence and the outcome of a long historical process.
The Women’s Suffrage Movement in New Zealand
On 19 September 1893 New Zealand became the first state in the world, which granted women the vote[1]. At this time Kate Sheppard, who was of great importance for the feminist movement, perceived the feelings of women in New Zealand as follows: “The General Elections have come and gone. For the first time the women of New Zealand have joined with men in choosing members of Parliament, and we have waited with bated breath for the deluge of calamities which it was prognosticated would follow the admission of women into the political arena.”[2] Although this step seemed to be revolutionary and sudden considering the restricted political rights of women in many other countries, the development of the women’s suffrage movement in New Zealand was without violence and the outcome of a long historical process[3].
The idea of the women’s suffrage campaign was not initiated in New Zealand, but was influenced from earlier suffrage movements in Great Britain and in the United States, although this would be obvious for a country, which granted women the vote at first. In Great Britain, Mary Wollstonecraft set the first impulses with her work A vindication of the rights of woman (1792) arguing for equal rights and education. After her, the British philosopher and economist John Stuart Mill, who was very engaged in the suffrage movement, published in 1869 On the subjection of women about the feminist case, which achieved the spreading of the debate to the British colonies, Australia and New Zealand. Even before the suffrage movement in Great Britain started, the first convention for women’s rights took place at Seneca Falls in 1848, where the American campaign was raised.[4] The “Woman’s Christian Temperance Union” (WCTU) was founded in 1874 as a mouthpiece for this campaign, which aimed to achieve social reforms. As a consequence, the developments in Great Britain and in the United States both encouraged and influenced the suffrage movement in New Zealand[5].
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[1] See Michael King, The Penguin History of New Zealand (Albany, Auckland: Penguin Books Ltd, 2003), p.265.
[2] http://www.teara.govt.nz/1966/W/WomensSuffrageMovement/WomensSuffrageMovement/en, 01.02.2006.
[3] See Tom Brooking, Paul Enright, Milestones-Turning Points in NZ History (Lower Hutt: Mills Publication,
1988), p.102.
[4] See http://www.nzine.co.nz/features/suffrage2.html, 01.02.2006.
[5] See http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/Gallery/Suffragists/SuffIntro.htm, 01.02.2006.
- Citation du texte
- Anne-Mareike Franz (Auteur), 2006, The women’s suffrage movement in New Zealand, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/82857
