2013 marks 120 years since the law was
changed but its significance is not forgotten.
In Christchurch each year on September
19 at 12.30 p.m. women wearing a white
camellia gather at the Kate Sheppard
Memorial on the Avon River bank near the
Information Centre to honour the occasion.
This success came at the end of an enormous
struggle by suffragists in New Zealand, led
by Kate Sheppard. 31,872 signatures were
collected during a seven year campaign,
which culminated in the 1893 petition for the
enfranchisement of women being presented
to Parliament in a wheelbarrow. It was the
largest petition ever gathered in Australasia.
Women's suffrage becomes law.
On September 19 1893, the Electoral
Act 1893 gave women the vote,
despite claims that families would
be abandoned and the economy
destroyed. Kate Sheppard, the leading
light of the suffrage movement, was
vindicated when 65% of New Zealand
women took the chance to vote in
their first general election.
Source: www.nzhistory.net.nz
Source: www.christchurch.org.nz, www.nzine.co.nz
"A great woman has gone whose name will
remain an inspiration to the daughters of
New Zealand, while our history endures."
In later years, Kate was often asked
by suffrage campaigners abroad
for the secret of her success.
Her response was apparently
pragmatic. She believed that her
campaigners had triumphed as
a result of years of unceasing
toil - and because NZ's colonial
beginnings meant it was less
tightly bound to the societal norms
that ruled Britain. "It was a kind of
political experiment," she said.
She said it…
"All that separates, whether of race, class, creed, or sex, is
inhuman, and must be overcome"
"We are tired of having a 'sphere' doled out to us, and
of being told that anything outside that sphere is
'unwomanly'. We want to be natural just for a change …
we must be ourselves at all risks."
Source: www.professionelle.co.nz
w
In 1895, Kate Sheppard became the editor of the first newspaper in New Zealand to be owned,
managed and published only by women. It was called the White Ribbon.
She also established the National Council of Women in April 1896 and continued to argue for women's
rights, especially the right for married women to have control of their own money. w
Source: www.newzealandatoz.com
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