Selwyn_Times: September 20, 2023

38 Selwyn Times Wednesday September 20 2023
SELWYN RURAL LIFE
Advertising Feature
130 years ago…rural
women and suffrage
• By Isabelle Teresa
On 19 September 1893 the Electoral Act became
law, after a long and hard-fought suffrage campaign
that won all adult New Zealand women the right to
vote. We were the first self-governing country in the
world to achieve this.
Selwyn MP Sir John Hall of Hororāta was NZ’s
Premier (Prime Minister) at the time, and ushered
the debate through.
During the Parliamentary debate, the 1893
Women’s Suffrage Petition – 270 metres of pasted
together pages rolled around a broom handle –
was dramatically unrolled down the central aisle.
Signed by women and men, the number of women’s
signatures was 31,872 – almost a quarter of NZ’s
adult women at the time.
Rural women had much to gain from suffrage,
and many Selwyn women actively supported it.
Despite rural women’s essential role as copioneers
during European settlement, their legal
and civil rights were almost non-existent. They
could lose their children, home and occupation if
they divorced or on the death of their husbands,
with no rights of guardianship or inheritance.
Rural women were stereotypically seen as farmers’
wives, not agricultural workers. Although wives and
daughters juggled multiple responsibilities, their
unpaid labour was invisible and they were usually
recorded as dependents.
Nineteenth-century rural women were therefore
in a very vulnerable position. No surprise then
that many Selwyn women signed the petition.
This includes Mary Tabor of Lincoln, Dairy
Supervisor at Canterbury Agricultural College
(Lincoln University), 1889–1908. There are suffrage
commemorative displays and plaques across the
district, including at Lincoln University and in
Hororata.
Winning the vote was just the first step in
improving women’s lives. During the 1920s, two
new rural women’s organisations emerged: the
NZ Women’s Institute (later the Country Women’s
Institutes) and the Women’s Division of the NZ
Farmers’ Union, renamed the Women’s Division
Federated Farmers in 1946.
The work continues today, on multiple fronts.
For example, Louise Deans of Darfield was part of
the National Suffrage Trust in 1993 and had a key
role in reviving the Rural Woman Stepping Out
programmes of the 1980s.
While much has changed for NZ women since
the nineteenth century, new and old challenges
continue. And one thing’s for certain – if a challenge
needs tackling, you can trust a rural woman to
stride in and get on with it!
The Women’s Suffrage
Petition is digitised at
nzhistory.govt.nz, searchable
by name and location.
A local
page
from the
Women’s
Suffrage
Petition
Suffragists gave white
camellia buttonholes
to parliamentary
supporters
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