SUFFRAGE ACTIVITY
Read the text to the class, and then asking them some questions about each paragraph:
1) Do you think women should be allowed to vote?
2) What is ‘morality’? How can women bring this into politics?
3) Women got to vote in Spain in 1931. Why did it take so long?
4) What do you think about women holding the most powerful positions in a country?
5) Can women make the world a better place? How?
Then we can identify any new words and they can take turns read it back.
Women's suffrage in New Zealand
Women's
suffrage (the right of women to vote) in New
Zealand was an important political issue in the late 19th century. In
early colonial New Zealand, as in other European societies, women
were excluded from any involvement in politics. Public opinion began
to change in the latter half of the 19th century, however, and after
about two decades of campaigning by suffrage campaigners, led by Kate
Sheppard, New Zealand became the first
self-governing colony in the world in which all women had the right
to vote in parliamentary elections.
The New
Zealand branch of the Women's Christian Temperance Union was
particularly instrumental in the campaign. Influenced by the American
branch of the Women's Christian Temperance Movement and the
philosophy of thinkers like Harriet Taylor Mill and John Stuart Mill,
the movement argued that women could bring morality into democratic
politics. Opponents argued instead that politics was outside women's
'natural sphere' of the home and family. Suffrage advocates countered
that allowing women to vote would encourage policies which protected
and nurtured families.
From 1887,
various attempts were made to pass bills in parliament enabling
female suffrage. Each bill came close to passing. Several electoral
bills that would have given adult women the right to vote were passed
in the House of Representatives, but defeated in the upper
Legislative Council.
By 1893
there was considerable popular support for women's suffrage. The 1893
Women's Suffrage Petition was presented to Parliament and a new
Electoral Bill passed through the Lower House with a large majority.
During debate, there was majority support for the enfranchisement
(the granting of citizenship) of Māori (indigenous people of New
Zealand) as well as Pākehā (of European descent) women.
Within
Parliament eighteen legislative councillors petitioned the governor,
Lord Glasgow, to withhold his consent in enacting the law, but on 18
September 1893 the governor consented and The Electoral Act 1893 gave
all women in New Zealand the right to vote.
Recently:
• 1989: Catherine Tizard became the
first woman Governor-General of New Zealand
• 1997: Jenny Shipley became first
woman Prime Minister of New Zealand
• 1999: Helen Clark became first
elected woman Prime Minister of New Zealand
• 1999: Sian Elias became the first
woman Chief Justice of New Zealand
1999 was a
significant year for women in New Zealand, because for the first time
in history the four most powerful positions in the country were held
by women: Queen Elizabeth,
Helen Clark, Catherine
Tizard, and Sian Elias
held the positions of Queen,
Prime Minister,
Governor-General, and
the Chief Justice Minister
respectively.
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