IN KATE’S FOOTSTEPS:
On September 19, 1893, the Electoral Act was passed, giving women in New Zealand the right to vote. Ten years ago, Vicki Anderson asked four women related to suffragist leader Kate Sheppard to talk about Sheppard and her impact on their lives. A decade la
Elsie Jolliffe
Relationship to Kate Sheppard: Great-great-greatniece
2008:
Elsie was a 16-year-old high school student in Wellington who worked part-time as a dishwasher at a retirement home. She was also a member of a student-led group of young women called the Active Collective.
‘‘Feminists are no longer a minority, and supporting women’s rights will no longer get you locked up and force-fed. Despite the far more liberal lives that women can live today, Kate Sheppard would definitely be somewhat unimpressed that some patriarchal and chauvinistic attitudes towards women that she frowned upon in her era have endured to the present day, and appalled to see the injustices that many women still face.’’
2018:
Elsie, who has just turned 27, is a geography teacher at an all-girls’ school.
‘‘I finished high school in 2009, went on to university, which was interrupted by the Canterbury earthquakes. It was a trying time for me but I got through it eventually. Then I studied as a teacher.
‘‘I was a student activist at an all-girls’ school and now I am a teacher at one. I know and see young women with huge aspirations, empowering themselves through social action.
‘‘Feminism must be intersectional or it is going nowhere. Women experience discrimination and oppression in so many varying ways and in varying ways of intensity. It is great to see people in positions of privilege who recognise their experience is not everyone’s experience.
‘‘Being related to Kate Sheppard is an interesting part of my genealogy, but there is so much more to do.
‘‘We have to keep moving forward and speaking out. We have to keep working for the rights and dignity all women, that is women of colour, women in the LBQT community, refugee women, the poor women who work over 60 per cent of our minimum wage jobs. We are so far from done and if we are not working for the rights and dignity of all women, we are not doing enough.’’
Tess Bridgman
Relationship to Kate Sheppard: (Step)-great-greatgranddaughter
2008:
Tess was 24, living in Wellington and ‘‘nearly a solicitor; employed by Russell McVeagh’’.
‘‘The top positions of government are held by women: Prime Minister Helen Clark as the head of the executive, Chief Justice Sian Elias as the head of the judiciary, and Margaret Wilson as Speaker of the House, and furthermore in the past two decades half of our governorsgeneral have been women. This demonstrates the remarkable strides that women have made, from not even being allowed to vote or be represented in
Parliament in Kate Sheppard’s time, to running the country.
‘‘Socially, women have the power and freedom to control how they want to run their lives and their futures. Obviously I am talking about the lucky, privileged women in New Zealand, which describes many but by no means all women. However, there are many women in New Zealand today who are still struggling against injustice and inequality.’’
2018:
Tess, 34, is living in London and is the general counsel, head of the legal team, and company secretary of the Cory Riverside Energy group, a waste transfer, treatment, recycling and energy generation/recovery firm.
She speaks after attending a London hip-hop musical about suffragist Sylvia Pankhurst.
‘‘In the last couple of years there has been a cultural shift in the general conversation about women and how women should be treated. The #metoo movement generated conversations with my friends that we wouldn’t have had 10 years ago.
‘‘Also 10 years ago, when I started work at Russell McVeagh, which has obviously been in the news, even before that, things were accepted, whether it was guys wolfwhistling at you on the street, going out for a few after-work drinks and experiencing sexist remarks, whether in the workplace or outside of it. We didn’t talk about these things then as much as we do now.
‘‘Now, I notice more women are standing up and saying we shouldn’t be spoken to this way. Broader than that, young men and women are more comfortable with their gender and sexuality. There’s more agency and ownership over sexuality which I think is fantastic.
‘‘In the political sphere we have made some progress . . . Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern . .. I love the fact she is unmarried, has a partner and has had a child while in office. She’s so no-nonsense about it. Having that role model right at the top is fantastic.
‘‘We can’t get complacent. You only have to listen to some of the dinosaurs or read the comments on Stuff to see there is still a long way to go. It’s particularly important, I think, that Jacinda acknowledged she has a big support structure and that she’s in a privileged position.
‘‘The gender pay gap and pay disparity continues. Power structures need to change. It shouldn’t be that women need to fit into a man’s world. The ridiculous backlash about Jacinda’s flight to Nauru, for example.
‘‘These aren’t structures that only adversely affect women and mothers, but also fathers and families in general. A lot of these structures come from toxic masculinity. If we change the structures there are also men who don’t fit into those structures who would benefit too.
‘‘I am the most senior woman in my organisation. I got this role at 31. Now I recognise I have a responsibility and position to influence change. I am in the waste industry; there aren’t a huge number of women in this industry. I think we have come some way in 10 years but there’s still a way to go.’’
Sophie Jolliffe
Relationship to Kate Sheppard: Great-great-niece
2008:
‘‘Kate Sheppard would be delighted that women now fulfil the potential she knew they possessed. New Zealand is a much more multi-cultural society today than in Kate Sheppard’s day and I am sure she would take pleasure, as I do, in seeing young women from cultures where women do not enjoy the same freedoms as New Zealand women, being able to be independent, free-thinking individuals.’’
2018:
‘‘I used to work in secondary girls’ education. I remain passionate about helping girls to access a broad range of career paths, including construction, the trades and technology.
‘‘Encouraging young women in these fields is very much a work in progress – only 3 per cent of a recent intake of technical and plumbing apprentices were women. The women working in these maledominated fields must be supported.’’
She adds that Ava Sullivan, 3, the ‘‘great-great-great-great-niece of Kate Sheppard’’, is also carrying on the family’s legacy. ‘‘There was a picture of her on
Stuff recently, sitting on Ardern’s knee. Ava wears a T-shirt that says ‘girl power’ and when you say it she gives you a high-five.
‘‘Women continue to be leaders in movements for social change and justice, just as my esteemed cousin Betty Cuthbert was in her lifetime. She was the last member of our family to have met Kate Sheppard herself, and I believe they would be proud to see women carrying the torch forward, striving for fairness and equality.’’ Betty Cuthbert Relationship to Kate Sheppard: Great-niece Betty was 86 and living in Devonport, Auckland. She was born in Christchurch in 1922. A former president of the National Council of Women, she devoted her life to being an educator and Ma¯ ori and women’s rights campaigner. She was a lifetime member of the Ma¯ ori Women’s Welfare League. She died last year:
2008:
‘‘Kate Sheppard died by the time I was 6 or 7. She was my father’s aunt. My mother was one of those conscientious family people and used to go and see her once a month. The one time I do remember very clearly meeting her was going for afternoon tea. I remember her sitting there, it was very formal with a little kettle with a methylated spirit burner to keep the kettle hot. I remember her saying: ‘Women do really matter, they are important.’ It’s only now do I realise all the questions I would have asked her. Like, 115 years ago, how did you manage to get so many signatures when it was all done by foot or on horseback? I think she managed it because she was a charismatic leader.
‘‘Something that Kate said frequently, and the way I was brought up, is that ‘if it’s not fair, it’s not just or it’s not right I will put my hand up and say something’.
‘‘Kate fought for what she thought was right. She was concerned by poverty among women and children, at men spending all the money on alcohol, but realised they were powerless to change things until women had the chance to vote.
‘‘She’d be delighted to see women going to university and getting qualifications. But we still have a problem with alcohol and that hasn’t changed one bit
. . . it’s the women and children who always suffer.
‘‘Kate died when I was very young but her philosophy has very much affected my family. That feeling that she had about humanity, that everybody has a right to live in a society which is supportive and sustainable.
‘‘We have been empowered. I’m on a lot of committees and whatnot; I manage it because I don’t do housework and I don’t watch television. Is that all you need, dear? Make sure you phone my brother [Don] and tell him he has to talk to you, too. I’m all for men doing their share.’’
‘‘We can’t get complacent. You only have to listen to some of the dinosaurs or read the comments on Stuff to see there is still a long way to go.’’
Tess Bridgman