124 years down the road to gender equality

This year represents just the third time a New Zealand general election will take place in the week following Suffrage Day, celebrated on Tuesday, marking the day in 1893 when New Zealand became the first self-governing country in the world where women could vote.

It happened previously in 1943, and also in 2014, when polling day fell on the day after Suffrage Day.

Most other elections have taken place in October, November or December, though a handful have come earlier, including July elections in 1984, when Robert Muldoon called his snap poll for the 14th, and 2002.

It’s fair to say, though, that the focus seems to have been more squarely on the day’s importance this year, the continued rise of social media ensuring an anniversary that borders on the sacred has been front and centre.

A glance at the #SuffrageDay hashtag on Twitter reveals that many voters, particularly women, chose to vote on Tuesday to mark the significance of the day, a fact that should boost the already healthy early voting statistics in this election.

And why not? It’s one of the most significant days in our political history, if not the world’s. Britain and the United States didn’t give women the vote until after World War I.

But as many marking Tuesday’s anniversary were at pains to point out, the right to vote was not ‘‘given’’ to women here, they were made to fight tooth and nail for it in the face of fierce opposition. One missive, Wellingtonian Henry Wright’s poster entitled ‘‘Notice to Epicene Women’’, recommended women stop ‘‘meddling in masculine concerns of which they are profoundly ignorant’’.

Without single-mindedness and perseverance, Kate Sheppard and her fellow campaigners would certainly have fallen short.

The Suffrage petition of 1893, submitted to Parliament on July 28, and signed by ‘‘Mary J Carpenter (her signature appears first) and 25,519 others, was by no means the first extensive collection of signatures calling for the franchise. The largest of 13 separate petitions that year, it followed unsuccessful petitions in 1891 and 1892.

But as momentous as September 19, 1893 was, that date is significant now in part because while it was a big step on the road to gender equality, that equality has still not been fully realised 124 years later.

It took 40 years for Elizabeth McCombs to become New Zealand’s first woman Member of Parliament, via a by-election in Lyttelton, and as we approach Saturday’s official election date, only the Greens have a party list in which the top 10 contains as many women as men. In its case, there are seven women to three men.

The ongoing existence of a gender pay gap is undisputed and women continue to be underrepresented at the highest level in business.

In short, the gender struggle is still very much alive. No wonder #smashthepatriarchy is a hashtag gaining in popularity.