Kia Kaha (Stand Strong)

 Once upon a time, ‘The Law of Covertures’ allowed men to treat their wives as chattels!  Once she said, “I do,” body and soul and everything else she owned, was surrendered to him.  She became his property. 

Came the time when women decided, “Enough of this, we want a say in how we live our lives.” But that was fighting talk! The stuff that Pioneers are made of, the kind of people that go forth no matter what, and clear the road of anything that gets in their way.  And so began the long and arduous journey to free women from traditional stereotyping that for so long kept alive the idea that women were inferior.

A small courageous band of women took up the cause. These early pioneers picked up their skirts, and with all the motherly fortitude they could muster, marched into battle. They knew that the road to empowerment was through the vote and so they became the foot soldiers of a movement that instilled the meaning of suffragette forever in the psyche of women.

Throughout time, across cultures and religions, women have been considered lesser creatures, accorded fewer rights and a lower social status than men.  History tells us it’s because we bear children; therefore it’s women who carry the responsibility of Motherhood.  Mostly, it represents working in the protective environment of the home to carry out the household chores and ‘nurture’ the family, therefore, Mother is given the title of Housewife, and so the boundaries of her mind are set.

Father goes out to work-somewhere, and participates in the busyness of life, the difference being, Father gets paid for his effort.  His title is ‘Breadwinner’ because it’s his responsibility to ‘bring home the ‘bread’ in order to pay for the necessities of life and provide for the family.  Father also makes all the important decisions on the issues that affect his family.

This set up gives a man a greater opportunity to grow intellectually, as well as a sense of economic value, while a woman’s work is taken for granted. Her intellectual growth is crippled and she eventually becomes a dependent.

The situation was often justified as being-‘the natural result of biological differences between the sexes.’  To put it bluntly, women were viewed useful for sex, motherhood and housework.

Men refused to acknowledge that women’s thinking functioned on the metacognitive as well, so these higher thinking processes and strategies that gave women the ability to problem solve and think independently were conveniently ignored- hence women’s disempowerment.

In the early 1800’s the coming of a new industrial society emerged and brought about great changes in education, social reforms, and politics that challenged the traditional role of women.  They began to question their status and their rights-and so the seeds of the equal rights movement and feminism were firmly sown.

The right to vote became the battle cry of the suffragists.  A powerful strategy that would give them the opportunity to make changes in a society that morally and intellectually degraded women. Equality was what they wanted, an equal opportunity in sharing national decision-making that affected their lives equally. They were determined to let men know that the battle for women to have a voice of their own, and a sense of their own identity was worth fighting for.

They marched, picketed, chained themselves to railings, burnt letterboxes, stormed parliament went to prison where their protest took the form of a hunger strike and suffered the indignity of being force-fed.  Yet, regardless of the variety of abuse and villainy imposed on them, they successfully intruded on the comfort zone of the male domain. 

Suddenly men had to compete with a potential that threatened to raise the consciousness of women, and give them some control over their destiny.

They wanted rid of the traditional type of brainwashing that allowed men to make all the decisions thereby channelling their thinking into being just ‘homemakers.’  They wanted greater control of their property rights and finances. They wanted recognition of their family and home management skills, skills that they could usefully employ to the benefit of the wider community. 

Not all women were prepared to be militant.  Some reserved the right to hang on to that traditional role of wife and mother, whatever their reasons were, and it is their right and responsibility to do so, but at least these pioneering women made it possible for those willing, to now have a choice.

Unlike Muslim women in the Middle East and Northern Africa, who are not accorded that choice. Traditionally they are still treated as possessions and dependent wives and daughters. They are strongly culturally bound with the trappings of feminine stereotypes and the dictates of tribal law that keep alive the idea that women are inferior and therefore can be condemned to death at the whim of their husbands.  But, as in any culture, there are those that are prepared to do battle to liberate their own.  Muslim women have their own courageous brand of pioneers too, who are also prepared to suffer great indignities for their cause.

One 100 years down the track the old prejudice that women are less intelligent and too controlled by their emotions has now been laid to rest. Audre Lorde(American feminist author) writes in one of her books about the differences between men and women’s feelings; “Men have taught to deal only with what they understand, this is what they respect.  They know that somewhere feeling and knowledge are important so they keep women around to do their feeling for them like ants do aphids.  Until men develop the capacity to feel, they will always be at a loss and will always need to victimise woman.’

We are, men and women different, so why should women seek equality? Because the right to be human, and make our own mistakes rests with all of us, men and women, not just 50% of the human race. 

Women deserve better than to be told “Are you trying to be a man?’ or to give Charlotte Whitten’s words some basis-‘whatever women do, they must do twice as well to be thought half as good.’

Unfortunately there will always be those individuals, men and women alike, who push the boundaries and create a backlash to the best of intentions. Sexual freedom, promiscuity, career minded women, family breakdowns, all these things and more, have been blamed on the emancipation of women.  The man who said, (Susan Faludi, Backlash 1992)‘Men have become economic victims who know someone has made off with their future and they suspect the thief is a woman,’ has been proved ironically correct in today’s political and economic climate

More and More women are taking over the role of breadwinners for whatever reason the social or political climate dictates at the time, but we live in hope that these changes will inspire greater communication and respect between the sexes, and we will continue to ignore the queen who looked in the mirror and said, “Balls, if I had them I’d be king.”

Feminist movements - equal rights and moral reform - have come in waves since those early times, each time breaking down a little more of the prejudice and fear that surrounds the female’s place in society, because women have continued to ‘stand strong’. More than a 110 years have passed since these pioneering women marched onto the pages of history and changed the lives and attitudes of society forever.

Here in New Zealand in 1893 we became the first country to grant women the vote- a country where women now hold four key constitutional positions; Prime Minister, Governor-General, Attorney General and Chief Justice.

Kia Kaha or what!  

-- Annie Glancey, Feature writer VillagePRESS.