It was women's suffrage day today, marking the 117th anniversary of New Zealand women winning the vote and this country becoming the first nation state in the world where women could vote on an equal footing with men. But somehow the media failed to notice... You'd think someone might have gone to see how the Christchurch memorial to the suffragists had fared in the earthquake - maybe that did happen in Christchurch? Or maybe not. There was a TV news item about women in Afghanistan voting, but no segue there either. Anywhere else you would think this achievement merited some kind of official recognition, akin to Labour Day. But no. Oh, wait - I've just found a government press release, put out on 14 September...
When I searched the Te Ara online encyclopaedia site for "women's suffrage", and then tried every related term I could think of, the main entry failed to come up (though I'm sure it's there, somewhere). For some insights into what happened at the 100th anniversary, in 1993, have a look here.
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Kia ora Anne, readers may be interested to hear what Women for MMP did to mark the day yesterday. A report was released for Suffrage Day, discussing both the better representation and specific policy wins for women since MMP was introduced. A copy is here: http://www.campaignformmp.org.nz/node/44. You can also hear the report's authors on Radio NZ's Sunday programme here: http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/sunday/20100919
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