New Zealand: A Country of Firsts in Women’s Political Rights

Abstract

In September 1893, New Zealand became the first country in world to give all women the right to vote. Curtin argues that while the campaign waged for women’s political rights was comparatively peaceful, it was no less persistent than elsewhere. The chapter challenges the commonly held view that the battle for the vote in New Zealand was short and dependent solely on the work of the formal suffrage organizations. No doubt the latter was important in providing structure and strategy, Curtin explores how the formal campaign was preceded and supported by Māori (indigenous) women’s activism, organized working women and a grass-roots brand of settler feminism that challenged Victorian norms, building instead on the realities of colonial women’s lives. Curtin concludes that this broad coalition ensured not only the passage of inclusive citizenship rights for women, but also the mass registration and education of new women voters.