Won not Given
Just a short post to point out that 113 years ago women won the vote, they weren't given the vote. They had organised, built a movement and acted collectively. Suffrage was the result of the work they did - not the benevolence of parliament.
I do have a lot I'd like to write about the suffrage movement in New Zealand, but this will have to be a postholder post until I can actually write it.
Not long ago, I had a very tedious argument with a frightful person who claimed that women getting the vote was nothing to do with their campaigning, but due entirely to the benevolent wisdom of Richard Seddon. I don't know why I even bothered arguing, but damn, it offended me that someone could just dismiss the unglamorous business of organizing and petitioning and protesting.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, it's Kate Sheppard's face on banknotes, not Richard Seddon's, so it's pretty clear to me who's the real hero here.