tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/womens-right-to-vote-59643/articlesWomen's right to vote – The Conversation2020-01-16T19:04:23Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1293522020-01-16T19:04:23Z2020-01-16T19:04:23ZHidden women of history: Catherine Hay Thomson, the Australian undercover journalist who went inside asylums and hospitals<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310375/original/file-20200115-134772-1he8wcv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2%2C2%2C855%2C556&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Catherine Hay Thomson went undercover as an assistant nurse for her series on conditions at Melbourne Hospital. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-147135448/view">A. J. Campbell Collection/National Library of Australia</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>In this series, we look at under-acknowledged women through the ages.</em></p>
<p>In 1886, a year before American journalist Nellie Bly <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/07/28/she-went-undercover-expose-an-insane-asylums-horrors-now-nellie-bly-is-getting-her-due/">feigned insanity</a> to enter an asylum in New York and became a household name, Catherine Hay Thomson arrived at the entrance of Kew Asylum in Melbourne on “a hot grey morning with a lowering sky”. </p>
<p>Hay Thomson’s two-part article, <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/6089302">The Female Side of Kew Asylum</a> for The Argus newspaper revealed the conditions women endured in Melbourne’s public institutions. </p>
<p>Her articles were controversial, engaging, empathetic, and most likely the first known by an Australian female undercover journalist.</p>
<h2>A ‘female vagabond’</h2>
<p>Hay Thomson was accused of being a spy by Kew Asylum’s supervising doctor. The Bulletin called her “the female vagabond”, a reference to Melbourne’s famed undercover reporter of a decade earlier, Julian Thomas. But she was not after notoriety. </p>
<p>Unlike Bly and her ambitious contemporaries who turned to “stunt journalism” to escape the boredom of the women’s pages – one of the few avenues open to women newspaper writers – Hay Thomson was initially a teacher and ran <a href="https://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/A79772">schools</a> with her mother in Melbourne and Ballarat. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310830/original/file-20200120-69568-x4hyux.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310830/original/file-20200120-69568-x4hyux.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310830/original/file-20200120-69568-x4hyux.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310830/original/file-20200120-69568-x4hyux.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310830/original/file-20200120-69568-x4hyux.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310830/original/file-20200120-69568-x4hyux.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310830/original/file-20200120-69568-x4hyux.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310830/original/file-20200120-69568-x4hyux.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hay Thomson, standing centre with her mother and pupils at their Ballarat school, was a teacher before she became a journalist.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ballarat Grammar Archives/Museum Victoria</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>In <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/207826580?searchTerm=%22Catherine%20Hay%20Thomson%22&searchLimits=exactPhrase=Catherine+Hay+Thomson%7C%7C%7CanyWords%7C%7C%7CnotWords%7C%7C%7CrequestHandler%7C%7C%7CdateFrom%7C%7C%7CdateTo%7C%7C%7Csortby">1876</a>, she became one of the first female students to sit for the matriculation exam at Melbourne University, though women weren’t allowed to study at the university until 1880. </p>
<h2>Going undercover</h2>
<p>Hay Thomson’s series for The Argus began in March 1886 with a piece entitled <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/6087478?searchTerm=%22The%20Inner%20Life%20of%20the%20Melbourne%20Hospital%22&searchLimits=">The Inner Life of the Melbourne Hospital</a>. She secured work as an assistant nurse at Melbourne Hospital (now <a href="https://www.thermh.org.au/about/our-history">The Royal Melbourne Hospital</a>) which was under scrutiny for high running costs and an abnormally high patient death rate. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310150/original/file-20200115-93792-1rli38t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310150/original/file-20200115-93792-1rli38t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310150/original/file-20200115-93792-1rli38t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310150/original/file-20200115-93792-1rli38t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310150/original/file-20200115-93792-1rli38t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310150/original/file-20200115-93792-1rli38t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310150/original/file-20200115-93792-1rli38t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310150/original/file-20200115-93792-1rli38t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Doctors at Melbourne Hospital in the mid 1880s did not wash their hands between patients, wrote Catherine Hay Thomson.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://viewer.slv.vic.gov.au/?entity=IE1125263&mode=browse">State Library of Victoria</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>Her articles increased the pressure. She observed that the assistant nurses were untrained, worked largely as cleaners for poor pay in unsanitary conditions, slept in overcrowded dormitories and survived on the same food as the patients, which she described in stomach-turning detail.</p>
<p>The hospital linen was dirty, she reported, dinner tins and jugs were washed in the patients’ bathroom where poultices were also made, doctors did not wash their hands between patients.</p>
<p>Writing about a young woman caring for her dying friend, a 21-year-old impoverished single mother, Hay Thomson observed them “clinging together through all fortunes” and added that “no man can say that friendship between women is an impossibility”.</p>
<p>The Argus editorial called for the setting up of a “ladies’ committee” to oversee the cooking and cleaning. Formal nursing training was introduced in Victoria three years later.</p>
<h2>Kew Asylum</h2>
<p>Hay Thomson’s next <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/6089302">series</a>, about women’s treatment in the Kew Asylum, was published in March and April 1886. </p>
<p>Her articles predate <a href="https://www.sas.upenn.edu/%7Ecavitch/pdf-library/Bly_TenDays.pdf">Ten Days in a Madhouse</a> written by Nellie Bly (born <a href="https://www.biography.com/activist/nellie-bly">Elizabeth Cochran</a>) for Joseph Pulitzer’s <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/New-York-World">New York World</a>. </p>
<p>While working in the asylum for a fortnight, Hay Thomson witnessed overcrowding, understaffing, a lack of training, and a need for woman physicians. Most of all, the reporter saw that many in the asylum suffered from institutionalisation rather than illness. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310146/original/file-20200115-151844-1hs1bdy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310146/original/file-20200115-151844-1hs1bdy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310146/original/file-20200115-151844-1hs1bdy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310146/original/file-20200115-151844-1hs1bdy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310146/original/file-20200115-151844-1hs1bdy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310146/original/file-20200115-151844-1hs1bdy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310146/original/file-20200115-151844-1hs1bdy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310146/original/file-20200115-151844-1hs1bdy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kew Asylum around the time Catherine Hay Thomson went undercover there.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.slv.vic.gov.au/images?page=1&keyword=kew%20asylum&smt=1">Charles Rudd/State Library of Victoria</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>She described “the girl with the lovely hair” who endured chronic ear pain and was believed to be delusional. The writer countered “her pain is most probably real”.</p>
<p>Observing another patient, Hay Thomson wrote: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>She requires to be guarded – saved from herself; but at the same time, she requires treatment … I have no hesitation in saying that the kind of treatment she needs is unattainable in Kew Asylum.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The day before the first asylum article was published, Hay Thomson gave evidence to the final sitting of Victoria’s <a href="https://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/papers/govpub/VPARL1886No15Pi-clxxii.pdf">Royal Commission on Asylums for the Insane and Inebriate</a>, pre-empting what was to come in The Argus. Among the Commission’s final recommendations was that a new governing board should supervise appointments and training and appoint “lady physicians” for the female wards.</p>
<h2>Suffer the little children</h2>
<p>In May 1886, <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/6095144/276118">An Infant Asylum written “by a Visitor”</a> was published. The institution was a place where mothers – unwed and impoverished - could reside until their babies were weaned and later adopted out. </p>
<p>Hay Thomson reserved her harshest criticism for the absent fathers:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>These women … have to bear the burden unaided, all the weight of shame, remorse, and toil, [while] the other partner in the sin goes scot free.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>For another article, <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/6099966?searchTerm=%22Among%20the%20Blind%3A%20Victorian%20Asylum%20and%20School%22&searchLimits=">Among the Blind: Victorian Asylum and School</a>, she worked as an assistant needlewoman and called for talented music students at the school to be allowed to sit exams.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/254464232?searchTerm=%22A%20Penitent%E2%80%99s%20Life%20in%20the%20Magdalen%20Asylum%22&searchLimits=">A Penitent’s Life in the Magdalen Asylum</a>, Hay Thomson supported nuns’ efforts to help women at the Abbotsford Convent, most of whom were not residents because they were “fallen”, she explained, but for reasons including alcoholism, old age and destitution.</p>
<h2>Suffrage and leadership</h2>
<p>Hay Thomson helped found the <a href="https://www.australsalon.org/130th-anniversary-celebration-1">Austral Salon of Women, Literature and the Arts</a> in January 1890 and <a href="https://ncwvic.org.au/about-us.html#est">the National Council of Women of Victoria</a>. Both organisations are still celebrating and campaigning for women. </p>
<p>Throughout, she continued writing, becoming <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_Talk_(magazine)">Table Talk</a> magazine’s music and social critic. </p>
<p>In 1899 she became editor of The Sun: An Australian Journal for the Home and Society, which she bought with Evelyn Gough. Hay Thomson also gave a series of lectures titled <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/145847122?searchTerm=%22catherine%20hay%20thomson%22%20and%20%22women%20in%20politics%22&searchLimits=">Women in Politics</a>. </p>
<p>A Melbourne hotel maintains that Hay Thomson’s private residence was secretly on the fourth floor of Collins Street’s <a href="https://www.melbourne.intercontinental.com/catherine-hay-thomson">Rialto building</a> around this time. </p>
<h2>Home and back</h2>
<p>After selling The Sun, Hay Thomson returned to her birth city, Glasgow, Scotland, and to a precarious freelance career for English magazines such as <a href="https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/serial?id=cassellsmag">Cassell’s</a>. </p>
<p>Despite her own declining fortunes, she brought attention to writer and friend <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/carmichael-grace-elizabeth-jennings-5507">Grace Jennings Carmichael</a>’s three young sons, who had been stranded in a Northampton poorhouse for six years following their mother’s death from pneumonia. After Hay Thomson’s article in The Argus, the Victorian government granted them free passage home.</p>
<p>Hay Thomson eschewed the conformity of marriage but <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/65330270?searchTerm=&searchLimits=l-publictag=Mrs+T+F+Legge+%28nee+Hay+Thomson%29">tied the knot</a> back in Melbourne in 1918, aged 72. The wedding at the Women Writer’s Club to Thomas Floyd Legge, culminated “a romance of forty years ago”. <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/140219851">Mrs Legge</a>, as she became, died in Cheltenham in 1928, only nine years later.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/129352/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A passionate crusader for the rights of women and children, Catherine Hay Thomson went undercover to investigate their treatment in public institutions and testified before a Royal Commission.Kerrie Davies, Lecturer, School of the Arts & Media, UNSW SydneyWilla McDonald, Senior Lecturer, Macquarie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1263582019-11-11T14:10:11Z2019-11-11T14:10:11ZParty’s woes signify historical dilemma of South Africa’s liberals<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300847/original/file-20191108-194675-amzxe3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Helen Zille's return to the top echelons of the Democratic Alliance has been slammed as an attempt to make the party white again.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA/Nic Bothma</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2019-10-20-helen-zille-wins-vote-top-da-job/">return of Helen Zille</a>, the former leader of South Africa’s official opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), to active politics as chair of the party’s federal executive led to many allegations that the party is dominated by a shadowy kitchen cabinet of <a href="https://citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/politics/2195945/maimane-was-an-ethically-upright-man-forced-to-leave-da-because-of-white-people-eff/">white people</a>.</p>
<p>Zille’s election to head the DA’s highest decision-making body in between national congresses was soon followed by the <a href="https://city-press.news24.com/News/double-whammy-for-da-as-maimane-and-trollip-resign-20191023">resignations</a> of Herman Mashaba, the DA mayor of Johannesburg; Mmusi Maimane, the party’s national leader; and Athol Trollip, its national chairman. Mashaba had charged that Zille’s return set the party on a <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/national/2019-10-21-joburg-mayor-herman-mashaba-resigns/">rightwing path</a>. </p>
<p>Yet, rather than focusing on personalities to understand the DA’s problems, it is better to return to the dilemmas of liberals in South Africa’s tragic history of the politicisation of race. This tendency persisted even after the country became a democracy in 1994. In essence, liberalism has always been reluctant to grant black people equality unless they achieve certain designated standards.</p>
<h2>Segregation frames the liberal dilemma</h2>
<p>Following the country’s formation in 1910 as a union of <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/union-south-africa-1910">four territories </a> (historically, two British colonies and two Boer republics), it was accepted among white people, including those of more liberal persuasions, that people of different “races” should live separately to preserve white people’s <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-apartheid-south-africa">culture and languages</a>.</p>
<p>This was used to justify the grossly unequal division of land which resulted in the black majority being left with just 7% of the land. This was confirmed by the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/natives-land-act-1913">1913 Land Act</a>. </p>
<p>The assumption which went with this was that black people were destined to remain in rural areas, and that any movement (such as migration for work on white mines, factories or farms) would be temporary. </p>
<p>But, by the end of the 1920s, liberals were beginning to get uneasy. It was becoming increasingly clear that the fates of black people and white people were irrevocably entangled, economically and politically.</p>
<p>The fundamental dilemma for “liberal segregationists” was that they based their politics on the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/179767?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">Cape qualified franchise</a>. Its basic supposition was that black people (and only men) were worthy of the vote – only if they achieved a certain level of <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/segregation-fallacy-and-other-papers-disfranchisement-cape-native">“civilisation”</a>. In practice, this meant ownership of property and or educational qualifications. </p>
<p>But this presented the problem that the few black people who acquired education showed that black people were equal to whites. If black equality was accepted, the white minority would be <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/segregation-fallacy-and-other-papers-disfranchisement-cape-native">“swamped”</a>. </p>
<p>Assuming power in 1948, the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/national-party-np">National Party</a> formalised apartheid. It sought to negate this danger by arguing that potential equality between people of different races was irrelevant. It argued that black people and white people were culturally different, cultural mixing would cause cultural conflict. </p>
<p>This led to a number of targeted policies. To avert the dangers of racial mixing, the flow of black people to urban areas should be averted, the entry of black people into the white polity should be blocked off completely, and black politics should be diverted to black <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/homelands">“homelands”</a>. These were ten mainly rural areas where black people were required to live, along ethnic group lines. </p>
<p>It was only the tiny <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/liberal-party-south-africa-lpsa">Liberal Party</a> which had by now fully accepted the political implications of racial equality, and argued for a universal franchise. The majority liberal response, elaborated by the DA’s forerunners (from the Progressive Party onwards), was to retain the notion of black people having to attain a certain level of “civilisation” to qualify for the vote.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/liberalism-in-south-africa-isnt-only-for-white-people-or-black-people-who-want-to-be-white-125236">Liberalism in South Africa isn't only for white people -- or black people who want to be white</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>One reason was that any attempt to sell the idea of the universal franchise to the white electorate was doomed to failure. When universal franchise eventually arrived, in the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/south-africas-first-democratic-elections">election of 1994</a>, the then Democratic Party, albeit now advocating votes for all, secured a mere 2% of the vote. The National Party – fighting for “group rights” – swept up 20%.</p>
<p>Subsequently, in 1999, under Tony Leon, the DA, then known as the Democratic Party, adopted the ambiguously phrased <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/sundayindependent/das-history-of-identity-crises-1611459">“fight back”</a> campaign slogan. It argued that the governing ANC was embarking on implementing apartheid in reverse through affirmative action policies. It captured the major portion of the National Party’s white vote. Thus the party of apartheid was condemned to a deserved, albeit lingering death.</p>
<h2>Maimane’s burden</h2>
<p>Under Zille, the DA embarked on an electoral expansion programme, recognising that if it was going to grow and become a serious competitor for power, it would have to capture a sizeable portion of the overwhelming majority black vote. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300850/original/file-20191108-194661-x12khb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300850/original/file-20191108-194661-x12khb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300850/original/file-20191108-194661-x12khb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300850/original/file-20191108-194661-x12khb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300850/original/file-20191108-194661-x12khb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300850/original/file-20191108-194661-x12khb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300850/original/file-20191108-194661-x12khb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mmusi Maimane grew the DA’s support among the majority black voters.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA/Kim Ludbrook</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This realisation eventually led to the selection of Maimane as the DA’s national leader <a href="https://theconversation.com/first-black-leader-breathes-life-into-south-african-opposition-41275">in 2015</a>. He saw his task as rendering the DA’s liberalism more appealing to black voters by taking it in what he saw as a more inclusive direction. This would be through recognising <a href="https://www.politicsweb.co.za/documents/we-believe-race-is-a-proxy-for-disadvantage--mmusi">race as an indicator of disadvantage</a>. </p>
<p>It didn’t go down well with the DA’s established base, which saw it as an assault upon the party’s professedly nonracial values. It was therefore Maimane who, as leader, was to be blamed for the <a href="https://www.biznews.com/leadership/2019/05/09/elections2019-national-vote-da-ff">DA’s loss of votes</a>, for the first time since 1994, in the 2019 election.</p>
<p>The recent internal party inquest, headed by Leon, decided that it was imperative for Maimane to go, arguing that under his watch, in a bid to attract black voters, the DA <a href="https://www.news24.com/Analysis/analysis-leadership-and-race-da-review-panel-a-devastating-blow-for-mmusi-maimane-20191022">had strayed from its liberal principles</a>. </p>
<p>The DA should, therefore, return to its liberal foundations and confirm its attachment to policies which would effect redress of historical racial inequalities without using race as a proxy for disadvantage. Yet South Africa’s black voters are unlikely to dissociate disadvantage from the colour of their skin.</p>
<h2>Difficult choices</h2>
<p>It is unsurprising that this turn of events should lead to Maimane’s resignation. If the party wants to return to growth, then its analysis is almost certainly wrong. Stronger emphasis on a “non-racial liberalism” is unlikely to appeal to rightwing white voters. It is equally unlikely to appeal to black voters, who view forms of racial redress as the only sure route to greater racial equality. </p>
<p>Black aversion to the DA is likely to increase even more if the party replaces its former black leader with someone, however talented and principled, who is white. The DA is having to struggle with South Africa’s toxic history of black oppression. Yet it remains the case that that history has left it with the dilemma that liberals in South Africa have never been able to solve: how to deal with “the native question” if the natives in question doubt the capacity of liberalism to bring about substantive racial equality.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/126358/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Roger Southall has received funding from the National Research Foundation</span></em></p>The Democratic Alliance’s problems can be traced back to the politicisation of race, which has persisted even after the dawn of democracy in 1994.Roger Southall, Professor of Sociology, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1234672019-09-18T20:36:05Z2019-09-18T20:36:05ZNZ was first to grant women the vote in 1893, but then took 26 years to let them stand for parliament<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292896/original/file-20190917-19045-ei5tjs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1%2C28%2C795%2C470&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">After winning the right to vote in 1893, New Zealand's suffragists kept up the battle, but the unity found in rallying around the major cause had receded.
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tribute_to_the_Suffragettes,_close_up.jpg">Jim Henderson/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Today marks the passing of the much celebrated <a href="https://nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/womens-suffrage">1893 Electoral Act</a>, 126 years ago, which made New Zealand the first country in the world to grant women the right to vote.</p>
<p>But it would take 26 years before the often twinned step of allowing women to stand for parliament happened. On October 29, it will be a century since the passing of the <a href="http://www.nzlii.org/nz/legis/hist_act/wpra191910gv1919n16391/">1919 Women’s Parliamentary Rights Act</a>, which opened the way for women to enter politics. </p>
<p>Women’s suffrage and women’s right to stand for parliament are natural companions, two sides of the same coin. It would be fair to assume both happened at the same time. </p>
<p>Early women’s suffrage bills included women standing for parliament. But, in the hope of success, the right was omitted from the third and successful 1893 bill. Suffragists didn’t want to risk women standing for parliament sinking the bill. </p>
<p>The leader of the suffrage movement, <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/2s20/sheppard-katherine-wilson">Kate Sheppard</a>, reluctantly accepted the omission and expected that the right would follow soon afterwards. But that didn’t happen. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-new-zealand-was-the-first-country-where-women-won-the-right-to-vote-103219">Why New Zealand was the first country where women won the right to vote</a>
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<h2>Post-vote agitation</h2>
<p>After women won suffrage, agitation for several egalitarian causes, including women in parliament, continued. The Women’s Christian Temperance Movement (<a href="https://nzhistory.govt.nz/women-together/new-zealand-womens-christian-temperance-union">WCTU</a>) and, from 1896, the National Council of Women (<a href="https://nzhistory.govt.nz/women-together/national-council-women-new-zealand">NCW</a>) both called for the bar to be removed. </p>
<p>Women including Kate Sheppard, <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/2s24/sievwright-margaret-home">Margaret Sievwright</a>, <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/2h29/henderson-stella-may">Stella Henderson</a> and <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/3p1/page-sarah">Sarah Saunders Page</a> kept up the battle. But the unity found in rallying around the major women’s suffrage cause was lacking and the heady and energetic climate of 1893 had receded. </p>
<p>From 1894 to 1900, sympathetic male politicians from across the political spectrum presented eight separate bills. Supportive conservatives emphasised the “unique maternal influence” that women would bring to parliament. Conservative MP <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/3n4/newman-alfred-kingcome">Alfred Newman</a> argued that New Zealand must retain its world-leading reputation for social legislation, but he downplayed the significance. He predicted that even if women were allowed to stand for parliament, few would be interested and even fewer would be elected. </p>
<p>Left-leaning supportive MPs <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/2r31/russell-george-warren">George Russell</a> and <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/2t16/taylor-thomas-edward">Tommy Taylor</a> saw the matter as one of extending women’s rights and the next logical step towards societal equality. But contemplating women in the House was a step too far and all attempts failed. </p>
<h2>Enduring prejudice</h2>
<p>The failure in the pre-war years was largely because any support for women in parliament was outweighed by enduring prejudice against their direct participation in politics. </p>
<p>At the beginning of the new century, Prime Minister <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/2s11/seddon-richard-john">Richard Seddon</a> was well aware of public opinion being either indifferent to or against women in parliament. A new generation of women with professional careers who might stand for parliament, if allowed, comprised a small minority. </p>
<p>Much to the chagrin of supporters, New Zealand began to lag behind other countries. <a href="https://www.aec.gov.au/Elections/Australian_Electoral_History/milestone.htm">Australia simultaneously granted women the right to vote</a> and stand for parliament in 1902 at the federal level, with the exception of Aboriginal women in some states. </p>
<p>Women in Finland were able to both vote and stand for election from 1906, as part of reforms following unrest. In 1907, 19 women were elected to the <a href="http://www.helsinki.fi/sukupuolentutkimus/aanioikeus/en/articles/first.htm">new Finnish parliament</a>. </p>
<h2>The game changer: the first world war</h2>
<p>Importantly, during the first world war, women’s status improved rapidly and this overrode previous prejudices. Women became essential and valued citizens in the war effort. Most contributed from their homes, volunteering their domestic skills, while increasing numbers entered the public sphere as nurses, factory and public sector workers. </p>
<p><a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/3m51/melville-eliza-ellen">Ellen Melville</a> became an Auckland city councillor in 1913. <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/2w11/wells-ada">Ada Wells</a> was elected to the Christchurch City Council in 1917. Women proved their worth in keeping the home fires burning while men were away fighting. </p>
<p>In 1918, British women, with some conditions, were enfranchised and allowed to stand for parliament. <a href="https://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=res&dir=his&document=chap2&lang=e">Canada’s federal government</a> also gave most of its women both the right to vote and stand for parliament. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/100-years-since-women-won-the-right-to-be-mps-what-it-was-like-for-the-pioneers-105907">100 years since women won the right to be MPs – what it was like for the pioneers</a>
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<p>Late in 1918, MP <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/3m3/mccombs-james">James McCombs</a>, the New Zealand Labour Party’s first president and long-time supporter of women’s rights, opportunistically included women standing for parliament in a legislative council amendment bill. It was unsuccessful, mostly due to technicalities, and Prime Minister <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/2m39/massey-william-ferguson">Bill Massey</a> promised to pursue the matter. </p>
<p>Disappointed feminist advocate <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/2m15/mackay-jessie">Jessie Mackay</a> pointed to women’s service during the war and the <a href="https://nzhistory.govt.nz/keyword/influenza">recent influenza epidemic</a> and shamed New Zealand for failing to keep up with international developments. </p>
<p>Women’s wartime work, renewed feminist activism and male parliamentary support combined to make the 1919 act a foregone conclusion. Introducing the bill, Massey said he did not doubt it would pass because it was important to keep up with Britain. The opposition leader, Joseph Ward, thought war had changed what was due to women, and Labour Party leader Harry Holland pushed <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.32106019788832&view=1up&seq=1001">women’s role as moral citizens</a>.</p>
<p>The Legislative Council (upper house) held out and women had to wait until 1941 for the right to be appointed there. It took until 1933 for the first woman, <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/4m3/mccombs-elizabeth-reid">Elizabeth McCombs</a>, to be elected to parliament. The belief that a woman’s place was in the home and not parliament, the bastion of masculine power, endured. </p>
<p>Between 1935 and 1975, only 14 women were elected to parliament, compared to 298 men. It was not until the advent of a <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/womens-movement/page-6">second wave of feminism</a> and the introduction of <a href="https://elections.nz/democracy-in-nz/what-is-mmp/">proportional representation in 1996</a> that numbers of women in the house began to increase.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/123467/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Katie Pickles receives funding from Royal Society of New Zealand Te Apārangi.</span></em></p>New Zealand was the first nation to grant women the vote in 1893, but during the pre-war years enduring prejudice against women in politics outweighed any support for women to stand for parliamentKatie Pickles, Professor of History at the University of Canterbury and current Royal Society of New Zealand Te Apārangi James Cook Research Fellow, University of CanterburyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1032192018-09-19T00:02:08Z2018-09-19T00:02:08ZWhy New Zealand was the first country where women won the right to vote<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236328/original/file-20180914-177962-ftgwba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=89%2C53%2C2306%2C1394&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A memorial by sculptor Margriet Windhausen depicts the life-size figures of Kate Sheppard and other leaders of the Aotearoa New Zealand suffrage movement.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bernard Spragg/Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>125 years ago today Aotearoa New Zealand became the first country in the world to <a href="https://mch.govt.nz/suffrage-125">grant all women the right to vote</a>. </p>
<p>The event was part of an ongoing international movement for women to exit from an inferior position in society and to enjoy equal rights with men. </p>
<p>But why did this global first happen in a small and isolated corner of the South Pacific?</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/womens-votes-six-amazing-facts-from-around-the-world-91196">Women's votes: six amazing facts from around the world</a>
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<h2>Setting the stage</h2>
<p>In the late 19th century, Aotearoa New Zealand was a volatile and rapidly changing contact zone where British settlers confidently introduced systematic colonisation, often at the expense of the indigenous Māori population. Settlers were keen to create a new world <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/ideas-in-new-zealand/page-5">society that adapted the best of Britain</a> and left behind behind the negative aspects of the industrial revolution – Britain’s <a href="https://www.archaeology.co.uk/articles/features/dark-satanic-mills-the-archaeology-of-the-worlds-first-industrial-city.htm">dark satanic mills</a>. </p>
<p>Many supported universal male suffrage and a less rigid class structure, enlightened race relations and humanitarianism that also extended to improving women’s lives. These <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/1966/new-zealand-society-its-characteristics/page-2">liberal aspirations towards societal equality</a> contributed to the 1893 women’s suffrage victory. </p>
<p>At the end of the 19th century, feminists in New Zealand had a long list of demands. It included equal pay, prevention of violence against women, economic independence for women, old age pensions and reform of marriage, divorce, health and education – and peace and justice for all. </p>
<p>The women’s suffrage cause captured widespread support and emerged as the uniting right for women’s equality in society. As <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/2h28/henderson-christina-kirk">suffragist Christina Henderson</a> later summed up, 1893 captured “the mental and spiritual uplift” women experienced upon release “from their age-long inferiority complex”. </p>
<p>Two other factors assisted New Zealand’s global first for women: a relatively small size and population and the lack of an entrenched conservative tradition. In Britain, <a href="https://www.biography.com/people/john-stuart-mill-9408210">John Stuart Mill</a> presented a <a href="https://www.bl.uk/votes-for-women/articles/womens-suffrage-timeline">first petition for women’s suffrage to the British Parliament</a> in 1866, but it took until wartime 1918 for limited women’s suffrage there.</p>
<h2>Women as moral citizens</h2>
<p>As a “colonial frontier”, New Zealand had a surplus of men, especially in resource towns. Pragmatically, this placed a premium on women for their part as wives, mothers and moral compasses. </p>
<p>There was a fear of a chaotic frontier full of marauding single men. This colonial context saw conservative men who supported family values supporting suffrage. During the 1880s, depression and its accompanying poverty, sexual licence and <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/alcohol/page-2">drunken disorder</a> further enhanced <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/womens-health/page-4">women’s value as settling maternal figures</a>. Women voters promised a stabilising effect on society. </p>
<p>New Zealand gained much strength from an <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/womens-movement/print">international feminist movement</a>. Women were riding a first feminist wave that, most often grounded in their biological difference as life givers and carers, cast them as <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/gender-inequalities/page-1">moral citizens</a>. </p>
<p>Local feminists eagerly drew upon and circulated the best knowledge from Britain, America and Europe. When Mary Leavitt, the leader of the US-based <a href="https://www.wctu.org/">Women’s Christian Temperance Union</a> (WCTU) visited New Zealand in 1885, her goal was to set up local branches. This had a direct impact, leading to the country’s <a href="http://www.wctu.org.nz/">first national women’s organisation</a> and providing a platform for women to secure the vote in order to affect their colonial feminist concerns. </p>
<p>Other places early to grant women’s suffrage shared the presence of liberal and egalitarian beliefs, a surplus of men over women, and less entrenched conservatism. The four frontier US western mountain states led the way with Wyoming (1869), Utah (1870), Colorado (1893) and Idaho (1895). South Australia (1894) and Western Australia (1899) made the 19th century and, before the first world war, were joined by other western US states, Australia, Finland and Scandinavia. </p>
<h2>Local agency</h2>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236494/original/file-20180915-177956-iza4cg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236494/original/file-20180915-177956-iza4cg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236494/original/file-20180915-177956-iza4cg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236494/original/file-20180915-177956-iza4cg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236494/original/file-20180915-177956-iza4cg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=941&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236494/original/file-20180915-177956-iza4cg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=941&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236494/original/file-20180915-177956-iza4cg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=941&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Social reformer and suffragist Kate Sheppard, around 1905.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
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<p>New Zealand was fortunate to have many effective women leaders. Most prominent among them was <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/2s20/sheppard-katherine-wilson">Kate Sheppard</a>. In 1887, Sheppard became head of the WCTU’s Christchurch branch and led the campaign for the vote. </p>
<p>The campaign leaders were well organised and hard working. Their tactics were petitions, pamphlets, letters, public talks and lobbying politicians - this was a <a href="https://natlib.govt.nz/he-tohu/about/womens-suffrage-petition">peaceful era</a> before the suffragette militancy during the early 20th century elsewhere.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/adela-pankhurst-the-forgotten-sister-who-doesnt-fit-neatly-into-suffragette-history-101918">Adela Pankhurst: the forgotten sister who doesn't fit neatly into suffragette history</a>
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<p>The women were persistent and overcame setbacks. It took multiple attempts in parliament before the Electoral Act 1893 was passed. Importantly, the suffragists got public opinion behind the cause. Mass support was demonstrated through petitions between 1891 and 1893, in total <a href="http://archives.govt.nz/provenance-of-power/womens-suffrage-petition/about">garnering 31,872 signatures</a>, amounting to a quarter of Aotearoa’s adult women.</p>
<p>Pragmatically, the women worked in allegiance with men in parliament who could introduce the bills. In particular, veteran conservative <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/1h5/hall-john">Sir John Hall</a> viewed women’s suffrage as a way to a more moral and civil society. </p>
<p>The Suffrage 125 celebratory slogan “<a href="http://women.govt.nz/about/new-zealand-women/history/suffrage-125">whakatū wāhine – women stand up</a>!” captures the intention of continuing progressive and egalitarian traditions. Recognising diverse cultural backgrounds is now important. With hindsight, the feminist movement can be implicated as an agent of colonisation, but it did support votes for Māori women. <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/27887/meri-mangakahia">Meri Te Tai Mangakāhia</a> presented a motion to the newly formed Māori parliament to allow women to vote and sit in it.</p>
<p>New Zealand remains a small country that can experience rapid social and economic change. Evoking its colonial past, however, it retains both a reputation as a tough and masculine place of beer-swilling, rugby-playing blokes and a tradition of staunch, tea drinking, domesticated women.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/103219/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Katie Pickles receives funding from the Royal Society of New Zealand Te Apārangi as a James Cook Research Fellow.</span></em></p>125 years ago today women in New Zealand were the first to win the right to vote. Why did this global first happen in a small and isolated corner of the South Pacific?Katie Pickles, Professor of History at the University of Canterbury and current Royal Society of New Zealand Te Apārangi James Cook Research Fellow, University of CanterburyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.