Women's suffrage in New Zealand

Patricia Grimshaw

"... New Zealand was the first country not part of a federation to give women the vote, and this is the first full account of how it happened. Mrs Grimshaw challenges the traditional assumption, stemming from W. P. Reeves, that women's suffrage was granted almost without argument, and largely as a side effect of the temperace movement, which hoped to benefit from women's votes. On the contrary, Mrs Grimshaw shows, women's suffrage was the culmination of a feminist movement concerned also with the position of women in other spheres. Under the wing of the Women's Christian Temperance Movement but with conscious feminist intent a campaign of meetiings and petitions was led by Mrs Kate Sheppard, a woman of determination and formidable ability. Politicians, many of whom genuinely favoured the movement, wrestled with the problem of how it would affect their futures. Would women vote conservative or liberal? A government pledged to support women's suffrage surreptitiously but vainly strove to sabotage its own Bill ..." -- Inside front cover.