COMMENT: I received an email from the library last week reminding me I had promised to loan them my Suffrage Medal for a display they were having to celebrate the 125 years of woman's suffrage in New Zealand. This made me reflect that 25 years have passed since the suffrage centenary.
I had been given the medal for a refurbishment of the Hastings women's rest rooms which the men around the council table had mooted to pull down. It was also part of recognition for setting up a register in Hawke's Bay of suitable women to be put forward for governance appointments and national boards.
I wondered what changes had been made regarding the lives of women since then? I wondered how different it is for woman now compared to how life was for me 25 years ago.
Being one of only two women on the first Hastings District Council in 1989, with 13 men around the table, was not easy. The men would often find it necessary to talk among themselves when it was our turn to comment in the debate. The old boy network was alive and well and we had to work so much harder in the community to "earn" our recognition as worthy members of the council.
To be fair, this attitude was more than likely because we were both women who had no recognised credentials in the local business world. Prior to 1989 a young woman on her own with three children, as I was, was an unusual council candidate. I had trained as a school dental nurse, worked for many years as a florist retailer, but this did not rate as being part of the higher echelons of the Hastings business community.