ARE RIGHTS DESERVED?

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31727, 10 July 1968, Page 2

ARE RIGHTS DESERVED?

New Zealand women were not yet a significant pressure group, a Christchurch lawyer and solicitor (Miss C. J. Apperley) said on Monday evening.

She was questioning whether they deserved equal rights with men. Of 80 members of Parliament, six were women and there was only a scattering on local bodies and boards of company directors.

“I think New Zealand women should examine themselves to see whether they are shouldering their share of responsibilities when demanding equal rights, and they should attack this with the vigour shown by women in less developed countries,” Miss Apperley said at a meeting of the Christchurch Federated Business and Professional Women’s Club. "My generation still seems to be hypnotised by male pop singers and mod fashions.” JOBS OPEN The attitude of the law to women had changed since the two world wars, when women quickly took over jobs normally held exclusively by men. Tbe year 1968 found a woman as Prime Minister of one of the world’s most populated countries, as well as women working as air-line pilots in France, lumberjacks in Canada, magistrates in England, and even firewomen, in Japan. In Finland, 85 per cent of the dentists were women.

Miss Apperley felt, however, that few women were aware of their rights as set out in the United Nation's doctrine on discrimination against women, adopted by the General Assembly last year. The convention Mid this discrimination should be abolished. In New Zealand, women had

equal rights in political and civic fields. There was no legal barrier to a woman becoming a member of Parliament or of a local body, a Justice of the Peace, or even a judge, magistrate or ombudsman, she said.

Before 1884, women in New Zealand were barred from the business and commercial fields and had no more righto than lunatics or minors. “But now, subject to limitations in capability, there is nothing to stop women taking any jobs they want to,” Miss Apperley said. LOWER WAGES

The United Nations convention provided that women were entitled to equal remuneration where they did a job as well as a man but, in this field, women in New Zealand were subject to discrimination and were often on lower wage scales.

“In the economic field, women here don’t enjoy all they are morally entitled to,” she said. As property owners and marriage partners, women were, under the law, substantially equal to men. In some other spheres, they enjoyed a privileged position. For example, New Zealand women were not liable to compulsory military training. It was hard to determine discrimination against women in many cases, Miss Apperley said. Had New Zealand never had a woman judge because there were none capable enough for the position or because men would not tolerate it?