Opportunities For Women Are There For The Taking

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31730, 13 July 1968, Page 2

Opportunities For Women Are There For The Taking

(Bv ROSALIEN O’DONOHVB) New Zealand presents no legal barriers to equality for women. There is room at the top; it is up to each woman to get there by waging her own war. Human Rights Year has focused attention on equal opportunities for women. fn spite of the occasional uproar to the contrary, feminine freedom has advanced a hundred-fold since Emily Pankhurst and her suffragettes fought and won the battle for female equality. Today, women occupy high places in government, commerce, industry, and church. They are scaling mountains, piloting ships and aircraft, going to the Antarctic, and building bridges. Indeed, there are few jobs to which an enterprising woman cannot aspire. In “Male” Areas In New Zealand some women are holding their own in what were once “strictly male” spheres. Recently, one of the few women in the Western world to head a national earth-moving machinery company, Mrs M. B. Gough, of Christchurch, retired after 24 years as director of her firm. At Ashburton, a girls’ cricket team from Ashburton College plays in the Ashburton Cricket Association’s male competition and, in Timaru, 40 enthusiasts from Timaru Girls’ High School recently formed their own car club. But establishing a precedent by no means assures acceptance and success. New Zealand’s sturdy pioneer women made history when they got the vote in 1893, proving that men were prepared to respect their contribution. Since then, most women have failed to “cash in” on this concession. N.Z. “Negroes” The medical superintendent of Kingseat Hospital in Auckland (Dr S. M. F. McDonald)

called women “the Negroes of New Zealand society.” Granted, New Zealand is a backward country in the sphere of equal pay. The minimum wage for a woman is 66 2/3 per cent of the rate for a man. But, surely, the women themselves should be the ones to demand their rights in this respect As a Christchurch barrister and solicitor (Miss C. J. Apperley) said at a women’s group meeting recently, New Zealand women do not yet constitute a significant pressure group.

Dr McDonald, of Kingseat Hospital, said this week that they were remarkably underprivileged and not given the opportunity to develop as complete individuals. He suggested the marriage of the future could see the man working for four hours of the day and the woman for four. The household and domestic chores would be divided between the two partners. “The woman would then be an essential part of the economic unit—an Independent individual,” he said. Essential Part This could well be an ideal situation. Women should work towards a world in which the sexes are complementary. There would be less talk of “the woman’s place” and “the man’s role” if each simply respected the other's capabilities. Men have already proved themselves adaptable, doing the jobs that appeal to them, regardless of whether they are traditionally masculine. For years men have been accepted as cooks, coiffeurs, beauticians, and dress designners. They have been running housekeeping services and taking over nursing in hospitals, while the women become the doctors. And, of course, boys are often known to knit, sew and babysit—probably while their sisters are out doing more masculine tasks. On the other hand, women in other countries, where hard-won educations are not

to be wasted, are taking on such responsible jobs as Prime Minister of one of the world’s most populated countries (Mrs Indira Gandhi, of India), air-line pilots, judges in England, lumberjacks in Canada, firewomen in Japan, and even soldiers in Israel. Russia, which claims the only woman cosmonaut (Mrs Valentina Nikolayev-Teryesh-kova), and other Communist countries lead the world in the emancipation of women. A woman who, 30 years ago, was a beautiful but poorlypaid film actress, is now one of the very small groups ruling over the 700 million residents of the People’s Republic of China. She is Mrs Mao, known as Comrade Chiang Ching, a star of the Mao regime at the age of about 53. Britain’s most powerful woman is the First Secretary of State; the 56-year-old Barbara Castle, head of the Ministry of Labour, who has won great admiration for her handling of the trickiest political job in the land. In Other Fields In America, women entertainers are hitting the headlines in other fields, as welL Shirley Temple, former child star of films, ran for Congress and Lucille Ball, winner of four Emmy awards, has won a name for herself in busi-

ness. She is president of Desilu, the slB.Bm-a-year company which produces her own popular “Lucy Show” for television. The most prominent woman in the fashion world, formerly dominated by men, is Mary Quant From sewing her first designs in a two-room flat, she built up an export trade for Britain that won her the M.B.E. Queen Farah, wife of the Shah of Persia, last October became the first women to be crowned in Iran’s 2513-year-old Monarchy. She was a commoner who left school to become an Empress. In The Arts In the arts, Dame Barbara Hepworth, a British woman, has an international reputation as a sculptor and, last year, one more piece of British tradition was shattered when four women violinists were admitted to the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Ghana has a woman disc jockey (Miss Harriet TachieMenson) and West Germany has a solo yachtswoman (Edith Beaumann), who was the only woman competitor in

the third single-handed transatlantic race recently. Nor is the crusading spirit dead. Joan Baes, the American folk-singer, has been gaoled for her anti-Vietnam and other convictions and, the actress, Melina Mercouri, is crusading to restore democracy in Greece. It just goes to show that where there’s a will, there’s a way. Bread-winning is no longer a monopoly of men and home-making no longer a monopoly of women. It all boils down to a partnership between equals.