President guest of clubs

Press, Issue 33844, 16 May 1975, Page 5

President guest of clubs

New Zealand Business and Professional Women’s Clubs will have the international president, Professor Beryl Nashar, as their guest of honour at their biennial conference later this month.

An Australian who believes women should "get up and go,” Professor Nashar is the foundation professor of geology and head of the Department of Geology at the University of Newcastle. In 1969 she became the first woman dean of a university faculty in Australia. She is also the author of scientific books, and a series of junior science books. Her community interests are many and varied, and her membership in the B. and P. dates back to 1955. Married, with one son (who is studying geology at Newcastle University), Professor Nashar has an activist’s philosophy. “I don’t want women to sit back and whinge,” she says. “I want women to get up and go.” CHALLENGE Professor Nashar sees i I.W.Y. as a challenge to I every woman to show; i society what she can do.

Her message to B. and P. members is to encourage girls and women to educate themselves to their highest capacity. Women, she says, cannot hope to get past first base in participating equally with men if they have not the same qualifications — in fact better qualifications.

In a world where half the brainpower belongs to women, no nation can afford not to use the valuable resources of women who , elect to work, she says.

Professor Nashar takes a long-term view of the women’s movement. In the last decade, she says, there has been a rise or various women’s liberation movements attended by much sensationalism. ROLE CHANGING

How many of these organisations, she asks, realise they are trying to achieve overnight what women have been trying to achieve for 50 years. The role of women is changing, she says, but not quickly enough for some. Professor Nashar says she is optimistic enough to believe the change will be accelerated with each succeeding generation and that women: will enter the twenty-first century in full partnership with men.

Three Christchurch delegates will go to Tauranga for the conference, which opens on May 30. They are Mrs C. E. Hill, president of the Christchurch club, Mrs B. H. Wood, and Miss B. Atkinson. Mrs H. Wilson will be hn observer.

Mrs S. Lilley and Mrs E. M. Aitken, of Christchurch, are both national committee chairmen.

MILK subsidy

Discussions will be wideranging. Among the remits is a call for reduction in the milk subsidy which would increase the cost of milk from four to six cents.

The Dannevirke club wants an “anomaly” in the taxation of working married couples reviewed by the Government. When both work they are doubly taxed, says the club, and it wants changes to allow working wives and husbands to receive benefits from the sickness fund to which they are compelled to contribute.

An increase in the allowable earnings of widows is sought by the Central Hawke’s Bay Club. The Te Awamutu Club seeks a Government subsidy towards payment of private nursing or nurse aiding in the home, where the patient would otherwise be hospitalised. The Kaikohe Club is urging better access for the disabled in the community. Continuing education, educational television, and guidance counsellors are dealt with in three remits from the national executive. The executive also wants action on the Superannuation Scheme in relation to women who do not work outside the home. It believes the Government should make contributions to the scheme at the rate of 7 per cent of the average male wage from appropriate Government funds to those who i remain at home to care for I young children, invalids, the handicapped, and the elderly.