Men still indifferent about women’s rights

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34103, 16 March 1976, Page 6

Men still indifferent about women’s rights

(By

ROSSLYN RIX

WELLINGTON.

The proverb, “You may lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink” uas graphically illustrated at the conclusion of a lunch at the second day of the con* ferencc on "Women in Social and Economic Development,” in Wellington.

The participants were invited to watch an audio-visual presentation on women in the media. Most of the women and about half a dozen men crossed the hall to watch the presentation but most of the men. those representatives of the policy-making organisations, ignored the invitation and remained behind to talk among themselves.

To be fair, som»' of them!equal numbers had come might have seen it the day into those august chambers, before if they had been in The Prime Minister (Mr the syndicate which Muldoon) In his opening presented it but not as speech made reference to many stayed away the; the number of men he would second time’. not have believed would The conference was held I have been at such a conferin Parliament Buildings with'er.ce a year ago.

the opening session in the. So it appeared that InterLegislative Council Cham- ; national Women's Year had bers. In her opening address ■ achieved something and so the previous day the chair-!had the conference in bringman of the Committee on ing together all those Women and conference women and all those policychainnan (Mrs Miriam Dell) makers. Women were also said that it was the first represented in the policytune men and women in makers group.

Both the year and the conference achieved more than that and from the conference specifically it was hoped that an enlightened view-point would go back to the policy-making positions.

' The International Women’s Year symbol, featuring the dove of peace, which has been adopted throughout the world on I.W.Y. badges and has been used . extensively as a design for . necklaces, rings, and brooches. It is impossible to generalise on the impressions the conference made on both the men and the women but one observation seemed particularly noteworthy. One highranking official in the banking world was not going to bother to read the material he had been given — he was taking it home for his wife jto read. “VEILED HOSTILITY”

A criticism, particularly of bankers and farmers came from Pamela Gruber of Christchurch who is the director of Christian World Service of the National Council of Churches in New Zealand. She said that in her

group “Women in social and community development” men were patronising or indifferent. Joan Rothenham a solicitor, of Christchurch detected a veiled hostility in the men in the group discussing “Women and care of children and other dependants.” This group found that the words “joint” and "equal” caused dissention when applied to child care. The group divided 14 in favour of the word “equal” applied to men’s and women's responsibilities in that area against nine in favour of the words “joint” lor “shared.” Seven of the mine were men.

Cathy Wilson, deputy leader of the Values Party who was in this group had no criticism to make of the attitudes of the men.

Certainly there were men there to whom the discussions were not new. They were the already converted and sympathetic. As Mrs Dell said, the reactions of the men were predictably varied. She believed the conference had achieved all it set out to do. The conference she said was the final function for I.W.Y. in New Zealand but was the beginning of the new era and a new decade of sharing between men and women.

During the year the Committee on Women tried to reach as many people as possible throughout the country’, she said. It tried to reflect the views of all the people and tried to assist women to develop new skills and confidence.