‘Great mistake of society’

Press, 17 June 1982, Page 5

‘Great mistake of society’

PA Hastings One of society’s great mistakes had been to regard women as inferior if they chose to stay at home and raise children, the Minister of Police and Maori Affairs (Mr Couch) has told a National Party women's section luncheon at Hastings. Mr Couch said that society was now seeing the results of that attitude after two generations of young people had grown up without the benefit of leadership by example. “We taught children not to respect their elders, and this was a lesson they were quick to learn because" their elders seemed indecisive and uncer•tain." he said. “The old rules had been abolished and there were no new ones to put in their place. In place of often overstrict morality we ended with no moralitv at all.

"In place of thinking of others we learnt to think only of ourselves — forgetting that the basis of community living is mutual re-, sponsibility.

“Now we are stuck with the world that this selfish way of thinking has built, and we do not like it," said Mr Couch.

The complaint that there were not enough women in Parliament suggested that there was some form of “fiendish plot" by men to keep women out of politics. But there was no way women could be kept out of Parliament if other women wanted to elect them, he said. If .women did not vote for other women, it must be presumed that they were satisfied with the representation they already had — mostly by men, Mr Couch said.