‘Decade of growth’ for women

Press, 1 June 1985, Page 1

‘Decade of growth’ for women

Women’s achievements over the last decade have been an intensely personal growth rather than progress in society’s institutions, said the Minister of Women’s Affairs, Mrs Ann Hercus, last evening. Opening the Women’s Decade Festival in Christchurch, Mrs Hercus said that if one looked at the institutions of society, women’s progress would seem to have moved at a snail’s pace. “Institutions — at least the institutions we know, the ones men created — are not amenable to rapid change,” she said. Change for women had not come from the established systems but from the struggles, hard work, and the tenacious persistence of women. The change had been in the forming of groups and organisations and lobbies of women with a common interest “The process and the personal growth have been as important as the more obvious trappings of progress,” said Mrs Hercus. “We have developed new ways of working which owe nothing to the company board room or the rugby club, thank God.”

Women’s issues were universal, crossing national and political boundaries. “We have moved peace from the realm of war games and missiles with big initials to the faces and the feelings of women on Greenham Common, and the millions of women in peace groups around the world." When Mrs Hercus met other women Parliamentarians at Stockholm in April, she said she stood “10 feet tall.” “Although we are only a tiny country at the bottom right-hand corner of the map we have made a principled stand of great significance — New Zealand is nuclear-free,” she said. The issue of peace , had become linked with the struggle of women throughout the world for quality and justice. Mrs Hercus referred to data on women which have been prepared by the Statistics Department for the next “New Zealand Official Yearbook.” Married women, more than ever before, were pursuing interests outside the home. Most were devoting fewer years of their lives to home-based domestic activities.

Women were having fewer children and compressing their years of childbearing into a shorter span. In the 10 years to 1981, the number of women in paid work rose 170,000, compared with 130,000 men. The number of married women working had increased 44 per cent. Although more women had entered the paid workforce, the vast majority of them continued to work in a

narrow range of occupations, with little or no input on decision-making. “Should we accept then that the majority of occupations will always be genderdominated?” said Mrs Hercus.

“Or should we see this division of labour—and status—as an unhealthy manifestation of sexist attitudes in our society, sexist attitudes held not only by men about women but by women about themselves.”

Mrs Hercus said that the Women’s Decade Festival itself conveyed a message: "We are here. Forget the idealogy. Let us just get on with the work.”

The official party at the opening ceremony, which was attended by. about 400 people, included the festival patron, Lady Hay, the director of the Australian Equal Opportunity Employment Bureau, Dr Gail Radford, the president of? the International Council of Women, Dame Miriam Dell, and New Zealand’s prize-win; ning poet and novelist, Keri Hulme.