BOOK REVIEW

Tu Tangata, Issue 4, 1 February 1982, Page 40

BOOK REVIEW

Women in New Zealand Society. Edited by Phillida Bunkle and Beryl Hughes. George Allen and Unwin, Auckland 1980.

Most books about women in New Zealand treat Maoris as a token, to be mentioned quickly and thereafter ignored. My vision however is coloured by a course I took at Auckland University purporting to be about women in New Zealand. The first book I was to read began ... ‘The first women in New Zealand arrived in 1840 aboard ...’.

What then am I? My family have lived in the Bay of Plenty for years and trace their genealogy to Tama te Kapua and Tuwharetoa. 1840 meant nothing to my female forbears and surely had less effect on them than the Tarawera eruption.

Books published in the last five years have done little to rectify this situation. I rememtfer being angry with Judith Aitken’s ‘A Woman’s Place A study of the changing roles of women in New Zealand’. She at least mentioned Maori women, but only in a token gesture. This latest book attempts to treat Maoris equally but unfortunately falls short.

Best book, but I say unfortunate because this is by far the best book ever put out about New Zealand women. Edited by Phillida Bunkle and Beryl Hughes of the History Department at Victoria, the articles cover a wide scope from the beginnings of the women’s movement in New Zealand, fertility, sexuality and social control, politics, professions, education, work and family, artists, women in literature to an article on Pakeha men and male culture.

Recognition is given to a weakness of many books put out on women, and that is a concentration on a problem to the exclusion of the society in which they live. This is enunciated in Christine Gillespie’s ‘The road ahead for the women’s movement Out of the womb and into the world’. It also fails to fall into the trap of choosing women writers in preference to more competent males. While I recognize the value of exposing female to female, it has often led to many inconsistencies of quality.

Not representative One of the disappointments of this book is the inclusion of an article previously published, but updated on Maori women. The information previously published is enlightening however the choice of updating is tenuous. While many of the women who capture media attention are quoted little is said

of women in the Leagues, the Maori Women’s Welfare League and the Health League, of their contribution in the marae situation, in sport, in the professions, in all levels of political life, and in the extended family. Maori women are a vital and vibrant sector of New Zealand society, they have made many contributions that we know about, but is virtually unknown to the general public. We, the Maori women have to live in the New Zealand society. For too long we have been ignored. Perhaps it is time we helped to change this situation. Kia kaha e hine ma, engari kaua e mahara matou, nga wahine Maori o Aotearoa. Lauren Hunia.