EDITORIAL: FRANCHISE DAY

White Ribbon, Volume 20, Issue 8, 1 September 1948, Page 1

EDITORIAL: FRANCHISE DAY

September 19 is close upon us again, with its reminder of the end of a great struggle for the women, by the women, to be granted the right to vote. The year., ffy by, and these notable days seem to come round so quickly. One wonders whether it is really necessary to keep them every year.

Well, if it is only to help us to remember that we were not always as well off as we arc now, as women, possessed of normal brains and capacities, we should make a point of observing them. Nor should we allow ourselves to think that the upward march towards freedom of thought and action ended with the victory of 1893. That was only the beginning. The “labour and the wounds” still go on. Only by constant vigilance and persistent claiming of recognition does the status of women slowly assume its proper form and development.

It comes as something of a blow t> learn that even today our own country’s representative is voting against equal rights for women on UNO’s Human Rights Committee. The feeling of outrage should find sonic expression regarding this grossly retrograde position. Whether the representative is voting under Government instruction, or of his or her own choice, is a matter worth investigating.

Fundamental Freedoms

The point is that here we have a case in clear illustration of the need for far keener interest in, and understanding of. our actual appraisement value to the State. If this is so low as to bring about a fumiiliahori like this at the hands of our own Government, or its appointed representative, then we have still a long way to climb. We are told by people from other countries that we, the women of New Zealand, are too inarticulate, and that we allow injustices to ourselves that women in some other lands would not tolerate, lie this as it may, the call to greater awareness and keener desire for full recognition as members of the State, should he the aim of our keeping of “Franchise Day” this month. Let us awaken ourselves and our sisters to the fact that our emergence from the long inactivity of many centuries is still proceeding, and that many of the worlds greatest reforms are being held back by the fact that it is not yet completed.

Among the basic objectives of the Trusteeship system, in accordance with the purposes of the United Nations, we find the following: “To encourage respect for hutnaji rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion, etc.” Good. This will not be possible without the counsels of women. Wc must hope and work still to secure for generations yet unborn, “this freedom.”