Jenny Coleman: From Suffrage to a Seat in the House

Until now, the protracted struggle for women to achieve the right to a seat in Parliament has been a neglected footnote in Zealand’s proud history of being the first country to grant women the vote. Women’s path to Parliament was actively resisted by male politicians who had only grudgingly accepted the extension of the franchise to women as well as by women who accepted the argument that women’s presence in Parliament would somehow undermine their status. But there were some who, despite constant political machinations and filibustering from inside Parliament and charges of impropriety and splitting the women’s movement on the issue, persisted in what was to be a forty-year journey from suffrage to a seat in the House.

Jenny Coleman is an associate professor in feminist history at Massey University. She has previously published Mad or Bad? The Life and Exploits of Amy Bock 1859-1943 and Polly Plum, A firm and earnest woman’s advocate – Mary Ann Colclough 1836-1885 and has also edited and introduced a reprint of the earliest sensation novel written by a woman published in New Zealand, Mary Ann Colclough’s (1866) Alone in the World, A Tale of New Zealand.