Feminist thought in Aotearoa/New Zealand: connections and differences
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Kathryn Castle doi:10.1057/palgrave.fr.9400120
Feminist thought in Aotearoa/New Zealand: connections and differences Rosemary Du Plessis and Lynne Alice (editors); Oxford University Press, Auckland, 1998, 326 pp, PbK ISBN 0-19-558356-6 The status of women in Aotearoa/New Zealand is, arguably, enviable. In the opening years of the 21st century the country’s top political and judicial roles (Prime Minister, Attorney-General, Governor-General and Chief Justice) are filled by women. Further indicators of positive social change are recent legislative changes entitling women to paid parental leave and women in de facto relationships to similar rights to property as married women. It seems reasonable to propose that feminist thinking and actions drive gains made for women. Certainly, the strength and diversity of the essays brought together by Rosemary Du Pleiss and Lynne Alice are illustrative of the kind of work that is likely to fuel social change for the better. The spirit of sisterhood was one of the hallmarks of the women’s liberation movement of the 1960s and 1970s. The enormous impact that the women’s
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movement wrought is testimony to the effectiveness of political mobilzation around a shared identity. However, the work presented by Du Pleiss and Alice’s volume suggests another possibility – the power of feminists to affect social change can also stem from differences and debates among women. Ethnicity, sexuality, and religion are three of the points of difference that are explored productively in the first of the four parts of the book. Part One: Feminism, Colonialism, and the Politics of Difference, includes eight chapters, each attends to the presence of a particular ‘Other’ group of women residing in Aotearoa/ New Zealand. Highlighted in Part 1 is a particular difference that is foundational in Aotearoa/ New Zealand; that between Maori (the indigenous people of New Zealand) women and Pakeha (New Zealanders descending from Anglo-Celtic settlers) women. The Treaty of Waitangi, an agreement between Maori and the British Crown, established Aotearoa/New Zealand as a bicultural nation state. However, the principles of The Treaty have been repeatedly breached by generations of politicians and settlers; a situation that has led Maori women to confront Pakeha feminists as being handmaidens of the colonizing process. Two chapters in Part 1 are notable for their engagement with the problems of Pakeha feminism for Maori women. Laing and Coleman (chapter 1) consider Maori women’s charge. They draw upon writings of early colonial women to argue that they were not straightforwardly complicit to the wills of powerful Pakeha men. Early women settlers did manage to subvert aspects of the colonizing process by, for example, supporting Te Reo (the Maori Language). From a Maori woman’s perspective, Johnston (chapter 4) explores Maori women’s marginalization, which are clearly experiences that are missed by a Pakeha feminist framework. Nine chapters are collected together in the second pa
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