Breadwinning: New Zealand Women and the StateFor much of the twentieth century, New Zealand women were arguably the most domesticated in the world. Even if a woman worked outside the home for money before marriage, once wedded she was doomed to spend the rest of her life within the domestic sphere, making a home and raising children. By 2000, if the United Nations is to be believed, New Zealand women were close to achieving true gender equality. Was domesticity really imposed on women in the twentieth century? Did society and state conspire to imprison them in their own homes? And if so, how did they escape? Breadwinning charts women's relationship with the state from the 1890s to the 1980s. Through an examination of education policies, labour legislation, welfare measures and equal pay campaigns, Melanie Nolan examines the issues aroused by women's work which straddled both public and private worlds. This book is an ambitious survey of women's lives and relations with the state - a state that looms large both as an agent of and an impediment to change. |
Contents
Unemployment and Single Women | 165 |
Married Women Workers | 192 |
Equal Pay | 230 |
Copyright | |
5 other sections not shown
Common terms and phrases
AANK Acc AJHR April argued Auckland August campaign cent CEPO child Christchurch Commission Committee Conference cost of living debate Department of Labour domestic education Domestic Purposes Benefit Dominion economic employers equal pay family allowance family benefit family wage female feminist gender girls groups History Hocken Home Aid Service Housewives Ibid income increased Industrial issue July liberal lobby Maori Maoriland Worker March Margaret married women ment Minister of Pensions Minutes motherhood endowment mothers NACEW National November nurses NZPD October Office Otago paid employment Pakeha Palmerston North Phillida Bunkle Plunket Plunket Society political post-war protective labour legislation public service Reform role Sandra Coney scheme schools Social Security soldiers Sonja Davies SPWC SS7 Acc state's submission thesis tion trade union Welfare Wellington Hospital widows woman women's domesticity women's employment women's organisations workforce Zealand Labour Party Zealand Women