the study will focus on the last years of womens engagement with the political process with an emphasis on how women created and took advantage of opportunities to participate in public decisionmaking institutions the primary objective of political women activists during this year period has been inclusion within political decisionmaking institutions in order to affect law reform that recognised the rights of women and influenced the allocation of resources to address the needs of women the study will track the successes and failures of various strategies and tactics during this period and the impact womens political leadership has had on new zealands democracy and development