Title: The Woman question
Description: "It will be essentially a woman's paper, one that will deal with the many phases of the "Woman's Question" in its legal and social aspects," wrote Kate Sheppard in the first issue of The White Ribbon, July 1985. The writings of the women who won the vote in New Zealand would fill several volumes, as the pen was their major weapon. In the pages of first The Prohibitionist and later the entirely woman-owned and managed papers Daybreak and The White Ribbon, they debated ideas and issues, influenced the opinions of a huge body of women all over the country, networked and campaigned. The agenda included the vote, the economic independence of married women, the right to divorce, the custody of children being vested in both parents, the equal right of girls to a decent education and of women to training and jobs in the professions, the improvement of women's health and vitality, reform in women's dress, the need fo a payment to mothers and old age pensions, prison reform, peace and international arbitration. The editor has selected over ninety articles by sixteen women: Kate Sheppard figures strongly, but here too are Nary Muller, Lily Kirk, Stella Allan, Marion Hatton, Lucy Smith, Ada Wells, Margaret Sievwright, Christina Henderson, Jessie Mackay, Sarah Saunders Page, Amey Daldy, Alice Burn, Louisa Blake, Wilhelmina Sherriff Bain and Jennie Lovell Smith.
Subjects: Sources, History, Feminism, Women's rights
Places: New Zealand