Women celebrate Suffrage Day with a visit to the polling booth

Tuesday, 19 September 2017

Lou Draper who put the call out for a group of women to vote at Wellington Central Library on Tuesday to celebrate Suffrage Day.

Rachael Worboys was celebrating Suffrage Day by dressing in a late-19th century style and taking her young girls along to the polling booth, Lou Draper organised a group of friends to cast their votes, while for Natalia Albert it was her first election as a New Zealand citizen.

The 124th anniversary of the day women prevailed in their struggle to win the vote had a festive feel to it outside the advance voting place at Wellington Central Library on Tuesday.

Rachael Worboys had a late-19th century look to celebrate Suffrage Day when she popped into Wellington Central Library at lunchtime on Tuesday. She wasn't voting until later in the day when she could take her two young daughters along.

As other voters passed by steadily, Draper and her friends gathered outside the room where the votes were being cast to take pictures and enjoy the moment, before heading in themselves to vote.

'I put out a tweet saying come and vote with us, we can have a selfie and commemorate the day,' Draper said.

Mexican-born Natalia Albert at Wellington Central Library on Suffrage Day, voted as a New Zealand citizen for the first time.

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Women were incredibly grateful to those women who worked to win the vote.

'We talk about Kate Sheppard being the leader (of the women's suffrage movement) but there were so many women who supported her.

'Reflecting women today, we often work together to do a lot of things.' As a mum she was part of a Facebook group with 600 other women who supported each other.

'There's that camaraderie among women,' Draper said. And it's being passed on to the next generation, with her six-year-old daughter impatient for her chance to vote. 'Absolutely she knows what's going on.'

Worboys is another passing on the voting message. She spent the day dressed in a late-19th century style, and was at the library to see her sister-in-law. She intended to vote after school finished so she could take her daughters, aged 5 and 7, along with her.

'They understand we're voting to choose who will be leading the country and making decisions, and they have policies they feel very strongly about,' Worboys said.

So far she hadn't talked to the girls much about the campaign for women's suffrage 'but this will be a good talking point to start from'.

Also at the library was Mexican-born Natalia Albert. It's her second New Zealand election. In 2014 she voted as a permanent resident, this time is her first election as a New Zealand citizen.

'It's a very different election this one. Way more informed, I am,' she said. She was a staunch feminist and voting on Suffrage Day was very special.

She had recently seen the theatre production of the Kate Sheppard story That Bloody Women, so she was extra inspired.

Suffrage Day commemorates the day in 1893 when Governor Lord Glasgow signed the bill enfranchising adult women. According to New Zealand History the movement toward that point had been gathering momentum since the mid-1880s.

Several huge petitions were organised. The last in 1893 had nearly 32,000 signatures - almost a quarter of the adult European female population of the country.

Despite the 1893 success, women did not gain the right to stand for Parliament until 1919, and the first women Member of Parliament - Elizabeth McCombs - was not elected until 1933.

Victoria University associate professor in comparative politics Hilde Coffé said that since the first election under MMP in 1996, around 30 per cent of MPs had been women. After 2014 the figure was 31.4 per cent.

The picture was similar overseas, with men still dominating most parliaments, she said. Since women made up half the population, it was important they appeared in Parliament in the same number as men.

'If we want Parliament to be a truly legitimate institution, continued attention to increasing women's representation, and the barriers creating their under representation, is crucial,' she said.