Fighting Complacency and Retrogression: Reawakening Gender Equity Activism In New Zealand

Fighting complacency and retrogression: reawakening gender equality activism.

New Zealand enjoys an impressive reputation for gender equality. It was the first self-governing nation to grant women's suffrage in 1893 and scores highly in international indexes such as the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap at sixth out of 135 countries. In recent political history women held the top four constitutional positions:Prime Minister, Governor General, Attorney-General and Chief Justice, for a short period of time. Yet as feminist academic Prue Hyman(2010) notes, New Zealand has moved from a relatively equal society to one of its most unequal in terms of earnings and income. The paper explores the recent mobilisation of feminist civil society and female-dominated trade unions who are beginning to collectively advocate and litigate on human rights  for women such as equal pay. They are using international human rights treaties, such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), to harness their frustration, benchmark progress and hold the State party accountable for the implementation of women's human rights and their retrogression. The paper explores  and analyses the re-awakening of women's civil society activism around social and economic rights in a nation with a strong self-regard for its international reputation for gender equality. It uses data collected from New Zealand's seven periodic reports to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women in relation to Article 11 of  CEDAW relating to equal pay and assesses the State party's response to concluding observations and recommendations. It also reflects on the patterns of response of women's groups moving from complacency through frustration to mobilisation legally, politically and at the community level.