Opening the 2018 conference ‘Feminist Engagements in Aotearoa: 125 years of Suffrage and Beyond’ Professor Barbara Brookes delivers this keynote lecture exploring the implications of the transition from ‘family’ to individual income over the course of the twentieth century until today.
The power of the purse: Women and money — keynote lecture
Money, it appears, has no sex yet historically it has been allocated by gender, as we know it still is today.
For much of the twentieth century, married women relied on their husbands’ pay packet or more likely a ‘house-keeping allowance’ from that pay packet, supplemented from 1946 by the universal Family Benefit.
Considered as dependents, women had no access to loans or mortgage finance. That notion of dependency was under attack by the 1960s and 1970s. Financial independence was one of the goals of second wave feminism.
About the speaker
Barbara Brookes is a Professor in the Department of History, Otago University. Her research interests include gender relations in New Zealand, and the history of health and disease in New Zealand and Britain.
Date: Friday, 21 September, 2018
Time: 5:30 p.m.
Location: Te Ahumairangi (ground floor), National Library, corner Molesworth and Aitken Streets, Thorndon
For further information please contact: events.natlib@dia.govt.nz