NEW ZEALAND HOUSEWIVES

New Zealand Listener, Volume 29, Issue 731, 17 July 1953, Page 5

NEW ZEALAND HOUSEWIVES

Sir,-For a family wedding I had five house guests over last weekend. We came in from church and settled down as we always do to listen to the Sunday evening talk at 8.45, which on this occasion was given by an excellent speaker from the Home Science Department. As soon, however, as she warmed to her subject there was a unanimous cry of protest, "Oh, not again!" Then from six ordinary New Zealand’ housewives there was a babble of protest at the way we are being talked at and written at, and having it dinned into our ears that we New Zealand women are household slaves with no time for anything but the ‘sink, the stove and the wash-tub, Most of us are nothing of the kind. Take this particular six-a good typical cross section-all wives of working men, ‘healthy, happy and contented, and all with families. A, a carpenter’s wife with three children under five, has a washing machine, but until she and her husband can afford to build on their section, is living in a small inconvenient cottage without even a sink’ or running water in the kitchen. Her hobby is floral art in which she has lessons once a week at the Adult Education Centre. B, a dairy farmer’s wife, who has had five children-two still at home-has a refrigerator, but no other gadgets, and does all cooking on a fuel range as there is plenty of wood on the farm which the boys cut, instead of "holding the lantern." She is the very capable president of her C.W.I., a keen member of its glee club and drama circle, and is extremely well read. C, the widow of a railway clerk with a boy at high school and two boarders, has no frig. or washing machine, but is saving for the former. She .is president of the Church Guild, for 17 years has been on the Red Cross Committee, and is a keen member of the National Council of Women. D, another dairy farmer’s wife who teaches her two children through the Correspondence School, is a very fine watercolour artist (and what’s more works at it), and is on the women’s committee of her political party. She has a washing machine but also cooks everything, including bread, on a fuel stove. E’s husband is an engineer. She recently won a prize in a dress-designing competition and is the smartest and best-dressed woman in her township. She really enjoys designing unusual styles for her two small girls. F, me, well, I’m afraid I am ordinary, and not a "joiner" of anything. I haven’t a frig., washing machine or even a vacuum cleaner, though I hope to have all of them some day. But we have got a library of several hundred of the best books-classics and modern -every one of which we have read, many of them aloud to our family or they to us, and a radiogram with a good collection of records chosen with the help of the folk who do music criticism over the air. Busy women? Yes, all of us, but not slaves; and we do consider we are people with minds to cultivate and a contribution to make. New Zealand women should wake up, for in the words of one of my favourite radio comedians (yes, we do get time to listen to TIFH) we’re

being got at!

ABIGAIL

(Manutuke).