Heading Nowhere in a Navy Blue Suit and other tales from the feminist revolution - Sue Kedgley & Mary Varnham (eds)

So I can't find a picture of this book, despite searches on every book store in Wellington, and many links to navy blue suits on trademe.
Instead here is a feminist picture (search feminist on google image search it's great)

I want a t-shirt with that on it...maybe then I would be cool.
Anyway, back to the point, this book is made up of twelve essays by New Zealand women, all with experience in some way or another of the second wave of feminism in New Zealand which began in the 1970s. It was published in 1993 and I don't know why I had never heard of it until I came across it in the university library the other day while searching for books that the computer claimed to have but did not. So I will describe and give my opinions on the twelve essays, and I will also highly recommend everyone reads this, especially kiwis. Okay I gave quite a lot of opinion this is the longest book review EVER, haha I'm obviously very passionate about this

'Heading Nowhere in a Navy Blue Suit' by Sue Kedgley (on corporate women)
Firstly, wow this woman doesn't age. The picture on the first page shows a Sue Kedgley that I recognised immediately as the Green Party candidate for Wellington Central. This essay covers the highs and lows of being a corporate woman, firstly for the United Nations, and then upon giving up on their propensity to notice women's rights back into the New Zealand corporate world. Kedgley takes us on a journey beginning with Germaine Greer's tour of New Zealand in 1972 and the resulting upward sales in her book The Female Eunuch which helped to spark off the second wave of feminism in the 1970s. Kedgley did in fact try and make it into the corporate world within New Zealand. The story continues with her realisation that despite preaching women's rights the UN did not practice them. Kedgley continually refers to the supposedly acceptable teasing which in her eyes amounted to gross sexual harassment, as well as her change from "peasant dress" into the "navy blue suit" image amounting to better opportunities as a woman in a worldwide organisation. Following on from this discovery came all the books telling women how to "dress for success" and how to get promotions in the office in a man-led world, advice which to Kedgley's horror, New Zealand women began to take seriously. With her return to the New Zealand corporate world, all-female groups began to appear as the corporate feminist ethic took shape, unfortunately as she points out several women just gave up in the face of trying to bring up a family and get along in a male environment - seemingly impossible. Kedgley writes this clearly and concisely with an air of dry humour towards the chauvinistic world in which she was forced to work.

'All The Prejudice That's Fit To Print' by Allison Webber (on media)
Allison Webber is in this book because she made a name for herself as a producer of the famous TVNZ show Expressions of Sexuality. Similar to the corporate world, women in the media world were often relegated to what was seen as 'women's columns', as exciting as how to make jam, society pages and cocktail parties are. Webber, in her job at The Dominion was one of the women who was looking for something more. In the workplace she says "Everyone smoked, everyone swore, and almost everyone drank. An air of sexual harassment pervaded the place...". She goes into the rise of women's magazines such as Women's Weekly and the continual fight by women (and some men) in the media for the right of contraception and abortion. Webber also headed "Media Women" for a time, a group primarily for women working in any form of media that advocated for women suffering from discrimination in the workplace. The essay also includes things that are going right for women in the media and continues to be hopeful for a continuation of this. There is even an excerpt from a Holmes interview with Paul Holmes exploring the discrepancies in pay between men and women. Speaking of which does anyone remember if Judy Bailey was around in 1993 (I was only turning five) because she is not mentioned here. Webber writes this brilliantly from beginning to end, both in the disappointment at the continuing bad treatment of women in the media workplace to hopeful occurences and many hopes for the future.

Why The Women's Movement Ran Out Of Steam by Sandra Coney (on feminist politics)
When I went into the kitchen the other day and said 'who's Sandra Coney?' to my mother (who was a bit of a feminist back in the day), she stared at me open-mouthed and made me wish I'd never asked and so she should have. Sandra Coney helped to pioneer much of the second wave of feminism and was a co-editor of Broadsheet for a number of years, (which I discovered my mother used to get on subscription), she also helped expose Dr Herbert Green's treatment of cervical cancer patients. This essay covers what Coney perceived to be the fall of the second wave of feminism, mainly because of the new right policies but also because of continuing arguments between each little group of feminists. For a lot of the radical feminists, any heterosexual woman should be ashamed of herself - men are evil you see, all the women in the world should team up together and make their own female-only world. Coney as a heterosexual woman found herself being excluded at conventions and conferences because she had a husband and a son and found herself angered at all the male-hate her young son was being opposed to. She was also unimpressed with the view that no woman could actually have an orgasm with a male partner, that she was faking it: "Even my orgasms, I was told, were a myth, the result of my confusion about my anatomy, or perhaps I was faking them to please men." This essay shows the continuing ravaging of one another between the many facets of feminism, and a hope that maybe the "younger women" would help to move things along, and recreate how strong feelings were in the 70s. I think I enjoyed this essay the most, it still fascinates me how, politically no matter how similar two causes are they still manage to split apart over irreconcilable differences. Coney writes amazingly and fully takes part of the blame on behalf of her generation for letting the feminist movement get so messy.

'Opening My Mouth' by Dame Mira Szaszy on marae
Dame Szaszy was one of the first Maori women to confront head-on the cultural belief still held by many Maori (both men and women) that women should not be allowed to speak on marae. She was a pioneer of the Maori Women's Welfare League and one of the first Maori women to be a social worker, who's opinion on this controversial issue was only allowed because of the position she held. "I cannot see women getting equality on the marae in my time", sadly Szaszy was right, she passed away in 2001 and to this day there are still only a limited number or tribes who do allow women to speak on the marae. She speaks of the continuing spirit among the new generation of Maori women and her own belief that the many women in Maori mythology show that women should hold a more important place in Maori society than they do. She writes this essay poignantly and stands up to what many Maori see as an age-old tradition of regulations.

'How the Level Playing Field Levelled Women' by Phillida Bunkle on economic games
This essay details the effect of the new right economic policies on women trying to get even with men who had been playing the game of economics since the beginning of time. With the entrance of the David Lange Labour Government in 1984, hopes were high. Instead with what has become known as "Rogernomics", jobs were laid off all over the country and the Business Roundtable were all happy because it "increased productivity". Bunkle stood out as a leading protester of this all economic game. Public assets were sold all over the show, jobs continued to be laid off and unions fell out of favour with the government. In this essay, Bunkle's take on it was the sudden control of the government's favour by organisations such as The Business Roundtable. By the 1980s although female employment was increasing, so many jobs were lost with the influx of the new right that it decreased again. The introduction of many women to the workplace, in Bunkle's view was destroyed by the control of the government by all-economic organisations that had no care at all for social welfare, or the increase of women in the workplace. This essay is written vividly and maintained my interest throughout (despite the fact that economics often bores me to tears), I believe she had many good points to make and by giving her opinion at the time she turned into the leading protester against Rogernomics. At the writing of the essay in 1993, she was standing against Peter Dunne (then in the Labour Party) in the Onslow electorate for the Alliance party, with the issues on her agenda as health, women, and children.

'Who'll Marry Her Now?' by Mary Varnham on sex
This essay details what many have called "the sexual revolution" of the 1960s and 70s, it begins with interview answers from girls growing up in this era, determined to have sex but with no idea what it actually entailed, due to the non-existent sex education of that time. Varnham also shows how if you did have sex, if it happened to result in a baby it was the girl's fault even in cases of rape. Sexually active girls would spend much of their time trying to get the pill illegally, or flying to Australia for illegal abortions, it was your fault if someone raped you and got pregnant but it was also illegal to make a responsible decision about it. According to Carnham, the pressure in society both through music and other forms of media was to have sex all the time, without the pill (until the late 1960s) or any other contraception (apart from condoms) being readily available and you were at fault if you got pregnant, the sperm end of things had nothing to do with it. According to Varnham, the feminist movement didn't really help, after all orgasms were a myth, heterosexism (prejudice against people on account of their heterosexuality) became rampant in the feminist camp. However Varnham said feminism did help in some ways, the introduction of what she dubs "sexual sovereignty" among women, pretty much the right to do whatever they wanted with whoever they wanted and also helped the mechanics if you will of lesbian relationships. I LOVED this essay, it was so insightful, so unafraid to say anything. Mary Varnham writes like no one else.

'Walking on Eggs' by Donna Awatere Huata on Maori
Donna Awatere Huata is a real character, from a leading feminist (and radical criminologist) of the 70s and 80s to a private business owner, to an ACT politician to a court conviction for fraud. I guess it didn't surprise me that in her essay she tells of an event gathering support for Maori among men with Pakeha partner where she screams at a man "You hypocrite you'd spill your blood for the struggle but, but you spill your sperm into a white woman every night." How uncouth! I really like her style of writing, frank, honest and very to-the-point. She speaks of how Pakeha (or European) feminism turned her off because they "trivialised their own issues" when Maori women had it so much worse off than women in general. She was among those protesting and consequently getting arrested over the Sprinbok tours of the 1980s. Huata as many of the other authors have, ends the essay with hopes for the future.

'A New Breed of Woman' by Fiona Kidman on writers
I love Fiona Kidman's books, I read several of them at high school and love her style of writing as it is. So to see her name on the list of people writing for this book was great. Kidman begins at the beginning of her writing career, in many writing courses where she was told a woman could not make a career as an author: "Men's work was real, women's was a hobby." She compares this to today's literary situation in New Zealand, far more favourable with awards being won all over the world. It covers the work of the first noticeable woman authors: Janet Frame, Marilyn Duckworth, Margaret Drabble, Lauris Edmond etc and the feminist work of authors such as Sue Kedgley. As well as the formation of the New Zealand Women's Writers' Society in the 1970s. It outlines more and more of the growing literary world in New Zealand, including the rise of Patricia Grace's work. She ends the essay with acknowledgment of those she has not mentioned, women authors of non-fiction, television and film writers. As expected, the style of writing flows well and contributes greatly to the idea of the book.

'The Corridors of Powerlessness' by Sonja Davies on parliament
Sonja Davies entered Parliament in 1987 after other attempts to get in for previous elections. She explains the trials women face with being expected to be the ones to bring up children as well as working as parliamentarians, often with 12+ hour work days. Plus, a lot of the men in Parliament who were used to men and only men having positions of power in New Zealand. She refers to comments she would get all the time walking into the debating chamber "Here comes Grannie." She ended up making a speech in parliament and was supported widely until of course: "Then my old adversary, Sir Robert Muldoon, came over to me and announced, 'If you can't stand the heat, girlie, get out of the kitchen.' And to my astonishment he poked his tongue out at me. I remarked rather sharply, 'It's dirty, Sir Robert, you need Syrup of Figs' and he harrumphed and stamped off." This made me laugh for a fair while. Davies continues to expand on the (in 1993) disappointing amount of women in Parliament and how it can only expand for the future.

'Lesbians In Front, Up Front, Out Front' by Pat Rosier on lesbian herstory
To be honest, I really didn't like the style this was written in, it was very 'stream of conciousness' which I love in literary fiction but not so much in factual books because it makes it very difficult to actually get the facts. Past that though, I did learn a lot once I had gotten used to the style. A lot of the woman mentioned in this essay (I don't like calling it an essay because it wasn't like one) did not have their last names published, every woman's name mentioned in this had to be asked if it was okay which shows you how much opposition there still is to homosexuality, I mean imagine if you had to ask someone if it was okay to publish their name as a heterosexual. The fact is that there is still so much fear over reactions to admissions of homosexuality that permission still has to be sought out. When you look at the fact that as Rosier says lesbianism goes back to at least Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West it is shocking that it is not more accepted. In the beginning open-ness of being gay in the 1980s, lesbianism was still ignored a lot, the most you heard about it was (in New Zealand) the tale of Juliet Hulme and Pauline Parker, in other words the criminals who were also lesbians, in a way criminalising lesbianism as Rosier puts it.

'Hairy Questions' by Charmaine Pountney on the next generation
The whole way through the book, all the writers have referred vaguely to their hopes and predictions for the future of females in New Zealand. Charmaine Pountney was the appointed Headmistress of Auckland Girls Grammar School and is now founder and Dean of Education at Waikato University. She speaks of facing dilemmas as head of a school with many rather conservative parents and wondering whether to speak out on certain (in particular feminist) issues, she does say that when she did parents did pull their children out of the school. Having a too out there principal is obviously very dangerous! She says things have definitely improved since her high school career where there was no visible prospects for her or any other girl of being a lawyer or doctor. Very well written, very well done and good to have an essay pretty much solely about the future from someone who taught 'the next generation'.

'Unfinished Business' by Anne Else and Rosslyn Noonan on unfinished business
This essay is written by two woman who have known each other since the beginning of the second wave in feminism in the 1970s, they met both at Auckland Girls' Grammar School. They became part of the group that claimed as many feminists still do that the 'house wife' occupation of so many women should be accepted as just as much work or more than a man's job. They pioneered through the most important years of the second wave meeting other feminists at letter writing protest groups, cups of tea and many other forums. They also watched as through the 80s and before th beginning of the 90s the wave died down with the entrance of the new right governments of Rob Muldoon, David Lange and Jim Bolger. These women write a sort of heartwarming story about the highs and lows of women participating for the first time in a huge political movement which lasted years. It is a perfect end to the book.



COMING UP NEXT: Wrestling With The Angel A Life of Janet Frame