Women and the Legal Profession

• Date: 01 January 2022

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WOMEN AND THE LEGAL PROFESSION

*

This ar ticle is about women and t he legal profession.1 I la st spoke on this topic i n

Chris tchurch in 20162 a nd did an updated ver sion of that paper in Well ington in 2018 .

It was intere sting looking back on t hose papers, which exam ined a series of myths

about why gender equa lity in the pr ofession was elusive. It is st riking how much h as

changed a nd yet how little has ch anged.



I thought I wou ld start w ith a bit of hist ory to give a w ider perspecti ve on changes

over time but al so to illustrate g aps between realit y and myth, which wa s a theme

of those earl ier papers.

We are right ly proud that New Zeala nd was the first count ry to give women the

vote. But we should be w ary of bei ng too selfcong ratul atory. It was a n import ant

first st ep, but the motives for gi ving t he vote can be see n as mixed a nd change

thereaf ter was slow.3 And in some a reas much slower t han in th e United Ki ngdom

and Australia.

There had been major op position to women get ting the vote. Nevert heless, the

vote was won and women , including Māor i women,4 enthusia stically em braced their

new role in thei r first elections, some 10 wee ks after secur ing the vote. Just over 80

per cent cast t heir votes (high er than the 70 per cent t urnout for men).5

1 This ta lk was pres ented on 11 Oc tober 2022 t o students enrolled i n the Gender and the Law

course at t he University of Ca nterbury. My than ks to my associat e, Rachel McConnel l, for her

researc h assista nce with th is paper and i n particu lar for compil ing the stat istics an d attendin g

to the footn oting.

2 Susan Gl azebrook “Gende r Myths and t he Legal Pr ofession” (2016) Cant a LR 170 at 177.

3 Sand ra Coney “A Leap into t he Light” New Ze aland Geog raphic (1993) October –December.

4 Interest ingly, un iversa l male su rage was i ntroduce d for Māori men in 1 867 (li nked to th e

formation of fou r Māori seats) and a lmost all ot her men in 1879: Neill At kinson “Voti ng rights”

(17 Februar y 2015) Te Ara – the En cyclopedia of New Ze aland <w ww.teara. govt.nz>.

5 New Zeal and History “ Women vote in first genera l election” (17 Septemb er 2020) New Zealand

History <www.nzhistory.govt.nz>.

* Judge of the Supr eme Court of New Zeala nd and President of t he Internationa l Association of

Women Judges (IAW J).

2 [Vol 29, 2022]

Much of the credi t for New Zeala nd being the fi rst count ry to gi ve women the

vote must go to t he leaders of the very well org anised sur age movement.6 It is also

true th at givin g women, includi ng Māori women, t he vote was in pa rt due to New

Zeala nd being a new colony a nd the resu lt of a genuine wi sh among ma ny of the

legislat ors to creat e a more equal so ciety tha n they had left behind i n Britain. But

this ha s to be seen withi n the confines of a colonia l view of the world and therefore

with an i nnate view of the sup eriority of Briti sh culture. The eect s of colonisation

on Māori are wel l known and persi st to this day.7

The wish for a more equ al societ y also has t o be seen wit hin the c onfines of a

view of women and t heir role which rem ained pat riarch al. Women were seen as a

civil ising influence a nd bastions of fam ily life and mora ls. And in a new colony w ith

an excess of sin gle men,8 thi s was an impor tant reason for g iving the vot e to women.9

Other asso ciated rights took longer. New Zeal and women were not al lowed to

stand for Pa rliament u ntil 1919 . And it took u ntil 1933 for a woma n to win a s eat

in Parli ament: El izabet h McCombs, who won a by-elec tion aft er the death of her

husband, a sit ting member of Par liament.10

The first woma n elected as a member of Pa rliament was not t he herald for a new

age of equal ity. Between 1935 and 1975 , only 49 women were elec ted to Pa rliament ,

compared to 2 98 men. It was not u ntil the 19 80s that t he percentage of women i n

Parlia ment sta rted to cr eep up and it has g radually increas ed since, in pa rticular

after t he introduct ion of proportion al represent ation in 199 6.11 The 2020 elect ion

saw a Parli ament of 48 per cent women.12 Ethnic d iversity has als o improved, with

20 per cent of MPs ident ifyi ng as Māori , 9 per cent as Pasi fika and 6 .7 per cent as

6 P atricia G rimshaw Women’s surage in New Zealand (2nd ed, Universit y of Auckla nd Press,

Auckland, 1987).

7 S ee Susan Glazebro ok “The Declaration on t he Rights of Indi genous Peoples and the Cou rts”

(2020) 7 Te Tai Ha ruru: Jour nal of Māori a nd Indigenous I ssues 50 at 64.

8 See Report on th e Statistics of New Zeal and, 1890 (1890) S tatistics Ne w Zealand <w ww.stats. govt.

nz>. Note Māori w ere recorded i ndependentl y from sett ler populat ions and t hat the cens us

revealed a ( European) m ale populati on of 332,557 versu s that of 292,951 of fe males.

9 Ka tie Pickles “Why Ne w Zealand was t he first countr y where women won the rig ht to vote” (19

September 2018) The Conversation <htt ps://theconversation.com>.

10 Michael King e P enguin History o f New Zealand (Pengui n, Aucklan d, 2003) at 267.

11 This figu re was collate d by Rachel McConnel l using the gra phs provided in A nne Else “Gender

Inequa lities – Polit ics and Citi zenship” (20 Ju ne 2018) Te Ara – the E ncyclopedia of Ne w Zealand

<www.tea ra.govt .nz>. It is worth not ing that th is figure of 49 repres ent the same women bei ng

re-elect ed over election cycl es as the average du ring thi s period was 4 fema le MPs per elect ion.

12 Parlia mentar y Serv ice “The 2020 G eneral Ele ction and r eferendums: r esults, a nalys is, and

demograph ics of the 53rd Pa rliament” ( press release, Ju ne 2021) at 15.