INTERNATIONAL Women’s Day is 100 years old this week.
“There are more than 60 events going on around the country, which is the biggest response to women’s day so far,” says Rae Julian, president of UN Women New Zealand.
For the celebration, UN Women and Zonta Club of Wellington compiled a list of 100 women who changed the world (see sidebar). On March 8, the Minister for women’s affairs, Hon Hekia Parata, hosted a breakfast at Parliament with Mayor Celia Wade-Brown as keynote speaker.
Sexual equality has progressed in the past 100 years, but Julian believes Women’s Day is still important. “We need to keep remembering that in many cases [women] still don’t enjoy equal status throughout the world,” she says.
UN Women is a new organisation, formed by bringing together the four separate organisations that previously dealt with women’s issues for the UN.
Issues for gender equality in New Zealand include violence and pay inequality.
“In many ways we’ve gone backwards. There was a time when women held the top five positions in the country, now women hold only one… In some ways I blame myself because we took it for granted that the next generation would follow us,” Julian says.
It’s important that men are part of the discussion, she says.
“The feminist movement in the 60s focused very much on consciousness raising, but men didn’t go through that. They experienced women’s dissatisfaction, and if they were understanding then they tried to do more of the workload. Unfortunately my generation didn’t take the men with us, and a lot of the men couldn’t cope with the changes,” she says.
Young women need to get onboard too.
“I’ve heard women of the next generation saying ‘oh no I’m not a feminist’. The image of a feminist is someone who’s man-hating and boots wearing. Feminism can cover a huge spectrum.”

Two great Wellington women
From Wellington Zonta and UN Women’s list of “Women who changed the world”.
Nancy Grace Augusta Wake, 1912-
Born in Wellington, Wake moved to Australia in 1914 and then to France where she worked as a journalist. She became a leading figure in the Maquis groups of the French Resistance and became one of the Allies’ most decorated servicewomen of the war. The Gestapo called her the “White Mouse”, and by 1943 she was their most-wanted person. Wake escaped France after the network was betrayed in December 1943.  A ‘heritage pylon’ paying tribute to Nancy Wake sits near the place of her birth in Oriental Parade.

Rangi Topeora, 1790-1869
Topeora was a chieftainess of Ngàti Toa. She could trace her direct descent from Hoturoa, the chief of the Tainui canoe, one of the great fleet which, according to tradition, brought the main wave of Màori migration to New Zealand. She was involved in acts both of war and peace  and was one of the few women of her time to speak formally on the marae. Topeora was one of about five women who signed the Treaty of Waitangi on 14 May 1840 at Kapiti.