Women's Political Participation in the South Pacific

Abstract

The South Pacific region includes: (1) New Zealand, where, in 1893, women were given voting rights for the first time in the world and where women secured equality in most fields relatively early; (2) Australia, where women acquired political rights without a struggle—from 1899 to 1909 in the states and in 1902 in the national sphere. It is not easy to understand why Australian women have not been elected to parliament in greater numbers; (3) the non-self-governing Territory of Papua and the Trust Territory of New Guinea, administered by Australia, where the comparatively sudden transition from barbarism to modern life that is taking place gives the advantages in the political field to men rather than to women, in spite of special measures for the advancement of women; and (4) the host of Pacific islands (many of them quite tiny) of Polynesia, Melanesia and Micronesia—once thought of as romantic island paradises, although they were never a para dise for women. In these islands, women participate in political life to varying extents in the different island societies.