Maori women such as Te Puea, Whina Cooper and Mira Szaszy have always placed an essential role in Maori politics. In the 1950s Maori women began to organize separately. The Maori Women’s Welfare League was the first national Maori women’s organisation that directly addressed women’s issues. In the 1960’s many younger Maori influenced by the work of the feminist movement in Europe and North America began to work for change along feminist lines. When Nga Tamatoa was formed members began to question and criticize aspects of the traditional role of Maori women, such as the lack of speaking rights on marae. In 1971 Hana Jackson, one of the founders of Nga Tamatoa, became the first women to speak on the Waitangi Marae as part of Treaty protests. Māori and Pacific women issued a challenge to the women's movement at the United Women's Convention in 1979. Donna Awatere and Mona Papali'i accused the Women's Liberation Movement of racism; they argued that Pakeha feminists ignored the issues important to Māori women. The first National Black Women's Hui was set up in 1980 to discuss racism, health, relationships between Maori and Pakeha, sexism, class and imprisonment rates. Jan Smith from the group Black Dykes commented that 'being a black woman requires you to have a split personality. The Women's Liberation Movement is racist, the anti-racist movement is sexist and the socialist movement is both sexist and racist. This leaves black women out on a limb.' At first Maori feminists worked with their Pakeha counterparts fighting for issues such as equal pay for women. However during the 1970’s, a number of Maori feminists began to argue that the concerns of Maori women were different from those of Pakeha. Donna Awatere and Ngahuia Te Awekotuku and others saw the issues as being Maori language and land. Maori feminists worked on campaigns such as Bastion Point, Raglan and Land March.
In the late 1970’s Maori feminists began meeting separately. Many criticized Pakeha feminists as being racist and part of the system that they believed oppressed Maori. They recognized that the lives of Maori women were very different from those of Pakeha. While among Pakeha feminists issues such as quality child-care, abortion and increasing the number of women in professional or management positions were important, Maori women were more concerned with issues such as health, housing and education. Maori women’s health was very poor compared with Pakeha, especially in the rate of diabetes, lung cancer and heart disease.
Tertiary qualifications and education were a key issue for Maori. Although during the 1960s increasing numbers of Maori gained tertiary qualifications, the majorities were still poorly qualified compared with Pakeha. Many Maori students simply found the curriculum irrelevant to their needs and left. In the early 1970s 80% of Maori left school without any formal qualifications. Educationalists argued that the curriculum had to be more relevant to young Maori if they were to succeed. They pointed to the higher academic achievement in the church schools, which had incorporated Maori language and culture into their programs for decades. In the late 1960 the first state schools began to introduce Maori programs. Hillary College in Otara opened in 1966 and was among the first to offer courses in Maori studies and to adapt the curriculum to reflect the multi-cultural nature of the Otara community. By the early 1970s an increasing number of schools had started teaching Maori language programs and in the 1980s Taha Maori or the including of a Maori dimension throughout the curriculum, had become official policy of the Education Department. Despite this however, Maori underachievement continued to be a problem into the 1980s. In 1985 61% of young Maori left school without any formal qualification.
White women thought to set Maori women against Maori men. Some white women are still into this. The first loyalty of white women is always to the White Culture and the White War. This is true as much for those who define themselves as feminists as for any other white women. This loyalty is seen in their rejection of the sovereignty of Maori people and in their acceptance of the imposition of British culture on the Maori. This is to be expected as the oppressor avoids confronting the role they play in oppressing others. White feminists do this by defining feminism for this country and by using their white power, status and privilege to ensure that their definition of feminism supersedes that of Maori women.- Donna Awatere
Maori influence and participation in politics has grown. The Labour Government of 1984-1990 promoted biculturalism. Two Maori were in Cabinet- Joro Wetere as Minister of Maori Affairs and Peter Tapsell as Minister of Internal Affairs. In 1985 Sir Paul Reeves, Anglican Archbishop, became the first Maori to be appointed Governor General. There was no position in New Zealand from which Moari were barred. In the 1996 election, with various MMP variation more Maori entered Parliament than ever before through the list seat system. For instance, New Zealand First gained Peters, Henare, Morgan, Waitai, Delamere, Wyllie and Mark. Maori were spread across the whole political spectrum from Allienance (Lee, Kopu), Labour (Hawke, Mahuta, Samuels, Turia), National (Te Heu Heu) to Act (Awatere). This provided a strong Maori representation in Parliament.
The evidence used here was from an interview I did with my Grandmother who was part of the Maori Women's Liberation. This information is reliable because she was part of the marches, but at times it was biased towards the Women's Liberation because she felt that the racism and Maori issues were not properly represented. I got the overall feel of the movement and the ideas behind it, however it was extremely biased and wasn't a true representation of what the majority of Maori feminists felt as per the books I had read.