Sunshine Sisters

Social Studies Online

TEACHER Alison Tuck

TEACHING AND LEARNING ACTIVITIES

Select and adapt these learning activities to best meet the needs of your students, and to fit the time available:

1. What do women want, really really really want?
   
   1. To find out what women in the nineteenth century wanted, read this quote.

      The woman who wrote this statement was Margaret Home Sievwright.

   2. Read about her to find out why she wanted to help women get the vote.

      Use 5w's and H to learn more about the life of this nineteenth century woman activist from the article.

      • When did Margaret Sievwright emigrate to New Zealand?
      • Why did she want to educate women about using their vote effectively?
      • What organisation did she work for in her lifetime?
      • Where in New Zealand did Margaret Sievwright live?
      • Who was she talking about when she said we want them to "stand out of our sunshine" ?
      • How did Margaret Sievwright achieve her goal of improving the lives of nineteenth century New Zealand women?

      Create a Business Card for Margaret Sievwright. Draw and name Margaret Sievwright in the centre. On each corner place the following details:

      • One role or office she had in her life
      • One way she hoped women would use the vote to improve their lives
      • Biographical details - date of birth/death/important events
      • What she did for the suffrage movement

      See an example.

   3. Design a poster that could be sent to women's' suffrage supporters around New Zealand combining pictures, symbols, colours and words that show women "standing in the sunshine".
      • Put the quote on the front or back of the poster.
      • Use appropriate colours - eg; green, purple, white
      • Use symbols such as a white camellia
      • Include a banner or a speech bubble that describes the goal of the Suffragists
      • List what they are prepared to do to achieve their goal.
      • You can have a web tutorial on designing an effective poster.

2. Sisters in Arms
   Margaret Sievwright was a very good friend of Kate Sheppard. Find out how these women worked together in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography:
   • Margaret Home Sievwright
   • Kate Sheppard
   1. Complete a mini Inquiry by completing the Compare and contrast chart.

   2. Choose two symbols for Kate and Maragaret. They can be plants, animals, chapes, colours - your choice! Describe why you chose these.

3. Suffragists in action
   Use this New Zealand history online information and create a spider diagram describing the actions taken by suffragists to get their point across. Start at the Formation of the WCTU.

4. Events that changed the world
   What key events happened in the course of women gaining the vote that changed the way women were viewed and their relationships with others?

   Compete the T-chart.

5. Not All Women Think Alike
   Sometimes topical issues are shown in cartoon form. The idea of a cartoon is to make people think. A magazine famous for its political cartoons is the British magazine Punch.

   It would be easy to think that all women wanted the votes in 1893. But that wasn't the case. The social 'status' of women, their level of education, their age, race and marital status influenced their receptiveness to the vote. Kate Sheppard and Margaret Sievwright were married and belonged to the "middle class". Women who did work had a narrow range of jobs, such as factory work, dress-making or selling flowers. Find out about Household chores of a middle class woman and working women in the 19th century. Maori women also had a role to play in women's suffrage.

   Compare these groups of women with women today in a Triple T-chart.

   Find out about the day in the life of a flower lady.

6. The Twenty-first Century Woman
   Find out how women are portrayed in the media today. Create a collage of photographs from at least three different sources, such as news magazines, fashion magazines, sports magazines, and newspapers. (Alternatively, you could create a "video collage" of video clips from television ads, or computer-based presentation of images from Web pages.) Try to show a variety of body types. After the class has reviewed each person's collage, hold a class discussion on your reactions to the collages you and your classmates created. Are you more aware now of what kinds of body types are portrayed in ads? Has this exercise changed your attitude toward advertising, and if so, how? To find out more about the changing ideas on women's "beauty" visit the Miss America pageant site.

7. Women at Work
   Find out the latest statistics on women in the paid workforce. Compare this information with the statistics for women working in the 19th century.

   Draw a column graph from the latest statistics using a colour key for male and female and showing the percentage of men and women in:

   • The working age population
   • Unemployed
   • Full-time employment
   • Part-time employment

   Write a paragraph comparing working women now and in 1900.

8. A Woman in the Top Job
   New Zealand has had two woman Prime Ministers since 1999. Choose one of these women and write a biography about her life in politics, or find out about some other women leaders in the world.

   Class Debate:
   After you have completed your research, debate the topic:
   "It is women who run the world today".

   Link your arguments to women's suffrage with examples from New Zealand.

9. Finishing off
   View the video A Woman of Note. It may be available in your school (ministry of Education resource 1993). Take notes on the arguments given for and against the vote for women.

RESOURCES

Electronic

• A virtual tour of NZ parliament
• Women World Leaders
• The Emancipation of Women
• Emancipation of Women (America)
• Women in New Zealand

Print

• Broadbent, Coral (1987) The Slowly Opening Door: Women and Social Change in New Zealand. Longman Paul.Auckland
• Harrison, K (1991) Courage and Convictions: A Study Of Human Rights. pp 37-44. McMillan. Auckland
• Lovell_Smith, M (1991) Winning the Vote for Women School Journal Part 2 Number 3 1991. Learning Media, Wellington.
• Marquet, S and Beale, E (2002) Essential Learning About New Zealand: Culture and Change. Ch 10 pp 67-72
• Maxwell, K and Patterson, G (1979) Woman or Person: The Changing Roles of Women and Men Longman Paul, Auckland
• Ministry of Education (1993) Votes For Women: How New Zealand Women Gained The Vote. Teacher Guide and audio tape.
• Ministry of Women's Affairs (1993) Women's Suffrage Centennial 1893-1993 Resource Kit for Schools. Wellington New Zealand
• Naumann, R (1990) The Tauiwi: the Later Immigrants. New House: Auckland.
• School Journal(1987) Pt 4 No 2 An Unfashionable Vote

Other

• A Woman of Note Christchurch Teachers' College Video

FOLLOW UP

• Systems of government and the way in which they have affected women's lives
• Women Leaders around the World