#Stand strong together maoria full#

Mangakāhia died in 1920, but is remembered as a pioneer of Māori women’s rights. It wasn’t until 1897 that Māori women were given the right to vote for the Kotahitanga Parliament. When women won the right to vote in the general elections in 1893, the men on the Kotahitanga Parliament still refused to listen to the pleas of Mangakāhia and her supporters. “However, we have not yet been adequately compensated according to those petitions… Perhaps the Queen may listen to the petitions if they are presented by her Māori sisters, since she is a woman as well.” “There have been many male leaders who have petitioned the Queen concerning the many issues that affect us all,” she said in one famous speech. In her speech she explained that if women could own land, they should be allowed a say on it, going so far as to say some women were more competent with land management than their husbands. Mangakāhia was the first woman to address the Māori (Kotahitanga) Parliament, presenting a motion for women being allowed to vote and stand for membership. She was prominent in the 1890s for her work with the suffrage movement, specifically her work to create fairer laws around Māori women’s rights to govern.

The great-grandchild of Nga-kahu-whero, a wahine Māori chief, Mangakāhia had leadership in her blood. Meri Te Tai Mangakāhia (Ngati Te Reinga, Ngati Manawa and Te Kaitutae)

Here are five more wāhine toa who defied their sometimes lowly societal positions to fight for the rights of their people against the government, against colonial structures and sometimes, against their own whānau.

#Stand strong together maoria full#

NZ First MP Shane Jones recently accused Newton of auditioning for a job in politics, and Winston Peters has characterised the protest as being full of “imposters”.īut wāhine Māori have been at the frontlines of protest movements for decades. He’s disputed claims that the protest has been peaceful and told people to clean up their own areas instead of protesting Ihumātao. He’s firm in his stance that negotiations with Fletcher Residential will allow local iwi to benefit from the development. Her own uncle, Te Kawerau a Maki kaumatua Te Warena Taua, disagrees with the kaupapa. One of six cousins who started SOUL, a land occupation movement to stop a housing development on stolen Māori land in south Auckland, Newton has become the face of the protest movement while attracting plenty of criticism from both Māori and Pākehā for her efforts. “It was a group of women who started this and it’s a group of women who are still leading this fight.”

“The protest at Ihumātao is a feminist issue,” explained Pania Newton during a hīkoi of the land in Māngere last month. From the suffrage movement in the late 1800s to the fight for Ihumātao today, here are five wāhine Māori leaders who faced large criticism, but left larger legacies. Māori protests in New Zealand have often been led by women.