Kate Sheppard

Kate Sheppard

I am inspired by Kate Sheppard because she stood up for women and made a big difference to our way of living today. Katherine Wilson Sheppard was the most prominent member of New Zealand's women's suffrage (the movement to allow women to vote in New Zealand). She also appears on the NZ ten dollar note because of what she did.

New Zealand was the first country in 1983 to introduce universal suffrage because of Kates commitment and sacrifice. Kate's work had an impact on women's suffrage in other countries too.I am inspired by her perseverance and her hard work.

She really inspires me because she stood up for women's rights and she made a huge difference not just in New Zealand but in other countries too. Over the next several years, Kate support women's rights issues from the right to divorce, to the guardianship of children and the abolishment of corsets.

Speaking for a new generation, she argued, ‘We are tired of having a “sphere” doled out to us, and of being told that anything outside that sphere is “unwomanly”.’

Kate travelled the country, writing to newspapers, holding public meetings and lobbying members of Parliament. Opposition was fierce.

As Wellington resident Henry Wright wrote, women were ‘recommended to go home, look after their children, cook their husbands’ dinners, empty the slopes, and generally attend to the domestic affairs for which Nature designed them they should give up”,  but Kate never gave up and her husband supported her in every movement she took which made her even stronger. Kate accepted every challenge people gave her and stayed focus.