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Men, Women and Electoral Politics, 1893-1919

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Men, Women and Electoral Politics, 1893-1919 GENDER COUNTS: MEN, WOMEN AND ELECTORAL POLITICS, 1893-1919 ______________________________________ A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in History in the University of Canterbury by Linda Miriam Georgina Moore _________________________________ University of Canterbury 2004 Abstract Gender has seldom been considered in accounts of electoral politics and voting in early twentieth century New Zealand. This thesis approaches the question of gender and electoral politics in three ways. The first is a case-study of the 1893 election campaign in Christchurch based on qualitative data. Gender threaded through both political organisation and debates in this election campaign. Men and women organized separately and invoked gender difference in the discussion of election issues. The second approach is a quantitative study across time and space comparing men's and women's participation rates in general elections from 1893 until 1954. Women's turnout was significantly lower than men's in the 1890s, but the difference had largely disappeared by the late 1940s. Moreover, although broad social changes increased women's participation relative to men's, factors such as party organisation and the nature and content of political debates were also important. The third approach is a statistical analysis comparing men's and women's voting preferences on the liquor issue and for the political parties at electorate level from 1893 until 1919. The analysis is of an ecological nature. It is designed to overcome the absence of individual-level voting data and to limit the ecological fallacy problem which is the error of assuming that relationships evident at the group level reflect relationships at the individual or sub-group level. The thesis reviews and trials five methods for ecological inference: Goodman’s ecological regression, King’s parametric and non-parametric methods, a semi-parametric method and the homogeneous method. King's non-parametric method is then used to estimate men's and women's support for Liberal, Reform and opposition candidates and for and against prohibition from 1893 until 1919. Significant differences between men’s and women’s preferences are revealed by the estimates. Together these three approaches indicate that gender was an important factor in election politics of the early twentieth century. 1 Acknowledgements I am very grateful to my two supervisors, Professor Miles Fairburn and Dr Irene Hudson for providing advice and support throughout the research and writing of this thesis. Professor Fairburn reminded me of the need for historical explanation when I was bogged down in statistics. Professor Fairburn was also able to provide some funding for this thesis through a Marsden Grant which was awarded for a major research project headed by Professor Fairburn and Professor Stephen Haslett, entitled ‘The Social Foundation of Political Conservatism in Twentieth Century New Zealand’. Dr Hudson encouraged me to implement ecological inference, despite the challenge it entailed for this novice statistician, and patiently answered many questions on statistical detail. Comments from both supervisors improved both the historical and statistical aspects of this thesis and it is a tribute to them both that they ably supervised a thesis that bridged the two disciplines. Dr Phillipa Mein Smith and Mr Graeme Dunstall very kindly read chapters from this thesis, in the midst of their busy schedules, providing useful comments and encouragement. Dr Hudson also introduced me to Dr Eric Beh of the University of Western Sydney, without whom the statistical analysis in Chapter Four could not have been completed. Dr Beh allowed me to present the homogeneous method for ecological inference which had recently been developed by him, and assisted with analyses based on the homogeneous and semi-parametric methods presented in Chapter Four. He generously gave me access to unpublished papers and seminar presentations.1 It was a pleasure to have his co-operation and help. I also wish to acknowledge the assistance of a University of Canterbury Erskine grant and a Department of Mathematics Special Initiatives Research Grant that together afforded Dr Hudson and Dr Beh the chance to work and dialogue face to face on ecological inference. Other researchers have allowed me to cite unpublished work. Liz Gordon generously sent me a copy of her unfinished history of women in the Labour Party, “A Place in the Sun”, Melanie Nolan sent me the text of her now published article “Gender and the Politics of Keeping Left”, and Christina Wolbrecht, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of 1 Eric J. Beh, ‘Ecological Inference: A Discussion [Seminar Presentation],’ (University of Canterbury: July 2003); Eric J. Beh, ‘Ecological Inference: The Homogeneous Approach [Seminar Presentation],’ (University of Canterbury: July 2003); David G. Steel, Eric J. Beh, and R. L. Chambers, ‘The Information in Aggregate Data.’ (To Appear in King, Gary, Ori Rosen and M. Tanner, Eds., Ecological Inference: New Methodological Strategies, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004, pp.51-68) (2002). 2 Notre Dame, permitted me to cite a number of working papers that consider estimates of men’s and women’s voting behaviour at United States elections.2 I am also grateful to Mrs Ruth Fry who permitted me to consult the research papers she collected in the process of writing Maud and Amber, a biography of Maud Pember Reeves and her daughter Amber.3 I was glad to have the collegiality of the ‘Marsden Group’ in the early stages of this thesis. Thanks to Steve, Steve, John, Michael, Seren and Lydia. Thanks also go to my family. My brother, Torrie, gave me advice on establishing a database and sat with me while I set up the database that now contains election results. My parents, Cam and Adrianne, so kindly keyed in some of that election data, and persevered with creating tables of chi-square values. I would not have got here without you. My final thanks go to Marcus, who had to put up with this thesis on a daily basis while I worked on it part-time over a number of years. Your support and encouragement were more than I could ever have expected. Thank you. 2 Liz Gordon, ‘A Place in the Sun: Women in the New Zealand Labour Party' (1988), Unpublished manuscript; Melanie Nolan, ‘Gender and the Politics of Keeping Left: Wellington Labour Women and Their Community, 1912-1949,’ in Communities of Women: Historical Perspectives, eds., Barbara Brookes and Dorothy Page (Dunedin: University of Otago Press, 2002); Christina Wolbrecht and J. Kevin Corder, Gender and the Vote (Paper Prepared for Delivery at the 1999 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Atlanta, 2-5 September) (1999, accessed 24 June 2002); available from unix.cc.wmich.edu/~corder/apsa1999.pdf; J. Kevin Corder and Christina Wolbrecht, Participation by New Voters: The Case of American Women (Prepared for Sened, Itai, and Andrew Sobel, eds.,Visualizing Politics, December 2001) (2001, accessed 25 June 2002); available from catt.friedmann.wmich.edu/vpcw2002.pdf; J. Kevin Corder and Christina Wolbrecht, Women's Turnout after Suffrage: New Answers to Old Questions. (Prepared for Delivery at the 2001 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, San Francisco, August 29-September 2 2001) (2001, accessed 25 June 2002); available from pro.harvard.edu/papers/117/117001WolbrechtC.pdf; J. Kevin Corder and Christina Wolbrecht, Using Prior Information to Aid Ecological Inference: A Bayesian Approach (Prepared for the New Advances in Ecological Inference Conference, Centre for Basic Research in the Social Sciences, Cambridge, Ma, June 2002) (2002, accessed 25 June 2002); available from catt.friedmann.wmich.edu/kc-cw-ei.pdf. 3 Ruth Fry, Maud and Amber: A New Zealand Mother and Daughter and the Women's Cause 1865 to 1981, (Christchurch: Canterbury University Press, 1992). 3 Contents List of Figures…………………………………………………………………………..............6 List of Tables……………………………………………………………………… .................10 Preface……………………………………………………………………………………........12 Chapter 1 Bridging Histories of Gender and Electoral Politics: Methodologies and Literature Review ………………………………………………………………………… ....18 Women, Gender and Gender difference………………………………………………… ..…...20 The History of Electoral Politics……………………………………………………… ..……..23 1893, Women’s Suffrage and Politics in New Zealand…………………………………… ....30 Political Organization and Participation……………… ........……………………………35 Political Debates, Preferences and Voting…………………......………………………...39 Sources and Quantitative Data…………………………………………………………………45 The Ecological Fallacy……………………………………………………………………….. .51 Chapter 2 The Christchurch Election Campaign of 1893………………………………....57 The City of Christchurch Electorate………………………………………………………… ...57 Sources………………………………………………………………………………………....61 The Campaign Begins: Registration………………………………………………………..….65 Electoral Organisation, Meetings and Canvassing…………………………………………. ....68 Opinion Claiming, Shaping and Making…………………………………… ............................75 Chapter 3 Gender Counts: Official Data and Voter Turnout……………………… .........91 Registration in 1893…………………………………………………………............................96 Turnout in 1893………………………………………………………………. .........................99 Turnout, 1893 to 1954……………………………………………………… ..........................109 Chapter 4 The Analysis of Voting Outcomes by Gender: Methodologies and Caveats……………………………………………………………………………….............120 What Information
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