Standing Their Ground

Episode Three of Beyond Kate explores property and divorce rights for women, the age of consent, and even the right for women to wear what they want... early social reforms still being debated today.

We have a tendency to view great moments in history through a lens of great people and their extraordinary skill and will. We look back and see social upheaval - such as New Zealand becoming the first country where women could vote - as almost inevitable. But nothing happens in isolation; we're not celebrating 125 years of women's suffrage this year simply because Kate Sheppard was a great organiser or because Prime Minister Richard Seddon mishandled the politics.

No, a number of trends, events and individual actions played a hand in winning women the vote, including advances in technology and fashion. Because the story of women's power in this country is also the story of pedal power. And of fashion choices. And even of a wife willing to take her husband to court. The "quiet heroines" at the heart of these lesser known moment in history are key to the social reform that came with women's suffrage and are the focus of this week's episode.

In the 1880s, the "safety bicycle" started to spread through the country and for women who could afford them, it was a liberation. It gave women, so often confined to the home and its endless household duties, access to public life. They could travel under their own steam; to meet and organise, to rally, and to collect petition signatures.

When women came together to ride, it was also a chance to talk about the change they wanted to see. Kate Sheppard, for example, belonged to the Atalanta Ladies' Cycling Club in Christchurch; the first all women cycling club in Australasia. They organised picnic and day trips and, before long, petitions.

Te Papa's senior curator in New Zealand History and Culture Claire Regnault said Sheppard was a founding member and that with the cycling craze came other social reform.

"Women are moving into a public sphere and are beginning to adapt to more male clothing," Regnault said.

They moved away from impractical silk and corsets to more hardy tweed. That meant more freedom.

Yet changing your clothes did not come easy. In 1892, the Atalanta bikers wore knickerbockers on one ride and found abuse and even stones being hurled at them…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details