Beyond Kate

Gaining the vote was a battle hard won for New Zealand women. Episode one of Beyond Kate visits the petition, hears about the woman whose name sits atop it & looks at the lives of rural women then and now.

It's a frosty, wintry Christchurch day when Peter Aitken and his wife Margaret take me on a drive to a cemetery in Yaldhurst where his great grandmother, Mary Jane Carpenter, and her husband, George Frederick Carpenter are b...

Episode Two of Beyond Kate explores politics, the reality of women at the polling booths, and Victorian attitudes that kept women in the home.

It's 2018 and we have our third female Prime Minister. Back in 1893 when women's right to vote was being debated in parliament, opponents mocked the mere idea of women MPs and laughed at the scenario of a nursing mother handing over her baby to address the House.

So much has changed ...

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...

From crotch-less bloomers and women's fashion in the late 19th century to contraception, menstruation and abortion. Episode Four of Beyond Kate explores the politics and double standards around the female body, and women's access to public space.

Women's bodies are political. While that might sound like a big statement, there are a multitude of layers and double standards that exist around the female body.

Women throughout histo...

Being a woman of colour in a predominantly white society brings with it a complex set of rules and expectations that are often not spoken about. Episode Four of Beyond Kate looks at some of the Maori suffragists who fought for women's rights and explores how decisions made in our history have impacted on women from non-Pakeha backgrounds today.

It's been more than a century since women gained the right to vote in New Zealand, a...

Is the arts a place where women have equal opportunity? And if not, why not? That's the big question at hand in Episode Six of RNZ podcast, Beyond Kate.

Today, women are more visible than they've ever been before.

The #MeToo Movement has put the needs and concerns of women front and centre, asking us to question how and what has happened to allow women's voices to be swept very directly under a trampled on, moth-eaten, dust...

Mathematics, science and English might be what we consider the core elements of a good education today, but back when women won the right to vote, learning to bake the perfect scone was considered an essential for girls...Find out more in the latest episode of Beyond Kate.

A four-year-old girl twirls around at home in front of the TV. She's wearing a pink and purple fairy costume, a glittery pink headband and a pair of pink pla...

Feminised or gendered roles in the workforce were carved out in our past and still impact on the lives of women in the workplace today. Find out more in Episode 8 of Beyond Kate.

Girls can do anything... or so the saying goes.

But although women now work in industries previously dominated by men, they still don't have equal footing in society. Nowhere is this clearer than in the gender pay gap, which reflects where women are rea...