New Zealand Listener – August 10, 2019

48 LISTENER AUGUST 10 2019

situation. With the sex ratio
evening up, most men were
settled down and married
by their early thirties. As for
women, once married in their
mid-twenties, they inevitably
gave up work and became
full-time housewives. Only
3.7% of married women were
in paid employment in 1936,

significantly lower than in the

UK and US. The economic

depression had forced most

middle-class women to dis-

pense with domestic servants

and the family was seen as a

place of emotional support.

Governments encouraged the

nuclear-family housewife by

providing substantial family

allowances and basing wage

settlements upon the “family

wage”, which assumed one

male breadwinner. Because

manufactured goods, even

clothes and canned foods,

were expensive, women were

encouraged to knit, preserve

and “make do”.

The next two decades saw

little change. The post-war

baby boom intensified the role

of the mother in the suburban

home. But from the early 60s,

even before feminism made

the case, married women were

re-entering the workforce.

They were in demand as teach-

ers, nurses and secretaries.

In the 1960s and 70s, there

February 1971. In collabora-

tion with poet John Caselberg,

Colin McCahon looked for

words to fill up the spaces:

spiritual vacuums, empty

landscapes. In the monumen-

tal – try this for size: 3m by 10m

• Gate III (1970), McCahon sets
  God’s message to Moses in a
  landscape as a storm passes.
  “In this dark night of western
  civilisation”, it begins, but the
  white light in the far corner
  is intended to be reassuring.
  Doubt, personal struggle,
  anxiety: no wonder that, after
  its first viewing in Auckland in
  1971, the painting spent years
  hanging in the foyer of a uni-
  versity lecture theatre.

December 1972. When these

big birds started flying in, they

did for tourism and migration

what refrigerated container

ships did for agricultural

exports. In the words of histo-

rian Michael King, jet transport

“opened New Zealand to the

world, and the world to New

Zealand. The rate of travel shot

up as young New Zealand-

ers in particular claimed what

came to be seen as a right: OE,

or overseas experience.”

Colin

McCahon:

legend

Jumbo jets start

regular service

80 YEARS