Postscript & Inspiration

After preparing the presentation you saw earlier in this course, a friend sent me a 2020 Pacific Studies journal containing an article on the power of Māori women by Ngāhuia Te Awekōtuku. Worried I’d gone off track, I read it immediately and felt reassured—we were discussing many of the same women. I hadn’t seen Ngāhuia in 25 years, but I have always held her in high esteem. I knew her as an intellectually fearless, green tea-drinking, Harley-riding Professor and Head of Māori Studies at Victoria University of Wellington, who supervised my PhD when few others would. In April 2024 she released her memoir, Hine Toa – A Story of Bravery, which I encourage you to buy now and read. Now I know how fortunate I was that our paths crossed.

These books about inspirational wāhine might also interest you:

So might these websites:

• The Online Guide to the WAI2700 Mana Wāhine Kaupapa Inquiry Evidence
• The Royal Society’s ‘150 women in 150 words’
• The digitised contents of Anne Else’s 1993 History of Women’s Organisations in New Zealand
• The Herald’s Trailblazer: Celebrating Women series
• Kate Hursthouse and Karen Brook’s passion project

If you prefer podcasts, prepare to be amazed by:

• the 100 “kickass Indigenous women” featured in NUKU
• the many women featured in Indigenous 100

Wāhine are featuring more prominently in public places too – thanks to…

• Hana Te Hemara , June Jackson and Merata Mita murals by Mr G
• The wāhine toa mural by Kophie Su’a-Hulsbosch and Janine Williams
• The Dream Girls Collective tribute to ‘Guide Maggie’
• And the mural of Linda Munn

We’re also remembering wāhine on screen (click on thumbnails for previews):