During the depression the YWCA faced a dilemma. Its traditional clientele were those young women who were among the first to lose their jobs. Initially the YWCA provided them with some free meals and beds and set up employment services. But this practical response was soon swamped by the enormity of the problem, and the organisation saw no sense in going gloriously down with its unemployed clientele. So it balanced these activities (and its books) by initiating the Business and Professional Women’s clubs in the 1930s.
Employed women had to pay unemployment tax during the Depression but were not eligible for relief payments from the unemployment fund. The YWCA together, with the National Council of Women and unemployed women’s groups, lobbied the government to change this inequitable situation.
The YWCA’s leadership training came into its own during the war years. The YWCA had campaigned for peace and was not totally impressed with the men’s decisions to go to war:
The brotherhood of Man, alas, is rather on the blink
The Sisterhood of Woman, though, is possible, we think.
During the war years local associations organised hostel accommodation for women coming to the cities to keep industries running. They also ran thriving but respectable social clubs.
The YWCA has always tried to respond to the current aspirations of women and in the comfortable 1950s and 1960s it reflected the emphasis on femininity, home and family. Classes such as millinery, international cooking and floral art attracted large numbers of home-makers who had become a majority of the association’s membership.
In the 1970s financial worries with the hostels began to shake the YWCA out of its complacency. In the 1980s the energy of feminism claimed the organisation, and it began to focus more on issues of social justice. This has attracted more young women, Maori women and lesbians to the organisation and initiated a number of women’s groups, including Te Kakano o te Whanau and the Pacific Islands Women’s Project.
The 1990s were period where the YWCA sought to target its programme and activities to work with women with the least access to resources. One primary focus for the association has been young women, particularly since the appointment of a position in the national office focused in this area.
The new millenium has seen yet again more changes in the YWCA of Aotearoa. The focus for young women has been paramount in the success of national campaigns and projects that have been undertaken by the National Office. Constitutional changes have enabled the association to be more proactive and empowering for the young women who are involved in the organisation. Our journey into working with the treaty has seen the creation of the Wahine o Wairua Collective, for wahine Maori. As a tauiwi organisation this group sets out to lead the organisation through the process to bi-culturalism.
The YWCA has been instrumental in co-ordinating the YWCA Girl’s Self-Defence project, promoting positive body images for young women through our Like Your Body booklet, and supporting young women's leadership in promoting youth as a voice for social change with our DIY booklet.
On the advocacy front we were a key agency in the Prostitutes Law Reform Bill and Paid Parental Leave, as well as speaking out against the Foreshore and Seabed Legislation. The Y still as a staunch feminist movement, has mellowed slightly to have a much stronger focus on the human rights and social justice issues to eliminate all forms of oppression and violence against women and children. With a focus on ensuring we support the process to create a world free of injustice.
Greta Jenkins, One Hundred Years, 1878-1978, Dunedin YWCA, 1978
The New Zealand Girl, 1 June 1940, p17
Every Girl; Sandra Coney, 1986, p243-244
