On the farm : New Zealand's invisible women / David Hall.

Includes bibliographical references.

Feminism and its relevance for farm wives -- Well established traditions, 1940s -- How farm wives perceived themselves in the 1940s -- Change and continuity between the 1940s & late 1960s -- Equality, liberation, and the permissive society -- Force for change in the 1980s and responses by farm wives -- The 1990s, feminised New Zealand agriculture?

On the Farm: New Zealand's Invisible Women tells the fascinating stories of Kiwi farm women predominantly in their own words, drawing from the vast archive of letters written to New Zealand farming magazines throughout the 20th century. It reveals the daily routines, the various roles women held on farms: from mother to teacher, baker to accountant, cleaner to farm worker, and how their extraordinarily busy work loads were carried out largely unacknowledged and unseen. It shows how women struggled for greater recognition for their contributions to farming, tracing a time from when it was impossible for a woman to get a bank loan to own or operate a farm, to a period when women were often considered equal partners in the running of a farm and regularly became individual farm owners.