Girls and Women, Men and Boys

New Zealand is now rich in studies of women's separate lives, and histories of men are growing apace. However, Girls and Women, Men and Boys aims to investigate the interactions and interconnectedness of women's and men's history by focusing on one community, Taradale, over the half-century between its achieving town district status in 1886 and the devastating 1931 earthquake. These people lived in a community which revolved around family life and family ties. Yet within their shared space they often had different experiences, at home, at school, at work or at leisure. And during this period influences within and outside the community – women's suffrage; improved access to secondary education; six o'clock closing; two wars; more young women in paid employment; new organisations catering for growing leisure demands – led to a questioning of the relationships between men and women. Girls and Women, Men and Boys is concerned with the interpretation of these events and experiences, especially with the tensions between different generations of women and the ways in which men were able to maintain their hold on the community. It relies on thorough and wide-ranging research, including illuminating oral histories and contemporary photographs.