'Kicking against the Pricks': The Influence of Broadsheet Magazine on Second-Wave Feminism in Aotearoa New Zealand

This thesis explores Broadsheet magazine’s relationship with second-wave feminism in Aotearoa New Zealand, taking a particular focus on abortion, rape, and Māori and lesbian women. The Broadsheet Collective, who established Broadsheet, described the magazine as New Zealand’s Feminist Magazine’. It was the longest running feminist magazine across the globe, beginning in 1972 and closing in 1997. The nature of the relationship between the magazine and second-wave feminism, as is argued in this thesis, is one of both reflection and agency. The magazine used multiple tools simultaneously to yield impact on its readers: informing readers; consciousness raising; community building, and; calling readers to action. Through this framework, second-wave feminism in Aotearoa New Zealand was benefitted. Broadsheet’s impact included legislation developments, popularising feminism throughout Aotearoa, and changing societal attitudes, as well as simply but no less important, making readers’ experiences heard. Due to its centrality within the second-wave feminist movement, Broadsheet is commonly referenced and used as a source by scholars. However, it has not yet been examined as a force of the movement which is the argument of this thesis. Broadsheet, as this thesis concludes, improved the lives of women in Aotearoa New Zealand.