Today, 8 March, TRM celebrates International Women’s Day…
But what is International Women’s Day?
International Women’s Day seeks to celebrate women’s achievements, as well as act as a catalyst for change when it comes to gender equality.
NZ scores well.
Female Prime Minister.
Female Governor General.
Female Motel Managers.
Female anglers.
Female everything else.
Whoever invented it had not met SWMBO (She Who Must Be Obeyed is the Manager and rules everything at TRM).
She has always believed some are more equal than others and enjoyed much more than equal gender parity as She completely dominates Her elderly frail husband.
He likes it like that too.
Faye – on left in photo – concurs.
SWMBO had to find her some trophy trout from the freezer so she could show off and upstage Her husband.
Apparently it has been observed for over 100 years and is now celebrated around the world.
Here’s everything you need to know.
What is the theme this year?
There is no need for panic – the recent scandals in Hollywood, and the World Economic Forums’ Global Gender Gap Report show that it will take 217 years to close the gender parity gap.
The theme of this year’s International Women’s Day is #PressforProgress.
The website argues: “We can’t be complacent. Now, more than ever, there’s a strong call-to-action to press forward and progress gender parity.
“A strong call to #PressforProgress. A strong call to motivate and unite friends, colleagues and whole communities to think, act and be gender inclusive.”
To celebrate International Womens Day we naturally chose SWMBO – we daren’t nominate anyone else…
But the best known female angler on the Tongariro remains undoubtedly the Queen Mother – still famous 90 years later for making the Tongariro River her favourite river.
While more men than women traditionally went fishing, there were always some keen female anglers – such as the Duchess of York (later the Queen Mother), pictured here fishing the Tongariro River in 1927.
A photographer behind her captures the moment while in the foreground her attendant (guide?) looks on.
She ‘camped’ at Kowhai Flat where accommodation buildings had been erected by the local prisoners. The “Duchess Pool” was named after her. The pre-fabricated structures were later moved down river to the anglers’ camp and were the first buildings for the future trout hatchery.
One of the major draws of the Tongariro River is its accessibility – it is largely owned by the Crown, meaning that its waters are accessible to anybody with the relevant fishing permit.
Celebrities and oligarchs rub shoulders here with ordinary common garden variety of folk from all walks of life.
Even women…
The Archetypal Angler
Angling has traditionally been viewed as a male preserve. We all know the image of the archetypal angler – a man, typically beyond the first flush of youth, escaping wife and domestic scene to steal sneaky days by the river where, if his bar-spun tales are to be believed, he battles monstrous scaled beasts the like of which the Earth has not seen since the time of the dinosaurs.
It’s an adamantly male image, and the idea of a female angler does not immediately spring to mind.
Despite this, however, more and more women are taking up tackle and heading to the trout pools.
Trenchant Pioneers
Photos on right of a dripping wet Australian ‘angleress’ Jude Newey in 2009. She was so astonished when she hooked up that she fell in, but still managed to land her trout. What a great effort.
Female fishers are by no means a new development. Ladies of the aristocracy have long joined and surpassed their men in the outdoor pursuits colloquially put together as ‘huntin’, shootin’, fishin’’.
They have brought all their trademark determination and vigour to the fore in order to outdo their menfolk on these scores.
Legions of determined tweed-clad ladies of high breeding have been striding out across the moors of Britain and wading the creeks of Europe for centuries, pitting their wits against the fish of the lochs and streams, and returning triumphant to present their catches to exasperated cooks (“fish again?”).
While the lower classes had to conform to certain stereotypes, the upper classes could do much as they pleased – and what pleased many upper class ladies was fishing.
This is reflected in the names of Tongarino’s pools and tributaries, many of which are named for prominent people who fished there, and several of which bear female monikers – ‘The Duchess Pool’, for example.
Now that we live in an age of more equal opportunity, plenty of other women are coming to appreciate what this eponymous Duchess did, and turning to angling as a sport and leisure activity.
