Unstitching the New Zealand state: Its role in domesticity and its decline

Studies of domesticity tend to take a simple view of the state's role. If t he stare made reforms, it was because some interest group forced it to do s o. These studies risk a charge of functionalism by emphasizing that the sta te necessarily acted to further capitalist or patriarchal interests. In thi s paper I argue that the state's response to interests was neither as coher ent nor as predictable as is suggested by these approaches. The state is a conflicting ensemble of institutions rather than a monolith. Various state agencies act independently, sometimes in conflicting ways, over domesticity . At the same time, overall, the state has relatively independent imperativ es of its own too. Historically, domesticity has not been one of its high p riorities. We can sec that the New Zealand state undermined domesticity bef ore second-wave feminism of the 1970s But state powers are circumscribed by its democratic context. Just as there were limits to the state's willingne ss or ability to impose domesticity, so too were there limits to its power to legislate for equality.