(Download) "Slander in Fiction: "Farewell Speech" (A Symposium on Historical Fiction) (Critical Essay)" by JNZL: Journal of New Zealand Literature * eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Slander in Fiction: "Farewell Speech" (A Symposium on Historical Fiction) (Critical Essay)
- Author : JNZL: Journal of New Zealand Literature
- Release Date : January 01, 1991
- Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines,Books,Professional & Technical,Education,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 193 KB
Description
In 1895, two years after the suffrage was granted to women, a bill entitled 'Slander of Women' was introduced into Parliament, and in 1899 a law was subsequently passed that 'to publish words spoken or published which impute unchastity or adultery' of a woman was actionable and did not require the complainant to prove special damages. This act was brought about by the suffragists who throughout their campaign had to counter the verbal abuse of their opponents. It was a common experience for the women to be belittled by imputing they were immoral. In the words of the women's leader, Kate Sheppard: Ironically, it is posterity in the form of a novel, Farewell Speech, that perpetrates this abuse and highlights the continued need for a similar law of slander to be maintained. For the law of slander (now the Defamation Act 1954) does not protect the dead, and an accurate history of these women relies on the integrity of the author and the protection of literary and academic traditions.
 "Slander in Fiction: "Farewell Speech" (A Symposium on Historical Fiction) (Critical Essay)" by JNZL: Journal of New Zealand Literature * eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free){kind=link}