ABSTRACT
Connie Purdue is in her seventieth year and is a ‘woman alone’ having been married previously twice. She has two daughters and a son, as well as granddaughters and grandsons. A New Zealander, Connie worked in a variety of jobs as factory and office worker, and was trade union official over a period of twenty-seven years. She retired from paid employment in 1976. She is an executive member of the Auckland National Council of Women, past secretary of the Auckland Equal Pay and Opportunity Council, Co-founder of the National Organization for Women (New Zealand), a life member of the Auckland Clerical Union, and editor of Feminists for Life. Connie has written many articles for the media and a History of the Auckland Women’s Branch of the New Zealand Labour Party (1975). She says her fighting spirit comes from a Yugoslav father and a militant mother. In 1975 she was granted an MBE for her work among women and children.
